Are there TV shows or films that have influenced your writing?

Tons! I love all period dramas, especially Downton Abbey; Little Dorrit; Brideshead Revisited; Mr Selfridge; The Paradise; The Bletchley Circle; Foyle’s War; Call the Midwife; The Village; The Last Kingdom; Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries; Lark Rise to Candleford; Upstairs, Downstairs; The Pallisers; Endeavour; Midsomer Murders; Victoria—and of course, every Jane Austen adaptation ever made.

Let’s just say I’m a real period-drama buff. Beyond pure enjoyment, these shows have been hugely helpful to my writing. Over the years I’ve studied the nuances of character relationships, mannerisms and social norms, pacing, setting, and even the props in a scene. On second or third viewings, I’ll stop following the plot and start examining the wallpaper, the art on the walls, a table setting, the arrangement of a vase of flowers—details I love weaving into my own work.

 

 

If you could write any other genre, what would it be?

Historical fantasy. Not so much dragons and sorcerers—though I do enjoy them—but more time travel and a touch of the supernatural, maybe a quest for an object of great power. I have an idea about a WWI nurse who finds a wounded man in an unfamiliar uniform. Later she discovers he’s actually from the medieval period and has been placed there deliberately for her to find…

 

 

What’s the best compliment a reader has ever given you?

During COVID, I received an email from a man in Oklahoma whose ninety-four-year-old mother was in a Chicago-area nursing home. She had downloaded one of my books and, having grown up in Chicago, was delighted by the local references. As she read, memories resurfaced, and she began calling her son nightly to tell him what was happening in the book and to share stories from her own life. “She told me stories,” he wrote, “that I had never heard before about her life.” They went on to read the entire series together and spent many hours on the phone discussing each chapter. “It was an utter joy,” he wrote, thanking me for giving them that gift.

Gift? Theirs was the gift. I’ll never forget that email—it’s the best one I’ve ever received.

 

 

Favorite non-reading activity?

Board games! I’ve collected about 250 board and card games and play as often as I can—or whenever I can coax my adult kids to the table.  Sometimes I have to bribe them!

 

 

What literary pilgrimages have you gone on?

None officially. But when I studied in London for a semester, I visited many literary sites—the homes of the Brontës, Wordsworth, Dickens, and Keats, among others. I was surrounded by literary influence, even if I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time. I suspect, however, that it seeped in subconsciously.  But, I’d love a re-do!

 

 

Michelle Cox has always been obsessed with stories of the past and has spent a lifetime collecting them. She is the award-winning author of historical fiction, including the Henrietta and Inspector Howard series, The Fallen Woman’s Daughter, and The Merriweather Novels. Cox also pens the wildly popular, “Novel Notes of Local Lore,” a weekly blog chronicling the lives of Chicago’s forgotten residents.

She lives in the northern suburbs of Chicago with her husband, an assortment of children who continually leave and then come back, and one naughty Goldendoodle. Unbeknownst to most, she hoards board games she doesn’t have time to play and is, not surprisingly, in love with both Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. Likewise, she is happily addicted to period dramas and big band music. Also marmalade.

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