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.
My weekly roundup of history and archaeology: forgotten limestone carving of Hatshepsut turns up in storage in Wales, wacky anti-history and anti-archaeology show on the Travel Channel, a horse burial in Sudan reveals high value on horses among Kushites and Egyptians
My weekly roundup of archaeology and history: Ancient games, a Roman sundial and Amazons
My review of Ann Griffin’s Another Ocean to Cross, a WWII novel that offers hope over despair
My weekly roundup of history and archaeology (and this week Greek Mythology, both ancient and modern reinterpretations): Review of Stephen Fry’s Mythos on Eidolon, a discussion of 10 novels that use Greek myth on Signature and the transformation of dice across history and what it shows about human beliefs.
My review of Jessica McCann’s haunting and heartwarming Peculiar Savage Beauty, a novel set in Kansas in 1934 when the Plains states are overwhelmed by dusters and disaster.
My roundup of history and archaeology: Talking Troy: Fall of a City, interpreting Egyptian tomb paintings & excavations on the island of Keros Greece
Book Review: Miller’s Circe spellbinds with gorgeous language, compelling characters and new takes on Greek mythology and Homer. She is both respectful of ancient tradition and captivating in her relevance to contemporary concerns.
My weekly roundup of history and archaeology: wine-making by Roman Pliny, real Amazons & other topics of popular ancient history with Adrienne Mayor, exploring a still-buried district in Pompeii
The launch of MY DEAR HAMILTON, the great untold American story of Eliza Hamilton, historical fiction by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie. “A revolutionary woman who, like her new nation, struggled to define herself in the wake of war, betrayal, and tragedy”
Here’s my roundup of archaeology and history: date of Netflix launch of Troy Fall of a City, ancient pottery around the Baltic Sea shows how women carried cultural change through migratory marriages, the new archaeology of ancient gardens & a pre-Mycenaean chamber tomb in Thessaly
