Dangerous Expectations – Writing Shakespeare
Playing the expectations game is dangerous. You rewrite Romeo & Juliet, you’d best bring something new to the table. You write about the fall of Jerusalem, there had better be something uplifting in that awful story. And if you write a novel about William...
Comic Books – Superman Myths That Began On Radio
10 Pieces Of Superman’s Lore That Started On Radio In addition to Shakespeare, Dante, and Nellie Bly, I am also a comic book aficionado. As such, I am always fascinated on how stories change and transform between mediums. In this case, the cross-pollination of comic...
Shakespeare – A Wordsmith For All Seasons
Shakespeare: A Wordsmith For All Seasons Shakespeare's unmatched linguistic prowess allowed him to coin and popularize a staggering number of words. It's estimated that he introduced around 1,700 words to the English language—at least, his plays are the first recorded...
Recent Posts
Review Round-Up
Well well well. Haven't done one of these in awhile! Of course, there are now more and more reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and Librarything to be explored. But for those coming from blogs all across the interwebs, it's nice to have a place where one can...
Free Copy of Colossus: Stone & Steel – TODAY ONLY!
Today you can nab a free copy of the first book in the Colossus series, Stone & Steel. It's set in the year 66 AD, and it shows the ingiting events of the Roman/Jewish War that ended with the destruction of Jerusalem. And did I mention - it's free! Check...
Today Only – Free Short Stories!
A special Thusday gift - Today only, my collection of Verona short stories VARNISH'D FACES is free on Amazon Kindle! It fills in a few gaps in THE MASTER OF VERONA and VOICE OF THE FALCONER, while teasing the prologue of FORTUNE'S FOOL. Why not check it out?...
The Secret to Fighting
I get a lot of compliments for my battle scenes. Which is lovely, as they’re some of the most fun and challenging for me to write. I come from the theatre, and among the hats I wear in my professional life is Fight Director. I’m trained in different styles of...
Blessed & Cursed
I have the dubious distinction of having been both thrown out of the Vatican, and blessed by the Pope. Though not on the same day. The Vatican Incident (a good Robert Ludlum title) happened while I was on a semester abroad with Eastern Michigan University’s...
Guest Post – Jan Blixt and Coffee with the Count
In THE MASTER OF VERONA, the title ‘Count’ is reserved for my villain, the historical Count of San Bonifacio. But if I were to mention the Count to my wife, she would respond with a smile and a joke about pouring coffee. She tells this story so much better than I do....
It’s a Many Splendid Thing
HER MAJESTY’S WILL is many things. It’s a spy novel. It’s a Tudor novel. It’s a Shakespeare novel. It’s my (unintentional) answer to the film Anonymous. It’s a little Tom Jones (both the novel and the film). It’s an ode to the late Robert Asprin’s Myth...
The Numbers Game
So - I’ve got five books out now. 4 of them are brand new. 4 of them have to do with Shakespeare. 4 are set during the Renaissance. 3 of them are set in Italy. 3 of them have good titles. 2 of them are sequels. 1 is a comedy. 1 is about heartbreak, of almost achieving...
Future Will & Kit Titles
I'm already getting requests for more Will & Kit, which is just what I was secretly hoping for. I wrote it as a stand-alone, a fun romp through Shakespeare's lost years, taking a silly premise and just having fun. As I've said before, I was grinning...
Crowdsourcing Typos
One of the things that drove me mad over the printed editions of THE MASTER OF VERONA was that there were typos. I take typos as a personal affront, a judgment on my character, a deep failing. Reading, they make me crazy. So the fact that not only myself, but an...
