One of the joys of leafing through the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue is running across slang expressions and figures of speech still in use today that you would never guess were particularly old…but as it turns out, are. Here’s a list of the ones I’ve run across, along with their definitions as listed …
This question from the Catholic Writers Conference dealt with how I handled the complicated subject of heresy. Q: Have you ever had a story dictate you portray heresy or sin sympathetically? How did you handle it? The protagonists of The Mer Cycle trilogy were considered heretics by the religious institutions they challenged. Both the orthodox …
We’re all surrounded by a cloud of vocabulary. The words you know well, that you use daily, float nearby, coming easily to the hand. This is the great barrier to learning a foreign language. Vocabulary is why I’ll never be fluent in Chinese or French; my cloud of French or Chinese nouns and verbs is …
If anyone in the 19th century was going to celebrate Christmas in a truly outstanding fashion, you know that person had to be Queen Victoria, who more than anyone helped popularize the holiday and set its traditions in stone (or fruitcake). But how, exactly, did she celebrate December 25? To answer that question, I did …
Q: Do you agree that religion influences culture? Does culture influence religion? If so, how much do or should you take that into consideration while preparing your book? I think religion is at the heart of what we call culture. Our world culture is so steeped in religious principle that there’s no way to separate it …
Greetings, World-builders! Here is another question from a group of Catholic writers at an online conference I spoke at several times as a non-Catholic guest. Today’s question deals with common elements in religion. Q: What are the common elements of all religions, and how do you decide what to keep and what to discard when …
Originally published 2018 First, a word about semantics. And modifiers. My initial title for this blog modified ‘Inventors’ with ‘Female’. Then as I thought more about the necessity of having to add ‘female’ as a modifier to certain nouns generally biased toward males, i.e., female doctors, female pilots, female engineers, I decided against it. Aren’t …
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: CHAZ BRENCHLEY, Part 2 Interviewed by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel Part 1 of this interview appeared here at the Book View Cafe last week, October 13 2023 His writing is lush and evocative, but there’s something primal about the work of Chaz Brenchley. Whether he’s himself, Daniel Fox, Ben Macallan, or any of …
Today’s question from the Catholic Writers Conference Q&A deals with projecting historical religions into the future given the pluralistic nature of global society. For any readers who are new to the series, I was actually the only participant who wasn’t from a Christian denomination (I’m a Baha’i). Here’s the question: Q: How do you deal …
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Author Interview: Chaz Brenchley Interviewed by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel His writing is lush and evocative, but there’s something primal about the work of Chaz Brenchley. Whether he’s himself, Daniel Fox, Ben Macallan, or any of several other possible people, Chaz writes about obsession and transformation, families and friendships, identity and alienation. His characters start …
Originally published January 2010 by Phyllis Irene Radford Last week I talked about some of my favorite cozy mysteries. This week I offer some of my other favorite books from the last year. My research reading ranges far and wide. Huge sections of it, though, revolve around British History. Here are a few of the …
Originally Published April, 2018 by Jill Zeller I’ve set myself a goal—get out another historical by the end of summer. It’s going well, so far. But I can’t do daily word counts. It’s like weighing myself. I don’t want to know the numbers, because it’s just depressing. Just as I can judge weight fluctuations by …
The question I fielded about literary license in a Q&A in a Catholic Writers Conference I participated in as a non-Catholic guest, (I’m a Baha’i) led to this follow-up question about projecting the flaws of a religion. Q: How can you project the flaws, conflicts, or other “warts” of a religion (particularly your religion) without …
