Zoe Brooks's Blog, page 15

Women Writers Newspaper

I may not have blogged in the last few weeks, but I have been very busy.

Firstly I finished work on the second draft of Love Of Shadows (the second in the Shadows trilogy) and sent it to my beta reader.
Secondly I had the builders in demolishing an old woodshed and the large front gate, which was rotten and damaging the gate surround and my good relationship with my neighbours with its banging.
And finally I have been putting together a personal online newspaper about Women Writers. The newspaper pulls together the best and most interesting (to my mind anyway) of what is on the web this week. It combines news, reviews and articles on what is effectively a large pin-board for articles.
You will find it here: http://paper.li/ZoeBrooks15/1341487567# If it works out, I plan to buy a shorter domain name. Please check it out and subscribe. It automatically updates on a daily basis.

I welcome information on relevant online articles, which could be included, but please note that this is not a review site.

Lessons Of History - The Suppression Of Women Healers 1

I am a historian by training and I use history to give a reality to my books. I deliberately don’t fix the books in a specific time or place, but the subject matter and the details are influenced by my knowledge of and research into events in history. In this blog I intend sharing with you some of those "lessons of history."
In Girl in the Glassmy heroine Judith is warned about the dangers of becoming a healer. In the second book in the trilogy Love of Shadows (which I am writing now) she pursues her calling and puts her life at risk. The subject of the suppression of women healers over the centuries is a fascinating one.
Up to the 13thcentury women traditional healers (wisewomen) were practising their arts throughout Europe relatively without hindrance. Their medicines were born of traditions handed down through the generations and tested by use. In addition they were midwives and bonesetters. They were the only medical help available to most people and they had status in their communities as a result.
Then in the 14thcentury things changed. A new medical practitioner was being created – the university-trained physicians – one whose services were more expensive and elitist. Not better. The university medical training at that time was based on Galen's concepts of the humours and governed by Christian doctrine. It did not have the empirical approach of the women healers and was mostly mumbo jumbo. Nevertheless the new male (nearly all universities were closed to women) physicians, supported by the Church, pushed for and got laws forbidding the practice of medicine by non-university trained healers. Suddenly women could not legally practice medicine. Of course given the low numbers of university medical students, these laws were unenforceable across the board, but they could be applied selectively.
The first targets were not the peasant women healers, but literate urban women healers who were in direct competition for the male physicians. In 1322 Jacoba Felice was put on trial in Paris – her crime practising medicine illegally. No matter that she produced witnesses verifying that she had cured them where the university physicians had failed, her competence was evidence of guilt.
The court found that: "Her plea that she cured many sick persons whom the aforesaid masters could not cure, ought not to stand and is frivolous, since it is certain that a man approved in the aforesaid art could cure the sick better than any woman."
Perhaps the true reason for her prosecution and other women like her can be found in two facts:1 Her accuser was a university-trained male physician.2 One witness Jean St Omer stated that Jacoba had visited him repeatedly throughout a grave illness, never asking for payment prior to a cure. He affirmed that she had done more for him, and with far less demand on his purse, than any licensed physician.
As her punishment Jacoba was excommunicated and fined. Nothing more is known of her. In some ways she was lucky, from then on the suppression of women healers started to a more deadly turn. More of that in a future post.

Guest Post

Just a quick note to say that I have written a guest post over on Alexia's Chronicles

It's about the development of Anya/Judith in Girl In The Glass. Please pop over and have a look at it.

Notes From A Story Editor - Background

When I started to write novels I was encouraged to do so by a close friend. And not just any friend: Hannah Kodicek was one of the best story editors in the business. Hannah had had a varied and successful career as an actress, director, writer and latterly story editor in the film industry. She was story editor on the Oscar-winning Counterfeiters and occasionally advised friends with their novels - including Danny Scheinmann ( Random Acts of Heroic Love ) and of course me. 
Hannah was considered such an expert that she lectured on story structure and other aspects of story-making to people in the business on the EU funded ARISTA and MAIA programmes. Many writers will know of The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler - a book which is film industry required reading - which sets out in easily accessible form the mythic form of stories. Fewer will have read the works of Carl Jung and his followers, specifically The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell on which Vogler based his book. Hannah had gone direct to the source, studying myths and fairytales and Jung, Campbell, Von Franz and other Jungian writers. Her lectures therefore had an authority that few others in the business could muster. They also had a practicality and realism, that were important features of my friend.
She was moreover a wonderful educator, which made her work as a story editor all the more powerful. I never sat in one of her lectures, but I had my own private tutorials. We had wonderful sessions talking about story structure and what is more I asked her to read and feedback about my novels. I could tell that at first she was nervous, worrying that I might be sensitive about my babies and that it might impact on our friendship. She needn't have worried, I loved out sessions. She had a way of not telling me what to do, but rather, like all great teachers, asking questions that made me think. She would send me off spinning unforeseen possibilities. She in turn enjoyed seeing what I then came up with. I was, she told me, the best of all her clients. 
Sadly Hannah died of cancer last year. I was writing Girl In The Shadows at the time and although we discussed it, Hannah never got to read the novel. "Don't worry," she said, "You don't need me anymore, you've learned everything." I'm not sure about that, but I have her notes and my memories of our conversations. Once it became apparent that she was dying, we talked about whether her notes could be made into the book she had always wanted to produce or maybe a website, so that future writers could learn as I did from what she had to say. Again she ran out of time. So I have decided to share with you some of what I learned as a tribute to a great story editor in this series of posts Notes From A Story Editor.

