Nan Hawthorne's Booking History

Fahrenheit 416

2011-12-02T11:50:00.000-08:00

    Ray Bradbury, author of many well loved and prophetic novels, has long had nothing but contempt for technological developments in media. he hates the Internet, saying, "There's nothing there!" and has resisted the development of ebooks passionately. He feels both along with television and no doubt any number of other recent inventions are taking people away from such worthwhile pursuits as reading.
     Ironically, he has h ad to bow to the inevitable. His book Fahrenheit 451is being released by his publisher as an ebook. I say ironically because this very fact means that in spite of his prediction, people are reading.
     I have my own perspective on this, as my regular readers (of electronic text) know.
As a voracious reader who happens to be blind, I have long been stuck with reading what the National Library Services www.loc.gov/nls make available, certainly wonderful but slim pickin's and slow and resource intensive. Thanks to ebooks I can read and read and read. I am myself a novelist, had twice as many credits as I need for my degree in English, and have quite narrow tastes in reading, utterly unserved by NLS. So needless to say when I heard of Bradbury's attitude, it really pissed me off. I know a lot of people who confuse technology with some of its less ideal examples. Ebooks are not television or video games or Facebook. They are what any book was to start with, the product of a mind and imagination. Mr. Bradbury ought to recall that his books, each and every one of them, started out as thought. (I recall gazing at Candace Robb's head at a Historical Novel Society conference and thinking, "My God, that's where Owen Archer was born.")
     As I tell my friends who insist that only print on paper books are really reading, just as soon as print on paper books start reading themselves aloud to me, I'm there.
     By the way, 416 degrees F is the temperature at which a Kindle or other ereader will catch fire, according to a web site that apparently has something there.

Fahrenheit 451 Kindle Edition

A Self-indulgent Self-exploration

2011-11-30T16:32:00.000-08:00

One thing I don't think I will ever be accused of is lack of generosity, certainly in terms of what i will do for others, whether they asked for it or not. I share myself liberally and naturally, something that gets me in trouble constantly since I am forever being interpreted as self-promoting. When that happens I tend to sit, open-mouthed, saying, "Who? Me?" This first bit is by way of saying yes, I'm perfectly aware that I am driveling on very likely about things few others are even aware of no less care. Fine. Take It or leave it. No hard feelings, pip pip cheerio and all that.

This is the last day of National Novel Writing Month, and it was a roaring success for me this year. My first M/M historical romance has a first draft of over 91,000 words and i am nuts about it. I think it's good, very good, and certainly will be once the talented editor I am hiring and I get the final ms. ready. I plan to submit it to genre publishers and have high hopes for it being beloved. I've discovered over the past few years of writing fiction that this is my primary motivation, writing stories and characters that people come to love, along with the pleasure for me of getting to know each novel's world and denizens. It struck me this time around, NaNoWriMo that is, that I could be writing like this all the time. I know I work well under time pressure, but I enjoyed it so much this time around that I think I'd like to work this hard all the time.

But, Nan, you say, you are a workhorse, an overachiever, you do already work your narrow butt off. Why, I say, thanks for noticing how hard I work and how narrow my butt is. I agree. Maybe this means something has got to give. I work through things through a combination of written exploration and feedback, so, I said to my self, why not list everything you do and the time/results ration. Thant of course implies that everything I do has an identifiable and quantitative result. I do a good deal of what i do as a way to develop a following and therefore induce reading of my works. Yes, sales, but mostly new friends for my books and characters. i have, in fact, been praised for "doing everything right" in this department. Whether marketing works is another matter. I honestly don't know.

So I think I am going to try to write out everything I do -- if I can remember it all -- and do some thinking about whether or not they give back what I need and want. I will go so far as to put up some sort of poll for people to identify those things they actually know about and follow. You will do me a kindness if you comment on this post and vote in the poll.

1. The nonnegotiable - Writing the books, of course, but i want to start actively seeking opportunities to submit stories and write novellas, all of this to be my central focus. I also very much value my relationships with those others on publications like Wilde Oats and Gay Flash Fiction, referring to being part of the editorial team as I also write for the publications and that's included in the former sentence. The people I work with on these two really are the most productive, accepting, mutually valuing I have found. Those relationships would be enough to stay with these. I do some regular writing, like my column for The Medieval Chronicle, which are not at all big time saps.

2. Book reviews - I started reviewing books on That's All She Read mostly just to record the books i read. I had started doing it on Facebook but found their tool unsatisfying. I've decided that my reading tastes are narrowing enough that since there already are a bouple blogs where that sort of fiction is reviewed, it made more sense to offer to do this for them and can my own blog. What I decided to do is stay with the three review sites I either do or soon will do reviews for and for all other books just record them on Goodreads. So that decision is made. You all know I read practically nothing but historical fiction, so most of those will be either for HNS's Historical Novels Review Online or just listed at Goodreads. My narrower interest is in GLBTQ historicals, which I review in Bosom Friends and soon for Speak its Name. (Not that it matters, as a good book is a good book, but of those letters I am a Q. I do wish the average straight reader would stop being silly about whether they would enjoy GLBTQ novels. Love is love. But I digress.)

3.  Radio Dé Danann - I program a LIve365.com Internet radio station of Celtic music and I do this in what I cheerfully call my "free time" so I won't be dropping that.

4. My blogs - Let's tick them off:

Nan Hawthorne's Booking History is sort of my main blog. I used to keep it up with articles, rants, funny stuff, and my latest news on an almost daily basis. Not sure that's been successful.

Today In Medieval History is reasonably popular and requires less and less work.

Historical Blogs: Fiction & Fact was originally a way to share my blogroll more broadly, a sort of one stop shopping for these fascinating blogs. i have a philosophy that if I find something I do useful then others might and why be stingy? Set it up as a blog or web site! But I'm losing interest in keeping it up and have been considering finding a new home and mommy/daddy for it.

An Involuntary King: The Stories is actually static. It's a repository of all the stories that went into the creation of my first novel. A blog was a good place to storie it. I have new people and stories I want to concentrate on.

Random Biographies I do because there are just all these fascinating people i want to find out more about in history who apparently never interested Peter Graves much. I will probably continue with this but need not do it on a weekly basis.

I already ditched Alehouse Tales so i don't know why it is still there.

5. Squidoo - I am just to interested in women who choose to live as men not to do something with the topic which I coined the term Grrlz2Men for. I also started a Squidoo with publisher guidelines for GLBTQ authors, again figuring I need it so others might.  I wonder if this already exists, though. It must. So I don't know what I will do with either of these. I can't say I am finding Squidoo all that easy to use.

6. Social networking - Then of course there is that black hole social networks. I reluctantly stick with Goodrads. I just can't stay attuned to the others, like LindkedIn and Twitter, but I have used Facebook quite a bit, convinced as I am that everyone I friend is a potential reader... but I can choose how much time I spend on it. Facebook's recent remodel has me annoyed since it seems like I can't keep up with the same people even though I did make the changes required....

7. Committees Bloody Committees - I am the poster child for that saying, "If you want something done, ask a busy person." That has, however, got to be the area where I overdo it. I am on the so-called board of directors of Independent Authors Guild but am a lousy board member. I joined numerous Yahoogroups that in many ways are essentially committees. I recently joined a couple author networking groups which I am going to think about, probably asking them to tell me exactly what their expectations are.

8. Reading - I am therefore I read.  I am legally blind but Kindle reads aloud to me and there are other audio book sources besides.

9. Real Life - Well, I've got a family, that is, my husband Jim for the past 30 years and four beloved cats and we all get along quite well. Well except Kitkat who growls at everyone and everything, including in her sleep. I don't spend a lot of time with friends off line, not a big telephone user, think about going back into some sort of volunteer work though I think I do enough of that online. I do use a treadmill virtually everyday. My husband and i share all the household responsibilities. I don't see that anything in this category needs a change. I turn 60 in January, no kids or grand kids. I can't drive so there's not a lot to tempt me outside my home office. I have some crafts I do while I listen to books. Not a big TV watcher.

10. And the rest - I have my medievall-novels.com and have someone I pay to keep it current.    I get money for it, though not likely as much as i spend to maintain it.

Hmmmm... i am sure I will think of other things I do and add them, and I will eventually do some sort of poll or just list everything in order of most impaortant and most satisfying.

Your comments and observations welcome.. though just saying how amazing I am will just exhaust me. So consider it understood.

Winner, NaNoWriMo 2011!!!

2011-11-29T19:08:00.000-08:00

Historical Novels Review Online: Beloved PIlgrim

2011-11-16T19:23:00.000-08:00

From Historical Novels Review Online, November 2011

"Hawthorne is writing fiction—and quite good fiction at that."

BELOVED PILGRIMNan Hawthorne, Shield-Wall Books, 2011, $14.35, pb, 284pp, 9780983398509

Set against the vividly realized backdrop of the disastrous crusade of 1101, Hawthorne's latest medieval historical novel consistently broadens and subverts the very categories it invokes. This is the story of young noblewoman Elisabeth von Winterkirche, who trains as a warrior alongside her brother Elias and his squire (and lover) Albrecht—until Elias dies and Elisabeth is confronted with the normal role of a 12^th-century high-born woman: loveless betrothal and joyless marriage, in her case to a brutish local baron. She opts instead for a strategy right out of medieval legend (not to mention Shakespeare): she dons her brother's armor and goes off to the Crusades herself, disguised as a young man.

“Could a woman wield a sword and fight alongside trained knights on destriers?” Hawthorne asks, then answers (with more personal assurance than historical support), “Of course she could,” and some of the most entertaining parts of this novel involve Elisabeth doing just that. But the book's main emphasis is on love, not war: Elisabeth quickly finds that, like her brother, she's attracted to her own gender. “Love is love,” she declares, “Pleasure is pleasure. I don't care what anyone says.” Readers who might wonder if things were really that simple nine centuries ago would do well to remember that Hawthorne is writing fiction—and quite good fiction at that.
Steve Donoghue, Historical Novels Review Online

My NaNoWriMo Progress

2011-11-10T13:46:00.000-08:00

Historical Novel Roundup is below.

Actually, I wrote over 2500 words on Nov. 9 but could not get on the NaNo site to update them.

You need to refresh your browser to see any further updates.

National Novel Writing Month 2011

Holiday 2011! Historical Fiction Roundup!

2011-10-28T14:09:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again, a time of giving and receiving.. and what better than books!

Just click on the link for Comments below this post and enter information on your own books, books you know would make great gifts, books you wish someone would buy you!

Include title, author, era the book takes place, and a link to help folks find the book. Then add a brief blurb about the book./ Practice marketing by including the reason someone would want to buy it.

You have all month.. we are doing National Novel Writing Month and don't plan to update any of our several blogs during the month of November.

Have someone you really want to thrill? Get them a Kindle eReader! The basic one is only $79! If you want or need one that reads aloud though, go with the Touch or the keyboard. The Fire looks like fun, it don't say nothin' aloud.

Other models: All-new kindle eReader!

Happy Holidays from Nan Hawthorne's Booking History!

Nan Hawthorne

Author, Beloved Pilgrim

www.nanhawthorne.com

Those Modern Kids' Names

2011-10-24T19:45:00.000-07:00

I was out the other day and overheard a father calling his two boys, "Hunter! Porter!" I've heard both boys and girls with these occupational names and wonder if the parents realize they mean what might not be regarded as so upper class. They might have thought twice and chosen more promising names, like Lawyer or Psychotherapist..

Baxter - this originally was a female baker
Booker - a bookbinder or possibly a scribe
Carter - someone who drives or ships merchangise by cart
Chandler - a candlemaker
Cooper - a barrel maker
Hunter - someone who hunts for game
Porter - a person who carries something, such as baggage or cargo, or a doorkeeper
Sawyer - someone whose job it was to saw wood
Taylor - a constructor of clothing
Tucker - another word for a cloth fuller, who takes woven cloth and soaks it in water and urine to make it tighten up and become a denser weave. This is the origin of the name Walker also.
Tyler - someone who tiles roofs.

And don't forget, all these names can be in other languages too.

Of course people have long used names, mostly for boys, that they thought of as derived from surnames.. Mason, Abbot, etc.

The good news is that names do not predict the future of the child. Good thing too since I'm not sure how many fullers there are around any more.

"Hunter! Go shoot a deer for our supper! Porter, answer the door! Cooper! Make us a barrel to store our grain in!

A New Review of Beloved Pilgrim

2011-10-15T18:26:00.000-07:00

See below.

From Smashowdsr

Review by: Robert David Boyle on Oct. 15, 2011 : (no rating)

This is my daughter's review.

"I really enjoyed this book. I loved the Tamora Pierce "Song of the Lioness" quartet when younger and at first, when I began reading this book, I thought it was structured on very similar lines. Though the premise of a sister replacing her brother to become a knight is similar, that is where the similarity ends (for one thing, this one is not recommended for youngsters!). Nan Hawthorne has structured a detailed, well-researched Crusade novel with convincing characters and situations, and even a few touches of humour. I particularly loved the detail about the fighting warhorses, the 'destriers'. I did think it was slow to start, the author really coming in to her own after Elisabeth is on her way to the crusades but the material beforehand at the mansion more predictable and less convincing. I also personally found the central romance less compelling than Elisabeth's strong friendship with squire Albrecht. But overall, a jolly good adventure tale I had a great time reading, and even learnt a bit from. Interested in a sequel." (reviewed within a month of purchase.

Thanks.. and I promise a sequel is coming where we find out what happened to her father.

Want a bookmark? Just send a self-addressed stamped legal size envelope to Nan Hawthorne, P O Box 12454, Mill Creek WA 98081 <

Horrible Histories: Boudica!

2011-10-11T16:28:00.000-07:00

Kings and Queens of England

2011-09-27T16:22:00.000-07:00

Three songs about the Kings and Queens of England!

Kings and Queens of England

By Beethoven's Wig

First came William, then a second William
Henry, Stephen then a second Hank
Next was Richard called the Lion Hearted
Evil John, then one more Henry rose to the rank
Three more Ed’s then Richard came to power

Then three Hanks then one went to London Tower
Two more Edwards, Richard
And another couple Henry’s
Altogether Kings and Queens of England
Next came Edward, Jane and Bloody Mary

Then Elizabethan was the style
Next King James, two Chucks and one more Jimmy
Then together Will and Mary ruled for awhile
Then reigned Anne, four Georges and a Willy
Queen Victoria lived near Picadilly

Then two Eds, three Georges
And Elizabeth the second
All together Kings and Queens of England
All together Kings and Queens of England

And there is a third one from an irish point of vier recorded by Sandy Brecken and Ewan Williamson.. just gotta find the lyrics.

New Book-bloggerRresource: HNS Competitions

2011-09-22T16:46:00.000-07:00

By Charlie Farrow http://networkedblogs.com/nrDBU

I've not been blogging much and I have been shamefully neglectful of my clients (who I do hope will forgive me!) because I have been a-making stuff, not least a promotion platform for the Historical Novel Society.

I hope it's going to be a winner, allowing the Society to partner with buffs and bloggers to run social media campaigns with dedicated landing pages, sticky content and shedloads of resources.

So I've made a little HNS Competitions mini site as a resource for history and historical fiction enthusiasts of all shapes and sizes to work with the Historical Novel Society to promote the best books, authors, multi-media and events – and by doing so, to help promote their own sites to a wider readership and community.
The aim is to make available targeted, attractive content and real-value offers from publishers, authors and booksellers that bloggers can offer to their readers. And in return the bloggers get yummy backlinks from the Society's sites, tweeted up big time, and the chance of review copies and exclusive interviews with top authors - the launch offer is Bernard Cornwell.

Well to be fair, they don't get to keep him, but they get to offer tickets to his book tour, copies of his new book DEATH OF KINGS and the chance of an exclusive interview on their site.

So any bloggers wanting participate should get in touch via the HNS Competitions site or email hnscompetitions at gmail dot com.

Comments here work too! (Do not leave a comment below but on that sirte!!!)

