Rebecca's Interview with MICHÆLA Roessner

Author of
The Stars Compel, The Stars Dispose

Dear Rebecca Brown,

My fellow BRAZEN HUSSIES said that you'd been in touch with them regarding book reviews. They suggested that I contact you. Would you like to make a clean, brazen, sweep of it and have me mail my books to you too?

Regards, MICHÆLA Roessner

 
Rebecca :
Yes I would like to make a clean, brazen, sweep of it! Once I've read at least one, would you like to be eInterviewed by me to give oomph! to your publicity?

Glad to meet the Third Brazen Hussy!

MICHÆLA :
Consider them on the way to you. Sure! Sounds fun.

Rebecca :
I had looked in our library system - after I discovered the BRAZEN HUSSIES - for any of your books only to not find even your name. May I donate your books after reading to our little one room library?

MICHÆLA :
Absolutely! Gee, I'm kind of hurt -- one of the places I've always gotten good reviews is from the Library Journal, and libraries have usually always been kind to me. No matter -- I'd be absolutely pleased for my books to go to your library -- maybe then they'll feel differently about me!

Rebecca :
Great! About eInterviews - check out those I did with Beverley Jackson or Judy Goldman - so you'll get an idea of how they flow.

MICHÆLA :
I've checked both of them out -- one reason I'm late in replying is because I must confess to indulgently wallowing around your website today -- what a nice weekend treat for me! You do very nice e-interviews -- I like your style.

Rebecca :
WOW! I disappeared into your The Stars Dispose yesterday & my beloved aroused me three hours later murmuring that it sure must be an interesting read. Ha, how inadequate. What a feast you set before me, my dear, very well done!

MICHÆLA :
My apologies for falling behind here. I know that your system was down for a bit, then I took a short trip, and when I came back, my system was down.

I'm glad you're enjoying the books. Such praise is nice initiative as I slog through finishing up writing the third (and last! hooray! yippee!) book of the set.

Rebecca :
In the writing of this sub-culture of Magic, Sight & Mystery - where did it come from?

MICHÆLA :
Lots of personal 'places' that all came together in one big gestalt. The friend of mine who is of northern Italian descent who kindly helped me with correct spelling and usage of semi-archaic Italian terms told me after reading an early draft that it amused her greatly that I'd managed to get almost all the things I love into this work: art, food, food-as-art, sense-of-wonder set-ups, cats, etc., etc.

My 'academic' background is primarily in studio arts, with a lot of study in art history too, of course. The Renaissance and early Mannerist period are pretty irresistible, art-wise, and there's plenty of fascinating material written by the artists of that era about the artists of that era -- enough that there are actually good English translations for people like me, who don't read Italian, to delve through. So it was a treat rather than a challenge to weave all this rich 'historical' material into my fictional plot. I put historical in quotes because just because one's source might have been actually written at that time, it doesn't make it true. I used “The Autobiography of Benevenuto Cellini” a lot -- however, having always to keep in mind that Cellini was a notorious liar and braggart. But that just makes it all the more fun.

Food is very important to me -- many years ago I stumbled across a biography of Catherine de' Medici. With all the richness of the culture of the Renaissance in general and the Medici family in particular, and the fact that people were so involved with the occult at that time, it seemed to me that a historical fantasy was just crying out to be written about her. The fact that Catherine was also a major mover-and-shaker on the historical food scene put the case over the top for me.

Rebecca :
Have you ever lived/visited Italy?

MICHÆLA :
Yes, when I was a kid. We lived in Southeast Asia for a while. On one of our trips back to the States we swung through Europe a bit, including Italy, mostly in the environs of Rome. This was a huge, seminal experience for me. Up till then I'd been a typical 'finicky American kid' kind of eater -- eating only limited kinds of usually bland foods -- white bread, peanut butter or baloney sandwiches, and so on and so forth. It was the food in Rome that really woke up my tastebuds and turned me into a dining-junkie, and opened up the possibilities in all cuisines. I've loved Italian food ever since, of course, and what Italian food has given the rest of the world (which is actually the bottom line for this trilogy's intent.) In a way the trilogy is a love-note, a Valentine, a heartfelt thank-you to Italian cuisine for changing my life.

Rebecca :
Do you love to cook?

MICHÆLA :
Hoo boy! Oh yeah! I've gained 15 lbs. so far writing these books. Although I like to blame that in part on the fact that I've segued solidly into middle age during the course of writing them, the truth is that a lot has to do with testing out recipes from the book, or just getting so damned hungry while writing about food so much that I find myself compelled to slither (well, waddle, lately) into the kitchen to fix some nice pasta to fortify myself.

