I had a great time at the San Diego State University Writer Conference. My panel workshop went very well, followed up by the kind of smart, thoughtful questions that told me I and my fellow panelists said things that triggered good writing ideas. Yeah! Even more fun were the many conversations I had with both fairly new writers and some further along the journey on a wide variety of topics. A lot of mentoring on dialogue in historical fiction, organizing and pursuing research, avoiding info dumps while world building, and other favorite pitfalls to be avoided. There were many opportunities to meet with agents and editors, both formally and informally. The conference is well designed that way. I had one particularly delightful conversation that stretched over much of Saturday evening—history, Hittites, my favorite ancient queen, comparative cultures, the market in historical fiction, and publishing. I had a number of agents and editors ask me to send my historical mystery Blessed by a Curse on to them. I’ll keep you posted about how my Hittites do. I know a number of you want to see these pages in print, so I’ll let you know if they find a good agent to represent them 🙂
Here are some posts I enjoyed this week from around the web:
New Findings at Çatalhöyük, a 9,000 year old settlement in Turkey. A rare human face-like plaster head and a well-defined stone human figurine are among the many exciting finds this past season. This is a long time dig, so it’s all the more impressive that new finds of such interest keep revealing themselves under the excavators’ delicate work. Click here for The Hurriyet Daily News “New Findings at Çatalhöyük”
Exciting find very close to home: Ancient footprints found near Tucson, Arizona—2,500 yrs old, the oldest ones north of Mexico. Found in an agricultural context with signs of irrigation. A “domesticated canine” print found also. Glad the farmers had a good dog. You never know what you’ll find when you expand a highway. Click here for The Arizona Daily Star “Ancient Footprints Found at Tucson Road Construction Site”
These next two links are very good, but I have to give full credit for finding them to my friend Jacinda Power. The first is an overview of the Hittites, in case you were wondering who those crazy people I write about are, and the second is about how old it turns out fairy tales are—Bronze Age (my kind of age!).
Click here for the “The Mysterious Lost Empire of the Hittites”
You always have interesting archeology news on your blog. Follow them regularly. Thanks.
Thanks so much. I’m always pleased to hear that anyone is paying attention and getting some fun from them.
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