Latest from Oxford University Press

2011-09-20T11:09:00.000-07:00

Highlights

The Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer
David Wright and Christopher Cannon

A group of pilgrims entertain each other with stories on their way to Canterbury in a poem whose characters, from the Knight to the Wife of Bath, are as vivid as their tales. This new edition of David Wright's acclaimed translation includes a new critical introduction and invaluable notes by a leading Chaucer scholar.
Paperback | 560 pages
£7.99 | 11 August 2011 | 978-0-19-959902-8
Series: Oxford World's Classics

More titles publishing this month

English Episcopal Acta 38, London 1229-1280
Edited by Philippa Hoskin

Hardback | 276 pages
£60.00 | 11 August 2011 | 978-0-19-726485-0

English Episcopal Acta 39, London 1280-1303
Edited by Philippa Hoskin

Hardback | 314 pages
£60.00 | 11 August 2011 | 978-0-19-726486-7

John Mirk's Festial
Edited from British Library MS Cotton Claudius A. II, Volume 2
Edited by Susan Powell

Hardback | 600 pages
£70.00 | 18 August 2011 | 978-0-19-959037-7

Online Resources

Oxford Scholarship Online - History

Oxford Scholarship Online's History collection encompasses work at the cusp of late antiquity and the early middle ages, right through to the latter decades of the twentieth century.

Oxford Bibliographies Online - Medieval Studies

Oxford Bibliographies Online is an online-only resource designed to help busy researchers find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best scholarship available, whether it be a book, chapter, journal, website, or database.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online

Explore the lives of over 58,000 people worldwide in this illustrated online collection of specially written biographies. This vast and authoritative resource covers individuals who have shaped all aspects of British history, from the Romans to the present day.

Fordham Scholarship Online

Fordham Scholarship Online is a pilot program for University Press Scholarship Online, a platform that will aggregate content across participating university presses and is scheduled to launch later in 2011.

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People Are History

2011-09-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

Beloved Pilgrim IAQ (Implicitly Asked Questions)

2011-09-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

Mrtel's Agincourt Barbie

Don't you just love when readers make comments about your book that you oh so want to answer.. and you can't? I decided that these comments should be regarded as "implicitly asked questions" (IAQs) and that I should answer them here. You are welcome to use this idea.. you know you want to.

Implied question from a Facebook member: You aren't going to have a woman wielding a sword, are you? Swords were huge and women's wrists are too weak.
Nan's response: As Brandy Purdy quipped, "Joan of Arc didn't go into battle carrying an embroidery needle..." Neither did Boudica, not Grace O'Malley. There are all kinds of women, a l builds, and if a woman can grow up training to use a sword, she can. It's the author's job to provide credible background, and I took care to do so.

Implied question from goodreads reader: Why doesn't it say the book is about same sex relationships on the cover?
Nan's response: The cover shows two women in an affectionate pose, but truthfully I have never seen a heterosexuality warning on a book, so it didn't occur to me I needed to warn anyone.

Implied question from the same goodreads reader: Why did the story not follow the history accurately?
Nan's response: Um, it did.. almost to the letter. That was one thing I liked about writing it.. the history was perfect for a novel. The only place where I diverged is where nothing is known of the event.

Implied question from a goodreads reader: Do you really believe Elisabeth and Maliha knew each other long enough to fall in love?
Nan's response: Yes, since that's about how long it took for me and my husband of 30 years.

An implied question from reader who wrote to me : Why did n 't you say what happened to Sigismund?
Nan's response: Two reasons: no one knew, and what do you think sequels are for?

Implied question from another reader: There was such a prohibition against homosexuality in the Middle Ages, how can these characters be realistic?
Nan's response: Because, first of all, it's not that simple, as class and other factors play a part. Second of all, the fact there is a law against something doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Third, we are talking about Constantinople here. Fourth, did you skip the part where they are hightailing it out of Germany to protect Albrecht? Finally, experts contend that about 5% of humans are and always have been homosexual. Love is not easily denied.

Impllied question from more people than I want to divulge: Why are so many typos in your blog p9osts?
Nan's response: It's kind of a hobby of mine. I'm getting really adept at it.

Any other questions, overt or implicit?

Fun with Favicons

2011-09-08T13:54:00.000-07:00

The theeory is that if you look up in the address bar of this web browser page you should see a funny little image in front of the URL (we address). It looks like a round shield with an iron boss.. trust me, that's what it is.
I stumbled across this little charmer when playing around with one of my Blogger blogs' design page... in the upper left there was a way to add a "favicon". I already knew what that was, the little symbol some really cool looking web sites have at the left end of its address bar. I had been green with envy wanting to havea favicon of my own but had not managed to both get one and make it stick. Thanks to Blogger I can at least provide them for my blogs.

Take a tour of my favicons!

Sundial at Today in Medieval History
Celtic knot at Radio Dé Danann
Silhouette at Random Biographies
Old book at medieval-novels.com
Roundabout at The Never-ending Round Robin
The ornate N at Nan Hawthorne, Historical Novelist

If you don't see the image in the address bar, look instead at the tab with the name of the blog elsewhere in your toolbars. Not sure why they all did not show up, like the ones for Bosom Friends (there is supposed to be a labyris) or An Invvoluntary King: The Stories....

So how did I get the cute little images? Well, I sorta stole them, using images I found lying about on the web.. but I used an easy tool to convert them for use as favicons.

Dynamic Drivve Favicon Generator

Well, I am off to find more for my less endowed blogs.. have fun!

When Characters Know They Are Fictional

2011-09-01T11:52:00.000-07:00

A reprint of a post from November 2010.

Is there a Dimension where characters wait for authors to find them?

I and all of my original characters say yes! Just ask Elerde , the "darkly sensual mercenary"of my novel's back cover blurb. He and the others from An Involuntary King have been my constant companions since a friend and I drew them out of their waiting place over forty years ago. It has only been since I started to talk with other authors, such as Helen Hollick, that I started to have my suspicion that they existed somehow before I came along confirmed. Now as I read Ursula K. Leguin's Lavinia, I discover a self-aware fictional character where the title character meets her creator Virgil and comes to understand that she and the events of Th Aeneid are fictional.

OK, I know there really aren't characters who sit around some sort of mystical place waiting to be introduced to our world where they remain long after their authors are gone... but I love the idea, so relax and bear with me.

Here is the concept: there is a dimension, fourth, sevemth, sixteenth, who knows? where fictional characters live until someone, a novelist, a poet, a playwright, reaches in and draws one or more out to put them in a work of literature. Once they are in our world they persist without end, no matter what happens with the author, the book, the society. Why do I say this? Because to an author, or so I am told by so many of them, the characters are not under our control. They are so real to us that we speak of characters refusing to go along with a plot twist or simply taking over and telling their stories themselves. I go so far as to believe on some level my main characters actually live with me. The king once had his own room. And yes, my husband thought that was a fine thing.

Now for a long time I thought I was the only author to believe this nonsense, but then Helen Hollick and I talked about how her pirate, Jesamiah Acorne, came to be. This hero of the Sea Witch Chronicles literally appeared before her on a British beach as she sat pondering the direction of her next artistic efforts. She had been challenged to write something new, something with some magic of the paranormal variety, and was walking alone thinking what to do. She told me she started to get an impressions of a piratical rogue from the 18th century, and lo and behold, as she looked to the edge of the surf, there he was, his back to her, looking out to sea. He had a blue ribbon tying up his hair, and as he turned she saw an earring with a tiny gold acorn and then a brilliant, saucy smile. It was Capt. Jesamiah Acorne, real, perfectly aware he was fictional, but happy to have become part of our world. And he is such a vivid and enjoyable character, so are we who have read his adventures.

Another author whose work I love, Ruth Sims, told me that when over a twenty year period she wrote The Phoenix her characters defied her absolutely, taking shape in spite of what she had originally planned for them. The original Nick was an American Civil War era physician, courting a woman whose name Sims does not even remember, who has a friend, an actor, named Kit. By the end of the twenty years a time shift made it Victorian England and Nick and Kit were now the romantic couple. Sims says she has no idea of how this came about, that she had little or no exposure to gay people nor had set out to write a gay love story, but Kit and Nick were not to be shoehorned into what they were not. This mirrors exactly the conversation I had with my as yet unpublished book's heroine, Elisabeth von Winterkirche, who is a lesbian and be damned!

So it was particularly gratifying to me to listen to the conversation between the LeGuin novel's heroine and "The Poet", where the princess of Latia realizes that whether or not she ever truly existed, her effectual reality is as a minor character in a great poetic epic, The Aeneid. The Poet is amazed to meet her and discover just what a well-rounded character she is, despite his short shrift in depicting her. From this Lavinia concludes that not only is she fictional but the other characters, the settings and the events, are all "made up", like the woman warrior he tells her about. This influences her awareness of all that happens about her, but she accepts the plot, which others call "fate", as "how it should be."

One reason I so enjoy the collaborative writing groups, ghostletters and ghostletters-tng, is that I have been able to take characters from my first novel and let them interact knowingly as fictional characters. In one situation my Irish bard, O'Neill, explains to someone else's character in that brief story line, what it is like to experience an edit. "'Tis a momentary sensation of shift, a shimmering where what you thought you knew and did changes, then shortly after you don't remember what had happened in the first place." His companion asks if the experience is not more than a little disorienting. He admits, "Aye, a wee bit of vertigo, but ye get used to it, so ye do."

And of course he knows and I know who is doing that editing, and it ain't me.

Interview and Review: Beloved Pilgrim by Nan Hawthorne, by Brnady Emily PUrdy

2011-08-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from Brandy Purdy's Reviews and News

Elisabeth von Winterkirche, a tomboy in petticoats, would rather wield a sword than an embroidery needle, and cares more for war than the traditional life of a Bavarian noblewoman and wife. After her beloved twin brother Elias dies, and she is forced into a most unhappy marriage with a brute who repeatedly rapes her, Elisabeth dons her brother's armor, crops her hair, and with his squire and secret lover, Albrecht, sets out to join the doomed Crusade of 1101.

Along the way to Constantinople and then the Holy Land, she cleverly deals with all the tricks necessary to conceal her femininity and gains in confidence as she discovers that people "see what they expect. They see the armor and the cross and need look no harder," and readily accept her as what she seems to be--an innocent young nobleman embarking on a quest, his sword yet unbloodied.

The journey also proves enlightening in another fashion--Elisabeth, now calling herself Elias, discovers her attraction to her own sex, first in a chaste infatuation with the beautiful Ida, Margravina of Austria, and then in the arms of the beautiful whore Guiliana when her comrades in arms good-naturedly treat their young companion to a night of pleasure, to lose his suspected virginity. Guiliana keeps Elisabeth's secret and initiates her into the arts of love between women, which will stand her in good stead when, soon after, she finds the love of her life in the honey-eyed half Turkish, half Greek servant woman Maliha. But all too soon Elisabeth must leave her love behind and go on to face the blood, roar, and thunder of battle, and the heat, filth, and buzzing flies of an army of unwashed armor-clad bodies on the march and the deprivation and want they endure when supplies run low and the enemy burns the fields rather than have their crops fall into enemy hands.
Nan Hawthorne paints a vivid, living, breathing, and, when it comes to the travails of war, broiling hot and reeking portrait of what life was like for a pilgrim knight on crusade. Beloved Pilgrim is a grand tale of love and adventure, heartache and self-discovery that both male and female readers can enjoy.

For those concerned about sexual content in their reading matter: the lesbian sex scenes are vividly rendered, but they are not, in my opinion, gratuitous, as each expresses something about the characters involved--In this story, sexuality is also part of the journey.

Beloved Pilgrim breathes new life into the oft-told centuries old tale of "girl disguises herself as boy to go off to war" and is one of the best novels of this kind that I have ever read.

An Interview with author Nan Hawthorne about her book Beloved Pilgrim

Q: I have always found the stories of women who doffed their petticoats, cropped their hair, and disguised themselves as men to go off to pursue an education, a career, like Dr. James Barry for instance, or to fight in wars, or even lead battles like Joan of Arc. What inspired you to write Beloved Pilgrim? Is your heroine/hero Elisabeth based on a real historical person or a composite of more than one real woman?

A: There are so many reasons a woman might want to live either like a man or actually as one. (I call these books “Grrlz2men” and set up a Facebook page to explore them.) In Joan’s case she felt she had to fight, and though it was not unheard of for women to fight, they were almost always peasant women who followed their men into battle. Joan, like Elisabeth, wanted to fight as a knight. In Barry’s case it was to be able to work in a field where women were not welcome. I have also read books, like Jae’s “Backwards to Oregon”, where the woman dressed as a man to avoid being victimized by men. But to me Elisabeth, who is by the way based on my own inner sense of myself, is simply being herself. In 2011 in the US she could do that more readily whether not adopting the identity of a man, but in 1101 the only way she could, in her class, was to actually put on her brother’s armor and masquerade. This is a time-honored choice, particularly in time of war. I for one am not surprised that many women have made this choice, since I simply do not believe a person is born predestined to behave in some way his or her culture deems characteristic of a man or a woman. Each individual is unique, basically genderless except for the mechanics, and chooses or has enforced those subjective characteristics. Writing Elisabeth allowed me to write a woman who simply was herself, not a “woman” nor a “man”.

Q; As I was reading your novel, I thought that Elisabeth's discovery of her true sexuality was as much a journey as her actual travels by ship and by road to Constantinople and the Holy Land. I personally thought this gave the story added depth and kept it from being just another "girl disguises self as boy and goes off to battle" book. Was this what you intended? One of the things I have discovered since being published is that some readers don't want to go behind the bedroom door or if they do they have their own ideas about what they want to find there. Were you at all worried that some readers might shy away from the book because of the sexuality of its heroine?

A; Of course, it was Elisabeth who told me she was a lesbian. She would not have put up with my making her fall in love with a man. But you are right, her realization of her feelings for women is as much a journey as the actual expedition. So is Elisabeth’s personal growth, her awareness that people may not really be who you think they are, that heroes can actually be villains, that mercenaries can be honorable, and that a crusade is not necessarily holy.

As for reader reactions, it went both ways, actually. On one hand I wondered if women who do not identify as lesbian would hesitate to read about one. I had one tell me that since she wasn’t a lesbian, she would have no reason to read a lesbian novel. I replied, “I don’t know why not. I am not a lesbian, and I wrote it.” I don’t understand why we are not surprised that gay men and lesbians read heterosexual books, but that GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) books are only for GLBT people. I am reading Sarah Waters Tipping the Velvet now and am sorry that very few people who are not lesbian will read it because it is such a deep and beautifully written book (and should be made into a movie as far as I am concerned.) I did not write the novel just for straight women. I am passionate about historical fiction and fascinated by nontraditional lives including GLBT historical fiction (like your marvelous Confession of Piers Gaveston, one of the first I came across). I hope lesbians are glad of my addition to that genre, and I hope straight people will get over themselves and broaden their own reading too.

Q: As a writer myself, I know that sometimes characters take on a life of their own and take us down paths we hadn't even thought of in our original outlines; did your characters surprise you or take you down any unexpected paths during the writing of this book?

A: Some characters? I think they all do! I knew Elisabeth and the others would have their way, so I can’t say they surprised me. Although I will say that Maliha was a lot stronger and sure of herself than I originally envisioned.

Q: Your scenes depicting the life of a pilgrim knight on the march and in the heat of battle were so vivid and real I actually had to turn on the air conditioner and put ointment on my mosquito bites and even paused to think how extremely grateful I am that I live in a time when the refrigerator and an ice cold Coke are only three or four feet away as I was reading your book. You put so much into these scenes, bringing them to life, what is the process like, besides a lot of research obviously, how do you do it?

A: That is indeed high praise!

I think this is part of being very much in the character’s head. I don’t know how you can be in a character’s head without being in her body too. Even a typical life in 1101 Europe would be uncomfortable by our standards. I thought about just how awful it would be to ride through a Turkish summer in armor, not bathing, not having enough to eat or drink, and dealing with vermin. I’ve read lots of crusades novels where all the characters think about is the romance of the situation, the glory, the honor, the nobility. That’s nonsense. Some readers believe that putting a woman in the situation allowed me to focus on these discomforts, but I don’t think that's true at all. I think writers assume the men would gloss over or ignore it. I don’t agree.

Q: What was the most interesting part of writing this book for you? What was the most difficult? The most surprising?

