Trish Matson to Natania Barron: Your newest book is Netherford Hall, the start of a new series [which just came out on Aug. 13], so this interview will be focusing on that. But first, what should new-to-you readers know about you in general?
Natania Barron: First, thanks so much for having me. And congratulations on the Hugo [to Skiffy and Fanty crew member Paul Weimer, for his Best Fan Writer award and Nerds of a Feather Best Fanzine co-award]! Y’all do such amazing work.
I market myself as a fantasy author and fashion historian, because that covers most of the bases. If you go by what other people say about my writing, it’s descriptive, lush, and full of beautiful costumes, which I’m perfectly okay with. My background is in Arthurian and medieval romance, so both the history of mythology and history in general heavily inform my work. I personally like to play the line between literary and speculative because I don’t think they’re exclusive at all. That’s just how I write.
Outside of that, I’m a gardener, baker, painter, hiker, mom, wife, and pet mom. I’m endlessly curious, too.
TM: Netherford Hall opens with Edith Rookwood, the new head of her family, returning to her family’s ancestral estate after their house in London burns down. It’s been many years since the Rookwoods have been in residence, so both they and the townsfolk have a lot of adjustments to make. Why have the Rookwoods have been ignoring their ties to the land, despite its being a source of magical power for them?
Follow-up: Are they unusual for their class, in being absentee owners?
Natania Barron: The Rookwoods, and many gentlewitch families, have become detached from old magic by the time these books take place (in the early 1810s). Because gentlewitches became part of the peerage, they’ve adopted some of their worst qualities, including institutionalization, turning something like magic into a process. Everything has rules. There are committees and charters and organizations for all aspects of gentlewitch life, replacing what was once the manor-based magic of before. So, the Rookwoods, having lived in London for almost a century with just occasional trips to Netherford, thought they had everything they needed in the city. And to some extent they are right—they had a version of things that worked. Unlike some of the larger families, the Rookwoods had diminished significantly in the last few decades, culminating with Edith’s mother and aunt. They were very cosmopolitan, deeply involved in politics, and highly respected as necromancers—which is another reason to stay in London. Much more material to work with! But Edith, upon surviving them, is no great and powerful gentlewitch, so she has to lean on the older frameworks—many of which she had no idea about—to succeed.
I don’t think ignoring their ancestral homes is totally unusual among the gentlewitch families, but to this extent, yes. Especially considering how important Netherford is, as Edith later learns in the books, to the history of gentlewitch magic and its connection to the Fae.
TM: Edith comes off as being very cold and snobbish to tenant Poppy Brightwell and her sister Viola—granted, Edith has a lot on her mind, and Poppy had been trespassing. Yet despite these initial bad feelings, Poppy and Edith feel a very strong attraction to each other. Opposites’ attraction is a romantic trope, but is it healthy?
Follow-up: Is it fun to write?
Natania Barron: Edith and Poppy take a lot of inspiration from Darcy and Elizabeth, with a twist of neurodivergence: Edith is autistic, and Poppy has ADHD. Of course, it’s not said explicitly in the book, as there is no such diagnosis in their world. However, they both struggle to fit in when it comes to their families and societal expectations, and their behaviors can be somewhat off-putting, impulsive, or unpredictable. So, although they are very different, they have a similar experience, and that definitely draws them together. What I love is that, although they start out as enemies, they bring out the best in each other. Poppy teaches Edith how to be brave; Edith teaches Poppy how to be more measured. They both, as the story progresses, fall in love with Netherford Hall itself after a fashion. In that way, it’s healthy. They have plenty in common to keep things moving—not so with all similarly troped relationships, though.
It is thrilling to write. I love watching characters fall in love and question their own selves, and grow into something new. The best relationships can do that.
TM: Your afterword salutes the inspiration of Pride and Prejudice, and your earlier Queen of None series was inspired by the Arthurian canon. Why is it interesting or useful for writers to reinterpret old works from new perspectives?
Natania Barron: I think it’s just part of the human condition. I often say that Arthuriana is just England’s most popular fanfiction. And I mean it. We love to tell stories and change them to suit our own needs, times, contexts, and societies. There is something truly powerful about being able to add to a melody that’s over a thousand years old. It’s also so important to realize that the record of what we have is incomplete—just like Bible scholarship, what becomes “canon” is not necessarily accurate or even representative of what was popular at the time. We lose so much to censorship and political machination. Nothing, really, is new. What has or hasn’t been allowed is another story altogether. As a medievalist, it’s amazing to hear how many people are shocked to find out that the world wasn’t just in sepia for a thousand years, and that women learned, wrote, and lived. We even have trans representation in Arthuriana with a knight named Silence. There are canonically Black knights of the Round Table, as well as Muslim, too. Not to mention those with physical disabilities. Now that we have space to tell these stories, we can bring to light what was always lingering.
