The Devil Made Her Do It

In an article in The Romance of History (Don’t judge a book by its cover) I bemoaned the recent trend for historical fiction not to live up to the promise of its sumptuous cover art. The Devil and Maria d’Avalos by Victoria Hammond (Allen & Unwin, 2007) is just such a book. Sporting the beautiful Venus of Urbino by Titian, and an evocative blurb, the cover seems to offer a novel of both beauty and passion. However, even though I took the book home for free from my local library, I felt seriously short changed.

On the 16 October, 1590 in Naples, Maria d’Avalos and her lover Fabrizio Carafa were horrifically murdered by Maria’s husband Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Vanosa. Carlo avoided legal retribution as the authorities found his action to be justified. He even escaped revenge from the two powerful families the lovers belonged to. Nor did his action render him unfit for society, for he soon remarried into the prestigious d’Este family. But his hold on sanity was tenuous for the rest of his life. Tormented and erratic, Gesualdo was a brilliant composer, whose prophetic music sank into oblivion until it was rediscovered in the mid-twentieth century.

It was through a television documentary on Gesualdo and his music that art historian Victoria Hammond discovered Maria d’Avalos. Here was a story of colour and passion and it is no wonder that the author was drawn to it. As a published writer of non-fiction, she was able to get a grant to visit Italy and research the story on the ground, a chance any novelist would die for. It is a pity, therefore, that this priceless opportunity was so sadly squandered.

Hammond has written about art and history, and I have no doubt from some of her writing here that her books on those subjects are well worth reading. But I’m afraid her writing talents do not stretch to fiction, if fiction this book is, for, although the author calls it a fiction, the publishers categorise it as biography.

Although her characters are well defined, Hammond has difficulty with some of the basic elements of fiction writing. Her dialogue is stodgy at best, her scene setting lacks momentum, as does her structure. Ironically, Hammond’s writing only takes off in the last couple of chapters in the book, after Maria’s death, when she drops all pretence at writing fiction and starts writing history.

Those final chapters give us a glimpse of what this book might have been if Hammond’s editors had had the wisdom to guide her in the right direction. If she had approached this book as history, with all the story had to offer in the way of characters and settings; art, architecture and music; passion and human frailty, she could have produced something like John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (only better). Instead what we have is a great story gone to waste.

Reading this book as I have between self-published historical novels, I am reminded again of the old chestnut: it ain’t what you know… Why are these other novels, which are so much better than this one, unable to find a publisher, while this novel not only gets published, but gets a government grant?

I wish Victoria Hammond well as an art historian, and hope she continues to be published in her own field. I just wish she would leave fiction to those whose talents lie in that field.

Historical Foods: Old World or New World?

Chocolate, coffee, potatoes, maize, turkey, squash, tomatoes - all New World foods, right? This matters to a
historical novelist when writing about the Middle Ages and before. You really don't want King Edward II enjoying
a fine repast of roast turkey and mashed potatoes, baked squash with choclate cake and coffee for dessert if no
one in England had ever tasted them.

So which are Old World and which came from the New at the earliest in the late 15th century?

Chocolate

New World. Cacao plant. Native to lowland, tropical South America, cacao has been cultivated for at least
three millennia in Central America and Mexico, with its earliest documented use around 1100 BC.

Coffee

Old World. Coffee was first consumed in the 9th century, when it was discovered in the highlands of Ethiopia.
From there, it spread to Egypt and Yemen, and by the 15th century had reached Armenia, Persia, Turkey, and
northern Africa. From the Muslim world, coffee spread to Italy, then to the rest of Europe and the Americas.

Potatoes

New World. The potato originated in the area of contemporary Peru and Bolivia, identified more specifically in research published by David Spooner in 2005 as an area of southern Peru, just north of Lake Titicaca. The potato was
introduced to Europe around 1700.

Maize

New World. Called corn or sweet corn in North America and Australia, maize was first domesticated in Mesoamerica
and then spread throughout the American continents. Maize spread to the rest of the world after European
contact with the Americas in the late 15th century and early 16th century. Question: What is it that Niccolo is
eating that he calls maize in Dorothy Dunnett's House of Niccolo series, all volumes of which take place in the
mid-1400s?

Turkey

New World. Native to the Americas, When Europeans first encountered turkeys in the Americas they incorrectly
identified the birds as a type of guinea fowl, also known as a turkey-cock from its importation to Central Europe
through Turkey, and the name of that country stuck as the name of the bird.

