‘Before I was in a wheelchair, I used to love going hiking,’ says the author, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1993. Now, ‘I love making maps.’
It’s an interest she discovered out of necessity while envisioning the 7th-century lands in which Hilda of Whitby – the real-life medieval figure at the center of Griffith’s 2013 novel “Hild” and its just-published follow-up, “Menewood” – once roamed.
“Before I was in a wheelchair, I used to love going hiking,” says Griffith, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1993. “So the only time I ever used a map was an Ordnance Survey map if I was going for a hike across the moors. It’s just good to have a map with you. But generally speaking, everything is so well-marked that you don’t need it.”
She soon realized that there was scant information about her intended protagonist beyond the little that was written by 8th-century monk Bede. Much of that, Griffith notes, had to do with miracles. “A miracle doesn’t help me figure out how she became who she did in this time when … we’re taught that women didn’t have any power or influence.”
Although Griffith did live in the north of England for roughly the first half of her life, she hasn’t seen all the places that Hild might have encountered. And the ones that she has seen, like Whitby Abbey, had changed dramatically by the 20th century. She continues, “It’s not like this person takes on a life of their own and they’re separate from me, this character. It’s more that I can’t really access this creation I have made unless it’s through their physical world. That’s how I learn. Nature is my teacher and my home in a particular way. It’s my companion. It’s the thing that walks through life with me.”
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