The year is 2019. The place: a village called Barde in Nigeria. My friend, Anna, and I had a lot of time on our hands. Anna began to read the first “official” draft of a novel written by our colleague…
Author: julierowbory
‘My mother told such sagas by our hearth that she made me long to do the kind of deeds she spoke of… She put a sword in my heart, but couldn’t put one in my hand. The only swords I…
If you search for ‘Beowulf’ on Amazon you might be surprised at how many choices you are faced with. There are retellings for children, such as Rosemary Sutcliff’s beautiful Beowulf: Dragonslayer, first published in 1961 and still a delightful read for…
The village of Oakdene is entirely fictional, but represents the sort of community that existed in the ninth century. It’s chiefly a farming community and even Edrich, the predominant landowner has more to do with the land than men of similar social status would in later centuries. He owns the bulk of the land and many in the village depend on him for the right to farm, by working for him in exchange for land. Others of higher status, like Thurstan or Cynestan, have their own land, but much less than Edrich himself owns. The status of men like this is seen in the way that Edrich interacts with them much more than with others. I imagine that the whole population of the village, free and slave, adults and children, would not come to more than one hundred people.
I started writing Kith at the very end of November 2018. I hadn’t particularly been thinking of writing a novel, though I had always enjoyed writing and had made many attempts at ‘novels’ as a teenager (now kept under lock and key and not allowed to see the light of day!). For the past twenty or more years all my writing had either been academic or verse. But early one morning I woke up with an idea in my head.
many people… are somehow forced into a position of working for someone they cannot respect.
The initial idea centred around the thought that there must have been many people throughout history and throughout the world today who are somehow forced into a position of working for someone they cannot respect. Although slavery is still a very real problem in today’s world, it is not the only way in which someone might be trapped: financial or cultural considerations might come into play or other lack of opportunity. As I pondered this, the idea of Brinin was born, and he was born with the essential personality that developed throughout the novel. He is introverted, stubborn, intelligent, unable to suffer fools gladly and particularly unsuited to being under the authority of a man like Aculf.
It took me almost a year and a half to decide on a title for the novel. I had finished writing it, was well into the editing stage and had explored several different titles before finally settling on Kith. In modern…
Early on in the writing process, I had to decide how to describe Aculf’s rôle in the community. His job is to manage everyone who works for Edrich Thegn, whether as slaves or in exchange for a section of Edrich’s…
Thanks for visiting my website. As well as sharing news about my novel, I’ll also be posting short articles about the historical background, literary techniques I used, and some of the writing process. Come back soon to see more.