A Conversation with DEBORAH HARKNESS & Paperback Release of SHADOW OF NIGHT

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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Q: <i>A Discovery of Witches</i> debuted at # 2 on the <i>New York
Times </i>bestseller list with publications following in 37 countries.  What
has been your reaction to the outpouring of love for <i>A Discovery of Witches</i>?
Was it surprising how taken fans were with Diana and Matthew’s story?</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A. It has been amazing—and a bit overwhelming. I was surprised by
how quickly readers embraced two central characters who challenge our typical
notion of what a heroine or hero should be. And I continue to be amazed
whenever a new reader pops up, whether one in the US or somewhere like Finland
or Japan—to tell me how much they enjoyed being caught up in Diana’s world. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Q:  Last summer, Warner Brothers acquired screen rights to
the trilogy, and David Auburn, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning writer of <i>Proof</i>,
has been tapped to pen the screenplay. Are you looking forward to your novels
being portrayed on the big screen?  What are your favorite casting ideas
that you’ve heard from friends and readers?</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A. I was thrilled when Warner Brothers wanted to translate the All
Souls trilogy from book to screen. At first I was reluctant about the whole
idea of a movie, and it actually took me nearly two years to agree to let
someone try. The team at Warner Brothers impressed me with their seriousness
about the project and their commitment to the characters and story I was trying
to tell. Their decision to go with David Auburn confirmed that my faith in them
was not misplaced. As for the casting, I deliberately don’t say anything about
that! I would hate for any actor or actress to be cast in one of these roles
and feel that they didn’t have my total support. I will say, however, that many
of my readers’ ideas involve actors who have already played a vampire and I
would be very surprised if one of them were asked to be Matthew!</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Q: SHADOW OF NIGHT opens on a scene in 1590s Elizabethan England
featuring the famous School of Night, a group of historical figures believed to
be friends, including Sir Walter Raleigh and playwright Christopher Marlowe.  Why
did you choose to feature these individuals, and can we expect Diana and
Matthew to meet other famous figures from the past?  </span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A. I wrote my master’s thesis on the imagery surrounding Elizabeth
I during the last two decades of her reign. One of my main sources was the poem
<i>The Shadow of Night</i> by George Chapman—a member of this circle of
fascinating men—and that work is dedicated to a mysterious poet named Matthew
Roydon about whom we know very little. When I was first thinking about how
vampires moved in the world (and this was way back in the autumn of 2008 when I
was just beginning <i>A Discovery of Witches</i>) I remembered Roydon and
thought “<i>that</i> is the kind of identity a vampire would have, surrounded
by interesting people but not the center of the action.” From that moment on I
knew the second part of Diana and Matthew’s story would take place among the
School of Night. And from a character standpoint, Walter Raleigh, Christopher
Marlowe, George Chapman, and the other men associated with the group are
irresistible. They were such significant, colorful presences in Elizabethan
England.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Q: In SHADOW OF NIGHT, we learn more about the alchemical bonds
between Diana and Matthew.   In your day job, you are a professor of
history and science at the University of Southern California and have focused
on alchemy in your research.  What aspects of this intersection between
science and magic do you hope readers will pick up on while reading SHADOW OF
NIGHT? </span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A. Whereas <i>A Discovery of Witches </i>focused on the literature
and symbolism of alchemy, in <i>Shadow of Night </i>I’m able to explore some of
the hands-on aspects of this ancient tradition. There is still plenty of
symbolism for Diana to think about, but in this volume we go from abstractions
and ideals to real transformation and change—which was always my intention with
the series. Just as we get to know more about how Elizabethan men and women
undertook alchemical experiments, we also get to see Matthew and Diana’s
relationship undergo the metamorphosis from new love to something more.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Q: SHADOW OF NIGHT spans the globe, with London, France, and
Prague as some of the locales. Did you travel to these destinations for your
research?  </span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A. I did. My historical research has been based in London for some
time now, so I’ve spent long stretches of time living in the City of London—the
oldest part of the metropolis—but I had never been to the Auvergne or Prague. I
visited both places while writing the book, and in both cases it was a bit like
traveling in time to walk village lanes, old pilgrim roads, and twisting city
streets while imagining Diana and Matthew at my side.  </span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Q: Did you have an idea or an outline for SHADOW OF NIGHT when you
were writing <i>A Discovery of Witches?  </i>Did the direction change once
you sat down to write it?</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A. I didn’t outline either book in the traditional sense. In both
cases I knew what some of the high points were and how the plot moved towards
the conclusion, but there were some significant changes during the revision
process. This was especially true for <b>SHADOW OF NIGHT</b><i>, </i>although
most of those changes involved moving specific pieces of the plot forward or
back to improve the momentum and flow.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Q: A <i>Discovery of Witches</i> begins with Diana Bishop
stumbling across a lost, enchanted manuscript called Ashmole 782 in Oxford’s
Bodleian Library, whose secrets Diana and Matthew are still trying to uncover
in SHADOW OF NIGHT. You had a similar experience while you were completing your
dissertation.  What was the story behind your discovery?  And how did
it inspire the creation of these novels?</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A. I did discover a manuscript—not an enchanted one, alas—in the Bodleian
Library. It was a manuscript owned by Queen Elizabeth’s astrologer, the
mathematician and alchemist John Dee. In the 1570s and 1580s he became
interested in using a crystal ball to talk to angels. The angels gave him all
kinds of instructions on how to manage his life at home, his work—they even
told him to pack up his family and belongings and go to far-away Poland and
Prague. In the conversations, Dee asked the angels about a mysterious book in
his library called “the Book of Soyga” or “Aldaraia.” No one had ever been able
to find it, even though many of Dee’s other books survive in libraries
throughout the world. In the summer of 1994 I was spending time in Oxford
between finishing my doctorate and starting my first job. It was a wonderfully
creative time, since I had no deadlines to worry about and my dissertation on
Dee’s angel conversations was complete. As with most discoveries, this
discovery of a “lost” manuscript was entirely accidental. I was looking for
something else in the Bodleian’s catalogue and in the upper corner of the page
was a reference to a book called “Aldaraia.” I knew it couldn’t be Dee’s book,
but I called it up anyway. And it turned out it WAS the book (or at least a
copy of it). With the help of the Bodleian’s Keeper of Rare Books, I located
another copy in the British Library.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Q: Are there other lost books like this in the world? </span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A. Absolutely! Entire books have been written about famous lost
volumes—including works by Plato, Aristotle, and Shakespeare to name just a few.
Libraries are full of such treasures, some of them unrecognized and others
simply misfiled or mislabeled. And we find lost books outside of libraries,
too. In January 2006, a completely unknown manuscript belonging to one of the
17</span>^{<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 6.0pt;">th</span>}<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> century’s most prominent scientists, Robert
Hooke, was discovered when someone was having the contents of their house
valued for auction. The manuscript included minutes of early Royal Society
meetings that we presumed were lost forever. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Q: Unlike Twilight’s Bella and Edward—hormonal teenagers who meet
in the halls of a high school—your leading characters Matthew and Diana are
established academics who meet in the library of one of the most prestigious
academic institutions in the world.  This is a world where vampires and
witches drink wine together, practice yoga and discuss philosophy.   Are
these characters based on something you found missing in the fantasy genre?</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">A. There are a lot of adults reading young adult
books, and for good reason. Authors who specialize in the young adult market
are writing original, compelling stories that can make even the most cynical
grownups believe in magic. In writing <b>A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES</b>, I wanted
to give adult readers a world no less magical, no less surprising and
delightful, but one that included grown-up concerns and activities. These are
not your children’s vampires and witches.</span></span><br />
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