PRIMA DONNA FEST:

Historical Fiction: The Best of Both Worlds: An Interview with Bestselling author Margaret George (Interviewed by Byron Merritt, June 2004, Fiction Writers of the Monterey Peninsula )

FWOMP: If you could host a dinner party and invite ANYONE from the past (alive or dead), who would you invite and why?

MG: All the characters from my books, of course: Henry VIII, Mary Queen of Scots, Cleopatra, Mary Magdalene, and Helen of Troy. But beyond that, Edgar Allan Poe, Shakespeare (did he talk like he wrote?), Lord Byron (just how mesmeric was he?), and what about Alexander the Great (Did he really look like his statues, or was that PR, consciously modeled on Apollo statues?) I’d like to see some of the legendary performers, like Ellen Terry, and Richard Burbage, acting, since their performances passed away with them (Were they really so great, or would we find them lacking?). Nero---I’d like to attend one of his dinner parties.

I just noticed that I misread the question slightly---or maybe it was Freudian---and went straight for the dead people, when you said I could invite live ones too. I suppose because in my secret mind I think I could actually meet the living ones, somehow, whereas the dead ones can only be met at this wonderful fictitious dinner party.

My, what an unpleasant meal that would be.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 7, 2004 9:41 AM