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.
Ancient sources describe Cleopatra as an amazing polyglot, but to what degree did she really speak a variety of languages and what is the significance of that knowledge? A Dutch scholar has a new “read” on the famous queen and I enjoyed it. I hope you will too.
I’m teaching a writer workshop on the topic of Point of View at the Avid Reader, the local bookstore in Davis, CA Feb 28th. Join me and my fellow instructor, Tim Schooley.
There’s currently a renaissance of mythic retelling novels. By portraying Medea, Quin set herself an especially hard challenge to create a character we will sympathize and root for. Her solutions to this challenge are intriguing and fairly successful. I recommend this one. Read my review and see why.
Interpreting Neolithic carvings and buildings seems perilous at best, but lots of fun. New excavations have upturned the previous understanding of Turkey’s Neolithic monumental sites with their amazing carvings of beasts and men. What stories are they telling?
Hollick is known for her highly entertaining pirate tales that combine spellbinding storytelling with finely researched nautical history. Gallows Wake, 6th in her series, delivers abundantly on that promise. I hope you enjoy my review.
We don’t usually associate too much rain with Egypt, but there was enough that a legal papyrus instructs judges how to settle disputes over rain gutters. But did they even have gutters? You may enjoy a snippet of ancient daily life on a subject we all love to avoid dealing with.
There’s the top 10 discoveries in archaeology overall for the year, and then there’s those in Near Eastern archaeology. I find this list more interesting–a map, dating by clay, wine, and the Queen of Sheba. Does that grab you, also?
When is sliver more precious than gold, and tin most precious of all? And how far would an Old Kingdom Pharaoh send his traders to fetch silver for his queen? These are some of the questions I’m asking myself after reading about a “surprising” new trading discovery buried in Hetepheres tomb.
Why did Hittites fight from chariots rather than horseback? At least part of the answer is that they hadn’t sorted out the right kind of saddle. So this “earliest” frame saddle found in Mongolia is intriguing. Up for some horse history?
I enjoy seeing which discoveries make Archaeology Magazine’s “Top 10” list each year. I am impressed by the range of dates, geography, and types this year.
