Judith Starkston has spent too much time exploring the remains of the ancient worlds of the Greeks and Hittites. Their myths and clashes inspire her fiction and open gates to magical realms. She has degrees in Classics from the University of California, Santa Cruz and Cornell. She loves myths and telling stories, and her novels imbue fantasy with the richness of ancient worlds. The first book in her Trojan Threads Series, Hand of Fire was a semi-finalist for the M.M. Bennett’s Award for Historical Fiction. Priestess of Ishana, the first in her historical fantasy Tesha series, won the San Diego State University Conference Choice Award. Judith is represented by Richard Curtis.
What comes to mind when you think of ancient Egyptian pyramid builders? Not a life full of high status responsibilities and good food. And yet, the papyrus logbooks indicate these surprising aspects. Read on.
Nicole Glover’s The Undertakers, in her Black speculative fiction Murder and Magic series, features husband and wife magical practitioners who operate as both undertakers and detectives in post-Civil War Philadelphia. My review of this entertaining mix of historical and magical mystery.
The Writer’s Connection at Desert Foothills Library is hosting me to teach a dialogue workshop (on Zoom) July 1, 1-3 pm Arizona time. It’s free and open to everyone. Writing dialogue well has never come easily to me, but there are good techniques that anyone can learn.
It turns out the “invention” of money in the ancient Near East came about during a time of crisis and shrinking economy. It starts with handy “portable wealth.”
Sometimes long-running series like C.S. Harris’s Sebastian St. Cyr Mysteries loose steam, but that is definitely not the case with When Blood Lies, book 17 of her series. It was named Editor’s Choice in Historical Novels Review. My review.
There have been some successful onstage versions of the Iliad lately. This one definitely caught my attention–aerial display, music, a new interpretation.
An article about a book called Goddesses of Myth and Cultural Memory has me thinking more about the blending and borrowing across the ancient Mediterranean, European, and Near Eastern world.
In the annals of archaeology one man stands out as a particularly egregious villain. Like various contemporary “visionary” businessmen today, Heinrich Schliemann used his abundant cash to do whatever he wanted and ignored the scientific, expert advice of his day. That didn’t work out well for the archaeological remains of Troy.
Today I’m sharing a review of a book by Luanne G. Smith that I really enjoyed reading. With page-turning effect, The Raven Spell combines vividly portrayed Victorian London, a serial murder mystery, a detective with amnesia, and witches.
Odysseus was the clever Greek hero, even devious. He was a man of mind power over brute force. However, he was no slouch as a warrior, especially with his bow. Smithsonian and Bettany Hughes compare the ancient Greek composite bow to a “hyper-modern” one. How does one of my favorite legendary heroes hold up?