A: The most interesting was learning about the Crusade of 1101. Like most people, I had no knowledge of it, though it was the one crusade that changed Europe’s economy and society the most.

Most difficult was working to overcome what I k now are my own writing faults, wordiness, convoluted sentence structure.

Most surprising was adding these characters who were not, like those in my first novel, “An Involuntary King”, friends from my childhood, familiar and comfortable but all brand-new and finding I could do this.

Q: As a writer, do you have a particular routine or ritual for writing? Are you a disciplined writer who follows a set schedule like someone with a nine to five job or the "just when the moment's right or the mood strikes" type?

A: I wish I was more disciplined, but I suspect that routine would not work for me. I write when I am inspired, but fortunately it usually takes just getting started to become inspired. I have learned or developed numerous ways to spark that inspiration. On the other hand, I have just had to come to grips with needing quiet. My neighborhood kids are horribly noisy, so I simply will not be able to write when school is not in session. That makes me sad and more than a little resentful.

Q: You are very active in promoting Independent Publishing, which is in my opinion like a diamond mine, there are some genuine treasures buried beneath the various prejudices and stigmas attached to self-publishing, some talented authors with clever, creative, and unique ideas that profit-motivated mainstream publishing is unwilling to take a chance on and that readers won't usually find unless they go looking for them as many bookstores decline to stock these books unless the author can persuade them or buyers special order them. Why do you think Independent music and films are often celebrated but when it comes to books these are looked down upon and disdained, all of them lumped together as "vanity" projects.

A: I think that’s how the prejudice started, but I think practical issues are more at fault now. Bookstores for instance want to be able to return books if they don’t sell, and it is a rare self-published author who either wants to or can afford to buy back books. On the other hand, direct book buying is the coming thing. You know that some well-loved authors are starting to cut out the middleman and sell their own books on their own web sites, especially ebooks. I believe the reader should choose what s/he reads, but that perforce means lots of small market books, while publishers simply cannot afford to serve those small markets.

You ask why indie recording and films are accepted and not books. I really don’t know. Perhaps the markets are different people, and book buyers as a whole are stodgier. Beats me.

Q: Any plans for a sequel or spin-off? What's next from Nan Hawthorne? Where can readers learn more about you and your work?

A: Now that I have written a lesbian historical novel, I plan to write a gay one in a new era for me, the mid 1800s America. I may write a sequel to Beloved Pilgrim but I have not decided. I want to get back to my first love, medieval England, and have a paranormal mystery series planned. In the meantime I am playing with writing a book as a blog. People can follow my activities on my web site at www.nanhawthorne.com and also follow me on Facebook. I am there as Nan Hawthorne.

I really appreciate this chance to talk about my book with someone like you with whom I share a passion for looking at history and historical fiction with a fresh, more open vision. If people find our books uncomfortable, so much the better. They will learn and new writers will be braver and more willing to take chances because of writers like you and me.

Eromenos: A Guest Post From Author Melanie McDonald

2011-08-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

Mlanie McDonald
Author of Eromenos

Nan, thank you so much for hosting me on your site today. I feel honored to be invited to share some thoughts on how historical fiction can reclaim a history for gay and lesbian people whose heritage has been suppressed.

First, just a couple of thoughts about fiction in general. Back in grad school, there seemed to be a debate among some academic circles about whether fiction can just “be”—that is, whether a work of fiction always is (or should be) written from a particular agenda, or whether fiction can just be about whatever a given writer wants to examine-a particular character, situation, voice, image, obsession, or whatever else strikes the writer’s fancy. Personally, I think a writer always must be free to write about whatever that writer chooses. This freedom, though, doesn’t excuse the writer from responsibility to pay close attention to the subject of choice, and to tell the story in as accurate, authentic, and honest a way as possible, given the writer’s own limitations, and in the paradoxical way that fiction, as the saying goes, always lies its way to the truth.

I’d also like to quote a few of the writer Tom Rachman’s ideas about writing fiction, because he articulated these so beautifully. At the end of his novel The Imperfectionists there’s a wonderful exchange between Rachman and Malcolm Gladwell in which Rachman says, “Writing (and reading) is a sort of exercise in empathy, I think. In life, when you encounter people, you and they have separate trajectories, each person pushing in a different direction. What’s remarkable about fiction is that it places you in the uncommon position of having no trajectory. You stand aside, motives abandoned for the duration. The characters have the trajectory now, which you just observe. And this stirs compassion that, in real life, is so often obscured by our own motives.”

In historical fiction, too, I think, lack of a personal agenda sometimes can serve the story in ways that non-fiction accounts cannot, to make the story real for the reader. Tom Lutz of the Los Angeles Review of Books, in an article titled “Future Tense,” wrote, “The novel is not the newspaper. It has a different constellation of social responsibilities. . .No matter its ambition, the novel moves, at best, from the local to the global by reference to a specific story or stories; it keeps focus on the particular case, its arguments about the general necessarily analogical.”

Perhaps the best way for writers of historical fiction to find and reclaim the stories of those whose heritage has been suppressed, including members of the GLBT community, is to look into the gaps of the written historical record—to notice the silences. Writers of historical fiction might ask themselves, as modern historians must, whose stories have not been told yet—whose stories still remain hidden, unexamined.

One such story that emerged only recently was that of the late Rudolf Brazda, a Buchenwald survivor. According to his recent obituary in the Washington Post, Mr. Brazda, who died on Aug. 3, 2011, in Alsace, France, came forward in 2008 when he heard about a Berlin memorial for “pink triangle” prisoners—those deported to the concentration camps by the Nazis for being homosexual. As the paper noted, before he came forward, many had believed that all of the remaining gay concentration camp survivors had died. Mr. Brazda waited for more than sixty years to tell his story at last, at age 94. According to the Post, of the 5,000 to 15,000 gay men sent to the camps, fewer than 40 percent survived the brutal forced labor they endured. So many other stories—those of other survivors, as well as those who did not survive the camps—still remain to be told. And unlike Mr. Brazda’s story, some factual accounts may never be recovered.

Not all of the stories still waiting to be told are stories of tragedy, of course. But they will depict characters’ struggles, challenges, and triumphs in the context of their own eras, and within the nexus of those eras’ contemporary ideas and attitudes about gender, sexuality, race, class. For example, another recent article in the Washington Post, “March’s Forgotten Man,” about Bayard Rustin, a leader in the Civil Rights movement, noted that Mr. Rustin’s unabashed homosexuality, at a time when few gay men were out, cost him in terms of acceptance by some of the movement’s other leaders.

The American playwright Terrence McNally once said, “Civilized dinner table homophobia is every bit as insidious” as the more overt kind, and it seems to me this statement probably also could be applied to all “civilized dinner table” prejudices, biases and stereotypes—about gender, sexuality, race, class, religion, ethnicity, and so on—that have served throughout history to marginalize, trivialize, and divide people, to turn some of “us” into “other”—particularly when such divisiveness also has served to help those in power maintain that power at the expense of all of these “others.”

If writers of historical fiction serve any agenda, perhaps it may be a call to re-examine history from all of these perspectives, a story at a time, in order to reclaim the heritage of those who have been suppressed, and to reclaim history for all of us.

Above image: Relief, Antinoos as Sylvanus,
National Museum of Rome

Organized by Virtual Blog Tours

Boomer-speak in Historical Fiction

2011-08-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

OK, this one's a bit of rant, a bit of humor, and a call for your own comments in the same vein.

I just read a book set in Ancient Ireland with the following line in it:
She worked with the Dagda to save her people from cultural annihilation.
"Cultural annihilation"??? Could the author not have used a simple lesss anaachronistic lline like:

She worked with the Dagda to save her people's very existence.

Or just leave off the "'s very existence." Think of the ink it would have saved, along with the people.
So as soon as I told my husband about this one he piped up with something like, "I suppose you could put Earl Sagar (a rather dour fellow from my Anglo Saxon novel, An Involuntary King) standing in a sield wall wondering, 'Am I still relevant? Or should I reinvent myself' and wondering which of the King's companions would be a good life coach for him."

I suppose it would not be beyond imagining that Sir Francis Walsingham might "take a meeting" and present h is "agenda" though his attempts to reach consensus would be precluded not b language but by personality.

Did Mary Boleyn complain of sexual harrassment? Well, maybe not complain...

It certainly would not be out of the question that Julius Caesar would worry about imperialism...

I knwo Robin Hood was definitely trying to live green.

As you see, I am a bit out of touch concerning Boomerspeak.. so I shall rely on you for deliverables like that.

The Bottom Line: What They Said About "Beloved Pilgrim"

2011-08-15T19:34:00.000-07:00

It's been and continues to be a joy ride with all the praise and insightful comments Beloved Pilgrim from people who know what they are talking about.

Check out this combination of reviews, excerpts and huest posts and an original story all centered around the novel and the deadly Crusade of 1101.

Brandy Purdy's Book Reviews and news: Review

Blak Rayne Books: Excerpt from Beloved Pilgrim

WildeOats.com: The Squires, a story

Roaring Girls: Adventures in History - The Crusade of 1101 and Beloved Pilgrim

Cocktail Hour Podcast: Interview with nan Hawthorne

Amazon.co.uk Customer Reviews

KQL: "Failling That, Invent" Building Queer History Through Historical Fiction

Bosom Friends review

GoodReads: 4 Star Review by Christy English

Passages to the Past: The Crusade Just Made for a Novel

Historical Hussies: Why We Can Thank the Massacre at Merzican for the Europe We Know

Historically Obsessed: Gay People in Historical Fiction

Christy English: comment and giveaway

Smashwords.com Customer Reviews of Beloved Pilgrim

World of the Bluebells: The Thrills and Chills of Researching the Distant Past

Tanzanite's Castle Full of Books: How NaNoWriMo Helped Me Start my Novel

Historical Boys: Women Fighters in the Crusades

Spun Stories: Book Review

Christy English's Blog: How I Write Battle Scenes

Richard Warren Field's Blog: Book Commentary

Medieval Woman: A Rogue's Fallery

Amazon.com Customer Reviews

Book Beginnings: Beloved Pilgrim by Nan Hawthornr

Getting Medieval: History's mysteries - What Hap[pn ed to Ida of Austria?

Sappho Sings: Why a Lesbian Novel?

Number 589

2011-08-15T16:59:00.000-07:00

If there was anything on this post, it would be Post #589! I hope you are suitably impressed with my commitment and execcution.

Novels Set NOW Can Be Fun Too!

2011-08-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

It's only $3.99 and worth a lot more just with what fun it is. Laaksonen is a natural, a clever and witty storyteller, great sex scenes, playful, characters you will fall in love with, and a dog who gets a second chance. It's a quick read too. No complaining you don't have time, OK? And even if you are not into vampires, this is a book that will make you laugh.

Molly and the Vampire: A Sensible Woman Learns about Love, Lust and Things That Go Bump in the NightLinda Laaksonen
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/76717

It will be out in print.. but why wait?

Keeping Tabs On.. The Gambling lexicon

2011-08-08T15:40:00.000-07:00

Planning a novvel that will feature a riverboat gambler from the mid 19th century, I started looking into what card games were commonly employed by gamblers. One of the most popular was a game called faro. In it players place bets on which of a full set of a particular suit of cards will be drawn from the card box or "faro bank". Two cards are placed on either side of the bank, one called the banker's card and the other the player's card. If a player matches the banker's card, he loses. If he matches the player's card, he wins.

I still need to learn how to play this game, how one wins and how one cheats. But one thing I learned from a video on YouTube about faro is that players would often keep track of what cards were played on small pieces of paper. These pieces of paper were called "tabs" As they were used to keep the banker honest, to "keep tabs on someone" came to mean keeping track of their actions or assertions.

Wanna play?

History of Riverboat Wagering

2011-08-07T17:21:00.000-07:00

Enjoy this article, obviously creatively translated into English from some other language, extolling the history of gamblling on Mississippi riverboats. I found this as part of the research for my next novel...

The US is very well known for having several worlds’ major and most sumptuous casinos. However, the US also differentiates its wagering presence from other realms in another way i.e. riverboat wagering. In fact, the US has a profound history of riverboat wagering that extents roughly two centuries! If you are a aficionado of gambling world, then you’ll certainly enjoy this look back on the past of riverboat wagering.

Mississippi River: an attraction for the Professional Gamblers
The most prehistoric days of the riverboat gaming date back to the early on in the 19th century when the Mississippi River was packed with dealers. Since water haulage was huge in the US deal scene during this era, many rich dealers pursue the map and down the Mississippi River. Moreover, considering as how it is an extensive journey from one end to the other, wagering became a trendy way to overtake the time.

It was not long before when the proficient gamblers found their mode to the riverboats at Mississippi. Soon the riverboat gaming was flourishing as the card games and the other games of likelihood were ordinary among the traders and the pro-gamblers.
However, many of the rich dealers began to grasp onto the card cheats, and it was not long before people in progress taking the matters into their own hands. In the year 1835, five gamblers were hanged for being deceitful in a card game; other experts observe this message and the riverboat wagering began fading down. Surely, there was still riverboat wagering, but not in the equal capability that it had been ever before.

In 1861, the Civil War bust out in America and the riverboats were not able to do much itinerant on the Mississippi River – or any other rivers for that stuff. In the outcome of the war, riverboat wagering pretty much vanished except for hardly any remote card games now and there.

The Birth of the Riverboat Casinos
The US is not a very open-minded country when it comes to the matter of wagering. Most of their land-based wagering is done in the Las Vegas, Atlantic City, a few top quality cities, and the Indian qualms. Therefore, when small state of Iowa was appearing for a way to proffer officially permitted wagering as a means of accumulating the tax revenue, the state of affairs looked bleak. That is pending they discovered riverboat gambling.

Iowa officials found that if their casinos were dwelling on the riverboats, they could lawfully function as long as the cruisers sailed out into the river so often. This dodge enabled Iowa to proffer the United States’ the first riverboat casino. It was not long before the supplementary states such as Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, Mississippi and Michigan had riverboat casinos of their own.

Modern Day Riverboat Gambling
The commandments surrounding the riverboat wagering have loosened significantly over the last two decades. Now the riverboats do not even have to leave the wharf, and they can be kept on the stilts while keeping hold of the legality. The sloppy laws involving the riverboat wagering has given mount to lots of sail ships wagering too.

Today, many of the riverboats and the sail ships proffer full-service casinos along with the slots, blackjack, poker, roulette and the other games. Moreover, what is grand about the riverboat casinos is that they allow the gamblers from all the states to take pleasure in the nearby wagering; in the past, populace had to tour to the Las Vegas or Atlantic City just to wager.
Ofcourse, with the mount in the online casinos, citizens do not even have to depart from their dwelling to wager!

Stolen wholecloth from http://www.superonlinecasino.com/casino-articles/general/history-of-riverboat-wagering.

Expressions and Where They Really Came From: "Deadd Ringer"

2011-08-02T15:47:00.000-07:00

Nope, not this.

The other day at a pizza restaurant our waiter, who said his name was "Awesome" and who kept feeding us trivia questions hit on a wrong answer I had heard before. He told us the expression "dead ringer" came from a period when premature burials were creeping everyone out so they started putting bells on caskets. I knew that could not be right if only because the expression "dead ringer" means a perfect imitation. How would that follow from tinntinnabulating coffins?

It doesn't. The actual origin of the term comes from another meaning of both "ringer" and "dead".

You will be familiar with the term "ringer" meaning someone who steps in to take another person's place, the implication always being that the replacement is a much better performer than the original. Sometimes a ball team puts in a ringer to throw off the strategy and expectations of the opposite team. This comes from horse racing originally. A "ringer" was a horse that looked just like one with a poor record of performance and therefore higher odds against winning. The "ringer" will be mistaken for the less able nag, so when it wins, being a better racer, the trickster will win big.

"Dead" also means more than just deceased. It also means precise or exact. Like "She hit it dead on."

So a "dead ringer" is someone or something that is absolutely identical to something else. You say "The actor who played him was a dead ringer for Thomas Cranmer."

In general, if an expression's claimed origin does not reflect it's current meaning in some way, it's wrong.

