Lila Cain: Co-Writing Journeys and Unveiling Historical Truths

What if a writing partnership could transform skepticism into a creative powerhouse? Marcia Hutchinson and Kate Griffin, the dynamic duo behind the pen name Lila Cain, join me to share their compelling journey into co-writing their novel The Blackbirds of St Giles.  Marcia and Kate open up about overcoming initial doubts and embracing their identities as writers, despite starting with established careers elsewhere. Their candid discussion on imposter syndrome offers valuable insights for any aspiring author battling self-doubt.

We reflect on the creative processes that shape our writing journeys. Marcia and Kate stress the importance of mental peace and personal experiences in crafting authentic stories. Whether sharing anecdotes about navigating writer's block or discussing the emotional layers of their characters, this episode is packed with reflective moments and practical advice. Join us for a memorable exchange that promises to resonate with writers and history enthusiasts alike.

The Blackbirds of St Giles

Some things are earned. Some things are worth fighting for… 

It’s 1782, Daniel and his sister Pearl arrive in London with the world at their feet and their future assured. Having escaped a Jamaican sugar plantation, Daniel fought for the British in the American War of Independence and was rewarded with freedom and an inheritance.   

But the city is not a place for men like Daniel and he is callously tricked and finds himself, along with his sister Pearl, in the rookeries of St Giles – a warren of dark and menacing alleyways, filled with violence and poverty.   

The underworld labyrinth is run by Elias, a man whose cruelty knows no bounds. But under his dangerous rule is a brotherhood of Black men, the Blackbirds of St Giles, whose intention is to set their people free.   

Can Daniel use his strength, wit and the fellowship of the other Blackbirds to overthrow Elias and truly find the freedom he fought for…? 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Writing Partnerships and Creative Collaboration
• 4:22 Navigating Imposter Syndrome and Discerning Titles
• 10:41 Working Together as Writing Partners
• 21:42 Unpacking Black History and Dehumanization
• 34:07 British History and Injustice Balances
• 45:15 Exploring Historical Writing and Collaboration
• 55:43 Exploring Makeup, Plot Points, and Liberties
• 1:06:42 Protecting Peace and Writing Process
• 1:17:03 Exploring Personal Challenges and Growing Pains
• 1:22:25 Saying Goodbye to Kate Griffin

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

My theory is it's got to be a good story, that number one first and foremost. That's the through line, and then when you've got them hooked with a good story and a good plot, you can sneak in some historical like and by the way. But if a novel was written as a sort of didactic, you must learn this. You must learn that it's not going to work.

Speaker 2: 0:19

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Conversation with your host, nadine Matheson. As always, I hope that you're well and I hope that you've had a good week. If I'm honest, I think last week was a bit intense, which is why I would like this podcast, the Conversation, to be your refuge. Every week, I have amazing conversations with brilliant guests and we talk about everything and, as my guests are always told before we start recording, it's not known for these conversations to go off on a tangent, but the tangents are always good. So I hope this podcast is a refuge and, as always, I thank you for your support. But there's also another way that you can support me. Also another way that you can support me. You can support me not only by liking the podcast and sharing it and recommending it and posting comments. If you're listening on spotify, you can post comments to every individual episode and I see the comments and I'm able to respond, and people have been really good at leaving comments so far, so continue to do so. You can also support the podcast by buying me a cup of coffee on Ko-fi. Or, if you don't like coffee, you can buy me a cup of tea and, honestly, for the price of a cup of tea or the price of a cup of coffee, you can support the podcast. And also, when you click on the link and you're taken to the Ko-fi page, you will also see that there is merchandise exclusive and you're taken to the Ko-fi page, you will also see that there is merchandise exclusive the Conversation merchandise that you can buy, and also signed copies of my books. And actually, speaking of my books, the third book in my Detective Inspector Angelica Henley series, the Cure List, is released in paperback this week on Thursday, the 30th of January, which, coincidentally, not only is it the day after my birthday, which is on the 30th of January, which, coincidentally, not only is it the day after my birthday, which is on the 29th. It will be two years since the podcast, the Conversation with Nadine Matheson, was launched. So this is actually a very special episode because we're celebrating three things we're celebrating my birthday on the 29th of January, we're celebrating the second anniversary of the Conversation podcast and we're celebrating the release of the third book in my Detective Inspector Angelica Henley series, the Kill List. If you go down to the show notes, the links to the Kill List are there and you'll see that the link goes directly to bookshoporg and that's because it's important to support independent bookshops. So give me a present, like and share and recommend the podcast and buy my book and support me on Ko-fi Right. Let's get on with the show.

Speaker 2: 3:03

This week I'm in conversation with Lila Kane, and Lila Kane is actually the writing partnership of Marcia Hutchinson and Kate Griffin, and their book, the Black Birds of St Giles, which is the first in the series, will be published on Thursday, and the link to purchase the book is also in the show notes. And I've always been fascinated about writing partnerships, because how do two people actually sit down and write a book together, especially when I think you may have two authors who have two completely different writing styles, and how do you decide who does what in terms of where the direction of the story goes, where individual character arcs go? I just find it fascinating, which is why it was an absolute decide who does what in terms of where the direction of the story goes, where individual character arcs go. I just find it fascinating, which is why it was an absolute pleasure to talk to Lila Kane, aka Marcia Hutchinson and Kate Griffin, and in our conversation we talk about what it's like to write in a partnership, the mental gymnastics we perform as authors when dealing with imposter syndrome and the intricacies of writing characters who have a different background to you.

Speaker 2: 4:10

Now, as always, sit back. We'll go for a walk and enjoy the conversation. Marsha Hutchinson and Kate Griffin, welcome to the Conversation. Hello, thank you. Good morning, right. My first question for both of you is what was your first thought in your heads when you were first approached with this project for your book, the Blackbirds of St Giles? You go first, marcia.

Speaker 1: 4:35

Well, it just seemed a bit weird. We share it, we share it, we have the same agent. And she said you know, would you be interested in working with another writer on this book? And I'm like why? I honestly didn't think it would take off until I met Kate and we just hit it off. So we met myself, kate, eugenie and Eileen Maisel, who's the woman whose original idea it was to create the book. Eileen has sadly died and we've dedicated the book to her.

Speaker 1: 5:11

Yeah but once the four of us got together and just started bouncing ideas off each other, I thought you know it's a long shot, but it just might work yeah, that's exactly how I felt as well.

Speaker 3: 5:22

It's really strange. That's um, exactly ascia says. When Eugenie came to me and said, you know, how do you feel about writing this book? I exactly thought why? Why it was my first, very much my first. And then she was quite canny. She kind of engineered a couple of meetings between us and it was quite clear that you know, the awful thing is, once Marcia and I get together, we don't stop talking. But you know, the awful thing is, once Marcia and I get together, we don't stop talking. And, as you may find later on, and yeah, it just kind of, as Marcia says, we just kind of like just span ideas out, didn't we? And it was clear there was something there that we could take and work with together.

Speaker 2: 5:58

You know, you know it's such an honest answer when I ask you what you think, and it's just like why I think some people would feel pressurized to be like I need to give a really diplomatic answer in response to this question. But it was, and I think that would be my thought. I'd be like why? Like, why are you asking me to write with someone? It's like, what do you want from this?

Speaker 1: 6:20

yeah, and there was also some insecurity on my part, thinking, oh, I don't know that I can add anything to the project and and it took a while to sort of get over myself. I think you know that whole idea of we are good, we do have skills and you know, I'm a writer. For years I couldn't say the words I'm a writer without giggling afterwards and and that's like learn to take yourself seriously yeah, that's important it.

Speaker 2: 6:46

No, it is because I know, marcia um, you're a lawyer as well, like I am and. I always said that I found it in the early I say the early days of being published. I found it easier, when people asked me what I did, to say I'm a right nothing. Say I'm a lawyer, they'll be, yeah, I'm a lawyer, I'm a solicitor. I would say that first and then I'd mumble I'm a writer, like afterwards the thing about being a solicitor is you've taken exams, you've got certificates.

Speaker 1: 7:11

It's completely formal. You can literally hold up a certificate and go proof, whereas you know it's not not quite that easy with them with a book no, I was a communications manager for years for a heritage charity and I was so disappointed because no one knows what that is.

Speaker 3: 7:27

Let's face it, such a nebulous area. You know on the passports, when you used to have like your profession and you could write and I was so excited about writing author, that's my profession and it changed. It changed, you can't write that anymore, so I'm so sad.

Speaker 2: 7:44

It depends where you go, because when I go back to Grenada they still ask you on the form, on the immigration form, what you do as a profession. So I think it took me, even until recently I was still putting down lawyer because I thought I didn't want them, because my parents I say my parents my mum, she's very heavy into politics and she's very unvocal about the politicians and the MPs and I thought if I put down I'm a writer, they're probably going to think I'm coming to the country to do some kind of expose. So I still put lawyer down. Kate, when did you become comfortable? Well, were you always comfortable calling yourself a writer?

