This week my personal news was pretty fantastic: Hand of Fire launched in style at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore. Great crowd. Word on the street seems to be it was fun. It certainly was for me. Hand of Fire is on a “virtual” tour around the web. I won’t repeat those links in my weekly roundup—they are all on the tour schedule on my Events page with reviews, guest posts and interviews. For those posts click here and look below the “live” events for the virtual tour schedule. If you want to buy Hand of Fire, click here.
The rest of the world of archaeology and historical fiction, fortunately, also had some fun on the web this week. Here are some spots I enjoyed.
Great discussion by Kay Daly of the challenges of writing a novel based on real people—you have to follow what happened, but it can’t be “and then and then” It has to tell a story. On excising and choosing what to tell in order to make a compelling novel. Loved this. Click here.
From an interview with Ann Weisgarber regarding her two truly amazing novels, The Personal History of Rachel Dupree and The Promise: “The woman in the photo haunted me. She was alone in an isolated landscape…This woman, I felt sure, had a rich and meaningful story. I felt her pushing me to give her a story, and eventually I did. I felt her with me through the entire writing process.
I felt the same kind of push from the people who were on the rural end of Galveston on September 8, 1900. Like the woman in the photo, they had been nearly forgotten. These are the kinds of stories that speak to me.”
I loved this interview. This excerpt is only one of the great thoughts in it. Giving voice to the forgotten—having stories reach out and grab you so you have to write them. That’s the best of a writer’s life. The Promise is deservedly up the Walter Scott Prize. Click here.
Article refuting the premise that Greek soldiers like Achilles suffered from ptsd. Not sure I buy his argument, but it’s interesting to think about the role of violence in a society and how it changes the way soldiers react long term. There’s an excellent book called Achilles in Vietnam on the subject. Click here.
It’s early days for this shipwreck find off the shore of Turkey, but they think it may be the oldest shipwreck, 4,000 yrs old, beating out the Uluburun shipwreck and Hatshepsut’s for that claim. They are mapping and bringing material up for examination in the new Turkish lab for underwater archaeology, but it will be some time before a clear picture emerges. Exciting if it is this old of a ship. Click here
The Strange Death of Richard the Lionhearted, a post by Nancy Bilyeau on Medievalists.net Click here
Who doesn’t love pirates, especially Helen Hollick’s pirate? Fun interview on S.K. Keogh with Helen about pirates real and fictional—she’s even designed a flag for her Jesamiah Acorne. Click here.