Those Wacky Search Phrases

2011-07-28T14:32:00.000-07:00

I am not nearly as clever with my ripostes as Susan Higginbotham when it comes to this topic.. I guess my forte is snarky headllines on my medieval calendar blog... but it is still fun to look to see how people find my blogs.

I am not quite sure how to feel about this first one. I suppose every teacher in every school all over the English speaking world assigned reports on the Black Death, because there were literally dozens of instances of "ring around the rosy" and one ominous "we all fall down". Disturbing, no?

Then there was the person who looked for "hawthorne sex scenes". I hope they meant the other author by that name.

Perhaps it was the same person who wanted sites about "medieval tickle".

It is always gratifying when someone looks for "nan hawthorne". Unless, of course, it was me.

Several people wanted "medieval jokes". I trust my novels were not what they expected to find.

I apologize profusely to the person who found a page on my blog when searching for "five stage model buying process" for having utterly neglected to write even the tiniest thing about it.

There was one for "Celebrochestet"... I suppose that would be the town founded by the Baldwins.

I will give $50 to the person who searched for "Christenlande kingdom". I dessperately want to know why they looked for it.

And my friend Barbara is going to want to know why someone was searching for: "Barbara Weitbrecht" facebook "black rose" or "blackrose" .

I guess it's good to know these folks got somewhere, even if nowhere near what they were looking for.

These were all from Nan Hawthorne's Booking History.. Random Bios is no fun.. people are always actually searching for what it's about. Bios..

Find blogs at http://www.nanhawthorne.com/ .

What Y'all Buy

2011-07-28T13:51:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you but I find this fascinating. The following are the things people have bought via my Amazon Associates account in the last quarter.

Books

Blitz - An Illustrated History (General Military)
Fabulous Knights
Hornblower and the "Hotspur" (Hornblower Series)
Lieutenant Hornblower
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower (Hornblower Saga)
Tahoma
The Changeling of Finnistuath: A Novel
Wolfsbane

DVD

Zorro, The Gay Blade

Kindle eBooks

A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book One
An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England Amazon.com YAY!!!!
Blitz Diary: Life Under Fire in World War II 0
Do Tampons Take Your Virginity? A Catholic Girl's Memoir
Likeable Social Media: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on Facebook (& Other Social Networks)
The Conqueror
The Midnight Hunt (Midnight Hunters)
The Queen's Daughter

Glad to see my favvorite author iss represented...

I didn't put links on these.. don't wanna get accused of double dipping!

The weird part is that books and movies ain't all they bought. They also bought electronics, like an iPod, and all this stuff ... not likely to be on medieval-noels.com or Bosom Friends!

Kitchen & Housewares

Bormioli Rocco Loto Wine Decanter
J.A. Henckels International Eversharp Pro 5-Inch Stainless-Steel Utility Knife

Office Products

Pentel EnerGel Liquid Gel Pen, 0.5mm, Needle Tip, Black Ink, 2 Pack (BLN15BP2A-K6)
Pentel EnerGel Liquid Gel Pen, 0.5mm, Needle Tip, Violet Ink, 2 Pack (BLN15BP2V)

Violet ink, eh? Cool!

I of course have no idea who bought any of this, other than the hornblower books which I bought as an anniversary gift for my dearly beloved. I don't make much, and most of it goes for books and for music for my radio station, but it is indeed fascinating to see, and wonder why, people bought things biaone of my sites...

Where i link

medieval-novels.com
Bosom Friends
Today in Mdieval History

Historical Fiction Roundup for July 2011

2011-07-20T14:14:00.000-07:00

Sure as shootin', it's that time again to tell the world about your historical novel!

Whether just out, just about to come out, or long in print, let us know what you have to offer.

Give us titles, your name, a description of the book and where a body might mosey over to buy a copy.

Hey, I can talk like this.. i was born in Nevada, OK?

Just use the Comments form below. Yes I know these forms can be persnickety.. just do your best. There's nothing I can do to fix it if you can't get it to work.

If you do get it to work, you will be glad to know this blog gets at least 350 vvisitors a week.

Radio De Danann: More on Sweepstakes

2011-07-15T20:07:00.000-07:00

Radio De Danann: More on Sweepstakes: "Remember, we are taking entries to our 'When Will We Reach 1000 Presets?' - just leave a comment on any post until we reach the limit. In ..."

Things Overheard In Passing

2011-07-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

Blogger -- and the Internet in general -- is like the Sears Christmas toy catalog to me... only I can have whatever I want. So I get ideas for blogs or for ways to use blogs and I go for it. If I lose interest I can just ditch the thing, after all.

So my latest brainstorm is called "Things Overheard In Passing" which you can find. oddly enough, at http://thingsoverheardinpassing.blogspot.com/ .

Right now you will find four lines:

One of a group of women at a Starbuck's: "Her rectum fell out..."
Young woman in public restroom: "Everything is cold, like the deodorant. I hide everything in the back of the barn..."
Boy to his friends on the BC Ferry: "You'll never catch me in a kilt..."
Woman to her husband as they left a restaurant: "I think they were serious about squirrel soup..."

Of course, right now those were all I could remember.. but i am sure I will run into more in no time. And you should feel free to send any odd things you catch out of context to me for inclusion.. hawthorne@nanhawthorne.com .

Have fun!

History of Composting

2011-07-12T00:00:00.000-07:00

Medieval farming

"So what's da king doin' here, eh?"

About three and a half milennia ago I wrote an article about farming practices in the Middle Ages for a publication of the Kingdom of the West. I have no idea if it still exists anywhere. In it I learned one thing that really stuck with me. For most farms there simply was not enough manure or compostable materials to make fertilizer in any quantity. There were two reasons, that the animals on the farm were so ill fed themselves that their manure was insubstantial and because it simply would have cost too much to cart food scraps from cities. So while I was looking into how to compost today at our community garden, I ran across this article.

History of Composting

From Composting for the Homeowner by the University of Illinois Extension

Occasionally, curious individuals want to know the origins of composting. It is difficult to attribute the birth of composting to a specific individual or even one society. The ancient Akkadian Empire in the Mesopotamian Valley referred to the use of manure in agriculture on clay tablets 1,000 years before Moses was born. There is evidence that Romans, Greeks and the Tribes of Israel knew about compost. The Bible and Talmud both contain numerous references to the use of rotted manure straw, and organic references to compost are contained in tenth and twelfth century Arab writings, in medieval Church texts, and in Renaissance literature. Notable writers such as William Shakespeare, Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh all mentioned the use of compost.

On the North American continent, the benefits of compost were enjoyed by both native Americans and early European settlers of America. Many New England farmers made compost as a recipe of 10 parts muck to 1 part fish, periodically turning their compost heaps until the fish disintegrated (except the bones). One Connecticut farm, Stephen Hoyt and Sons, used 220,000 fish in one season of compost production. Other famous individuals that produced and promoted the use of compost include George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington Carver.

The early 20th century saw the development of a new “scientific” method of farming. Work done in 1840 by a well-known German scientist, Justus von Liebig, proved that plants obtained nourishment from certain chemicals in solution. Liebig dismissed the significance of humus, because it was insoluble in water. After that discovery, agricultural practices became increasingly chemical in nature. Combinations of manure and dead fish did not look very effective beside a bag of fertilizer. For farmers in many areas of the world, chemical fertilizers replaced compost.

Sir Albert Howard, a British agronomist, went to India in 1905 and spent almost 30 years experimenting with organic gardening and farming. He found that the best compost consisted of three times as much plant matter as manure, with materials initially layered in sandwich fashion, and then turned during decomposition (known as the Indore method). In 1943, Sir Howard published a book, An Agriculture Testament, based on his work. The book renewed interest in organic methods of agriculture and earned him recognition as the modern day father of organic farming and gardening.

J.I. Rodale carried Sir Howard’s work further and introduced American gardeners to the value of composting for improving soil quality. He established a farming research center in Pennsylvania and the monthly Organic Gardening magazine. Now, organic methods in gardening and farming are becoming increasingly popular. A growing number of farmers and gardeners who rely on chemical fertilizers are realizing the value of compost for plant growth and restoring depleted soil.

Roman farming

Pinning Down a Historical Film

2011-07-10T20:27:00.000-07:00

CBS's 60 Minutes reran an episode I saw some time ago about a researcher who was able to pin down exactly when a film of "A Trip Down market Street" was made. You can see this film and learn more about it at:

60 Minutes Overtime

It was, you see, made just a week before the massive earthquake and fire in 1906 San Francisco. The building of the company that made it was destroyed along with most of the other buildings nearby. Had the film makers not put it on a train to New York the evening before, the film itself would have been destroyed.

What I most enjoyed about this segment on 60 Minutes was that the researcher was able to pin down everything about this film through the Internet. That certainly points to the Internet coming of age, doesn't it? Enough historical material is archived here that anyone looking for it can find it. For me that is a particularly happy thing, since special software I own allows me to read what is on my screen either through magnification or text to speech conversion. That I am legally blind is quickly becoming far less of a "handicap". The playing field, as they say, is leveling out.

I can only hope that more and more materials are archived on the Internet. How nice it would be for me sitting here in the Seattle area to be able to read chronicles stored far away in an abbey in Europe. Not that I wouldn't love the journey, but once there, no magnifier in the world is powerful enough for me to peer through these treasures.

Go take a look at this film. It has humor but by its existence pathos as well. An awful lot of those people dashing about Market Street had only days to live.

A technology that gets a great deal of criticism of late is face recognition software. Facebook is getting accused of invading people's privacy. Imagine though if this technology can be perfected and put to use in historical research and genealogy. Every one of those people dashing across the cable car tracks might be able to be identified! Think of all we could learn.

By the way, while you are watching the film, think about what you notice and tell us what it is in Comments below!

Guest Post: One Hundred Reasons I hate Spellcheck

2011-07-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

Laake, self portrait

By Laake, Crazy Vampire Lust and Dogs

You may notice by the title that this isn't going to be about MY NOVEL or Rufus Magee. At least, not all together.

I really did mean too; honestly. And I'll tell you all about Rufus someday. The novel will come up today because that's what started my feud with Spellcheck.

It isn't much of a feud seeing as how it's completely one sided. They don't know I exist! And do you know what else? They don't know that you exist either! AND THEY DON'T CARE!!!

Okay, that's note entirely true. If what you want to do is write a report on ability of mice to type the collected works of Robert Burns given enough time; or perhaps you need to tell the shipping department that the leprous nuns of Our Lady of Perpetual Angst have canceled their order for 20,000 boxes of heart shaped paper clips and they shouldn't be shipped. In either of these instances Spellcheck will perform to your highest expectation.

Now I'll tell you right up front that I don't care a fig about typing mice or leprous nuns. Well; maybe a little about leprous nuns.

What I do want to do is write about sensible women falling in love with vampires. (No, really, she is sensible.)

REASONS TO HATE SPELLCHECK

#1 It doesn't believe in contractions!

In 106,00 plus words, 100,000 of them must have been contractions. At every single one of them I got a little green squiggly line. When I clicked on the little green line a note popped up informing me that I was an idiot and no sane person would ever write can't when can not is obviously far superior.

#2 It torments me over passive voices.

I'll admit that I needed help with this one. Apparently in the first draft I all but rolled over and played dead i was so passive. So, okay, I fixed the sentence. It told me no, I was still wrong. I tried again, still passive. After 10 or 15 tries I usually gave up and removed the sentence there by changing the whole story and turning my hero into a villain. I mean; all it had to do was rewrite the sentence for me and I would not have been contemplating suicide every time I started writing.

#3 It cannot abide casual speech. (or at least writing.)

I never before realized how how much trouble and & but cause. The first few times I was told that I should not (not a contraction) I tried every way I could to rewrite the sentence it coming out sounding like someone who had ALMOST learned English as a second language.

#4 Spellcheck has gone politically correct.

Whats wrong with that you say. Nothing if you don't plan on using words like lady, gentleman, blond, woman, man, girl, boy, or bridesmaid. I was informed that I should refer to her as the brides house cleaner. For the others person seems to be the accepted choice. Have you ever tried to make "The tall person took the blond person into his arms and kissed it." sound romantic?

Yeah, I know. That's only 4, but I'm sure that there are at least 96 more. If you have tried to write a letter to a friend, you can probably come up with a couple yourself. I wonder if that should be yourperson?

I have to go now. Just thinking about this makes me want my medication.

Why Write About the Crusades? A Guest Post By Richard Warren Field

2011-07-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

My thanks to Nan Hawthorne for hosting me today at her blog.

Richard Warren Field

My thanks to Nan Hawthorne for hosting me today at her blog. With this post I kick off a mini- blog tour to celebrate the recent Independent Publisher Book Award for my novel, The Swords of Faith, about the Third Crusade—the confrontation between Richard the Lionheart and Saladin. Nan and I share a bond as writers. We’ve both written novels about the crusades.

So the question arises—why write about the Crusades? I can’t answer for Nan. (I suspect her reasons are different from mine.) But for me, particularly after the Nine-Eleven attacks, religious fanaticism became a serious interest. And what has been cited as the epitome of Christian religious fanaticism, of pointless bloodshed in over religion? The Crusades.

But that doesn’t answer the question. Do we need to write about this just because it happened? Do we risk opening old wounds by bringing up this period again? What does remembering this period accomplish for us? In looking at the Third Crusade, the confrontation between two of the most celebrated figures of the Middle Ages, two men who are nearly icons, I was struck by the way their confrontation resolved. These two men, champions of their religions, arrived at a peace agreement. The agreement allowed for worship in Jerusalem for Christians, Jews and Muslims under Muslim protection. Did the agreement last? No. Were these leaders pleased with the settlement? No, both thought they had failed their missions for their faiths. But the story of how they got to the settlement, how fanaticism gave way to mutual rapport and admiration, is a story providing food-for-thought for the present. For me, this made it a compelling story to tell.

What about the opening-old-wounds problem? Those wounds are already open. Muslim fanatic terrorists have tried to affix the label of “crusader” on their perceived enemies. (I have written at length about how current Western military activities in the Middle East are not the Crusades—see “No, It’s Not the Crusades.” ) “Crusader” is used as a battle-cry, as recruitment inducement by terrorists. So it is important to know the real truth. Crusades historian Jonathan Riley-Smith has written a short, insightful book about the subject (The Crusades, Christianity and Islam), reviewing the history of the use of the term. I enthusiastically recommend this book for those interested in a knowledgeable, dispassionate look at the subject. The more we know about this period, the better able we are to counter its misuse by present-day fanatics. Knowing more about the crusades can convince thoughtful people of different religions that this period resides securely in the past. Christians are not trying to impose a modern “Kingdom of Jerusalem” on Muslims in the Middle East as part of an effort to marginalize or even stamp out Islam. The mainstream Western culture advocates mutual respect and tolerance for religions, the idea actually demonstrated in that truce referred to earlier between Richard the Lionheart and Saladin.

Oh, by the way, there is one other reason to write about the Crusades. And I believe Nan Hawthorne is going to agree with me on this one. The Crusades, with their passion, with their exotic collisions among people from totally different cultures and perspectives, offer material for some great stories!

Thanks to Richard Warren Field, who always makes me think. Nan

Movie Week: Book Trailer for "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon

2011-07-03T00:00:00.000-07:00

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Movie Week: Book Trailer for "The White Queen" by Philippa Gregory

2011-07-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

The White Queen, by Philippa Gregory

Movie Week: Book Trailer for "Agincourt", by Bernard Cornwell

2011-07-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

Agincourt, by Bernard Cornwell

Movie Week: Book Trailer for "False Colors" by Alex Beecroft

2011-06-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

False Colors by Alex Beecroft

Movie Week: Book Trrailer for "The Memoirs of Cleopatra" by Margaret George

2011-06-29T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Memoirs of Cleopatra: A Novel by Margaret George

Movie Week: Book Trailer for "Demon's Parchment: A Crispin Guest Medieval Noir" by Jeri Westerson

2011-06-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

Demon's Parchment: A Crispin Guest Medieval Noir by Jeri Westerson

Hilarious Hour with Nan Hawthorne on Cocktail Hour

2011-06-26T18:31:00.000-07:00

Listen to an hour of hilarious and oopinionated conversation with nan Hawthorne on Episode 20 of Cocktail Hour!

"Movie Week" returns tomorrow.

