Teresa Milbrodt interviewed by Scholars & Rogues

Scholars & Rogues has a lengthy interview up with Teresa Milbrodt, author of Bearded Women.

S&R: I get the impression that you know your way around the ancient Greeks. Have you always enjoyed reading mythology or are we seeing the result of research done expressly for this book?

TM: One of my college professors classified my work as “Midwestern mythic,” which I thought was a fitting term. Mythic themes and magical realist plot lines have always been a fascination of mine. It’s fiction, so why be constrained to the boring old real world all the time?

But to actually answer your question, I loved reading Greek mythology when I was a kid, and I’ve returned to those tales since the characters in them are both interesting and skeletal. In other words, there’s already a backstory and history for mythological figures, but at the same time there’s a lot of space for a writer to flesh out exactly who these people/gorgons/cyclops are and bring them to three-dimensional life. Plus I wanted to explore what it might be like to go through life with snakes on your head.

Read more fascinating questions and answers here.

Order Bearded Women here.