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: suggestive frescoes at Pompeii opened up for Christmas viewing, Bernard Cornwell interview, hilarious Italian Medieval history at the hands of Tinney Heath, fragment of Hermes on a red figure vase, writing my purpose with some help from Donald Maass
My weekly roundup of posts from around the web: Bronze Age clay figurine like Rodin’s Thinker, Venetian quack medicines, ice mummy man’s clothing choices, mosaic museum’s website, Nefertari’s mummified legs.
My weekly roundup of posts I enjoyed this week: earliest domesticated turkeys offered to gods 1500 yrs ago in Oaxaca Mexico, giant crocodile mummy full of mini-mummies, how-to for FB Book Launch party, New Etruscan tomb finds at Vulci
If a diversity-bringing, often raunchy, always nuanced, new take on the old tale of the Trojan War sounds like a good read to you, then pick up this “novel-in-parts.” My review of A Song of War.
My weekly roundup of posts I enjoyed this week: Lost works of Greek tragedy might be more about magic, sex and happy endings; cuneiform tablet cookies; Hypatia, Alexandria’s female scholar and Obama’s reflections upon visiting the Acropolis.
Posts I enjoyed from around the web: a Hittite village to be built at the UNESCO site of Hattusa (otherwise known as the capital of the Hittite Empire), really, really old maps (maybe), recreating the Queen of Sheba’s perfume (also used by one of my characters, a blind woman you’ll really like), the cosmopolitan world of Late Bronze Age Cyprus and the Old World might not have chatted with the New World as early as some people think.
Attend Nov 12 AZ Historical Novel Society Meeting and Learn Social Media from two pros, Chandler Longbons and Emma Totten. Calling all authors!
Some posts I enjoyed this week: A giant Bronze Age shipyard on Dana Island in Turkey, violent burials in the ancient Southwest suggest blood feuds & biggest ancient Japanese sword ever
Some posts I enjoyed this week: AIA lecture on Sex, Politics and Intoxication in Etruria, human sacrifice on Mt. Lykaion, xrays reveal the inside scoop on Athenian vases and Ireland’s mythic mound reveals the origins of Halloween
Posts I enjoyed this week: thinking about Dylan as Nobel Laureate, touring Pompeii via 3D, dangerous streets of Rome from Mary Beard, ancient grape seeds in Turkey, Egyptian mummies preserve the heart but not the brain
