What inspired you to create Doomed Queens?

I’ve always been fascinated with the issue of women and power. In my previous books, I’ve written about goddesses, hoping that their stories would empower women. But in recent years, I’ve realized that this was only half of the story—for women to truly understand the dynamics of power, we need to look at its dark side. And so Doomed Queens came into being. 

I also find the lives of tragic queens compelling in a "there-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I" way. My interest in them dates from my childhood, when I was exposed to the PBS television series The Six Wives of Henry VIII. This led to a very Wednesday Addams-like obsession with all things royal and condemned. I imagined myself in their place and wondered what actions I would take to escape a fate ordained by gender and politics; if it was less painful to be guillotined or poisoned. Later as an adult, these queens' stories resonated for me as cautionary fables for modern women struggling to survive in a man's world. 

Given that it is a work of history, how is Doomed Queens relevant today?

Though few women are now beheaded, die in childbirth, or are forced into arranged marriages as they once were, the doomed queen still exists today. The events of the 2008 election made it clear that things haven’t changed much, despite Hillary Clinton’s “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling”—our society is still uncomfortable with women wielding power. The popularity of this message is mirrored in best-selling exposes of difficult women bosses, such as The Devil Wears Prada or The Nanny Diaries; if Anna Wintour was a man, I seriously doubt there would have been a Devil Wears Armani. As much as we’d like to ignore it, a double standard still exists.

What about Sarah Palin? Doesn't her selection as McCain's vice president prove otherwise?

I'm afraid not. Sarah Palin fits the classic profile of a Doomed Queen. First off, she's the product of an arranged marriage; she met only once with McCain before he popped the question. Like other doomed queens through history, she's being used as a chess piece on another's game board—but this time, the powers-that-be got far more than they bargained for.

In some ways, Sarah Palin reminds me of Caroline of Brunswick, the unwanted bride of Regency England's George IV. Caroline was a good-hearted eccentric who lived as she liked in the wilds of expat Europe, sowing scandal without a second thought. She was forced to marry George, though he was in love with someone else; it's rumored that McCain desired Joe Lieberman as his running mate, but was pushed to accept Palin instead. Caroline and George also met only once before tying the knot. George was disgusted by her—he immediately called for a stiff brandy and threw a fit. I don't know if John McCain drinks, but one can imagine him in a similar snit after learning that Sarah's daughter Bristol was five months pregnant (though he claims to have been aware of it).

Arranged marriage and all, it's ironic that Palin's ultimate undoing may be brought on by her own ambition. She accepted the vice presidential nomination knowing that this would throw her self --and her daughter -- to the media wolves. Biology may be destiny, but people like to see mothers nurture their children, not hang them out to dry on the cover of People magazine. More dangerously, Palin's desire for power appears to be greater than her qualifications to wield it.

The book is full of black humor, but is there a more serious history lesson for readers to absorb from all of these unfortunate true stories? 

Yes, the book is darkly humorous, but otherwise we'd all be sobbing in our soup. The lesson offered is that women who strive upward do so at their own risk. Hopefully the cautionary fables presented in Doomed Queens will show women how to get ahead without losing our heads.

Generations of girls have grown up dreaming of becoming a princess. Were they wrong to do so?

I don’t know if they’re wrong as much as they’re ignoring half the story to succumb to what I call “the tyranny of pink”—a fantasy that some merchandised form of hyperfemininity will bring bliss. Anyone familiar with fairy tales, even the watered-down Disney versions, knows that most princesses lead pretty crappy lives before they reach happily ever after. They might have great clothing, but there’s always an enemy lurking in the shadows. Sleeping Beauty is cursed to drop dead when she hits sixteen; Swan Lake’s Princess Odette is transformed into a slave swan to an evil sorcerer. My favorite in the how-gruesome-can-you-get sweepstakes is Snow White, whose stepmother plotted to have the princess’s heart cut out when she grows too pretty for her own good.

