Category Archives: Uncategorized

Review: Songs for a Machine Age

Posted on April 24, 2013 by

Songs for a Machine Age by Heather McDougal My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book is a delightful journey through an unusual fantasy world where machines and magic co-exist. While I didn’t find the heroine initially engaging, her talent … Continue reading →

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Focus Groups Taking over the World!

Posted on April 10, 2013 by

This morning’s Wall Street Journal features an article entitled “Test-marketing a Modern Princess,” about how Disney Junior is developing their new Sofia the First television series. Yes, folks, these executives are sitting down with pre-schoolers, reading them storylines and filming … Continue reading →

Posted in books, essays, fiction, marketing, publishing, social media, Uncategorized, writing process | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Kelpie, by T. J. Wooldridge–cover reveal and raffle

Posted on March 27, 2013 by

So my plan was to return to history for this week’s blog, then I found out about my friend T. J.’s raffle, happening this week only! Read the excerpt below, and scope out the rules to win some fun prizes … Continue reading →

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Review: The Termite Queen: Volume One: The Speaking of the Dead

Posted on March 19, 2013 by

The Termite Queen: Volume One: The Speaking of the Dead by Lorinda J. Taylor My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book is full of marvelous science fiction elements, building not only a vision of a future academia on Earth, … Continue reading →

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Hack Writers and Falconry: What’s the connection?

Posted on March 13, 2013 by

One of the most popular sports of the Middle Ages was falconry, the art of training a bird of prey to hunt on its master’s behalf. There are places today, like the New Hampshire School of Falconry, where you can … Continue reading →

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Goodreads giveaway for Elisha Barber!

Posted on March 5, 2013 by

Goodreads giveaway for Elisha Barber! Check it out–and share it with friends! http://ow.ly/incoS Magic. . . Intrigue. . . Medieval Surgery! England in the fourteenth century: a land of poverty and opulence, prayer and plague, witchcraft and necromancy. Where the … Continue reading →

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Werewolves in Medieval History

Posted on February 27, 2013 by

Whether you’re more Team Jacob or “Werewolves of London” you know that werewolves are hot right now (both in sales, and apparently, in sex appeal). But their prevalence in the Urban Fantasy genre might obscure their long history. My eyes … Continue reading →

Posted in fantasy, fiction, history, magic, medieval, Uncategorized, witchcraft | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Edgar Allen Poe Meets King Charles VI: the True Tale of Hop-frog

Posted on February 20, 2013 by

I came across the most remarkable image and tale in Barbara W. Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror, one of the foremost works on the 14th century (the “calamitous” 14th century, as Tuchman calls it.) The illustration, from a French chronicle dated … Continue reading →

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A Brief History of Bastardy

Posted on January 23, 2013 by

One of the difficulties I’ve had in writing a series set in the fourteenth century is the dearth of appropriate insults. Many of the “fighting words” of today had different meanings back then, or were not used in a pejorative … Continue reading →

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Review: The Blood-Dimmed Tide

Posted on January 16, 2013 by

The Blood-Dimmed Tide by Rennie Airth My rating: 4 of 5 stars I so enjoyed the author’s first novel, The Dead of Winter, that I jotted his name on a paper and stuck it to my bulletin board to keep … Continue reading →

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