Despite living in male-dominated Moorish society during Spain’s medieval period, women often had occasions to shape the course of political events. In the summer of 1359, a coup occurred at Granada’s Alhambra, unseating the young Sultan Muhammad V and forcing him with his mother, loyal courtiers and a cadre of… Read More »Medieval Moorish Queens of Spain: Butayna and Maryam – Wives and Rivals by Lisa Yarde
When I was asked by best selling mystery author, Toby Neal, to be in the launch of her Lei Crime Kindle World (mysteries set in Hawaii) in the spring of 2015, the first thing I had to do was look up the word count for a novella– 17,000 to 40,000… Read More »Writing in a Kindle World by Janet Oakley
Sometimes, contrarian that I am, I just can’t help myself. Despite being a pacifist at heart, the military Orders in medieval Europe have long fascinated me. I find it difficult to understand how a faith that says forgiveness is its base could ever justify violence. Yet there they were: Brother… Read More »The Hospitallers by Priscilla Royal
I was a teenager living in Florida during America’s Bicentennial in 1976 and was aware of only one event that marked the 200th “birthday” of the nation. It was a boat parade, followed by a larger-than-usual fireworks display on the Fourth of July. Of course, everyone dressed in red, white,… Read More »Why America’s Semiquincentennial Isn’t Only About the Year 2026—or the North by Suzanne Adair
For twenty years before I started writing novels, I was a radio and television broadcaster in Los Angeles, having worked for all three national networks and the local PBS station during that “other” career. I find, eleven novels and two nonfiction books later, that the skillset I acquired in that… Read More »Fact Vs. Fiction: Getting It Right (Even When You’re Making It Up) by CiJi Ware