Speaker 3: 8:22

No, no, exactly as Marcia says, imposter syndrome. I know a lot of people talk about imposter syndrome, but it is very real because you know, all of a sudden you're doing something that you may have secretly dreamed about doing for a long time, and it takes years, I would say, for you to actually acknowledge yourself and accept that this is what you're doing. So, I mean, I've written quite a few history books, which is why Marcia and I made a good mix for this one. But even when I was writing them, I was still working as a communications manager and I didn't you know, kind of for a long time, if people, exactly as you say, asked me what I did, I would say, oh, I work for a charity. I didn't, you know, I didn't feel confident enough. Also, you know, it seems a little bit arsey, doesn't it? You know somebody says to you oh, really, genuinely. You know, you go to a dinner party or something. Oh, if they exist still, and people say so what do you do you go? Oh, I'm an author, don't you know?

Speaker 1: 9:14

I mean it just sounds wrong. It sounds really pretentious absolutely.

Speaker 2: 9:20

It's ridiculous, though, that you know I say, sitting here as free-grown women, and you still have to go through this thought process of, well, should I say this is what I do or this is what I want to do? Am I going to sound pretentious? Are people going to think I'm stuck up and asking and saying to themselves well, who do you think you are you want to?

Speaker 3: 9:36

be a writer and I do wonder this is probably wandering off into another territory, but I wonder if a man would feel the same sometimes.

Speaker 2: 9:44

I don't think they do, because I was talking I don't know if I was talking to someone or I read it somewhere and they were still was basically saying how a man if they said, oh, I want to fly a plane a woman would be like, well, I need to take lessons, I don't think I'm qualified, I need to do all this, whereas the man would be like, yeah, I can fly a plane, of course I can. What can be so hard?

Speaker 3: 10:10

yeah, men tend to overestimate their abilities and women tend to underestimate their abilities, I think that's true and I don't want to be controversial about it or sexist about it, which is but I do think that women kind of like genuinely kind of take a step back and feel, and I think women feel embarrassed about their achievements a lot, and I think this is exactly what Marcia and I, you know, are kind of feeling really.

Speaker 2: 10:32

Marcia, because you, I think, is it your debut, your own individual, like debut novels out in, is it in the summer, in July. In July. So did you feel the fact that you hadn't had a book out yet, did you think that kind of I'm not saying affected you, but made you, yeah, think twice about taking on this project?

Speaker 1: 10:52

well, sort of partly because it was the my agent had signed me for um, you know what was hopefully going to be my debut and then introduced me to Kate and I did sort of feel like the junior partner. You know Riffin and Hutchinson solicitors, but in some ways it's I mean, it's sort of coincidental that my debut comes out in the same year. But I do feel that now I've got my own name on a book because Kate's written four books. I feel that you know I can, I can, I can, I'm a writer in my own right, as well. As how Up With Lila came.

Speaker 2: 11:26

Yeah, that's a nice position, though, to have like two books coming out in a year.

Speaker 1: 11:32

I keep saying it's like if you spend five years waiting for a bus and then three come along at once, then ages waiting for a book deal, and now there's three. There's Blackbirds, my solo debut, and the next year is the second, um, the, the sequel to blackbird.

Speaker 2: 11:50

So we've got a two book deal on blackbirds, yeah, yeah we're writing it now in fact, I should be writing my, my chapter now I want to ask this, what I want to ask you about because it's there I mean, you're not the only couple, um, you know who write together and because there's so many books out there when you look behind the orphan and you realize, oh, it's actually two people and I'm just always interested how does it actually work? Is one person doing a chapter? I don't know, how does it work?

Speaker 1: 12:19

well, the way. It was almost accidental. We sat down and we basically the first first meeting was buzz, buzz, buzz. Oh, here's an idea, there's an idea. And at the end of the first meeting I thought, yes, I can work with this woman, I think I can work with her. And then we sat down and we basically plotted the book. So we came up with the overall plot, we came up with the book. So we came up with the overall plot, we came up with the characters and I think what I bring to the team is a sort of more in-depth knowledge of Black history, and what Kate brings is this in-depth knowledge of London and London history. And we batted ideas and characters backwards and forwards and then, when it came to, so I think, we came up together with the skeleton, and then when we were deciding, all right, how are we going to write it, at the time I was running for election as a local councillor, so I was knocking on doors every week and I I said very generously, I said, kate, you write it, you write each chapter.

Speaker 1: 13:18

Send it to me and then I'll go through each chapter. Um, and that's how we've worked. And literally 4 pm every friday, it was this woman's work ethic, oh god. And I would go through it and I'd be like, no, I'm not sure about that and what about this? And you know, I would never question anything on the details of london history because I think, well, that's kate's area. But when it came to anything to do with African history, black people, that kind of thing, that was like I'm on it. I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 3: 13:50

We did argue, we did argue.

Speaker 2: 13:57

No, because when I was, you know, when I'm going through the book and I'm going through my questions, and it was that one it was like an interview question that kept popping into my head. You know, if you've been interviewed for a job now, oh, can you work well in a team? Yeah, so I need to put that question to them can you work well in a team?

Speaker 3: 14:15

we, you do, I think. You know. I think right at the beginning I think we did kind of like stalk around each other like a couple of cats who were kind of like you know, seeing, you know, is this my kind of cat kind of thing? Really? Um, but I think we realized pretty early on that, yes, we were each other's kind of cat and that it was fine. But then that, but I think it's important, if you're part of a writing partnership, to fight as well, um, and to fight for your corner when you, you know you're right and Marcia was always right, to be perfectly honest with you. Fantastic scene, that was terribly dramatic. And then Marcia would say, yeah, but actually a black woman would never do that or feel that. And I would say, why not bristle, bristle, bristle? And then she would explain and I would go, oh, okay, all right, and then I'd go back and kind of like you know, rewrite that scene and then bat it up to Marcia, and then Marcia would rewrite that scene.

Speaker 1: 15:09

So you had this scene like somebody was really nervous and tense and as they gripped the seat, the whites of their knuckles. And I'm like if they're black they ain't got no whites in their knuckles, and that's ignorance on my part really. But it's that granular detail which, if a white person has written black characters, they start to seep in the ringlets and it's like my hair doesn't go in ringlets only when it's washed, when it's literally dripping wet, mine will it was more getting into the character of a black narrator which I think is where I really came in and just understanding and looking at this novel from a black perspective.

Speaker 1: 15:59

So if you were talking about a character, you wouldn't need to mention their skin colour if they were black. You only need to mention it if they're white, because if you take black as the default setting which obviously doesn't happen these days but you think, okay, if we're looking at this from a black character's perspective, you don't need to keep pointing out X and Y are black. You only need to say and so-and-so a white person came along and it's

Speaker 2: 16:29

really sort of making that because like that, yeah, yeah, I had a comment once on I think, what book it was. It was the first book I self-published the sisters and, um, someone in it was on goods. So back in the days when I used to read the Goodreads comments.

Speaker 2: 16:47

And someone wrote oh no, and they did it as well with the Jigsaw man, so my crime fiction debut as well. Someone said oh well, you didn't say that the main character was black on the first page and go down to say you didn't just say they were black and you didn't describe their complexion. My response was that's because I, looking at myself, I don't wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and say who is a black woman today? I was surprised every morning why would I have my black character doing that? Because that's just not how you operate.

Speaker 2: 17:23

And yesterday I was having a conversation um. A friend of mine is from Tanzania and was talking about like application forms and in the United Kingdom and possibly in the States you'd have to fill out you know where exactly you're from if you're Black, british, black Caribbean, black African, there's so many different boxes. And she was saying in Tanzania, that just doesn't exist on the form and I was saying in Grenada, I. So you're not being we're not, you know if a black person, you're not being forced to examine your like, your blackness, every single day of the week it's like shimamande and gosia dj.

Speaker 3: 18:00

So she only realized she was black when she went to america, because in nigeria you didn't have to go, oh yeah I think another interesting thing actually about um, about the whole process of when we were writing it was it was just it was during the second lockdown as well. Oh was it? Oh yeah. So we kind of met, didn't we, marcia, and we had kind of like a lovely time at Claridge's of all places, where Eileen took us, lovely Eileen, she wanted to talk about the project, and then we were all fired up. And then the second, you know, when Boris Johnson cancelled Christmas. So then Marcia and I were kind of like all fired up about writing our book together. And then we can marcia lives um in manchester and I live in st albans. It's like 250 miles or so between us it's like what did we do?

Speaker 3: 18:46

so we do. I mean, I I remember over that first january I think it was january, a bit of february we had like regular zooms and then we kind of realized that we both like a glass of wine with our zoom, so we like chat, um, and it became, and you know, actually it was one of those lifesaver things, I think, for everyone. Yeah, yeah, because I love chatting to Marcia and eventually, you know, we chat about our lives and then then we'd realize we chatted rather a lot about our lives. So so, you know, we kind of became sort of friends by default through that period.

Speaker 1: 19:17

I think, because it was someone you were talking to every week. So we'd do the book and then we'd go off on all sorts of other things and, as it turns out, we're almost exactly the same age, yeah, and have lots of other things in common.

Speaker 3: 19:29

So yeah there was a lot to yeah and it's, and I think for both of us it's been a a really interesting learning experience as well. I mean, I have learned so much from marcia about language, about presentation, about, um, you know actually individual grainy words that you can use. It's been, yeah, it's. I've felt quite privileged actually. Did you learn?

