Video: Underwater Archaeology: Excavating the Nile with Dr. Hawass

Read more about it at Heritage Key.

One Historical Story and Two Historical Films

Thursday after my Intermediate Fiction class ended, one of the other students approached me and asked if I would be able to read the rough draft of her story and critique it. She was deeply impressed by my previous story (the Holocaust one that I blogged about earlier) and, since she doesn’t expect a ton of valuable feedback from her small group, she asked for my feedback as well. Actually, she said she would be “honored” if I would look at her story. Apparently I’m more susceptible to flattery than I thought, because I agreed to critique it for her. (Just kidding, just kidding. She did say she would be honored if I looked at her story, and I could tell she was completely serious. And I have no problem helping other writers with their stories.)

I also went down to the public library and checked out the movies Defiance and Love in the Time of Cholera. I’m going to watch them because they are similar in some ways to two of the novel ideas I have, and I want to pick up a few tips. So sometime this week I’ll be kicking back and enjoying a couple of historical films. Have you ever watched them before? What did you think of them? I’ll try to post a review of each.

Literary or Historical? Or Both?

Today I got feedback from my small group members on the rough (rough, rough, rough) draft of the next short story I’m writing for Intermediate Fiction. I originally planned it as a straight-up literary story, but I should have known myself better than that. My stories are usually literary, but rarely do they ever take place outside an historical setting. So when I rewrite the final draft for the workshop, it’s going to be set during the Great Depression rather than modern times.

And then I started thinking about other historical fiction that is also literary. (And how as much as I love writing and reading historical, I would greatly resent being pigeonholed into that category.) Off the top of my head I can’t think of many historical-literary novels or stories. If the book is anything like the movie, The Egyptian is one. Ben-Hur is probably another. I want to say that The Once and Future King is as well, but I haven’t read that since I was ten or eleven. Most of the other “literary” historical novels that I can think of are old classics like Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. Maybe it’s time for me to revive the genre.

Today’s Workshop

So, my short story finally got workshopped today in my Intermediate Fiction class. It was supposed to have been workshopped last Thursday, but the professor was out of town and the TA was teaching, so some people apparently thought it was okay for them to skip. Which resulted in only about five or six people showing up who had actually read the story. We postponed the workshop until today, although there still were surprisingly few people in class.

Partisans in the Vilnius Ghetto

The story is about the Jewish partisans in Poland during World War II. The main focus is on two of the partisans, a Jewish doctor and a Jewish woman escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto. Both emotionally scarred by the Nazi Holocaust, they grow attached despite taking a dislike to each other.

Anyway, the response was quite positive. I always get very nervous before a workshop and find a million little things wrong with my story. This time was no different, of course, but then I got to relax as everyone said lots of nice things and made very helpful suggestions. A few people even said it was their favorite student story so far this semester! The story in question is a reworking of a short story that I wrote when I was sixteen. I later tried to turn it into a novel but had a great deal of difficulty, so I tried it as a short story again for this class. Several people mentioned that it seemed like it should be a novel or part of a novel, the story was so big.  Back to the old drawing board, I guess!

The “Historical” Arthur

Listening to: The Notebook soundtrack

Reading: The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth

In my medieval Arthurian lit class, we’ve moved on from Malory to the early historical and pseudo-historical documents about the Arthur figure. Rather disappointingly, Arthur under that name doesn’t appear in any of the earliest documents. Instead there’s some guy named Ambrosius Aurelianus who is the son of noble Romano-British parents. Basically he’s a warlord who drives the Saxons out of Britain. The end. No Merlin, no Guinevere or Lancelot, no sword in the stone. I’m crushed.

Of course I already knew that the “historical Arthur” (if he ever existed at all) bore very little resemblance to the mythical Arthur. But get this: Arthur and Merlin seem to have both been at least partially from the same figure of Ambrosius Aurelianus. How’s that for mind-boggling? I’d love to explore that in my writing. For now, does anyone have any recommendations of good “historical Arthur” novels?

