Happy Birthday, Frances Spalding, born 16 July 1950
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As a writer, I believe you have a responsibility towards your subject, but this responsibility is not that of a historian or biographer. Fiction’s strength is its ability to make people see, hear, feel, taste, smell its subject: as I have suggested, this process frequently involves deviations from or embellishments of any underlying facts. Though I often asked myself: ‘would the real-life Vanessa or Virginia have said or done this’ as I worked, my overriding impetus was whether what my characters said or did felt right within the context of my narrative. Every work of art must have its own integrity: I think you have to be true to the book you are writing.
Frances Spalding is a British art historian and writer. She is the author of Virginia Woolf: Art, Life and Vision. Follow this link to find out where she writes.
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