Interview with Author M.P. Barker

Tell us a little about your background.

I like to tell people I’m a time traveler. No, I’m not delusional (well, okay, maybe a little), but I spent eight years as a historical interpreter at Old Sturbridge Village, a living history museum that portrays 19^th-century rural New England. That means I dressed in costume and basically lived in the 1830s for 40 hours a week. If you came to the Village in the 1980s or 1990s and saw someone covered in manure, sour milk, and dirt, that was probably me. I mucked out barns, milked cows, weeded gardens, made butter and cheese, and dyed wool, to list just a few of my chores. The great thing about the job was that it gave me the perfect background to write two historical novels, A Difficult Boy (Holiday House, 2008) and Mending Horses (Holiday House, 2014), which are set in New England in 1839. When one of my characters has to sit down and milk a cow, I can honestly say I know just how he or she feels—the character, not the cow, that is.

Tell us a bit about your latest book.

Mending Horses is about three misfits—a peddler, a young runaway, and an Irish horse whisperer—who mend each other’s broken lives as they heal a traveling circus’s mistreated ponies. My agent calls it a “family-friendly Water for Elephants.” The story takes place when the American circus was just beginning to evolve into its present form, so the research was lots of fun. In addition to traveling circuses, the storyline explores the challenges faced by Irish immigrants who came to New England to build factories and railroads. There’s also a little romance, a feisty female character, and lots and lots of horses.

The story focuses on Daniel, a sixteen-year-old Irish boy who’s newly freed from indentured servitude. Seeking guidance and companionship, Daniel joins Jonathan Stocking, a peddler and roving jack-of-all-trades who invites Daniel to join him and his assistant, eleven-year-old Billy Fogarty, a reformed pickpocket with a hauntingly beautiful singing voice, who is fleeing an abusive father. The trio joins a circus run by Fred Chamberlain, an old friend of Mr. Stocking’s. When an incompetent trainer abandons the show’s six “dancing ponies,” Daniel discovers his own talents as a horse whisperer, not “breaking” the animals, but mending the damage their previous trainer had done to them. Meanwhile, Fred transforms Billy into “Billy McBride, the boy with the voice of an angel,” the company’s star vocalist. With Mr. Stocking guiding Daniel’s training efforts and coaching Billy’s singing, the three grow from traveling companions into a peculiar sort of family. But past secrets catch up with them, bringing danger and heartbreak.

How do you construct your plots? Do you outline or do you write “by the seat of your pants”?

I’m definitely a “pantser.” I usually start out with a character and a situation, and just keep playing around with it until the characters start to take on their own voices, and it begins to feel as though they’re dictating the story to me. But for the longest time, I have no idea where the story is going. Once I’ve gotten the story about halfway written and have an idea of the ending, then I make an outline so I can see where I need to fill in holes and make connections.

Which do you consider more important, plot or character?

Character, definitely. I’d rather read a book with a mediocre plot and great characters than one with lame characters and an exciting plot. I believe that plot often comes from character—after all, it’s the characters’ personalities that govern what they do, which is what creates the plot. As a writer, I always start with a character, then try sticking the character into different situations to see what will happen and how his or her personality will develop.

Tell us about your pets, or other animals that inspire you.

Midnight and Barker.

I’ve been lucky to have three wonderful dogs in my life—all of them second-hand. Our first was a Beagle mix, the second a Golden Retriever, and our current dog is a black Lab/Shepherd mix named Midnight. He’s not a great fan of my writing, though, and tends to heave major sighs when I’m working away for hours at “the box” (that’s what he calls my computer). He loves to rest his chin on my hand while I’m typing and say, “Look, there’s a beautiful dog here who’s being ignored.”

Where can we learn more about you and your books?

