Monday, March 18, 2024

Q&A with Tracy Borman

 


 

 

Tracy Borman is the author of the new book Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Forever Changed British History. Borman's other books include Crown & Sceptre. She is England's joint Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces and chief executive of the Heritage Education Trust. 

 

Q: Why did you decide to write a book focusing on Anne Boleyn and her daughter, Queen Elizabeth I?

 

A: The short answer is because it had never been done. But it had been a long-cherished ambition of mine.

 

I first came up with the idea while researching my book Elizabeth's Women back in 2007. In that, I covered the lives of about 50 women who influenced my favourite queen.

 

Anne Boleyn was of course the first of these but I could only give her a chapter at most and I'd discovered enough about their relationship to convince me that this was only the tip of the iceberg.

 

Being able to revisit the subject and research it in forensic detail has been an absolute joy. I found enough to fill about three books!

 

Q: In the Washington Independent Review of Books, Allison Thurman writes, “The prevailing view is that Elizabeth seldom mentioned her disgraced mother in favor of emphasizing her status as her father’s heir. Yet in Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I, Tracy Borman masterfully corrects the historical record and highlights both women’s roles in the English Reformation.” What do you think of that assessment?

 

A: I'm delighted with it! One thing that really struck me when researching the book was just how pivotal an influence Anne was on the reformation - and on her daughter's religious outlook. She deserves to be remembered more for that than for her relationship with Henry VIII.

 

Q: What would you say are some of the most common perceptions and misconceptions about Anne and Elizabeth?

 

A: First and foremost that they didn't really have a relationship because Elizabeth was less than three when her mother was executed, so could have had only the vaguest memories of her.

 

The latter might be true, but that's not to say they didn't have a relationship. Anne's influence over her daughter was the most profound of Elizabeth's life, shaping her into the woman - and queen - that she became.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: So many things. I knew that Elizabeth proved her loyalty to Anne by filling her court with Boleyn relatives when she became queen, but that was just one of many ways that she honoured her late mother.

 

What I found particularly fascinating was trawling the inventories of Elizabeth's possessions and finding out just how many related to her mother.

 

The most poignant of all has to be the “Chequers ring” - a locket ring made for Elizabeth in the 1570s which concealed two tiny portraits: one of herself and one of Anne. It was one of her most treasured possessions and she kept it with her until the day she died.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: The subject is under wraps for now, but suffice to say it's nonfiction and involves a well-known Tudor character! It will be out in the States in Fall 2025.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: My podcast, Six Tudor Queens, is out now: https://www.hrp.org.uk/listen-to-podcasts-by-historic-royal-palaces/#gs.58tntw 


--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Tracy Borman.

Q&A with Zak Mucha

 

Photo by Joe Mazza

 

 

Zak Mucha is the author of the new memoir Swimming to the Horizon: Crack, Psychosis, and Street-Corner Social Work. His other books include Emotional Abuse: A Manual for Self-Defense. He is a psychoanalyst and president of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Swimming to the Horizon?

 

A: When I took over this team, which was basically wrap-around mental health services for a client population that no other programs could or would work with, there was no training, supervision, or instruction manual, and I had very little experience.

 

We were working with people suffering from severe and chronic psychosis, drug addictions, homelessness, multiple incarcerations, hospitalizations, Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity adjudications, and all the socioeconomic factors that go with lives of trauma and poverty.

 

A lot of it was really difficult and heartbreaking, sometimes violent, but there was real joy in doing this work. I hope that comes across in the book.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: The title came from something I said to a hyper-diligent, almost pathological, worker who was going above and beyond all job expectations but paying a heavy price personally.

 

She was in my office, emotionally dysregulated (crying) because there was too much to do, and she’d never get it all done. I told her that was correct. We’re not going to cure or prevent psychosis, homelessness, and drug addiction. There was always going to be more to do, and we were swimming to the horizon.

 

In Zen Buddhism, there’s the four great vows and the first vow is to “save all sentient beings.” Well, we have to count ourselves in that crowd. Sometimes we have to save others from our own lousy behavior, sometimes we have to save ourselves from our own behavior. Then we can take care of others…  Zen Buddhists like these jokes.

 

There’s also some Zen in the Hank Williams’ title, “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.” Just the idea of “swimming to the horizon” – we never get there, but we have to try.