Squash

New World. Archaeological evidence suggests that squash may have been first cultivated in Mesoamerica
some 8,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Tomatoes

New World. The tomato is native to Central, South, and southern North America from Mexico to Peru.

And, as a bonus, pasta

Did Marco Polo really introduce pasta to Italy upon his return from China in the 13th century? No way. Pasta
was made in China as long ago as 2000 BC. However, far from being introduced to the West in the 13th century, the 2nd century AD Greek physician Galen mentions it, and the Jerusalem Talmud records it was common in Palestine from the 3rd to 5th centuries AD. 9th century Syrian physician and lexicographer Isho bar Ali describes dried pasta,
but the innovation of dried pasta, in the form of long thin noodles we use today (spaghetti), is attributed to the
Arabs who populated Southern Italy (i.e. Sicily) around the 12th Century. There is a 5th century recipe for
lasagna!

Ciao down, Marco!

The information above was drawn from Wikipedia.

Author Interview: Barbara Passaris

Hi, there! Today we're speaking with historical novelist Barbara Passaris, author of Through Tempest Forged, a family saga set in Virginia during the American Revolution.

YR: What got you interested in the history behind your novel?

BP: Well, first of all, I am a native Virginian. That means that I was bred with history. And much of the history happened literally in my back yard. I actually grew up in the Kempsville section of Virginia Beach, which was called the Kemps Landing Township of Princess Anne County during colonial times. The location for Kemps’ Store is less than a mile from my parents’ home, and right near the Pleasant Hall Estate. This house is still there. It was the actual site of the celebration following the victory at Great Bridge. This lovely home was often used for important social events of the day.

And even though I was born in Baltimore, I moved to Virginia when I was seven years old. Virginia is and always will be “home” for me. Her people—both the ordinary ones of the Revolutionary Era, and the famous ones—have always fascinated me. There’s a certain amount of pride that I have for coming from this area, too. Virginia is the cradle of American Democracy. (Now, if you’re a Bostonian, you may challenge that point….)

YR: Is there a particular family that inspired you to create the Rogerses?

BP: I often laugh when people ask me this question, because I come from a large family with five children. In some ways, the Rogerses are very much like the family in which I grew up, in that they are closely knit, have many personalities amongst the lot of them, and are fiercely loyal to one another; they’re loving, yet not without their own family problems and struggles. I grew up in a family that had five children, with three girls and two boys. But the birth order of the children is completely different for the Rogerses than it was for the Passaris family.

I tried to look at the manners and mores of a well-to-do family from that time. By that, I mean the way in which the people interacted, the supremacy of the family patriarch, the loyalty of the matriarch, and the hierarchy within the family structure. This was an era when everyone knew his/her place within the family, when birth order was everything, especially for sons. And this is still the era of primogeniture—even amongst American “gentry.” The Rogerses are a big, loving, cohesive family that is bound by family honor, as well. But are they perfect? No. Is there such a thing? I don’t think so.

YR: One of the most interesting characters to me was John Peter, Paul and Elizabeth’s gay son (to use a modern term). What inspired you to tell his story?

BP: You know, I wanted so much to have a family that had some “quirkiness” to it. People don’t like to talk about it even now, but homosexuals have always been around, and always will be. I suppose that the point of this is that there was such misunderstanding with regard to homosexuality at that time. Here, we have the Rogers family, who are pillars of their society. And they have someone in their family with this great “disability.” Paul and Elizabeth feel that they have to cure him in some way—try to fix this, so that the family’s honor can be saved, so that John Peter can have a “normal” life. And for John Peter, he has struggled his entire life to “fit in.” For a person back then, being homosexual was beyond being deviant. It meant ostracism or even death in some venues.

John Peter is a very complex character. He thinks of himself as a weakling, and yet, I see him as one of the strongest characters in my book. He hides behind his money, liquor, gambling, and diversions; he’s trying to “normalize” himself.

But this is a book about love, sacrifice, honor, and duty. William’s battles are fought on battlefields, while John Peter’s are fought within. John Peter’s sense of duty to his father and to the home in which he grew up forces him to sacrifice himself in order to produce an heir to the family’s fortune. Interestingly, though, he will accomplish this on his own terms, as much as possible.