TM: One of Skiffy and Fanty’s missions is to uplift creators from under-represented groups, such as BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ writers, and people with disabilities. According to your website, you’re openly bisexual and demisexual, and the prime pairing in this book is female-female. There’s a lot more inclusion in books and stories than when I was growing up, but there’s been a lot of reactionary backlash in the last few years, too, including library book bans. Are you worried that the market may have peaked, and be shrinking, for the kinds of stories that you want to write?
Natania Barron: I will continue writing queer stories no matter what. I could care less if it’s marketable or if there’s a backlash. As a person who experienced sexuality through the lens of conservative Christianity, and wasted over a decade of my life hating myself for how I was made, I know how important these kinds of stories are. Who we allow to be a hero in our stories tells us everything we need to know about a culture. In Queen of None, I gave that permission to a mother, a widow—a woman most often written out of stories given she had served her purpose. It’s a much darker take on wrestling power from privilege, and Anna Pendragon has to give up a whole lot to get what (she thinks) she wants. Gawain is bisexual, which we learn in Queen of Fury, which may be confusing to some who remember him saying very unkind things about certain presumed M/M relationships. But I literally stood in his shoes, once, parroting the awful things I’d heard said, while my own self-hatred burned a hole inside of me.
I’m writing from my own experience, because I literally didn’t even know what a bisexual was until I was in college. I didn’t know that was an option. And when I learned about demisexuality in my 30s, my life just took on a whole other meaning. As part of the asexual spectrum, I don’t experience—or rarely, rarely—spontaneous attraction to a person. I need an emotional, intellectual connection before I can even contemplate closeness. I can objectively find people attractive—but it’s kind of like admiring a piece of art. It’s aesthetics. Viola Brightwell, in the Netherford books, is also demisexual. It’s one of the reasons she hasn’t married. That gets far more complicated by the end of book one, but it was great to write a character from that perspective of experiencing sexuality different from everyone around her.
But to the question at hand, no. I don’t think these sorts of stories are going anywhere. My kids are both Gen Z, and their world is so much more open, accepting, and welcoming than mine ever was. Not that there still aren’t struggles—there certainly are. But the mindset has shifted. We will continue to see backlash—revolutions always do. But we need our own mythology, both reclaiming what we’ve always had, and reforging new ones.
TM: It turns out that social barriers and intrigues are far from the only obstacles faced by the characters in this book; there are also real dangers. Did this book start out as a pure romance, or was peril always part of the plan?
Natania Barron: Well, I love monsters a great deal. Most of my books have monsters in them, and I love talking about the concept of monstrosity and villainy in any context. But as a fantasy writer, it’s always good to have monsters—both those in plain sight and those who are truly terrible. We have some very tame vampires in Ophelia and Laertes Byrne, but they are not without danger. Witches are usually cast as monsters; not so here. Werewolves make quite a showing in the second book, with our dandy Roland de Grateloup. But then there are more corrupt powers, like that which imperils Netherford in the book, which is always more complex than it seems at first glance. Though the villain is truly awful, it also gives very truthful insight to Edith and lets her see her own flaws, her own failures. And that is powerful. I’m very wary of evil for evil’s sake. And, as we learn in the series, there are villains everywhere.
So, yes. I knew there would be monsters. I knew this would be romantasy. I don’t think I could ever write a pure romance without some kind of supernatural angle.
TM: Clothing can be a form of armor, or at least a tool for social advancement, especially in rigidly classist societies. But it can also provide pure joy, even for someone who doesn’t normally think a lot about clothes. I love how you demonstrate both of those aspects when Poppy and Viola Brightwell receive their beautiful, and distinctly different, ball gowns. Can you talk a bit about the complex layers (of uses) of clothing?
Natania Barron: Yes! Clothing is a huge component of this book, and building both of the sisters’ personalities. Poppy makes Viola’s dress for the big ball at the Greenstreets, and it’s a labor of love. Although Poppy is excellent in terms of her vision and her embroidery techniques, she’s got to rely on Jamini Rawlings-Vijay, the modiste, to bring it to fruition. And given they don’t have much money, she’s re-fashioning a gown for her sister rather than commissioning something new. This gives me plenty of room to build on their relationship, and how Poppy expresses her love for Viola. And although Viola’s dress is refashioned, it is still the talk of the town. Poppy’s gown, however, arrives from a secret admirer—who she thinks is Edith—and it is hands-down the most perfect dress ever made for her, as if by magic. No spoilers, but I loved writing that parallel of her laboriously making her sister’s dress and not making her own, but getting one anyway. Poppy also embroiders cuffs for Edith, and it’s very much a love token, having taken hours and hours of work to produce a unique product. Poppy is also [able] to read a great deal into anyone with her knowledge of fashion, which gives her an edge—and a bit of self-doubt, too, knowing she can’t measure up.
