To say that Kate Mosse is busy would be an understatement. Many know her as the founder of the Women’s Prize for Fiction – a trailblazing literary prize that, since it was launched in 1995, has changed the landscape of women’s writing worldwide.
Many more still know her as a bestselling writer, whose books have sold over eight million copies and been translated into 38 languages. But fewer know Kate Mosse the playwright, feminist campaigner, and performer of one-woman shows. What’s more, she manages all this while being a carer for elderly family members and, as she describes, “a very active granny”.
This October, Kate celebrates the release of The Map of Bones, the final novel in the Joubert Family Chronicles. This epic multigenerational historical series pairs Kate’s evocative prose with electrifying elements of romance, mystery, and adventure.
We recently sat down with Kate to discuss the new book, her creative process, and why her 60s are her most productive period yet.
“It feels very emotional publishing The Map of Bones because it’s been 12 years of dreaming”
Kate Mosse at the Women’s Prize for Fiction ceremony
Kate explains that all of her writing – whether memoirs or gothic fiction – begins with place. She was inspired to write Labyrinth (the first novel in the multimillion-selling Languedoc Trilogy) 35 years ago when visiting Carcassonne. It was here that she first experienced what she calls “the whispering of the landscape”.
“What I mean by that is you can almost hear voices – that there’s a story here for you,” Kate tells us. “It’s the idea that you can only write this story set here; you couldn’t pick it up and set it somewhere else.”
Years later, the idea for what would become the Joubert Family Chronicles took hold when Kate was visiting Franschhoek, one of the oldest towns in South Africa, for a book festival. Here, she discovered the story of hundreds of French Protestant (or ‘Huguenot’) refugees who came to the Cape in the 17th century after fleeing persecution during the French Wars of Religion.
Before long, Kate envisaged four novels; a centuries-spanning saga that would take us from the hilltops of Carcassonne to the streets of Amsterdam to the newly-erected colonial towns of South Africa. After publishing The Burning Chambers in 2018, Kate followed up with The City of Tears (2021) and The Ghost Ship (2023). The epic tale comes to a close this October with the release of The Map of Bones.
“It feels very emotional publishing The Map of Bones because it’s been 12 years of dreaming, researching, planning, writing, and editing,” Kate says. “It’s only happened to me once before where I’ve been a bit weepy writing the final pages, but that’s what happened [with this book]. I felt like I was saying goodbye to people I’ve spent 12 years with, so I can’t wait for people to read it.”
“I kind of got propelled into writing by a dare”
While she’s always been passionate about literature, Kate didn’t always have her sights set on being an author – and she started writing fiction relatively late compared to some of her contemporaries. After graduating with an English degree from New College, Oxford, in 1984, she set out on a publishing career. However, nearly a decade later, a new opportunity arrived that forced Kate to reconsider her path.
“I was offered quite a big job,” Kate tells us. “At that stage, I had a two-year-old and was expecting another baby. I had to decide whether this was what I wanted from my career, and I had to be brave enough to say to myself, ‘Actually, you want something different.’”
Around the same time, Kate explained to her friend, a literary agent, that the kind of book she sought about pregnancy and motherhood simply didn’t exist. She says, “He challenged me and said, ‘Why don’t you stop moaning and write it?’ And I said, ‘OK, I will! So I kind of got propelled into writing by a dare.”
Soon, Kate secured a deal with a publisher and began writing her first book, Becoming a Mother, which hit shelves in 1993. This guide to pregnancy and birth weaves medical and historical information with real women’s experiences, taking readers from conception to the first few days with their baby.
Although another non-fiction book was to follow in 1995 (this one on the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden), Kate soon moved on to fiction writing. But it wasn’t until her fifth book, Labyrinth, was published in 2005 that her status as a bestselling author was cemented. “That was the one that changed everything,” she says.
“You must write from the inside out, not the outside in”
Kate Mosse
Although Kate doesn’t count her two early novels – Eskimo Kissing (1996) and Crucifix Lane (1998) – among her finest, she explains that they provided an essential training ground for her to hone her craft.
“What I learned was that, when you’re writing, you have to have nothing in your mind and your eyes must be down on the page. You shouldn’t be thinking about what type of book this is or what people are going to think about it. You must write from the inside out, not the outside in. What I did with the first two novels was sit on my own shoulder going, ‘Oh, that’s not very good.’”