I suppose that I feel such compassion for him, because throughout the years, I have had many friends who are “gay” or lesbian. My husband’s sister, Karen, was a lesbian, (She died three years ago.) I loved her very much, and she was very close with my husband. We’d often talk about the plight and struggles that the homosexual community has. More than anything, Karen told me, homosexuals just want to be left to live their lives in peace. That was what John Peter wanted; even though he knew that it wasn’t possible. I wish that my sister-in-law had lived to see my book in print.

YR: Who’s your favorite character in your novel? Why?

BP: That’s a tough one. You know, I think that I’d have to say that it’s both Paul AND John Peter. To me, they are flip sides of the same coin. And Johnny is so much more like his father than he realizes.

Why do I love these two men? For me, Paul is the “perfect” husband—at least in this book. He’s generous, loving, intelligent, honorable, handsome, and hardworking. He’d die for his family, loves his wife with every beat of his heart. His sense of duty to his wife and children is deeply ingrained into the fabric of this household that he has built, and he will protect them at all costs. Paul has always struggled with his mixed blood, that being both noble and common. It is not until he makes a declaration for the Patriot cause that he will finally accept himself. He leaves the estranged family of his mother behind forever—or so he thinks. I would say that conversely, he reveres the memory of his mother and, of course, his father.

John Peter “dies” unto himself by marrying Susie—for the sake of his love for his father, and for his duty to Willow Bend. He accepts an “unfortunate” into his heart, hearth, and home. He sees someone who is unacceptable to most people, an illiterate bastard daughter of a whore. He takes her, enlightens and elevates her. In doing this, he embraces himself, even as he forever locks himself into half of an existence. But, in his characteristically serendipitous way, he’ll make the most of it, and come to terms with himself and his situation. He loves and admires his father more than he is able to express, and though Paul seldom admits it, he feels the same for this particular son.

YR: Sexuality is a very important feature in your married characters’ relationships, female as well as male. In general—I know this is a very broad question—what was the attitude toward women’s sexuality in colonial times?

Sexuality has always been important in the lives of married people! I don’t believe that that has changed.

In colonial times, a woman was expected to remain a virgin until she married. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It was something that was not talked about, either. And a young man often visited a “pleasure house” when he was teenager. That is the great oxymoron of it: There were young women who “worked” these places. But these women lived on the fringe of society, and for many reasons, too. Chiefly, I believe that poverty forced them into prostitution, as it does now.

Let us discuss a woman’s rights in that time. In a nutshell, she had very few. In colonial times, a woman could not vote. She couldn’t own property unless she was a widow, or in rare case, divorced for some reason. A married woman had no say-so whatever in much more than the day’s menus and fabric choices for gowns and curtains. She was the property of her father before she married, and the property of her husband after the marriage took place. Sexuality within a marriage was viewed in much the same way. It was considered a wife’s “duty” to have relations with her husband—not a choice. But an honorable man knew he had to be gentle and kind—to have her permission. A wife didn’t usually deny her husband, and he thought nothing of asking for her whenever he wanted her; it was his right as a husband.

Does that mean that a woman did not enjoy the act? Well, I think that may have been true for many women, because they didn’t know how their bodies worked, and I think that most men probably didn’t know how women’s bodies worked, either. But I think that there were those who loved their spouses, and loved being with them—plain and simple. My women love their men, and they love that aspect of their married life. And my men are good and kind husbands, for the most part.

But let’s look at little Sarah, who was raped. How difficult was it for her to find a way to live “normally” with her Henry? It was excruciating for both of them.

And what of Janie Kemp, the town “tart”? She was hardly marriageable, with her sullied reputation. But because of the rape, she would most likely never be married, unless she married far beneath her social status.

While I’m talking about that, I’ll address the issue of rape. It was tragic for more than one reason when this happened to a young woman. First of all, she was no longer considered to be pure, or “marriageable.” Unless a woman was a widow, most men expected a virgin for a bride. And a woman was often blamed for this horrific act. If a girl had a tarnished reputation, as was the case with Janie Kemp, it was difficult to prove that she hadn’t “asked” for it.

Having an “old maid” was considered to be a scourge on a family. Thus, a rape could have tragic consequences for an entire family, not just the victim.

Then there’s Susie, John Peter’s wife. She lives with him, though I doubt that they have much there in the way of sexual relations, other than a sense of duty to one another and to their home. They have a job to do: make a couple of babies for Willow Bend, and her patriarch, Paulus Augustus Rogers.

