When I first saw the blog tour for “Mrs. Poe” arrive on the dockets for Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, I was quite hopeful that I might secure a spot on the blog tour! And, I knew if I had, I would be more than compelled to enquiry a bit into the back-story of the novel itself as well as ask questions that would go a bit into the disparaging differences between the Edgar Allan Poe I grew up knowing as the true ‘Poe’, and the Poe, of whom is only recently (after apparently 150+ years of ill-begotten truths tainted our minds) has emerged as quite the dapper Dan (in appearance) and a wholly new Poe by personality! His measurement as a writer and of a man, have completely changed in my eyes and that was *before!* I ever breathed one word of the novel by Ms. Cullen!

I am not only a blog tour Hostess, I am a reader who appreciates digging into the back-stories, Interviews, Q&As, and Guest Posts by other authors, hosted by book bloggers around the book blogosphere who help stitch together a portrait of a particular book I want to read. In this particular case, (as I always conduct background research on the author and/or editor I am interviewing) I was properly gobsmacked and abhorred that the truth took as long as it had to be drawn into the proper Light from the shadows and annals of history! How sad for each of us growing up thinking a bit ill of Poe, and not truly understanding him at all? I thought for sure he was one particular writer, who appreciated writing one particular slant of genre, which was logical given the stories and poems he was most esteemed and known for penning. Yet. Hidden beneath the surface of what was readily known lay an unknown truth about him completely!

And, it was as though a part of me felt instinctively I ought to give Poe a second chance, because I remember a tugging of my curiosity, a compelling itch to read “Mrs. Poe” lead me to hosting Ms. Cullen for today’s interview and for having my eyes open to the truth! Join me know as the conversation unfolds and how Ms. Cullen shares keen insights into the myth, the man, & the story!

Book Synopsis:

A vivid and compelling novel about a woman who becomes entangled in an affair with Edgar Allan Poe—at the same time she becomes the unwilling confidante of his much-younger wife.

It is 1845, and Frances Osgood is desperately trying to make a living as a writer in New York; not an easy task for a woman—especially one with two children and a philandering portrait painter as her husband. As Frances tries to sell her work, she finds that editors are only interested in writing similar to that of the new renegade literary sensation Edgar Allan Poe, whose poem, “The Raven” has struck a public nerve.

She meets the handsome and mysterious Poe at a literary party, and the two have an immediate connection. Poe wants Frances to meet with his wife since she claims to be an admirer of her poems, and Frances is curious to see the woman whom Edgar married.

As Frances spends more and more time with the intriguing couple, her intense attraction for Edgar brings her into dangerous territory. And Mrs. Poe, who acts like an innocent child, is actually more manipulative and threatening than she appears. As Frances and Edgar’s passionate affair escalates, Frances must decide whether she can walk away before it’s too late…

Set amidst the fascinating world of New York’s literati, this smart and sexy novel offers a unique view into the life of one of history’s most unforgettable literary figures.

Author Biography:

Lynn Cullen grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the fifth girl in a family of seven children. She learned to love history combined with traveling while visiting historic sites across the U.S. on annual family camping trips. She attended Indiana University in Bloomington and Fort Wayne, and took writing classes with Tom McHaney at Georgia State. She wrote children’s books as her three daughters were growing up, while working in a pediatric office and later, at Emory University on the editorial staff of a psychoanalytic journal. While her camping expeditions across the States have become fact-finding missions across Europe, she still loves digging into the past. She does not miss, however, sleeping in musty sleeping bags. Or eating canned fruit cocktail. She now lives in Atlanta with her husband, their dog, and two unscrupulous cats.

Lynn Cullen is the author of The Creation of Eve, named among the best fiction books of 2010 by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and as an April 2010 Indie Next selection. She is also the author of numerous award-winning books for children, including the young adult novel I Am Rembrandt’s Daughter, which was a 2007 Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection, and an ALA Best Book of 2008. Her novel, Reign of Madness, about Juana the Mad, daughter of the Spanish Monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand, was chosen as a 2011 Best of the South selection by the Atlanta Journal Constitution and was a 2012 Townsend Prize finalist. Her newest novel, MRS. POE, examines the fall of Edgar Allan Poe through the eyes of poet Francis Osgood.

Did you have a theory as to why you stumbled across the story in the ether of panic whilst you were going through your own personal circumstance? That perhaps the story that was about to be writ down to the page was somehow a cleansing arc for both writer and muse?

Cullen responds: You are certainly right—at the time Frances Osgood’s story came to me, I very much needed the emotional relief that writing it gave me. It was therapeutic for me to write about the fears and joys of being a writer, and about the yearnings we experience as humans. How nice to think that I was also bringing Frances Osgood to light…and life. Wasn’t it the ancient Egyptians who believed that as long as a person is remembered, they continue to live? I like to think that MRS. POE might have done that for Frances Osgood for a while.

