Nan Hawthorne's Blog, page 3
March 8, 2013
Hysterical History - Roman Envy
Phalanx symbols
Getting Medieval on your Funny Bone: Raymond of Toulouse
Emperor Alexios to Raymond of Toulouse: "No, Raymond. Toulouse is your name, not your quest."
March 5, 2013
The Lay of the First Minstrel - Queen of the Angles
The following story did not make it into the novel, An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England, but it remains one of my favorite treatments of the novel's heroine, Queen Josephine. The second, which did make it in, is the encounter between her and the mercenary Elerde in the woods near Keito Uxello. I had a lot of trouble warming up to Laura's Josephine, but the more Laura advocated for her strength, the more I liked the woman. To see how much she changed, take a look at the Old Stor...
March 4, 2013
March 1, 2013
The Babelfish Game
Have you ever played the Babelfish game? I won't say I invented it, but I did discover it for myself. The way it works is that you put a sentence or, better yet, a paragraph into the Babelfish translator, translate it into another language, then either back into English or into yet another language and then back to English. The result can be hilarious, as when I put in something about my cat flopping over on the bed and how she likes to nurse on our arms. These banal statements became "She fa...
February 27, 2013
Some Not-So-Intuitive Holiday Observances
Though I am not in any way religious, it always strikes me how odd Easter celebrations are. I know perfectly why we celebrate the resurrection of a messiah with chocolate bunnies and Cadbury "Death" Eggs. Nevertheless, it causes me to think of all the odd ways we celebrate ancient holidays. For instance:Holiday - Commemoration - How We Celebrate
Easter - Death and resurrection of Jesus - We eat chocolate eggs and rabbits
Christmas - the birth of God made flesh - We max out our credit cards
Hanuk...
February 25, 2013
Not a Lie Not Misrepresentation Simply Not Intended To Be a Factual Statement
As a purveyor of entertaining fictions, I was fascinated to hear what his staffers said about Jon Kyl's statement that Planned Parenthood spent 90% of their time performing abortions. They said, and I quote, what Kyl said "was not intended as a factual statement". However you feel about the issue, it might boggle the mind that inaccuracy is somehow OK.But I got to thinking, here we are, we novelists, forced to jump through hoops on the copyright page of our novels, with...
February 23, 2013
February 19, 2013
Full and Partial Decapitations
Originally published on 11/11/08.... on book covers, that is.
Since most of the books I read come in anonymous little green boxes, it has only been since doing medieval-novels.com that I have become aware of a disturbing practice.. book covers that cut off all or part of a person's head.
To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, what is that all about? I just looked at Sandra Worth's new novel, The King's Daughter, and there is Elizabeth of York with the top of her head missing.
I mean you expect this sort...