Over the years, Kate has learned to follow her instincts and get the bones of the story down on paper first before refining it in later drafts.
“For me, the first draft is all emotion,” she says. “Just get it down and keep going. Don’t stop and keep reworking the first three chapters. Keep going until you’ve got a book because, otherwise, you don’t really know what you are working with. It’s like you are trying to decorate a house when you’ve only got three walls and no roof. You need the whole structure before you can start to see where everything goes.”
“Don’t think that everything you write has to be that novel you’ve always dreamed of”
However, as Kate tells us, with the various pressures and responsibilities of later life, it’s not always possible to write ‘from the inside out’. For the past 12 years, Kate has been a carer – first for her parents and now for her mother-in-law – which can make finding the time and headspace for creativity difficult.
She says, “What you need when you are writing is an empty head full of possibility and blue-sky thinking. But when you are a carer, or if you are in very difficult circumstances, the minute you try to turn off, it’s not your lovely creative characters from 18th-century France that rush in, it’s: What are you going to do about ordering that medication? How are you going to get somebody to the hospital and still manage to pick your child up from school? So every day is a very big challenge.”
Kate is quick to acknowledge how her job as a full-time author might make it easier for her to find writing time than some other carers or parents. However, her advice to any aspiring scribes facing difficult or demanding circumstances is to get something written down every day, no matter the quality or quantity.
She says, “What I’ve learnt to do when I’m book writing is to start at four in the morning. Not everyone can do that, of course, but it means that I usually have three or four hours of utterly uninterrupted time. It meant that, even in the very difficult times when my father was extremely ill and dying, whatever happened during the day or night, I did something every day. Now, was it great writing? No, not at all. But you’ve got something there that you can make better. If you’ve got a blank page, it’s tough.
“So, anybody who is trying to write and has lots of pressures on them, don’t think that everything you set down has to be that novel you’ve always dreamed of. Write down your thoughts. Write down what the steam coming out of the kettle looks like. Write down a description of the sky when you’ve been up half the night and you are trying to go to bed.
“Write one sentence, and another sentence, and another. Before you know it, you’ll have thousands of words. You won’t use most of them, but you’ll be investing in your creativity for the time when you do have the headspace to use it.”
“I don’t feel like I’m ready to be sitting by the fire”
What’s fascinating about Kate’s creative process is that despite the detailed research she does before putting pen to paper – much of which is done by exploring with her own two feet, as well as combing through libraries and archives – she discovers the story itself as she writes.
Kate says, “I know the history and scope of it, it’s like building a stage set, but apart from that, I don’t know what’s going to happen – and that’s the joy of writing for me.”
“In the end, The Map of Bones is a story of women’s voices. It’s a story of the power of words, about how women are connected from generation to generation by the stories they pass down. It’s a story about why women have to write – but that’s not how I went into it.”
The Map of Bones (2024)
This passion for amplifying women’s voices runs through everything Kate does – whether it’s those lost to the centuries via her historical fiction or those of contemporary writers through the Women’s Prize for Fiction, which turns 30 next year. Kate is also looking forward to celebrating the second anniversary of the new Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, which she launched earlier this year.
As she explains, “Twenty-five percent of non-fiction books that are reviewed are by women, even though the actual balance of male-female publishing is 50/50. But when you take cookery and childcare out, serious books by women get overlooked all the time.
“Surely we want to read a book by the person who knows the subject best – whether it’s classical music, physics, virology, or whatever. So we’re now trying to shift the dial on the non-fiction, and we’re really looking forward to celebrating next year.
“Creatively, I feel very buzzy and that there’s still a lot to do. There are still many things about women’s place in the world, in particular, that I would like to be a part of, so I don’t feel like I’m ready to be sitting by the fire, as it were. I am busier in my 60s than I have ever been before and I feel I’ve got a good 20 years in me before I need to take it easy.”
As well as releasing The Map of Bones on the 10th of October, Kate is also preparing for her next one-woman show, which is based on the history behind Labyrinth. Starting in February next year, Labyrinth Live – Unlocking the Secrets of the Labyrinth will take her to over 30 theatres across the UK. You can view dates and venues and buy your tickets here.
And to hear from more authors, check out our recent interviews with Barbara Erskine and Nick Harkaway.
