Two weeks ago my family and I wandered westward for a family reunion and to visit some of my husband’s childhood haunts. On the way there my husband suddenly turned off the road into the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge. Turns out he spent many happy hours exploring there when he was a kid, and when Read More
Category: historical fiction
Writing History–Places
Not only is this post a day late because I was at a hockey tournament all day yesterday, but it’s another recycled post from the defunct blog, since I just got back from Florida and my work life is insane. I promise to be more original next time. ******* This week I am shoving aside Read More
Weather and Other Curiosities
This is a recycled, and late (sorry), post from a group blog that is now defunct. But recycling is good for the planet, and it’s too damn cold to think of anything but how I wish I was somewhere where my car didn’t get stuck in the driveway, where I could venture outside without Arctic Read More
In which I reveal my previously unknown tendency toward obsessive behavior
So yesterday they announced the winners of the Lone Star contest at the annual Lone Star conference. Sadly I was unable to attend, Houston being rather a long way from Cleveland for a day trip, so I have been obsessively checking my email since 1 PM yesterday even though I knew they wouldn’t notify the Read More
Contest News!
Awhile back I gave you my musings on contests. I still agree with everything I said in that post, but now my perspective is slightly different. I mentioned that I entered three contests this past spring. In the first, which was NEORWA’s Cleveland Rocks Romance contest, I didn’t come close to being a finalist. However, Read More
Reality in Historical Romance
One of the blogs I follow is Hearts Through History, which features some marvelous posts on history in general, as well as historical romance in particular. A recent post by Merry Farmer caught my eye, about historical body image. The concept of skinny, as she notes, is purely a 20th century notion, but most heroines Read More
Inspiration, Italian Style
So I spent the last two weeks in Italy. It was one of those trip-of-a-lifetime sorts of vacations, where we packed in just about every major tourist site, and quite a few minor ones. My husband is a classicist, so there was a heavy emphasis on Roman ruins–Colosseum, Forum, Villa Adriana, Pompeii, Herculaneum, etc.–but we Read More
On the importance of recycling
I have nothing to say today. Actually, not quite true; I have a lot to say, but it’s in a new manuscript. I started this one Monday in a FastDraft I’m doing with some of the lovely ladies from NEORWA. I am woefully behind, so I am going to get back to it. My current Read More
Going to the Dogs
Sneaky Pete & his well-ordered bone collection We recently added a puppy to our household. Sneaky Pete is a standard poodle of indeterminate age. He might be nine months, he might be 18 months; he was a rescue, so who knows? He and our other dog, Larry, also a poodle but getting on in years, Read More
Writing History: Books
The other day I was reading a historical romance set in the Victorian era, and one of the characters was reading The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot. After I checked to make sure the book had actually been published by the time the book was set (because I do that sort of thing), Read More