Writers' roll call?

Celia Hayes · Post by **Celia Hayes** » Mon July 6th, 2009, 1:53 pm

Celia here - I came into writing historicals back-asswards, through writing for a mil-blog, but I had always loved history and fiction like the Flashman series, and writers like Rosemary Stutcliff. The blog allowed me to write essays about whatever I liked and interested me, and one of my intermidable essays (about the Stephens-Townsend wagon-train party) really grabbed a couple of my fans. One way and another, the encouraged me to tell the story as a novel ... and when that was done, I cast around for another relatively unknown western adventure, and came up with the story of the German settlements in Texas, and there was just so many dramatic elements to that, it turned into three book - the Adelsverein Trilogy. I am currently working on another trilogy, loosely linked to the first, which will tell the stories of an woman settler in pre-independent Texas, a California gold rush adventure ... and the last will pick up the story of a cattleman and his English bride.
I am currently published jointly by Strider Nolan (a small boutique press) and Booklocker.com. The Trilogy is selling very well, regionally - I keep running into descendents of people I have written about, or people whose ancestors were Verein settlers, or who live in the places I write about, so I have hopes it becoming a regional hit.

juditharnopp · Post by **juditharnopp** » Tue January 26th, 2010, 11:14 am

hi
its taken me ages to get to the end of this thread, ive had to stop off at everyone's webpages on route and i can see i am not going to run short of reading matter for a while.
my novel, Peaceweaver, was published in Nov 09. it is set in the years leading up to the battle of hastings. Eadgyth Aelfgarsdottir, the wife of Gruffydd ap Llewelyn and Harold ii tells the story from her own perspective. i have had some encouraging reviews and am now working on The Forest Dwellers, set in the New Forest in teh years after the conquest.

when i am not writing i am reading. there are plenty of interesting sounding titles on here to keep me busy.

Judith

http://www.freewebs.co.uk/judyarnoppsmedievalpage

N. Gemini Sasson · Post by **N. Gemini Sasson** » Tue January 26th, 2010, 3:25 pm

[quote=""juditharnopp""]hi
its taken me ages to get to the end of this thread, ive had to stop off at everyone's webpages on route and i can see i am not going to run short of reading matter for a while.
my novel, Peaceweaver, was published in Nov 09. it is set in the years leading up to the battle of hastings. Eadgyth Aelfgarsdottir, the wife of Gruffydd ap Llewelyn and Harold ii tells the story from her own perspective. i have had some encouraging reviews and am now working on The Forest Dwellers, set in the New Forest in teh years after the conquest.

when i am not writing i am reading. there are plenty of interesting sounding titles on here to keep me busy.

Judith

http://www.freewebs.co.uk/judyarnoppsmedievalpage[/quote]

Judith! Fancy meeting you here. How are things? Thanks for digging this thread up, btw.

I currently have a novel ISABEAU, about Queen Isabella of England and Sir Roger Mortimer, making the rounds with publishers now. The sequel is about half-written (actually, it's been about half-written for awhile now). I've also completed a trilogy about Robert the Bruce and one of those books, WORTH DYING FOR, is now beginning its rounds.

LoveHistory · Post by **LoveHistory** » Tue January 26th, 2010, 4:30 pm

Wow! I just went through the thread and couldn't find myself anywhere. Did I miss this one completely?

Well if anyone's interested I've got my little Lulu store and my little Zazzle store. Actually doing more with Zazzle (t-shirts are fun!).

http//www.lulu.com/collierbluff
http//www.zazzle.com/gmicute

Oh, and I'm currently working on recovering from the weekend. When I get back to my writing I have a contemporary family drama/comedy/romance called Bridging the Gaps and The DeFord Chronicles, Part II to finish.

juditharnopp · Post by **juditharnopp** » Tue January 26th, 2010, 8:54 pm

[quote=""N. Gemini Sasson""]Judith! Fancy meeting you here. How are things? Thanks for digging this thread up, btw.

I currently have a novel ISABEAU, about Queen Isabella of England and Sir Roger Mortimer, making the rounds with publishers now. The sequel is about half-written (actually, it's been about half-written for awhile now). I've also completed a trilogy about Robert the Bruce and one of those books, WORTH DYING FOR, is now beginning its rounds.[/quote]

hi gemi

i was told about this site by a friend and t hought id take a look around. i follow your blog and have been trying to get on the yahoo site you told me about but i couldnt figure out how to get on there

good to catch up. good luck with isabeau, i know from what i read that it is a winner.

