Goodreads asked Karen Maitland:

How do you get inspired to write?

Karen Maitland I've always been inspired by something Rudyard Kipling wrote – "If history was told in stories it would never be forgotten."

I write about characters who represent the forgotten people of history, those on the margins of society, the outcasts, misfits and maimed who ordinary lives were really extraordinary. They live and died without a voice, without anyone listening to their amazing tales. But I am fascinated by these people, their lives and beliefs You can glimpse the shadows of these hidden people lurking behind the great events of history and they are what makes me want to write.

I like to think that in a strange way by creating fictional characters and giving them a chance to tell their fantastic and sometimes chilling stories, that readers might discover the hundreds of real people they represent and in that way those nameless, forgotten people from our past will be heard and remembered.

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