historical fiction | historical fiction
Jul.24.2011
There were Jews who became Catholics during Inquisitional periods, there were Jews who remained Jews but not without tremendous sacrifice and there were Jews who became part of the Protestant religious movements that made "Pilgrimages" to Protestant countries such as Prussia, Denmark, the...
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Jul.14.2011
Editor’s note: The Man of Twists and Turns has obtained the text of a major exclusive which was set to appear in The News of the World in London this week. However, News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old tabloid to dampen a scandal over its reporters hacking into private...
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Jul.07.2011
I dislike the law and I have little interest in ethics. So here’s a post about the ethics and legality of using real characters in fiction, as I do in my latest novel MOZART’S LAST ARIA. It’s the one time I’ll bother to write about either subject.
In a Fringe Magazine review of MOZART’S LAST ARIA,...
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Jun.13.2011
At long last, the paperback edition is out in the US. This is after extensive editing, two proofreads (one after the paperback proof was out), moving house, tearing hair out, etc.
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Jun.05.2011
The prosecution of animals – putting a pig on trial with its own lawyer, bringing criminals charges against a horde of flies – was a common practice in the Middle Ages and into the early modern period. Strange as it may seem to us, it was based on some fairly sound logic, according to Darren...
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Jun.03.2011
When Peter Cook admitted to Dudley Moore that he was “turned on by dead Popes,” it was a satire on those among us who’re so bored by their lives as to be infinitely suggestible. Thus a dead pope lying on a catafalque in white robes looks “at peace, at rest, and ****ing fanciable.”
The joke, of...
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May.29.2011
My remarks during a recent panel on historical fiction at the wonderful Saints and Sinners Festival:
I love historical fiction but it’s a recent appreciation and it was born of a reading of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind because it’s a historical setting but a modern novel form...
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May.14.2011
Whoa, it's been a little while! The writing and research of The Gravediggers have been going so well that, with the job to pay The Man and the possibility of my moving into a bigger and better house also taking up my time, something had to give, and blogging was it. I'm at the part in the ms. now...
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May.06.2011
Just put up a new video — one Wim and I made of ourselves just talking. We both recently became charter members of Authors Speaking , a new site designed to connect authors with groups that would like to hear them speak (via Skype, for example). We made a couple of pretty casual videos — in the...
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May.05.2011
The best historical fiction takes historical fact and pulls us in by creating interest in characters of the time period. Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks is one of the most versatile historical fiction writers of today. Her talent lays in takes a slice of history and creating a world we long...
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