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Teenreads is so excited to be part of the blog tour for ALWAYS EMILY by Michaela MacColl! You may remember Michaela from our recent Side by Side feature on Emily Dickinson, where we featured her book NOBODY'S SECRET.  Here, she enlightens Teenreads on the important role that pets have played in her books --- and in her leading ladies' real lives.

Thank you Teen Reads for hosting the blog tour for ALWAYS EMILY. I was trying to think of what your readers might find interesting about Emily and Charlotte Bronte when Prince decided he had to lie across my keyboard.  Here’s a picture (not of him on the keyboard – I try not to encourage that):

Ah, Pets! I thought. Many of the women I write about had famous relationships with their pets.  Queen Victoria had a spaniel named Dash. I included him in a single scene in PRISONERS IN THE PALACE. Then my editor said, “We need to see more of the dog. People love dogs.” I don’t particularly love dogs --- but I do love cats so I sort of get it. So in went Dash and sure enough I got mail about it.  

When I wrote PROMISE THE NIGHT about Beryl Markham and her incredibly dangerous childhood in Africa, I started the story with her beloved bull dog being snatched out of her hut at night by a hungry leopard. (True Story).  Of course I had to remember Pat Reilly Giff’s advice, “Kill off  the parents, but don’t you dare kill the family pet!”

Emily Dickinson loved birds and was constantly battling with her sister’s collection of felines.  I just finished a manuscript about Louisa May Alcott and it turns out she had a large collection of stray cats. 

And there’s Emily Bronte, the heroine of my latest novel, ALWAYS EMILY. Of all of them, she was the most dedicated to animals, often loving them at great risk to herself. Over the course of her short life she had cats, dogs, a pheasant, a hawk and two geese. 

Here’s her hawk named Nero.

The first dog we know about was called Grasper, and she famously rescued him from a huge dog fight. She drew his picture:

Her most famous pet was Keeper, and naturally he makes his presence felt in ALWAYS EMILY.  In my story, Keeper is someone else’s dog, but naturally he prefers Emily. But before they reached an understanding, he nipped her. This incident is based on a true story about when Emily was bitten by a dog.  In those days, the fear of hydrophobia, or rabies, ran very strong.  It was always fatal. Emily, who didn’t trust doctors anyway, decided to cauterize the wound herself with an iron. That last sentence was easy to write --- but almost impossible to imagine the pain she endured and the grit it takes to something like that.  Its unclear which dog it was, but I like to think it was Keeper. Here’s her drawing:

Charlotte, Emily’s older sister, was appalled. But she too recognized how extraordinary it was. In her novel SHIRLEY, published after Emily’s death, the main character does the exact same thing.

And of course Emily kept the dog. It was devoted to her, even after death, following the funeral procession and hanging about her room for weeks afterwards.

These writers and their pets!

Thanks for reading. I’d love to have you visit at www.michaelamaccoll.com , or follow me on Twitter at @MichaelaMacColl or check out Author Michaela MacColl on Facebook. 

Michaela MacColl studied multidisciplinary history at Vassar College and Yale University, which turns out to be the perfect degree for writing historical fiction. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Connecticut.

Click here to read an excerpt of ALWAYS EMILY!

See below for the book trailer and blog schedule!