Speaker 2: 19:52

anything about yourself. I was going to ask did you learn anything about yourself? You know, when Marsha was saying earlier about you know she can talk about things or write about things from a Black perspective and obviously you can write about, say, the history of London. But did you learn anything about yourself in that process of writing?

Speaker 3: 20:11

with another person and writing the book what I learned is I thought that I was a very liberal white person who was very aware of all forms of prejudice and I learned from Marcia that I'm not and that a lot of us take for granted. You know our liberal credentials and actually I think I learned to listen actually from Marcia. That was. That was a really important thing and it took me quite a long time to do that.

Speaker 1: 20:40

That's really honest of you, kate. Yeah, because it's, I think when you come to a project, like I did, you know, when we sat around the table there was myself, a black woman, kate, eugenie a white woman and Eileen, a white woman. So we're kind of outnumbered three to one here and they're all saying we want you to bring your perspective to the, to the project. You know, please say, if anything, yada, yada, yada. But the first few times I read something in the text I still felt, oh, can I say? And gradually my confidence built and I'm like, no, we're not having this, and it took quite a while. What do they say about groups forming, norming, storming and performing? Oh, you've not heard that one before.

Speaker 2: 21:22

No, I love it.

Speaker 1: 21:24

You're learning from it. You sort of come together as a group you form, then you develop your routines, the norming, Then the storming. It's where you start arguing and you feel confident enough to say no, I'm going to stand my ground on this. I disagree and then the performing is where we're just motoring nicely and I think we're performing now.

Speaker 1: 21:42

But the storming was hard because I'd read a chapter and think, you know, when you come across something, it's not even a microaggression. I'm sort of talking to you, nadine, and it it lodges, but you don't really think about it till later.

Speaker 2: 21:54

And then you think, oh, hang on a minute, I'm not happy about it, kind of grace that's what I describe kind of grace on you when you're like, hmm, you need to like process it.

Speaker 1: 22:02

Yeah, because straight away, in the moment you cut, you don't quite have the words, you just have the sensation, the feeling, and it's your gut that's telling you. But your gut isn't necessarily translating stuff into words and the other people are saying, oh, do say. And you can't say I just have a feeling, so that's not exactly saying. But then, finally, when I did get to it, I would then go back to kate and say you know what we said in that chapter?

Speaker 1: 22:26

I don't think I was, I don't think I was happy about that, because I think there was one area probably their first arguments where Kate wanted to illustrate how badly the um protagonists were treated and like someone spat at them in the street and I was like can we just have the one spitting? You know, we don't need everybody they pass hawking and spitting at them. And she's like I want to demonstrate and I'm like I need to show it. We got, I think, um Patterson. Joseph, who's just wonderful, who narrated the book, talked about sort of the porn of seeing violence done to black bodies, and I haven't found his example and I just thought that's it. You can illustrate it without constantly having them go through these awful scenarios.

Speaker 1: 23:11

So, I would pull Kate back and Kate would say but I just want to see, you know, sort of see to demonstrate how awful they were, awfully they were treated, and it's like to be fair it would have been true to a certain extent as well, but on the other hand, you know you can't.

Speaker 3: 23:26

You know, if you can't, it's like there are certain words that you use and then it makes it acceptable, um, and there are certain scenes that then kind of like become so it mossy, was right, you know, to ingrain that kind of stuff was wrong.

Speaker 1: 23:40

Um, because when I was when I was little. Um, love thy neighbor. The tv series was on, yeah, and the white character would call the black character all sorts of names and the two wives would go oh, aren't they silly.

Speaker 3: 23:53

And and then you go to school on the monday and everyone would call you the names from the tv series and it's like you've literally just given racists a vocabulary to insult you, you open that doorway, um, and you know, even though love thy neighbor was supposed to be kind of like, you know taking a mickey out of the racist white people, you know it kind of it didn't hit that note with a lot of people a lot of people just thought, aha, you know, they got their notebooks out and it's like, oh, we've got a few more names, they've got they've got their permission slip signed.

Speaker 3: 24:23

Exactly, it's permission you're giving people permission and that is and marcia has really, really taught me that and also I noticed that in a lot of our um, our kind of chats with chats with lovely Simon and Schuster who are publishing this novel, you know I noticed that they were using language to describe Daniel and Pearl in some of their stuff that Marcia had said so you know the word slave, it's an enslaved person, and I didn't realise that. Now, obviously I totally get that. But I noticed that in some of their kind of press releases and things they would say slaves Marcia. So saves Daniel and Pearl. And I would ask them to change it because you know, and then I think you know the Marcia would chip in and say, yeah, good, and obviously Marcia and George were thinking, yeah, I've really got that, yeah, you've stripped away all of their identity, except this one thing the fact that they have been captured.

Speaker 3: 25:11

That's not all they were except this one thing the fact that they have been captured.

Speaker 1: 25:14

That's not all they were, which is not always, and the thing I was. I mean it didn't come into the book, but something, because my area of of history is black history and I've written a number of children's books. My the aim was to try and get this kind of history on the curriculum, particularly at primary age, and trying to point out that there was no sort of generic slave. People were valued based on their skills. So if someone was a rice grower, that was the most valuable skill, because growing rice is really hard. So people didn't just grab people and like put them to work. Oh, you can grow rice, or you're a carpenter or you're a blacksmith excellent, you are more valuable doing all these things. So the idea that people were just generic slaves it's just yeah, it's wrong.

Speaker 1: 25:55

It's literally denying any of their humanity, and that's what I wanted to get away from. Also, the fact that black history started long before enslavement which is what we tried to bring into the book.

Speaker 2: 26:06

Yeah, that was really important that, yeah, but um, when I was reading, when I was reading the black bird of saint giles and I can't remember who says it someone in the beginning says something about when I was reading, when I was reading the Black Bird of St Giles and I can't remember who says it someone in the beginning says something about the Moors and immediately in my head I'm like my dad always used to talk about the Moors, because I think there's this feeling that this Black history, just it begins with slavery and there's like nothing prior to that and I'm like no, my dad used to talk to me all about the Moors and and Black you know, and Black history and how far it goes back. So even some people are like surprised when they find out that you know there's been Black people in, say, in England, since the Romans' time, like they're surprised. Why are they like? What do you mean? You didn't just come over on the Windrush. I'm like you didn't just come over on the windrush.

Speaker 1: 26:51

No, they've been knocking around. I mean, Septimus Severus, a Roman emperor in Britain, was black. He's the one who built Hadrian's Wall, and this is the kind of history that I'm trying to get across, the fact that our children growing up in schools will never hear. You'd only hear about that if you were doing a doctorate and it's like why is that not in more basic curriculum?

Speaker 1: 27:17

why do we do the tudors every five minutes again and it's like well, you can find space for henry and all his evilness, with all his wives, but you can't find space for all these basic things yeah, no, it's really.

Speaker 3: 27:28

I mean, I think it's quite interesting. A lot of people you know, these dna tests, that people get the ancestrycom, and there's loads of people who kind of like can't believe that they've got you know four percent, um kind of like north african blood or algerian blood or nigerian blood, and it is because you know, at some point over you know kind of two thousand years ago, some roman, black, roman legionnaire you know intermarried with the local maybe, maybe not intermarried, you know had a go with the local population had relations.

Speaker 3: 28:03

The interesting thing about Rome is you know your skin exactly. As Marcia said, your skin colour didn't matter in ancient Rome. It was what you brought to the table in terms of your skills, your abilities, your craft, your nous, all of that, and that is really fascinating. Your craft, your nous, all of that, and that is really fascinating. And I think that the really drug thing that happened in the 18th century and a little bit before is that you know people forgot that. You know people who they were kind of like transporting across the Atlantic were people first. You know they became seen as something, they became seen as a commodity.

Speaker 1: 28:31

But I sort of disagree slightly with you there. It wasn't that people forgot it was. There was a deliberate process of dehumanisation.

Speaker 3: 28:39

Yes, that's a much more important thing.

Speaker 1: 28:41

And that process was a pseudoscientific body of work which said they're not as intelligent, they're basically animals. So it's okay to treat them like this, Whereas slavery was started in terms of black slavery, it's like well, it's quite easy to treat them like this, Whereas slavery was started in terms of black slavery, it's like well, it's quite easy to find them if they run away. That was it. It's like excellent, so that was the justification. And then it was like oh, and, by the way, they don't die as easily as the Irish. They practiced on the Irish. Oh well, they keep dying. They're quite robust. And it's like okay, now we need a philosophical justification for what we're about to do.

Speaker 1: 29:22

So it's like okay we will argue that they are not very intelligent. We will argue that the Bible says it's okay. And so you come up with this huge body of work, a huge area of scientific body of work which is still with us, and that's something, that's a book called the Bell Curve, which 30 years ago some American scientists were basically arguing black people are stupid, there's no point in any welfare programs because you will never raise them out of the mire of their own making, because he will never raise them out of the mire of their own making. And it's that intellectual justification which is still with us. But nobody, you know. People think, oh, it was accidental. No, no, it wasn't.

