All Blog Posts Tagged 'historical' (44)

"General Order No. 28"

Official Proclamation, United States Army:…

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Added by O'Neil De Noux on November 23, 2010 at 12:09pm — No Comments

Gentleman and thug: researching my new historical novel

One of the great pleasures of novel-writing is the research which, for almost every book, ought to bring the writer to investigate different areas of inquiry. To become a swift expert in something others might spend all their lives studying.

That’s why I’ve taken up my sword.

I’m working on a historical novel about the great Italian artist Caravaggio. That has meant learning to paint with oils, which has been even more…

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Added by Matt Rees on November 5, 2010 at 12:29am — 4 Comments

Compelling seeds of true history: Philip Sington’s Writing Life interview

The best historical novels are based on some element of real history which has been either neglected or is little known. Philip Sington's “The Einstein Girl” grows out of the revelation that Albert Einstein had a secret daughter. Sington takes that seed and, with the hand of a true thriller master, builds around it a story of psychiatry and love in the early days of Hitler’s Germany. It's one of the most touching, beautiful, and…

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Added by Matt Rees on October 17, 2010 at 6:49pm — No Comments

New arms race--on author websites

I have a new book coming out in the UK next spring. So it’s time to start looking around to see what new web gadgets and gismos authors are expected to shell out for from their meager advances to keep their “web profile” current.

It’s a new arms race. Just as the Soviets bankrupted their (morally bankrupt) regime trying to keep up with US developments in mass destruction, writers have to divert their attention from the writing of books and trawl the…

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Added by Matt Rees on September 26, 2010 at 10:23pm — 2 Comments

The Inquisition, the Jews of Andalus, and Columbus: 'By Fire By Water' review

Historical novels vie with crime and romance novels for the titles of most derided and most widely read literature. They've had a bad rap ever since the 19th century, when the swashbucklers of Alexandre Dumas looked pretty wooden next to Dickens, and cartoonish in comparison to the depth of Victor Hugo or George Eliot. There have always been marvelous exceptions, such as Mary Renault's amazing novels of ancient Greece, but for much of the last century, historical fiction was…

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Added by Matt Rees on September 3, 2010 at 10:47pm — No Comments

Going historical

Writing of the disdain expressed for genre novels by critics, Raymond Chandler said that there were just as many bad “literary novels” of the type favored by critics as there were bad genre stories – except that the bad literary novels didn’t get published. In other words, there’s nothing inherent in so-called genre fiction that makes it lesser than “literary” fiction.

Chandler knew what he was talking about. His great noir novels, such as “The Big Sleep”…

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Added by Matt Rees on September 1, 2010 at 6:06pm — 1 Comment

Signing up

A book takes a long time to write, and then it takes a while to sell. And another while to sell in another country, and another after that. So a writer’s smile spreads across time.

My long-term grin widened this weekend, when I signed with my UK publisher for my next two books. Not only because Atlantic, the excellent publisher which has brought out all four of my Palestinian crime novels, bought my next books. But because Atlantic is launching a very exciting…

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Added by Matt Rees on July 22, 2010 at 8:11pm — 1 Comment

Inspiration or Perspiration?

It's time to choose the next book. My second Simon & Elizabeth (POISON, YOUR GRACE) and my paranormal, THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY, are both in the editing process, so there is nothing I can do about them until I get the editors' suggestions. My newest endeavor, which I titled DEAD INSIDE, is awaiting word from an agent or two. So what do I want to do next?

The perspiration part: write the third of the historical series. I have it outlined on my handy-dandy little tape recorder, and…

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Added by Peg Herring on July 13, 2010 at 10:27pm — No Comments

Stealing the novel

If there’s one thing that authoring a series of novels will teach you, it’s that you can’t wait for inspiration. But you can prompt it, give it little shocks that’ll keep it bubbling within you. Here are a few methods I use to do just that.

I travel to the places I’m writing about. I talk to people who might be similar to (or even provide the basis for) my characters. I read about them and their world. I engage in the same activities in which they…

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Added by Matt Rees on April 15, 2010 at 6:13pm — 2 Comments

What am I reading?