Podcast on Akhenaten

The BBC has a podcast on Akhenaten that you can listen to. For those of you who are unfamiliar with ancient Egypt, Akhenaten was the infamous pharaoh who abolished the old polytheistic religion, established the worship of one god (the sun disc Aten), and built the new capital of Amarna literally in the middle of nowhere. To the average Joe on the street, Akhenaten is probably better known as the husband of Nefertiti and the (probable) father of King Tut.

The Amarna Period has always been the era of ancient Egyptian history that has fascinated me the most. Ancient Egypt in general and the Amarna Period in particular feature prominently in my fiction, whether the setting is a modern dig or the ancient time itself. I was originally an Egyptology major at the American University in Cairo, although I wimped out after just one semester, unable to handle the stress of living alone in such and extremely foreign country right out of high school. But AUC is finally starting up a grad program in Egyptology, so I will be going back in two years after completing my undergrad degree, if all goes well.

Favorite Historical Novels

Here’s a list of my (current) favorite historical novels, in no particular order.  Have you read any of these? What are your favorite historical fiction titles?

• Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody series – Seriously, Elizabeth Peters just plain rocks my Egypt-obsessed socks; she has a PhD in Egyptology from the University of Chicago. Also check out her related Vicky Bliss series.
• Mara: Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw – Wonderful older novel about Hatshepsut and Thutmose III.
• Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt: A Novel by Anne Rice – A year in the life of the Child Jesus, as told by Jesus himself.
• Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana: A Novel by Anne Rice – Again told by Jesus, this sequel to Out of Egypt chronicles the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry at the age of 30.
• Pharaoh’s Daughter: A Novel of Ancient Egypt by Julius Lester – I’ve read my copy literally to pieces and need to buy a new one. The story of Moses (called Mosis in the book) as told by a fictional older sister and himself.
• Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace – This novel is an historical fiction classic. A must read.

A Muslim in King Arthur’s Court

In my medieval Arthurian literature class we’re reading Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, the famous 15th-century composite of King Arthur legends.  Malory’s work is where we get most of our ideas of what “classic” King Arthur stories are like: the sword in the stone, the quest for the Holy Grail, the Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot triangle.  Later on we’re going to be reading the earliest King Arthur material, which is quite different.

The character in Malory that fascinates me the most is Sir Palomydes, an unbaptized “Saracen” who is a night of the Round Table.  His two brothers (and presumably his mother) have all been baptized already, but Palomydes wants to hold off on baptism until he wins seven battles for Christ.  We never really do find out what constitutes a “battle for Christ” or how many he fights (presumably all seven) but his friend and sometimes foe Sir Tristan has him baptized eventually.

I’m fascinated by Palomydes because he is such an exotic and unusual character in the story.  He’s Muslim, from the Middle East, and sincerely believes in Jesus, yet he won’t be baptized.  How is he different from his brothers?  What motivates him?  What is his background?

I’m fascinated by many obscure characters and aspects of history and legend.  How did the Jewish partisans survive during the Holocaust, and what motivated them?  What was Mozart’s sister Nannerl like?  What was the Virgin Mary thinking and feeling during Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection?  What happened during Jesus’ “hidden years”?  Why did Hatshepsut proclaim herself pharaoh?  And so on.

Stress and Writing

Some writers do very well under stress. I…do not.  My parents are going through a very messy divorce right now due to my father’s unrepentant adultery. Today he sent me an email that basically tried to blackmail me into accepting his behavior and his mistress. He implied that if I didn’t do so, he would no longer give me the allowance he normally does. I basically replied that I didn’t want his money on those (or any) terms, and that I wasn’t going to let him use my ethics against me. But being treated that way by my own father has upset me so much that I’m having difficulty writing again. I’ll try to have posts up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

How to Make the Most Out of a Writer’s Conference

Agent Chip MacGregor has a couple of guest posts from Chuck Sambuchino (of the Guide to Literary Agents Blog). They’re about how to make the most out of a writer’s conference:

Part I

Part II