Margaret Verble is an enrolled and voting citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and a member of a large Cherokee family that has, through generations, made many contributions to the tribe’s history and survival.Verble's new novel is Maud's Line.
From her Q & A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: How did you come up with your main character, Maud, and with the idea for this book?Visit Margaret Verble's website.
A: I came up with Maud because I had been told by several people that in order to get a first novel published, it was best to have a single story character.
I knew I wanted to write about Cherokees; I wanted to set the novel earlier than when I set it, but if I did that, I would have to write about a group because it was still such a tribal setting. I had to set it at the time period where a sense of individuality was arising—that was around the 1920s.
Q: So did you come up with the time period first or the story first?
A: The time period first. I wanted to write about the land. It’s my family’s land; it has sustained me through my life. I started reading and thinking about the time period…
Steinbeck had written about the Depression. I went to the 1920s. 1927 and 1929 had been written about a great deal. I settled on the year 1928. Then I settled on ...[read on]
My Book, The Movie: Maud's Line.
--Marshal Zeringue