Elizabeth Kingston – White Mythos in Romance

Elizabeth Kingston was reading racy historical romance as a pre-teen so it’s not surprising she’s a successful author of two historical romance series – one Regency, and the other in 13th century Wales. His there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and today Elizabeth talks about keeping historical romance relevant for modern readers, her obsession with the Mitford sisters, and protecting against creative burnout. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: Why protecting her creative process is Elizabeth’s No 1 thing Historical romance and white supremacist ideology Her current obsession with the Mitford sisters The ‘Once Upon A Time’ moment that got her writing The writers she admires most What she’d do differently second time around Where to find Elizabeth Kingston: Website: https://www.elizabethkingstonbooks.com/ Facebook: @EKingstonBooks  Twitter: @EKingstonBooks Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/elizabeth-kingston What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny: And now here’s Elizabeth. Hi there Elizabeth, and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us. Elizabeth: Hi Jenny, It’s great to be here, thank you so much for inviting me. Elizabeth Kingston historic romance novelist Jenny: Was there a “Once Upon A Time’ moment when you decided you must write fiction or you would have somehow let yourself down, or not completed something you were meant to do?  And if so, what was the catalyst for it? Elizabeth: Hi Jenny, It’s great to be here, thank you so much for inviting me. Elizabeth: Well there is, and it’s a great question. In my case at least there is a very definite answer. For me there was a “Once Upon a Time” moment and it was when I turned 40. It answers itself. I wrote my first novel when I was 29, almost on a whim. It had been a long standing joke between me and my friends for years that “Oh, one day I am going to write a novel A romance novel, I know what they are like, and I’m going to make some money.” Misery in corporate America So I started, and within a few sentences, I absolutely fell in love with it and it stopped being a joke immediately. I loved it, I finished that book and I started another one. And than I stopped altogether. There are so many things that go into that, but basically I stopped and I abandoned the second book. I felt bad about not writing but I decided there was no point in trying to force myself and guilt myself into writing. So I let myself essentially quit.. It was a matter of “that was fun but that was it.” I did assume that one day it would always come back. But one day I looked at myself and it had been ten years and it hadn’t come back. I realized the creative part of me was feeling suffocated. So as I said, I was turning 40, and that’s the age when you look at where you have got to, and what you want, all the midlife crisis stuff is a cliche because it’s so often true, right? And I asked myself “What do I want, and When was I happiest” and the answer was, when I was writing. Feeling like a writer again I wanted to feel like a writer again. That very brief time when I was creating, was the time when I was most myself. I wanted to be that person again, it was the most alive that I’d ever felt really. It was a struggle to get back to it, and that’s a story in itself. I was an administrative assistant, in a nice steady office drone sort of job that was really suffocating my creative side and I knew if I kept on with it I would still be miserable and I would get to the end of my life and I would still be wishing that I’d gotten back to writing. So, yes, misery in corporate America and a mid life crisis. That’s my origin story. Ladies of Scandal Book 1 Jenny: That first book you wrote, was it a historical romance? Elizabeth: It was. It’s published now. It’s called Fallen Lady. Jenny: And did you try and get a publisher at that time? Elizabeth: I did. I queried agents, and I do think that was a part of it, I realized that I needed to toughen up and be really persistent and it was just how the market was at the time, and I don’t think I was ready either. I did try but nobody was interested, and I started on my second book, which is the book that turned into The King’s Man, which is the first book that I published, but the second I’d written. It was very difficult to write, but it was also difficult to get my motivation up. I was suffocating in my job, but the creative part of me was not being rewarded in any way, it was being rejected. So it was a perfect storm for “Screw this!” Right? Getting into historical romance Jenny: Yes! Now we can move on to where you are today. You’ve published historical romance in two very different time periods and places – 13th century England/Wales which is medieval I guess although medieval is a very long period .,… and Regency England.  