Q&A with Michelle Moran, author of Nefertiti: A Novel
Californian Michelle Moran started reading Writers Digest and submitting stories at age 12. Majoring in English, she read Milton, Chaucer and Shakespeare. She was a volunteer archaeologist in Israel, the start of her traveling the world from Zimbawbe to India. After six years of teaching high school, Michelle now is a full-time writer. More author Q&A and details about the book and characters are available on Michelle’s very informative web site: http://www.MichelleMoran.com
Also, see our review: http://reviews.armchairinterviews.com/reviews/nefertiti-a-novel
Q: What did you learn an as pre-teen about writing that you could share with other young (or any age) aspiring writers?
A: I learned that in order to succeed in the publishing, it was imperative to research the industry through as many resources as possible. At twelve, I purchased Writer’s Market, which every aspiring author should own. I also began purchasing books about agents and editors, so that when the time came I would know what to expect.
Q: Did you always want to be a writer?
A: Yes, from the time I read my first book I knew I wanted to make up stories for a living. I sent out my first query letter when I was twelve, terrorizing agents with sample chapters that were handwritten and duplicated on my junior high school’s copy machine!
Q: Is this your first published book?
A: Actually, NEFERTITI isn’t my first book. When I was in college, I wrote a novel called JEZEBEL after returning from my first archaeological dig. On the dig, we were uncovering Iron Age II artifacts, and as I began researching into that time period, I came across the story of Jezebel, who had been a queen of Israel in 800 BC. The historical Jezebel is the narrator of my novel, and she brought into Israel (from her father’s Kingdom of Tyre) the cult of Baal and his consort Asherah.
The book emphasizes the difference between Jezebel’s matrilineal kingdom, where land and inheritance was passed down from mother to daughter, and the kingdom of her husband, which was predominantly patriarchal. The novel is essentially a look at why Jezebel came to be such a hated female figure in the Bible. Jezebel was strong, cunning, and educated, then brought to a culture that emphasized female demureness and passivity. It’s no surprise that she was remembered with such hatred. After all, she had come from a land where women painted their eyes with kohl and dressed like the Egyptians, then became ruler of a kingdom where none of that was acceptable. Her mother had instilled in her the values of a culture that believed women could rule in their own right, and when she arrived in Israel with that attitude, she made quite a few enemies.
Her real downfall, however, lay in her desire to change the religion of ancient Israel. Jezebel had grown up worshiping a goddess called Asherah, and a god she would have called by the affectionate term Baal Zebul (Baal the Exalted, who wore a helmet of horns on his head). But there is nothing more dangerous for a ruler than trying to change what her people believe in, and like Nefertiti, Jezebel failed miserably.
Unfortunately, my agent at the time never sold JEZEBEL in the United States. But his foreign rights agent did sell it to Bertelsmann in Germany, which is the parent company of Random House. So even though I wrote my novel in English, it was translated into German and it became my first publishing credit.
The experience of having a novel published aboard versus the United States is vastly different. When I sold my book to Germany, I was never contacted by an editor and I had no idea where in the publishing process my novel was at any given time. One day, about a year later, a book arrived in the mail, and it was JEZEBEL.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t read a single word, and for all I knew they had translated a completely different book and slapped my name on it (friends of mine who speak German later informed it is indeed JEZEBEL). But, for the most part, this is what happens when an author sells their work abroad.
The experience of selling NEFERTITI in the United States, however, was completely different. My editor kept me up to date on almost every aspect of Nefertiti’s journey through publication, and for nearly a year we were in contact at least twice a week sharing news and updates.
Q: How did you decide to write about Nefertiti, a queen who has been dead for over 3,000 years?
A: The inspiration for writing NEFERTITI came from a flight I took to Berlin. While I was there, I visited the museum where Nefertiti’s limestone bust was being housed. The graceful curve of Nefertiti’s neck, her arched brows, and the faintest hint of a smile were captivating to me. Who was this woman with her self-possessed gaze and stunning features? I wanted to know more about Nefertiti’s story, but when I began the research into her life, it proved incredibly difficult. She’d been a woman who’d inspired powerful emotions when she lived over three thousand years ago, and those who had despised her had attempted to erase her name from history. Yet even in the face of such ancient vengeance, some clues remained.
As a young girl Nefertiti had married a Pharaoh who was determined to erase the gods of Egypt and replace them with a sun god he called Aten. It seemed that Nefertiti’s family allowed her to marry this impetuous king in the hopes that she would tame his wild ambitions. What happened instead, however, was that Nefertiti joined him in building his own capital of Amarna where they ruled together as god and goddess. But the alluring Nefertiti had a sister who seemed to keep her grounded, and in an image of her found in Amarna, the sister is standing off to one side, her arms down while everyone else is enthusiastically praising the royal couple. From this image, and a wealth of other evidence, I tried to recreate the epic life of an Egyptian queen whose husband was to become known as the Heretic King.
Q: Is your book based on fact?
A: All of the major events and characters in NEFERTITI are based on fact. Even the description of Nefertiti’s palace and the images she had painted beneath her throne are historically accurate. Archaeologists today are extremely lucky that so much of Nefertiti’s life is well preserved. But it wasn’t always this way. After Nefertiti’s reign, her enemies tried to destroy her memory by demolishing her city. The historical character of Horemheb, in particular, wanted to be sure that nothing of hers remained, so he broke her images down piece by piece and used them to fill the columns of his own buildings. Fast forward three thousand years, however, and as Horemheb’s columns began to deteriorate, all that was left were the perfectly preserved (although broken) images of Nefertiti and her life. The irony!