 

Q: The writer Trey Bundy said of the book, “Swimming to the Horizon is a brave, compassionate, often hilarious book about the true cost of helping others, and all that we get in return.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I’m proud to say I’ve known Trey Bundy for a long time and before he was a journalist, he was working with children dumped in residential programs. I was really proud that he understood this book and this work and found the humor and love in it.

 

I often think of a line I heard recently from the psychoanalyst Marilyn Charles who said, and I’m paraphrasing, “The hardest part of this work is being able to tolerate our inability to alleviate our patients’ suffering… We go through it with them, we carry that grief, and we have to carry hope, especially when they can’t find it.”


I also think of Emmanuel Levinas and all his writings about our irreducible responsibilities to the other – to not kill, to not look away from suffering. This was a man who lost his entire family in the Holocaust and learned his mentor was a Brown Shirt, but he acknowledges, we have to acknowledge, compassion hurts. It literally means “to feel with.”

 

Q: What impact did it have on you to write the book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?

 

A: Writing this book made me want to go back to poetry, for one. I like writing poetry more, but writing this, seeing this part of my own history condensed, allowed me to see how much I had actually done and how, at times, I was as driven as the clinician I told we were never going to reach the end of our work.

 

I was probably doing way too much in those years, but I learned a lot. I don’t think I could go back to doing that work, now. Interventions were physical and exhausting, and sometimes violent.

 

But I didn’t want the book to be a distanced text of case presentations and theory. I wanted it to read like a crime novel, not a “who-done-it” where the detective comes in as an outsider, solves everything and goes back to their life.

 

Instead, this was to be more like a crime noir where the protagonist or narrator is in it, it’s a part of their life. They are culpable, part of the crime, in many ways. His or her hands aren’t clean, either. We are a part of this system – our policies, our politics allow people to live in this criminal level of poverty and neglect.

 

I’m hoping young clinicians or students considering the field of social work or psychology will take the book, maybe not as a “how to” but as an example of “what it is.”

 

There’s not a lot of training for this kind of work, maybe none at all. And it’s always the greenest, least trained, least resourced clinicians who get placed with the most difficult caseloads.

 

One major problem in the mental health system is that the more experience a clinician has, the further they get from direct service and become a part of administration. New staff coming in get burned out, and there’s this perpetual rotation where the clients and patients suffer.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Just poems right now. As I write this, I’m heading to this artist-in-residency at a castle in France. I guess it belonged to Diderot’s in-laws, which shows if you’re going to be an essayist, you should probably marry money… My wife is an artist, too, working on her stuff. Neither one of us married money, so this feels very decadent.

 

I started writing poems while I was in my analysis, which is part of the training to become a psychoanalyst. I was always writing, but I wasn’t brave enough to try poetry. Poems got accepted here and there and I kept going with it. Last year a book of poems, The Ambulatorium, was published by Alice Vachss’ press.

 

The Ambulatorium was the name of the first psychoanalytic clinic for the working-class in Vienna. Of course, the Nazis burned it down, because that’s what they do… Psychoanalysis started out as a radical endeavor and it’s a practice that has to keep changing for the 21st century.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: This is a continuation of the previous answer – right now I’m the president of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis and the entire field is, hopefully, taking part in some amazing work that was done with examining racism and structural racism.

 

I think there’s a way to connect these things – really deep and meaningful psychoanalytic training for people doing the most difficult work there is in the field. I think it would make a huge difference for both patients and clinicians.

 

At least that’s my hope for the future, that this structural class and racial bias does not continue to allow those suffering the most to get the least help.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Tiana Smith

 

Photo by Pepperfox Photos

 

Tiana Smith is the author of the new novel The Spy and I. Her other books include the young adult novel Match Me If You Can

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Spy and I, and how did you create your character Dove?

 

A: I’ve always loved spy stories—whether in movies or literature. I already have a few young adult novels out and my agent asked me how I felt about writing for the adult market. I came back to him with, “yes, but how about with spies?”

 

Thankfully he was on board with my idea because we sold The Spy and I not shortly after that.

 

I think at the time I was watching a lot of the TV show Chuck and was really inspired by writing a character who was computer-smart and a bit introverted, but still an asset in their own way.