<img src="http://www.themanoftwistsandturns.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/mantel1.png" alt="" title="Wolf Hall" width="158" height="238" class="alignright size-full wp-image-875" />On the <a href="http://whatarewritersreading.blogspot.com/2010/01/matt-beynon-rees.html">"Writers Read" blog</a>, which is run by the indefatigable Marshal Zeringue, the latest post features my most recent reading. It's not what you might think -- in other words, it isn't detective fiction…

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Added by Matt Rees on February 5, 2010 at 10:44am — 1 Comment

The Decade that Dare not Speak its Name

In the documentary “Imagine,” John Lennon comments that his song “Starting Over” from "Double Fantasy" was a message to fans his own age in which he aimed to ask them: “Hey, how’re you? Weren’t the Seventies a drag? Let’s hope the Eighties will be better.”

If John had lived on through the Eighties to experience the decade just gone, I’m sure he’d have used a stronger word than “drag” to describe it, and it would’ve been… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on January 8, 2010 at 7:45pm — No Comments

Researching the novel

Novelists aren’t journalists. Research for a novel isn’t the same as researching a journalistic article.

I’d have thought that was too obvious to need stating. But then I became a published novelist, and I realized that people thought the two things were rather the same.

I was a journalist for almost 20 years before my first novel was published. THE COLLABORATOR OF BETHLEHEM is a crime novel set in Bethlehem during the intifada, and I’d spent over a decade covering the… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on November 20, 2009 at 1:07am — 1 Comment

No more Mister Nice Guy

This is where it gets ugly.

Last week I zapped off the manuscript of my new novel to my agent in New York. My wife told me to get working on the next book. It’s not because she’s worried about me slacking off and failing to pay the rent. No, it’s because she knows what happens when I’m not writing.

Ever read “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”? When I’m writing, I’m Dr Jekyll. All my unloveable urges are intellectualized and subsumed to a pleasure in the creative… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on October 29, 2009 at 4:43pm — No Comments

Berlin Noir on NPR

Last year, NPR correspondent Eric Westervelt toured Nablus in the West Bank with me, talking about my third Palestinian crime novel THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET as we wandered through the ancient casbah. Sadly for the many of us in Jerusalem who enjoyed his dry wit, Westervelt… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 14, 2009 at 10:37pm — 1 Comment

Gold Digger strikes real gold!

Strike it rich with Vicki Delany's delightful historical mystery GOLD DIGGER. Read the review at Midnight Blood Reviews.

Added by Linda Suzane on July 12, 2009 at 11:22am — No Comments

Review: New Liss mystery for lovers of Dumas and Perez Reverte

The Devil’s Company

By David Liss

Published: July 7, 2009 Random House isbn: 1400064198

Fans of swashbuckling classics by Alexandre Dumas and more recently Spaniard Arturo Perez-Reverte will love David Liss’s new novel The Devil’s Company. But they’ll also get something those authors don’t provide: a gritty… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 7, 2009 at 7:25pm — No Comments

Magically Inventive: Darren Craske's Writing Life interview

The Victorian-era crime novel has been a firmly established sub-genre from Sherlock Holmes to Anne Perry’s William Monk. But it has never seen anything like Cornelius Quaint. The hero of Darren Craske’s devilishly cunning new series (the first book,… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on May 31, 2009 at 2:00am — No Comments

Things Learned from Readers

I went to a book club meeting last night where my book, MACBETH'S NIECE, had been read. Everyone was very kind, and it was one of those gratifying experiences where you're treated as an expert and you feel a bit like an imposter playing the "Author" role.

The part that sticks with me this morning is the questions. These are all people who read, and from the general discussion I think they read decent material: good fiction and nonfiction too. They analyze things as a group, much like… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on May 21, 2009 at 11:20pm — 8 Comments

Early Morning Conspiracies: The Writing Life interview with David Liss

David Liss is the author of classics of historical fiction from his Edgar Award-winning debut A Conspiracy of Paper, which was rooted in his academic studies, through the fabulous tale of the Portuguese Inquisition and the Amsterdam commodities exchange,… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on May 18, 2009 at 1:16am — No Comments

New Novel

My new historical/suspense novel, Watch The Hour, was released April 15 by Whiskey Creek Press, www.whiskeycreekpress.com, in both print and electronic formats.

Set in that turbulent period of the 1870s in the Pennsylvania anthracite coal region when ordinary people were caught between the railroad monopoly and oppressive economic conditions, Benjamin Franklin Yeager is torn between his duties as a coal and iron policeman and his love for an Irish girl. Watch The Hour explores the… Continue

Added by J.R. Lindermuth on April 18, 2009 at 1:23am — No Comments