Speaker 1: 30:04

It was very, very deliberate, very intentional. It was a process of justifying enslaving other human beings. You know, when America became independent, the black people were considered two-thirds of a man.

Speaker 2: 30:19

And it's like now that's weird. They had to change the amendment, they had to change the constitution.

Speaker 1: 30:25

Yeah, the Southern Democrats wanted. They didn't want black people to have the vote, but they wanted to be able to count them so they, the Southern Democrats, could have more votes, but so we can't count them as a whole person. I know two-thirds and that, yeah, that research done or those justifications that were brought out by the americans were then later used by the nazis to justify what they did to the jews. So there's a conference I think it was in berlin over a weekend, where they said okay, how are we going to define what is jewish? Because if you're going to exterminate people based on being jewish, you have to, um, identify them.

Speaker 1: 31:06

And so they looked at the american model, which was one drop if you have one drop of black, that makes it black. And the nazis said I think they've gone a bit too far. We'll go for grandparents, so if you've got a jewish grandparent, that makes you jewish. So they had to have a measure, any criteria, yeah. And they decided that what the americans did, no, no, we can't go that far, because if you're going to find one drop of jewish history, they thought, well, we probably all get killed. Then, yeah, that was pushing it.

Speaker 2: 31:34

I know I'm ranting, I'm on my saltbox I always feel like, whatever you do, whatever project you take, you know you take on you, you should, you should learn from it. And I think and I always I feel like it's a it's always a skill when you're writing historical fiction, that it doesn't feel like a history lesson, if that makes sense. You're not just giving facts upon facts, upon facts upon facts, because the story is important. Because, kate, even when you was mentioning the, you know people doing their DNA. You know doing their DNA. I did it before Christmas. My dad was, like why are you spending money on that? Like don't you know where you're from? I know, but I'm also, I like history, I want to know what did you find out?

Speaker 2: 32:18

well, firstly, they had a deal on, which is why I did it.

Speaker 1: 32:22

I found out that they had a deal they had a deal on.

Speaker 2: 32:26

So I did it, but the parts of my parents, my family's, from Grenada. But when they do, the origins, and obviously most of it is West Africa and Central Africa. Like I already knew that anyway, because you kind of work out depending on what island you are in the Caribbean, where you came from, in Africa. But the interest, and then also I knew that on my dad's side we have Scottish in the class where Matheson comes from. So that wasn't a surprise and I knew my mum always told me that her great, I think her great grandmother or great great grandmother, was French. So that came up, but it was the Greek. I was like where's the Greek? I have no idea. So Greek and and portuguese, that was the surprise. But the um, the west africa and central africa, that didn't come as a surprise. But then what my brother was saying when he when I could obviously like shared it with him, both of them, and it shows where you ended up.

Speaker 2: 33:28

And we just went straight from north West Africa straight to Grenada and Venezuela. And my brother just said the thing is it wasn't a cruise, was it? We ended up in Grenada and you're like we can laugh at it, but it's like we didn't go there by choice. There's a reason why we ended up in Grenada and Venezuela. Yeah, which's a reason why we ended up in Grenada and Venezuela.

Speaker 2: 33:54

Yeah, which is crazy.

Speaker 1: 33:55

And I think it's fascinating that you just mentioned that your surname is Scottish Matheson. Yeah, because my name, hutchinson, is also Scottish. My mother's maiden name, robertson, is also Scottish and again, it's the tentacles of history. So, unlike other parts of the British Empire, scotland wasn't conquered by Britain. They actually had a treaty to join and when you read that treaty, there's a really important clause in the treaty which says in relation to the Scots, and we can have access to the empire and the Caribbean plantations. That was a big part of it. It was like we'll join forces with you and can we please get access to all of the riches of the caribbean. So a huge number of scots, as soon as that treaty was signed, went over to the caribbean, hence our names and in fact the sequel that we're writing now, that that turns on an important plot point.

Speaker 3: 34:47

Doesn't it marcia? Indeed, it does.

Speaker 1: 34:50

My learned friend.

Speaker 2: 34:54

You know Marcia said in the beginning that you know she was. I say your areas of expertise would be hers would be Black history and yours is London history of London. Did you know about the Blackbirds of St Giles before you started the project?

Speaker 3: 35:18

I did. And there's something important to say about the Blackbirds of St Giles is that black blackbirds doesn't refer to color, um, it refers to, kind of like the fact that St Giles was a rookery which, and a rookery was kind of a place where very poor people there was nowhere else for them to go. It was the depth of Georgia and London. So the people who were living in St Giles there was a distinct black community living there and they were well, as Marcia will know, they were kind of often former servants who were dismissed and had nowhere else to go and also, as Daniel in the book, former people who'd fought for the British army, either as in the navy or actually, as Daniel does, in the army. And when they arrived in Britain they were promised, basically a promised freedom. You know, when they arrived in Britain because you know you've served the crown, but then because they weren't born in Britain, they had no pension, they were not given, they weren't considered full members of the forces because they weren't born in this country. So they would end up in the rookery as well. Also in the rookery there were loads of Scots who were displaced by the Highland clearances, who just kind of came straight down the Great North Road and the first place they they came to in London was the St Giles Rookery, because Tottenham Court Road is the end of the Great North Road, it's where the rookery is. So you know they'd get off the road and there they'd be.

Speaker 3: 36:20

Ireland at the time Ireland, you know Ireland was treated incredibly badly by Britain and in fact Irish people were also considered, I think, as Marcia hinted earlier, as kind of like little modern savages and they tried to escape from especially kind of like areas like Dublin. So they came to the rookery as well. And poor, vagrant people you know people who kind of like just you know people who kind of who just fall on hard times they all ended up in the rookery, um, and what united them all was poverty, not not skin colour poverty, and kind of just a desperate desire to live. And they huddled together and the rookery the word rookery comes. I think it is the kind of genesis of the word to rook somebody, which is kind of like trick them or god. And so people who lived in the rookery were seen as thieves and vagrants and vagabonds, but in the reality of it they were just people trying to live. They were people trying to kind of put a roof over their heads and survive in the harshest circumstances possible.

Speaker 3: 37:19

So I did know about the St Giles Rookery because I love London's history, um, and I you know kind of and I think what's. Oh sorry, I'm really taking up a lot of space here, but Marcia and I's book is that I think a lot of history books look at kind of like the posh salons and the posh lords and ladies and the kind of like the kind of Jane Austen type history where it's all kind of like sumptuous dresses and ball gowns and things. And well, I think a point of distinction about our book is not just its kind of black point of view but also the fact that we're looking at really poor people. They are not inhabiting the kind of like the highest echelons of society. They may kind of butt into them but they are really trying to survive. That's that's.

Speaker 1: 38:03

And, if I can, just coming on on something you mentioned about these people who fought for the British army but they didn't get pensions. Yeah, it has a current parallel of the Gurkhas. They fought get pensions. Yeah, it has a current parallel of the gherkins they've got. You know, joanna lumley had a major campaign, it's still going on. You get all these commonwealth people who you know literally putting their lives on the line and then it's like, no, you can't have a pension. What you want, citizenship. It's like, oh, how dare you. We didn't want to write a book about windrush. But there are those parallels of people, strong parallels. People, would you know, putting their lives on the line for britain and then being literally treated like dirt dumped yeah and you know my family are people who get.

Speaker 1: 38:52

My parents came over as part of the Windrush generation and you see what has happened. I don't want to get too much into the sort of current politics, but when you look at what's happened to this group of people, many of whom have died before they've got any compensation, I have family members who were rounded up at dawn and put in detention camps Sorry, immigration centres. We don't call them prisons. Some of them are worse than prisons because at least if you're in a prison you know when you're going to get out. But if you're in an immigration detention centre, you have no idea when you're going to get out. And it's this two-tier society where one group of people have citizenship and another group of people don't. And the group who have citizenship and rights they almost are not willfully ignorant, but it's unaware of what's going on under your very nose.

Speaker 2: 39:45

Yeah, I believe I strongly believe that. You know, things are cyclical, so they will come back around. So these things that we're you know that we're talking about now with the gherkas and windrush, they're not just in isolation. It's happened again. It's happened previously in a different guide, yeah, so it's not just like, oh, it's just something new. Because I remember when, you know, when the whole windrush scandal came out, and I've got my parents their original passports, the old black I say black or dark navy card card back passports, and my dad's one and obviously my mum's as well. It was it says Grenada on it, but also I think it says British subject, and so this is the thing. You know, they're always British subjects if you're part of the Commonwealth. But then you come over and then there's this whole argument. You know they're sending people back and say, well, you're not really British, but like you came over because you were a subject.

Speaker 1: 40:42

What's astonishing is that one of the reasons that the Windrush scandal was as bad as it was was because officials in the Home Office did not know anything about Black history. They didn't know all of this. So there was a decision made let's write something that gives them a quick primer on Black history, so at least they know. They're not necessarily going to read the Blackbirds or other things. And this is when Priti Patel was Home Secretary. So they commissioned a report and the purpose of this report was to give Home Office officials the background. And you know what? The government refused to release it. They refused, they suppressed it for three years, their own document that they produced to give the staff some background.

