Author Interview | Conversing with Rosemary Hayward about her Feminist #HistoricalFiction novel “Strait Lace”

I have an affinity for Feminist Historical Fiction & this is why:

Ever since I first discovered the hidden niche of Feminist Historical Fiction & Feminist Biographical Historical Fiction stories, I became an insta-reader of ALL those stories! As many as I could unearth and get a copy of – in fact, if you browse my original Story Vault you’ll find many reviews for stories under those classifications! It was through reading these kinds of incredibly researched stories of Historical Fiction – wherein, persons who lived through those difficult generations ahead of women winning the right to vote and other rights we almost take for granted in today’s world – had a bevy of knowledge to pass down to those of us who followed after them.

Feminism is a living and breathing entity within all generations of women – as even though we’ve always strove to assert ourselves in fields which interest us to study &/or find employ – opportunities for women haven’t easily been won or had by all. There has been a bit of a glass ceiling across fields and industries as much as prejudice, injustice and inequality between genders.

I took a bit of time away from seeking these kinds of stories as I had had a bit of a full rounding of History through these portals & lenses the authors were giving me to re-affirm our living histories against the backdrop of different eras of Historical interest and change. I had to take a step back in other words as the stories themselves were a bit much for me to read all at once and to concentrate on them to the point where time away from the stories let me re-group and return back to the texts lateron. Sometimes we can dive a bit too deeply into certain parts of History and need to navigate into other areas of literature before we return. At least this has been true for me – in respect to Feminist Historical Fiction and especially in regard to war dramas which was another side interest of mine in the original years of Jorie Loves A Story.

For me, seeking out Feminist Lit is necessary to not only understand the paths women had to take ahead of me but to shine more light on the incredible ways in which women continue to carve out their own voice and allow those voices to be heard. As soon as I read the premise for “Strait Lace” I knew it had to be on my #mustread list of #nextreads – as it fits within the context of what I was exploring previously as much as it takes on a different view of interest as well.

To celebrate this novel and to gain more insight into how the writer dealt with the subject and message of the novel itself – I elected to host an interview wherein I could converse with the author and discuss her writings of “Strait Lace” a bit more in-depth. I hope you’ll enjoy where the conversation led us and what is revealled through it too!

Strait Lace
Subtitle: A Loxley Hall Book
Source: Chapter Sampler

It is 1905. Edwardian England. Harriet Loxley, the daughter of a vicar and niece to a prominent Nottingham lace manufacturer, spends her days playing cricket with her brother, scouring the countryside for botanical specimens, and never missing an opportunity to argue the case for political power for women. Given the chance to visit the House of Commons, Harriet witnesses the failure of a historic bill for women’s voting rights. She also meets the formidable Pankhurst women.
 
When Harriet gets the chance to study biology at Bedford College, London, she finds her opportunity to be at the heart of the fight. From marching in the street, to speaking to hostile crowds, to hurling stones through windows, just how far will Harriet go?

Places to find the book:

Published by Historium Press

on 14th January, 2025

Format: Chapter Sampler | Online

Available Formats: Hardcover, Paperback & Ebook

Converse via: #CoffeePotBookClub, #RosemaryHayward, #FeministFiction, #HistFic and #HistoricalFiction

Enjoy this conversation I had with the author:
whilst we discuss her novel “Strait Lace” & why it has a powerful message within it for women of all ages and generations!

What drew your eye towards writing a story about the Suffragette Movement in the Edwardian era? And, what do you hope readers will takeaway from the story?

Hayward responds: I began with an idea for a dual timeline novel in which a modern day woman finds an old trunk in a family home she is clearing of a century of accumulated stuff. The house I imagined was in Nottingham and dates from the late nineteenth century. What could be in the trunk that would lead to a story from another time? Answer: medals awarded to an ancestor who had been on hunger strike while fighting for the vote.

That dual timeline novel became a long, and unwieldy, three timelines novel which I eventually split into two books. I rewrote Harriet Loxley’s story as the progress of a suffragette.

What those women did, their courage and their suffering was incredible. What they did was also outrageous. I hope readers are inspired to think about how complex and fast moving the politics of the Edwardian period was, how attitudes were not always completely right or completely wrong and how much of the freedom and security we have today is based on what happened then.