Gabriele Campbell · Post by **Gabriele Campbell** » Wed February 17th, 2010, 10:51 pm

Hey, I missed that one, too.

As mentioned in another thread, I'm currently working on a Roman trilogy Endangered Frontiers (I changed the name because 'Empire at War' could be SF as well) that will present three standalone books loosely connected by a family feud spanning several generations. The first book A Land Unconquered features the Roman attempt to turn Germania into a province, with the battle at Teutoburg Forest and Germanicus' later campaigns, plus lots of intrigue and probably a bit of a love story as well. That one snuck in behind my back, lol, I'm so not a romance writer; I do battles much better.

The second book, Eagle of the Sea, will take place in Germania and Caledonia, the third, Song of the North Wind, in Caledonia. They're going to be a more epic version of Bernard Cornwell with more than one MC and a whole slew of POV (when I don't write downright omniscient, that is).

Last year saw the 2000 year anniversary of the battle in the Teutoburg Forest aka Varus battle, and I'm finally getting time to work through a few thousand pages of research books and papers that all came out the last months.

I'll need that to fine-tune some details before I continue writing.

And there's my dirty secret, lol. Kings and Rebels, an Alternate Historical Fantasy (yeah, I invented a new genre here

) based on the 12th century, but with the Atlantis myth and the sunken realms of Ker Ys, Cantre'r Gwaelod and Vineta thrown in, plus some magic. I also change the names the way Jacqueline Carey or Guy Gavriel Kay do. That bad boy started off as historical fiction, but I soon realised that the story I want to tell kept clashing with the facts in a way I could not make both meet, and so I decided to introduce those magic stones which actually made the thing a lot more focussed. Though it's busy turning into a 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series. *sigh* I blame it on my muse who's a time traveling Scot and drunk most of the time.

EC2 · Post by **EC2** » Wed February 17th, 2010, 11:04 pm

[quote=""Gabriele Campbell""]H Though it's busy turning into a 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series. *sigh* I blame it on my muse who's a time traveling Scot and drunk most of the time.

[/quote]

Well in that case don't you dare publish the first installment until you've finished the series - LOL! I've had to give up on Martin because I've so forgotten what happened at the start and I can't invest the time to play catch up with all the threads! I think fans are really worried he's going to pop his clogs and leave it all unfinished...

Gabriele Campbell · Post by **Gabriele Campbell** » Wed February 17th, 2010, 11:23 pm

I use it as excuse to reread the series.

I do that with Lord of the Rings as well and there I don't even have an excuse.

Yes, some so-called fans are getting pretty nasty about the fact that Martin takes his time to write the books (one of them trolled my blog, so I know they exist), but most prefer him writing the best books even if we have to wait years in between.

Though writing the whole monster before trying to get it published would have the advantage that you can go back and change things. Martin said he'd liked to have done it that way but he was dependent on the income. Considering the Meereenese Knot (some timeline problem) he's fighting right now, I can see the benefit of that approach. I bet if he could change a few Dany chapters in the first books that damn knot wouldn't be there.

Julianne Lee · Post by **Julianne Lee** » Thu February 18th, 2010, 2:50 pm

Hi, I'm Julianne Lee. My current release, "Her Mother's Daughter: A Novel of Queen Mary Tudor," is my tenth publication for Berkley, and I have two more published in Germany. I began as a journalist for the local newspaper in '94, then wrote magazine articles for a couple of years and did a short stint writing video sleeve copy for Fox Home Entertainment. Then a decade ago I sold my first novel (after completing twelve unsold manuscripts) to Berkley. I've now got two time-travel historical fantasy series for Berkley/Ace under my beld, and my last three books have been straight historicals. I wrote "Spanish Bride: A Novel of Catherine of Aragon" under the pseudonym Laurien Gardner. Then under my own name for Berkley I wrote the mainstream historicals "A Question of Guilt" and "Her Mother's Daughter."

I haven't got a sig. line set up yet, so my web page is:
http://www.julianneardianlee.com

boswellbaxter · Post by **boswellbaxter** » Thu February 18th, 2010, 3:20 pm

Glad to see you here, Julianne! I enjoyed Her Mother's Daughter.