When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

     I knew from about the age of eleven that I wanted to be a writer. When I was a child I wrote poems, short stories, and plays. Despite various distractions along the way, I have never wavered in my belief that writing is what I was meant to do.

How did you get published?

     It was a long and lonely road. I never much believed in writing workshops and courses because it seemed to me that an aspiring writer is better off spending her time writing rather than talking about writing. I did take one poetry writing course in college which I did not enjoy because of the professor's rigid beliefs in "appropriate" subject matter . Since this man was also the editor of a very prestigious poetry journal, the experience was discouraging. This was my first encounter with the subjective, often capricious nature of publishing. Later I did take Robert McKee's story seminar which I found very useful and which I recommend to anyone interested in writing fiction or screenplays.

     The first step toward getting published, especially with adult fiction, is to secure an agent. Most publishing houses will not look at work by an author who is not represented. I wrote two novels and sent out query letters to agents. Many asked to look at my work but although the response was positive, no one felt that either manuscript was commercial enough to be worth representing. With the third novel I finally landed an agent. Unfortunately she was unable to sell that book. This was a real low point. But one editor who read that manuscript and liked my writing suggested I do a book about Esther. When it turned out that I had already decided to make that my next project, it seemed that we were destined to work together! The Gilded Chamber came out about a year and a half after I signed the contract with Rugged Land.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

     First, you have to stick with it. The more you write, the better you will be. Rejections are more common than not. Do not expect your first, second, or even third book to be published. Read voraciously. Most important of all, be flexible. If getting published is important to you, you may not be able to spend years writing the long literary novel you always dreamed of---at least not until you have established your career!

What is your work method?

     I am compulsive in my work habits. I work on a computer in one room of my house. No one else is allowed to use my office. I am surrounded by the mountains of books I'm using for research, which never stops even after I begin writing.  I work from 4:30 am to noon, with a break to take my daughter to school. I do not answer the phone and I try not to look at email. I sometimes use a stopwatch to make sure I am getting in at least six hours. I work a full day every day except Saturday.

     Each book has been carefully planned so I have a lot to work with. But when I sit down to write the actual chapters, I have to see it all playing out before me. I have to hear the characters speaking and see where they are, what their gestures are, and so on. Sometimes I think it is more like acting than anything else, since I am trying to become each character. Distractions make this very hard to do. It certainly helps that I live in a relatively rural area.

How do you do your research?

     I usually begin with a few books that look interesting and go from there. I look at references, bibliographies, and so on. I am especially interested in learning about the environment---wildlife, flora, geography, and so on. This can be difficult to do, especially when I cannot visit a place myself or the place has changed too much in the intervening millennium or more! The web can be very helpful. For Seven Days to the Sea I found that the work of several nineteenth century explorers/anthropologists proved very useful, especially because they visited the area before any modernization.

     I am lucky that my husband happens to be a college professor with a strong interest in history. He has a knack for finding things long after I give up!

How important was it for you to stick to the bible in both The Glided Chamber and Seven Days to the Sea?

     With the story of Queen Esther I decided not to change any of the basic events but to build my novel around them. So while I add plausible back story for Esther and take the events beyond the biblical text, but I do not change the basic narrative at all. Of course readers are rather surprised by some of my choices but a close look at the biblical text reveals that these surprises merely challenge common misconceptions about the story.

     For example, the idea that Mordechai is a wise and pious old Jew makes little sense from the context. First, if he is "sitting in the king's gate" we know from historical research that this means he was a court functionary. Since he tells Hadassah to disguise her heritage by using the name Esther, we can assume that he, too, is an assimilated Jew, or that he at least does not make a show of being Jewish. As for being an old man, or Ether's uncle rather than her cousin (as the text explicitly states), these notions come from the second century rabbinic commentary. Since it was common and even desirable for first cousins to marry, presumably the rabbis developed this view of Mordechai in order to address the apparent impropriety of a beautiful, apparently nubile orphan living in the household of a marriageable relative.

     For Seven Days to the Sea I felt at liberty to be a little more flexible, largely because the history of the biblical text is so fluid. Although we pretty much agree on one version of the events, biblical scholars will tell you that the stories in this part of the Hebrew bible have been stitched together over time in a way that often leads to contradictions or uncertainty about events. Nonetheless, those familiar with the biblical text will not be disappointed. The sequence of events, the characters, and the settings will seem very familiar.

     Of course I do challenge some traditional notions. In writing the novel I started from the position that the events, or at least some version of them, actually happened. But I (and many biblical scholars) am firmly convinced that Mount Sinai would have been in Midyan (not Sinai) and that the desert wandering must have taken place in what is current day Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

     I also do not follow the common belief that Tzipporah was an Ethiopian. She is clearly identified as daughter of Yitro the Midyanite High Priest. But Midyan is across the sea from Ethiopia! I believe that the misconception about Tzipporah comes from Miryam referring to her as a Kushite. But we know that in ancient times the land known as "Kush" included both Ethiopia and Midyan (the west coast of Arabia and north of current day Saudi Arabia into Jordan.)

     In other places where I deviate slightly from the text, notably the mysterious circumcision scene, I felt at liberty to do so because multiple translators and scholars have expressed confusion about the appropriate translation because of the ambiguous nature of the original texts they have to work with.

What are you working on now?

     I am jumping a few years ahead and researching a novel that will take place at the time of the destruction of the second Temple in the first century. The story will include something about early Christianity, Temple politics, and the fall of Masada.