history

What a beautiful May morning...clouding over now. The celebration of May Day has its roots in astronomy, celebrating the half-way point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. It is worth noting that this half way point occurs at 15 degrees of Taurus exactly half way between 0...

Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it. John Hersey

Some people are going to leave a mark on this world, while others will leave a stain. Eleanor Roosevelt

Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance. Will Durant

No one ever became extremely wicked suddenly. Juvenal

Writing In The Stupid Age Anne Haverty Dec 05, 2024 Essay This is the text of the 2024 Stinging Fly lecture, which was delivered at the United Arts Club in Dublin on October 23rd 2024. I tried to resist calling this lecture Writing in the Stupid Age. It’s going to be misunderstood, I was...

A long time ago, I was talking to a history writer and author of many books - all with great titles. I asked him how he came up with them and he told me that none of his proposals had titles. What I never did was ask him how he pulled that off. Is there anybody doing that today? How could you?

"We got more rabbit than Sainsbury's" - well, writers, innit. The Chinese Year of the Rabbit (兔年 tùnián) Celebrated this new year throughout the Far East, we enter the Year of the Rabbit. This is a year of the black rabbit. Black represents the element of water in Chinese astrology. The...

Hello everyone. My name is Eifion (A Welsh name pronounced; Aevion). I've just finished writing my first historic novel, set in Late Pre-Roman Iron Age Britain, leading up to and including Julius Caesar's 1st foray to these islands in 55 BC. I look forward to sharing the obsession that is...

My W.I.P is set in 16th Century Tudor England and I find myself not only seeking out appropriate language for my characters but also writing with words that have existed since the 1500s. It feels right to do so, but I wonder if I am making more work for myself, or perhaps even dating the tale...