Featured Interview With Peggy Joque Williams
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I am a Yooper by birth and a Cheesehead by choice. I grew up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula—often referred to as the U.P. Yoo-p. Yooper. Get it? After college and marriage I moved with my spouse to Wisconsin, where we proudly call ourselves Cheeseheads and sometimes wear cheese-shaped hats. I live in the state’s capital city, Madison. As for pets, do you count my hubby? We’ve been cat owners, and had a dog for a number of years, but now we just have each other. And kids. And grandkids.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I have been fascinated by books since I was a toddler. I grew up in a household with books, classics like Dickens and Dumas that my dad collected, and teen mystery novels handed down to me by a cousin. Our town’s children’s librarian knew each of us kids by name. It was six blocks away, and I walked there frequently. When I was in high school and college, my oldest brother would talk about books he was reading, and I would get them from the library—The Lord of the Rings, the Last Temptation of Christ, Strangers in a Strange Land. As for writing, I remember working on the class newsletter in elementary school. In sixth grade, my friends and I would gather together with a single notebook between us, and we were brainstorming and writing the next great Beatles movie after having seen A Hard Day’s Night. For me, writing was fun! That was followed by being on my high school newspaper; and I wrote an essay for a national competition that won at the state, earning me a small scholarship.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite authors have changed over time, maybe not so much changed as have been added to. In my college and early adult years, I enjoyed J.R.R. Tolkein and Robert Heinlein. For a long while I became fascinated by international intrigue: Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy, Ken Follet and such. Later, my tastes became more erudite, and I read Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran. Then I read Lolita and all the other books mentioned in her memoir. I have always loved non-fiction, especially non-fiction that marries history with science and math and interesting people. Books about Alan Turing, Stephen Johnson’s The Invention of Air, biographies of scientists by Walter Issacson. More recently, because of my interest in 17th century, I find myself reading Tracy Chevalier, Alison Weir, Geraldine Brooks, Maggie O’Farrell, C.S. Harris, and Margaret George. For more contemporary fare, I just love Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers and Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures. I am inspired by everything I read.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Courting the Sun: A Novel of Versailles was released in May 2024, by the indie publisher Black Rose Writing. It’s the story of a free-spirited country girl swept up in the world of intrigue, illicit affairs, and power mongering that went on in the court of Louis, XIV, the Sun King. She thinks she’s living the life she has always dreamed of but discovers she’s nothing more than a pawn in the King’s game of politics and financial dealings. The premise, which informs the end of the book, is loosely inspired by my own 7th- and 8th-great-grandmothers who lived and loved in France, but who had to make difficult choices. But disclaimer: none of my ancestors lived the life that my character Sylvienne does. She is purely fiction, set in the very real world of King Louis, his mistress Athénaïs de Montespan, his brother Philippe, and the Princess Henriette-Anne, Philippe’s tragic young wife.
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