Get to know our faculty: Nikki Marmery
Nikki Marmery lives in a village just outside London where she writes historical fiction. Her debut novel, On Wilder Seas, is the story of Maria, the only woman aboard Francis Drake’s Golden Hind when he sailed around the world in 1577-1580. On Wilder Seas was shortlisted for the Myriad Editions First Drafts Competition 2017 and the Historical Novel Society’s New Novel Award 2018.
At SWF20, Nikki, a former financial journalist, will take part in “Meet ‘The Debutantes,’” a panel discussion with newly published authors sharing insights into entering the world of publishing.
What makes you most excited to be part of the Stockholm Writers Festival?
I attended SWF last year and was struck by the sense of community. It was such a friendly and welcoming festival: intimate enough to get to know many of the attendees and mix with the faculty who were so generous with their time and expertise. I left hugely inspired, motivated and fired up to finish the edits on my book and complete my journey as a debut writer.
I’m looking forward to more of the same. I want to hear about what other people are working on, be inspired by and learn from a fantastic community of writers – and leave ready to dive into my second novel.
How did you develop your book’s main character, Maria?
I first read about Maria when she was referenced in one brief sentence in a history book.
I was pregnant at the time and I could not stop imagining the unique horror of her fate: to be a heavily pregnant woman, alone among men, on a tiny Elizabethan ship sailing into the unknown. I wanted to know everything about her, but the facts of her life are so scarce.
Worse, the only eyewitness accounts of her are dehumanizing and objectifying: she is “a proper negro wench” who is “taken” and “set down,” a passive object to be moved about according to Drake’s whim.
I wanted to center Maria in her own story and imagine her on her own terms. To do this, I researched the voices of women who lived lives like hers – African women in the Spanish New World of the 16th and 17th centuries – via the work of historians who have uncovered their testimonies in archives. Reading these women in their own words – the wills they left, the property suits they launched, the witchcraft hearings they endured and the legal challenges enslaved women made to Spanish religious authority – all brought me much closer to Maria. These women gave me the confidence to construct a character like them: wily, creative and resourceful; to present Maria as she undoubtedly was: an active and courageous participant in her own life, rather than a passive object to be used and abandoned by men.
What was the most challenging part of completing your book, and how did you push through?
The sheer breadth of research required for this book was extremely daunting. I had to learn about Elizabethan shipcraft and navigation, the legal system of the Spanish New World and the intricacies of early modern religious disputes, not to mention the pre-colonial cultures and peoples of West Africa, Central and South America, the Arctic North and the Pacific coast of what is now the US and Canada, for which few unbiased sources exist. Some first-hand African and native American accounts can be found in the records of the Inquisition in New Spain, and I read a lot of folklore and mythology as well — oral fictions and histories handed down through generations — to better understand these worldviews.
Another huge challenge was that in many instances, my characters had to interact with people they shared no common language with. How to write that?! I was completely stumped. A writing tutor suggested I look at The Inheritors by William Golding, a book set in prehistory about a tribe of Neanderthals, who communicate almost entirely without speech as we know it. I think that’s good universal advice: when you’re stuck, read how skilled writers have handled similar problems.
What’s one piece of advice for writers still working on their first book?
Stop polishing what you’ve already written. Don’t revise at all until you’ve completed a whole first draft. Then the real work begins.
What books are you currently reading?
While I was writing On Wilder Seas, I stayed away from historical fiction with similar themes because I didn’t want to mimic or be led by it. Instead, I read a lot of non-fiction – mostly anthropology and history – and contemporary fiction. But now I’m returning to historical fiction with renewed passion. I loved The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins and Washington Black by Esi Edugyan, both beautiful, fascinating books with main characters who have escaped slavery. I’m currently reading and hugely enjoying The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey, a medieval detective story.
One of my favorite books last year was one I brought away from SWF19: The Good Son by Paul McVeigh. It was like Paul in person: funny, warm and engaging.
See all SWF20 faculty on our faculty webpage.