Ciji Ware's Blog, page 6

Writers’ Conferences 101

Fall and spring in pretty places–that’s pretty much the routine when it comes to holding writers’ conferences, and the Scribblers’ Retreat is no exception!  Held quarterly, the next one is November 10-14  at the King and Prince Beach and Golf Resort –shown here–on gorgeous St. Simons Island, Georgia and will feature historical novelists like Diana Gabaldon and yours truly, along with my publisher, Dominique Riccah, CEO of Sourcebooks. I just got the promotional material that kindly said:  ”Ciji Ware,  veteran of... Read More...

Booksellers, Historical Fiction, & "Hand-Selling"

I remember walking into the (now) 83-year-old independent Tecolote Bookshop in Montecito, California–seen here hosting Thomas Steinbeck at a signing–to show them the galleys for the first edition of A Cottage by the Sea.  My favorite member of the small sales force peered at the title and then suddenly clutched the Advanced Reader's Copy to her bosom and said with a sigh, "Oooooh, a cottage by the sea…every woman's fantasy!"
I was extremely gratified to hear this as I was in... Read More...

Word Wenches

Last week, a great writer pal of mine, Mary Jo Putney, seen here at left, asked if I would "guest blog" on a great site for historical and romance novel buffs:  Word Wenches.  MJ and some other terrific scribes like Jo Beverly and Patricia Rice have been posting their musings, thoughts, notions, and passionate opinions about their work and the writer's craft for a couple of years, now, and are considered among the best practitioners of the blogging craft... Read More...

Wicked Company Should be a Movie!

On October 1, Wicked Company is about to have a new life as a nice, juicy trade paperback, courtesy of my publishers, Sourcebooks Landmark, but really, truly, I think one day it should be a movie on a large screen, in full color, and powered by THX sound!
I hold this opinion not merely because I'm proud of this historical novel–which I am, of course– but because, when I did the research, the images I found in the depths of the Huntington... Read More...

Can Readers Love a "Flawed" Hero?

When I was first conjuring the characters in Wicked Company and mulling over how I would weave both fictional and historical figures into the story of an 18th c.  woman playwright fighting to get her works written and performed at London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, I thought about some of the men of that era whose lives clearly could be fodder for a novelist's imagination and well as an historian's.
Take the 18th c. poet Robert Burns, for example, who figured... Read More...

Outfoxing "That Little Toad!" Edward Capell, Censor

There is nothing more delicious for an historical novelist than to run across a generally unknown figure in history who is a person to be thoroughly disliked, as with Edward Capell, an 18th c. play censor in the Crown of England's Lord Chamberlain's office.
From all accounts, he had a very high opinion of his own intellect–perhaps deservedly so, as he was considered an expert on the works of Shakespeare and was often asked to authenticate various manuscripts.  However, he held... Read More...

A "Petticoat Playwright" Wannabe

In the late 1980's, just about the time I had finished researching and writing my first historical novel, Island of the Swans, I stumbled across a reference to a minor character I'd included in the book , the sister of the heroine, Jane Maxwell, 4th Duchess of Gordon (1749-1812).  I discovered that the duchess's younger sibling, Eglantine, Lady Wallace, not only enjoyed playing the harp for guests in her home, as you see here, but also penned three plays.
One, The... Read More...