On my research trip in the summer of 2023 I followed Chaucer’s footsteps from London to Bordeaux to Navarre, Rioja and Castile. Along the way I learned some fascinating facts and details that helped me finish The Storyteller’s War: Geoffrey Chaucer, Reluctant Spy (to be released May 8, 2025). 2.The Three Cranes Wharf in London’s …
Read more “November 30, 2024 – 20 Things I Learned Following Chaucer’s Footsteps”
Back in Vancouver and now finally processing my time at the Kauai Writers Conference over the past few days. My goal was to build my tribe – job done. Met some great people in my “Lessons from Historical Fiction” masterclass with Priya Parmar, and also met many writers with varying degrees of interesting stories in …
Read more “November 19, 2024 – Epiphanies at the Kauai Writers Conference”
This Friday I make the trek across the land (a few kilometres east) and water (the Fraser River) to the Surrey International Writers’ Conference (SiWC). I’ve been attending since 2018 and I can’t wait to go back. I am staying at the hotel as the time there is, for me, mostly about reconnecting with other …
Read more “October 22, 2024 – The Fall writing festival season is about to begin”
Be not a fliperous fleak nor a chitty-faced blore Writing a novel is hard. Writing a historical novel is another layer of hard because of the research required to build the world of the time you write in. I write in the 14th century, about Chaucer’s life and writing. A few years ago I had …
Read more “October 12, 2024 – Beware the dreaded historical anachronism”
The genesis for my upcoming novel The Storyteller’s War lies in research. We know quite a lot about Chaucer – certainly more than Shakespeare, who lived 200 hundred years later – because there are numerous records of the work Chaucer did over his nearly 40-year career with the crown. These records were compiled for the …
In 2019 I travelled to Tuscany to do research for The Storyteller’s Reputation, the first novel in the Storyteller series about Chaucer’s life and writing. Chaucer’s father John Chaucer imported Vernaccia wine from the area southwest of Florence for King Edward the Third. It was known as the wine of kings and popes, was mentioned …
Read more “April 15, 2024 – Well worth the wait (opening the Vernaccia)”
Attending the Kauai Writing Conference was a much needed shot in the arm of positivity and hope after a dark period. Partly because I was stressed and tired from work and needed some R&R. Partly because I was losing my motivation to write. Kauai, Hawaii I was on Oahu last November and came across a …
Wednesday/Thursday, June 7-8 I committed to attending the Historical Novel Society North America Conference back in February when three writers from my online historical fiction writing group at Creative Academy agreed to meet in person there. I’d seen two of them last fall at the Surrey International Writing Conference and found those in person connections …
Caught a morning flight from Barcelona to Stansted Airport and then the Express Train to Liverpool Station, then caught the Tube to Notting Hill and a hotel just north of Kensington Gardens. Which meant I had come home to where I had lived as a boy for three years (Battersea before that) a long time …
Returned the rental car but it was closed so left the keys under the back wheel and left a voice message – hopefully they understand it. Uber didn’t work for a ride to the train station (“No cars available”) so asked at a nearby fitness place if they could call a taxi. Laura patiently understood …