Movie Week: Book Trailer fo "The Confessions of Catherine de Medici" by CW Gortner

2011-06-25T23:10:00.000-07:00

The Confessions of Catherine de Medici by CW Gortner

Photos From the HNS Conference in San Diego

2011-06-22T19:32:00.000-07:00

We all chow down.

Nan snagging some celebrity autographs at the book signing.,
Diana Gabaldon and Margaret George.

The historical costume pageant.

Jim and nan on an excurssion on the SS Californian.

Beloved Pilgrim Latest Review!

2011-06-14T15:06:00.000-07:00

By Alex Hogan, editor for Wilde Oats and gay flash fiction magazines

Beloved Pilgrim; what a tremendous read. This is not just a ‘romance’ or ‘lesbian story’, this is a gritty look at real warfare, and what life was truly like in the Middle Ages, warts and lice and sword slices and all. It has so much in it. It is written by someone who obviously knows the period intimately; you almost feel it is written by someone who has lived through the period. It isn’t full of extended descriptions of what each tiny little thing looks like, to remind us that this is set in an “historical time”, but is written as if the reader already knows what it looks and feels like, as if the period written of were contemporary to the reader. By doing so we really feel the period, we don’t simply see it.

The story is, to put it simply, about a woman, Elisabeth, who pretends to be a man – she dresses up as her twin brother – so she can escape the limited life of a woman, and live the far more adventurous and exciting life of a man, a crusading knight, to be precise. She chooses this life in an attempt to find her father who has not returned from the previous crusade, and by so doing escapes the arranged marriage her father left for her.

But this is no simple adventure story, Biggles in Medieval garb. This is not full of shiny knights in armour, or pretty girls romping in the hay. Once Elisabeth begins her adventure she discovers that men have it tough as well as women. She discovers the horror, disgust, grit and dirt of real warfare. As such the book is showing us that warfare in the Middle Ages is as horrific as it is in the modern world.

Having this twist of the woman pretending to be a man achieves two things. It is an interesting look at how women dealt with the inequities of medieval society, and by analogy how women in non-western societies do the same today. Also, by having a woman in the middle of the awful reality of war, but having that woman dressed as a man, the reader is enabled to look at the scene from a woman's perspective and not the perspective of a medieval soldier. As we are modern readers we can in turn use Elisabeth's different perspective on medieval warfare to allow us to view it from own modern perspective, and so see the horror of it.

Elisabeth also spends time in foreign parts and has to deal with the difficulties and prejudices of different races and cultures and different classes.

Woven throughout this are two same-sex love stories, or even three, but they do not take over the whole story but are rather are part of the story of the life of Elisabeth.

Beloved Pilgrim is a tremendous journey and a very rewarding read, which will stay with you long after you have finished it.

Thanks, Alex! I know you to be an insightful reader and honest to a fault.. so this review means that much more to me as the author. Nan

Ghosts On Facebook

2011-06-12T19:34:00.000-07:00

f you check in to Facebook these days, you might have a haunted feeling!

The originators of Ghostletters, a collaborative writing group where members write as fictional or historical characters, have taken their clever creation to the level of social networking. Not that there weren't plenty of historical characters and not a few fictional ones on Facebook already. Many of you reading this have "friended" Edward II of England, Melisande d'Outremer, Hugh le Despenser, James "The Black" Douglas and Harold Godwinson. And let's not forget Crispin Guest!

The new Ghostletters on Facebook simply takes the impersonations one more step. These impersonations, more like Edward II abouve than Crispin Guest who speaks in the persona of his author, are in addition to Facebook members real communications. For instance, rather than sharing the doings of his anonymous author, Chauncey the Bottle Imp uses his own vernacular to converse with other Ghostletters impersonators.

This all just started, but you can go to the Ghostletters community page on Facebook. Read what Friar Jak, a walrus, a street kid from 10th century Winchester, a black and silver cat, a lady of medieval England, a young woman disguised as a Union soldier, and several others have to say for themselves. You can respond to their status updates, chat with them, send them messages, poke them, and even invite them to play games with you. That is, your own persona. your own historical or fictional character.

To do this in persona you will have to have a separate account for each character.. unless you just make sure you always indicate who is doing the talking. I, for example, set up Stigand of Wintonceaster (stiganowintonceaster on Facebook) the 10th century street kid who will tell you about his dog Brothor and ask you for food. I set up a free Yahoo mail account for Stigand, then registered on Facebook. He set out to find people to friend. I manage him, other characters and my own Facebook by opening more than one browser window at al time, signed in for each.

Sometime soon I will collect some of these fascinating characters' conversations and share them here.

Have fun!

Four Star Review of BELOVED PILGRIM

2011-06-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

Romance and Adventure in Crusaderland

A customer review on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk by Alistair Forrest, author of Libertas and Goliath.

This is the second novel by Nan Hawthorne that I have read and it is with delight that I can report a continued maturity in her craft, further commitment to tireless research and a wonderful sensitivity in dealing with two very difficult subjects.

Beloved Pilgrim begins with a young girl’s evident swordplay skills, immediately signalling a heroine worth her salt for the future trials a Crusade will bring. She is forced against her will to marry an arrogant misogynist who rapes her and assumes power over her inherited wealth – these are the two things that motivate the evil Reinhardt – and this serves to fuel our empathy with this plucky girl.

The first three chapters are a slow burn and the rape scene in chapter four handled well. This is essential to the plot, demonstrating the driving force of so-called Christian knights in assuming superiority over all who did not bear the cross. Namely, the unlawful and misguided terrorism by Europeans on Moslems and even Christians who lived in the Levant at that time (a thousand years ago) into which even the intelligent, including our heroine/hero Elisabeth/Elias, were duped.

Hawthorne recounts this underlying theme through the eyes of a young girl who goes to war disguised as a knight to fight in 1101 on the losing side. Difficult, and very well achieved.

More so, in my opinion, is Hawthorne’s handling of gay love and homo-eroticism. Elisabeth’s twin brother is in love with Albrecht who will become her squire and protector. Elisabeth, too, will discover her true sexuality – whether inspired by the rape or already latent, it doesn’t matter. Both Albrecht and Elisabeth/Elias find love with new partners. My only concern is that in both cases, love comes so readily. Perhaps war does that.

The homo-eroticism makes Beloved Pilgrim a romance as well as an adventure. The adventure ends in failure, but the two romances provide the necessary happy ending. For me, that an unjust war and a wholly expiated love are handled so well made this an engaging and thoroughly informative read. More please!

How Green Is My Kindle?

2011-06-06T19:57:00.000-07:00

I recently saw print books referred to as "dead tree books". Clearly the person was making the point that every book made of paper uses wood pulp, while an ebook theoretically uses none. Even though I am a monumental fan of my Kindle ebook reader, I had to respond that dead or not, those trees could be replaced. They are a renewable resource. The plastic used to make a Kindle or similar device is primarily a petroleum product, and petroleum is not renewable. When we use it all up, it will be gone. That got me thinking about the complex issue of what natural resources go into the creation of print and ebooks. It's not an easy thing to put together, least of all if you, like me, have little in the way of science education, but I will do my best.

This is meant as an objective analysis. As I say, I have my own reasons to love a Kindle.. it reads aloud to me, which I need. As soon as paper books start reading themselves aloud to me, I'll be back. In the meantime, I am just curious about the claim of environmental impact one way or the other.

Print books use lot more than just trees. Petroleum is a big component of their manufacture and transportation just like plastic products. Besides the petroleum used in cover art and manufacture and inks, the plants that produce the books use petroleum products. More than any other aspect of the publishing industry, transportation of books from the printing plant to distribution centers to stores uses vast amounts of petroleum.

How does this compare to, say, a Kindle 3 ereader? My Kindle weighs 8.5 ounces by far most of which is plastic. One source I found said that a plastic bottle is made from the amount of petroleum that would fill it a third of the way. The bottle itself, and in this case I am talking about a 16 ounce bottle in terms of volume it holds, uses about 13 grams of plastic. So that adds up to 13 grams of plastic being made out of a little over 5 ounces of petroleum. That's just less than 142 grams of petroleum. So if I understand this correctly, it takes ten times as much petroleum to make plastic.

So the Kindle sitting on my desk required at least 80 ounces of petroleum. It probably takes much more. Then there is the manufacture, the transportation, and the energy used to make it but also to power it. It is a low user of electricity so we can probably skip that per unit in the calculations.

Where the carbon footprint gets really tiny in terms of print book to Kindle ereader is in the area of the books themselves. Ebooks are not made of anything other than energy and a minuscule of that to boot. A Kindle can hold dozens and dozens of books. So it would be unfair to do a comparison of 1 print book to 1 ereader. You would have to compare literally hundreds of books, magazines and newspapers, not to mention documents, to a single publication made of paper.

Another aspect of print books versus ebooks is the fact that physical books must be shipped. Ebooks do not.

So, bearing in mind my calculations boil down to more of a conceptual equation than a technically accurate one, the 80 ounces of petroleum used in my Kindle is to be compared with hundreds of books, only one of which (like the Kindle) of which ever makes it out of the door of the printing plant.

Now, like I said, since I have to read with my ears, there is no comparison for me of print and ebook. Print books are wonderful.. I have hundreds of them. But they may as well not be there, since I cannot make use of a single one. No, not even picture books. But that rather colossal issue aside, I think the carbon footprint of an ebook is worth having more than one book to read.

Now.. calm down... I know there are libraries and all that. This was an intellectual exercise, and if anyone can offer more exact data, I hope you will share it. My own bottom line is choice. And that we all have.

The issues I raise above are far from the only issues of importance. As Jim just pointed out, ebooks require a vast infrastructure even to exist. But it's not cut and dried. And it may ultimately be comparing apples and oranges.

So what do you think?

What Do You Want to See in a Book Review?

2011-06-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

Results of the recent poll:

QUESTION: Which of the following are essential parts of a good book review?

Plot summary 19 (79%)
Literary insight 15 (62%)
Personal opinions/issues 15 (62%)
Observation re historical accuracy 15 (62%)
Disclosure of reviewers connection to author/publisher/bookstore 13 (54%)
Rating scale 9 (37%)
What format reviewer read 4 (16%)
Excerpt or quote 3 (12%)
Other - please share in Comments 3 (12%)
Stick to positive assessment. 0 (0%)
People had trouble posting to comments, but you can read those that made it here.

Votes so far: 24

I have to admit it, I so want to rub the response to "Stick to positive assessment." in the face of a certain blog owner... No one agreed with that. But I'm all grown up. I don't need to do that.

Ha! And thanks to everyone who responded.

Two New Reviews of BELOVED PILGRIM

2011-05-31T12:49:00.000-07:00

From an Amazon.com customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A great read, May 29, 2011

By Biography Fan (Northern California)

This review is from: Beloved Pilgrim (Kindle Edition)

Non-fiction fans often read historical fiction but want reliable period portrayal and fresh perspectives on the facts. In addition, I love a well-told tale and have a passion for adventure stories like Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe books. Nan Hawthorne's "Beloved Pilgrim" fits the bill: great battle scenes, vivid characters, and a solid foundation in crusading history. Some will argue against the likelihood of a woman successfully disguising herself as a man and fighting in battle, but, Victorian squeamishness aside, there is plenty of proof that they have done so throughout history, as Ms. Hawthorne points out in her notes. Unlike many books that portray the warrior woman, Ms. Hawthorne directly addresses the biological problems with "passing" and suggests some creative approaches to solving them. Who can say that women of the past were any less clever than they are today?

From Bosom Friends

Review: Beloved Pilgrim, by Nan Hawthorne

Reviewed by Gwen Mayo

Beloved Pilgrim is an engaging historical coming of age story set during the disastrous Crusade of 1101. Elisabeth, the hero/heroine of the story, is a young noblewoman, more inclined to wield a sword than an embroidery needle. She chafes against the constraints of social expectations of her position and longs for the freedom her twin brother enjoys. Sixteen-year-old Elisabeth is forced into a marriage to a much older knight. She barely knows the husband her father has chosen for her. The brute has no regard for her feelings or well-being, and makes it clear on their wedding night that his desire is for her dowry and a noble wife to produce his progeny.

Shortly after her marriage, her mother passes away. Elisabeth’s grief stricken father departs for the Holy Land, leaving the estate in her brother Elias’ hands. Elias longs to join his father on crusade, but falls ill and dies before he can depart. Elisabeth is left to suffer the abuse of a husband she loathes. Desperation drives her to assume her brother’s identity and run away.

Elisabeth/Elias is aided in her disguise by her brother’s squire and lover. Together, they face the challenges and trials of traveling as knight and squire on holy crusade. Beloved Pilgrim is a complex story of love and loss, honor and duty, and more importantly, of the differences in individuals that show us the commonalities of the human condition.

Hawthorne weaves the tale of Elisabeth’s adventures with historical accuracy, excellent detail, and respect for all the factions involved. We laugh and cry with characters that come alive on the page. Her work confronts the deprivations, hardships, and violence of an army on the march. She ably handles the difficulty of posing as a woman traveling in the world of men and wonder and excitement of a young knight seeing the exotic Byzantine Empire for the first time.

Gwen Mayo is a history junkie. Circle of Dishonor, her debut novel, is set during the turbulent political upheaval of post Civil War Kentucky, at a time when vigilantes and secret societies wielded power, and murder was more common in Kentucky than it was in anywhere else in the United States. She is a graduate of the University of Kentucky, a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, Sisters in Crime, the Historical Novel Society and Golden Crown Literary Society. Her stories have appeared in anthologies, at online short fiction sites, and in micro-fiction collections.

What Makes a Book Review Useful?

2011-05-25T14:45:00.000-07:00

I started That's All She Read as much to have a log of everything I read as to share my perspective with other readers, so there may be characteristics that not everyone will choose to employ in their own reviews. I hope you will share your own point of view.

Please note the poll in the right hand column. I will value your feedback through that tool, but I also hope you will read the following and use the comments form to explain both your poll choices and whether and why you agree or disagree with me.

Who Is the Review For?

I used to be one of the reviewers for a popular historical novel review blog. Our difference of opinion, the one that got me reprimanded and because of which I quit, was over whether negatives in a novel should be pointed out. The others felt that reviews were a way "to encourage authors" and therefore should only praise. I think that is nonsense. Reviews are for readers, to help them choose among the stacks of books they might choose to spend their money or at least their time on. A review is a sort of "consumer report". None of us would be pleased if we discovered the electric frying pan we just bought on the recommendation of a customer review turned out not to work very well. That the customer felt s/he should be nice and encourage the manufacturer would strike us as rather silly. I try to be honest yet even handed when I review books. I am not going to tell you a book is great if it was not, but I will tell you what made me think one way or another.

Reviewer Qualifications

One aspect of the Internet is that as my husband says, everyone has a forum to express his or her pin-head opinion. The quality of customer reviews on sites like Amazon.com is rather, um, variable, but sadly the many, many review blogs are sometimes no better. Just because you can read a book does not mean you have the skill to understand it, to analyze it, or to articulate your thoughts. As authors, my colleagues and I know that you simply have to accept that idiots will express opinions about your book, and that's just the breaks. If these idiots manage to influence potential readers, then you can only hope they would also have hated it. But I believe that I am expressing more than just my pin-head opinion. I actually am trained. I carried double credits in English literature in college and read literary criticism because I enjoy it. I received recognition for my skill back then and throughout my career. I can see themes in novels and comment on them in an articulate way. In other words, I know what I am doing. I also know when I am limited, and I try to be honest about this.

Ratings

The first article I read on what makes a good book review began with "Rate it!" I don't. Why? Well I just don't see how I can encapsulate all the aspects of a novel length work into a single cold, dry digit. If this means, as the author of the article says, this disinclines someone to read on, then so be it. The review was just not for them.

What Authors Think of Reviews

I have heard other bloggers say they would be honest in their reviews only they don't want the authors on their case. My own experience is that authors, who poured out their hearts and minds to write a novel want to know what an intelligent reader really thought. They respect both praise and criticism. That is, those who have not much appreciated something I said did not make an issue of it, and many others valued my reviews because I obviously read for the pleasure of it and observe things in their work they hoped readers would see. If you don't believe me, take a look at these authors' comments.