Jorie responds: I completely concur with you about the lessons of these stories giving us food for thought and clarity about both the past and the present. I’ve read different novels which broach that topic of hunger strikes women endured as much as the imprisonment of women as well for the right to vote. There were a lot of different kinds of women fighting for our rights overall and they each undertook that duty differently. I can definitely understand why you had a longer novel than expected and why you needed to separate it into two different novels completely.

Who inspired the character of Harriet Loxley and why was it important to show the depths of her intellectual endeavours and hobbies as much as her pursuit of Women’s Rights?

Hayward responds: I lived in Nottingham for several years, working at Raleigh bicycles, training as an accountant, starting a drama club for young people at my church. I biked to work on a route that took me through Nottingham’s history – its memorial gardens, its canal, its deserted lace warehouses. So, I searched for “Suffragette and Nottingham”. And I hit pay dirt. Elizabeth Crawford, a British author, historian and dealer in suffrage ephemera, had an entry in her fascinating blog, Woman and her Sphere, about Helen Kirkpatrick Watts. Helen was the daughter of a vicar of Lenton. Lenton, now a suburb of Nottingham, was, in 1900, still a village on its edge. It was also where the Raleigh bicycle factory was, or used to be. It has since been demolished and replaced by housing.

I felt it was important to challenge the common concept that all women of the time were uneducated and ignorant, both scientifically and sexually. Harriet and her sisters, like many middle-class girls were well-taught at Nottingham High School for girls where young women were encouraged to develop their interests. The Pankhurst sisters were educated at such a school in Manchester, with Christabel later earning a law degree, Sylvia getting a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Arts and the youngest sister, Adela, being encouraged to apply to Cambridge – which she didn’t, but that’s a whole other story.

Jorie responds: Yes, I have oft found it interesting how History tries to presume women were never educated – it is a misstep of our history and a complete false record of it too. I suspect I know why people have tried to repress the truth but it doesn’t make it easier to accept either. For a reader, I’ve had my own share of prejudices over the years – especially from people who still believe women should not become self-educated much less active readers. It is hard to comprehend how in the 20th and 21st centuries these mindsets still exist and are voiced aloud. Good on you to showcase how education can find women in all aspects of what is possible and in different avenues of pursuit.

The Pankhurst women were a formidable team. How did you want to insert them into your story and how did you use their movement as a backdrop for Harriet’s coming of age story?

Hayward responds: I knew from my research that Sylvia Pankhurst regarded the day Bamford Slack’s private member’s bill extending the franchise to women was talked out as the day that militancy was born. This was the perfect starting point for Harriet’s story. Sylvia and Emmeline Pankhurst were there that day. Harriet just had to meet them, didn’t she? On the other hand, I didn’t want to write the Pankhurst’s story. They are, as you say, something of a backdrop. They are the structure on which Harriet’s story is hung. The major incidents in Harriet’s journey are actual events of the period and one of my major sources for those events was the Pankhurst women’s own accounts.

Jorie responds: This is what appealled to me as  reader to your story. As I’ve gone down that rabbit hole with the Pankhurst sisters and unfortunately for me, it can become a bit hard to read after awhile. I prefer how you’ve approached the telling of this story about Harriet and how they remain present but not a main focal point. 

What do you feel is the most underscored part of the Edwardian era? Especially in respect to Women’s Rights and the untold stories of how hard women fought for the rights we’re still trying to secure for ourselves worldwide?

Hayward responds: I think our modern age underestimates just how many women fought for the right to vote and over what a long time period. Those women were ordinary everyday people from a multitude of backgrounds ranging from factory girls to titled ladies. There was activism all over the country, not just in London, and it was constant over decades. But it was also possible for rights that had been secured to be taken away again, a fact that is pointed out in Strait Lace. And today it is the same, many women are fighting, each in their own way, but at the same time hard won rights are being eroded. History is not a natural progression and change depends on those who are willing to work for it.