Rebecca :
Are you good at it or are you a feaster?

MICHÆLA :
I like to think that I'm good at it. People usually seem to enjoy it when I cook for them.

I used to do some catering on the side -- enough to call myself a “professional”, but not enough to either really make my living at it or to spoil my love for cooking. Being a true professional cook is a hectic killer of a vocation. After a while I realized that I might have the skill and love for it, but not the temperament or endurance. When Barry Levine wrote in his The Man Who Came to Dinner Column about us (the Brazen Hussies) that I'd had classic culinary training, that wasn't quite true -- I never went to a culinary school, but I did work like a dog to learn how to cook.

Then when I was getting my MFA in painting, I had an opportunity to do an optional extra credit paper or a project. I chose to do a project and presented an 'art-food' sort of entremets to my class, which went over well, especially because they got to eat the art after I presented it. So you can see where I'd get the bent to explore the food-as-art aspects of Renaissance cuisine.

Rebecca :
What was it like to live in the present & write so very intimately about the past? Did you have any decompression exercises?

MICHÆLA :
I practice and teach a martial art (Aikido). That helps. Also, this last year I've been doing an artist-in-residency teaching Mask Making to 5th graders in the local school system, which gets me out and interacting with others in a terrific way. But this is a good question. I've spent more years then I ever expected to researching and writing these books. I really, really need to get out of the Renaissance . . . soon! I was at the Rio Hondos Writing Workshop a couple of years ago, and whining a lot about how I needed to escape the Renaissance. Sage Walker, one of the other writers there, went, “Hmmm. Escape from the Renaissance. That would make a catchy title.” So not the book that I'm writing after the trilogy is done with, but the book after that, is going to be a far-future multi-generational space ship odyssey, entitled Escape from the Renaissance. I'm going to have to dedicate it to Sage.
 
Rebecca :
Did the people come to you fully named?

MICHÆLA :
Not for these books. All the actual historical characters have their own names, of course. And everybody was named the same!: a gadzillion Lorenzos, Pietros, Pieros, Giulios, Giovannis, etc.

So I went to incredible lengths, (so my readers would have a little relief), to make sure all my fictional characters had more individualized, though still legitimately Italian-of-that-era, names. To that end I sat down with all my historical texts, like the Cellini autobiography, Vasari's “Lives of the Artists”, the “Decameron”, even “The Divine Comedy”, and just wrote out lists of any non-typical names that I could cull from them for when I needed to name characters.

The one exception was Tommaso, whose name I just knew from the git-go, maybe because I've always liked the name Thomas. It wasn't until later in my research that I found out that Michelangelo was actually infatuated with a young aristocrat by the name of Tommaso Cavalieri. And the historical timing was perfect for my books, so I gleefully pounced on that fact and wove it into the plot of The Stars Compel. Sometimes I just luck out stumbling across that kind of serendipitous material.

Rebecca :
Do you live with cats?

MICHÆLA :
Yes indeed. The Stars Dispose is dedicated in part to the kitty that inspired the magic for the books, Shadrach. She's long gone but not forgotten. The Stars Compel is dedicated in part to Faraway, who is my beloved. And The Stars Relent will be in part dedicated to the remainder of the current “peanut gallery”: Sam, Lily, and Boomer. Since we live in the country they were all either abandoned or feral kittens who chose us to be their slaves, as cats are wont to do.

Oops! Gotta go. I have to go teach this afternoon. More later.
 
Rebecca :
This is wonderful! Well done! & remembering my prehistoric schooling back in England I'd have to say - you read my life as a student to the T. In those years we did it all in dip pen & ink! Not for us that silly fad from America - the ball point pen! That's our mistresses speaking, by the way. In secret I bought myself a ball point pen & learnt to write with it - loved its flow, was good to draw with too. Then, when I discovered Natalie Goldberg - I bought myself fountain pens again & realized how very much I'd missed them!

MICHÆLA :
There's something wonderfully seductive about the al dente yet velvety touch of any kind pen on any kind of paper, but especially good paper. I think that's why I always start writing out my rough drafts in longhand, and why that seems to help generate the initial flow of words. Though as an unrecalcitrant 'greenie' I tend to write on the back side of saved scrap paper, rather then some lovely virgin heavy bond vellum.

