An interview with Stephanie Parkyn! Author of The Freedom of Birds.
Interview with New Zealand author Stephanie Parkyn!
Out now and available from your favourite bookseller. Publisher: Allen & Unwin.
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Please provide the inspiration behind and overview of The Freedom of Birds?
I was inspired by foundling children and their plight in the late 18th Century and I wanted to imagine an alternative family for them, an unconventional family that might form out of theatres and travelling troupes of performers. We follow the journey of two young French storytellers and a runaway girl through parts of Napoleon’s Empire as they search for a place to belong, while the Empire crumbles around them.
How long did it take to write your current release?
About 4 years, I started while working on the edits for ‘Josephine’s Garden’. The idea for Rémi Victoire’s story – the child who my heroine gave up in ‘Into the World’ came as a bolt out of the blue one morning and I suddenly knew what had happened to him and that I had to continue this foray into French history and the connection between these characters.
With historical novels, extensive research is inevitable. What was the best preparation resource you used in writing The Freedom of Birds?
Really it was the internet. There was such a wide variety of information I needed to research for this story, from the history of Commedia dell’Arte, Paris theatres, fairy tales, political history, to warfare in Napoleonic times. Now we have a world of knowledge accessible to us and it was invaluable for this novel.
What surprising fact did you learn while researching for The Freedom of Birds?
That Napoleon banned the Carnevale in Venice when he took over the city. The centuries old tradition that we associate so strongly with Venice and its masks today. It made me realise what that must have felt like for the Venetian people to have their culture taken away from them.
Is there a story behind the characters’ names Remi, Pascal, Saskia?
I named Rémi right back when he was a baby in my first novel because my heroine wanted to name the child she was giving up, but no, not really! The other names were the first that came into my head.
Do you have a favourite scene and/or character in The Freedom of Birds? If so, please share.
I did really enjoy writing the scene where my travelling storyteller characters encounter the real Brothers Grimm in a showdown in the street. My characters are incensed that the Brothers Grimm are collating folk tales and trapping them inside a book. It feels like the end of their way of life and Rémi in particular is not giving up without a fight!
What key themes do you hope readers see in the reading of The Freedom of Birds?
The impact of dominance and oppression is explored in many ways through the story, both in the political backdrop of the regions occupied by Napoleon’s Empire who are turning against the French for their exploitation and in the lives of the people fighting against having their cultural treasures and traditions taken away. I hope readers will reflect on how the tactics of oppression have been repeated over and over through our social history and can also play out on a personal level.
What or who inspired the fascinating title The Freedom of Birds?
The working title was The Lost Children based on the original title of the French fairytale similar to Hansel and Gretel, but at the very last minute, my publisher suggested a change and I think she was right. I came up with the name and I like that it relates to the tension between many of the characters who want independence, who don’t want to be bound to a place, but can’t help also feeling connected to the people they have left behind. Birds may be able to fly anywhere, but they also conform to paths of migration back home.
Are there any connecting threads and/or shared characters from Into The World, Josephine’s Garden and The Freedom of Birds?
Yes definitely! My first book is the story of a Frenchwoman who disguises herself as a man and joins a voyage around the world at the time of the French Revolution. Abandoned by her lover and fleeing the wrath of her family, she gives up a child. This child is the boy Rémi Victoire in The Freedom of Birds, but we meet him as a young man coming to terms with his mother’s treatment of him. And the gardener and botanist on the voyage described in my first book go on to become involved in the lives of Napoleon and Josephine, so that led me into the story of Josephine’s Garden, and those two men both make a cameo appearance in this story too. I liked being able to cover this tumultuous period of social history in these three books, from the French Revolution to the rise of Napoleon and finally to the end of the Empire.
Which of your three books was the most enjoyable or difficult to write?
My first novel took the longest because I was learning to write at the same time, but all of them have had their challenges. Usually the structural edit, where I try to shape and smooth the story and make it clearer for readers, is the most challenging part.
When did you first realise you wanted to be a writer?
I used to write short stories as a child and collect them together and mark the ones I thought would be published one day! So yes, write from the start, I loved writing stories but I had another career as a freshwater scientist first and I probably only contemplated this life as a writer in my late 30s. I was 45 when my first book was published.
Please share a bit of your publishing journey?
I am indebted to my agent Gaby Naher at Left Bank Literary Agency who took me on with my first novel. That was a great moment of elation, as I had been working on the novel for 6 years and I was losing faith in myself, and it was a huge boost to have her support. She then championed the novel with a number of publishers and I was lucky to find a home with Allen & Unwin. So, I always advise writers who want to be traditionally published to look for an agent first as you don’t lose anything by sending your manuscript to an agent, but you only have one shot to impress a publisher.
Have you taken any research trips that helped or inspired you in any way in the writing of your novels?
Oh yes, I love travel! All of my novels have different parts of the world in them and I love being able to draw from my experiences in these places. One particularly memorable trip involved a residency at Chateau d’Orquevaux in France with fairy tale church and lake and woods surrounding it and a beautiful village nearby. Just magical.
How important is the art of story-telling to you? What tools of learning have helped you most in making your stories the best they can be?
I love the craft of storytelling and learning how to make a story better and challenging myself with different structures. I learn a lot from reading other authors work and noting down when some brilliant effect has been achieved, but I have also attended some fabulous workshops with writers and I always pick up great tips. One thing I have absorbed in my writing is making sure that my characters enter a scene with one emotional state and leave it with a different or opposite emotional state, something I learned from a writer friend who had read Robert McKee’s book ‘Story’.
If you were attending a masquerade ball, which character would you like to dress up as from any of your three novels?
I think I would be Rémi, he would be the most flamboyant and colourful and I love wearing a cape to swirl about!
What was your favourite book as a child and how do you think it helped shape you into the writer you are today?
I loved Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren. I was amazed and thrilled by her independence. She looked after herself with no parents and had a pony in her house! Loved her. I think those themes of women wanting to look after themselves has played out in all of my novels.
Are you working on any new stories? If so, can you give us a hint of what is to come?
I have been researching the Victorian era and the emergence of the lady travellers. There was a period where women started to travel more regularly and sometimes unchaperoned and were having wild adventures in all parts of the world and writing about them. It is a rare privilege to read their actual thoughts and I am finding it fascinating.
Thanks Stephanie for being a guest on my website. May you have great success with your newest release!
Drop by Stephanie’s website for more information on her writing career.