 

A lot of those characters in popular media are men, and I wanted to show readers that women can be just as technologically savvy. I still wanted to keep her out of her element within the spy world, however, because it’s always fun to see how a character reacts when they’re unprepared and in over their heads.

 

Q: The Library Journal review of the book said, “This mistaken-identity spy romance is fast-paced, mixing twists and turns with humor and not a small amount of chemistry.” What do you think of that description, and what did you see as the right balance between the spying, the romance, and the humor?

 

A: It was definitely tricky to balance the spy action, romance, and comedy. Primarily, I think readers are connecting to it most as a suspense novel with comedic romantic elements, and that makes me happy.


If you think of most of the spy movies you’ve seen, like Knight and Day or Argylle, I think they follow a similar vein. The spy story is what moves the plot forward, and the romance is there as a supporting element. Of course, I love romance, and I love comedy, so I’ll always put those things in when I can.

 

Q: Did you need to do any research to write the book, and if so, did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: I had to do so much research! It’s surprising how much information there is online about the CIA though. Or even specific tutorials on how to hack things (since my main character is a hacker). All the hacking scenes in my novel follow online tutorials, which is scary if you stop to think about it.

 

The CIA has many official sites that provide information on the infrastructure or common things that people get wrong.

 

One of the things that surprised me is that people who work for the CIA aren’t called agents—they’re called officers. As I say in the book, the FBI has agents, the CIA has officers. Anyone who says otherwise has been watching too much TV. 😉

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?

 

A: I hope people just have a good time reading it. It’s meant to be an escape that takes you away from this world for a bit. Something lighthearted and fun.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on book two of the My Spy series, Mr. Nice Spy. Both books can be read as stand-alones, so you don’t have to read The Spy and I first in order to understand what’s going on.

 

Mr. Nice Spy follows a different set of characters that happen to be in the same world. It comes out in November of this year. I’m excited for everyone to read it!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Nope! Thanks for having me!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Jen Kostman

 


 

Jen Kostman is the author and illustrator of the children's picture book Ella Kvellephant and the Search for Bubbe's Yiddish Treasure. Also a preschool teacher, she is based in New York City.

 

Q: What inspired you to create Ella Kvellephant, and how did you create your character Ella and her grandmother?

 

A: The concept of Ella Kvellephant came from a few unrelated places. First of all, I came up with the name “Kvellephant” while trying to create a nickname for a character in a Pokémon game (I'm a big fan of the franchise and many nods to Pokémon can be found hiding throughout the book).

 

After coming up with the name “Kvellephant,” I decided I had to create a Yiddish-speaking elephant character with the name.

 

From there I played around with different ideas for what a book about this character might look like, but ultimately, I kept thinking of my Grandma Temie, who always comes to mind when I'm thinking about my family traditions and heritage.

 

Eventually I decided that the book would be inspired by my relationship with my grandmother and how it ties into my Jewish identity.

 

Q: Did you work on the text first or the illustrations first--or both simultaneously?

 

A: I'm definitely more of an illustrator than a writer, so the visuals came to life before the text. But I'd say a lot of times the characters I design have a story to go along with them. I love creating stories and characters.

 

It was a fun challenge to write the text for the story, though; I really did enjoy it. I also really appreciated the patience and support I received from my publisher, Lili from Kalaniot Books. 

 

Q: Can you say more about why you decided to focus on Yiddish in the book?

 

A: When I come up with a character, typically their story is sort of just woven into their design and in the case of Ella Kvellephant, the character's name came first (along with a few early character designs) and then the story followed.

 

While I'm not completely denying the fact that this book was created from a play on words, I will say that I had been toying around with concepts for Jewish books for years as I felt passionately about creating a modern character in a Jewish picture book that children could feel connected to.

 

Q: The Foreword review of the book says, “Through the charming lens of purple and pink elephants frolicking on the beach and strolling the boardwalk with other animal families, the book relays a powerful, age-appropriate message about legacy, history, and reclamation.” What do you think of that description, and what do you hope kids take away from the story?

 

A: I'm very flattered by that description of the book! And I think it perfectly encapsulates what I was going for, being that the story isn't “preachy” but rather a whimsical and colorful world that just so happens to be playing out the story of the Kvellephant family.

 

As for the part of the description that mentions age-appropriateness, I really appreciate that in particular. I'm a preschool teacher by day and I believe that young kids can be taught about many grown-up concepts as long as it's done in an age-appropriate manner.

