Donna Fletcher Crow interviews Jeanette Sears

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I was delighted to be interviewed recently by the well-known American novelist Donna Fletcher Crow for the International Christian Fiction Writers website.  Here are the text and pictures:

A Murder in Michaelmas:  Jeanette Sears Interview by Donna Fletcher Crow for ICFW

Jeanette Sears

Jeanette Sears

Donna: Jeanette, welcome to International Christian Fiction Writers! We are so privileged to have an internationally known C. S. Lewis scholar visit us. Before we get to talking about your last novel tell us about your contribution to Women and C. S. Lewis.

Jeanette:  Thank you so much, Donna, for inviting me. It’s great to speak with you, and thank you for asking about my non-fiction as well as fiction. Yes, I was asked by one of the editors of Women and C S Lewis, the wonderful Carolyn Curtis, if I would write a short opinion-piece for this Lion Hudson book which has been published in the UK and USA this summer. The aim was for around 30 contributors who regularly research and write on Lewis to say what influence he has had on them, particularly in the area of Lewis and women. Did Lewis have a bad attitude to women? Has his teaching had a negative impact on them? That was the sort of question we were to address in our response. Well-known writers such as Alister McGrath, Michael Ward, Colin Duriez, Crystal Hurd, Monika Hilder, Randy Alcorn, Malcolm Guite, Holly Ordway, David C Downing, Don King and others all chipped in to reassert Lewis’ reputation and standing in this area. I suspect the piece that’s most critical of Lewis is probably mine! I take him to task on the subject of women priests. But basically we’re all fans who are very grateful to him for his influence on our lives and we hope that this book on a popular level will be interesting for fans and critics alike.

New book 'Women and C S Lewis'

New book ‘Women and C S Lewis’

Donna:  And you also published a guide to C. S. Lewis’ Oxford, didn’t you?

Jeanette:  Yes, I’m glad to say that The Oxford of J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis has sold around 7,000 copies and is in Blackwell’s and the main tourist shops in Oxford. I had been taking people on Inklings tours of Oxford and approached Oxford Heritage Trails who had published walking tours on different themes for many years. I’m glad to say it’s become their best seller, even beating the one on Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland!

'The Oxford of JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis'

‘The Oxford of JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis’

Donna:  Now, tell us about A Murder in Michaelmas. Of course, I loved it because it’s set in Oxford, revolves around Arthurian legends and has an American heroine— subjects all dear to my heart. It must have been quite a challenge weaving all those strands together.

My novel 'A Murder in Michaelmas'

My novel ‘A Murder in Michaelmas’

Jeanette:  I thought you might like it! I’ve just enjoyed reading your A Newly Crimsoned Reliquary, so I suspect we have a lot of interests in common! I lived in Oxford for 10 years – as an ordinand at theological college, a curate, a student chaplain, and a Summer School Director for a college – so I got to know the life there from the inside. I found myself using it as a setting for a murder mystery very naturally, as of course have many before us. Oxford seems to bring murder out in people, in literature at any rate! (By the way, I used to live on Fairacres Road in Iffley, as did your heroine for a while.)

Donna:  Have you always had a love of things Arthurian?

Jeanette:  Not particularly. No more so than any other Brit – perhaps it’s in our DNA. But I wanted to have a plot that reflected the medieval setting of Oxford and that could easily include the theme of witchcraft and the occult. I had been to the Oxford Arthurian Society (which sadly no longer exists) and so made up my own Lancelot and Guinevere Society. I thought this could be a re-enactment group where students dress up as characters from Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, the nastier characters as well as the good guys. Was the murder a re-enactment that went horribly wrong, or did the victim’s death have some other cause? You may have noticed that I also love the Preraphaelites, and often quote them at the beginning of chapters. Well, they loved Tennyson and the Arthurian legends, and so I suppose I love Arthur because I love them. Of course, C S Lewis rather liked them as well – I really love That Hideous Strength in which he draws on these medieval stories.

Donna:  Why did you choose to work with an American heroine?

Jeanette:  My heroine, Eve Merry, was originally written as British, but then it occurred to me that her being American would work better, especially as a contrast to the English upper-class hero and fellow student Crispin Martin de Beauchamp-Massey. She’s studying Theology, he’s reading English Literature. She’s from a poor background, he’s rich. She’s a Christian (although struggling after her father’s death), while Martin is a bit of a cynic. So I thought to have them as different nationalities would add to the conflict and interest. I lived in Boston, Massachusetts, for 4 years in the 1980s so I thought I could have Eve heralding from there, plus Oxford is blessed with many keen and enthusiastic American students, so I figured that would fit well too.