Plot Summaries

One woman told me that the two sites where she reviews do not permit plot summaries, something about spoilers or whatever. One of the blogs she told me carries this to the point that you are not permitted to back up a statement. To me that is the opposite of what a reviewer's function is. Like "topic sentences" you need to be able to say more about your valuation. "I thought this book was well written," is the start of a good sentence, but if you cannot go on to point to examples of the prose, the organization, the character development, and so forth, then you have told the reader nothing at all. I always summarize books, perhaps as part of my original intention mentioned above, but also as another reviewer said, because she knows she wants to see if a book will even interest her before she digs in. Plot summaries are an important way to help her.

Personal Druthers

A librarian friend told me she constantly has patrons plop a book down on the desk in front of her and say things like, "I don't know why you carry such garbage! I read this book from cover to cover and was offended by all the [choose your bugaboo.] One reviewer said of a book that she skipped a large section because stories of child sexual abuse and prostitution offended her. Another said of a different book that it offended her that there were several gay characters. I know I shy away from scenes of animal abuse. As reviewers we have a right to choose what we read as much as anyone else, and it is irresponsible to review a book where you skipped whole sections. I try to take responsibility for myself and bear up under sections of novels that bother me so I can first enjoy what the rest of it has in store for me and second represent it accurately to my own readers.

So there are several of the points I would like to make about reviews of novels. What do you think? Please make your choices on the poll to the right and also comment using the link to the comment form below.

NaNoWriMo 2011

2011-05-21T23:48:00.000-07:00

A little bird is hinting that they might just do a month of NaNoWriMoing in late summer as well.. check it out at http://www.nanowrimo.org/ .

Win a Copy of Purdy's Latest Tudor Novel

2011-05-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

Naughty Tabby isn't going to make it easy this time, to enter this contest you must guess how many toys she has in this picture (see it at Purdy's blog). Whoever guesses the closest will win a signed copy of my upcoming novel The Tudor Throne by Brandy Purdy. Contest ends June 10th, the winner's book will be shipped just as soon as Purdy receives her copies from the publisher. Just post your guess also in the comments on Purdy's blog and be sure to include contact info. Contest open to U.S. residents only, sorry but I can't ship outside the USA.

Good luck to you all!

How English Were the English Kings?

2011-05-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

Richard II : green Flemish, purple French and blue Spanish.

I got to thinking recently about just how English the Kings of England really were, or are. I thought I'd take a look. Bearing in mind that for simplicity's sake I am assigning national heritage to parents that matches their national origin as well, here's the math.

William I (Noran) and Matilda of Flanders (Flemish)

Willian II Rufus - 1/2 Norman 1/2 Flemish - no issue

Henry I - 1/2 Norman 1/2 Flemish

Stephen - 12 French, 1/4 Norman, 1/4 Flemish

Matilda - 1/2 Scots, 1/4 Norman, 1/4 Flemish

Henry II - 1/2 French, 1/4Scots, 1/8Norman, 1/8Flemish,

Richard I and John - 5/8 French, 1/16 Norman, 1/16 Flemish, 1/8 Scots

Henry III - 13/16 French, 1/16 Scots, 1/32 Norman, 1/32 Flemish

Edward I - 29/32 French, 1/32 Scots, 1/64 Norman, 1/64 Flemish

Edward II - 1/2 Spanish, 29/64 French, 1/64 Scots, 1/128 Norman, 1/128 Flemish

Edward III - 93/128 French, 1/4 Spanish, 1/128 Scots, 1/256 Norman, 1/256 Flemish

Richard II - 1/2 and a smidgen Fllemish, 93/256 French, 1/8 Spanish, 1/256 Scots, smidgin Norman

What mathematical or genetic genius wants to take it from there?

Women of the Crusade of 1101

2011-05-13T11:43:00.000-07:00

NEWS! Beloved Pilgrim is now available in both print and on Kindle at Amazon.xom and in print and on Kindle at Amazon.co.uk!

Women of the Crusade of 1101

Researching the Crusade of 1101 for my novel, Beloved Pilgrim, I asked the wuestion, "Were women involved at all in the crusade?" My protagonist, after all, was a woman who disguised herself as a man in order to fight as a knight. I put together a short essay on the topic for Christopher Gortner's Historical Boys blog called "Women Fighters in the Crusades".

The vast majority of women who went on crusade were peasant women and women from religious orders. Some of them fought, though not as part of the formal military. Nevertheless three noblewomen stand out for their connections to this devastating event in history.

Ida of Formbach-Ratelnberg, Margravine of Austria

Little is known about the Austrian Margravine Ida, born Ida of Formbach-Ratelnberg. She was born in 1055 the daughter of Rapoto IV of Cham, also known as Itha, and married to Leopold II, Margrave of Austria. Their son, Leopold III, was a deeply religious man who gave a great deal to the Church and was later canonized a saint. Ida was reputed to be the most beautiful woman in Europe in her youth. She was in her mid-forties when she decided to travel with Duke Welf of Bavaria’s contingent in the Crusade of 1101. In the Turkish ambush of this party at Heraclea in September 1101 Ida was either killed or captured. Nothing is known of her fate other than a rumor that she became part of a harem and was the mother of the great Turkish leader Zengi. This is, however, not possible as Zengi was born before the Margravine even came to Turkey.

Anna Komnena, Byzantine Princess and Historian

One of the first female historians in the West, Anna Komnena was born on December 1, 1083, to Byzantine Emperor Alexios I and his wife, Irene Doukaina. She was the author of an account of her father’s life, The Alexiad. She was extraordinarily highly educated in history, mathematics, science and Greek philosophy, and, although against her parents’ strict instructions, also in the lusty folktales and legends of her people. Her books are full of anecdotes about the famous people of her time, full of her personal observations of such men as Bohemond of Taranto, whom she called “a habitual rogue”, and Raymond de St. Gilles, whom she liked. She was married at 14 to Nikephoros Bryennios, a fellow scholar and historian, with whom she had a long – 40 years -- and fruitful marriage.

Anna believed she was the rightful heir to her father’s throne, being the firstborn, crowned at her birth, and having her mother’s strong support for herself and her husband. Legend has it that her younger brother John took the imperial ring when he came to bid his dying father goodbye. The Church declared him Emperor John II. Anna and her husband twice attempted to overthrow John and were possibly part of the attempted murder plot against him at his coronation. They were unsuccessful. After her husband’s death, Anna retired to the convent of Kecharitomene, founded by her mother, where she lived until her own death in about 1153.

Anna’s unique contribution to the history of the Crusades comes not from eyewitness accounts but from her relationship with members of her own family who fought in the First Crusade and her ability to record the Byzantine concerns over the excesses of the crusaders whom they feared would overrun the empire.

Adela of Normandy, Countess of Blois

Adela was the daughter, sister and mother of four kings of England, William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders being her parents. Her brothers, William I Rufus and Henry I were not the only other kings, as her son, Stephen of Blois, seized the crown before Henry’s daughter, Matilda, could be crowned.

Her only role in the Crusade of 1101 is her reputed insistence that her husband, Henry-Stephen of Blois, one of the riches men in Europe, return to the Holy Land after failing to fulfill his oath to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Some have claimed he had shown cowardice at the Siege of Antioch, but this is not certain. He did however abandon the mass of the pilgrims during the Battle of Merzifon in 1101. He subsequently was killed at the Battle of Ramleh in 1102.

During her husband’s long absences and after his death Adela acted as an able regent. She died on March 8, 1137, at the convent where she had retired. Her son Stephen, King of England, was not her most accomplished progeny, as Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester, was one of the m most acute statesmen and patron of architecture and more of his time.

Elisabeth von Winterkirche and Maliha may be fictitonal, but you can read their story and see one theory of what happened to Margravine Ida in Beloved Pilgrim, by Nan Hawthorne, now available in print and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk and as an ebook on Smashwords.

Beloved Pilgrim: The Virtual Book Tour

2011-05-04T16:46:00.000-07:00

During the months of April and May Beloved Pilgrim made the rounds of the popular blogs featuring historical fiction. Follow along and learn more than you knew could be said about the Crusade of 1101 and how it came to be the setting of the novel.

Check back for additions to this list.

Guest Posts

Passages to the Past: The Crusade Just Made for a Novel

Historical Hussies: Why We Can Thank the Massacre at Merzivan for the Europe We Know

World of the Bluebells: The Thrills and Chills of Researching the Distant Past
Special insight into doing research when the sources are old and not always reliable.

Historically Obsessed: Gay People in Historical Fiction
Historical novelists can help create a history for gay and lesbian people.

Tanzanite's Castle Full of Books: How NaNoWriMo Helped Me Start my Novel
How a special novel writing event got Beloved Pilgrim started.

Historical Boys: Women Fighters in the Crusades
Yes, women fought during the crusades.

Christy English's Blog: How I Write Battle Scenes
How I asked for an got expert advice on battle scenes.

Medieval Woman: A Rogue's Gallery
What happened to all the historical figures involved in the Crusade of 1101?

Sappho Sings: Why a Lesbian Novel?
Why I chose to write my protagonist as a lesbian.

Book Beginnings: Beloved Pilgrim by Nan Hawthorne
How the first two lines of Beloved Pilgrim get you right into the time and character.

Getting Medieval: History's mysteries - What Happned to Ida of Austria?
No one knows for sure what happened to Ida, the "most beautiful woman in Europe", when she disappeared during the Crusade of 1101.

Reviews of Beloved Pilgrim

Richard Warren Field's Blog: Book Commentaryy

Spun Stories: Book Review

GoodReads - Member Reviews
Amazon.com Customer Reviews

Smashwords.com Customer Reviews

Nan Hawthorne, Historical Novelist - Posted Reviews

Excerpts

Smashwords.com download

Bosom Friends: Elisabeth at the brothel in Bologna

Sappho Sings: "I have to take a piss..."

Christy English's Blog: "I lotht a toot!"

Check back for additions to this page.

The 5 Stages of Getting Published

2011-05-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

1. Denial

"This is going to be a best-seller! I will be rich and famous. All I have to do is get my book to the right publisher. First I'll get an agent. Well, actually, first I'll finish the book."

2. Anger

"Those idiots! They wouldn't know a great piece of literature if it bit them on the ass. That's what you get when you cast pearls before swine. Philistines. "

3. Bargaining

"Well, OK, so my book has been turned down by a dozen agents and even more publishing houses. I can rewrite the book. I could change it around a bit, give it more sex and violence. No problem, I can do that. I can try another publisher, another agent."

4. Depression

"It's no use. I can't write. I'm a failure. No one will ever publish this book. I might as well stop fooling myself."

5. Acceptance

"A POD? What's that? Oh, publish on demand. But isn't that a vanity press? Wait a minute! Look at the control I have! Look how much more I'll make on each copy! Hey, people are buying my book! Wow! I should have done this in the first place."

Deep Discount On "The Confession of Piers Gaveston" by Brandy Purdy

2011-04-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

Now you can download the ebook of Brandy Purdy's provocative and controversial yet loving portrait of the infamous lover of King Edward II of England.

"One of the best uses of first person narrative I have seen." Nan Hawthorne

Just visit Smashwords and, when you go to checkout, enter the code for a 50% discount off the "cover" price.

LC69J

Coupon is good through May 31, 2011.

See the book trailer at http://youtu.be/ynh8eMa-KYM

THE TRUTH BEHIND THE CONFESSION OF PIERS GAVESTON

From the author's web site, http://www.brandypurdy.com

To those who know his name, Piers Gaveston is the dark power lurking behind the throne of the weak-willed and pliant king, Edward II, whispering in his ear, goading him on to further extravagance, an arrogant, avaricious Gascon, a commoner raised to glory, too high and too fast, like "a night-growing mushroom," a parasite feasting, like a leech, on the royal treasury. To others of a more romantic bent, he is one half of a pair of star-crossed lovers centuries ahead of their time, born into a world where homosexual love was a crime punishable by castration or burning at the stake. To yet others, Edward II and Piers Gaveston were devoted friends, who symbolically swore an oath of blood-brotherhood that has, from their own lifetime to the current day, been misunderstood and slandered with the base charge of sodomy. So what is the correct answer, who was Piers Gaveston really, and what was the true nature of his relationship with Edward II? To put it bluntly, we don’t know. The answers to those questions are lost in the mists of time.

Here is what we do know:

Piers Gaveston was presumably close to Edward II in age; therefore, he must have been born around 1284. We know his father was Sir Arnaud de Gaveston, a prosperous Gascon knight who served Edward I faithfully and even offered himself as a hostage on the King's behalf on more than one occasion. Thus, Piers was not the lowborn commoner of popular imagination. His mother was also well-born, Claremunda of Marcia or Marsan, spellings vary. Legend has it that she died a condemned witch, burned at the stake, a scenario too intriguing for many novelists, myself included, to resist. Whether factual or fantasy, the story was widely circulated, and an aura of witchcraft has always enshrouded Piers Gaveston. To quote one of the medieval chroniclers: "The King loved an evil male sorcerer more than he did his wife."

Piers Gaveston first appears on the pages of history when he joined the army of King Edward I in 1297. He made such a good impression upon the King that he was chosen to become a companion of the heir to the throne, Prince Edward (later King Edward II). Gaveston was handsome and vivacious, as proud as a peacock, and as splendid as one when it came to matters of dress. But he was much more than just a pretty boy, he was intelligent and skilled in the arts of war, and, when given the opportunity, displayed an admirable knowledge of military tactics. He had a quick and wicked wit, which he either could not or would not curtail, especially when it came to mocking those who considered themselves his betters. He assigned nicknames to the most powerful men in the land and apparently struck a nerve; it was an insult they would never forgive or forget.

In 1300 Gaveston joined Prince Edward's household. Of that first meeting, we know only this, from a medieval chronicler: "When the King's son saw him, he fell so much in love that he entered upon an enduring compact with him, and chose and determined to knit an indissoluble bond with him, before all other mortals."

But apparently in choosing Gaveston to be the Prince’s companion, the King got more than he bargained for. He soon became alarmed by the closeness that had developed between the two, and Gaveston was sent away, to France, with a pension from the King and a ship full of gifts from the Prince. But their separation was short-lived. When the old King died in 1307, the new King's first act was to recall his beloved “Perrot.” As one chronicler put it: "And so he had home his love, Piers Gaveston, and did him great reverence, and worshipped and made him great and rich. Of this doing fell villainy to the lover, evil speech and backbiting to the love, slander to the people, harm and damage to the realm."

Before he even set foot back on English soil, Gaveston was made Earl of Cornwall, an unprecedented and highly lucrative honor for one not of royal blood, and was betrothed to Edward's niece, Margaret de Clare. Whether Gaveston had any prior knowledge of these and the other honors about to be heaped on him we do not know.

Soon Gaveston was seen to have a stranglehold on royal patronage as a seemingly endless flow of titles, sinecures, jewels, manors, and all manner of costly gifts, were showered on him. The established nobility, with Gaveston's chief enemies the Earls of Lancaster, Warwick, Pembroke, and Lincoln, at the helm, greatly resented this but “the more virulently people attacked Gaveston, the more keenly the King loved him.” Gaveston's personality did nothing to salve the situation, as he paraded an insufferable pride and poked fun at his enemies.

When Edward crossed the channel to marry Princess Isabelle of France, he further enraged the nobility by leaving Gaveston to rule as regent, when the honor should have gone to a man of greater years and experience. And when the royal bride and groom returned, as soon as the ship docked, Edward ran down the gangplank and flung himself into Gaveston's arms, and then proceeded to forget all about his bride, he even gave her wedding jewels to Gaveston. At Edward's coronation that followed shortly afterwards, Gaveston appeared in royal purple encrusted with pearls instead of cloth-of-gold as befitted an earl. And at the banquet that followed, Edward had eyes and ears only for Gaveston. Soon Isabelle was writing home to her father that her husband was a stranger to their marriage bed, and for this she blamed Piers Gaveston.

Pressure was brought to bear on Edward, and Gaveston was banished, but not in disgrace. He was sent to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant or Governor, where he more than amply demonstrated his intellect and prowess as a military commander. But Edward was "lovesick for his minion" to quote the famous play by Christopher Marlowe, from which this story is probably best known, and soon Gaveston was back in England. Things went on much the same as always.