 

For example, right now my preschool class has chicken eggs and I had let my class know that some of the eggs may not hatch as that's just how nature goes sometimes.

 

Whether I'm in the classroom or creating a book, I strive to be respectful of the kids I'm working with/writing for by discussing topics that I feel are important but doing so in an age-appropriate way.

 

As for what I hope kids take away from the story, there are two main things: First off, I want Jewish children who have a Bubbe-type family member of their own to feel a sense of familiarity and appreciate their Jewish identity.

 

In addition, I want non-Jewish children to gain an understanding of some of these classic Yiddish words and get an easily digestible taste of Jewish culture done in a way that anyone from any background can relate to and appreciate. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: What am I working on now? Oy! I wish it was another book! I'm currently working full time as a teacher and am in graduate school working towards getting my master’s in early childhood education.

 

I'm sort of holding off on big projects until I finish up my program, but if someone offered me an awesome illustration gig, I wouldn't turn it down!

 

I do have an idea for a sort of “sister” book to Ella Kvellephant that I'd love to work on; however, I don't plan on really delving into it until after I'm done with graduate school.

 

I will say though that the theme of the book is a bit more sentimental than Ella Kvellephant, but again, I believe that if handled in an age-appropriate way, many kids would be able to relate to the story and would appreciate it, so I really would love to pursue the project more seriously once I have a bit more time on my hands. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Nothing else I can think of other than I'm really appreciative of the opportunity to have been featured on your blog. Thank you so much for having me, Deborah!  

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

March 18


 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
March 18, 1932: John Updike born.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Q&A with Benjamin Herold


 

Benjamin Herold is the author of the new book Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America's Suburbs. His work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Education Week. He lives in Philadelphia.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Disillusioned, and how did you choose the families you focus on in the book?

 

A: I grew up in a Pittsburgh suburb called Penn Hills. The community and its public schools worked great for my white family, helping launch me into a comfortable middle-class life and a career in journalism.

 

But two decades after I left Penn Hills, a series of devastating headlines began pouring out of my hometown. Seemingly out of nowhere, the same school district that had once served my white family so well had run up a $172 million debt. Teachers were furloughed, budgets slashed, programs eliminated. Property taxes skyrocketed, and home values stagnated.

 

And underlying all the bad news was a seismic demographic shift; the Penn Hills public schools, 72 percent white when I graduated in 1994, were now 63 percent Black.

 

That meant thousands of families of color had come to suburbia in search of the same generous social contract I received, only to discover they'd been left holding the bag for all the opportunities families like mine had already extracted.

 

So the book really started with me wanting to understand what happened to my hometown, and whether it was unique.

 

And what I found was that huge swaths of American suburbia are caught up in a cycle of racialized development and decline that functions like a Ponzi scheme.

 

The first couple generations of residents in a new suburban community, usually white and upwardly mobile, get a tremendous deal. But we get it by accepting huge government subsidies for development and by pushing the true costs of maintenance, repair, and renewal off on to future residents, often Black and Brown. 

 

The five communities featured in the book (outside Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh) trace this arc from beginning to end. I met the families featured in each community through an advocacy group, a network of activist parents, a realtor, the staff at a local elementary school, and by knocking on doors on the street where I grew up.

 

Q: How was the book's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: We as Americans have invested so many of our hopes, dreams, and visions for the future in suburbia and its schools. The suburbs are still where we go to give our kids a better life, which is an incredibly powerful thing.

 

But what I found reporting Disillusioned was that many, many, many suburban parents feel like those hopes and dreams are crumbling under their feet. Especially suburban parents of color, many of whom viewed their arrival in suburbia as a culmination of a generations-long fights to gain access to suburbia and all it had to offer.

 

I believe that understanding the ensuing disappointment, anger, and disillusionment is crucial to understanding what's happening in America more broadly.

 

And Disillusioned also has a secondary meaning. Because I grew up white in suburbia and my family is very much a part of the destructive cycle I describe, I had to shed a lot of my own illusions about suburbia and my family's experience in order to recognize and appreciate what was happening all around me.

 

Q: The writer Imani Perry said of the book, “Not only is Disillusioned engaging—riveting, really—it strikes at the very heart of the geography and emotional economy of race in the United States.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Well, first, I'm honored to be mentioned in the same sentence as Imani Perry. I especially appreciate her comments because she has thought so deeply and written so beautifully about what makes America America. 

