[wpvideo U4P9X9dm] I thought I’d try a different media. This video was made by my friend Allan Joyner of Allan Joyner Productions. The music is by Schola Magdalena . The thoughts are almost entirely my own. And by the way, I’m all to aware of the many inaccuracies the camera catches, despite all of our […]
Archives for May 2015
Writing about Craftspeople — Aurora Simmons
Aurora SImmons It is not all about weapons and armour. Alright, I know a few of you are reeling in shock, but honestly, the recreation of the past doesn’t actually require weapons and armour at all, and fascinating as some of us may find martial arts, tactics and strategies and the material culture of conflict, […]
Pen and Sword Tour II
Last year, fifteen intrepid readers (seventeen at one point, but that’s a long story) joined me in Athens and spent eleven days touring mainland Greece. This is us at the Lion Gate at Mycenae. Look, I’m biased, but it was incredible. For about ten years, my friend Aliki Hamosfakidou of Dolphin Hellas had egged me […]
Writing about Fighting: Practice and Exercise
You must be asking yourself what this fourteen year old ballerina has to do with martial arts, fighting, and history? In fact, I suspect that almost everyone who swings a sword or reenacts can stop reading. I suspect that everyone trained in any sport or physical art can look at this young woman, and guess […]
Robin Carter (Parmenion) Guest Blog
Why Historical fiction? My journey to become a reader of Historical Fiction is one that started firmly rooted in Fantasy. My early reading of series such as Narnia (The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe etc.) began my exploits in all things magical, before I entered the teenage wasteland and stopped reading for a few […]
Good History Writing — In Praise of Ben Kane
http://www.benkane.net/ I love Ben Kane’s books. I look forward to them eagerly; I get them in hardcover; I’ll eventually meet him and get some of them signed. (Getting all of them signed seems unlikely, given the decline in international baggage allowance and my near-constant need to get armour into my baggage. A problem that I […]
