Over at Love Thy Author Today!
Here’s the link to what they’ve got going about my book. . . Go check it out 🙂 http://www.lovethyauthor.com/ Happy Fourth of July!
Books on Sale at Smashwords!
In honor of summer, and my trip tomorrow going off the grid for six whole days, all my books are 50% off at Smashwords, through July 31! Here’s the link! http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=woodbury%2C+Sarah Enjoy 🙂
Killed by a ref . . . in ancient Rome
I had to repost (and link) to this story because of the number of times I’ve listened to my husband shout at the screen while watching soccer. This is part of an article about the discover and translation of a tombstone of a Roman gladiator who died in Amisus, on the south coast of the Black Sea in Turkey: “The tombstone . . . shows an image of a gladiator holding what appear to be two swords, standing above his opponent who is signalling his surrender. The inscription says that the stone marks the spot where a man named Diodorus is buried. “After breaking my opponent Demetrius I did not kill him immediately,” reads the epitaph. “Fate and the cunning treachery of the summa rudis killed me.” The summa rudis is a referee, who may have had past experience as a Read more…
Historical Fantasy in Dark Age Wales
Set in sixth century Wales, Cold My Heart tells the story of Myrddin and Nell, a journeyman knight and a former nun, who share a vision of a terrible future—one which encompasses the death of their King and the loss of their country. . . Writing historical fantasy set in dark age Wales combines the need for research that goes beyond the world building of epic fantasy, but carries with it similar characteristics since what we know about that era in Wales is very slight. As an author, there’s just some things you have to invent. In Cold my Heart, I start with the knowledge that the Saxons (in actual fact, a combination of several Germanic groups) did invade Britain after the Romans abandoned the island in 410 AD. King Arthur, if he existed, would have been born around 480 Read more…
Arwystli
Today is a guest post from Brynne Haug, history major at Whitman College and co-conspirator in the study of all things Welsh. Thanks for stopping by! _________ Arwystli seems an insignificant place—just a small piece of land in the middle of Wales, bordering on the northern kingdoms of Gwynedd and Powys. But Arwystli became instrumental for Wales’s survival in the War of 1282. In February of 1278, when Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, prince of Gwynedd and Wales, faced down King Edward I of England, on the surface he asked only for Arwystli. Although Llywelyn had agreed to cede it to Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn, the lord of Powys, when Gruffudd swore fealty to him in 1263,[1] he later laid claim to it on the grounds that Gruffudd had given up his rights when he betrayed him to the English Read more…
Red, Black, and White Books
In Lord of the Rings, Frodo leaves Sam the Red Book of Westmarch, in which to record the goings on of Middle Earth after he is gone. Tolkein himself says that his inspiration for the fictional book was the Red Book of Hergest in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which he knew well. In Wales, there were three such books of which we know: The Red Book of Hergest The Black Book of Camarthan The White Book of Rhydderch The Red Book of Hergest was written between 1375 and 1425 by Hywel Fychan fab Hywel Goch of Fuellt, for his employer, Hopcyn ap Tomas ap Einion of Ynys Tawe. In it are some of the most famous Welsh texts, including the Chronicles of the Princes, The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth, The Ruin and Conquest Read more…
Blue Valley–Paranormal Historical Fiction
Welcome to Christine Rice, this week’s inspiration award winner. She’s writing about her paranormal, historical fiction book, Blue Valley. Welcome Christine! __________________ Everyone has a story they have to get off their chest, and for me, Blue Valley was that story. It began in (gack) 1988, when I was a directionless artist, and decided to apply for an Archaeology fellowship with a distant university. I didn’t care where it was, I was just yearning for an adventure, some productive reason to leave my house and my city and do something no one else was doing. I hoped to get sent to the Middle East, but I got sent to California to dig up the least known, least visited, California mission. Soledad. I was an emotionally immature, culturally sophisticated girl from Brooklyn, plopped in the middle of America’s salad bowl for six weeks of historical Read more…
The Goblin Market–Jennifer Hudock guest post
Today’s Inspirational Award goes to Jennifer Hudock! Welcome to her and her story of memory, magic, and mystery . . . ________________________ I grew up reading and living faerie tales. When I wasn’t firmly planted in the pages of a book, I was out rolling down the mountain behind the house or ducking in and out of tree forts and tunnels playing tag with pixies and the Green Man. In college, I study Christina Rossetti’s poem, “The Goblin Market” in depth and fell in love with the idea. Two young women alone in the world with nothing but each other… When the course I was taking finished, I couldn’t stop thinking about the “Goblin Market.” Where did it come from? Why was it there? Did it have a purpose? Who created it? I wanted to explore the market itself more Read more…
The Weather in Wales
When my son took his American History class, he read to me from the diaries of Lewis and Clark when they wintered on the Oregon coast after coming all the way across the country. Mostly what they did was complain about the rain: “Rained again today.” “Rained all night long and into the morning.” “Rained all day for the third day in a row.” Having grown up in western Washington State, I know all about this problem. Having lived through the last two years in Eastern Oregon, I am intimately familiar with this problem. We had frozen rain and hail on May 17th. Wales, climate-wise, is nearly identical to the Pacific Northwest coast. This was our experience. Here’s Dolbadarn Castle. In the rain. This is the forecast for Bangor, Wales for the rest of the week: Five-day forecast (Details) Tomorrow 19 MayFair Read more…
Time Travel in the UK: Blue Bells of Scotland
Welcome to Laura Vosika, this week’s Inspiration Award winner and guest poster. She is the author of a time travel fantasy set in Scotland. I’ll let her tell you the rest. . . . ______________________ I am usually asked if I’m Scottish, or if I was inspired by Diana Gabaldon, when I tell people about Blue Bells of Scotland, a story of time travel set in—you guessed it—Scotland. I am Dutch, Czech, and German—no Scottish at all that I know of—and although I like the Outlander series, especially Jamie, I only heard of the books when people started asking me the question. Strangely enough, my Scottish time travel trilogy springs from a children’s novel and a trombone solo. Not two things often associated with philandering time travelers! By luck perhaps, Scotland happens to be central to both the novel I Read more…
Medieval Siege Weapons
Within the world of medieval warfare, there were multiple kinds of siege weapons: ballistas, battering rams, trebuchets, and catapults. ‘Catapult’ can be used as a more general term for all throwing siege weapons: “Catapults are siege engines using an arm to hurl a projectile a great distance. Any machine that hurls an object can be considered a catapult, but the term is generally understood to mean medieval siege weapons. The name is derived from the Greek ‘to hurl a missle’. Originally, “catapult” referred to a stone-thrower, while “ballista” referred to a dart-thrower, but the two terms swapped meaning sometime in the fourth century AD. Catapults were usually assembled at the site of a siege, and an army carried few or no pieces of it with them because wood was easily available on site. Catapults can be classified according to the Read more…
If you were David, a time-traveling Prince of Wales . . .
My After Cilmeri series follows a family (two teenagers and a mom) who travel in time back to the Middle Ages. One passage in Prince of Time prompted me think about all those products we buy here. How many–were we to take them back with us to the Middle Ages–would truly prove useful? Like David in the book, imagine walking into a pharmacy with a backpack and trying to decide with which items to fill it, if that was all you could take back in time. David focuses primarily on medicines like antibiotics, antibiotic cream, and antihistimines. Somewhere I read that we’ve lost more knowledge in the last 2000 years than we’ve gained, and while I don’t think that’s necessarily true, medieval people did have pharmaceuticals. Many herbal remedies can be very effective. Some of what they used even resemble what we have today. Read more…