You can find out more by checking out my website – www.mpbarker.net

M.P. Barker is the award-winning author of two historical novels set in 19^th-century New England—A Difficult Boy (Holiday House, 2008) and Mending Horses (Holiday House, 2014). A Difficult Boy received awards from PEN New England and the International Reading Association, and Mending Horses is a Kirkus Prize nominee. Her background includes work at Old Sturbridge Village, a living history museum, where she experienced 19^th-century New England life firsthand. You can find out more at her website – www.mpbarker.net

M.P. Barker on Riding and Writing

Horses play a central role in my historical novels A Difficult Boy and Mending Horses. In the first book, a horse helps two indentured servants overcome their differences and outwit their tyrannical master. In the second, horses help heal the broken lives of three misfits—a peddler, a young runaway, and an Irish horse whisperer--who join a traveling circus in 19^th-century New England.  

I guess that’s only natural; as a kid I was one of those horsey girls. I read every Black Stallion book I could get my hands on. I cut horse pictures out of magazines and played with them the way my sister played with paper dolls. I assembled a make-believe horse of old trunks and suitcases in the basement and pretended to be National Velvet leaving the competition in the dust. Long before My Little Pony, my favorite toys were my plastic horses. I followed televised races passionately, falling in love with Secretariat and weeping inconsolably when the beautiful filly Ruffian died in 1975.

The only thing missing from my passion for horses was an actual horse. My family could afford neither horse nor riding lessons, so the occasional trail ride was the closest I ever came to the fantasy horses galloping through my imagination. Then I went to college and put away my horsey dreams. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I could finally afford to take riding lessons. Frankly, as an adult learner, I stank. Much as I enjoyed working with horses, I had the hardest time getting the feel for riding. I could tuck in my elbows, keep my heels down, hold my posture, and keep a light hand on the reins until the cows came home, but I didn’t really connect with the horse the way I’d read about in my favorite novels.

Then the stable hired a new instructor, who had an intuitive method of teaching. She showed me how to feel with my entire body what the horse was doing, to relax into the horse’s motion and communicate with my legs, my seat, my hands, in a way that none of her predecessors had shown me. While previous instructors had focused on showing me how to control the horse, she showed me how to listen to the horse. And all of a sudden, I could actually ride—not just sit on a horse without falling off. What had been a challenge became a joy, and I finally understood what the connection between horse and rider was supposed to feel like.

It wasn’t until Sheila invited me to guest-blog here that I realized how many similarities there were between my experiences with riding and writing. In addition to my horsey fantasies, I enjoyed childhood dreams of becoming a novelist. But as with riding, I set that fantasy aside. I did write non-fiction as part of various jobs. But those were mostly “just-the-facts-ma’am” projects, with minimal creativity required. It wasn’t until my thirties that I decided to give fiction another whirl—not as a prospective profession, but as a hobby, the way one might take up knitting or woodworking…or horseback riding.

Unlike my first experiences with riding lessons, though, fortunately my first attempts at writing didn’t stink (at least not too badly!). Instead, I discovered the same sense of rightness that I’d felt when I’d finally gotten the feel for a horse. It was as though I’d been plodding along with the non-fiction writing I’d done in the past, and all of a sudden fiction allowed me to break into a lovely, soaring canter.

For me, the relationship between story and writer is very much like the relationship between horse and rider. It seems that the harder I try to control the story, the harder it is to connect with it. Like a horse, the story moves more smoothly when I relax a little, when I strive more for guidance than control. I’ve found that writing involves a lot of listening to my characters, even letting them have their heads at times. And when everything goes just right, there are sudden joyful breakthroughs when the story gallops along, and all I have to do is hang on and enjoy the ride.

I still don’t have my own horse, and probably never will. But I got to create a fantasy horse in Ivy, the mare at the heart of both my novels. So I guess, in a way, fulfilling my writing dreams fulfilled my riding dreams at the same time. As an author, I can have all the horses I want for free, right there on the tip of my pen—and no need to muck out the barn after I’m done with them.   

M.P. Barker is the award-winning author of two historical novels set in 19^th-century New England—A Difficult Boy (Holiday House, 2008) and Mending Horses (Holiday House, 2014). A Difficult Boy received awards from PEN New England and the International Reading Association, and Mending Horses is a Kirkus Prize nominee. Her background includes work at Old Sturbridge Village, a living history museum, where she experienced 19^th-century New England life firsthand. 

You can find out more at her website – www.mpbarker.net