How did you settle on – firstly – historical romance as your genre – and then the periods. Because these are two of the most popular times/settings for historical romance, aren’t they? The King’s Man, Elizabeth Kingston Elizabeth: I started writing historical romance because it was mostly what I read. I started reading historical romance way too early!!! I say that now – I was ten years old, which is crazy young! The first year I probably read Harlequins and Mills and Boon sort of stuff, which was pretty harmless. The most titillating thing that might have happened is some heavy petting and deep kissing. But by the time I was eleven I had found this historical very late medieval, – Elizabethan I think – set in the time of Henry VIII’s court. It concerned a marcher Lordship as well, so it’s weird that I’ve gravitated back to that time, but that was incredibly titillating, it was just all of this sex all the time. This is the 80’s it was one of these really torrid, epic ones, and I really gravitated to historical from that time on. I’d say I read pretty exclusively historical romance from I’d say ten to fourteen, when I started to fall off from it. I did continue to read some contemporaries, but the contemporaries of that time felt so much like the same book over and over again. They were packaged that way. It was the same to a small extent with the historicals, but there was so much more drama and variety in terms of setting, characters, conflicts and events. It was like this smorgbasbord! Plus it made me feel smart! I could think “Oh well I know who the King of England was” at any period. . .! When it came to writing I gravitated to what I knew. Narrowing down of choice My first was a late Regency – you know set in about 1820 or so, because I knew that was a good period to tell the story that I wanted to tell. And the second book was a medieval because first I wanted to write about a girl dressed as a boy because that is one of my all time favorite things, and I also knew I wanted her to have a sword, and not a whimpy little sword like a fencing foil, but a real “Smite my enemies” sort of sword. It was very clear in my mind that was what I wanted. House of Cads – Ladies of Scandal series So I knew it had to be medieval . . but as you mentioned, medieval is such a huge period, a lot of people don’t realize it is like a thousand years long, meanwhile the Regency is technically only nine years. I think in romance we stretch it to 20 years, but even so, medieval is just huge compared with Regency. And there are so many pockets of history you can choose from, and pockets of events, and unfortunately my imagination was conditioned to the British Isles, because that is what I’d read and the tradition I was exposed to. And it’s such a shame now because I see so many other places I could be writing in – I think all the time of Moorish Spain or some of the sub Saharan Africa kingdoms and city states or even along the Silk Road but I didn’t know any of that I wasn’t exposed it. But I had been exposed to medieval Wales, so I kind of went with that. I will say that back when I was reading very heavily in the genre in the 80s or 90s it was really common for authors to bounce around the time periods they might have some medievals, some Regencies, some Georgians, a few pirate books, a few American historicals, they might even throw in there a few contemporaries, they had this whole range. but there is much less of that now. People tend to stick with one time period. I was probably freed up by some ignorance of the market to write about time periods that interested me, and those were the ones that I had read when I was young.. Jenny: Probably quite good for you as a beginning writer because if you had started off writing about Moorish Spain you might have found it hard to attract readers. I think of American history and there are many periods in American history that aren’t being written about very much, aren’t there? Elizabeth: Yes. There are a few people doing it, we’re talking about the genre as a very broad whole. Beverly Jenkins immediately comes to mind, and Alyssa Cole with her Civil War series, there are authors who have done it and are still doing it but unfortunately they are very few. The focus has narrowed down. Alyssa Cole Book 1 in The Loyal League series The big publishers, Regency is big thing they want. I guess that’s capitalism in general – that’s what people want so that’s what we offer. That’s why when I first started publishing in 2015 I didn’t even look for traditional publishers and agents, because I knew that they were not interested in medievals, and if they are they want it to be very different from what I write. They want it to be that whole “savage conqueror” thing, or a HIghlander, or a Viking – its very “taming the savage” – and they just don’t see a market for anything else. But here is the very interesting thing, while my Regencies have been very successful, my medievals have been far, far more successful and I don’t think anybody in the industry would have said that was possible. So I do think that the readership is very hungry for new stuff. I think they are like me… I mean I am sick of ballrooms, and of domineering dukes and poufy dresses and virginal girls . . . I am bored out of my mind even though wonderful authors can tweak it and give us new perspectives when you think it is only 20 years and we have got all of the globe and all of history to go into .. .. I hear it all the time from people that mine is the first medieval they have picked up, or that they don’t normally read medievals but they like mine. And that’s because mine are a little bit different and people are willing to give it a shot because they have heard it is al ittle bit different. I do believe that historical romance has narrowed itself and the audience that contracted itself accordingly. But there is no reason why we can’t open that back up and I think it is happening very gradually but people have to be willing to take risks. ‘Painfully modern’ yet true to time Regency fashion – The Netherfield Ball – Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice Jenny: I love one of the reviews of your Welsh Blades series on Goodreads. It says she didn’t know another historical writer like you who “writes so authentically in ways that are true to the setting but also, painfully, modern.” Is that part of the attraction of your work? Elizabeth: I means its wonderful if people feel that. There is always this “friendly” debate – I’m not sure how friendly it is sometimes – but we have the so-called “wallpaper” historicals which are really just contemporary novels dressed up in historic clothes and that’s really the only reason they are historicals, so they can have the pretty dresses. There are those and then there are the ones that try and be more historically authentic. I think I came to the point of believing there is no such thing as historically accurate, there is some historically inaccurate stuff, but we are all just portraying our own perceptions of what it was like. I could never write a “wallpaper historical” because it doesn’t appeal to me. What appeals to me about putting something in a historical setting is that we put the same human beings – and we are the same, we go through the same things even if we are a thousand years apart – and put them in a place where the rules are different. Different clothes, same trust issues Human beings have always had trust issues, they’ve always been mistreated, or empowered, or impoverished, just everything in the human experience. Women have been oppressed since we entered an agriculture based society – a long time – so they have always had to deal with powerlessness, and pregnancy and sexual predators. Only our choices are different. The things that our society will or not accept. So much of what I am writing whether its nineteenth century or thirteenth – it feels familiar because it is familiar, we still struggle with the same stuff we just do it in different clothes, and with penicillin and indoor plumbing! If I convey the setting with richness of detail, and if I portray the people with normal joys and sorrows, yes it should feel modern and true to the setting, Those things are not incompatible. White nationalism and romance Jenny: That flows on very nicely into another area you have written about very eloquently and that is the relevance of the #Me Too and White nationalism – both ring bells in romance  don’t they . . . ? And you haven’t ducked from addressing that head on  . . . Elizabeth: I don’t know where to start, it’s such a big topic. A brief synopsis of how I got into it, very unexpectedly I submitted a proposal to an academic conference – and I am not an academic, I want to make that very clear – but I just had a bee in my bonnet in November of 2017 where I saw this call for proposals. It was obvious they wanted the general public and romance writers to respond, they weren’t just looking for academics. And so I put forward this proposal, never expecting that they would choose it, but they did. On the huge topic of white supremacist narratives and the kind of historical fiction that perpetuates it. The harmful mythologies that historical fiction perpetuates. I was incredibly frustrated to discover I was only going to be given fifteen minutes, because it is a huge topic, but it turned out to be a blessing because I was forced to condense it right down to the key points. I can say that I say this very frequently there is nothing new in what I says about it, and for anyone who is interested the papers are available on my site, I also developed it for an article for the RWA (Romance Writers of America) and I believe it is going to be printed in the RWNZ (Romance Writers New Zealand) magazine as well – that’s more written for writers than academics. I’m not really sure how to synthesize it . . Drinking from a poisoned well Jenny: You describe it as drinking from a poisoned well. You say that the “white mythos” found in historical romance is like drinking from a poisoned well. I thought that was a striking image to use. Hate groups in Charlotteville – hi jacking medieval symbolism Elizabeth: Well yes, you know the reason it all came about in America in the summer of 2017 we had a very violent white nationalist rally in Charlotteville, North Carolina, and a young woman died. It was truly appalling sitting here on my couch watching it unfold on the news and I think it was a big wake up call in our society for us to admit that these forces have always been alive and well in our society and its not something to just laugh about and think there are some weirdos out in the woods. They’re not. They’re your neighbors. I was also realizing I was seeing it showing up in discussions I was having with medievalists, because so many of the people who are attracted to medieval history have created this myth of the white homeland. there was noon in medieval times who was not white and Christian in Europe until things got corrupted. They have this very strange mythology they have built up. So I looked at it and thought what can I do in my little corner as a historical romance writer. When you look at the shelves and you see they are dominated by a bunch of rich white aristocratic Christians in Britain, and it is read by mainly Americans who come from a hugely diverse background, and yet somehow that is the only history that all of us go to. A plague of dukes and earls So I started to look at it – and I came to see it was this plague of dukes and earls. Just imagine if we went forward 200 years into the future and we saw 80 per cent of romance was about Silicon Valley tech bros, right? It’s just weird. Just baseline weird. To essentially fetishize one sort of person to that extent. But it also tells us what we value and what we think is desirable and we are also