Rebecca :
My dear, this clone went down during our last heat wave & we had to take a run into town to see the PC at the clinic (we're too small of a town to merit a doctor). The heat broke me out in an all-over itchy rash & my ankles & feet swelled something fierce. I think my brain got parboiled too! I've got 3 weeks to whip you hussies into line!

MICHÆLA :
Being brazen, I'm sure we could go in for some whipping. Silk cat-o'-nines, I presume?
 
Rebecca :
ahha! Are The Stars Dispose & The Stars Compel translated into Italian & are they selling well there?

MICHÆLA :
No, alas. An Italian publisher was interested, but apparently nothing came of it. A French publisher did buy the rights, and we've been waiting and waiting for them to bring it out, but again, nothing. We're beginning to look at another French publisher who seems interested. However, the German publisher Econ has published The Stars Dispose, retitled in German DIE STERNE VON FLORENZ. And they bought the rights to The Stars Compel and are in the process of translating it. So I presume it will be out fairly soon.

Rebecca :
The Stars Dispose becomes The Star of Florence in German? Loses something. Not only do all of us not speak the same language - how we use language to express ourselves differs too. When I read through your Cast of Characters I realize what a tapestry you have wrought, how do you keep them organized?

MICHÆLA :
Partially with copious notes. But unless they are absolutely wallpaper-spear carriers, I tend to get involved enough in my storyline and characters to know who they are. I find stories where even the minor characters stand out as individuals to be much more interesting. I have a problem with books where the major characters are complex and fascinating, but the people who surround them are tissue thin, hardly noticeable, even boring -- that always feels very unbalanced to me, and doesn't give the rich, verisimilitudinous feel of real life. Of course, it can pose a different kind of problem, where the 'minor' characters become so interesting to the author that they threaten to run away with the book.

Rebecca :
I see why you gained weight while writing these books! I noticed I was always wanting to find an Italian restaurant & savor the flavors! You have included some recipes at the end of each book - just a few - do you find that the flavors of food change with location?

MICHÆLA :
Umm, my location, or location of flavors of food in general, or the location of the food in the books?

If the second, of course flavors of food change with location. Food tastes different if its ingredients come from different places: Tuscan olive oil is vastly different from olive oil from other parts of Italy, let alone comparing it to Greek or Spanish olive oil! And where you cook it makes a difference too. Food cooked near the sea tastes different then food cooked in an inland valley, or food cooked in the mountains, even if you were to use identical ingredients.

If the latter, also yes. In The Stars Compel, with so much of the action taking place in Rome, I went to some effort to show that, though it was all Italian cooking, there were real differences not just to what foods were being cooked, but that there was a different culinary history behind them. This is actually one of the major themes of these books. In service of that, the foods and flavors change even more so in the last book, The Stars Relent, where the action of the book moves to lands even further away.

Rebecca :
Do you see any similarities between the political maneuvers of that time & those of ours?

MICHÆLA :
This was a hard question, as I know so little about political maneuverings in this day and age. What I've learned from studying history for a good part of my life is that though history is a worthwhile endeavor, and fascinating, it's one of those intrinsically unknowable things. At the time history is happening, no-one can know all that is going on -- no-one can step back enough to see the whole picture, or be privy to all the secret goings-on. History is a hindsight affair. But hindsight doesn't work either -- once far away enough in time, you've stepped too far back to know what the 'flavor' of the era was, and the 'flavor' of your own era taints your view of the past, and much of all the little bits and pieces have fallen through the cracks of time.

But keeping all that in mind, whenever I view current events, what history has taught me is that whatever we might see on t.v. or read in newspapers or magazines, or even experience ourselves through participation in town meetings or political rallies, it's always just the tip of the iceberg. I think that's why the t.v. show “The West Wing” has done so well -- it gives the viewer the sense of seeing history unfolding from an inside-track position.

Rebecca :
The West Wing has become a favorite of ours. Do you think the Sight & Magic are still around us in ordinary life or does only being close to the source of power make them thrive? Do you think it is inherited?

MICHÆLA :
This might be a more difficult question then you knew when you asked it. As a writer, I do put a good deal of myself, and my own belief systems, into my writing. At the same time, I have to try to be as true as I can be to what I perceive to be the belief systems of the places and times I'm writing about at any given moment.

I don't really feel comfortable writing specifically about my own belief systems -- that smacks too much of outright proselytizing, which is very much against my religious bent. That said, however, of course every writer who writes with intelligence and passion about ethical issues is bringing their own slant to bear on those issues.

