About Me

People tell you to “write what you know,” and this blog expresses that philosophy. I’m a historian writing historical fiction set in early modern Europe and the steppe, so you will find some mini-history lessons here—more fun, I hope, than the ones you may have suffered through in school. I’ve worked in publishing for two decades and make up one-fifth of Five Directions Press, a writers’ cooperative launched in 2012, so I have lots to share about the business as seen from both sides. I have loved ballet since childhood and have spent thirty years doing my poor best to master the art, as reflected in my Tarkei Chronicles series. And like every other writer, I have to cope with the technological challenges posed by the twenty-first century, so I blog about those, too—especially the new publishing climate and the modern marketing universe.
 
Last but not least, I blog about books: reading them and writing them. In addition to nonfiction works, I have published thirteen novels under the Five Directions Press imprint and this pen name, C. P. Lesley, and am working on the next. I also host New Books in Historical Fiction, where once a month or so I talk to other writers about their novels, their research, and their writing lives. I announce each new interview here the week it goes live.
 
So that’s what this blog is about: what it’s like to write about the past but live in a rapidly changing present, to be a historical novelist in the Internet Age. I hope you find it useful enough to stop by once a week to see what I’ve added.
 
You can connect with me on Facebook (C. P. Lesley), Pinterest (C. P. Lesley), Twitter (@cplesley), and Goodreads, the Internet book club (C.P. Lesley). You can follow the New Books Network @NewBooksNetwork (Twitter, Instagram, TikTok) or like us on Facebook. Look forward to seeing you there.

C. P. Lesley is the author of The Not Exactly Scarlet Pimpernel and three series: Legends of the Five Directions; Songs of Steppe & Forest; and the Tarkei Chronicles. For more information, visit my website or my publishers’ site.