Loretta Proctor, author of The Long Shadow, Middle Watch and The Crimson Bed has tagged me in The Next Big Thing, an author’s blog hop. Loretta was born in Cairo, Egypt to an English father and Greek mother. She won prizes in the 1970’s for essays and plays, wrote specialized articles, studied psychology and worked as a counselor. Now retired… read more
Warding Off Evil: The Power of a Loving Embrace
Sarcophagus of the Married Couple Late C6th BCE ‘There was a smooth, round contentment to her as she sat upon a dining couch with her husband, head resting against his shoulder as he embraced her. Their happiness revealed by the curve of their lips and the ease of their touch…’ The Wedding Shroud Lucy Bertoldi of HF Book Muse Litblog… read more
On Inspiration: Interview with Christy English
My guest today is Christy English, author of The Queen’s Pawn and To Be Queen. After years of acting in Shakespeare’s plays, Christy is excited to bring the Bard to Regency England in her new novel How To Tame A Willful Wife which has just been released. When she isn’t acting, roller skating, or chasing the Muse, Christy writes from… read more
Dying for Rome – Tarpeia
The Death of Tarpeia The tales of famous Roman women such as Lucretia and Virginia serve to reinforce the stereotypes of the ‘matron’ and the ‘virgin’ as exemplars of Roman virtues. Both these women died tragically: one defending her family’s honour by suiciding, the other murdered by her father for the same purpose. Their deaths were seen as catalysts for… read more
On Inspiration: Interview with M Louisa Locke
A Smoke Backstage – William Harnett My guest today is M. Louisa Locke, a retired U.S history professor who has recently published the first two books in a series about Victorian San Francisco, Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits, both best-selling historical mysteries on Kindle. Locke blogs frequently on self-publishing, is a featured contributor to Publetariat, and is on the… read more
Review: The Absolutist by John Boyne
It is always shocking to be reminded that the majority of those sent to war are boys. The Absolutist, by John Boyne, brings this home with a poignant telling of the cruelties that soldiers wreak upon each other; not just against their enemies but also within their own ranks. Tristan returns from the Great War to peace-time England. He is… read more
On Inspiration: Interview with Nicole Alexander
My guest today is Nicole Alexander, a fellow Aussie author who shares the sources of her inspiration with us. In the course of her career Nicole has worked both in Australia and Singapore in financial services, fashion, corporate publishing and agriculture. A fourth generation grazier, Nicole returned to her family’s mixed agricultural property west of Goondiwindi in the mid-1990s. She… read more
In praise of Elizabeth Lhuede, Australian Women Writers and The Stella Prize
I recently attended The Stella Prize lunch at the Sydney Writers’ Festival which was hosted by The Hoopla e-zine. The event was sold out. Apart from one brave male, I found myself in a room packed with an assortment of published women writers, book clubs and writers’ groups who had gathered to be entertained by Wendy Harmer, and listen to… read more
On Inspiration: Interview with Rebecca Lochlann
In her teens and early twenties, Rebecca began envisioning an epic story, a new kind of myth, one built upon the foundation of the Greek classics and continuing through the centuries right up into the present and future.This has become her life’s work, although she didn’t exactly intend it to be that way when she started. The Child of the… read more
Review: Birds Without Wings by Louis De Bernieres
A dense, enthralling and terrifying novel that describes man’s inhumanity to man in the first few decades of the 20th century in Turkey, Greece and the Balkans. It is a sprawling saga with its genesis in the peaceful village of Eskibahce in the south west of Turkey. Here Turkish Muslims and Greek Christians have lived for centuries side by side,… read more