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.
This week I’m attending and speaking at the Historical Novel Society NA Conference. It’s virtual this year, of course. The conference designers have cleverly exploited the benefits of that online existence to make up for some of the downsides. I’m enjoying the new ways to interact that the conference has created.
Seals and their impressions on clay play an important role in my novel Priestess of Ishana. So I was intrigued by an article about a particularly old seal impression—7,000 years old—excavated in Israel that indicates it was used for “business security.”
Understandably, contemporary historians often bemoan the lack of women’s voices from the past amidst the male-centered records of events. Fortunately, the clay tablets containing letters from Assyrian women (about 1860 BCE) provide a refreshing exception. They are full of business savvy, a range of concerns for the well-being of their households and, unlike the male business correspondence of this place and time, strong emotions.
Glass first appears in the Late Bronze Age in Egypt and the Near East, and its beauty was highly valued–even viewed as having magical powers. But you have to forget the boring clear sheets of glass we surround ourselves with.
I’ve been silent lately in all the online places I usually show up and visit—no blog posts about archaeology and books, no newsletter, no Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Moving from Arizona to California took all my focus and energy.
But I’m returning to my writerly duties, including preparing for the 2021 Historical Novel Society Conference coming in June.
Usually I face that blank white screen and fill it with words. For the last week or so in our new home, I’ve been turning old, brown, flaking surfaces into fresh white ones, and painting miles of baseboards. It’s kind of fun.
I haven’t actually been writing the last couple months. Instead I’ve been house hunting, buying, and now moving/renovating. Utterly disruptive of writing, but a fun adventure.
A post in which I tell you all about our big move.
In Luxor, where many archaeological digs and discoveries have come to light over many decades, a new find shines especially bright. The Egyptian mission under archaeologist Zahi Hawass discovered an ancient Egyptian city in Luxor – The Rise of Aten – that was lost under the sands 3000 years ago.
Egypt built a new museum to house some of its most famous mummies and royal treasures. The remains of Ramses II and Queen Hatshepsut, the female Pharaoh, among many others, now have a beautiful new home. To celebrate and, let’s be honest, to draw tourists back to Egypt, the government put on a spectacular parade.
A guest post from M.K. Tod. She has set her latest novel, Paris in Ruins, in an iconic place at a time of great upheaval and conflict–during the Prussian invasion of 1870. It is a novel of the human spirit overcoming the worst of times.