Donna:  Eve and Martin are such interesting characters. Will we be seeing more of them? Do you envision this book as being the first in a series?

Jeanette:  Oh, thank you. Yes, I hope this will be a series. I’ve started writing the second ‘Merry and Massey Mystery’ – it’s called Death of a Sluggard. The first mystery had the theme of Christianity versus the occult; this one has the debate between Religion and Science as the ideological background which the murder throws up. Eve and her friend Charlie Boscombe, who is a Biochemistry student, will be tackling the so-called New Atheists, with eccentric help from the irrepressible Martin of course.

Donna:  Your website says you’ve been a church minister, a university lecturer, a London bookseller and a writer. What a wonderful variety of experience. Do you find all this background helping you in writing your novels?

Jeanette:  Definitely. I’m sure you find that as a writer now you have to also be a public speaker, event planner, book seller, sales and marketing expert, teacher, pastoral counsellor, etc etc, as well! So it all comes in handy, whether it’s plotting the books, talking about them in public, or getting people to buy them. My children’s novel (although really it’s for everybody) called Pig’s Progress began as stories I told to live audiences at church and school.

'Pig's Progress'

‘Pig’s Progress’

Donna:  You also lecture on Dorothy L. Sayers— another of my favorites. How has a love of Sayers influenced your writing?

Jeanette:  She’s my heroine. I first read her Clouds of Witness when I was 10 and immediately wanted to be a writer. I include talking about her on my Inklings tours of Oxford, even though she wasn’t officially an Inkling. As a theologian and a writer of murder mysteries, she’s got to be my patron saint. If I can reflect any of her intelligence, style, faith and imagination in my writing, who could ask for more?

Donna:  You have so much to keep up with it must be hard to keep all your hats in a row. What’s next for you?

Jeanette:  Mmm, you’re right, it can be tricky combining everything. At the moment I have a lull in speaking events so there’s more time to concentrate on the writing. I’ve been finishing a comic literary novel called The Last Romantic. Then I’ll be writing the first of (I hope) a series of murder mysteries set in my home town of Nottingham. Oh, and finishing Death of a Sluggard, and working on more non-fiction on C S Lewis and Dorothy L Sayers.

Donna: Jeanette, thank you so much for taking time in your busy life to be with us today. Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?

Jeanette:  It’s been my pleasure. The next publication is my contribution to C S Lewis at Poet’s Corner (Wipf and Stock) which should be out fairly soon. One of the highlights of recent years was being able to be part of the events surrounding the inclusion of Lewis in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey, and this is the written form of those events, plus lectures and blogs it inspired.

Donna:  And where can we find you and your books on the web?

Jeanette:  My web address is www.jeanettesears.com and my books can be accessed on Amazon from there. Donna, many thanks again, and may God bless you and yours. (Perhaps we’ll get to meet in Oxford sometime?!)

[You can find the original of this interview at:
http://internationalchristianfictionwriters.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-murder-in-michaelmas-jeanette-sears.html and Donna at www.donnafletchercrow.com]

 


The Jackdaw Richard the Third

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The Jackdaw Richard III

1970 orange and purple Scrapbbook and Josephine Tey novel

1970 orange and purple Scrapbbook and Josephine Tey novel

When all the fuss about the discovery of Richard III’s body erupted recently, one of my first thoughts was: “Oh, if only I still had my Jackdaw folder about him!” Then last year when clearing out old boxes from my parents’ garage, I found it again, albeit in the form of a scrapbook from 1970 containing pared down papers from the Jackdaw that I’d carefully trimmed to fit the pages and sellotaped into the album when I was eleven years old. Why do children love scrapbooks so much? What’s so appealing about cutting out pictures and sticking them in albums? I certainly had several scrapbooks when I was growing up, usually devoted to my favourite pop stars. But when I was eleven I developed this much more unlikely craze for a dead king, prompted by reading the classic detective story ‘The Daughter of Time’ by Josephine Tey.

It featured her main detective Inspector Grant who was holed up in hospital with a broken leg and was itching to do some detecting regardless. A friend suggests one of the great mysteries of history and so he settles on who murdered the Princes in the Tower – was it their “evil uncle” King Richard the Third, or his successor Henry the Seventh, the first of the Tudors? The evidence presented in this brilliantly told reconstruction of the crime convinced me forever of Richard’s innocence and Henry’s guilt. I then read everything about Richard I could lay my hands on back in 1970, including this wonderful Jackdaw folder.