But there are good reasons that these stories still resonate. They contain cathartic elements that comfort us. They teach us to prevail against difficulties, to have trust in our own goodness, to deal with others’ jealousies. However, fairy tales also suggest that some prince or fairy godmother will rescue us when the going gets rough—that deus ex machina is only a page turn away. For the most part, life just doesn’t work that way.

In your research, did you ever run across an account of a queen—doomed or not—whom you admired and were inspired by above all others? 

My mind immediately runs to England’s Elizabeth I, though she certainly doesn’t need any fresh accolades. When you consider the circumstances of her birth—she was the daughter of Anne Boleyn—it’s amazing Elizabeth survived to wear the crown for as long as she did. Elizabeth also mastered the “biology is destiny” lesson that plagued so many Doomed Queens, including her mother. She simply refused to marry, though she did not hesitate to play her suitors as skillfully as a fickle Southern belle. This choice meant that Elizabeth did not have to undergo the trauma of childbirth, which proved so deadly for many women of her era. However, this also meant she was left without a direct heir, which created other problems after her death from old age. One quote I love from Elizabeth cannily confronted her contemporaries’ prejudices about her gender’s ability to rule. She said, “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.” What a way to silence your enemies!

Who is your favorite Doomed Queen?

I have a special sympathy for Jane Grey, the great niece of Henry VIII. Jane’s life story is like a tragic fairy tale, complete with evil parents and a misbegotten crown. The poor girl was a brilliant scholar who had zero interest in the throne, royal connections be damned. However, her upwardly mobile parents thought she’d make a great political pawn, and Jane reigned as queen of England for only nine days before she was beheaded in 1554 at the tender age of sixteen. Which, when you think about it, makes Sleeping Beauty being put to sleep at sixteen seems a kind fate by comparison.

Jane is a tragic counterpoint to her cousin, Elizabeth I, who began her much more successful monarchy several years after Jane lost her head. Interestingly, Elizabeth was also housed by Catherine Parr during the same period Jane cohabitated there. I can't help but wonder what sort of conversations Jane and Elizabeth might have had: "Wow, your family is way more dysfunctional than mine!" As you can probably tell, Tudor England emerges in my book as an especially deadly time for queens. Maybe if The Tudors are on long enough, Showtime will tell Jane's story (but sexed up, I'm sure).

If you could require readers to read just one entry from this book, which one would it be and why?

I'm especially proud of my entry for Marie Antoinette. It's easy to present Marie as either a victim of fate or an oblivious shopaholic, but I think I did a good job presenting the forces which shaped her truncated reign. There are so many stories about Marie that people believe even today. For example, Marie Antoinette never said, "Let them eat cake". This quote came from an earlier French queen, but Marie got stuck with the rap—kind of an eighteenth century urban legend. The truth is that, in times of turmoil, people look for a scapegoat to sacrifice. Marie Antoinette just happened to be the French Revolution’s favorite It girl, though it certainly didn't help that she was dressing as an au courent milkmaid while her subjects were starving.

I think this passage from Doomed Queens sums up her dilemma: "Marie Antoinette lived in a world in which she was expected to obey her husband as if he were God, to spill forth children as if she were Eve—and to accept that aristocrats ate cake while peasants had no bread. After all, it was divine will and all that."

Doomed Queens was also designed and illustrated by you. Why did you choose to make it an illustrated book?

My publishing career began as a book illustrator and designer, so it’s natural for me to think of books as containing more than text. I designed Doomed Queens to look like a Victorian penny dreadful, which were used in their day to present melodramatic stories of damsels in distress—an appropriate format for the subject matter. I included illustrations from historical archives as well as my own pen and ink drawings, which are gothic in tone.

The illustrations in Doomed Queens includes fifteen queen portraits. How did you go about creating them?

