Ask the Author: Margaret George
Answered Questions (41)
Margaret George
I did have a scene with her in "Elizabeth"---pages 150--156. In some ways the two ladies were similar. No problem with asking me about people to write about---I welcome suggestions! Thank you!
Margaret George
Hmm...maybe. It's a little farther back than I have been before, but as you say a very interesting cast of characters!
Margaret George
If I'm asked...I think I would enjoy it.
Margaret George
A strange mixture of the old and the new---"Homegoing" by Yaa Gyasi, "Caleb's Crossing" by Geraldine Brooks, "The Rules of Magic" by Alice Hoffman, "The Heart of the Matter" by Graham Greene, "How the States Got Their Shapes" by Mark Stet. I am about to start "Midnight at the Pera Palace" by Charles King.
Margaret George
Victorian England. I would spend time in London and see all the characters that I feel I know---Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Darwin---or maybe Dickens' characters, like Scrooge and Tiny Tim, as you did say 'fictional' book world.
Margaret George
Astronauts land on a planet that seems exactly like earth, but there are no people. But there must be a top predator taking our place...what is it like?
Margaret George
Well, I would have to know a little more about her to answer that. I just finished the two part Nero novels, and am definitely looking for someone new to capture my heart and write about. Thanks for the tip.
Margaret George
I apologize for the delay in answering your kind note here. I too was very moved by the story of Helen of Troy and I am glad you think I captured that feeling.
I haven't read the Jack Weatherford book you mention. It sounds interesting. It's an area I don't know anything about. I did see an exhibition on Genghis Khan many years ago in Canada...fascinating man, I should look into his life and his wife!
I haven't read the Jack Weatherford book you mention. It sounds interesting. It's an area I don't know anything about. I did see an exhibition on Genghis Khan many years ago in Canada...fascinating man, I should look into his life and his wife!
Margaret George
Forgive my delay in answering, and thanks for your kind words about the Henry VIII novel. I didn't find it hard to write from a male perspective, oddly enough. He just seemed so human to me, and that was the main thing that made it easy to 'hear' him talking in my head. Remember, he didn't think he was larger than life, in fact he often felt life was larger than him and he was wrestling with fate.
Have you read my Nero novels? He was a lot like Henry VIII in many ways, at least he seemed so to me.
Have you read my Nero novels? He was a lot like Henry VIII in many ways, at least he seemed so to me.
Margaret George
Thank you, and I apologize for the delay in answering your very kind thoughts. The story of Mary Queen of Scots never stops entrancing people---this very weekend Donizetti's opera about her is being staged in Winston-Salem and people are very excited about it. And the recent movie attracted a lot of attention. I myself am hoping to return to Scotland sometime soon---I haven't been there in awhile. As for Henry VIII, there's a new Broadway musical about his six wives. Have you read my Nero novels? I found him fascinating and hoped to show a different side of him than is in the popular imagination.
Margaret George
This may sound petty but I wondered what it would feel like to be the most beautiful woman in the world!
Margaret George
I always feel connected to the main characters I am writing about or else I could not spend so much time with him or her in my head. I feel like I truly know them---or even have turned into them!
Margaret George
Thank you for alerting me to this. I'm not sure there is much I personally can do about it but I can report it to the publishers. They may not be able to shut down these rogue websites, though. It's difficult to track them down and disconnect them.
Thanks for your kind words about my work!
Thanks for your kind words about my work!
Margaret George
Candace, I am sorry to have not seen this until now. Yes, of course it would be great if you could read an ARC, and do a review. Could you get one from NetGalley? I am not sure how these things work---I know the publisher is sending people to NetGalley for pdf's of the second book. Let me know if that would work for you. If not we can find another way. Thanks!
Margaret George
The time that Helen lived is pretty primitive---the politics were not as well developed as in Cleopatra's time. The plays we are all familiar with were written in the later age of classical Greece and reflect those customs. I am not sure any women in Helen's time really played a part like Cleopatra did in the politics of the time. It is odd, because the Greek goddesses were imagined to be very powerful and involved in the politics of Mount Olympus, but this did not carry over into real life.
Margaret George
No, I don't plan to write about the Romanov family. However, my good friend C.W. Gortner has a new novel out on that subject, "The Romanov Empress" which is very good.
Re the pirates---there were a lot of pirates prowling the Mediterranean in those times and running into them was pretty common. Julius Caesar was captured by pirates when he was a young man. His arrogance was already well established by then because he told the pirates the ransom they were asking was way too low for someone like him. Then after he was released he returned and killed them all.
That's documented in history, but my use of pirates is fictional---just a choice I made to illustrate how dangerous travel was back then. Thank you for your question.
Re the pirates---there were a lot of pirates prowling the Mediterranean in those times and running into them was pretty common. Julius Caesar was captured by pirates when he was a young man. His arrogance was already well established by then because he told the pirates the ransom they were asking was way too low for someone like him. Then after he was released he returned and killed them all.
That's documented in history, but my use of pirates is fictional---just a choice I made to illustrate how dangerous travel was back then. Thank you for your question.
Margaret George
It's hard to answer that, exactly. I found the experience consuming, but partly because there were sites I needed to go to (like the island of Philae) that were not easy to get to, and that was about the time there started to be instability and attacks on tourists in Egypt. Also, it was consuming because so many people have opinions and curiosity about her. I wanted to tell her whole story, but then it made the book so long. In the end I kept it all, and my editor said fine. But it's the longest book I've ever done.
Margaret George
I remember our meeting at the theater! Thanks for asking me about my future plans. NERO part 2 is finished (its title will be "The Splendor Before the Dark: a novel of the emperor Nero.") I was very pleased with how it turned out. It will be published in October of this year. As I am still in the publication process with it, I haven't turned my attention to the next...yet. Any suggestions??
Margaret George
People often suggest ideas for a book but the only one that has ever caught fire with me was a friend suggesting, "Have you thought about the emperor Nero?" The friend was a classicist and made a great case for Nero and by the time dinner was over I was a convert. However, it took a very long time between that first thought and the published book---about 20 years!
Margaret George
No, probably not. He's an interesting character but hard to like!
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