Author’s Note

Dear Reader,

It is just occurring to me now, at this minute, as I type this late in the evening and days past deadline, that I am going to meet Katharina von Bora Luther someday. She has been dwelling in the back corner of my mind since that summer night in 2014 when, frankly, I first heard her name. In the shorthand of my writing, I have always called this project Luther. But it’s never been about him. It’s never been about them. It’s been about her. And the day will come when I will meet her in glorified perfection.

What is not glorified perfection, however, is this work of fiction. While I have tried to be true to the history and the biographical facts of the characters involved, I have taken some license with others to smooth the story.

A few points of note:

For me, the story fell together with this excerpt from Martin Luther to Jerome Baumgartner, dated October 1524, in which he writes: If you want your Katie von Bora, you had best act quickly, before she is given to someone else who wants her. She has not yet conquered her love for you. I would gladly see you married to each other.

Throughout the portion of the story when Katharina is considering the essence of her salvation and her life as a nun, I bring her into contact with Luther’s writings. I tried to strike a balance between those writings that would best suit the story and those that would be true to the narrative chronology. If I failed on that part, I offer apologies to the Luther scholars and hope they will allow themselves to be swept up in the romance and forgive me.

For all of Katharina’s days in the convent, I relied on research not for her specific order, but for the details of cloistered life for the surrounding centuries. I have included book titles at the end of this note. The ritual and dialogue for the ceremony in which Katharina takes the veil are born completely from my imagination.

One purposeful omission for the sake of narrative is the fact that Katharina had another relative at Marienthrone. In addition to her cousin, the abbess, she had an aunt (some sources liken her to more of a cousin as well), named Magdalene (Magdalena), who was one of the twelve nuns who escaped that Easter night. Because the escape occurs about one-third into the story and my research gave up no real details about an ongoing relationship after, I opted to excise Magdalene from the story to better focus on Katharina. Now I’m thinking how really awkward that heavenly reunion might be. . . .

Every time a finished book falls into an author’s hand, we think of a million things we would have done differently. Better words, other scenes, different structure, stronger sequence. Given that this book was first nothing but a whisper followed by months of doubt, years of fear, and a constant undertow of anxiety and inadequacy, I’m looking at the final manuscript with a sweet sense of satisfaction. I plan to enjoy that until the book falls into readers’ hands, and then I truly hope to hear that you’ve become as taken with Katie as I am.

Your Sister,

Allison Pittman

October 31 —Reformation Day —2016

The Habit by Elizabeth Kuhns

Virgins of Venice: Broken Vows and Cloistered Lives in the Renaissance Convent by Mary Laven

Convents Confront Reformation: Catholic and Protestant Nuns in Germany by Merry Wiesner-Hanks, translated by Joan Skocir and Merry Wiesner-Hanks

Nuns: A History of Convent Life by Sylvia Evangelisti

In Her Words: Women’s Writings in the History of Christian Thought edited by Amy Oden

Katharina von Bora: A Reformation Life by Rudolph Markwald