In writing the STARS trilogy, I rely as much as I can on texts on Northern Italian witchcraft. As far as what I actually believe, probably some of what I wrote in Walkabout Woman comes closest to what I, personally, think, though in The Stars Dispose, that first initial riff between Cosimo Ruggiero and Gentile about humanity's limited perceptual abilities also speaks volumes, and is a lynch pin concept for the entire trilogy. It also answers (after much evasion on my part) your question about 'something' being around us in ordinary life: just because a deaf person can't hear doesn't mean that birds aren't singing. Humankind should be humble rather then arrogant about our place in the world -- we should always keep in mind how very limited our physical abilities are, in comparison with others that we share the planet with. To compensate for our poor showing in the arenas of sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, procio-receptive abilities(we can hardly detect electromagnetism at all)we have only a single 'organ': our imaginations.

Do I think any sort of preternatural awareness is inherited? My guess is, that yes, at least partially. My paternal grandmother, who was part Seneca, very definitely had some preternatural abilities. I didn't spend a lot of time with her growing up, and she certainly never 'taught' me anything -- she was pretty much your classic “Grandma” to me. But I seem to have a minuscule portion of her talent: I won't have thought of somebody for years, then all of a sudden they pop up very clearly in my mind, and then within a few days afterward I'll invariably get a phone call or letter from them -- you know, that kind of thing. I think the chances of having preternatural abilities are much stronger when one grows up in a culture that understands and nourishes them, of which there is ample evidence.

Rebecca :
I got The Brazen Hussies' newsletter & I'm reading as fast as I can & writing too. Lots happening, I like your site, by the way! Webmaster's had some fun! I didn't know you all had written so much! Wow! So besides books you also write in teams! Can you tell me a little about that?

MICHÆLA :
Sure. But we don't the three of “us” write together. When Ellen Datlow (who used to be the fiction editor of OMNI Magazine, and now works for scifi.com) had her Eventhorizon website up, she played around with quite a few innovative ideas. One was to set up teams of writers, 4 writers to a team, and have them collaborate on a short piece of fiction, each to be written over the course of a month. The name of these collaborations were “Superstrings”, which I thought was pretty clever of Ellen to come up with. A certain amount of the story was to be posted up on the website ideally every three or four days. That way people logging on could see a work in progress going up over the course of the month.
 
Originally the Superstring concept was for longish short stories, I believe. Most of the teams, however, ended up with much longer lengths. The piece my team worked on ended being a pretty substantial novella. If you want to check it out, you can link to the online publication of it through my website.

Anyhoo, Pat got teamed up with three other writers some months before I did. I was originally supposed to be with another team, but couldn't because I had outstanding deadlines on other works. I found an opening for some time for the project late last summer, and Ellen hooked me up with Walter Jon Williams, Sage Walker and Daniel Abraham. It turned out to be fortuitous matchmaking on Ellen's part: I already knew both Walter and Sage -- in fact, the concept for “Tauromaquia” came out of some ideas that Walter and I had kicked around just for fun a couple of years back when we were hanging out at Sycamore Hill, a peer professional writing group back east. Sage, Walter and Daniel all know each other because they all live fairly close to each other in New Mexico. We ended up calling ourselves the String Quartet -- string for superstring; quartet, well, for obvious reasons.

The strongest stories in the whole Superstring series tended to be those where the writers communicated at length beforehand and figured out concept, story background, pacing, etc. I believe that the only two stories to go on to be published in print were the one Pat Murphy, one of us BRAZEN HUSSIES, was in and the one I was in. Both sold to Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. Pat's story came out some months ago. I believe that “Tauromaquia” is due out in Asimov's October issue. We borrowed the title from Goya's artwork, of course.

Rebecca :
My dear MICHÆLA, it has been a great pleasure sitting with you over a cuppa in the shade of our Cassandra Tree - all success with your magnificent Renaissance Food & Magic trilogy - acch! What a way to whittle your work down to a typebyte! Readers take note: the first two books of MICHÆLA's Stars trilogy are awesome. If you like Renaissance historical fantasy; Occult & Christian magical moments; apprenticeship to a Grand Master of the Art of Sculpture & his chef; seeing life through the eyes of those who serve the movers-and-shakers of that time, read these books!

Check out Author Sightings.

You can reach the Author at her website: http://www.brazenhussies.net/roessner/

WATCH OUT! Next week I get ALL The Brazen Hussies together to answer the Same Six Simple Questions. TaDaaaa!  

Rebecca (Published August 20, 2000)