6. How you imagine the fate of Lady Mary Seymour is a lovely answer to the long-standing mystery. Did you think of the ending before you wrote the novel? During? After?
I knew before I began the novel that I wanted Mary to live. There is no record that Mary Seymour died, and even the hints are ambiguous. I admire Kateryn Parr, I feel deep affection for her, if I may, and I wanted to give her daughter a life. The book is, at its heart, about mothering: the mothers we are born to, the ones we choose, the people we mother unofficially, and how important good mothering is. How we crave it. There is no doubt that Kateryn Parr mothered the Tudor children well. I think she had a gift for mothering. She mothered Juliana. And in a way she could not have expected, she reaped what she’d sown, in teaching Juliana how to mother Mary.
7. On your website, www.sandrabyrd.com, the first line of your biography states: “After earning her first rejection at the age of thirteen, bestselling author Sandra Byrd persevered and has now published more than three dozen books.” Was this the first story you ever wrote? What was it about?
Actually, it was a poem. And in my innocent naïeveté, I sent it off to a publisher and thought, well that is that, now I’ll be published. I am forever grateful to the intern who took the time to send a rejection postcard to me. I think the first full story I ever wrote, as a teen, was about star-crossed lovers who were magnetically, tragically, melodramatically, attracted to one another, although they were from opposite poles, North and South. You can see why that didn’t get published, either. But writers learn by writing and reading, and by being edited, so I expect it helped somewhere along the line, because here I am, published!
8. You offer your services as a writing coach on your website. If you had one piece of advice to give to an aspiring writer, what would it be?
I’d echo author Jane Kirkpatrick, whose work I admire:
My best advice is to silence the harpies, those negative voices that say “who told you that you could write?” or “what makes you think your book will get published?” Just write the story of your heart and put duct tape on those harpies.
Sometimes the harpies are inside your head, sometimes they’re other people. Find people who will nurture both you and your story, who help you protect your talent all the while insisting that you grow in your craft. And trust yourself.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SANDRA BYRD has published more than three dozen books in the fiction and nonfiction markets, including the first book in her Tudor series, To Die For: A Novel of Anne Boleyn. For more than a decade Sandra has shared her secrets with the many new writers she edits, mentors, and coaches. She lives in the Seattle, Washington, area with her husband and two children. For more Tudor tidbits, please visit www.sandrabyrd.com.
AUTHOR PHOTO © STUDIO PORTRAITS