If you must see what a Roman shield looked like, a Victorian kitchen, a 1940s nurse, or 1800s Chinese furniture, an image search helps. Also, I...
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Blog Posts by Michal Strutin
Paper Lantern Writers 5 Best Fashion Blogs
Fashion signals to readers a time period, region of the world, and station in life—all without saying a word. We may look back on historical periods...
Summer Reading: Best All-Time Historical Novels
Summer implies languorous days reading “take me away” books: under an umbrella at the beach, on a blanket next to a lake, in a lounge chair in your...
Adventure by Foot, Coach, and Ship
THE CHARACTERS IN MY FICTION travel about in their world. Could it be because I like to travel? Absolutely. Travel runs through my fiction because...
Music: the Universal Language
Taiko drummers Music is elemental. Music soothes us, it lifts us up when we’re down, and takes us higher when we’re up. Music makes us want to dance...
Judging Noa: a Fight for Women’s Rights in the Turmoil of the Exodus
Small Presses & Hybrid Publishing
From the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) website In December, I posted Author Wonk 1: “Writing a Query, Finding an Agent.” You need an agent...
The Ideal Woman – Who Sez?
The topic for this month’s blogs is “The Ideal Woman.” What? Ideal? What ideal? If you have the same reaction, we’re good to go. A devout Sumerian...
Historically Accurate Movies
Master and Commander During the worst of Covid, when vaccines were new and many of us were nervously venturing out, I organized a family...
Writing a Query, Finding an Agent
Getting to the top of the slush pile… December is the month for holidays. It’s also the month to fill in your Excel sheet with the agents...
Holiday Gift & Beverage Guides
THE DECEMBER SOLSTICE, when the northern hemisphere is dark and cold – what could be better than a holiday full of light and good cheer? A lit and...
Homes for the Holidays
Before December arrives, the people who preserve historic homes go into high gear. Lights and more lights, Christmas trees to fit any room,...
Luminous Istanbul: City of Dreams
Hagia Sophia, Salvator Barki/Getty Images Whenever friends returned from a trip to Istanbul—whether spending a week or a month—they always said, “We...
Books & Coffee: a Love Story
Find a book that calls to you, purchase, then sit down with coffee and a pastry or light lunch and lose yourself in reading. A bookstore café: pure...
Fashions for the Ages
I’m wearing cotton pants, a lightweight Smartwool shirt, and Rainbow sandals as I write this. My uniform. Fashion-forward? No. But comfortable. When...
Historical Fashion: the Worldly and the Weird
I didn’t have to do much clothing research for Judging Noa: a Fight for Women’s Rights in the Turmoil of the Exodus. About 3500 years ago,...
How We Traveled
PEOPLE SAY “now that we have global markets…” We’ve always had global markets. People have been trading since prehistoric times, even earlier....
Writing Process: Beyond Butt-in-Chair
The Prime Directive Who is your audience? Write for them. Where do ideas come from? When I let my mind wander, ideas may bubble up. Often,...
Food, Glorious Food : a Taste of History
In historical fiction, sex may be seductive, combat thrilling, but food is always a draw: from peasant staples to sumptuous feasts. Since people...
American History: Libraries Light the Way
It’s National Library Week, and I’m a librarian. Considering what’s going on in the world and the fact that my father and his family came here from...
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