In polite circles, a woman’s sexuality was cherished and guarded by her father and brothers (or closest male relative), then owned by her husband—period. This was not a matter of choice for a woman. Even a woman who was a queen in her own right would have to marry and be subject in all aspects of her life to her husband.

YR: Which historical figures from the revolutionary era interest you in particular?

BP: I love the Virginia Presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, and Madison. I also love the architects of this country, the Ben Franklins and Adams of the time. I find it fascinating that there could be such collective brain power in one place, in one time—and that that brain power (and monetary strength) could have been so audacious as to stand up against a Goliath of a nation, say “no” to the powers of the time, and make a future for all of us on this side of the pond. And I think that we owe them all so much. But we owe all of the men and women of that time. By that I mean the common infantryman who gave his life, and sewed the seeds of democracy with his own blood. There are the Molly Pitchers, too, who bravely took their fallen husbands’ places in battle, for the sake of their posterity.

YR: Are there particular resources you found helpful in researching your novel?

BP: Oh my, yes….so many. I’ll list some of them.

Atlas of American Military History by Stuart Murray, Checkmark Books

Revolutionary War Roster of Gloucester County, Virginia compiled by Elizabeth Dutton Lewis

“Common Sense” by Thomas Paine.

The Collective Writings of Thomas Paine, Library of America Press.

The American Revolution, Library of America Press.

What Every American Should Know About American History, Second Edition, Axelrod, Ph.D, and Charles Phillips, Adams Media, Avon, Massachusetts.

Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence by Carol Berkin, Knopf Press.

The Colonial Williamsburg Tavern Cookbook, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation with recipes by John R. Gonzales, edited by Charles Pierce, Clarkson/Potter Publishers, New York.

And I admit that I did some internet research, as well, especially for the Battle of Great Bridge.

There’s a wonderful teaching poster that I obtained from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation that has a chronology of major events in the Revolution, as well as some key players.

There were many more resources, but those are the ones that I used the most.

I also used a particular book that details clothing of the era, though to be honest, I can’t locate it. We’ve been painting the interior of our house, and it’s in some crate in the upper rafters of our storage areas, and I’m having trouble locating it.

YR: It’s apparent from the ending that a sequel is in store. When can we expect it?

BP: I am almost finished with the sequel. It is my hope that it will be out for Christmas 2008, or in early 2009.

Thanks for stopping by, Barbara! More information about Barbara and her book can be found at http://www.barbarapassaris.com

Of the Etruscans and DNA

My particular interest at the moment is the Etruscans, those ‘mysterious’ people who held sway over central Italy before Rome. They lived between the Arno and the Tiber in what is now Tuscany, Umbria and northern Lazio. Their culture and language was very different to that of the Romans, and seems to display more affinity with the Middle East than with Europe. Although their writings and language have disappeared, their painted tombs and the artefacts found in them bear witness to a rich, lively and outgoing culture, whose women were very much on an equal footing with men.

In their conquest of Italy, the Romans quashed the Etruscan cities and, in the way of all conquerors, tried to erase all trace of them. Roman writers maligned them, portraying Etruscan men as cruel and decadent and their women as sexually promiscuous. However, even the Romans could not entirely deny the debt they owed to the Etruscans and their culture, to which even they attributed the very symbols they used to display their power.

The exact extent of this debt is still hotly debated. During the twentieth century, historians claimed that the very foundations of Rome were laid by the Etruscans and it is to the Etruscans that the Romans owe the engineering and military skills on which they built their empire. More recent historians, however, tend to minimise the Etruscan influence on Rome, attributing any similarities to the remnants of a shared culture, which owes its apparent eastern influences not to immigration, but to trade.

One of the great mysteries about the Etruscans is their origins. Were they immigrants from the east as the ancients believed? Or did their culture spring entirely from Italian soil? Did they develop their own culture, or was it a response to the stimulation of cultural contact with the Greeks and Phoenicians?

The earliest traces of Etruscan civilization can be found in the culture dubbed Villanovan, which flourished in central Italy during the bronze age between 1200 and 1000BC. Around 900BC a profound change occurred. The Villanovans suddenly burgeoned and developed the culture we know as Etruscan. The wealth of the cities they built was derived from the mining of iron and trade with Greece and the Middle East. Around 700BC, they adopted a Greek alphabet to write a language which has no known European affiliations.

