Gary asked Sharon Kay Penman:

When you wrote The Sunne in Splendour in 1982 did you already use a personal computer already? How has technology changed how you write? It must have been far more difficult before the internet to do research for your works? Do you find the net has changed the way you do research?

Sharon Kay Penman I wrote Sunne on an electric typewriter, Gary, all 1200 pages of it. I had to use carbon paper to make copies and white-out to make corrections. I shudder now just to think of that. It sounds almost as if I were writing by candlelight with a quill pen, doesn't it? I actually did not get a computer until later in the 1990's, so quite a few of my books were done that. I used to spend 4-6 weeks in the UK every year, haunting second-hand bookstores in search of books useful for my research. When I'd find one of these out-of-print gems, I'd have to arrange to mail it back to the US myself since few bookshops back then offered mailing services. Nowadays, of course, I can search for out-of-print books from the comfort of my own home. When I was writing Devil's Brood, I wanted to obtain a translation of a book written in Latin by one of the monks at Christchurch Priory, in which he related all the miracles that had occurred at the tomb of the martyred archbishop, Thomas Becket. I finally found it on-line in a Tokyo bookstore! So here was an American author writing in the 21st century buying a book written by a 12th century monk that had been translated into English by a Victorian historian. I used this book in Henry's penance scene at Canterbury; the garrulous monk who disturbs his vigil is Brother Benedict, author of that book. Not only has the Internet made it much easier to find books, I often can find scholarly articles on-line, whereas in the old days, I'd have to make day trips to the U of PA, which had an excellent medieval library. I don't miss these days at all!

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