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Interviewing the AH Community: Tanja Kinkel

I love this anecdote re historical figures:

I once had a chat with another German writer of historical fiction who was upset because in my Walther von der Vogelweide novel, one of the minor villains was a character dear to her and who was her hero in one of her own novels. We both had our reasons for the different opinion we'd formed of this person, and she certainly felt that my version wasn't hers. But she could see how I had come to see the man the way I did.
 
Great interview.

The best parts were:

-Being spot on about the internet. Me the reader benefits from the same things that impede me the writer.

-The same thing about different interpretations of historical figures already mentioned.

-The comments on historical vs. AH fiction, which echoes my statements about how explict AH intended for a non-enthusiast audience arguably needs a giant divergence. (I'd also add there's more appeal in historical. To oversimplify, historical fiction can say "this is what happened", while AH has to go "this is what didn't happen".)
 
Was pleased by this one. Tanja has been an acquaintance of mine for over a decade and I've always found her fascinating, especially when she talks about counter factuals which she sometimes does.

Somewhat of a risk to interview someone who exclusively writes non AH in a language very few of us read in, but I liked what she said. And for those keeping track this is the sixth time someone with a wikipedia page about them has spoken to us in one of our articles, the others being Paul Cornell and David Bishop in a @Charles EP M. article, Laura Watton (also to @Charles EP M.), Harry Turtledove and Arvid Nelson.
 
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