Changes to this blog 2

As I was saying, before the publication of Fool's Paradise interrupted my flow, I am planning changes for this blog. Here what I've got lined up: a series of posts about story structure (sharing with you what I learned from a master story editor) more about my research (gypsies, perfume-making, traditional medicine, fairytales, myth, Jungian psychology)anything else that takes my fancy.What do you think?

Fool's Paradise

 Having said in my last post I was going to approach this blog differently, I am going to revert (briefly) to my old ways of using it to announce the publication on Amazon of another book of mine. This time it is Fool's Paradise - a poem for voices which I wrote back in 1992.  The book is available on http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fools-Paradise-ebook/dp/B0087EB5KA




















The illustrations are prints by my friend and mentor Hannah Kodicek. Hannah produced a whole series of prints in response to my writing and it was always our plan to publish a special edition of the poem and the prints. We did not have in mind an ebook, but rather a beautifully produced limited edition paper book. But one thing stopped us: when Hannah moved back to Prague she mislaid the first quality prints (the ones I have used in the ebook being her second or third choices) and never found them again. Her death last year almost certainly means that they will never be found.

Nevertheless the ones I have chosen for the ebook do her justice. They were created by painting on a sheet of glass, often I think with her fingers, and then placing the paper on top.

Changes

I've been thinking about this blog. To date it has been effectively a website advertising my writing, which is fine so far as it goes. But unfortunately that isn't very far.

Everyone says when you start writing "to build a platform (i.e. get readers who will buy your books) start a blog, create a Facebook page, join twitter, blah, blah, blah." All of which I did. But then so is every other author!

I've taken a break from the helter-skelter rush for a platform and in so doing asked what platform I would want. And the answer is that I don't want a platform. A platform suggests a construction you build on or jump from or maybe reach up from. I want individual readers, each one important in the own right. The lovely review from Parents Little Black Book, which I reported in my last post, brought that home to me. As Karen so rightly says "Girl in the Glass" (and "Mother of Wolves") is a "depiction of women who are marginalized by a society that considers them of little value". I have spent 20 years of my life working with such women and learning to understand them. If my books can help others do the same and at the same time have a enjoyable read, then I have done what I set out to do. Of course the more readers I get, the better.


So what does that mean for this blog? It will mean that I will be writing about subjects that relate to the subject matter of the book, influences, research and maybe some issues about writing. Mind you I will still occasionally promote the books themselves.

Amazing Review For "Girl In The Glass"

Wow - first review on Amazon.com from the review site Parents Little Black Book of Books. It brought tears to my eyes - it is just the sort of impact I want from this book. You can find it on http://www.amazon.com/Girl-in-the-Glass-ebook/dp/B007IROBEE/ but here it is in full:

I am Anya and I am nothing.

Occasionally a novel comes along that engages both your intellect and emotions. Those are the stories that captivate and haunt the reader with the beauty of the writing and the wonder of the story. "Girl in the Glass" does all of those things. It held me spellbound in my chair unable to put it aside.

Anya is a young pubescent girl who, along with her sister The Shadow, lives with her paternal aunt after the death of both of her parents. She is, however, unwelcome. Both for her temper and her looks. For Anya has the misfortune to look like her beautiful mother, a woman resented by the aunt. Taken out of school, relocated to her father's former childhood home, Anya is constantly put in a position to fail. She must fail so her aunt will have reason and leave to punish her. As Anya grows in beauty her aunt's hatred grows exponentially. The punishments increase over time to become life threatening. Anya, her sister and the housekeeper know it is only a matter of time before Anya is killed.

On the eve of a marriage arranged for her by the family for a crime she didn't commit Anya and her sister Eve know that Anya's fate is sealed. Her life will only become worse if the marriage ceremony occurs. They decide to leave and take their chances crossing the desert to return to the city of their birth. Undertaking the crossing alone with little food or water they make the crossing by sheer will and grit.

In the desert world they live in, the only "rights" women have it the right to be responsible for everything. If they are attacked it is their fault, if a man wants them inappropriately it the fault of the woman. Anya and her sister are at risk of their very lives if they are found. Changing their names, hiding in the ruins they find work and begin to build new lives.

But Anya, as beautiful as she is, does not find a handsome prince. She finds hardship and abuse are not left behind her. Somehow she must manage to overcome her past, secure her future and take care of her sister.

This novel haunts the soul in its depiction of women who are marginalized by a society that considers them of little value. But it is also heartwarming as it leads us through Anya's life as she fights for her freedom and education. Like the flower that grows in the cracks of a sidewalk even the abused, mistreated and unwanted find a way to thrive.

Karen Bryant Doering,
Parents' Little Black Book

Mother of Wolves

My latest book came out last night on Amazon. It's available only on Amazon - here for British readers and here for American (Amazon.com). Another strong heroine but one totally unlike Judith (Girl in the Glass). It's priced £1.99 and $3.08 respectively.

The tale is set in the lands bordering a great river and concerns a woman who is seeking to avenge her husband's death. I will be writing more about the influences on the book over the next few months, but you have already read about some of them on this blog previously on my post about gypsy hunts.

Some news

I have just had my first review for Girl in the Glass on Amazon and it's a 5*! There is inevitably a timelag between publishing and getting reviews, while people read the book. Unless you are clever and organised, which I am not, and send out review copies in advance. Note to self: plan release of next release now.

 The second item of news is that I have published a poetry book Fool's Paradise on Scribd. It's currently available free at http://www.scribd.com/doc/88392685/Fo.... It only comes as a pdf download or can be read on screen. I will be publishing it with Amazon in a week or so, when the book will be removed from Scribd. The book is illustrated by prints by Hannah Kodicek.