declaring tacitly who is not desirable. Historical romance, I might add, is not the only genre where this is going on, but it is the one with an immediate obvious effects. As I’ve said, history really comes down to someone’s version of what happened; even the most brilliant historians are only writing their version of it. So when you look at what historical romance authors have chosen to enshrine – the rich white straight males – but when you look beyond to what I call the communal fantasy we are creating, it’s really appalling. It doesn’t just leave out real things that were affecting characters lives, but it also distorts history – we are talking about the whole, here, not one individual book – in a way that is purposely designed to justify a system of white supremacy. Not just garden variety bigotry And I realize that sounds really extreme to anyone who has never looked at it that way before, but there is no way that I can call it just you garden variety racism or bigotry. When you look at it it demonstrably upholds tenets of the white supremacist movement and it echoes many of the exact the talking points that these groups adhere to wherever they speak. It just does. And in the majority of these books – and there are exceptions, so I am talking about the standard rule – but the standard rule is that black people basically don’t exist in Europe before the twentieth century. And any culture that is not white and Christian is depicted as incredibly exotic or dangerous or perverted – the foreign other – and the aristocracy was a fine institution and these were people with fine manner and elegance who never mention that much of their wealth came from slave labor and colonial exploitation and out and out genocide. The list goes on and you realize that we are perpetuating white supremacist thinking with these stories. It is so important to emphasize that is doesn’t make you a white supremacist if you like these stories. It doesn’t make you one if your write them. But what I am saying is that there is no reason that we can’t try to reshape our world so it is less approved by the KKK. I guess that’s what I’m saying. Christchurch tragedy affects us all Christchurch tragedy: Picture Newshub. Street scenes and NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern Jenny: Yes. We of course in New Zealand are having this heart searching discussion because of the tragic events in Christchurch two weeks ago which of course are known internationally. We would never have thought something like that would happen in our little corner of the world. The point is noone can escape it. Elizabeth: I hope you in New Zealand know that we think of you so much and so constantly. You know I say it so frequently, I live in a country where events like that unfortunately have become common place and so you get to a point where you- I wouldn’t like to say we normalize it – but you do think “there is another day and what can I do about it.” But I hope you understand how much we are thinking of you and how much you have our sympathy and support. And I think it is wonderful that you are having the discussion, because this is one of the hard things to accept, and that wasn’t built in a day and it’s not going to come down in a day. If it’s going to change – that’s one reason I focus on this broader thing, I don’t know if I am ever going to see a massive change in historical fiction, and the things we do, and I don;t know if its going to trickle down to people’s individual perception, even if we do see a big change. But I do know that it is foundational and if you want a lasting change its going to be generational, and as soon as you start analysing and discussing the things that contribute to it you’re going to be that much further ahead. Jenny: Elizabeth this has been a fascinating discussion and I’d just like to say to listeners that we will put the links to these papers on your website in the shownotes so they can easily click through and follow up on the discussion. The papers – read more here Romancing White Supremacy: the academic paper given at Bowling Green State University: https://www.elizabethkingstonbooks.com/single-post/2018/04/15/Romanticizing-White-Supremacy Advice for Writers – Expanded version https://www.elizabethkingstonbooks.com/single-post/2018/04/17/Practical-Advice-Expanded-edition Jenny: Turning now to your world away from writing . . . is there one thing you’ve done more than any other that’s the secret to your success? Protecting the creative process Elizabeth: Well … gosh I guess it depends how you define success. And for me that comes down to protecting my creative process. Like I said for me it was dead for such a long time. I thought it was never coming back. So now I prioritize that over everything else, and so long as I am still enjoying creating, I am succeeding by my own definition. I have seen so much burnout when people just get fed up and walk away and I don’t want that to happen to me. And that really comes down to not listening to conventional wisdom, because conventional wisdom would tell me that I need to put more of into marketing or promo, or I need to write different kinds of stories that will appeal to more people, or I need to write a five book series according to this timed publishing plan. Blah blah blah. There is so much advice out there. I tend to ignore it all and just do what makes sense to me and what I want to do, what appeals to me, and that means that financially I am only minimally successful. But in terms of what I want to do for my creative self and for my life I am wildly successful. So really, I think you should just block out the voices who tell you you should want something else. There will always that force out there and I think you are going to get what you want if you stay true to what you want. Elizabeth as reader Jenny:   The series is called “The Joys of Binge Reading” because I see it as providing inspiration for people who like to do just that – binge read.  