My Darling Sharon
This is going to be a little raw. I hope you'll forgive me. In the summer of 2012, my wife was directing me in Richard III at the Michigan Shakespeare Festival, flipping the script from twelve years earlier when I had directed her in the show. I was playing King...
Discovered! The Lost Novels Of Nellie Bly!
It was the first day of December, 2019, and like Alice, I was down a rabbit hole. I was working on a short-story follow-up to What Girls Are Good For, my 2018 novel following the early career of groundbreaking undercover reporter Nellie Bly. My new story took place...
Why I Won’t Publish Nellie Bly’s Racist Novel
When I found the treasure trove of novels by Nellie Bly hidden in the pages of the London Story Paper, I did not start transcribing them in their chronological order. Instead I farmed out the most legible ones to friends while reserving the hardest to discern to myself, postponing the transcribing of the middle-ground ones, neither illegible or perfectly clear.
This was fortunate, because it left her seventh novel, for the end of the queue.
I had finished nine of her novels when I started transcribing and editing Dolly. Instantly, I knew I had a problem on my hands.
Recent Posts
More Amusing Links
Sarah just indirectly reminded me that I've got a new list of interesting ways people have found this blog. Of course, "David Blixt" & "Master of Verona" are the most often searched terms. And in the last 24 hours I've had a lot of hits thanks...
Dexter
Today the boxed set for DEXTER arrives on DVD. For anyone who hasn't seen this Showtime original series, go out and pick it up. Grisly? Yes. Disturbing? Yes. Funny? Yes. Michael C. Hall is the most sympathetic, cuddly, and moving serial killer in history. I've read...
First Book Trailer
Yesterday I tried my hand at a little video-creation. Book trailers are all the rage at the moment. I think they're a little silly (though some, I admit, are quite cool). Still, I'm all about bandwagons, especially ones that have to do with viral marketing. So, here...
NPR Interview
Forgot to mention this at the time - had a lot going on - but I did an interview with Scott Pohl for WKAR in Lansing, just before the book came out. We also discussed the Michigan Shakespeare Festival, but the reason the interview happened was the book. Here's the...
Dear Ewa
This is a directed message, in the hopes that it will reach a particluar person. Just now I received a lovely e-mail from the translator of THE MASTER OF VERONA in Polish, for the publisher Philip Wilson. Her name is Ewa, and she says she had "a ball, though...
Text Stats
Okay, this I love. Wander over to the www.amazon.com page, and check out the Text Stats and Concordance features near the bottom of the page. Hy-ster-i-cal. My favorite: Words per Dollar: 11,166 Words per Ounce: 6,603 That's over 11,000 words per buck, folks! What a...
Pronunciation Guide and Update
This is something I should have posted a long time ago - a guide to how to say some of the names. I'll save the more esoteric ones for later. Right now, let's focus on the leads: Cangrande della Scala -- kahn-GRAHN-day DELL-ah SKAH-la Scaliger, Scaligeri...
Foy
One of my favorite compliments so far has been from someone whose name you probably don't know - Fritz Foy. He wrote me to say that he thinks MV is one of the best reads of the year. Why is that give me the warm fuzzies? Because he's Fred Foy's son. People from my...
One week later….
...and I'm just beginning to emerge from the chaos. Fun chaos, but still. This weekend was made doubly weird by the Shakespeare Festival. Two shows Saturday, one Sunday. But less than three hours before the Sunday matinee, John (the artistic director) called to say...
More Interviews
Since Monday I've had five more requests for interviews. Already one of them has taken place and been posted. It's over at historicalboys, a site run by fellow historical novelist C.W. Gortner. In his enthusiasm to aid a comrade-in-arms, he's given me a great deal of...