Speaker 1: 41:27

And when you read it, it's brilliant. That's probably why they refused Brilliant, that's probably why they're with you. Literally. I'm saying to Kate we've got another book here. We've got another book here. It's so good because it's quite short, but it's a sort of, you know, a quick history for people who are dealing with Windrush and other people. And you can see why the Home Office don't want to release their own document, because it kind of ooh, it paints them in a not good light. And that's a neutral document, it's just facts. These are some of the facts.

Speaker 2: 41:59

Well, how do you, both as authors, when you're writing this book and also writing the sequel, how do you balance the history and the facts, but also with the telling of the story, because you know, it's the story of Daniel and Pearl? And you know being the story of daniel and pearl and I and I, you know, being a crime writer, I would say it's also there's a thriller aspect to it, as well, you've got the deceit.

Speaker 2: 42:23

Yeah, I'd say it's uprising. You have all. You have the action. How do you balance that? Because that's a skill not many people can do it. Well, because lots of people get bored of historical fiction, because it's yeah, my, my theory is.

Speaker 1: 42:35

My theory is it's got to be a good story, that number one first and foremost that's the through line, and then when? You've. When you've got them hooked with a good story and a good plot, you can sneak in some historical like and by the way. But if the novel, if the novel was written as a sort of didactic, you must learn, learn this, you must learn that it's not going to work. If it's a novel, it has to work as a story first.

Speaker 1: 42:56

It's going to turn people on and I think sometimes when you read novels which are sort of thinly disguised polemic, you kind of have a sense of being manipulated as a reader and I think that's I have to say. That's where Kate comes in. She can tell a good story say, that's where Kate comes in.

Speaker 2: 43:17

She can tell a good story. I can tell a story. I was going to say ask you, kate, because you know you've written four historical, actually more. I've written more than that. It's always more than that this is my eighth.

Speaker 3: 43:25

This is my eighth. I wrote two history books, for kids as well, um, and I also wrote Fine Shade, um, which came out a couple of years ago, which is sort of a gothic melodrama. Is it always historical?

Speaker 2: 43:37

Always, always historical, what attracts you to it, what makes, what draw you to writing historical fiction.

Speaker 3: 43:42

Because I find the past much more comforting than the present. I really do. I think you know you can control the past in a way you can't control the present, and I kind of. I love history. I always loved history. I did history at school. I did history, english art and law for my A-levels and they're really all about the part well, art wasn't, but they're all about actually no, I even are I used to draw my costume.

Speaker 3: 44:06

I love costumes. I think that's what it is I love. I love costumes. So in my head, you know, when we're writing up, when we're, when I'm writing up from our notes and kind of using it as a basis, I see it all you know, in front of me and they've all got their costumes on and you know they're all kind of and I love it. You know, I love doing it, but I do think that the present world is a very scary, frightening place and I don't understand where it's going. So you know, there's a kind of a comfort and a certainty in the past that I kind of retreat to and it's a comfort zone, even though it's not very comfortable.

Speaker 2: 44:40

You know, what I was going to ask you to say is that, you know, the past can be comforting in the sense because, say we know it, we know what's happening. That's what it is, but then also, isn't it also I say discomforting when you can kind of see the mistakes that were made in the past being repeated again in the present? You see where the template came from.

Speaker 3: 44:59

Actually, I mean, I hope it's not didactic, I don't think it is. But you know, when we were writing it we were really very aware of the Windrush parallels for Daniel and Pearl in what we were writing. You know, it kind of just shone through for Daniel and Pearl in what we were writing. It kind of just shone through. I think Hilary Mantel said something quite interesting about writing in the past with the whole Wolf Hall thing. She spent so much time researching, researching and researching so she knew that period, she knew Henry VIII caught inside out, and then she would just put all of her research away and write. So she only kept in her head the essentials that you know needed to push the story along. Because I think if you put too much, if you kind of like full prey to putting too much of your historical knowledge into the book, the reader is just going to think, oh christ, this is boring. Get to the story listeners.

Speaker 2: 45:51

It's time for a very short break. If you're enjoying this conversation with Nadine Matheson and want to help keep the podcast going, why not buy me a cup of coffee? Your support goes such a long way in keeping these conversations flowing. Just check out the link in the show notes. Well, not only is it boring, it's like you can tell. You can tell when a writer's just sleeping in a fight yeah, well, even that they're just like.

Speaker 2: 46:16

I'm determined, I'm gonna put in everything I've learned about this situation and I'll put everything in the book and it's, it's so obvious and you're like, for god's sake, you don't need to prove yourself to me, just tell me the story, tell me the story, exactly exactly which I hope is what we did.

Speaker 3: 46:32

I really hope that's what we did.

Speaker 2: 46:33

No, I think. Yeah, when I was reading the opening, I was just like oh my God, who wrote the opening? Was it collaborative?

Speaker 1: 46:40

No, it was collaborative, we both knew exactly how it opened and I kind of like did a first draft and then that opening went back between us, I think about five or six times until we were both you know kind of um, because I think one of the things that sort of my area of expertise is and I know I keep coming back to it but I went to a stately home in Bristol and there was some statement about it wasn't Colston, but it was someone similar who you know their money came from enslavement and there was a placard in the house saying he was a kindly slave owner and I was just like, oh, come on now. It's a contradiction in terms you're, you're gonna be kind and have work for you for the rest of their lives without pay.

Speaker 1: 47:28

What do you have to do to a human being to get them to that stage? And this is one of the things I was talking to Kate about, because when I was researching for my children's books, which are sort of textbooks for schools, I thought how much of this am I going to put in? But there were literally instruction manuals on seasoning slaves. And the instruction manual said okay, when you get a group that's come across, you look at them and you find not the strongest man but the second strongest one and you beat him to death in front of everyone. So they know what's going to happen to them. This is, this is torture and murder, but you make sure everyone's watching. So first of all, you're going to traumatize them. And then there was a list of suitable punishments for things. So it's like, okay, if they eat the sugar cane that they are harvesting, you pull their teeth out. Then they will. Then they can't eat the sugar cane, but the the horrific things that were done to people.

Speaker 1: 48:23

And and when slavery ended, there was a sort of almost a tacit agreement between formerly enslaved people and their formal slave holders. Let's never speak of this again. So the shackles and all of that were literally buried. Let's bury them, let's put them away. And then people dug them up and you find shackles that are tiny and you realise they've been designed for children. And one of the you know incidents that come in the book is just the horrific things that were done. And because we want to spare the horses and spare people's blushes, we don't tell children what was done. So you get this situation where people think, oh, they must have liked being slaves. You know it must have suited them. And it's like no, no, the horrific torture that was done is literally swept under the carpet. There's one guy who kept a diary and when you read his diary you realise that he committed about 3,000 rapes, partly because he got paid.

Speaker 2: 49:22

You know, it's like if you impregnate these women, you will get a bonus because you're producing more stock, but none of that matters because you know he was a kind A kind A lovely person. In fact, is that kindness in dehumanising people?

Speaker 1: 49:36

Yeah, Another thing that I wanted to is this was all commercial. This was you can make lots more money if you don't pay your workforce. You can also practise techniques that might not be acceptable in the UK. So a lot of the techniques which were then used in the Industrial Revolution were perfected in the Caribbean. So sugar, when it ripens, spoils very, very quickly. So when you're harvesting it you have to do it 24-7 over a sort of two-week period and have the presses working, and if somebody's arm gets ripped off it's like, well, we can't stop the presses. Yeah, you've got to to chop the arm off so that the machines would keep working, because the sugar will spoil. You know, if you're setting sugar in your business, it's business, and those the the production line techniques that were um developed in the caribbean, were brought over to england and used in the Caribbean, were brought over to England and used in the Industrial Revolution.

Speaker 1: 50:33

So it was a testing ground, and that's one of the things that helped Britain get the amount of money it had. Firstly, it didn't have to pay its workers and secondly, you could practice lots of dodgy stuff on people. But that's never acknowledged.

Speaker 2: 50:50

No, there's always such a gap because I love history Same thing like I did my history. Obviously you love. I love history same thing like I did my history. Obviously you do history GCSE. I did my history A level.

Speaker 1: 50:57

I did my oh, we all did history A level yeah, I love it.

Speaker 3: 51:00

Yeah, you see history girls.

Speaker 2: 51:04

I did American studies in history and you're always, you know, doing all of that and I've always been a reader. So I remember in school, in secondary school, and, um, my my history teacher said, we're gonna study I don't know if he said we're gonna study American history or something I thought, oh good, I'm off. I went to the library and I got all the books. So I knew that period of history would involve talking about black history and slavery. So I thought, oh, I know about this and I'm gonna get my books. And we got to school and we just leapfrogged over it and just went on. So it's like, yeah, it's like you completely missed out this whole section, but but that was just the way it was. I think throughout the whole educational system there's always such a big, massive gap in history, in British history, around slavery.

Speaker 1: 51:50

So that's why you had this uproar, which is why I started an educational publishing company which I ran for 15 years primary colours and it was about getting that history back into schools and making sure that children learned about this stuff. I, when I did A-level history, I was one of, I think, 15 of us doing A-level and, of course, the only black girl.

