Rilla Askew
I've known about the English Reformation-era martyr Anne Askew for many years. I began researching her life in 2001 and have worked on a novel about her ever since (with a few side trips to different eras, characters, and places in the books I've written in between).
I would say that the initial idea to write about her came because she and I share the same last name. But as I discovered in my research what a sassy, smart, defiant person she was--one of the first women to have her writings published in English, a woman who sought a divorce from her abusive husband in an era when women could not get a divorce--I knew I wanted to do Anne justice by delving deep into her early life. I've sought to depict her world in Tudor England, all the strictures placed on a young girl of intellect and spark. Anne struggled against them, found solace in the primary intellectual outlet for women of the day--the Bible in English translation--resisted and persisted, and ultimately paid for her defiance.
I've always been interested in writing about women's lives: their simultaneous power and powerlessness, how they navigate the strictures of their era and place, how they at once make and are made by history. Anne Askew exemplifies these issues in stark and terrible ways.
(Spoiler from here down.)
Anne Askew is the only woman known to have been both tortured in the Tower of London and burned at the stake as a heretic. These are fundamental facts of her life, as a quick internet search reveals, and why she was famous in her own time. But my new novel, PRIZE FOR THE FIRE, doesn't dwell on the hard facts of Anne's death; rather, it traces all that went before. My hope is that the book achieves what the publisher says about it: "Prize for the Fire renders the inner life of Anne Askew with a depth and immediacy that transcend time." I hope readers agree.
I would say that the initial idea to write about her came because she and I share the same last name. But as I discovered in my research what a sassy, smart, defiant person she was--one of the first women to have her writings published in English, a woman who sought a divorce from her abusive husband in an era when women could not get a divorce--I knew I wanted to do Anne justice by delving deep into her early life. I've sought to depict her world in Tudor England, all the strictures placed on a young girl of intellect and spark. Anne struggled against them, found solace in the primary intellectual outlet for women of the day--the Bible in English translation--resisted and persisted, and ultimately paid for her defiance.
I've always been interested in writing about women's lives: their simultaneous power and powerlessness, how they navigate the strictures of their era and place, how they at once make and are made by history. Anne Askew exemplifies these issues in stark and terrible ways.
(Spoiler from here down.)
Anne Askew is the only woman known to have been both tortured in the Tower of London and burned at the stake as a heretic. These are fundamental facts of her life, as a quick internet search reveals, and why she was famous in her own time. But my new novel, PRIZE FOR THE FIRE, doesn't dwell on the hard facts of Anne's death; rather, it traces all that went before. My hope is that the book achieves what the publisher says about it: "Prize for the Fire renders the inner life of Anne Askew with a depth and immediacy that transcend time." I hope readers agree.
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