Jackdaw 24: Richard III and the Princes in the Tower

Jackdaw 24: Richard III and the Princes in the Tower

It was first published by Jonathan Cape in 1965 but my copy is by from the Paragon Press in 1970. It was edited and compiled by J. Langdon-Davies, an interesting character in himself.  I can still remember the metal carousel in W H Smith’s that contained the Jackdaw folders and the feeling of adventure that they generated as I span it round – which person or event from history shall I find out about next? These Jackdaw folders were bulging with fascimiles of historical documents to fascinate schoolchildren with the feel of handling primary sources. There were reproductions of oil paintings, family trees, the stories of famous people, and beautiful calligraphy in bold black Latin on thick brown paper. It really did make you feel like a detective handling original documents in the excitement of solving one of the greatest mysteries of all time. Plus there was the Justice angle – my eleven year old heart swelled with indignation at the thought of this poor wounded king who had been so maligned by history. I became a (no doubt very annoying) apologist for King Richard to anyone who would listen, wrote a long essay on him for school (which never got marked – it was so long it was overdue and handed in too late) and carried on collecting for my scrapbook, now entitled ‘HISTORY and other things eg. books, News-paper cuttings, Drawings etc. Jeanette Sears VOLUME ONE’. I can also see from my copy of ‘The Daughter of Time’ that this coincided with being given a Dymo label writer for Christmas which meant I labelled all my possessions with my name embossed on red plastic tape. It’s also evident that the fashionable colours for 1970 were orange and purple, judging from the cover of the novel and my scrapbook. I seem to remember my bedroom was painted orange then purple too (or was it purple then orange?)

Since the reburying of King Richard III this week in Leicester Cathedral has generated so much interest worldwide, I thought I would share the contents of my old Jackdaw folder for any of you interested who now can’t get hold of a copy easily. As I said, I cut up the papers it contained and stuck them in a scrapbook with sellotape that’s now brown with age, so they won’t look pristine but I think still of interest. It begins with the well-known portrait of Ricardus III Ang. Rex. by an unknown artist and a fascimile of part of Thomas More’s ‘History of Richard III’ [not shown here] written in 1557.

 

Rous Roll and portrait of Richard III

Rous Roll and portrait of Richard III

I can still remember the fury of Josephine Tey’s detective every time he came across the ‘backstairs’ gossip’ of More’s account in any so-called ‘evidence’. Above are also  drawings of Richard and his wife and son with their coats of arms from the Rous Roll.

'Richard through contemporary eyes' and 'Richard Crookback'

‘Richard through contemporary eyes’ and ‘Richard Crookback’

On large sheets of pink paper there are accounts of ‘Richard through contemporary eyes’ and ‘Richard ‘Crookback’’, featuring the notorious performance of Shakespeare’s play by Laurence Olivier and how the Tudors attacked Richard’s reputation and physical image. This sheet ends with: “One of the most exciting uncertainties of Richard’s reign is the story of the little princes, supposed to have been murdered by their wicked uncle in the Tower of London. Today historians admit that they do not know who the criminal was – it is not even certain that there was a crime. There is no certain evidence on which a jury would convict Richard; it would even be possible to make out some sort of a case that the real criminal, if there was one, was Henry VII.”

'Did Richard murder the primes?' and an account of his acts as king

‘Did Richard murder the primes?’ and an account of his acts as king

Then on orange paper an article entitled ‘Did Richard murder the princes in the Tower?’, containing a brief review of the evidence and concluding that we only hear about Richard’s guilt from his enemies whose accounts can’t be trusted. On the contrary Richard seemed like a good and just king from his other actions and  no court could convict him of the crime on the evidence available. Opposite on pink paper is ‘What do we know of Richard’s acts?’ asking “Was Richard a hypocrite or was he sincere?” when he passed good laws, was merciful to his subjects, etc. There is a list of just and righteous actions done by the king that make him sound the ideal Christian monarch. The conclusion is: “In short, as far as we can see from the documents which have been preserved, Richard’s rule was just and progressive. Indeed, there is a possibility that his unpopularity with some of the rich and aristocratic classes was due to a tendency to stand up for the underdog and undermine some of their privileges.” Reading through these actions of Richard again, I must say it is a very convincing case that he helped the poor and oppressed wherever possible and deprived the fat cats of their unjust gain. Did his spine condition give him an empathy for the oppressed and downtrodden? It makes Philippa Gregory’s description of him as “the People’s Plantagenet” seem very appropriate. It does look as though, when we lost Richard, we lost a very good king. There is even evidence of kindness to his rivals and enemies that makes it look very unlikely that he would have killed his nephews.

