Getting Married in the Middle Ages

Jul 9, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts

Whether you’re writing Medieval history fiction or fantasy, you will appreciate this Quora answer by Helena Schrader, who borrowed from an article she wrote for The Medieval Magazine. To this, I have added information by Brent Cooper, taken from...

Translating Puns

Jul 7, 2020 | Writing

As anyone who’s been following my blog for a while surely knows, I love puns and bad dad jokes (often the same thing). And I often use them in my work, especially in my children’s books. Which becomes rather problematic when translating them into Greek....

Back from Lefkada

Jul 4, 2020 | Random Musings

I apologize for disappearing on you this past week. We spent a week on the island of Lefkada, in the Ionian Sea. Since I now have over 2K emails to wade through, I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m uncharacteristically brief and just share a few photos of this...

Every Swordsman Cheats

Jun 28, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts, Quora, Writing

When writing fantasy, we often have to describe fight scenes. Swordfights, in particular, make for great descriptions. But we often forget one crucial aspect of fighting: when it comes to life or death, everyone cheats. Even the good guys, as Martin Lloyd points out...

Book Sales COVID-19 Increase

Jun 25, 2020 | Publishing

Since March 2020, PublishDrive has been generating digital book sales reports, compiling hard-to-find data from various outlets, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play Books, libraries, regional stores, and more. They have now published their stats for...

The Real Archery

Jun 23, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts, Writing

I was reading an interesting answer on Quora about Mongol strategy when a battle description caught my eye: Seeing this, the archbishop spurred his on his horse and gave them chase. Eventually, they reached a marshland and they crossed it swiftly. The archbishop did...

Happy Father’s Day 2020

Jun 21, 2020 | Entertainment

Of all the parts I’ve played in the theater of life, being a dad is the most meaningful to me. Which is why I so enjoyed learning about Tom’s Bad Dad Jokes. As the Washington Post reports, Tom and Ann Schruben have started posting “Bad Dad Jokes” on a sign...

How Libraries Are Coping with the Pandemic

Jun 19, 2020 | Publishing

I recently published a post on how the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be affecting publishing. While that article focused on publishers, we now have some interesting data on how it has affected libraries, thanks to NPR (many thanks to my author friend, Elle Boca, for...

Who Could Build a Castle in the Middle Ages?

Jun 17, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts, Quora

In my last post, I explained how a Medieval army could assault a castle. But who built the castle in the first place, and how expensive were they, anyway? Luckily, Helena Schrader and Quora have the answer. Before we move on, though, let’s answer a different...

Medieval Castle Assaults

Jun 15, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts, Quora

I came across some great answers by Jon Bourgetti, Patrick Ashby, Alexander Taylor, and Steve Blanchard on Quora on the subject of assaults on Medieval castles. Whether you write fantasy, historical fiction, or just love history as much as I do, I think you will enjoy...