Eventually, the earls joined forces as the Lords Ordainers and sought to reform the land and, with such reforms, diminish Edward's power as king. After a campaign in Scotland failed, Gaveston was again banished, this time perpetually from the realm. But he did not stay away for long, he soon returned to England, some historians think to be present for the birth of his first and only legitimate child, Joan, born in 1312. (Controversy surrounds a possible bastard daughter known as Amy Gaveston.) This was, to use a more modern phrase, the straw that broke the camel's back, and soon the earls were amassing an army and civil war was a serious threat. Edward and Gaveston fled to Newcastle, and afterwards to Scarborough Castle, where Edward left Gaveston to go and try to raise an army of his own.

On May 19, 1312 Gaveston surrendered his person into the custody of the Earl of Pembroke, who, being the most honorable and less self-interested of Edward's nobles, swore an oath on all his lands, titles, and goods, that no harm would come to Gaveston while in his keeping. But Pembroke was not infallible. In the mistaken belief that Gaveston would be safe there, he decided to leave him at the rectory in the little village of Deddington while he went on to nearby Bampton to spend the night with his wife, who was in residence there. One night was all Warwick and Lancaster needed. They swept in, taking everyone unawares, and Gaveston, barefooted and wearing only his shirt, was forced to walk in chains and humiliation, to Warwick Castle, where he was thrown into the dungeon.

After a brief trial, where the verdict was a bygone conclusion, Gaveston was taken in the wee hours of June 19, 1312 to the top of Blacklow Hill where he was first stabbed in the heart and then beheaded. So ended the life, but not the legend, of Piers Gaveston.

But what of Piers Gaveston the human being? All the chroniclers speak of Edward's "mad folly" and "immoderate love" for him, but on the subject of Gaveston's own feelings they are conspicuously silent. Nor do any letters or diaries exist to enlighten us. Not one scrap of evidence exists to tell us what the royal favorite thought or felt for his king and benefactor and the position of power he occupied. A biography of Piers Gaveston reads more like an outline of historical events and an inventory of honors and gifts than a warts and all biography. We don't even know what he looked like—beyond that he was considered handsome—the color of his eyes, or whether he was tall or short, dark or fair.

As a novelist, some have taken issue with the way I have chosen to portray Piers Gaveston, his background, and relationship with Edward II. I have been accused of writing a historically inaccurate book and criticized for telling a story that goes against the grain of popular belief. It was my intention to try to show that, as Gaveston says in my novel, "there are two sides to every coin," and it is possible to interpret the "facts" in a different way, especially when there are great gaps in our existing knowledge and the unknowns far outnumber the knowns.

Another goal I hoped to achieve with my portrayal of Gaveston was to create an unreliable narrator, one who would make readers wonder how much of his version of the truth is actually true. Whenever someone sits down to write their autobiography they want to show themselves in the best possible light, sometimes they even lie outright or twist and tweak the truth, or leave out pertinent details. They may even contribute to their own legend. And when looking back on failed relationships it is sometimes hard to keep the anger and bitterness at bay. In the pages of my novel, Edward II does not emerge as a very likeable, much less lovable man, some have even called him caricaturish or stereotypical, but one must remember that Gaveston is writing his account of their relationship from the threshold of death; he is remembering a man whose love has helped make him notorious and "the most hated man in England." Under the circumstances, I think it is understandable if their affair doesn't emerge as one of the great romances of history. Had my novel been written from Edward II's viewpoint, it would have been a different story.

But, in the end, it is for readers to decide whether they like my book, and if I have accomplished what I set out to do.

* Purchase a print copy of The Confession of Piers Gaveston by Brandy Purdy.

"There Was a Time Once, Remember, When We Were Not Slaves"

2011-04-27T19:22:00.000-07:00

“There was a time once, remember, when we were not slaves…”

"Or if not, invent..." That is, at least as I remember it, a quote from author Monique Wittig that really reached into my gut and twisted them up for good. I ran across it when I was doing the research for my first book, a nonfiction work about women, sexuality, and body image called Loving the Goddess Within: Sex Magick for Women (1991.) I wanted to look at how sex in general and women's part in it became a taboo. However it did, it has had a devastating impact on all our lives who live in patriarchal cultures, and that's just about everyone.

One thing we lack, as both women and men, is a culture and in particular a literature that offers the widest possible range of ways to look at who we are as people with both gender and sexuality. Just the other day one of the news programs did a story about how men in films have far more lines than women. In 2011, this is still true. That saddens me, if it does not exactly surprise me. One reason I wrote Beloved Pilgrim was to write as real a woman as I could portray based on my own sense of myself. It is not a perfect portrayal.. there is no perfect woman or man. But after a life of writing men characters I admired, it was time I wrote a woman. I have as much trouble finding examples as the rest of the world.

The burden laid on all our shoulders by this paucity of well rounded characters hurts women, of course, but it hurts men, particularly straight men, as well. Reading Anel Viz's P'tit Cadeau I was struck by a scene where one man breaks down and sobs on the chest of another. That is not a scene you will find very often with straight men. You will find it with two women, a woman sobbing on a man's chest, and a gay man on another gay man's or perhaps his father's. You will rarely if ever see a straight man sobbing on the chest of a woman. It offends our sensibilities. What a terrible thing to dump on a gender of real, breathing, feeling human beings. I realized with that scene I had one more clue to why I so enjoy novels about gay men. Straight men are just too repressed.

Now I am reading Catherine M. Wilson's The Warrior's Path which is Book I from her "When Women Were Warriors" series. It strikes me that a book as well done as this helps provide an opportunity for both men and women to see a world that presents another paradigm about gender and sexuality. We all need new stories about us and our pasts, our heritage, our identities. Books like Wilson's are a start, and of course there are others. But how much better if we can do something better? For one, stories from a perhaps speculative place and time when the "archy" is neither matri- nor patri-. Better yet, if we can write actual historical fiction, not just speculative, where men and women are drawn as they really must have been at heart, clinging not to our notions of male and female but as they coped everyday with the need to survive in often dangerous situations.

I am going to give this more thought, wonder how I might take a character like my Elisabeth and make her even more a person, neither male nor female in her approach to her life and others in it. It is so tragic that women, who make up more than half the world, just do not find mirrors in our culture and literature. yes, we are there. Lots and lots of us... but is that really who we are? Ay, there's the rub.

Publishing: No Longer Just a Popularity Contest

2011-04-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

Nan Hawthorne

Two recent developments in book publishing are resulting in more choices for readers. They are, after all, the point of all this, not authors, not corporate mass market publishers. Wit the development of ebooks and print on demand, it is no longer necessary for a book to win a sort of popularity contest in order to reach potential customers.

It is simply a business fact that traditional publishers have to keep their eyes on the bottom line. They are not in the industry to five away books, and it takes mass runs of titles to make publishing them feasible economically. As it is, the industry loses money on many books, so I understand. They must appeal to the largest possible market, so taking a chance on, say, a genre novel like historical fiction is just too much of a risk.

On the down side, that means those people who want to read books that appeal to a slender slice of the market have to do without. The up side is that there is a growing supply of books to take their place. If, as in the case of ebooks and print on demand publications a book can come out copy by copy, it is no longer necessary for print runs at all, no less in the thousands.

That is the good news for readers who have definite tastes in reading matter. One example I've found is books meant to appeal to gay men or lesbians. They are a growing market, but too scattered to warrant publishing a single book in huge quantities. Eboks "eat no bread", that is, other than space on a server they do not use up resources when they sit and wait for someone to buy and download them. Print on demand books are similar in that they take up a minuscule electronic space until someone orders the book and it is printed and bound. A book can reach as few as one reader or dozens, even hundreds, with no loss in initial outlay. Yes, this is a simplification, but when compared with large print runs, valid, I think.

Historical fiction may be a genre in and of itself, but within that category there are many many specific eras, styles, and even more minute differences. I know two different authors who are publishing with literary publishing houses who are encouraged to write historical fiction, but narrowly proscribed. In both cases, they are expected to write first person female nobility. What, I ask, if that is not what you personally want to read? I know I don't have any particular fondness for this sub-sub-genre. But I am in the minority. I and those like me are too small a group to risk a book on. Does that mean that people like me and those with other "outside the box" interests should have to do without?

No, but "have to" is not a value judgment. It is a matter of economic reality. No one is intentionally denying us. It is simply not the purpose of a publishing company to supply books in small quantities.

All the more reason to applaud the ebook and the print on demand book. Though many decry the poor quality of many such books, the old "vanity press" designation, if the individual reader enjoys the book, isn't that what the book was meant for? The reader?

It's no secret I celebrate ebooks and print on demand. I am after all a founding board member of the Independent Authors Guild. I have my reasons, peculiar to me, but above all I love all the choices and more even than that, that those choices are mine, as a reader, to make.

Bravo to all authors, publishers, printers, ebook providers, and especially readers!

Crusades Novelist Reviews Beloved Pilgrim

2011-04-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

By Richard Warren Field, author of
Swords of Faith

Nan Hawthorne’s Beloved Pilgrim dramatizes the events of the crusade of 1101, an unnumbered crusade, following right after the First Crusade (which concluded with the Western Christian capture of Jerusalem in 1099). Hawthorne remains absolutely loyal to the facts of the crusade while her characters bring exotic and fresh angles to the story.

Elizabeth is a young woman with a streak of independence trapped in circumstances incompatible with her feisty nature. She finds herself facing a marriage that will tie her to an unaffectionate brute, a man who has no compunction about using her for his needs, physical and economic, while completely disregarding her feelings and well-being. Her brother is committed to go on the crusade. She has sparred with her brother, so knows the moves of a medieval knight. In fact, she is accomplished enough to compete effectively with him. When he dies of an illness, she takes his place, fleeing her circumstances to join the Christian fighting pilgrimage. Only her squire, the gay lover of her late brother, knows of the deception. Much of the suspense of the novel develops from Elizabeth’s desperate efforts to keep her secret in the midst of the challenging circumstances of an army marching under stress, moving through hostile territory, confronted by strong, dangerous enemies.

Hawthorne also takes us to the exotic court of the Byzantine Empire, dramatizing the quirky mix of Greek/Eastern Christianity into the whole crusading movement. (A Byzantine Emperor’s plea for help triggered the First Crusade, but Byzantine emperors came to regret the Western European rush east this plea triggered, and greeted future expeditions with everything from indifference to outright hostility.) Colorful characters in the Byzantine court mix into the story in unexpected ways, causing Elizabeth to explore her own sexual preference, and creating the possibility that Elizabeth and her companion can have a happy ending regardless of the success or failure of the crusading mission.

Elizabeth’s struggles on the crusade, her battles, her growth and development, and the uncertainty over her ultimate fate, will keep readers enthralled to the end.

Not a Lie, Not Misrepresentation - Simply "Not Intended To Be a Factual Statement"

2011-04-16T12:53:00.000-07:00

As a purveyor of entertaining fictions, I was fascinated to hear what his staffers said about Jon Kyl's statement that Planned Parenthood spent 90% of their time performing abortions. They said, and I quote, what Kyl said "was not intended as a factual statement". However you feel about the issue, it might boggle the mind that inaccuracy is somehow OK.

But I got to thinking, here we are, we novelists, forced to jump through hoops on the copyright page of our novels, with all this rigmarole about "any resemblance to persons lliving or dead blah blah blah..."

We could be saving an awful lot of ink if we could just state "Nothing in this book is intended to be factual".

N'est-ce pas?

A Question For You About Romance

2011-04-13T11:42:00.000-07:00

Connie Jensen of Trifolium Books UK, publisher of Kathleen Herbert's Moon in Leo, asks:

When is a novel a Romance? I puzzle about this, and have been inclined in the past to think of Historical Romances as somewhat less "serious" than Historical Novels. I would classify MiL as Literary AND Historical Fiction, but I may be wrong. I suppose that Pride and Prejudice is a Romance, in that it has a happy ending, yet it's also a Literary novel. (Henry Ravensworth, the hero of MiL is a bit of a Darcy!) I would love to know what other readers (and writers) think!

She was responding to my comments in a review on That's All She Read where I refer to the book as a romance and note what i believe are typical themes, the smart, spunky heroine who is nevertheless in need of rescue, who turns to the Good Guy who turns out to be sinister while the rake, the Ravenscroft she mentions, turns out to have a heart of gold.

So you tell us, what makes a historical novel literary, what a romance, and is it necessarily mutually exclusive?

Leave your comments below.

BELOVED PILGRIM Now On Amazon.com

2011-04-09T19:03:00.000-07:00

Order now!

A woman.. fighting as a man.. in the doomed Crusade of 1101.

See reviews, book trailer, auxiliary material, and more at http://www.nanhawthorne.com/ .

Excerpt

In the few encounters they had on the road, those passing them in the opposite direction simply saluted and made humble greetings. When two young women riding in a hay cart sneaked looks at Elisabeth and giggled, the object of their ogling was thrilled.

"They thought I am a man!" she announced to Albrecht.

"It doesn't surprise me. But there is one thing we need to work on," he replied.

"What's that?"

"Your voice. The way you talk. You don't sound girlish so much as just not masculine. Let me think, what can we do about that?" He thought a few moments, then looked up with a broad smile. "I know. Swear like a man, my lord! It will be hard to stay sounding female if you get in the habit of speaking coarsely."

Riding along more or less side by side with him, Elisabeth asked, "You mean like this? Bugger off, varlet!"

Albrecht slapped his thigh, leaned his head back to erupt into delighted laughter. "That is it! What a hoot to hear it."

Elisabeth smiled back. "You scurvy son of a poxy whore! I will slice you from cock to chin, so I will, and you can use your stinking guts as a rope to hang your miserable self."

Albrecht had to hang on to his saddle's pommel to keep from slipping off. He screamed with laughter.

"Take that, demon spawn, and may you spend eternity in a vat of excrement up to your eyes!"

"Enough, enough," Albrecht pleaded. "You're killing me!" He halted Carlchen and sat wiping his eyes and catching his breath. "You are too good at it. Practice like that, but I would not advise ever actually saying that sort of thing to anyone. Not if you want to keep your body and soul tethered to each other." He sighed. "God, I needed that." He looked up. "My lord."

New Review of Beloved Pilgrim

2011-04-05T16:50:00.000-07:00

Now available in print!!!

https://www.createspace.com/3573295

And next week at Amazon.

Lindsey Townsend put this lovely review on Beloved Pilgrim's page on Smashwords on 4 April.

Review by: Lindsay Townsend on Apr. 04, 2011 :
'Beloved Pilgrim' is the engaging historical adventure of a medieval young woman, Elisabeth, chafing against the restrictions of her status and sex and breaking out to go on crusade in disguise. I enjoyed the family relationships in this novel and the ways in which Elisabeth 'learns' to become a man, Elias (at times there are near-disasters, but overall she does very well). It's interesting, too, to have a German background and setting and the description of the heroine's trials in crossing the Alps. Elisabeth-Elias also discovers passion, in the shape of the delectable Giuliana.

The story comes into its own on the journey, when the reader sees the wonders of Constantinople through the heroine's eyes. The city and its people are vividly brought to life. Elisabeth finds love, too, in the form of Maliha, whom she finds hard to leave when the crusaders move on. Elizabeth experiences the first of many battles and also the politics and factions of the first crusade, with its uneasy mix of crusaders and non-combatants, all striving to reach Jerusalem.

Will Elisabeth and her faithful squire Albrecht survive the privations and skirmishes and return to their lovers? In this stirring story there are many obstacles they must overcome but also good fellowship - the true 'mix' of a crusader's life.
The ending was a little sudden for me and the author mentions a sequel. This would be a good idea, I feel.

Thanks, Lindsey! I love both the fact you picked up on what I thought were some of the book's strengths... and that you agree, we need to know what happens next!

Spring 2011 Historical Novel Roundup

2011-04-03T17:33:00.000-07:00

Think about it: you are on your deck or the beach or out on your dock by the lake. The birds are singing and the sun is warming you all over. How lovely just to sit with your feet up and either a paperback book or your e-reader in your hands. As a light breeze stirs the greenery around you, you are engrossed in a historical novel. What bliss.