Jorie responds: Some of this back-history has been coming out in recent years and especially over the last decade. Not just in literature but also in film and through the Women’s March which was partially online and partially IRL. This is definitely a sad truth of both today and the historical past – each time we fight to secure one right, they either choose to take another right away or try to suppress our rights altogether. It is never a one and done deal. We might have had more leverage if Ruth Bader Ginsberg was still alive but I’m not even sure if she could have fully saved all our fights either. For even the strongest voice has opposition and she surely had a lot of her own. It is as you say – to have our rights, we must continue to carry on the fight to secure them and never allow our voices to fade away and die out. 

Why was the Edwardian era the best timeline of History to place this story and why do you think the overlays of challenges and obstacles women faced then are counter intuitive to what women face now in the 21st Century?

Hayward responds: The militant suffragettes were one of the most dramatic movements fighting for women’s rights and easily lend themselves to dramatic stories. Also the Edwardian era is itself dramatic, something that is overlooked in the ‘golden summers before the First World War’ depiction it often gets. It was a time of huge social and political change. I’ve seen many changes in my lifetime – microwaves, space travel, electron microscopes, abortion law reform, the acceptance of gay rights – the people who lived through the first decade of the twentieth century saw telephones, electricity, indoor toilets, old age pensions, national insurance for health and unemployment benefits. In the climate that prevails today, and which is getting worse, we have to fight to protect those rights.

Jorie responds: Even being GenX and bourne in the latter half of the 20th century as we shifted into the 21st there has been a lot of changes in the political landscape as much as the rights for women and LGBTQ+. The fight surely will continue and more changes might be revealled but I believe that if we all strive towards a better tomorrow together, we’ll find the path to arrive inside it together, too. 

As this is credited as  Loxley Hall novel – is this the first part of a planned series or duology? If so, how many installments do you forecast to write and will they all be centred round Harriet or other characters?

Hayward responds: The other part of that dual timeline novel I mentioned earlier, with a woman in the present, is Crocus Fields, which is waiting in the wings to follow on from Strait Lace. It is the Loxley family and Loxley Hall that links the two books – not to mention a trunk.

Jorie responds: Oh, this is good news indeed! I love when the sequel is either ready to be read next in sequence or about to be ready to read next as it helps carry on the story in such a wicked way. 

Women are still forging their path into STEM careers and as you’ve written Harriet’s passion for biology into the backbone of the story – how important is it to continue to talk about women in the past who were pursuing Science for today’s younger generations?

Hayward responds: It’s important to realise that women always could and always did pursue interests in science and mathematics but the majority were limited by social expectations and the level of education they were afforded. There are shining examples of woman who broke these barriers, or maybe it is more accurate to say were given the chance to break those barriers by their families. Think of Marie-Anne Lavoisier wife of the chemist Antoine Lavoisier who not only wrote up his work and played a pivotal role in the translation of several scientific works but was instrumental in the standardization of the scientific method. Marie-Anne was married off to Lavoisier when she was only 13 years old. Fortunately for her that meant the excellent convent education that had made her proficient in French, Latin and English was augmented by her husband’s interest in chemistry. Or Florence Nightingale who wasn’t only a pioneer in nursing but an expert in statistics and invented the pie chart. Her father had her and her sister study history, mathematics, Italian, classical literature, and philosophy from an early age. Or Marie Curie who won two Nobel Prizes in two different disciplines. Her father was a maths and physics teacher who brought home the school’s laboratory equipment to teach his children at home after his school was closed by the authorities.

Nowadays women, and particularly girls, are limited by different social expectations. In the Western world education is theoretically, and often truly, equal, but the social pressures to look and behave a certain way, to have certain interests and, above all, to please men are as strong as they ever were. Women don’t just need to have an interest in science, maths and engineering, they need to develop strong and assertive characters to carry those interests through. That’s what Harriet did and it’s what young women still need to do.

Jorie responds: I definitely agree with you on this as well. I have had a healthy interest in the Sciences for a very long time – it wasn’t until I realised how difficult it was for me to understand maths that I realised that my passion for the Sciences would be from a self-educational path rather than a pursuit of a career. For a very long time, I thought I could go after a career in Science but unfortunately for me, math became my Achilles heel so to speak. Still. I admire those who can push through and obtain their degrees and work in the fields that interest them most. I still love reading the books which explain Science and/or discuss Scientific topics of interest – that is something I’ll never lose a passion for myself. It is a credit to how your raised – by parents or guardians or grandparents – foster Mums and Dads, adopted parents – whomever, is raising you, must take an interest in instilling those characteristics in you, too. So you can have a well of strength and a fortitude of spirit as you pursue your future. 