The first author to refer to the Etruscans was Herodotus, the first Greek historian. Writing in the fifth century BC, he recounted how, during a long period of famine, half the population of the kingdom of Lydia, in what is now southern Turkey, left their country and settled in central Italy to become the Tyrrhenians, the Greek name for the Etruscans, for whom was named the Tyrrhenian Sea. Later historians begged to differ. The Roman historian Livy, claimed they came from northern Europe, while his Greek contemporary, Dionysius, said they were natives of Italy but that their culture was of Greek origin. Modern historians have fluctuated between all three theories, but as there is no conclusive evidence in the archaeology either way, no one theory has been accepted as definitive.

But now genetics has come to the rescue. In recent years, two human genetic studies have been undertaken. In one study, genetic material was taken from remains in ancient Etruscan tombs. In the other, the DNA was taken from modern Italians of presumed Etruscan descent.

Although contradictory in some aspects, both studies have shown that the Etruscans have a closer genetic affinity with the people of southern Turkey than with other Italians. But was this connection made solely through trade as one set of scientists speculate, or through immigration as postulated by the other?

One telling detail which, I feel, gives greater weight to the immigration theory, does not come from the human DNA. A genetic study of an ancient breed of cattle which can still be found in what was once ancient Etruria, shows that they too derive from the Middle East. It is much more likely that the cattle came with immigrants than be imported by traders visiting by sea.

And so it seems that Herodotus has been vindicated.

More about the DNA studies can be found in the Science Daily articles Ancient Etruscans Unlikely Ancestors Of Modern Tuscans and Ancient Etruscans Were Immigrants From Anatolia

A cup of holiday jeer: historical insults

Insults today have no zing. In this coarsened age, novels, movies, and TV shows rely heavily on the same old, tired four-letter words – a pale imitation of the hair-curling invective of the past. One of things I love most about writing historical fiction is the opportunity to write colorful dialogue, and it's especially fun when I'm writing a scene of intense conflict between my characters. I get to put outrageous, bombastic insults into their mean, nasty, period-correct potty mouths.

Seriously, why call somebody a mere bastard or sonofabitch when you can call him a base villain, a dimwitted cock-robin, a bullfaced barbarian, a silly coxcomb, a fancy codpiece or a sniveling poltroon?

An invaluable tool in my quest for the perfect insult is a slim volume by Nancy McPhee, called The Book of Insults: Ancient and Modern. McPhee reaches into the past to offer some real gems from literary, political, and historical sources. I recommend it to anybody who needs to add a sprinkle of incivility to their work.

As McPhee points out, Shakespeare is the king when it comes to insults. Here's a sampling of the Bard's greatest hits:

Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter!
King Lear

This sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh!
1 Henry IV

'Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat's tongue, you bull's pizzle, you stock-fish! O for breath to utter what is like thee! you tailor's-yard, you sheath, you bowcase; you vile standing-tuck!
1 Henry IV

I scorn you, scurvy companion.
2 Henry IV

Away, you mouldy rogue, away!
2 Henry IV

Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away! By this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale juggler, you!
2 Henry IV

Thou lump of foul deformity!
Richard III

You peasant swain! You whoreson malt-horse drudge!
The Taming of the Shrew

Go hang yourself, you naughty mocking uncle!
Troilus and Cressida

Ouch!

Want more? Try this Shakespeare Random Insult Generator.

The Inevitable Pitfalls for an Avid Historical Fiction Reader

Just at the moment I am reading Susan Higginbotham's THE TRAITOR'S WIFE (see links on this blog) and discovering yet again two of the pitfalls of reading fiction based on historical fact.

ONE - No Surpises

Unlike most novels the linear process of reading does not postpone learning what is going to happen to characters you have become excessively fond of. I have experienced this over and over. Just now as I read about Edward II and his loves I already know what is going to happen to them. Not a spoiler for the pleasure of reading because the skilled author will make the journey every bit as compelling as the outcome. But knowing what happens to this or that character beforehand adds a new layer of tension and even grief -- it draws it out, often for a long, long time. The poignancy of a tragic love can be almost unbearable when you know from the first kiss that it will be tragic. So much the worse when you know how horribly Edward II himself will die... only now you care about him personally. That is, instead of happy reading, then shock, then grief, you have dread, despair and then grief.