Have you noticed any strong differences in the strength of women writers since the late 1800s to where Frances Osgood would celebrate the freedom of being free to pursue a career that was not looked down upon as it once had?

Cullen responds: Women writers have always been strong but our chances to shine have improved with more women being in positions of power in publishing and in education. Once women were in professional positions in which they could dictate which books to publish and which books to discuss and evaluate in college literature courses, women’s writing was taken more seriously. Also, more women can pursue their writing these days because men are more often sharing child-rearing and household duties. It takes time to write—when you’re consumed with raising kids, it naturally cuts down on literary output. Yes, Frances would love being a writer in our era.

Prior to your extensive research (sorry about your knee injury! incured the same kind whilst playing basketball!) did you ever have a fathering of an interest in Poe or his poems, or did your appreciation for Edgar Allan Poe start the moment you set down to write this slice of his life?

Cullen responds: I came to Poe fresh when I started this book. Prior to that, I had the usual preconceived notions that he was crazy, dark, and scary and had only read “The Tell-Tale Heart” and suchlike in high school. Researching his life and his work took me on an eye-popping journey—every day I made thrilling discoveries and surprising connections, like, for example, how Poe’s poem “Ulalume” might contain clues to his affair with Frances and his grief for the loss of their child. Likewise, Frances Osgood’s poem “Fanny’s First Smile” could possibly have charted her feelings about their relationship and their child. It was fascinating—and such an education—to study their work through the lens of their daily lives. I hoped to give the readers of MRS. POE the same experience.

The portrait of Poe contained in an interview with Erin of “Oh, the Hook for a Book” portrays such a radically different Poe from the one we all grew up knowing of being ‘Poe’. Which steps are being taken to stop this misrepresentation from continuing through the future generations? And, how to stop the misunderstandings now by those who did not realise they were under the illusion of a false identity of Poe?

Cullen responds: I hope that MRS. POE adds to the current movement to straighten the prevalent misconceptions about Poe. I did my best to portray him as he actually was in 1845, the year he wrote “The Raven.” Modern scholarship supports this. Here’s a recent article from the Richmond Times Dispatch, talking about the lighter side of Poe. Bit by bit, we’ll foil Griswold and his terrible smear job of Poe.

Do you plan to explore another hidden and secreted slice of the historical past in a future novel?

Cullen responds: Yes! I’m in the process of writing about Mark Twain from the point of view of the women in his life: his secretary, his daughters, his wife. He is not the genial humorist that we think he is. There is a surprise visitor who plays a major part in the story, an American woman who was important in 1909 (the time of the story) and now.

What did you find more daunting to represent in “Mrs. Poe”, the historical timescape of its setting or representing a true voice and image of the lead characters who were people who had lived?

Cullen responds: Bringing the setting of Poe’s New York City to life was a sheer joy. As I learned tidbits that fascinated me, I couldn’t wait to work them in, like that sailors could smell the stench of New York six miles out to sea, and that people believed cockroaches crawled into their homes via the newfangled plumbing hooked up to the Croton Aqueduct, and that Poe read “The Raven” at a gathering the night of one of the biggest fires in the history of the city. The lead characters leapt onto the page. My frustration came in not being able to write the book fast enough—it demanded to be written. I wish all my books would come to me as violently, pouring onto my computer like this one did, although it was pretty exhausting.

Are you drawn into biographical fiction as a reader? I noted that your next story involves the women of Mark Twain. Do you have a natural inclination to paint a historical piece of literature in such a way as to be identifiable to our age and time!?

Cullen responds: As a reader and as a writer, I care most about psychological fiction. I am fascinated by what makes people tick. I take on historical figures because I’m interested in their motivations, their greatest desires, their fears, their troubles, how they overcame adversity. Basically, I’m just trying to understand them—my novels are kind of case reports. Having history to research is the icing on the cake. Historical details intrigue me—I love to share them with fellow history nuts.

As you were able to visit each of the real-life locales and settings featured in “Mrs. Poe”, did you ever feel as though you were walking between the portals of time? To where 1845 New York and present day New York were sliding in and out of view of each other? As though you had tapped back into Poe’s New York?

Cullen responds: I did strive for the thrill of experiencing time-slips while researching the book, definitely. The best two places to do this were at The Poe Cottage in the Bronx and The Merchant’s House Museum in Greenwich Village. Both places have been restored to how they would have been in Poe’s time and both places have excellent docents who provided minute details of everyday life in these places. It was easy to imagine myself swishing around in a long dress, my crinolines crunching underneath, as I moved through the mirrored rooms of the Merchant’s House or ducked under the low ceilings of the Poe Cottage. In both places, new scenes came to me while I was strolling around. My book would have been quite different if I hadn’t gone to these real-life settings.