 

And I love that she focused on the emotional aspect of the dynamics I described above; millions of families have come to suburbia hoping for the kind of emotional security that comes with knowing your children are safe, loved, and taken care of. And what that doesn't pan out, it's crushing. 

 

Q: What do you see looking ahead for the American suburbs?

 

A: The demographic changes already sweeping through suburbia are only going to accelerate, and we are reaching the limits of our ability to keep running away from our problems by building new communities further and further into the countryside.

 

As a result, I think the conflicts we already see erupting at suburban school board meetings around the country are likely to intensify. I really do believe we're still at the very beginning of a larger unraveling that's going to shape much of American life over the next few decades.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Can't give away too much yet, but working on a couple follow-up book projects that use public schools as a portal into all the issues we care (and worry) about most. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: If you're interested in Disillusioned, you may also appreciate the work of scholars and advocates such as John Diamond, Sonya Douglass, Decoteau Irby, Kenneth T. Jackson, L'Heureux Lewis-McCoy, Chuck Marohn, and Andrew Wiese.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb


Q&A with Scott Martelle

 

Photo by Margaret Mercier-Martelle

 

Scott Martelle is the author of the new book 1932: FDR, Hoover, and the Dawn of a New America. A longtime journalist, his other books include The Madman and the Assassin. He lives in Rochester, New York.

 

Q: What inspired you to write 1932? Why did you decide to focus on that year and that election?

 

A: I’ve long had an interest in the Great Depression and American history in the first half of the 20th century. And, of course, politics.

 

Both the Depression and the 1932 election -- FDR’s first run for the White House -- have already been the subjects of countless books, so I thought it would be interesting to try to write a book not about those things, but around them.

 

I settled on overlapping simultaneous narratives of events from that critical year to try to capture what it was like for average Americans to live through it, using the 1932 presidential campaign as the main through line.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: The research posed some interesting hurdles. COVID struck as I was working up a proposal for my agent, Jane Dystel, and the closure of libraries and archives made it impossible for the kind on hands-on research I like to do.

 

So, I did as much as I could online and in email exchanges with various institutions to gather what I could before things loosened up and I was able to make in-person visits to the Hoover and Roosevelt presidential libraries, among other places.

 

I borrowed some devices from John Dos Passos’ USA trilogy and was able to piece together the newsreel segments (quick details of news events that didn’t warrant a fuller narrative presence) from online databases, and similarly was able to cull diaries entries that had been digitalized at different archives and libraries.

 

The biggest surprise to me from the research was how much the campaign to repeal Prohibition influenced the politics of that year. 

 

Q: The Washington Independent Review of Books review said, “Martelle does a masterful job in 1932 of telling the story of the Hoover/Roosevelt face-off, fleshing out events with timelines, the personal diaries of ordinary citizens, and copious details about farms, industry, and generalized anger to illustrate just how split and destitute America was at the time.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Aw, shucks? In all seriousness, it was a very warming review to read. It’s nice when a critic succinctly captures the gist of what an author is setting out to do, and appreciates it. 

 

Q: How would you describe the similarities and differences between the election of 1932 and this year's presidential election?

 

A: It really is an apples-and-oranges thing. In 1932 we had an incumbent who was incapable of addressing the economic crisis that befell him, challenged by a rival who was selling himself and a vision for a more robust federal response to the Great Depression.

 

This time around, we have a capable incumbent and, while these are challenging times, conditions are nothing like the Great Depression. And, of course, we already know what the opposition candidate is capable of.

 

One key similarity is in the popular divide. I was taken while working on the Prohibition portion of the book with how similar those battle lines were to the fight over abortion rights today. It’s like the descendants of both sides in the Prohibition fight are squared off over abortion. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Still pawing the earth for a new subject. I’ve come up with a few ideas but for various reasons nothing has gelled into a book-length project.

 

After I finished the manuscript for 1932 my wife and I moved from Southern California back to her hometown of Rochester, New York, and that, as you might imagine, was quite time-consuming. But we’re settled in and I’m optimistic I’ll stumble across the right subject sooner rather than later.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: That the future stability of the nation could well hang in the balance of the November elections. But, well, we all know that already. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Scott Martelle.