For Edith, who dresses in masculine fashion, it’s also an expression of herself as someone who we would certainly consider nonbinary. She does not go by Lady Rookwood, as her mother would have, but by the neutral Liege Rookwood. She is not the only gentlewitch to do so, but is in a minority. There are lots of elements of French fashion in what she wears, more akin to the 18th century, but it is still very much male coded. As such, she’s brought into more male spaces quite easily, like with her friendship with the Viscount St. Albans.
Ultimately, clothing is an excellent way to build on character and build the world around you. I could write a whole book on it!
TM: Possibly like a lot of people, I first became aware of you on social media a few years ago, when you wrote about the history of chintz in your #ThreadTalk postings on what used to be Twitter (interview readers can see your essay about that on your blog at https://nataniabarron.com/2021/02/02/all-about-chintz/ ). So I was excited to see in the afterword to Netherford Hall that a chintz dress in this book got you started on doing those essay-threads. In this way, you have an intertwining of your fiction, your research, your social media presence, and your hobbies. Can you talk about how these different facets of your work balance and reinforce each other?
Follow-up: How do you put the brakes on when research and social media are threatening to become too much of a distraction from your writing?
Natania Barron: #ThreadTalk was such a happy accident. You know, being a curious ADHD brain, all my life people told me that I was oversharing my interests. So, although I do a ton of research that doesn’t show up on the page, I’d kept most of it to myself. Something snapped during the pandemic, and I just decided, well, fuck it. I’m sharing. And it turns out, people love learning about fashion. And a lot of those people also read fantasy and historical fantasy and romantasy. I’ve found friends, readers, and fellow authors through just being more of myself, and that’s a pretty remarkable gift right there. I’ve always loved fashion—briefly I wanted to even be a fashion designer. But I cannot sew to save my life. So, I look at it academically. It really has opened up a whole world to me.
Putting on the brakes means leaning on my characters. I love an ensemble story, so the Netherford books have a lot of head-hopping. I like to remind myself how each character sees fashion: is it important to them? Is it joyful for them? Do they understand it, like Poppy, at a craft level, or just as an aesthetic one? Do they use fashion as politics, or just for personal expression? I have to be conscious of Natania describing, vs. the character.
Finding balance isn’t easy, but it never has been. I did pull back on ThreadTalk when Twitter tanked, but I do plan to do more when I’m not on deadline. As I’m fond of reciting: if I don’t make boundaries, someone else will.
TM: I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler, since this is a magical Regency-style romance, to say that Edith and Poppy have a happy ending, but several other dawning relationships are unresolved, and one person is in a pretty dire situation. It’s great to see that other books will be coming to develop these entanglements further. When can we expect them?
Natania Barron: Yes! This is a happily ever after for Edith and Poppy, and their story conveys through the whole series though other couples take up the mantle as the focus for books II and III. Viola and a certain gentleman are the focus of The Viscount St. Albans, and Roland, our werewolf, and Basil Hode, the Warder, are the focus of The Game of Hearts. But, there is a bigger plot to it all, about magic, and privilege, and prophecies. I’m hoping book II is out in the spring of 2025! I will keep you posted.
TM: What other authors are you excited about right now?
Natania Barron: I’m a voracious reader, and I try to read a mix of what is popular—so I can keep up with what people are reading—and my own interests. I’m loving Andrea Stewart’s Bone Shard Empire series right now and John Wiswell’s Someone You Can Build a Nest In, and am very excited about Nalo Hopkinson’s new books, and Jeff VanderMeer’s upcoming Absolution. I’m also reading Vita Sackville-West right now, whom I adore, as well as Ken Liu’s Laozi’s Dao De Jing translation. We recently interviewed both Ken and Nalo on Worldbuilding for Masochists [her podcast with Marshall Ryan Maresca, Cass Morris, and formerly Rowenna Miller], and wow.
TM: Finally, where can people keep up with your writings and other activities?
Natania Barron: You can find me on Threads and Bluesky these days (as @nataniabarron and @natania respectively), and on TikTok at @nataniabooks. I’m pretty easy to find! When all else fails, my website: nataniabarron.com
TM: Netherford Hall‘s cover design is by Sam Gretton of Solaris Books.
The author image of Natania Barron is cropped from a group shot of Marshall Ryan Maresca, Natania Barron, and Cass Morris, taken at the Glasgow 2024 WorldCon by Olav Rokne. https://www.flickr.com/photos/200788293@N08/53918915559/in/photolist-dxKX1h-dxKULL-dxKWf3-7P9fPZ-8qS54g-87n4ar-7P9fUZ-2q9Cx6a-dxEuj6-8qVroS-8qRZW6
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