I like to use models who remind me in some way of the queens portrayed. They're usually people I know in my personal life. For example, the hyperintellectual Amalasuntha was modeled for by my editor, Kris Puopolo, one of the brainiest women I've encountered in publishing; Athaliah, the monarch daughter of Jezebel, was modeled for by Annmaria Mazzini, a principal dancer for Paul Taylor, who seems to play a lot of fallen women (though she's not at all like that off stage). The compositions for the illustrations were suggested by known portraits of the queens, or art of their era. For example, the background for Alexandra Romanov's portrait suggests a propaganda poster from the Russian Revolution. Ultimately, these portraits are meant to be taken as a danse macabre through women's history.

What separates the Doomed Queens from the triumphant ones? Is there a common trait among the ill-fated royal women of the past?

Aside from sheer bad luck—and who can predict that?—the core traits for disaster often come down to either political overreaching or the concept that biology is destiny. Most of these queens were thrust into dynastic marriages, like royal hostages. As soon as they hit puberty, they were sent off from their motherland to mate with enemies and allies, to assure the continuation of power. Not surprisingly, these alliances were unhappy for the most part. But even when they were romantically happy, they were dogged by issues of inbreeding, infertility or postpartum death.

Do you see all of the female regents you described as victims, or were they mistresses of their own dark fates?

I think it breaks down as fifty/fifty. Some of these queens definitely courted trouble. Arsinoe, the baby sister of Cleopatra, battled her sister for the throne of Egypt. Even after Cleopatra emerged triumphant, Arsinoe kept plotting away, and Cleo did not allow nostalgia for a shared nursery get in the way of arranging for Arsinoe’s assassination. The actions of Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, strains credulity and sympathy. The Macedonian queen was so eager to further her son’s ambitions that she makes the most devoted Texas cheerleader mom seem a lightweight by comparison. In a scenario straight out of a Grimms’ fairy tale, Olympias murdered Alexander’s half-siblings by roasting them to death—one way to cut out the competition. However, in the case of a queen like Jane Grey, it’s clear that being royal and female was just a dangerous combination.

If American had monarchs, who would our contemporary queens be?

While we have more women attempting to wield power in American politics today — Nancy Pelosi immediately comes to mind— it seems to me that celebrities bear the cultural and financial influence of queens. For example, Oprah was able to undermine Hillary Clinton's run for the White House by endorsing Barack Obama. She's also far richer than American politicians, male or female. On a more mundane level, the contract riders for some celebrities don't seem that dissimilar from Marie Antoinette at Versailles. J. Lo. must have a white dressing room stocked with with white flowers, white candles, and white furniture; Mariah Carey requires Cristal with a bendy straw to drink it. I don't know if this is true, but there's a rumor that Madonna's underlings are not allowed to look her directly in the eye and or address her without being spoken to first. If that doesn't sound like royalty, I don't know what does.

What lesson can a powerful woman today draw from this history?  Words of advice that might have been offered to Benazir Bhutto, Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton or Indira Gandhi? What can we ultimately learn from these luckless queens of the past?

I have lots of advice, which I present throughout Doomed Queens in the form of cautionary morals. Of course, as the saying goes, experience is a comb that life gives you once you’ve lost your hair. For Princess Diana, I would advise her to avoid men bearing cameras and Camillas; I would advise Cleopatra to choose her allies well, so they don’t bite her in the asp. But the ultimate lesson to take away is that not much has changed when it comes to women and power. If you’re missing a Y chromosome, you still need to watch your back.

Be honest: Are you sure all those fabulous clothes and shoes weren’t worth the Ultimate Price?

It's a Faustian bargain. It depends on whether you prefer immediate gratification to the humble pleasures of an everyday existence. Let the head that wears the crown beware.

A final question: Beheading or poison -- which would you choose, if you were a Doomed Queen?

Ah, my old childhood obsession! It depends on the poison and the skill of the executioner. Way back when, beheading was considered a kinder, gentler way to die, since death supposedly occurred immediately and without pain. Therefore it was only granted to royals; average folk were simply strangled or beaten to death. But ultimately, my answer has got to be none of the above. I hope that writing Doomed Queens has taught me how to avoid such an dark fate!