Kathryn Harrison

The least likely of military leaders, Joan of Arc changed the course of the Hundred Years' War and of history.

For years, the place I really lived - the world I watched, the one I thought and wrote about - was 15th-century France.

I have at last admitted that not only was I angry with my mother, but, in fact, I wanted to destroy her as a child. And I was so concerned to be a woman who was different from my mother that I had this vast architecture of rules.

I was the good girl who never needed disciplining, who made straight A's. I applied and was accepted to Stanford University.

I love any book that makes my family seem almost normal.

A lot of writers dwell on their relationships with their mothers, but only a few are worth reading.

Having grown up so familiar with creating a pleasing facade, I now end up compelled to reveal things inside and say, 'Okay, now you really see me. Do you still love me?' And then it's never enough; it always has to be total self-revelation.

I'm always sorry to finish a book, to let go of characters I love, people I've struggled to understand for years, people who evolve before me.

One of the things I find exciting about Joan of Arc is how clearly the story of her life reveals the creation of myth, a process in which every one of us is involved - every one of us who tells stories and all those who listen, each informing the other.

Because the kind of nonfiction I write has a plot, the events and transactions that make up a life, nonfiction offers me a break from plotting.

I remember seeing my father only twice as a child for brief visits. As I grew up, I invented a father who was larger than life - stronger, smarter, more handsome, and even holier than other men.

I've always been interested in the intersection between our rational and our unconscious lives.