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I came back from a quick visit to London last week. I packed a lot into a very short time, including a visit to the Regency Town House in Brighton--I blogged about it last week at the Riskies, where today I'm blogging about my newest favorite place in London, the excellent and fabulous Fan Museum in Greenwich. But while I was there I blatantly played tourist by going on a London Walk of Mayfair --something I've never done before. A couple of other Americans talked the entire time about some poor woman in their town whose ears must have been burning and I took (mostly dreadful) photos. The walk was pretty good, but obviously previous walkers were fascinated by London real estate so a lot of the information given was about house prices (ridiculously high). Mayfair was originally the site of a fifteen-day May Fair, renowned for its rowdiness and finally banned in 1708. Architect/developer Edward Shepherd was commissioned to develop the area and by the mid-eighteenth century com

My good friend and critique partner, Penny Williamson, and I just got back from our annual spring trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival . It’s wonderful going to the theater with a good friend who’s also a writer. I've found some wonderful literary inspiration on visits to Ashland, Oregon--the allusion to Othello which sets the theme in Chapter 1 of Secrets of a Lady , the Hamlet references running through Beneath a Silent Moon , the question "whom do you identify with in Julius Caesar ?" which runs through the as yet unpublished The Mask of Night . This trip was no exception in the literary inspiration department. Between performances Penny and I indulged in some of our favorite activities--we walked, shopped, lingered over meals at favorite restaurants, and analyzed the plays. The plays were a rich and wonderful mix. One favorite was Equivocation , a world premiere by Bill Cain in which William Shakespeare is commissioned (or rather commanded by King James’s right-

Pam’s comments on a recent post had me thinking all weekend . . . There is a trend in historical romance (or so it seems to me) for heroines to be crusading do-gooders, or at the very least to be overly aware of the myriad of horrors that lurk behind the everyday commonalities of life and commer ce and production. This awareness on their part seems to be in direct contradiction to historical reality and even to modern reality. When I’ve discussed this issue with friends (of both the reader and the writerly persuasion) I get a response that I find quite curious: they think that having characters highlight the dark side of life back then by being reformers makes the character more accessible for a 21st century reader. I like to counter by asking if they felt a lack of connection with the women on Sex in the City or Desperate House Wives because they don’t obsess about the factories full of women (and yes, they’re almost all women, practically girls) who spend 9/10 hours a day sewing thei

My romantic fantasy of veiled woman in Arabic tradition as mysterious and intriguing figures has suffered a “reality split” from current studies of Middle East cultures. The cold hard truth is that my romantic fantasy was... a romantic fantasy. Islamic law is based on previous Arab tradition , which unfortunately denied women most of their basic rights. The belief that women are inferior to men, and that they need men to protect them, underlies not only the Koran, but the collection of other religious scholars’ writings. Such writings are consulted, in varying degrees, by the ulama , or venerated religious judges, and this explains the variations in interpretation–from conservative (using the Koran only) to more liberal (using additional learned writings as supplements). Picture, if you will, the 20th century Congregationalist and the Born-Again Christian interpretations of the Bible. The coming of Islam did improve the overall status of women in specific areas, even though many

A lot of vampires this year. I mean discussion of vampires (though since it was Anne Rice's home town you never know) at the annual meeting of the PCA/ACA (Popular and American Culture Association) last week in New Orleans. And of course a whole lot of discussion on romance novels, including presentations from fellow hoyden Lauren Willig and myself, on panels sponsored by the Romance Subject Area of this scholarly organization. All a little bit new to me, since although I'd signed up for last year's PCA in San Francisco the conference wound up conflicting with my Amazing Three-Week Revision-turned-Rewrite of The Edge of Impropriety , so all I did was limp in to deliver a limp presentation and limp back home to the computer. Other than which my conference-going has been mainly limited to Romance Writers of America's annual national extravaganza and (deep in my past) a few extramural meetings of software developers. But I do know enough to predict a few inevitabilities re