Facsimile document and pamphlet on the Battle of Bosworth

Facsimile document and pamphlet on the Battle of Bosworth

On the next pages lie a fascimile, on thick brown paper, of an extract from the Act of Parliament Rolls for the first year of Richard’s reign with a typed transliteration (almost as hard to read as the original but giving even a youngster a feel of medieval English).

Typed transliteration of medieval document

Typed transliteration of medieval document

There is an account of the Battle of Bosworth of 1485 where Richard lost his crown.

Next is a copy of a letter from Richard to the keeper of his wardrobe, Piers Curteys, from 31 August 1483.

 

Richard's letter to Master of Wardrobe

Richard’s letter to Master of Wardrobe

He is requesting clothes such as “one doublet of tawney sattayn lyned with Holand cloth and enterlyned with Buske”, as well as banners and “trumpet bands of sarcenet”. The transcription underneath meant that it was possible even for an 11 year old in 1970 to read the handwriting of 1483. The accompanying notes say that even experts on medieval costume don’t know what “spurves” and “guynysans” were!

The pamphlet ‘Edward V and Richard Duke of York: the Princes in the Tower of London’ gives photos of the Tower areas where the princes were kept and possibly buried, plus diagrams and rather gruesome photos of skeletons of children from the period.

 

Leaflet on Princes in the Tower

Leaflet on Princes in the Tower

The next page has a copy of a letter from Richard to his Lord Chancellor from 12 October 1483 with a transcription on the opposite page. I think the handwriting round the edge is Richard’s own.

Richard's letter to Lord Chancellor with own handwriting round the edge

Richard’s letter to Lord Chancellor with own handwriting round the edge

The guide to the Jackdaw documents assures children that “with a little patience… you will become quite an expert in reading fifteenth century handwriting” !!

I was then intrigued to see that I had a leaflet for a performance of Shakespeare’s ‘Richard III’ at Nottingham Playhouse from Oct-Dec 1971, starring the comic actor Leonard Rossiter.

Nottingham Playhouse producing Shakespeare's 'Richard III' in 1971

Nottingham Playhouse producing Shakespeare’s ‘Richard III’ in 1971

This amazed me as I had completely forgotten this. It is described in the leaflet as “a vividly macabre performance”. Since Robert Lindsay has also played Richard, there must have been a trend for a while of having him played by comedians. And gosh, the prices of tickets – 50p for the stalls, 25p for the balcony, and travel subsidies were available if you were coming from elsewhere in the Midlands! They were certainly keen to get people into the theatres in those days and more willing to subsidise it with public money.

The next page shows ‘How Richard became King’.

'How Richard became King'

‘How Richard became King’

In my scrapbook this is juxtaposed with Holbein’s portrait of Thomas More.

IMG_7162 copy

This is because the only other Jackdaw folder I owned was about him. I also have a hard time not saying “Boo!” after his name, as it was his propagandised account of Richard which Shakespeare used for his play. As an all-or-nothing 11 year old, to me this made Thomas More a baddie.

There was a general introductory booklet to the Jackdaw folder which for some reason I pasted at the end of my display rather than the beginning. It gives a run down of all the ‘Exhibits’ and questions for you to ‘Think for Yourself’, which begins: “This ‘Jackdaw’ shows how the story of Richard III may have been distorted by later historians to make a better case for the kingship of the Tudors. Can you think of any other well-known instances of history being rewritten?” Another question is “What do you think would have happened if Richard had won the Battle of Bosworth?”, then “How would you persuade anyone living in about 1500 that a crippled body does not necessarily mean a wicked soul?”, and lastly “Suppose the little princes were alive in 1485, what do you imagine they thought about it all? Perhaps we never heard of them again because they thought “Anything for a quiet life” and preferred to remain “lost”?” Hmm – rather a loaded question. There is then a list of ‘Books to Read’, including Josephine Tey’s novel of 1954 and the biography of Richard by Paul Murray Kendall (1955) which I can remember devouring in the school library on rainy lunchtimes.

I had then cut out the photos from a paperback on the Plantagenets by John Harvey (1967).

Portrait of Richard III

Portrait of Richard III

The portrait of Richard has him looking worried and placing a ring on his own finger (was this a symbol of usurping the throne?) as with the more well-known picture. He still looked preferable in my childish eyes to Henry VII who reminded me of a weasel.

Next to this in my scrapbook was a surprise. I had completely forgotten about the magazine version of Winston Churchill’s ‘History of the English Speaking People’ and that I owned No. 30 of the 112 issues (which apparently came out every Thursday) and was edited by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Hugh Trevor-Roper and A J P Taylor (BPC Publishing 1970).