And what if this scene is someone else and the book in their hands is YOURS? Now, that's bliss.

Well they can't read it if they don't know about it, so take a moment, go down to the link for Comments below, and start typing.. title, your name, a synopsis, where folks can get your book... the rest will be, as we say, historical fiction.

What Is This Mania About Self Promotion? A Rant

2011-04-01T10:49:00.000-07:00

OK, someone explain to me why there is such passion about self-promotion by authors? If we don't promote our work, who is going to do it? The marketing departments at publishers seem pretty clear on this, that is, that it is up to authors to sell their books. We are told to post about books everywhere, all the time, and forever But it seems that other authors, and may I observe that all the ones who have expressed this to me have been women, decry everything from posting videos to doing no more than mentioning one's work in email signatures. For the record, I recently got bumped from a blog because I insisted on promoting my novels. In fact, I had mentioned one of my unfinished novels in passing, illustrating how I had found a useful foods history site I had found. Now I have just had two posts of mine about my latest novel deleted unilaterally by another administrator because they constituted self promotion. It's my blog, I started it, and my answer to the charge is, "Yeah, so?" I have never noticed any men chastising other men, or women for that matter, for being too forward and promoting one's own work. I suspect it would rarely occur to a man to do this. They, like I, subscribe to Walt Whitman's "I celebrate myself, I sing myself." They also just understand that that this is how you sell books. If someone doesn't' want to read your self promoting post, they just don't. They don't expect the sites, blogs or groups to make the choice for them. You know, they call governments that do that "Mommy states" for a reason. Given my own studies into the self deprecating culture of so many women -- I wrote a book on how women came to have such low self esteem as a group -- I can't help but wonder if this rejection of putting oneself or one's work forward is part of that self-imposed modesty. Like my friend's mother, who quoted that old saw, "Fool's names and fool's faces often are seen in public places." So achievement is all right, just keep it to yourself. Balderdash. I wrote the book, I'm proud of it, I want to share it. You might say it's my baby,and I thought moms were supposed to support and promote their kids. Didn't I just see a bumper sticker on a car that said "My daughter is in the National Honor Society"? If you want to promote your work, let it be known, I am behind you all the way. I make it a way of life to promote other people's work, as anyone who reads any of my blogs already knows. When I see good work, I crow about it. And that goes for my own work too. Why these "bluestocking" relics of a pre-feminist era somehow think this is wrong... well, I just don't know. They have every right to establish and enforce no self promotion policies, but only on their own blogs and sites and discussion groups. They have the right, yes, but I think they are definite throwbacks and serve nothing but outmoded ideas about achievement. Hear me roar!

Book Trailer for "Beloved Pilgrim"

2011-03-30T12:46:00.000-07:00

BlazinTrailers.com did a superb job on this trailer!

Just note that the book is now available as an ebook from Smashwords.com, but the print and Kindle copies have a nother few weeks to go.

A Very Useful Sign

2011-03-27T12:37:00.000-07:00

My, My, My.. Don't All Rush In At Once!

2011-03-24T18:43:00.000-07:00

Only one entry for the free ebook and he says he doesn't actually want a copy...

I'll wait and do this with the print copy.

Hope you are all quite proud of yourselves!

Troglodytes.

C;) (wearing a helm)

Ebook Giveaway!

2011-03-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

Win a free copy of Beloved Pilgrim by Nan Hawthorne!

Just leave a comment here to be eligible for a drawing for a copy of Beloved Pilgrim -- see yesterday's post -- which will be announced next Friday, March 25.

See Smashwords for available formats.

Ebook Release!

2011-03-17T12:34:00.000-07:00

Beloved Pilgrim is now available as an ebook!

The print version is just a few weeks away, but if you just can't wait or prefer an ebook version, you can now get the novel of the Crusade of 1101 on Smashwords.

Beloved Pilgrim is many things: a tale of war, of friendship, and of the struggle to find honor and meaning in a less than perfect world. It is the story of the Crusade of 1101, a crusade so disastrous it set back all further Christian efforts to hold the Holy Land. It is the story of a woman not content to a life of sedentary privilege, who dons men's armor and live the life she herself chooses. It is also a love story with a difference, that love springing from the hearts of two women. Will they always have to hide their love and their true natures? Will they even live to see the next morning?

Set against the glory of Constantinople and the hardships of the Turkish interior, Beloved Pilgrim is, as one reader put it, a "gutsy novel".

Reviews

"Passion and forbidden love clash like swords in this daring tale of a woman who defies medieval society to take up arms and join the Crusade of 1101, to battle the Turks and for the right to live life on her own terms." Brandy Purdy, Author, The Boleyn Wife and The Tudor Throne.

"Nan Hawthorne remains absolutely loyal to the known historical facts while her characters bring fresh and exotic angles to the events. Elisabeth is a self-willed young woman, trapped in a role not compatible with her feisty independence. Her struggles against difficult odds, before and during the crusade, will keep readers enthralled." Richard Warren Field, author, Swords of Faith

"A medieval Mulan, with an intriguing--and titillating--look at gender identity that surely resonates in the present." - Michael S. Katz, editor of Visions

$6.99 in a variety of formats, including Kindle, Apple ipad, epub, mobi and more.

A 20% sample is available for free download.

Print copy will be available in the next weeks at Amazon.com for $15.99. SCheck back for availability.

More by Nan Hawthorne at Shield-wall Books.

They're Here! They're There! They're Everywhere! So Beware!

2011-03-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

Sadly, in time of crisis, slime oozes out and tries to take advantage of our good hearts. Here are just a few things to look out for while on the Internet, everyday or when we are the most susceptible.

1. Don't pass on videos you did not seek out yourself. There are several Japan earthquake videos out there, including one showing a whale thrown up on the land, that are fakes. They get you to pass them on, then when the recipient clicks through they get pop-upps asking seemingly innocent survey questions. They are in fact gathering data or worse.

2. Never give money to an email address or site that writes to you to ask for it unless you specifically signed up to get notices. Chances are the ask is a scam. If you want your money to do Good, then go find where it will do so.

3. In general, don't send people links with no explanation as to what it is for. Not even ecards. Either make the subject line very descriptive and individual or write to the person first to let them know what you are about to send them is legit.

4. Even if something looks like it came from a trusted friend, make sure before you open a link. I have gotten bad links from people who would never have sent them but were just being used by a scam artist.

The basic rules of thumb are that you never give money or information to someone who contacts you directly, and you should never put someone else in the position of deciding whether they can trust something from you.

As the phony friar said to the traveling chapman, "If you'll buy that, I have two left hands of St. Jerome I can sell you."

Trust, yes, but don't get taken for a fool.

Normans and Dante and Cash, Oh MY! Latest from Oxford University Press

2011-03-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

From the Norman Conquest to the Black Death
An Anthology of Writings from England

Edited by Douglas Gray

This anthology makes available to the modern reader a range of texts produced in the often overlooked period between the Norman Conquest and the Black Death. A wide variety of texts - chronicle, history, legends, plays, lyrics, debates, romances, and stories of all shapes and kinds - are included in translation or helpfully glossed form.

Hardback
616 pages

£85.00
24 February 2011
978-0-19-812353-8

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri
Volume 3: Paradiso

Edited and Translated by Robert Durling and Introduction and Notes by Ronald Martinez

Pardiso is the third of three volumes of a new edition and translation of Dantes's masterpiece, The Divine Comedy. Similar to volumes I Inferno and II Purgatorio, this translation will be into English prose, emphasizing the literal-vs-phonetic. A newly edited version of the Italian text will be on facing pages and includes fully comprehensive notes with the latest in contemporary scholarship.

Hardback
704 pages

£27.50
3 February 2011
978-0-19-508742-0

ALSO FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Online Resources

Oxford Scholarship Online

The very best scholarly books from Oxford now available online.

Rreprinted at request of Oxford University Press.
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/

Tools For 21st Century Authors

2011-03-08T11:09:00.000-08:00

Someone on a Yahoogroup I am on pointed out that many of the authors who complain about poor sales of their books do little or nothing to promote them. I tend to think she is correct, but the other part of this is that people are often remarkably unresourceful. They say self-disempowering things like "I am not computer literate" and leave it at that. As far as I am concerned, they have no one to blame for their poor sales but themselves.

The fact is that there is a ton of help out there, one of the beauties of the Internet is just how much and how easily garnered. I just had this book delivered wirelessly to my Kindle 3. Thanks to its being text-to-speech enabled, the publisher's/author's choice, I will be able to read it. And I plan to get good and useful information out of it. If I have to be open to and ready to learn something new, then so much the better. Maybe this is why my first novel, published independently, has sold many times the average number of self-published copies?

The book is SOCIAL MEDIA FOR AUTHORS SERIES: FACEBOOK PAGES, written by best-selling author Jon F. Merz. It set me back a huge dollar and ninety-nine cents. I will read and report back here, but my point in this post is that there are so many resources like this one. Whether anyone will buy your book as a result of your Facebook page for it I don't really know, but since the essence of marketing is giving people every opportunity to hear about it, it seems like a cheap opportunity.

There is a saying in marketing "You are always marketing." I converted this to "You are always recrioting volunteers" when I wrote and trained on nonprofit issues, after hearing one volunteer resources manager complain that they A. couldn't get any volunteers, and B. had no time for recruiting them. When I managed the volunteer resources of one organization, it was common to find me standing in line at the supermarket where I would strike up conversations with people, mentioning what I did. Since the most common reason people give for not bolunteering is "Nobody asked me" I, in essence, asked, or at least presented the option in the most attrractive manner. Yes, I got volunteers as a result. Before I left I had trippled the size of the program.

Why would that not apply to my novels? Why would an author not use every means to acquaint readers with their existence and do it efficiently and in the best light? I am convinced most advertising does little more than acquaint potential customers with a product, perhaps reminding them if they already knew. The ad people think they are tricking us into buying a new car. maybe they are. But it's the consumer's decision.. once they know about a product, they can decide to buy it. That goes for books, and how can we expect people to want to buy if they have never heard of the book?

So go to Amazon, whether .com or .co.uk or elsewhere, and look at this book, then look around on the page to see others in a similar vein. Everyone knows my rule.. never say you can't or don't know how to do something without adding the word "yet" to the end of the statement. I don't know how to do a Facebook page for my novel -- yet! But this book will help me learn.

The Once and Future Duck, and More Historical Titles in the Same Vein

2011-03-05T19:25:00.000-08:00

Meet the Duck. His name is MacDhui, which rhymes with the "gooey" in geoduck, thus his christening as MacDhui Duck, or MacDhui the Duck, a Cat. Those of you who know there is a MacDhui in my first novel, An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England, it's a long story, so if you simply must know, drop me a note.

What is not as well known about The Duck is that he has inspired an incredible number of historical novels and movies. To wit:

The Once and Future Duck, T.H. White

Duck in Winter -- movie

When Christ And His Ducks Slept, Sharon Kay Penman

Here Be Ducks, Sharon Kay Penman

Ducke In Splendour, Sharon Kay Penman

The Boleyn Duck (published as The Tudor Duck in the UK), Brandy/Emily PUrdy

Duck in Frankincense, Dorothy Dunnett

Robin Hood: Prince of Ducks -- movie

Robin Hood: Ducks In Tights - movie

Tristan + Duck -- movie

A Dead Duck in Deppford, Anthony Burgess

An Involuntary Duck, Nan Hawthorne

The Greatest Duck, Elizabeth Chaadwick

A Tale Of Two Ducks, Charles Dickens

Anne Of A Thousand Ducks -- movie

Lord of the Ducks (LOTD), J.R.R. Tolkien

The Traitor's Duck, Susan Higginbotham

Shield of Three Ducks, Pamela Kaufman

The Thirteenth Duck -- movie

Duck In The Iron Mask, Alexandre Dumas

MacDuck (The Scottish Play), William Shakespeare

The Return of Martin Canard - movie

Sharpe's Duck, Bernard Cornwell

The Agony And The Duck - movie

Merry Ducks Of Windsor, William Shakespeare

Ducks Of The Narrow Seas, series by M. Kei

What a Duck Wants, Carrie Lofty

A Sanctuary Duck, Ellis Peters

Duck Without End, Ken Follettt

The Sea Duck, series by Helen Hollick

Duck of Ireland, Morgan llywelyn

A Duck For All Seasons - movie

Duck Of Arabia -- movie

The Ducks Of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley

A Connecticut Duck In King Arthur's Court, mark Twain

Monty Python And The Holy Duck - movie

The Taming Of The Duck, William Shakespeare

The Afflicted Ducks, Suzy Witten

The City Of Lovely Ducks, Anel Viz

Check back... I keep thinking of more. Certainly you can remember more than I have?

OK All You Crown-Heads - William & Kate Paper Dolls!

2011-03-04T12:44:00.000-08:00

My husband will roll his eyes at this, but I know you guys... all you crown-heads sucking up every bit of Kate and William you can get. But can you play with them or see them in their underwear? Now you can. Graphics specialists Dover Publications has come out with William and Kate Middleton Paper Dolls.

That's the Amazon link, but if you go straight to Dover you can send free ecards to your crown-head friends and make their toes tingle with delight.

http://www.doverpublications.com/sampler/0304

Even the honeymoon will be over by the time of the mid-July HNS Conference, but I will expect to see you playing with your Kate and Wills paper dolls anyway. 'Nuff said.

Prince William in his underwear.

Dover, as you know, does those fabulous art sampler books, with editions to please every history obsessed author and reader. It is highly likely that I will use some of their work in Alehouse Tales. They were among the first to supply CD-ROMs to make one's artistic life easier. But since I have been getting their regular freebie sample emails I have discovered that they not only have books of clip art of a superior quality, they also do books, music, games, puzzles, and more. Like paper dolls.

So go take a look.. crown-head or no, you will find something you like!

http://www.doverpublications.com/

Latest on "Beloved Pilgrim"

2011-03-01T15:20:00.000-08:00

Richard Warren Field, author of The Swords of Faith, just wrote this for the back cover of Beloved Pilgrim:

"Nan Hawthorne remains absolutely loyal to the known historical facts while her characters bring fresh and exotic angles to the events. Elisabeth is a self-willed young woman, trapped in a role not compatible with her feisty independence. Her struggles against difficult odds, before and during the crusade, will keep readers enthralled."

And privately he called the book "gutsy", a word I can definitely live with. Why "gutsy"? two reasons.. because I deal with the character's being gay in their world and also because the crusade was an utter and ignominious disaster.

I also have a logo now for Shield-wall Books (my publisher, and I mean my,) though not a decision on the hyphen...

It is by David Graham, who also did the cover of the book... see http://www.nanhawthorne.com/ .

It won't be long now...

What Motivates the Novelist?

2011-02-24T14:42:00.000-08:00

Please see the poll on the right. I am looking for your number one motivation only.

I have been adding books on Smashwords to medieval-novels.com and am impressed by the sheer variety and freedom of the authors. Satisfy my curiosity.

Thank you! If you are looking for the Round-up, it is right below this.

Historical Novel Roundup for February 2011

2011-02-22T16:08:00.000-08:00

Yep, pardner, it's that time again, time for you to show us what you got. Just click on the "Comments" link below and add your title, name, blurb about your book and a link where folks can mosey on over ad get a copy.

(Hey, I come by this folksy talkt honestly... I was born in Nevada.)

Just new releases? Nope. Any book you want to crow about is mighty fine with us.

So whaddya waitin' for? Saddle up and skedaddle!

How to Get Filthy Rich as a Novelist

2011-02-21T19:27:00.000-08:00

I know a sure way to make a ton of money writing a novel.

Write a novel about some amazing crime. How about robbing a casino or Fort Knox or a multinational bank. Come up with slightly outrageous but lovable characters, an impossibly complex plot and gorgeous and exotic settings. Spend a lot of time setting up the plans and the relationships between the characters. Make sure there are lots of close calls. But this is terribly important: make sure your mastermind gets away with it.

This is also important: do all your own research, meticulous and real world. Do this by actually committing the crime. The novel may not make a dime, but at least you will have the proceeds from your remarkable research.

If you get caught and thrown into jail, hey, I said you would be rich, not free to move about the world.