Being a contributor: historical short story collections

You write a novel, say 80-90,000 words. It goes through a writing and editing process, acquires a cover, gets published and marketed. And hopefully, the money starts trickling in, at least to cover the cost of production and possibly some additional revenue. Shocking fact: 95% of writers don’t make a lot of money.

So why, […]

Historical research – it's a hard road

Roman relief depicting a travelling wagon (raeda) from a tomb from Virunum, Zollfeld, Austria

Drafting my new Roma Nova story set in the fourth century is slow, glacially slow at times. I know Roma Nova, I know its ‘history’, but when you get down to the nitty gritty of writing in a time […]

Mel and the Mediterranean

Avenue Foch, Montpellier (Photo: Jonaslange CC Commons Wikipedia)

(There is Roman stuff.)

Mel/Mélisende does a lot of travelling round in Double Pursuit, often on the TGV (train grande vitesse) the high speed train famous in France.

At a critical stage, she has to interview ‘a person of interest’ in Montpellier, a beautiful city, […]