But although most of this novel is based in fact, some liberties were taken with personalities, names and minor historical events. For instance, no one can be certain how Mutnodjmet felt about her sister’s vision of an Egypt without the Amun Priests. In a period where art attempted to portray reality for the first time, I found this significant. And while Nefertiti did have six daughters with Akhenaten, she never, so far as we know, produced twins.
Q: When does your book launch?
A: NEFERTITI will be released by Crown Publishers on July 10, 2007.
Q: If you could encourage people to read a historical novel, what suggestions would you give?
A: For people who like mystery with their historical fiction, I would suggest Elizabeth Peters. For those who want to read about people who’ve really lived, I think Philppa Gregory does a wonderful job with her Boleyn books, as does Robin Maxwell.
Q: What else do you read—genre or author?
A: My library is filled with at least a thousand books, and almost all of them are historical fiction and biographies. A handful of my favorites are: Barbara Michael’s Wings of the Falcon, Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha, Margaret Mitchell’s phenomenal Gone With the Wind and Alexandra Ripley’s sequel to that, Scarlett. I am also devoted to all of Shakespeare’s histories as well as Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. About eight years ago I received a National Endowment of the Humanities grant to study both Shakespeare and Chaucer in depth. They were among the first authors in the English language to write what I would categorize as historical fiction.
Q: How long did it take you to find an agent? Who is the agent?
A: My first attempt at getting an agent was when I was twelve, but it wasn’t until I wrote JEZEBEL that I signed with a prominent agent in New York. His foreign rights department sold the book successfully to Bertelsmann in Germany, and I had my first publishing credit with the company that owns Random House. But my agent in New York had a difficult time selling the novel, and when it was clear that he had done what he could for JEZEBEL and that there would be no sale in the US, I saw the writing on the wall. I would have to write another book.
So I began my research, and over the next few years I came to a slow and eye-opening realization. No mater how many times or how nicely I wrote, my agent never answered my emails. Even after I had finished the book on the subject that he’d suggested, he never took my phone calls. Did this mean I didn’t have an agent? Had I been dumped because Jezebel hadn’t sold? Did agents do that without telling their clients? Apparently, he did, and apparently, some do. So I took the high road and wrote a letter thanking him for what he had done for me (he did get my foot in the door), and I asked to be released from our contract. I sent the letter by certified mail and promptly never heard from him again.
But publishing isn’t personal, and neither is rejection, so I began sending query letters out the next month, mentioning that my agent and I had recently parted ways and that I was searching for new representation. It was a matter of weeks before I had a new agent, the wonderful Anna Ghosh at Scovil Chichak Galen, and she took on the task of submitting the novel that my precious agent had suggested I write. But my heart hadn’t been in the book. It was set in the 20th century, and my specialty—what I studied in college and what I’ve since become an amateur historian on—is ancient Egypt and the Middle Ages. We had quite a few near misses with the novel, where editors wanted to purchase the book but were told no by the acquisitions committee, since all sales have to be approved by a committee. After Anna sent the novel to all the major houses, I began to panic that I’d be dropped as a client for a second time, and that is when I started NEFERTITI, a project I was extremely passionate about. Anna waited for two years while I wrote, and eventually she sold the book and its stand-alone sequel for six-figures to Crown. After that, her foreign rights agent Danny Baror (who happened to be the same foreign rights agent who sold Jezebel) sold NEFERTITI and THE HERETIC QUEEN (in a two-book deal) to more than fifteen countries.
I do believe there is a moral to this story, which is to be persistent and not to be afraid of starting a new project. I have thirteen books that I’ve written, and just because they’re not published doesn’t mean I didn’t learn from them, or that I can’t publish them in the future (although I probably won’t). I think what aspiring writers need to understand is that if something isn’t right for the current market, that doesn’t mean they should simply give up.
Q: How long from the time you got an agent to the book was published?
A: Three years passed from the time I got my second agent to the time that NEFERTITI was released in stores. I spent two years in writing the book, my agent took three weeks to sell it, and then almost all authors will experience a year of going through the publication process.
Q: What are you writing about now? And is it also a historical fiction or another genre?
A: Currently, I’m finishing up the stand-alone sequel to NEFERTITI, (part of the two-book deal) which will also be historical fiction. It will be in bookstores July 2008 and will probably be titled The Heretic Queen. It follows the destiny of Mutny’s daughter, Nefertari, and traces her transformation from a wild palace child to the strikingly beautiful and intelligent queen of Ramesses II.
Q: What have you done to promote this book? Did you hire a publicist in addition to what the publisher did?
A: Although my publishers were kind enough to give me two publicists, I do a lot of marketing and publicity on my own. A lot. I contact large websites whose focus is on history and find out their rates so I can pass them off to my publishers. For instance, after I contacted The History Channel Online, Crown decided to advertise there for NEFERTITI: A Novel. I also write to reviewers, make my own advertising deals with smaller websites, and purchase advertising in historical fiction magazines. Unfortunately, I can’t really say what works, since NEFERTITI is my debut novel. Perhaps next July I can come back and tell you how it all went, and what the best use of my time and money (not to mention my publisher’s time and money) seemed to be. I keep very detailed records, so I should be able to tell with some degree of accuracy which websites provided the most click-throughs, or which newspapers had the best exposure to my target market.
Thank you for giving me an opportunity to tell people about my book, my love of history and my writing!
—Michelle Moran