Speaker 1: 52:12

And I remember when our history teacher said right today we're doing the scramble for Africa, and they all just turned and looked at me. It was really sort of yeah difficult, oh, by the way, I did. I did art and English as well, kate. So you see, I knew we had a lot in common we're friends, we're all about each other on your podcast and law.

Speaker 3: 52:37

So your pair of you are sort of former lawyers.

Speaker 2: 52:40

I'm a little too old can I ask a really practical question, because you know writers always ask whether they're planners or pantsers. What are you both? Are you both planners? Because I don't know how it could work if one was someone who just you know I need to plan everything and someone else is just like I'm just going to write and just see what happens writing together.

Speaker 3: 53:00

We're planners. Yeah, I think you have to be, don't you? You couldn't do it in any other way.

Speaker 1: 53:06

But what I find, oddly enough, is the planning gets a bit pantsy, if that doesn't sound mad yeah, so we got together to write book two and I was just like ideas fire, oh, and this and that and that could happen, and that could happen. I'm like are you taking notes, kate, because I can't remember what I say? Five minutes, five minutes time, literally. In a morning we had the second novel planned, because when I'm with Kate, the ideas are coming so thick and fast and they're sparking and it's it's like that alchemy when you get with that yeah, when you get to the, when you get with your writing partner, I can now see why I say screenwriters work in pairs.

Speaker 1: 53:38

Because I could come up with lots of possible legal twists that would move the plot along. And I don't know if you've heard of the Schindler's Song and you wink, wink and she did. So it was I don't think I've ever had an experience like that that because we, we, we came up to manchester and we, we planned two days. We were just sitting in a hotel in two days and work, we had it done in the first morning. It's like you've run a marathon.

Speaker 3: 54:05

You have right wow, last year was so exhausting she had to go and have a lie down.

Speaker 2: 54:11

I don't think people understand writing is exhausting, hard hard work. I'm listening to this podcast and, um, she was basically saying she held up her book and she said it's not easy. This is not an easy process. Writing a book is hard work. There are times you're sitting at your desk surrounded by absolute chaos and you're like why the hell am I doing this? Why did I agree to? Did you ever have those moments either of you? Why did I agree to do this?

Speaker 3: 54:43

no, actually, no, I love yeah.

Speaker 1: 54:45

I've had that on my solo work because you've got nobody, just you. Yeah, the joy of blackbirds is you've got somebody whose shoulder you joy of blackbirds is you've got somebody whose shoulder you can cry on when it's all, oh my god, so there's always someone to talk to. Yeah, whereas that the the loneliness of the solo writer is, it's just, it's just you and your type writer and your ideas, and you're looking at your typewriter, in my case, writing, bawling, going. Why am I doing this? You know, why did I decide to do this?

Speaker 3: 55:14

I think it's quite liberating having a co-writer, because you, you know you're not entirely responsible, are you? You kind of like, if you come to a dead end, you kind of immediately have, you know, you know your second brain or your other brain to kind of talk to and you know it's um you think you can't avoid writer's block in a sense, because if you do oh yeah, it was never any writer's block you hit a wall.

Speaker 2: 55:35

Yeah, if someone Never right.

Speaker 1: 55:38

If anything, it was kind of the opposite. I'd say, ok, what about the thing? And have you put the thing in under this? And one of the things with the second book is Pearl works in a theatre and I was talking about I said we need a chapter on makeup, and how she finds it hard to find um stage makeup for herself, and how what she has to do to change the lipstick to suit her, and and that that uh felt that fed into a plot point and I'm like, oh yeah, now we're working and so it's yeah, it's the opposite of writer's block.

Speaker 2: 56:08

I find I've got writer's diarrhea but you know, you know the makeup thing because you know I say everything's cyclical. It always just comes around again and so you know. So pearls in the theater is like trying to. You're trying to find your match, you know, trying to find the right foundation. And I was explaining to um, calling my nieces and my goddaughter, so I took them shopping for one of their birthdays, so a couple of months ago, and my I called on my niece, maya. She calls in her phone. She has me saved as auntie Sephora because I have a lot of makeup. So she's just cheeky, but I had to explain to her.

Speaker 2: 56:48

I said for me there was a time I said I didn't, it wasn't until I was maybe because I'm 48 and what it was, until maybe I was like in my 40s where I could walk into a shop and just pick out a shade of makeup and not have to go to the count. You know, go to the lady and say, have you got a shade that matches me? And they go for everything. They're like, no, we haven't got anything and you're having to mix and match and blend just to find something that matches. And you say, and it's so, that's it. Only in my 40s I've been able to walk into a store and say, oh, can you have, can you have shade b80? Like yes, yes, there it is. There's a whole range, that's it was interesting.

Speaker 3: 57:26

That's what we had to do with pearl, really didn't we? Yeah, you know kind of, and and actually, as Marcia said, the fact that Pearl needs a specific shade of lip colour or carmine to put on her lips to make because, when all the candles in the theatre are on her, and that became an interesting plot point, didn't it, when we finally worked out what she would do with it. I can't give too much away because we're running out of time.

Speaker 2: 57:55

Whenever I do these podcasts, we start talking about the book. We're like, hmm, like we always talk around things because you don't want to, you don't reveal the spoilers, you want no, but it does the book too, which we kind of planned in that kind of flurry of excitement, really just kind of ripped off where book one ends.

Speaker 3: 58:12

So yeah, but it's Pearl's book. So the first book was more or less told from what we told it from Daniel's point of view, and this, the second, the sequel, which is the Nightingale of Covent Garden, is told from Pearl's point of view in your acknowledgements.

Speaker 2: 58:29

You said that I don't know. I don't know which one of you said it, it could have been a joint thing. You said you had to take some liberties. Yes, I'm asking you to show you what liberties. But how did you go about taking liberties? Because I always feel that I do it with my police procedural? I said, look, I have to take liberties Because if I write too close to the law, if I try and keep the story to the law, I get stuck, I write myself into corners. So I have to be flexible with it. But I always say as long as the rest of the story is authentic, then people can follow you when you do take liberties. How were you taking liberties?

Speaker 3: 59:04

well. I think that Pearl and Daniel are treated much better than they really would have been that, um, I think we've softened not softened because it's still pretty awful what happens to them, but I think they would never have been given the opportunities that they have. That wouldn't. I don't think that would have happened, although in a sort of crazy, almost akensian way. It kind of like it's one of those like oh, incredible sort of start points, whoosh points when they get the inheritance. But I think that initial inheritance, um, is it's probably a liberty I could be, you know, yeah but on the other hand we make it very clear that it's a debt of honor and that's why they get the inheritance, which kind of like starts, kickstarts the action. When I read it I was like just a horse, but you know, but you know that's a human thing, isn't it? Because that couple really love them they and they've got no kids of their own and they really love them. And also it's debt of honor because daniel has saved his life um down.

Speaker 1: 1:00:07

He probably knew his brother was a bastard sorry.

Speaker 3: 1:00:12

Yes, well, he hopes he isn't.

Speaker 2: 1:00:14

He hopes he's changed Marcia but you know what I think Marcia was saying, um, earlier in the conversation when you were talking about you know saying, and one having a character spit either Daniel and Pearl, and you say you're not going to have this. I don't know. Aggression like you can't have it on every single page and I always think you know, because me and my brothers, all the family and friends, when we're talking about it, talking about microaggressions, I said racism is not someone screaming the N word at you every single day.

Speaker 2: 1:00:46

It can be really, really, really subtle in the sense that, yeah, in the sense that I say look, say, look at my name, nadine Mapperton. I said I've lost count the amount of times I've gone into an interview. My brothers have said the same. My brother's called Gavin, one's called Jason, I think Gavin. I think Gavin is Welsh, I'm not sure Jason comes from, nadine is French. I said they they're not expecting us to walk into a room and there's that moment and, like you'll see, it's like a little flash in the eyes, like oh, oh that's not what you know, and it's these little micro aggressions that you have to think of.

Speaker 1: 1:01:19

Is this the hill I'm going to die on? Can I do?

Speaker 1: 1:01:22

I want to bring this one up not long ago and I'm going to name the place the Randolph Hotel in Oxford, which is Posh Hotel in Oxford. I was there with friends. We're having breakfast and it was just gorgeous. In this dining room, this wonderful, I was going up to the buffet and I was dressed like I am today. You can't see, but I'm wearing a purple leather skirt, which is relevant, and as I walked up to the buffet, somebody said to me excuse me, and I am in no way dressed in any way remotely like the serving staff at that hotel. And I remember Gina Yashere saying you know, what is it about me that you think that I shouldn't be in first class? Because it was. She was questioning me and you know, afterwards I wished I'd said what is it about it, about me that makes you think I'm a server? And at the time I just said I don't work here. But my white friends who were with me looked at me and were like shit. And I'm like, yeah, happens every day.

Speaker 2: 1:02:25

It goes for what you say. It's like you've got to choose. It's not only like you have to choose who you want to dance but also it's exhausting when people of colour, black people, asian people, whatever say it's exhausting because it's the same thing over and over and, over and over again and I don't, I don't have the energy to be fighting every single day.

