Jesus Christ—Yeshua, to his friends—is not happy. Two thousand years after his death, he sees Earth heading toward oblivion. Ever eager to save humanity, he asks Mary Magdalene (Magda) for help. It’s time to tell the real story of our time together, he says. Time to correct all the misinformation, misogyny, and lies spread by Peter, Paul, and the Roman Catholic Church. Still pissed that she’s been called a whore for almost two millennia, Magda resists—but ultimately, out of love for Yeshua, reluctantly agrees.
Through Magda’s words, Yeshua—to most today a symbolic, practically mythological Biblical figure—comes back to life as a man of flesh and blood, one wholly devoted to spreading his message of radical equality. Magda tells of her travels with Yeshua and his followers around Galilee, where they are menaced at every turn by Roman rulers. She relates tales of miracles and murder, jealousy and acceptance, misogyny and female empowerment. She describes her relationship with Yeshua, clarifying centuries of speculation about whether or not they were in love. And, painfully, she reveals the truth about who orchestrated his death.
But Magda’s narrative does not end there. Her life with Yeshua has taught her that she has more strength than she ever imagined, and she begins to tap into a spiritual power that is uniquely her own—the power to connect people. Magda’s true role in the history of humanity, it turns out, is just beginning to unfold.
INTERVIEW
Tell us about your current release.
Magda Revealed is a novel about love and power, and how to re-create a society through human connection. It’s a fictional re-telling of the life of Mary Magdalene (Magda), from the time she met Jesus of Nazareth (Yeshua, in the book) to the time she was banished from Judea in the first century. The novel begins with present-day Yeshua telling Magda that she must tell her story, because humanity is facing extinction on Earth, and she has a role to play in Yeshua’s last-ditch effort to save us.
When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t quite know how to go about it. When I was a kid, I started a novel about Blackbeard, but I ultimately abandoned it because I didn’t know anything about what it was like to be a pirate (the internet had yet to exist). As I matured, I realized that I also needed to support myself with an income, and I was too scared to try to do that through writing, so I became a lawyer. For many years, I channeled my writing instincts into legal writing, which was, ultimately, very unsatisfying. I finally abandoned full-time legal work ten years ago, after my first novel was published and I felt I could legitimately call myself a writer.
Have you published any previous books?
I published two chapbooks of poetry, In the Silence of the Woodruff and Rapunzel Revisited, before publishing my first novel, The Good at Heart in 2017 with Simon and Schuster. Magda Revealed is my second novel.
What can we expect to see from you in the future, any books on the backburner?
I’m currently working on a mystery/crime novel with an alcoholic as the main character, and with AA acting as a kind of Greek chorus.
What do you like to do when you're not writing?
I love to run or walk in Rock Creek Park (national park about two blocks from my home), with my dogs Walter (a 10-year-old Vizsla) and Ruthie (a 5-month-old Doberman). (I also have a 12-year-old mini-dachshund, Indiana, who chooses not to run anymore.) Word games and jigsaw puzzles take up a lot of my time, especially in the winter. And, being a native German, I love to bake. From late November until Christmas, I do nothing but bake cookies.
Did you learn anything from writing your book? What was it?
I learned so much! For me, there were two big takeaways from my research about Jesus and life in the first century and earlier. First, everything that’s written in the Bible is based on oral histories that were passed down over the years. And story-tellers back in those days weren’t concerned with “getting the story right.” In fact, just the opposite. The most sought-after story tellers in biblical times were those who put their own new twist on a familiar story. So over time, the stories inevitably changed. The “true” story was about as hard to pin down as the original word in a game of telephone with hundreds of players. That fact about early story-telling allowed me to take a much more skeptical approach to the New Testament stories.
The second thing I learned was that the role women played in society in Jesus’ time was not necessarily as submissive as popular culture imagines. For example, women were not segregated from men in the Jewish synagogue (that practice came later), and occasionally took leadership roles. Also, women had a critical role in the social sphere and home environment as anointers. They used oils of various kinds to bless visitors, to heal the sick, and to honor the dead. I used that fact to make anointment a central spiritual practice in Magda Revealed.
Some writers have something playing in the background, do you and what?
I listen to classical guitar music as I write. Sometimes also meditative music, like the kind they play in spas. Anything with lyrics gets me listening to the music instead of focusing on writing. I’m easily distracted.
Tell us a little about yourself. Perhaps something not many people know about?
My current claim to fame is that I was Jeff Bezos’ first girlfriend. We dated for four years, from the end of high school until my last year of college. We still keep in touch, even though I have my issues with some of his recent actions. We had lunch just last week, and I made him pay because, well, he makes way more money than me.
Second relatively unknown thing about me is that I’m a recovering alcoholic. I mention that because recovery is a big, ongoing part of my life, and because I hope to remove some of the remaining stigma about alcoholism in our society.
What do you hope your writing brings to your readers?
Ideally, I hope the issues I raise through my fictional characters stay with readers for awhile and make them see the world slightly differently than they had before. Isn’t it every writer’s dream to broaden the worldview of their readers? And to make them more tolerant of other people? A goal worth striving for, I think.
Ursula Werner has been writing for over twenty-five years. She has published one novel, The Good at Heart (2017), and two chapbooks of poetry, The Silence of the Woodruff (2006) and Rapunzel Revisited (2010). She holds graduate degrees in English literature and law, and works part time as an attorney. She and her husband live in Washington, DC, and are always trying to entice their three daughters to live nearby.
