The Blue Virgin (29 page)

Afterword

Oxford is a jewel of a town encircled by the lush green countryside of the Thames Valley. Not terribly large, its buildings of mellow oolite limestone change color with the light and weather, filling it with the “dreaming spires” described by poet Matthew Arnold. Oxford’s magnificently preserved architecture reflects every age from Saxon to the present, including fine examples of Gothic, Jacobean, Palladian, Baroque, and neo-Grecian style, all exhibited somewhere amongst the federation of forty-odd independent colleges constituting the University of Oxford. This mix of “town and gown” is noticed at once when visiting Oxford: The university has its dons, scouts, tutorial system, and those forbidden quads, while the town has its muddle of traffic-choked streets, packed with pedestrians and pubs, shops and meadows.

  Oxford has given the world Lewis Carroll, penicillin, the Oxford University Press, and two William Morrises: one of Morris Garage fame, the other the artisan whose textiles and wallpaper designs are still in use. A short list of graduates spread across the spectrum of age and area include: J. R. R. Tolkien, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Browning, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, Evelyn Waugh, Oscar Wilde, Robert Graves, T. S. Eliot, Samuel Johnson, John Wesley, Cardinal Wolsey, Adam Smith, T. E. Lawrence, Roger Bacon, Edmund Halley, John Ruskin, Edward Burne-Jones, Christopher Wren, Professor Stephen Hawking, and Richard Burton. Women of note include Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Benazir Bhutto, Dorothy Sayers, Val McDermid, Lady Antonia Fraser, Helen Fielding, and Dame Iris Murdoch. And in the modern age of entertainment: Hugh Grant, Dudley Moore, Nigella Lawson, Rowan Atkinson, and Michael Palin.

  With this kind of pedigree, it’s easy to see why I took great care to be accurate in describing Oxford’s history and the colleges, as well as various locations and sites. The exceptions to this beside my cast of characters are the fictionalized buildings containing my characters’ flats, Ramsey Lodge, the undercroft where The Artists’ Co-operative resides, and the photo studio of Miles Belcher.

  Any errors are completely my own.

Acknowledgments

I offer my sincere thanks to the following people for sharing their expertise, advice, reading, commentary, or support, in no particular order:

  In the United Kingdom: Chief Superintendent Jim Trotman, Thames Valley Police; Dr. James Morris, Medical Director, Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals, NHS Trust; P. D. James, London; Dr. Catherine Peters, Somerville College (ret.), Oxford University; Dr. Sandie Byrne, Director, Department for Continuing Education, Oxford University; Susan and Michael Ross, The Old Vicarage, Chipping Norton; Averil and Martin Freeth, Chiswick.

  In the United States: Mitchell S. Waters, Curtis Brown, Ltd.; Donna Brodie, Director, The Writers Room; The Oxford Wycked Wyves: K. T. Brill and Dr. Susan Todd; The Oxford Circus: Toni Amato, Alice King Case, Liz Jones, Sam Sartorius; Dr. ClayWarren; Robin Casey; Barbara Davey; Dr. Barbara Ebel; Laura Hamilton; Anne Jacobs; Gretta Keene; Bill Murray; Joan Lautman; Rita Quinton; Sarah Ogden; Gail Schaeffer; Eileen Simmons; Dr. Rachel McCarter; and Kylis Winborne.

  This book would not have been written without the work-shopping skills and advocacy of the Screw Iowa! Writers Group: Mariana Damon, Nina Romano, Lauren Small and Melissa Westemeier. And to Bridle Path Press, thanks for taking the leap, Lauren.

  To Giordana Segneri, heartfelt thanks for your masterful work designing and editing this book into print. You’ve made me a better writer along the way.

  My family and friends in North Carolina and New York have been stalwart backers, especially The Minnesota Graffs: Jenn and Rob, Ryan, Rachel, Ella, and Kevin, who always make me smile; The New York Graffs: Kimberly and Matthew, who also proofed text for hours; Sean C. Burk, the best thing I’ve ever produced, for unfailing encouragement; Arthur L. Graff, my rock and sounding board, for helping this to happen in the first place. Finally, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my mother, Kathleen M. Travia, for teaching me to read and instilling in me her love of literature.

About the Author

M. K. Graff is the author of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. She wrote throughout a successful nursing career, including feature articles for New York’s edition of
Nursing Spectrum
; her background includes working in television and motion pictures on scripts and on set for medical scenes. For seven years Graff conducted interviews and wrote feature articles for
Mystery Review
magazine before studying literature at Oxford University, which inspired the setting for
The Blue Virgin
. She has taught creative writing and memoir and heads the North Carolina Writers Read workshop for adults and young authors. A founding member of the Screw Iowa! Writers Group, Graff is co-author of the group’s guide for writers,
The End of the Book: Writing in a Changing World
. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, and her creative nonfiction has most recently appeared in
Southern Women’s Review
.
The Blue Virgin
is Graff’s first novel.

M. K. Graff in her home library