The first draft of a book is often malformed, ugly, and unfit for human consumption. Such is the case with the first draft of Johnny Lycan. You know what? I don’t care! It’s done. Let the rewrites begin.
Yes, Johnny Lycan. That might be a clue as to what it’s about. Or not. Stay tuned.
It’s done. It’s unlike anything I have ever written before, and I think it will be really good when it’s been whipped, prodded, dragged and mercilessly pounded into submission.
Here’s what it’s not: Historical fiction. Not even close. Those of you who read Count of the Sahara, Acre’s Bastard and Acre’s Orphans and have come to know me through those books, I really, really, really hope you stay with me. I get it if you don’t.
Here’s what it is: Nope, not ready to tell you yet. But it will be funny. And bloody. And more like some of my short stories than any book I’ve written so far.
Stay tuned for details, and of course, you can join my mailing list for updates. Just use the email link on the left-hand side to let me know you want to be added.
Now there will be a Templeton Rye and a Cigar. Because that’s how we roll here at Casa Turmel when milestones get met. Send thoughts and prayers for the ugly little bugger. He’ll need all the help he can get.
One of the first Las Vegas literary events I found out about when I moved here was Dime Grinds. The first Sunday of every month the Henderson Writers Group has three writers talk about their books, read, and introduce themselves to an always-packed group of readers and authors. Now it’s my turn.
On Sunday, August 4th, I’ll be reading from Acre’s Orphans, along with Steven Murray and Susan Johnson. Get a cup of regular coffee for a dime, hang out with the local writing community and have some fun.
Joe Maxx ( our local hangout, better than Starbucks) Coffee supports this fun event. 500 E. Windmill Ln, #175 at the corner of Windmill and Bermuda. Come visit.
The early days of exploring North America are full of fascinating missteps and accidents–lucky and otherwise. One of these is the “missing” Roanoke colony. Harold Titus has written about it in his new novel, Alsoomse and Wanchese.
Let’s start with the easy part. What’s your story?
Born in New York State in 1934, I moved to Tennessee when I was seven and then to Southern California when I was nine. I grew up in Pasadena, lived with my parents until I went to college at UCLA, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1956. I taught high school English for one year in Los Angeles, spent two years in the Army, then moved to Northern California and for 31 years taught intermediate school English, American history, and a drama elective and coached boys’ and girls’ after-school sports teams in suburban Orinda, just east of Berkeley. I retired in 1991. My first historical novel, “Crossing the River,” printed in 2011, is about the experiences of English and American participants in the first two battles (Lexington and Concord) of the American Revolution. My second historical novel, the subject of this interview, “Alsoomse and Wanchese,” was published in May 2018. I continue to write a blog mostly about American history and historical fiction (http://authorharoldtitus.blogspot.com).
What’s Alsoomse and Wanchese about?
Why are human beings so fascinating regardless of period of time or degree of cultural and technological advancement? My answer: strengths and failings of character, group ideological orthodoxies, non-conformity. “Alsoomse and Wanchese” narrates a year (1583-1584) in the lives of Roanoke Island Algonquian sister Alsoomse and brother Wanchese as they reject tribal conformity, question tribal decision-making, decide for themselves what is true and just, and seek accomplishment. Their six-village chief Wingina is at war with an upstart chief of one of his villages. Wanchese, 19, seeks to become one of Wingina’s essential men. His impulsiveness and quick temper work against this. His strenuous efforts to both achieve his goals and learn from his mistakes broaden him, temper him, make him laudable. Alsoomse, 17, is a questioner, a seeker, an individualist in a culture that demands conformity of behavior and belief. She is placed in situations that exacerbate these attributes, her subsequent conduct causing her leaders to regard her increasingly as dangerous. Englishmen sent to North American by Walter Raleigh to find a suitable place to establish a colony arrive near the conclusion of the novel, their appearance complicating each protagonist’s conflicts.
What is it about the Roanoke Colony you found so interesting?
What we know about the story of the
“Lost Colony” of Roanoke Island is related to
us by Englishmen. Missing from that
story is any detailed understanding of the Algonquians, as human as any
Englishman that stepped then on North American soil. In my novel, about to leave Plymouth Harbor,
the painter John White and his associate, the young scientist Thomas Harriot, have
this conversation.
Harriot
half-turned. “I have seen your painting of the savage that Frobisher brought
back [from Baffin Island, Canada]
in 1576 and the woman and child from the 1577 expedition. I have been wanting
to ask you about them.”
“Ask.”
“What … did you
see? Are these people so behindhand as to be mentally deficient? I do not know
what to expect.”
White leaned
against the gunwale, his long coat bending near his right hip. “I saw human
beings, who think, who suffer, who in our presence sought of hide human
emotion.”
“What was their
sense of us, as best you could tell?”
White moved his
left foot ahead of his right. … “I wish there had been some way besides the use
of gestures and facial expressions to communicate. What they thought and felt I
can only imagine.”
“What did you
think they felt?”
“Fear. Despair.
Resignation. We uprooted them, Harriot. We took them to London as specimens! What they could have
told us, if they had survived and learned our language!”
Historian Michael Leroy Oberg
wrote: “Indians are pushed to the margins, at best playing bit parts in a story
centered on the English. … Roanoke
is as much a Native American story as an English one. … We should take a close
look at the Indians who greeted and confronted Raleigh’s colonists. … Because Wingina’s
people, and his allies and enemies, in the end determined so much of the fate
of the Roanoke
ventures, it seems only fair that we concentrate upon them, and how they understood
the arrival of the English.”
