Historical fiction is exciting to write because it offers opportunities to explore a different world from the one we live in. Inventing characters to fit into distant places and times is mostly fun, but mixing fictional characters with people who actually lived in another era ups the ante, not only… Read More »Real People in Historical Fiction by Martha Marks
It’s difficult for me to identify with Lara Croft, Elektra, Yu Shu-lien, or the myriad other superwomen gracing many books and movies today. They are enticing but unrealistic, unattainable. They are almost as bad, in their way, as the Catholic Mary. What mortal woman-of-faith can live up to such spotless… Read More »Flawed Heroine Aridela by Rebecca Lochlann
The history of Wales predates Roman settlements to a Celtic people who called themselves the Cymry. It was a society as much rooted in warfare as it was in bardic tradition. Although the Welsh as a society were autonomous from England for many centuries, the proximity of the two countries… Read More »Owain Glyndwr and the Welsh War of Independence by N. Gemini Sasson
When you research a foreign subject, in my case France in the second half of the 19th century, you usually tend to consult texts written by the natives. Unfortunately for the researcher, the natives rarely stop to ponder facts they consider normal. This is not the case with travelers. They… Read More »The Baffled Americans by Iva Polansky
Back in high school, I remember overhearing two girls lamenting how awful their classes were and how they ‘hated’ history. Since I was hiding in a bathroom stall at the time, I didn’t give voice to my horror at their sentiment, but it has stuck with me in the thirty… Read More »Writing Historical Fiction by Sarah Woodbury