Magazine cover: 'The Princes in the Tower'

Magazine cover: ‘The Princes in the Tower’

The cover shows the portrait of the Princes in the Tower by the Victorian artist Millais, the boys looking very much like Bubbles dressed as Hamlet.

Contributors to the magazine

Contributors to the magazine

It contains articles by H M Colvin, A R Myers, John Gillingham, and G D Ramsay, most of whom were Oxford dons.

Winston Churchill on Richard III

Winston Churchill on Richard III

Churchill’s own account follows Thomas More’s and so was anathema to me as a stout little Ricardian. There was also an article on the Tower of London plans of the Battle of Bosworth

 

Battle lines at Bosworth

Battle lines at Bosworth

and a taste of the arguments against Richard as the murderer of the princes, but this is pretty half-hearted. Perhaps no one felt they could come out too strongly against Churchill’s view when the whole magazine was supposed to be honouring his version of history.

Image of 'evil' Richard III and the princes

Image of ‘evil’ Richard III and the princes

I am intrigued now as to why I was such a ‘fan’ of King Richard III at such a young age. I think it was the injustice done to a young king that touched me, plus the fact that it was wrapped in one of the greatest mysteries in history. The Jackdaw folder gave me a ‘hands on’ experience in learning about it and the feeling that I was in touch with the historical characters concerned. The Josephine Tey novel brought the story to life in a way that completely gripped my imagination. It has only just occurred to me as I write this blog that the first murder mystery that I have written concerns students who like re-enacting scenes from the late fifteenth century from Malory’s ‘Morte D’Arthur’ – exactly Richard III’s lifetime. Perhaps I have Richard III to thank for my own first murder mystery!

My novel 'A Murder in Michaelmas'

My novel ‘A Murder in Michaelmas’

I also think that it is no coincidence that shortly after my fascination with Kind Richard as an 11 year old I became a Christian – it was possible to also see Jesus of Nazareth of the first century as a young King who had had great evil and injustice done to him, who had suffered a cruel death and whose truth needed to be defended. From the wounded king of medieval chivalry to the wounded King on a cross wasn’t too great a leap. Now that we know more of King Richard’s own Christian faith and his desire to live as a chivalric Christian knight, this is perhaps not surprising. I was particularly struck by this aspect of Richard’s life when hearing Philippa Langley speak in 2013, the amazing woman who led the discovery of Richard’s body in the Leicester car park.

 

Meeting Philippa Langley in Southwell Library, Nov 2013

Meeting Philippa Langley in Southwell Library, Nov 2013

I was determined to shake her hand and thank her, as I believe many have done this week. It was also very moving to see a young girl putting the crown on Richard’s coffin during the reinterment service at Leicester Cathedral, a girl about the same as as me when I ‘discovered’ him, in a sense reinstating him as a good Christian king.  Who would have thought that the supposed ‘evil child-killer’ King Richard III would have become a type of Christ for me as a young child?

Little girl 're-crowning' Richard III

Little girl ‘re-crowning’ Richard III in Leicester Cathedral in March 2015


Writing as Work and Vocation

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Writing as Work and Vocation

Writing as Work and Vocation

Writing as Work and Vocation

Writers often comment on how strange it is to be writing a new book each day whilst still having to promote their previous book that has only just come out. I certainly feel that way as I am working on my next book (a comic literary novel) at the same time as having to get A Murder in Michaelmas noticed and sold. There is also the next murder mystery to plan and ideas for that keep popping into my head when I’m supposed to be doing other things. And that’s apart from any non-fiction, articles, poetry, etc, that also keep demanding their own time slots. How I ever did a full-time job teaching in a college and get any writing done astounds me! Well, I suppose it was by getting up even earlier in the morning to try and fit in an hour a day, and doing the reading for each project on my ‘day off’.

There are several very good books on how to start up your own business while still in a regular job (eg. Working 5 to 9: How to Start a Successful Business in your Spare Time by Emma Jones) but the emphasis on working all your evenings and weekends as well as a normal job makes you realise that you’ve got to really love that hobby that you want to turn into your main earner. It’s the old truism about vocation – you know you’ve found it when you would do it for nothing and when you can’t believe you’re actually getting paid for doing the thing you love. I certainly felt like that a lot of the time when teaching in college as that is also part of my vocation and I loved being part of the college community. It was just frustrating not having enough time each day to do the rest of my calling, ie. writing. But now, as even my writing threatens to become my daily ‘work’ and multiple tasks clamour for my attention, it’s good to remember the words of Frederick Buechner: “Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet.” I feel very privileged to be able to work each day out of a place of deep gladness. As to how much the world is hungering for what I have to share, we shall see…