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Meeting Jacqueline Winspear, part II, Q&A

Jacqueline Winspear and Benjamin L Clark
Fans at Jacqueline Winspear event
Lots of fans turn out to see Jacqueline Winspear in Santa Rosa, California, April 2019.

If you missed PART 1, click here.

After giving some background, and a little reading from her latest book, The American Agent, Jacqueline Winspear was kind enough to answer some questions from the 100+ fans in attendance (116 by my count from the back of the room).

While fans asked great questions, I jotted down Jacqueline’s answers as I heard them, but not being proficient at shorthand, or recording anything, these aren’t direct quotes, but they’re paraphrased from Jacqueline. Anything in quotes is a quote. My humblest apologies to Jacqueline Winspear if anything is wrong.

Q: When you wrote Maisie Dobbs, did you know it was a series?

Jacqueline Winspear speaks to fans

A: When started, she had not planned a series, just one book. The day after it went into print the publisher asked for the next book of the series. Luckily Jacqueline had been writing little fragments and things on her computer, so she printed them all off and laid them out on the floor. Within these fragments, she found six books — or the seeds for six books. She began to think of the arc of a series instead of an arc of a single book.

Q: Did you plan the length of the series then? Do you have a planned length now?

A: Didn’t plan it then, but “there are more books behind me than in front of me.” Maisie will return “not next year but maybe the next.”

Q: Is Maisie based on anyone in particular?

Copperfields Books Author Event Sign

A: No! But Jacqueline wanted to honor that generation of women that were so changed by World War I, members of the “surplus women” generation. The War changed how these women saw themselves. At that time they had just won the right to vote, and then the war, and expansion of Women’s suffrage, so women would outnumber male voters by far for years to come. They wanted a home worthy of heroes, that took care of people. It was thanks to them the UK developed the National Health System and much more.

Q: What about Maisie’s psychic abilities?

A: She’s has a sharp intuition. She’s ‘A Sensitive.’ “She’s been trained to use it.” There was a lot of Spiritualism growing, coming up at that time, so it was certainly part of the culture and time period. [Another example of the era is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who became deeply interested in Spiritualism at that time, and Harry Houdini who moved from hopeful to skeptic to critic. –blc]

The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear poster

Q: Maisie has interesting heritage on her mother’s side? Where did that come from?

A: It was organic. Jacqueline wrote about it in a much earlier book, but took it out, placing it later. It was something she just seemed to know about Maisie early on. Roma people were in the UK very early on, and water gypsies too.

Q: Are you working on any other non-Maisie projects right now?

A: Yes! Two upcoming books with different characters. “It’s very exciting.”

Jacqueline Winspear and Benjamin L Clark
Jacqueline Winspear and Benjamin L Clark

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

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Meeting Jacqueline Winspear

Jacqueline Winspear and Benjamin L Clark

Jacqueline Winspear came to Santa Rosa on Tuesday, 23 April 2019. Thank you to Copperfield‘s Books that sponsors such great visits from amazing and talented writers. Moving to the North Bay Area from the interior of the United States wasn’t only because I was given the opportunity for a dream job. It was also because moving here would mean nights like tonight. An otherwise boring Tuesday has been transformed into an evening for fandom (in the best ways) and even a dose of inspiration.

Copperfield's Books sign in Santa Rosa
Copperfield’s Books at Montgomery Village in Santa Rosa, California, April 2019

Jacqueline Winspear is just as nice as you could hope. She’s very sweet. And even after years of living in California, she is still quite British (read: Charming).

For fans of Maisie Dobbs and her series of books, Jacqueline was able to share quite a bit about her latest, The American Agent, and also about her other new book, What Would Masie Do?, which I found fascinating.

The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear poster
Poster for The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear.

The American Agent is book 15 of Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series. This latest book is set at the beginning of World War II during The Blitz, and Winspear, though born far too late to have experienced The Blitz first-hand, did have a personal connection to the historic events that unfold in her pages. When the 1969 film The Battle of Britain debuted with its blockbuster cast, the author asked her mother to take her to see it. Her mother replied, “No, I saw it the first time.” At first, she thought her mother was mistaken that the movie had come out earlier, but she later realized, no, she meant The Blitz itself. Her mother had been in a building that had bombed and collapsed and had spent “a significant amount of time” trapped. Her mother, understandably, remained claustrophobic the rest of her life.

Winspear shared stories of pioneering women war correspondents and members of the Women’s Voluntary Service. The women who served in this way worked to serve tea, give aid for shelter, and to identify the dead. They also had to write a daily report. Winspear spent lots of time in the archives of that organization reading these “searing reports” from the women who shouldered much of the recovery during The Blitz.

Jacqueline Winspear and Benjamin L Clark
Jacqueline Winspear and Benjamin L Clark

And, in the tune of helping people and making things, she’s created the book What Would Maisie Do? It’s a collection of favorite scenes and quotes from the Maisie Dobbs series, and the stories-behind-the-stories of those scenes. They are also reflections for the reader. This project was one that Winspear admitted had been in the making since the introduction of Maisie Dobbs. But when fellow writer, Amy Krouse Rosenthal passed away in 2017 she felt compelled to “make something” as Rosenthal encouraged all the time (the two writers shared an agent, and the three women have birthdays all in a row). “It’s really important to make things,” Winspear said.

In my next post, I’ll have a few more photos, but even better — answers from Winspear to a few burning questions. Click here for PART 2.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

It’s A Podcast, Charlie Brown

It's a podcast, Charlie Brown

Good grief

So, I’ve had a drastic move in my day job: It’s been about a year since moving to California for a dream job: I’m now the curator of the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center. Yes, that makes me the official historian of Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the whole Peanuts Gang. It’s been fantastic, but it’s been hectic in my first year here and it’s not left any time at all for much creative writing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m writing constantly … for work. We have six exhibitions per year, and I write all of them, and there have been special projects that were waiting as well, so it’s been crazy but the end is in sight.

We’ve also been busy as a family getting to know our incredible new home. Sonoma County and the Bay Area, in general, is just a very special, beautiful place, and as people who love the outdoors, it’s easy to put the notebooks aside for the weekend and just go. The beach, the mountains, the Redwoods, several hundred wineries, world-class dairies with their specialty cheese shops — it’s a lot to take in for a family of midwesterners who are used to holing up for the winter and not seeing true warmth and daylight until May.

Also, (back to work), I’ve had a lot of reading to do. Like how to do you become an “overnight” expert on a man who has had a handful of biographies, has given hundreds of interviews, and wrote and drew a daily comic strip for nearly 50 years (to the tune of 17,897 strips!) — A lot of reading. A lot, lot of reading. And to read his influences. And his acolytes. And I’m not done, by a long shot, but I think I’m starting to see the margins of life reforming where I can slip in a creative word or two outside my journal.

I’m a blockhead

It's a podcast, Charlie Brown

In the past year, I’ve been learning a lot about comics and how they fit into pop culture in the 20th Century and coming forward to now. So, in an effort to keep my bona fides current, and to be a good creative person, I’m showing my work (#showyourwork) as a sort of disciple of Peanuts fan Austin Kleon has taught in his wonderful books which really kicks off with Steal Like an Artist, his follow up Show Your Work, and the just-released Keep Going.

So, on that front, of being a good museum curator, here is my recent-ish interview for the podcast It’s A Podcast, Charlie Brown. It’s something of a monthly audio magazine for the true Peanuts fan. My interview begins around the 36:30-minute mark or so.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes historical mysteries and works as a museum curator.

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