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.
An interview with Leslie Carroll, the program chair for the 2017 Historical Novel Society Conference and author of historical fiction and nonfiction about a dizzying number of royal women including Helen of Troy and Marie Antoinette.
My weekly roundup of posts I enjoyed: Eric Cline on looting & preserving archaeological treasures, Queen Tiye found next to her husband’s giant leg in Egypt, Build a Wall goes way back to Sumer, Caligula can float his pleasure boats (again), Greek tragedy in the hands of some acting pros helps us figure out modern war and a replica ancient Greek ship takes her maiden voyage in Haifa Israel.
My weekly roundup of posts I enjoyed: Sat April 1 event for archaeology & mystery fans, Clovis People mystery solved, Neolithic rock art in Egypt, the Huns lived happily with Romans sometimes, it turns out.
My weekly roundup of posts I enjoyed: recent Kybele find under threat by mine blasting, experimenting with pyres, Sekhmet statues rise to do guard duty again, 2000 years’ tale of a site in what is now Lebanon
Queen Puduhepa takes on Ramses II and secures a lasting peace. Read all about it.
My weekly roundup of posts: Monumental statue rises from the Nile’s muck but it’s not Ramses II, reinterpreting Olmec governance at Tres Zapotes, the contradictory messages of the black tank top in costuming the BadAss Woman in film and fiction
Here is my weekly roundup of posts I enjoyed: carved statues from Chinese mythology, trying to assess and fix damage to archaeology from armed conflict, ancient use of mind altering plants and fermented drinks, and a cool rock cut underground labyrinth that is probably a 19th C fantasy by some rich guy, but is falsely attributed to the Knights Templar
My weekly roundup of posts I enjoyed: third gender in the ancient Near East, Roman luxury baths in France, Marylee MacDonald’s literary fiction, AIA lecture on ISIS and crowdsourcing cyber archaeology, discovery of a huge unexpected Roman gate in Israel
My weekly roundup of posts I enjoyed: traditional religious resurgence during Ptolemaic period in Egypt, Walter Scott Prize long list in historical fiction, Ramses II gets a redo (his statue anyway)
My weekly roundup of posts I enjoyed from around the web: Many of the Met’s photos are now open use, searching behind Tut’s tomb for Nefertiti, the Pueblo Revolt gets a new, nuanced look from archaeological evidence, the Hyksos in Egypt also get a new look from dig evidence
