Interview with Katie Ritter
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself!
I used to be absolutely unable to sit still if I heard a drum beat. Didn’t matter what kind: polka music, pop, disco, country… You know the movie “Weekend at Bernie’s 2 where the corpse starts getting’ jiggy every time he hears music and can’t stay still? Yes, like that. I still love to dance, but it kind of worries me that I’m getting a little control over it. Will I one day be too old to dance? I hope not! LOL I’ve worked for many years doing database projects, from sales to project management to customizing databases to implementations. Then I also worked for a while for a private girls’ school doing fundraising, which I genuinely enjoyed. I did freelance writing, was editor of a regional magazine before it folded, and got some great jobs – I wrote nearly all the copy for a book about a global design and architecture firm (DDG: THE MASTER SERIES REVISITED, on Amazon. Tasty tidbits: I am fascinated by complex challenges. I once got to go on a real circus flying trapeze. I’ve played roller hockey on a pickup team against grown men. I do oil paintings of croplands. I’ve managed to stay married to the same man for going on a hundred years now, I think. We have three strapping, wonderful sons who I adore. I also adore really good fresh glazed doughnuts and really, really good cake…sigh. When I’m by myself for any length of time, I generally live on peas. I’m utterly ghastly at housekeeping, but man, oh, man, I can clean a cluttered garage.
2. What do you write?
That’s such a great question for writers who have developed their brand – and it’s definitely been proven that writers who create a brand and stick to it can build a reliable readership. My debut novel is based on bits of an old Norse saga, and the planned sequels – probably three of them, but possibly a few more – will follow those characters through time. Now enters the problem: besides those, I have several other novels I intend to write, and they are all wildly different. One is multiple-narrative historical fiction with all male voices. Another one will be about a woman, set in Colonial America, and one about a real story of a woman in the expanding US after the colonial era. Another book, set in Virginia, will be paranormal, but not in the typical sense of the word. One medieval romance. One epic family saga, maybe. From time to time, I have horrid dreams that would make for great dystopian thrillers. There’s a back-burner list of other ideas…so lots to keep me busy going forward in the novel category. In addition, I hope to write at least two deeply serious metaphysical books talking about the nature of the universe, plus a children’s book series, and maybe a couple of humorous self-help books.
OF COURSE I want a readership, a huge one – and I’m aware that this concept of very disparate works flies in the face of every bit of good advice about developing a brand and building readership based on it. So maybe I’ll follow it – or maybe I’ll take big gambles. Wish me luck!
3. If you could live during any time period, when would you live and why?
There’s a part of my heart that yearns to live as one of the landed gentry of colonial Virginia, in the fifty years or so before the Revolutionary War. I love the gardens, the clothing, the exploration of ideas, and the graceful and eloquent use of language. I know, however, that once I was there, I’d almost certainly get ticked off at all kinds of things, such as how the men of that era used slave women shamefully, and I’d be miserable about not being able to change things. But it’s just a fantasy, really; once one has lived in a more modern time, I would imagine the concept of realities such as chamber pots would be pretty off-putting! So why does history still fascinate us so and call us to want to explore it? And there are SO many times it would be amazing to explore! What would it be like to live in the Jazz Age, to cut one’s hair and skirts short, to go out to a bar, something once to scandalous to even consider? What would it be like to be in Italy during the Renaissance? To live in a community of Navajo before Europeans arrived? There there are the utterly scary times I’d hate to visit: Russia during the revolution, a village in Africa when the slavers arrived, London during a plague outbreak. Thank goodness for historical fiction! A final word: I’d almost certainly want to spend some time in Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond. Humans rarely spend enough time alone to fully know ourselves. It’s one of the themes I touched on in my book. 4. What's the last great historical fiction book that you read?
Lots and lots of GOOD and REALLY GOOD ones: I recently was thrilled to be a beta reader for Louisa Locke’s PILFERED PROMISES, and I genuinely enjoyed how in LADY OF THE ETERNAL CITY, Kate Quinn used a man as the main character to show us the power of women – as well as the brilliant way she opened the story. ‘Great’ is a pretty serious word, not one to be used lightly. I’m going to go with Thomas Hardy’s FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, which I read very recently and then saw the movie. Right after that I read his RETURN OF THE NATIVE. It was great for research; even though Hardy wrote pretty recently, we still see very different language and social mores in his book, as well as very similar human situations. I think works like those are what push me to write as well as I possibly can, and to work at developing my skill over time. These books are still great, entertaining stories – and they also are a window into history that gives us a different view than non-fiction does. What can we write today that will offer readers fifty, a hundred, two hundred years from now a similarly-valued experience?
5. What are some of your favorite historical fiction books that you have ever read?
Believe it or not, I probably read more historical non-fiction than fiction. Learning is often more intriguing to me than entertainment. I’m working through several books just now about different aspects of 1600-1800 America social mores. But for faves in the fiction category, I’m going to start with TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Harper Lee took us there. You had your feet on the ground of every single scene she wrote. It deserves every brilliant accolade ever given. Two ‘rocked my world, made me want to be a bull-leaper’ favorites were Mary Renault’s THE BULL FROM THE SEA and THE KING MUST DIE. I was a teenager and they still give me chills. She was so brave! I wanted to live on a kibbutz and make deserts bloom after reading EXODUS. Rereading it as an adult, it's profoundly biased, but as a young reader, it made me want to go live on a kibbutz. I wanted to write-and-teach from reading Michener’s and Ken Follett’s works. I tried to figure out the rising and falling action in GONE WITH THE WIND…not possible! More recently, I’ll say OUTLANDER. Honestly, it had more sex than I needed in a book (laughing…I know from looking at the incredible rise in erotic historical fiction that I am way in the minority there!) but what I liked about it was the genuine creativity. Diana Gabaldon may have drawn from Dr. Who, but she basically single-handedly created the entire sub-genre of time-travel historical fiction. Kudos to her for that. She deserves the credit, and I loved the dry wit of her characters I greatly prefer massive stories to a quick read. The feeling that I’ll get to be in the world of the book for a nice long read is very, very appealing.
6. If you could bring any three historical figures with you to a deserted island, who would you bring and why?
- Marco Polo - he travelled so far to places no European had gone, and where he didn’t even speak the language - Ghengis Khan – brilliant strategist, and once a conquest was made, sounds as if he was pretty much a good ruler - Florence Nightingale – so many remarkable accomplishments for human society, and all from one person! Not only would I enjoy learning about each of them…I think this brilliant trio would genuinely enjoy one another’s company. Wouldn’t it make for some excellent conversation as a group? We would need lots and lots of cake to sustain us. Good cake; homemade, with real butter. Thank you to Megan and for anyone reading this for your interest in this fun exercise! I had no idea how much I’d enjoy thinking about answering Megan’s questions!