gabaldon

Home

Video

Writing

Photography

There's Nothing Outlandish About Outlander Series Author Gabaldon

Award winning author Diana Gabaldon may spend much of her time reading and writing about the rugged Scottish Highlands of the 18th century,
but her roots remain in Northern Arizona.

Gabaldon is the author of the Outlander series, which includes Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, and The Fiery Cross.
She has also authored several mysteries, including Lord John and the Private Matter, a spin-off, Gabaldon-style, of the Outlander series.

Born in Williams, Gabaldon grew up in Flagstaff and frequently returns there when she’s in need of a quiet, inspiring place to write. She still owns
the downtown home that once belonged to her grandfather, and proudly recounts how her family settled in Flagstaff more than 150 years ago.

“My great-grandfather, Stanley Sykes, emigrated from England at the age of 15,” she said. “He had consumption, which we now know as
tuberculosis, and they told him his only hope was to come to Arizona.”

Gabaldon explained that Stanley and his 17-year old brother Godfrey traveled by themselves from England and made their way across the United
States to Arizona. Godfrey eventually went south to Tucson and helped establish the Tucson Botanical Gardens as well as the observatory at the
University of Arizona. Stanley was an instrument maker, and settled in Flagstaff. He built the original dome at Lowell Observatory and remained in
Flagstaff for the next 77 years.

“He lived to be 92, so apparently emigrating from England worked,” Gabaldon remarked.

Gabaldon attended Flagstaff High School and recalls having traveled to Holbrook for marching band performances at football games.

Having always known that she was supposed to be a writer, Gabaldon blazed her own unique path to success.

“My father said I was such a poor judge of character that I was going to marry a bum, so I had better get an education to support myself,” she said.
“That’s why I didn’t become a novelist right out of high school.”

She graduated from Northern Arizona University with a degree in biology, and planned a career in marine biology, but soon realized that such a career
would require living near a major seaport.

“I had fallen in love with a fellow French horn player at NAU, so I switched to land biology and went back to NAU,” Gabaldon said.

They married soon after and moved to Philadelphia. Her career during this time included “butchering seabirds for research, which had nothing to do
with my degree,” she commented.

The pair moved to Los Angeles where she briefly filled in for a professor on sabbatical, and finally to Phoenix, where she accepted a newly created
position with Arizona State University that had no formal job description.

“I spent the next few years writing Fortran programs to analyze the contents of bird gizzards, which at that time made me an expert in scientific
computation,” said Gabaldon.

She used her expertise to start the magazine Scientific Software Quarterly, which allowed researchers to share software and information. Gabaldon
then used her experience with the magazine to gain other writing assignments.

“I wrote anything anyone would pay me for,” she said, noting that her early work includes an article on cleaning steer horns for use in home decorating.

Finally, at the age of 35, she decided to try her hand at writing a novel.

“Outlander getting published was an accident,” she said. “I just wanted to write a book for practice, to see if I could do it.”

Gabaldon noted that she set three rules for herself when she began writing her first book: she wouldn’t worry if it wasn’t good at first since she hoped
to get better by the end, she wouldn’t stop until the book was finished, and she would do the best she could. According to Gabaldon, she thought
about writing a mystery, since she loves to read mysteries.

“I thought, no, mysteries have plots, I’m not sure if I can do a plot,” she explained. “But I do have a background as a research professor, so I thought
that if it turned out I had no imagination I could always steal something interesting from the historical record.”

So she began writing Outlander with nothing more than a vague notion of a man in a kilt. What resulted was an unusual novel that didn’t fit within the
confines of any specific genre, but combined the best elements of them all.

The Outlander series follows the life of Claire, an English field nurse in World War II, who reunites with her husband in Scotland following the war.
While exploring the countryside she comes upon a circle of ancient standing stones and finds herself transported to 18th century Scotland.
Captured by a group of clansmen who believe her to be an English spy, she is unable to return to the stones and finds herself living one life while
wondering if she’ll ever be able to return to the other.

Although the story involves romance, when Claire falls in love with a charming Scotsman, Jamie, in the 18th century while still mourning her husband
in the 20th century, the Outlander series is not a romance. It also contains strong elements of a historical novel, with the storyline closely following
actual events such as the battle of Culloden and the American Revolution, but with the element of time travel it doesn’t fit nicely within the confines of
the genre. In fact, the publisher pushed back Outlander’s release for 18 months because they couldn’t figure out how to market a book that successfully
combined elements of several genres.

In describing the Scottish coutnryside, except for the kilts and castles, Gabaldon could be writing about the San Francisco Peaks. Having never visited
Scotland when she began writing Outlander, Gabaldon described a strong sense of coming home when she finally traveled to Inverness.

“Inverness feels very much like Flagstaff. They are very similar,” she said.

The publishing of Outlander is an unusual story itself. While working on the story, Gabaldon frequented an online literary forum, and in what turned out to be
a marvelous stroke of luck for her and her fans, posted an excerpt in reply to an argument with another member about what it felt like to be pregnant.

“It (the forum) was an ideal social life for someone with three children and two jobs,” she said.

Members of the forum, which included several published authors, took notice of the excerpt and began asking for more of the story. One of the authors
introduced her to his well-known agent, and the agent immediately signed her on the basis of an unfinished first novel, a nearly unbelievable occurance
in the publishing industry. Six months later Gabaldon completed Outlander, and immediately had three editors vying for the rights to the book. Her agent
emerged from negotiations with a three-book contract from Random House and the Outlander series was born.

With the success of the first three books in the series, the publisher was anxious for more.

“But I still wanted to write mysteries,” Gabaldon remarked. “I held the fourth book hostage until they agreed to also sign a contract for my mysteries.”

Gabaldon is currently finishing up the sixth book in the Outlander series, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, which is planned for release on Sept. 27.

When the dust has settled from the release of her latest book, she hopes to begin working on mysteries again, noting that she has started work
on one set in and around the Phoenix area. She is also under contract for two additional Lord John mysteries.

Looking ahead, Gabaldon says she also has the raw material for one or two non-fiction books she would like to write, as well as a scientific book.

Although she is extremely busy with her work, Gabaldon enjoys taking time to attend local events such as the Flagstaff Literary Festival, at which
she was a guest member of several panels. She also takes time out of her schedule to offer advice and encouragement to aspiring writers through
the online forum that helped launch her writing career.

Gabaldon offers three simple suggestions for writing: Read, write, and don’t stop.

“I write for myself,” Gabaldon said. “I never write for anyone but me. After I signed the three-book contract I felt perfectly free to do whatever I
wanted since that’s what I had been doing in the first place.”