PR Woods: 'I would never write anything against Wolf Hall'

We've already heard from Fríða Ísberg and Bronia Flett in this Spring series, and we'll be welcoming Susanna Clarke and Jeremy Wikeley on to the Fictionable podcast over the next few weeks. But this time we're going back in time with PR Woods and her short story Our Lady of Sorrows.

Woods tells us how Sister Avis came to her after someone wrote to the Guardian about Hilary Mantel's novel Wolf Hall arguing "It's a great story, but it didn't happen like that."

In the 16th century, the dissolution of the monasteries was a great upheaval, Woods says, so she asked herself "how did it actually happen? You've got this massive, fundamental change in the landscape of England, the literal landscape – houses and buildings being demolished – but also the religious landscape. I was just interested in the logistics of of it."

"An awful lot of the monks and the friars could become what we would essentially think of as parish priests now," she continues. "But that obviously wasn't an option for the women. So where did they all go?"

While Woods confesses a fascination with the Tudors, she's no fan of Henry VIII.

"He was a tyrant," she says, "he was dreadful to women, to all his wives in one way and another."

But Woods imagines that Sister Avis would have seen this awful king for what he was.

"I like to think that she tutted whenever she heard rumours about what Henry VIII was doing, that she was disappointed by him again and again."

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