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