TWO - But They'd Be Dead Now Anyway

I cry when characters die in novels. Heck, I cry while writing sad scenes in my own. As a teen I wrote death scenes just to cry. I grieved for the tragic paramour in the second novel of Edith Pargeter's THE HEAVEN TREE trilogy for days and days... not to mention for the protagonist of the first. I'm still mourning one of the deaths in Edward Rutherfurd's THE REBELS OF IRELAND and fully intend to lay a flower for him on Vinegar Hill someday even though the man never existed. What often occurs to me in these cases is that, particularly in the case of characters based on real historical figures, they would be dead now anyway! I suppose I can say I am grieving for the bereaved.. who themselves are, nonetheless, are dead now too. Sigh.

An occasional broken heart, fictionally induced, is probably good for me. Just no more William de Braoises or Patrick Smiths please, OK?

[Photo is of the tomb of Edward, the Black Prince, in Canterbury Cathedral.]

Sticking It to The (Publishing) Man!

Independent Authors Guild

Once upon a time there were two kinds of publishing… real and vanity. Either you were a good enough author to get published on the basis of your fine prose and skillful plotting and characterization.. or you were willing to pay someone to make it look like you had a Real Book.

The world of electronic publishing has blown those times right out of the proverbial water. When someone asked me recently what a blog is, I replied, “It’s a way for anyone at all to publish an editorial.” That is the beauty of the web.. its populist opportunities. Anyone can publish. Anyone can be read.

Look at the recording industry. Once upon a time you cut a record and got a “label” interested in it. Hey presto, you were discovered! If you were appealing enough and the label did right by you and marketed you and your music, you would be a star. But then the artists started realizing that they no longer had to get the bona fides of the huge corporate recording industry to make and sell their music. The independent recording industry sprang up. Like film, the word “independent” leant a sort of maverick, defiant tone. It started to be synonymous with “better” and “high quality”/

So why has that not happened with the publishing industry? Why is it assumed that if you can’t get a well known publisher to bet your work it means it is un-vettable? Self published means “below average” at best. The stigma of the vanity press is, alas, still upon us.

That is where a new organization comes into the picture. The Independent Author’s Guild is a groundswell of focus by several dozen – so far – authors of books that have come out of small press and self-publishing, including the publish on demand industry. The purpose of the organization is to enhance the prestige of and access to books published outside of the huge, corporate, leveraged-up-to-their-eyeballs book publishing industry.

You know, the folks who won’t even look at your manuscript because their research has ordained it cannot make them a gazillion dollars/pounds?

When Dickens was writing his publisher did not need to hire a consulting firm to see if anyone would actually be willing to spend the tupence for David Copperfield or Bleak House. I like to think there was respect for artistry and imagination then. Now it seems to me that if your book won’t fit in the wire rack at the grocery checkout and blast its lurid promise as you count to be sure you have not exceeded 15 items then you won’t even get a look from those we depended on once to share our work with readers.

Ha! We don’t need them any more! We have numerous ways to get our work into print, whether press or electronic. With Amazon and Barnes and Noble and the rest and our own web sites, we don’t need their pull with distribution any more. More and more of the books people buy.. and actually read.. are ordered online. The opportunity for author and reader to meet is in our own hands. Power to the people!

That’s what IAG is about.. supporting the efforts of serious authors to get their fiction out to readers who are hungry for it. Simply by organizing it shows the world that value is coming out of some other source than the Big Business Publishers. As an insatiable reader of books that take place in Anglo Saxon England, I knew I was stuck waiting for the next Bernard Cornwell to come out to feed my habit. Then I found out that authors like Octavia Randolph and Carla Nay land had books out that take place in that era. And they are good! For, you see, commercially published books are not necessarily good… just check out Cornwell’s lackluster latest.. and self-published or small press books are not necessarily bad.. as in Nayland’s Paths of Exile.

The IAG is just being born, gaining its nonprofit status, forming a board of directors – including me – and defining who we are and what we will do to accomplish great things for authors and readers alike. That’s why I can’t tell you much more than I have. But I can invite you to join in the molding of this new paradigm.

Visit IAG at www.independentauthorsguild.org and join the forum at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IAG-members/ . At the time of this writing, membership in the Yahoogroup is the same as membership in the organization. So just join the Yahoogroup to get involved.

Make fiction, not megabucks!

Nan Hawthorne, Executive Director
Independent Authors Guild

(Hawthorne is a regular contributor to Yesterday Revisited and the author of the Blue Lady Tavern blog.)