Hitting the Books

Short post this week—in part because I really have been hitting the books, as in researching nomadic life as I anticipate finishing my rough draft of The Winged Horse and starting on the major “culture run” that marks my first round of revisions (together with plot and characterization; style comes last). I’ve found some great books, mostly thanks to Sir Percy, my long-suffering spouse—who happens to have an ID card that lets him into one of the world’s great academic libraries, where I regularly send him with long lists of titles. But as fascinated as I am by the details of treaties between the Crimean Tatar khanate and the grand duchy of Lithuania in April 1535, I suspect others might be just a touch less fascinated. The relationship of modern-day Mongols to their herds? Probably not much better—unless you happen to be a steppe fanatic like me, of course.

But the main reason this is a short post is because I want to refer you to another, longer one somewhere else. Although somewhat of a dunce at marketing, as you may have figured out from this blog, I love talking about my books and my writing and even my research. I’ve been fortunate to encounter several good interviewers already, each with different questions and her own take on publishing and books in general—for those interviews, see the blogs of L.M. David,  Diane Mulligan, and Nicky Ticky. And now, just this week, Liza Perrat of Triskele Books interviewed me for the Triskele Book Club.

A Word on Triskele

I met Liza on GoodReads, the Internet book club. She tackled The Golden Lynx as part of the Historical Fictionistas group read there, and I returned the favor when Historical Fictionistas selected her book Spirit of Lost Angels for its next group read. She then asked me to do this interview, and I was happy to agree. But since we both belong to writers’ cooperatives—still a pretty rare thing in publishing—we decided also to exchange comments about that experience. Those posts are on the Triskele blog and, in a slightly different format, here: “Writing Alone and Together.”

So lots of material to read. I’d better sign off and let you get cracking!

Russian Noblewoman, 16th Century
Konstantin Makovskii
This picture is in the public domain.
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commona