Delighted to welcome Wendy J Dunn to the blog to talk about her latest release. Henry VIII's True daughter.

 

Hi Wendy, Thank you so much for agreeing to join me on the blog. I cannot wait to read your new book about Catherine Carey. How did you come to write this book and this subject in particular?

 When Pen and Sword Books included that question as part of their promotional materials, I decided I would take up Judith’s lovely offer of writing something for her blog and provide an answer.  

 I confess. Writing Henry VIII’s True Daughter: Catherine Carey, A Tudor Life hadn’t been on my bucket list of things to do in my life. Yes, sometimes, I had thought of writing a nonfiction book about the Tudors, but my writing passion is to write novels. That gave me plenty to do in my writing life. Yet, in 2020, someone unexpectedly approached me on twitter. Of all things, a commissioning editor for Pen & Sword Books. They asked if I was interested in writing a Tudor non-fiction book for this history publisher.

 Before I responded in any way, it was my turn to check out this unknown person. Was I being scammed? I asked myself. ‘Tricked?’ To my surprise, I discovered this person was indeed a commissioning editor. I became curious, and asked them, ‘What kind of project?’ They replied to that question by giving me three projects to choose from. They obviously had done their homework in establishing my Tudor interests. All three projects intrigued me, but one more than simply intrigued me. It called for me to discover more about Catherine Carey, one of my favourite Tudor people, the person I gave voice to in The Light in the Labyrinth, my second Anne Boleyn novel. 

Catherine Carey is yet another woman almost forgotten by history. As a writer of fiction, I welcomed that gap. It both invited and gave me the freedom to imagine her as a teenager witnessing the final year of Anne Boleyn’s life. Now offered with the opportunity to return to investigating her life and find the evidence that would offer strong proof for me to argue that she was what I believed; she was Henry VIII’s true daughter, was too hard to resist. I soon signed a contract to begin my research.

 David Starkey once remarked, ‘We really should stop taking historical novelists seriously as historians. The idea that they have authority is ludicrous. They are very good at imagining character: that’s why the novels sell. They have no authority when it comes to the handling of historical sources. Full stop.’

It strikes me that, by approaching me to write this book, Pen and Sword Books must see things differently to Dr Starkey. They must take historical fiction writers seriously to commission them to write nonfiction works. 

I understand why.  Like I said, I am primarily a writer of historical fiction. I have written historical fiction for decades. One reason I have only published four novels is because of the extensive research put into writing each novel. Even my unpublished novel set in 2010 about a woman writing a Tudor novel – a novel I hope to find a good publisher for, if not self-publish it myself – involved extensive research. Yes, Dr Starkey, I handle historical sources, but I use them in my novels in a far different way than in a work of nonfiction.

 Historical fiction demands a lot from writers. It is not only is a multifaceted genre that uses history for its storytelling, but one involving ethics – simply because we give voice to the dead. I spent many sleepless nights struggling with this. I can only go on with my story knowing I have respected my historical people by all the research I have done to tell my imagined story well. 

 I have never met a fellow writer of historical fiction who has not loved research. We all pride ourselves on the research we do. But research is always for the purpose of writing fiction – and to inspire imagination. Kundera (2003, p. 44) writes, ‘…fidelity to history is a secondary matter as regards the value of the novel. The novelist is neither historian nor prophet: he is an explorer of existence’. In other words, research is the means to write fiction that sets out to create the past and its people. Research illuminates that ‘The past is another country; they do things differently there’ (Hartley 2004, p.5).

 I can now say the same of researching a work of nonfiction set in the past. Each of my novels has been a writing adventure I embarked on and successfully accomplished. I did not expect that my nonfiction book would also become a wonderful writing adventure, too. It deepened my knowledge about Catherine Carey, as well as reassured me that my fictional reconstruction of her was still safe in the realms of possibility. It also increased my knowledge about her Tudor world. I love learning more about the Tudors, and having people step out as vivid and powerful personalities. People like the spellbinding Elisabeth Parr, a woman deserving so much more attention by historians. Because of writing this nonfiction book, I even have a new history crush – Dr John Dee. And that’s despite his beard. I am like Katherine of Aragon. Bearded men are not my thing.  I knew of Dee before, but now I want to know so much more about him. 

 But what really came even more home to me in writing Henry VIII’s True Daughter: Catherine Carey, A Tudor Life was what I see as one of the tragedies of history. History has forgotten far too many women. Women whose lives provide simply footnotes to the lives of their menfolk. History writes of their lives with such brevity that it breathes the appalling nature of our recent past. Being born in the female gender simply resulted in the erasure. If we do not restore the stories of women from the past to recorded history, then half our human story remains hidden in the dark. One reason I signed to new a second nonfiction work on another little-known Tudor woman is that I feel more committed than ever to return women’s stories to where they belong – as an equal part of our shared past.   

 What I hope I have achieved with my first nonfiction work is that readers will see her as I do – a fascinating, intelligent woman with power. True power. Catherine is an important player in the story of Elizabeth I. She helped shape her into the queen England calls Gloriana to this day. Henry VIII’s True Daughter: Catherine Carey, A Tudor Life shows how much Catherine deserves that recognition.  

 

Wendy J. Dunn is an award-winning Australian writer fascinated by Tudor history – so much so she was not surprised to discover a family connection to the Tudors, not long after the publication of her first Anne Boleyn novel, which narrated the Anne Boleyn story through the eyes of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the elder. Her family tree reveals the intriguing fact that one of her ancestral families – possibly over three generations – had purchased land from both the Boleyn and Wyatt families to build up their own holdings. It seems very likely Wendy’s ancestors knew the Wyatts and Boleyns personally. Wendy is married, the mother of three sons and one daughter—named after a certain Tudor queen, surprisingly, not Anne. She is also the grandmother of two amazing small boys. She gained her PhD in 2014 and loves walking in the footsteps of the historical people she gives voice to in her novels. Wendy also tutors at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia.

You can find out more about Wendy and her books HERE

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