So – turning to your taste in fiction who do you “binge read?” Any recommendations for listeners?  Elizabeth: I will say I tend to binge topic wise so right now I am reading a book on the Mitford sisters and I’d say it’s probably the first of what will turn out to be five or six that I will buy and read on them. Jenny: Is that a biography? Elizabeth: It is a biography of the sisters. So far it is fantastic I wish I could remember the name of the author! But the sisters themselves wrote novels about themselves and their family, each from their own point of view, and I can tell I am going to get a little obsessive . . I will also one of the best binge reads in recent memory a few years ago, was discovering Tana French her Dublin murder squad. It’s so unusual to find books which are so page-turner addictive while as the same time being so gorgeously written. Faithful Place, In The Woods The Likeness, they are just so good I am planning to re-read them again. N.K. Jemisin; Broken Earth series – Fantasy for non fantasy readers. Also for those who like historical fiction, Sharon Kay Penman, her Welsh Princes trilogy Here Be Dragons, Falls The Shadow and The Reckoning that trilogy is what made me set my medievals in that period and the whole movement for Welsh independence and they are huge too so they keep you going for a long time! Her other novels are great too, you get completely lost in the history. And then there is N. K .Jemisin, her Broken Earth trilogy, even if you are not a fan of fantasy which I am not, but I read the first book and I promised the next two once I got my own book finished . Jenny: One writer I had on the podcast recently is Jessica Fellowes. She is the niece of Julain Fellowes who did Downton Abbey, and she is doing a murder mystery series focused on the Mitford sisters. Each book focuses on a different sister. You might be interested in taking a look at those . . Elizabeth: Oh my gosh! You have just determined my reading for the next month! Circling back to the beginning at the end  Jenny:  At this stage in your career, if you were doing it all again, what would you change – if anything?  Elizabeth: It’s going to sound strange but nothing. It’s tempting to say I would go back and get that decade when I wasn’t writing.. because honestly I do look at it sometimes and regard it as wasted time. But I really couldn’t do that, because experiencing that time really helped me get my thoughts straight about what I wanted from writing and publishing and it put me in a mentally healthy place when I decided to go into it. And I wouldn’t have had that. So maybe the only thing I’d change are a couple of typos that got printed. I am still haunted by them – so yes if you gave me a time machine I’d go back and correct those typos, but pretty much nothing else. Jenny:  What is next for Elizabeth the writer? Are you a big goal setter?  And what are you working on next? Elizabeth: I’m not a big goal setter. I just want to keep creating and enjoy the process and that’s hard to do if you are really pressuring yourself. I’ve just finished a story and I am letting go. It always takes me a while to let go Its like a relationship. Its like an amicable break up. I am still singing Dolly Parton I Will Always Love You to it in my sleep! That’s Desire Lines, my most recent medieval. I don’t really know what’s next. Until it announces itself I sit around eating pop corn. My goal is always to keep things where stories can stroll in and demand to be written. Jenny:  Where can readers find you on line  – and do you enjoy interacting with them? Elizabeth: I have a website at ElizabethKingstonbooks.com Readers can interact with me through there. I am most active on Twitter, and I have a Facebook page I go to every day. Jenny: Thanks so much Elizabeth. I admire the way you protect your creative process, and your analysis of historical romance. Elizabeth: Well thank you so much I am always happy with other writers to get on my soapbox about how we are here to create books and we need to look after that aspect first and foremost. I’ve know too many writer who’ve burnt out. And I am always here to shout about that intersection between historical romance and white nationalist ideology. I am not going to shut up about it anytime soon, and I’m not the only one who is talking about it, I am very glad that there are people willing to listen and consider and approach it with intellectual honestly and an open heart. Thanks To Our Technical Support: The Joys of Binge Reading podcast is put together with wonderful technical help from Dan Cotton at DC Audio Services. Dan is an experienced sound and video engineer who’s ready and available to help you with your next project… Seek him out at [email protected] or Phone + 64 – 21979539. He’s fast, takes pride in getting it right, and lovely to work with. Our voice overs are done by Abe Raffills, and Abe’s another gem. He got 20 years of experience on both sides of the camera/microphone as a cameraman/director and also voice artist and television presenter. Abe’s vocal delivery is both light hearted and warm and he is super easy to work with no matter the job. You’ll find him at [email protected]