Have you ever "met" a character you created? This phenomenon has occurred twice so far in my writing career. In my debut contemporary novel, Miss Match , a romantic comedy, I created the character of a self-important actor, Rick Byron, whose career was built on the shaky foundation of a megawatt smile rather than any discernable theatrical talent. In my mind, he physically resembled a hybrid of two "himbo" actors who began their careers in the '80s and who have had remarkable staying power, not just on the screen, but because of their respective tabloid-fodder marriages. The sandy hair, that killer grin ... and then, one night I caught an episode of one of America's most popular reality shows ... you know the one--where young people of limited vocal skills bend notes into pretzels in the hopes of winning a recording contract. And there on the television screen, hosting the show, was the character I had written. The eeriest thing about seeing a very credible

This will not be a long post because you are the source of information for this research project. I’ve been writing a long time and have always worked in silence. In silence, if you do not count the phone ringing, the lawn being mowed, trucks delivering stuff which means the doorbell sounding. But I digress. For years I have written in silence but that seems to be changing. As of three days ago I am writing with music in the background. I started with the soundtrack from the movie LAST OF THE MOHEGAN and then moved on to Respighi and even some Enya which, though I enjoy her music, did not inspire me in any way. Actually Enya’s music made me seriously consider a nap. So here are the questions for the day. Do you write in silence or with music? Do you use the music to inspire emotion in your writing or to motivate you to keep writing? If you use music, would you be willing to share your favorites? And while I am on the subject of change. Has anyone checked out Twitter? I am having great

Call me a morbid historian, but I have always been interested in old cemeteries---there's a civil war cemetery close by and I stopped one day when city docents were hosting tours. The group had put together a booklet with the actual obituaries on some 25 of people who were buried there. This interesting booklet recorded the lives of the pioneers and soldiers and everyday folk who lived outside of San Fransisco in the late 1800's. As one reads, it is easy to feel the joys and the sorrow the successes and failures, the dreams and tragedies of people we will never know. Newspaper obituaries of the time were surprisingly uncensored in their accounts of the worth of the person, the way they died and how they were grieved---or not. There was no such thing as political correctness, that's for sure. These obituaries are preachy, prejudiced, judgmental, sentimental, and heartfelt. Deaths were described in graphic detail as were the personal habits and personalities of the recently

As I've mentioned in prior blogs, a lot of my nonwriting time is spent working as a board member of the Merola Opera Program , a training program for opera singers, coach accompanists, and stage directors. On March 28, we had our annual Spring Benefit fundraiser. This event is about as close I get to the parties and balls that are so important in many of our novels. I got my hair done (with a ceramic curling iron rather than metal tongs heated in an Agrand lamp); I helped with decorations (laying out Silent Auction items rather than arranging flowers and lighting wax tapers); I scrambled into my dress and helped do up the hooks on friends' dresses (in a hotel room not a boudoir in someone's Mayfair town house); sipped champagne (some things never change); filled a supper plate from a buffet (artichoke ravioli rather than lobster patties); listened to a wonderful concert (some of which, Mozart, might have actually been performed at an entertainment in one of my books); and

I have a thing for old photographs. I have piles and piles of them from my own family (including the fabulous ones of my great-great-aunt and uncle who were trapeze artists for Barnum and Bailey). But I love random ones too. There’s something about the faces and scenes that inspires me, intrigues me, makes me want to know more (even if I have to make it up). One of my favorite sites for this kind of thing is Shorpy . It’s an amazing collection of vintage photographs, scanned in at VERY high resolution. I think my all-time favorite pic on the site is the one shown here, Women auto racers. Miss Elinor Blevins, c. 1915 . Check out that smile. The mud-splattered spats. The fur gloves and the wonderfully dented racer. This is a woman I want to know more about. A woman I want to write about. A woman I wish I could have actually known! She’s certainly inspiration for a heroine (even if mine might have to drive a curricle and four instead of that fabulous automobile). When authors say that eve