Ask the Author: Helen King
Answered Questions (4)
Helen King
That you never really stop - in wakeful moments in the night, in the shower, on a walk, the questions keep posing themselves and you keep seeing connections between the different ideas. Or maybe that’s the worst thing, not the best thing??
Helen King
I’d always thought about writing a history of women’s bodies but I wasn’t sure how to start - then a publisher approached me and we started talking. The pressure of having to come up with an outline made me do more reading and thinking and then it all started to come together…
Helen King
History is full of so many amazing stories; if I go to visit an old church I start asking questions about the inscriptions on the tombstones (why did so many children die in that year, what was going on?) or if I see a road name I want to know who it was named for… so many stories and they all cry out to be told!
Helen King
Just write. Don’t get hung up about where to start, just go in wherever you are feeling excited about the topic and then worry about how it all fits together later. I am old enough to remember when you had to literally ‘cut and paste’ bits of paper together when you decided the argument was in the wrong order …!
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