What is your favourite passage and/or quotation from the novel and why?

Hayward responds: I’m very fond of this scene between Harriet and her father, a vicar. He has undertaken to train her in public speaking.

‘As soon as they got through the church door he set off down the nave at a rapid pace, swinging his arms in huge, dipping arcs. Harriet stood still, a smile twitching at the ends of her lips. He turned at the altar step.

“Come on, Harry. You need to warm up. Walk up and down the aisle a few times.”

“But I’m not cold.”

“Loosen up. Get ready for speaking.”

He was back next to her.

“You don’t mean that you do this before you take the service?”

“I most certainly do. You are not in the vestry with me or you would know I do. Less room in there, of course.”

He set off again and this time she followed, copying his long strides and exaggerated arm swings.

“Breathe, Harry. Breathe.”

After three times up the aisle and back he stopped. He was panting.

“Now, take a deep breath and shout. Like this. Haaa!”

The sound sprang all around them, bouncing back from one wall to another. Haaa! Haaa! Haaa!

Harriet’s throat tightened. She tried to breathe in and made a constricted squeak.

“I can’t shout in church, Father.”

“Why not? Do you think it’s going to fall down?”’

As a final takeaway on this conversation – I love how I could converse with Ms Hayward about a topic of today that is still on the forefront of most of our minds and hearts – as women are still on the battleground of protecting our rights and ensuring a better future for all of us. I also loved the passage she selected from the novel – as it is quite true, why not be fiercely passionate in church? To speak truth and to speak your mind – there is no better sanctuary than church. I am hopeful this conversation might encourage you to seek out this novel and better still, to return back to this interview and let me know your thoughts about it! I have added it to my shortlist of #mustread novels and will be including it on my next batch of books I’m purchasing. Most likely towards Summer as I still haven’t had the chance to reveal what I did to celebrate my 12th Blogoversary – which I announced on Instagram on the 31st of March.

For those following the blog tour – I regret this post was delayed arriving on my blog due to circumstances outside my control. Mum and I received some distressing news about my father and the last few days have been emotionally distraught for us both and I simply was not in the right headspace to blog or edit this post. We’re still awaiting to hear from his doctors – as they are not being very forthcoming about what is happening. So it could be as serious as the start of the end of our time with my Dad or it could be something we could medically handle. Time will let out the truth of this moment but for now, it has been guttingly hard to process.

Aside from that – I am eagerly looking forward to resuming my readings of Feminist Historical Fiction – whether they are imagined characters set against a backdrop of real persons who lived or whether it is Biographical Historical Fiction wherein we get to entreaty into the lives of those who lived directly. Either way you peer into the past, if you find the authors like Ms Hayward who are taking the time to peel back the layers of history against the tides of Women’s Rights — you’ll find much more enlightenment in your pursuit of the stories.

The Virtual Road Map
for “Strait Lace” can be found here:

I enjoy hosting for The Coffee Pot Book Club – a touring company who champions Historical Fiction and connects readers to the writers:

See what I am hosting next on my Bookish Events page!

NOTE: Similar to blog tours wherein I feature book reviews, book spotlights (with or without extracts), book announcements (or Cover Reveals) – I may elect to feature an author, editor, narrator, publisher or other creative person connected to the book, audiobook, Indie film project or otherwise creative publishing medium being featured wherein the supplemental content on my blog is never compensated monetarily nor am I ever obligated to feature this kind of content. I provide (98.5%) of all questions and guest topics regularly featured on Jorie Loves A Story. I receive direct responses back to those enquiries by publicists, literary agents, authors, blog tour companies, etc of whom I am working with to bring these supplemental features and showcases to my blog. I am naturally curious about the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of stories and the writers who pen them: I have a heap of joy bringing this content to my readers. Whenever there is a conflict of connection, I do disclose those connections per post and disclose the connection as it applies.

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