Speaker 1: 1:02:43

What Kate was saying about being a well-meaning white liberal and yet still kind of putting it wrong. I don't mean that literally. I remember it was in Brixton, kind of point it wrong. I don't mean that literally. I remember it was in brixton, it was a while back and somebody selling the socialist worker said I mean there was some typical racist outrage that happened and they came up to me, like by the socialist workers, a white woman with, you know, white people with dreadlocks. Anyway we won't go there anyway. Like do you want to be the socialist worker? And I said no, thanks. And she looked at me. She said don't you care about racism? At the time I was thinking you know, you can't qualify as a solicitor if you've got a conviction for violence.

Speaker 1: 1:03:21

I can't slap her. You have to walk, you have to walk away.

Speaker 2: 1:03:27

But the reason why I bring it up you know I was talking before about it being a balancing act, you know, having the history and the facts. But also it's the same way I feel about I say with violence in my books. I say, okay, I write police procedurals, they can be a bit graphic. If I say a bit, they can be graphic, yeah, I always. I I've always felt from the very beginning that you don't need to have violence on every single page. If I'm, if I'm showing the violence, there needs to be a point to it, just can't be there just to fill up space. And I think the same probably applies when you're showing the discrimination in in the Blackbirds of St Giles. When you're showing it, there has to be a point to it. When you're showing those acts of aggression, it just can't be there because, oh well, you know, we've got Black people, they. Yeah, it can't be gratuitous.

Speaker 3: 1:04:11

No.

Speaker 1: 1:04:14

Yeah, it's like in these novels where all the dead, all the murder victims are nubile young women and the camera pans across the naked body.

Speaker 3: 1:04:21

Really, yeah, really, really. No, you have to add hope, you know, and also you have to have some lightness as well. I mean, I think there were some comedy moments that we got in there, some kind of like, and I think also, you know the love that daniel and pearl have, you know that kind of like the, the bond between them, I mean that. I mean, I think it's hard. It's about humanity, isn't it? Yeah, it's about, you know, human, human decency. That's a really important thing, you important thing. Despite all this dreadful world that they're moving through, they've got each other and they've got other people who are on their side as well.

Speaker 1: 1:05:04

The arc of history bends towards justice, and you have to just hope that's true, especially in the current moment.

Speaker 2: 1:05:14

I went on a news detox after the um elect, the us election and literally the result and I was like, right, I'm done, because I'm very much yeah, I'm very much a political junkie like I'll just consume everything. But and I think I was surprised at myself at how easily I just shut off from everything. I removed all like the news apps on my phone, turn off the notifications, all the podcasts I used to subscribe to. I like I unfollowed them because I was just so like enraged by the nonsense result that's what I mean as the past.

Speaker 3: 1:05:48

You know, that's where I seek refuge, yeah no, but that's the thing.

Speaker 2: 1:05:52

But then you know I've come back into the new year so I've like, okay, I'll kind, you know, slowly turn on one app, slowly look at a news, a news app. And this week I was like what, why? Like why? I just like I've opened the door to like a burning inferno it's bizarre.

Speaker 3: 1:06:12

I mean I just um, yeah, my husband stopped watching the news completely. He won't, he's just kind of in barbara yeah, yeah, we're going back.

Speaker 2: 1:06:20

Yeah, so, going back to like the blackbird, I was like you said. You do kind of need, you need hope, you need to see that there is light out there, because when you open your own front door, it's like this is a lunacy.

Speaker 1: 1:06:32

Let me just close the door, stay inside completely I think, there's, especially as a writer, there's this element of protecting your peace, your peace of mind. Yeah, you have to get to a place where you can function and, as a creative even though you know, like you, I've got another day job as well you just can't be in this mire all day long. I I write partly to sort of process what's happening, but but I'm really clear about protecting um, you know, like if you were an opera singer, you protect your voice.

Speaker 3: 1:07:03

If you're a writer, you have to protect the peace of mind in your brain that enables you to write that must be really um pertinent for you, marcia, with the mercy step as well, which is coming up very much about you. I mean, I know it's kind of fiction, but it is also very personal to you, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 1:07:20

Yeah, so it's loosely based on my early life, and today, literally whilst this podcast has been going on, I've just got a message to say it's in the bookseller today.

Speaker 2: 1:07:30

Oh, is it?

Speaker 1: 1:07:31

Hi, they made the trade and they love it today.

Speaker 3: 1:07:34

Well done, congratulations Well done so yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:07:43

so that's quite, quite hard, especially when it's because my other writing career is very much um contemporary fiction and it's it's. I'm an auto fiction writer, so it's loosely based on it. Everything I've written is incidents based on my own life, like hey, I've written about three or four, now it's just the first one is coming out yeah, what would both of your advice be to new writers?

Speaker 2: 1:08:03

you know we talk about protecting your piece and I think, the day I'll say new writers of your debut, whether you've been doing it for 15 years, you're always looking at what's going on around you and it can't help but have that infiltrate and be affected by it. So what would your advice be?

Speaker 3: 1:08:21

do it, protect your peace uh, well, actually, I think, I think I'm I don't have to, because I kind of it's very much a fictional world that I live in, um, so I kind of, but I and I go there to escape, really, um, but to all new writers, or all writers, really your enemy is procrastination. That is your kind of like, you know, you, you you can talk forever about being a writer or wanting to be a writer, but actually at the end of the day you have to sit down and do it, um, and there's no, you know and it is as you said earlier it is exhausting.

Speaker 1: 1:08:55

You know it's quite hard sitting in a chair for hours and hours having ideas and transferring the advice I would give a new writer is it might take a long time to find your method, so don't assume, because someone else writes a thousand words every day, um, using a fountain pen with green ink, that's not how you might need to write and that you sort of so often. I mean, I think there's a podcast called how I write and it's lots of writers talking about their process and listen to as many as you can and then find your own. It will be personal, because my, my method of writing is dictating. I literally go to the park, get my phone out and I walk around and I dictate because I'm a lawyer, and then when I get back, I I mean I dictate straight into google docs, but you know it's all. And then when I get back, I mean I dictate straight into Google Docs, but you know it's sort of a bit of a gooky and I realize I have to walk and talk.

Speaker 1: 1:09:46

That's when I'm doing a first draft, future drafts.

Speaker 1: 1:09:49

Obviously I'm doing it, but it took me a while to work out. That's how I write, so I take the dog with me. So when I come back, half of what I've written is Pog. Stop that, come back. No, I'm sorry, sorry and all the, all the interactions, and so I have to go through it very soon after I get back, or it doesn't make any sense and it took me a while and it's like I finally you know three or four novels and got into my groove. So it's it takes you.

Speaker 2: 1:10:20

It takes you a while, yeah to work out the sort of writer that you are.

Speaker 3: 1:10:25

Yeah, there's no right or wrong way you know I think people feel very high bound about. You know, they must get up in the morning and, kind of like, have a cup of coffee at 6am and then go to their writing room and but no, you know, you just do you. That is really important.

Speaker 2: 1:10:41

I'm sitting there pulling a face because me on social media, I'm thinking so that last year I kept seeing this group of people, the 5am club. I'm like, what are you doing at 5am? They're like 5am. I'm like, listen. I mean, okay, I will get up at six and I will walk, because I'm I way. I feel that I spend far too much time sitting at my desk, so I need to move my body, so I'll really yeah, so I'm up at six.

Speaker 2: 1:11:05

I'm out the house at half six, I'm not getting up at five. I'm not getting up at five. I sit at my desk and work. I work out. That does not work for me. And over Christmas, over the Christmas break, because I was doing, I'd had a deadline to deliver my edits before Christmas and I got it done. I even got it done a week early. But it's like you say, I was thank you, I was very proud of myself, but also I was exhausted, though I felt the same way as if I'd done a trial. It's so intense and I was exhausted. But then over the Christmas break, you know, I'm scanning social media and I'm seeing people saying, oh, I've written a thousand words today, I've written whatever two thousand words today. You know, I'm at my desk writing. I'm like I'm sitting here, I don't even know I'm literally. I'm sitting in my pyjamas, I'm watching Empire Strikes Back and I'm eating cheese and crackers and eating. But there was a little part of me thinking maybe I should be writing, maybe I should be but.

Speaker 3: 1:12:00

I was like no, no, I've done my thing. You stay there eating the cheese and crackers in your pajamas. It's good for your mental health.

Speaker 2: 1:12:10

Like if it boils down to that thing. Sometimes you have to ignore what is going on around you as a writer and just do work out your process and work out. I think a lot of it is performative.

Speaker 3: 1:12:19

It makes you feel quite guilty. I think, yeah, yeah, you know they, you know they get a bit of a high about going on. You know social media and sort of you know saying here I am working and like you, know, I would be very surprised if a lot of those people really have written, you know, 3,000 words a day, or whatever and kind of like. You know, I think it's the way they motivate themselves a lot of the time which is great.

Speaker 1: 1:12:41

I told myself I was going to write all that in December. I haven't written anything at all in December.

Speaker 3: 1:12:46

I haven't either, Marcia. It's a good point for me to tell you, Marcia, that I haven't done it.

