From My Fantasy Writing Desk:
My writer life treat this week is a talk given by free-lance editor Jamie Wyman at the meeting of the Arizona chapter of the Historical Novel Society. She’s showing how to identify and fix those pesky problems that writers tend to leave in despite their best efforts. I plan to put her wisdom to work. I’m reworking the last section of the sequel to Priestess of Ishana. Then, of course, I’ll do another layer of editing after I get the news about what needs fixing from my editorial readers. This book writing thing has a lot of moving parts…
Everybody is welcome at the meeting. The editing advice works for all genres. You don’t have to write historical fiction or be a member of the Historical Novel Society. Join us at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore 2-4 pm Saturday May 4. 4014 N Goldwater Blvd #101, Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Telling the Iliad from a Woman’s POV (again)
Just out: Another retelling of the Iliad from the women’s point of view titled A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes. Sounds like from this article that she’s taking a sarcastic, somewhat lighter tone in at least parts of her book. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m struck, as this article in the Guardian is, at how many recent novels there have been focusing on this iconic war from the female side of things, my own Hand of Fire among them (which unfortunately didn’t get mentioned in this article). The Guardian sees this trend as part of “a fourth-wave feminist surge.” By giving stories back to voiceless women and portraying female leadership in male-dominated worlds—which are among the primary themes of my books—I do have a feminist vision.
Click here for The Guardian “Epic Win Why Women Are Lining up to Reboot the Classics”
Archaeology I Enjoyed:
Elaborate Early Cycladic (~3000 BCE, Bronze Age) architectural remains continue to come to light on the islet of Daskalio, which was once connected by land to the tiny island of Keros in the Aegean Sea.
Museum of Cycladic Art
“The complicated, interlinked and multi-level architecture shows the existence of a well-organized and well-built settlement on a steep promontory.” The remains include “impressive staircases, drainage pipes and stone buildings that reveal an advanced urban architecture without precedence for the specific period.” The only remains of this time that are as complex are at Knossos, Crete.
The existence of huge entrance gates, stone ladders and drainage pipes throughout the island show that there must have been a specialist architect and a central administration to carry out the building. They also found advanced metallurgy and clear signs of trade network across the Aegean area.
All on a tiny island. Island cultures in the eastern Mediterranean are so very interesting.