What has staid with you the most from spending time with Edgar Allan Poe & Frances Osgood? Does anything strike you as a surprise as being a lasting remnant of your time with them?

Cullen responds: I can still see them together in the scenes in the Bartlett’s home and in Anne Charlotte Lynch’s home. I based these homes very closely on the interior of the Merchant’s House Museum so my visuals are cemented in my mind from actually having been there. But the scene that sticks with me most is their final scene together, and that of Frances with their baby. Just thinking about that still brings tears to my eyes.

What knits your heart close to the genre of historical fiction? What draws your breath to hitch as you go to read or write a historical bent story?

Cullen responds: When I was a kid, I was always pretending that I was a pioneer. I mean always. When I walked to school or played in my small town backyard, in my head I was out in the woods, heading to my cabin or tending to my horses. Writing historical fiction provides the same sort of fantasy. I get to make-believe that I’m back in time. I love to be taken back in time with reading historical fiction, too.

How young were you when you first started to write? Who was your best cheerleader?

Cullen responds: I wrote stories as soon as I could string together sentences. I illustrated them, too–horses, dogs, and cats figured heavily in both story and art. As the sixth of seven kids, I didn’t have a cheerleader for a long time. I wrote simply to entertain myself (when I wasn’t taking care of the pretend horses on my pretend pioneer farm.) It wasn’t until about 4th grade, when my aunt, the choral composer Ruth Artman, took me to the site of my grandparent’s turn-of-the-century farm on the Indiana/Ohio line and then made me write about it, that anyone made a fuss about my writing. That really stuck with me. It made me realize how I could stand out in a family in which the titles of smartest, prettiest, most athletic, funniest, and cleverest were already taken. I could be the writer.

Jorie, thank you so much for your interest in MRS. POE and for your insightful, thoughtful, and probing questions. It was an absolute pleasure to join you today.

Warmly,
Lynn

Author Connections:

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*Due note: she is @LynnCullenBooks NOT @LynnCullen!

Converse via Twitter: #MrsPoeBlogTour or #MrsPoe

It was my absolute pleasure hosting you today, Ms. Cullen! I yielded to your knowledge of Mr. Poe and of the research you conducted for creating “Mrs. Poe”, as I did not have anything to contribute forward as like you, I am entering your novel without any foreknowledge of Poe or of his life therein! I am quite certain that after I finish reading “Mrs. Poe” I am going to be inspired to curate a bit of my own research into his life, and thereby finding bits of his own writings that perhaps I could process and enjoy! I do appreciate Gothic Literature and Southern Gothic especially, but there are certain aspects of the genre I do not feel especially keen on at the very same time as I am not a girl with a heart for gore or Horror!

I always had hoped I could find that my misgivings about Edgar Allan Poe were unfounded or at the very least, that there would be more to the man’s story than what I was taught in school! Apparently, my instincts were correct, and I have you to thank for bringing a newly kindled interest in Poe to the forefront of my reading life! The scholars who are helping to forestall the misnotions of his legacy and writers like you who are choosing to write historical fiction to conquer the bad aura which is attached to his name and legacy will further distance us away from the bloke who choose to cause him the headache in the first place!

I applaud your passion and your methodology of immersion in both setting and place to jettison your mind and heart back in time as you wrote “Mrs. Poe”. It truly will make a difference I think on how each of us exists the novel and how happy we will be within its chapters! It was a pure delight to have you and I thank you for being so very giving with your time and with your responses!

This Author Interview is courtesy of HFVBT of which

I am happily honoured to be a blog tour hostess for:

Similar to blog tours, when I feature a showcase for an author via a Guest Post, Q&A, Interview, etc., I do not receive compensation for featuring supplemental content on my blog.

Please visit my Bookish Events page to stay in the know for upcoming events!

My upcoming book review tomorrow is for “Mrs. Poe”! Stay tuned!

I would love to hear from you!? What are your thoughts and impressions on the new information that is coming to light about Edgar Allan Poe!? Did you always know the truth OR does this novel and the scholars who are debunking the past ills against him help change your opinion about Poe if you previously avoided reading his works? If you are an appreciator what was your first opinion on his name being tarnished in history? And, what was the first story or poem that drew you into Poe’s style!? Do you plan on reading “Mrs. Poe”!?

{SOURCES: Book cover for “Mrs. Poe”, Author Biography, Author Photograph and Book Synopsis  were provided by HFVBT – Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours and used with permission. Mrs. Poe Interview Badge created by Jorie in Canva. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.