Speaker 2: 1:12:54

I turned in a manuscript to my agent at the end of November and I thought, well, you can take, take some time off now it's important to take time off, um, but I only came back to my desk Monday, which is 6th of January, and in my um, my other right, my what's, one of my what's up group with my writer friends. I literally said to them I don't know what words are like, I don't know how to put words together. I haven't used my brain, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:13:23

I got. I sometimes I don't know if you two get that I just sort of sometimes get the feeling of, oh, I don't think I, I can't think, I can't write anymore. I've. Yeah, that that book that I just finished was a fluke.

Speaker 3: 1:13:38

Now I'll never be able to do it again but you know, you feel like that for about two days and then all of a sudden especially you, marcia you'll get some kind of like brilliant idea. That kind of like starts fluttering in your mind. Next thing, I know I get an email from Marcia, or we do a zoom or something. She said I've had this idea for a book and it's like it's your turn like wow, that's amazing. But you know you will never do that. You will never not write again.

Speaker 2: 1:14:03

No, I don't think that's the thing you have to. Like anyone takes anything from this podcast like you will never not write again. So even though I had that moment on Monday when I was what's up everyone going, I don't know how to plot, I don't know what a story is, I don't know how to put words together, literally last night, like I had this light bulb moment, I was like, oh, that's the book I do, this is what I need to do, and then I'm excited for the next day.

Speaker 3: 1:14:27

So you know, I think we all had cheese brain.

Speaker 2: 1:14:30

That's what it is cheese brain quality street brain celebration. I'm brain. I just had everything. Before I go on to the final set of questions. I'm going to go ahead and ask these last four questions to everyone and I'm going to keep the same thing going and ask you, but I'm going to split it. Marsha, marsha and Kate. I'm going to ask Marsha to tell the listeners of the conversation about the Blackbirds of St Giles and Kate. I'm going to ask you to tell the listeners of the conversation about the blackbirds of saint giles and kate. I'm gonna ask you to tell the listeners about the sequel, which comes out next year. So I'm asking you to elevate a pitch which is a bit all right.

Speaker 1: 1:15:07

My elevator pitch is uh, peaky blinders meets bridgerton. Oh, that's good and it's. It's a rollicking tale of um daniel, a soldier, who ends up in Britain, loses his inheritance and the book is Can he Get it Back and can he protect his sister from the various predations of Georgian England?

Speaker 3: 1:15:29

Okay, and Kate, the sequel. Well, the sequel is, I would say, jane Austen meets Peaky Blinders and Bridgerton I'm just making sure you can see the mask here and it picks up Daniel's sister, pearl's, story as she develops a career on the London stage in Covent Garden. But there is darkness swirling about her and she discovers a lot about herself, and she discovers a lot about the people, who to trust and who not to trust, and she also discovers a lot about love oh, right, before I go on to the first, the last set of questions, what have you?

Speaker 2: 1:16:06

oh, okay, oh, marcia's going now. Oh, I have to go, oh, oh. Oh, it's all right, I'll leave that bit. So marcia has to leave us, so we'll say goodbye to her, but I will ask Kate these questions. But, marcia, thank you so much.

Speaker 3: 1:16:22

I'm going to see Marcia later.

Speaker 1: 1:16:23

She's coming to stay with me tonight if I didn't have to rush off to a photo shoot at the Guardian darlings.

Speaker 2: 1:16:36

Marcia's having her moment.

Speaker 1: 1:16:37

Now she's having her moment go and enjoy it enjoy it yeah, it's been lovely talking to Nadine, it's been just wonderful it has, and I wish you all the success.

Speaker 2: 1:16:48

It's been an absolute pleasure, thank you, so I will let you go and Kate and I will have our last closing moments together see you later, marcelo so, kate, these are your last questions for you. Are you an introvert or extrovert, or a hybrid of the two?

Speaker 3: 1:17:07

I am an extroverted introvert, so that's what I am. That's what I am. I kind of like I appear on the surface to be all singing or dancing, but inside I'm kind of generally dying and thinking, oh god, I did that wrong, I went too far, oh don't look at me, but oh, you do look at me, please look at me. So that's what I am.

Speaker 2: 1:17:28

Okay, what challenge or experience in your life shaped you the most?

Speaker 3: 1:17:32

I think my mum dying 20 years ago. Um, I would not. That sounds a bit depressing and it was awful and terrible and my mum was lovely, absolutely lovely. But I kind of thought at that point I really tried hard to kind of come to terms with it. And the first book I wrote was called Kitty Peck and Musical Murders and it was about a girl from London who was really like Barbara Windsor and my mum was really like Barbara Windsor. She was at school with Barbara Windsor actually. Um, and looking back I think that kind of she was kind of kick-ass and funny and mouthy and a real London girl and I think it was kind of like an unconscious bringing back of my mum and I think that's what changed me more than anything in life. It made me want to be a writer.

Speaker 3: 1:18:12

It did, yeah, it did, and but it was a kind of an unconscious almost like kind of like bringing her back into my mind every, not that she left it particularly, but I was kind of like making her live again on the page, um and and yeah, and I think, looking back, that's what I did and that's where Kitty Peck came from, and Kitty Peck led to me being a writer so if you could go back to when you were 25 years old and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be? Oh, I don't have perms, that would be a big piece of advice.

Speaker 3: 1:18:44

Um, it's going to be okay it's going to be okay really, but really don't have the perm. Don't go to the model night at Watford, in Clipso in Watford, and say that you want the perm and then allow them to cut it really short and come out looking like a poodle. That would be my, that would be my top piece of advice to my 25 year old self. No, generally it's going to be okay. I think all of us, you know, at 25 it's kind of like such a mass of conflicting emotions and worries and fears and thinking that you know it's never going to be all right and you're never going to be know it's never going to be all right and you're never going to be perfect. You're never going to meet person. You're never going to meet someone. You are going to be okay.

Speaker 2: 1:19:26

It just takes time it's important to know it's. Yeah, it's important to know that at 25, because at 25 you're also, you're looking around at everyone, because everyone's life is changing. Yeah, like you grew up with or you've met uni, everyone's life is changing around you, and some are speeding ahead and some of them might be behind you, and so you, you can't help but look at yourself like, oh, my god, am I doing the right thing? What is going to happen? It's all over it's.

Speaker 3: 1:19:52

Maybe don't compare yourself to everyone else. Be you. What would your advice be?

Speaker 2: 1:19:58

yeah, it's, it's gonna be okay, just keep doing what you're doing. Just takes time. Yeah, yeah, it just it just takes time, okay, so, oh, I think that's it. So, finally, where can listeners of the conversation find you online?

Speaker 3: 1:20:14

so, marcia, well, we're both on um, on whatever it calls itself these days, or is it twitter x? You know, I think. I think we're trying to wean ourselves off that. Yeah, wean yourself off. Shuddersome, shuddersome. But we're on Instagram as Lila Kane Books and I am also on Instagram as Kate A Griffin, and Marcia is also on Instagram as MarkCL1 with an X. That's on Instagram. We're both on Blue Sky, I think. We're both on Threads. It's separately, but, yeah, lila Kane Books on Instagram is where we put all our joint stuff together.

Speaker 2: 1:20:54

This is what I wanted to ask you before we go and what I should have asked earlier who is Lila Kane?

Speaker 3: 1:21:05

Oh, you knowcia Hutchinson and Kate Griffin, or the other way around, um. And then our agent, eugenie, said you know, it's quite clunky really, um, and it's quite common for partnerships to have a writing name. So what would you, what would you like to be called? And we, immediately, in that moment I, I said, well, my maiden name before I got married is Kane, and Marcia's daughter is called Lila. So so we kind of we sort of played around with different combinations, but Lila Kane looked really nice written down. Yeah, that's good, let's go with that.

Speaker 2: 1:21:39

It's nice that it's actually related to both of you. You know what I mean. It could have just been you just went on the baby book app. Oh yeah, no, but it's nice that there's a connection.

Speaker 3: 1:21:52

Yeah, it represents our families.

Speaker 2: 1:21:56

Oh, but I think that's also a theme of the book, isn't it? Yeah, it's families also it book, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 1:22:01

yeah, it's families also it is about family. Yeah, it's about family sticking together through sick and thin really, so sometimes over protectively. In the case of Daniel, yes, he's a very over protective brother which is understandable, though, exactly well, she's his whole life. You know, she's he. She's all he managed to save from like the beginnings of his life.

Speaker 2: 1:22:25

Yeah, so his little sister well, I think that's perfect time for me to say Kate Griffin. I've already said goodbye and thank you to my thank you.

Speaker 3: 1:22:36

Kate Griffin. Thank you, nadine. It's been fantastic to meet you. It's been really fun.

Speaker 2: 1:22:41

Thank you so much for listening to today's conversation with Nadine Matheson. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Be sure to tune in every Tuesday for a brand new episode featuring more amazing guests. Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave a review. It really helps the podcast grow and if you'd like to support the show, you can buy me a cup of coffee or sign up on Patreon. The links are in the show notes and if you'd love to join the conversation as a guest, feel free to send an email to theconversationatnadiemathesoncom. Thanks again for your support and I'll catch you next time.