That is what my novel does.
What’s your favorite scene in the book?
She was waiting for Wanchese in a corner of the chamber close to a raised, small-branched, deerskin-covered bed. At first he thought he was alone, that the girl would enter from outside. A slight movement caused him to look in her direction.
He stepped over to her. It was difficult to see. He made out her features.
She was young. Fifteen? Sixteen? Not yet Alsoomse’s age. She was naked, adolescent slim, her breasts small, her limbs and buttocks not yet pleasingly rounded.
Her eyes darted. She appeared defensive. This was not what he had experienced the year before at Mequopen.
“What is your name?”
Her right hand moved toward her mouth. “Waboose.”
It was an Algonquian custom that important visitors to an Algonquian village be provided young women to spend the night. Waboose is a virgin. She has been chosen by the chief’s wife to perform this duty but is frightened. Wanchese and she talk. They learn a few facts about each other and their respective families. Conscience-stricken, reluctantly, Wanchese relents. They sleep together but refrain from intercourse.
We interrupt this interview for a shameless plug. Acre’s Orphans has won a much coveted “Discovered Diamond” award for historical fiction. You can read the review here, or just take my word for it and buy the book.
Hello Las Vegas folks. I’m very excited to be at Barnes and Noble in Henderson (567 North Stephanie near Sunset) from 1-3 pm on Saturday, June 29th. I’ll be hanging out and signing copies of my Lucca le Pou books, Acre’s Bastard and Acre’s Orphans. Come stop by!
If you haven’t read these award-winning historical fiction tales, now’s your chance!
Even if you’re familiar with the novels stop by so I don’t look like the sad, lonely author sitting at the table in the back of the store!
If you are a fan of Shakespeare’s histories, you are familiar with the Plantagenet line: Richard 2 Edwards 1 through 3 and Henrys 3-4… maybe 5 they all blur together after a while. But Mercedes Rochelle has begun an ambitious series with the first in a long line of books: A King Under Seige.
Mercedes, tell us about you.
I’m one of those writers who decided against a “real job” because I thought it would get in the way of my writing career. I even moved a thousand miles to New York so I would be ready to jump when an agent came calling. I almost made it, too; though I should have known something was not quite right when my first New York agent’s office was a crowded closet with a tiny window overlooking an alley. He didn’t place my novel. My second agent dropped me like a proverbial hot potato after she couldn’t place it with her few contacts. That was thirty years ago. I was devastated. For twenty years my novel sat on a shelf gathering dust until I screwed up my courage and tried again. I realized that times change and it’s never too late. I had to learn all about building a platform and navigating this “brave new world”. Competition was fiercer than ever. But there were good changes too. Research was a heck of a lot easier with the internet at my fingertips. Historical Fiction was almost unheard of back then; now, it’s almost mainstream! Many years as a reenactor gave me the courage to imagine I can relate to medieval mind set. I brushed the dust off my masterpiece and even discovered some new historical sources. Since I never gave up my love of the middle ages, one book stretched to four about England in the eleventh century and events surrounding the Norman Conquest. Now I’ve moved forward 300 years to Richard II, who caught my attention back before I moved to New York. The research continues!
What’s your series about?
My current project is called the Plantagenet Legacy; this will be a four volume set starting with Richard II and ending with Henry V (unless I get inspired to move forward to the next king). Book one is called A KING UNDER SIEGE which is about the minority of Richard II, who became king at age ten. For ten years he struggled to assert himself, proving his worth during the Peasants’ Revolt but butting up against the antagonism of his disaffected magnates, led by his uncle Thomas of Woodstock. The Lords Appellant, as they were called, goaded Parliament into eliminating Richard’s advisors and friends through judicial murder, exile, and dismissal—laying the seeds of their own destruction that will take place in my current work in progress, THE KING’S RETRIBUTION.
Why that time period? What’s the fascination?
Back in
the late ‘70s, I saw Shakespeare’s RICHARD II performed on BBC by the Royal
Shakespeare company. I had never heard of this king, but the final scene where
he was imprisoned, bemoaning the fate of kings, struck me so soundly that I
carried him around with me for 30 years before I was ready to write this book.
(I needed to get the Godwinesons and the Battle of Hastings out of my system
first.) I’m glad I waited; the research surrounding Richard has been intense. I
was puzzled about how this King could have lost his throne so quickly; of
course, now I know that his downfall was several years in the making. The
events of A KING UNDER SIEGE were so humiliating to young Richard that his
methodical revenge in the next book becomes understandable.
What’s your favorite scene in the book?
At the height of Richard’s degradation, the five Lords Appellant corner Richard inside the Tower of London, where he is surrounded by their rebel army and finds himself helpless to resist. Poor Richard is left only with his regality, which doesn’t go very far in the face of their determination to subjugate him. At first Richard doesn’t realize how complete their victory is; but in the face of their united contempt he is reduced to a helpless pawn. They detain him in the Tower for three days as they argue over who will supplant him.
We interrupt this interview for a shameless plug. Acre’s Orphans has won a much coveted “Discovered Diamond” award for historical fiction. You can read the review here, or just take my word for it and buy the book.
Most of you probably don’t know what little formal education I do have consists of an Associates degree in Broadcast Journalism from BCIT. I love the medium of radio. I was recently interviewed for the Aspects of Writing radio program. The topic was: The Internet is the Author’s Friend. Lord knows it’s mine…
In this wide-ranging and somewhat insane interview we cover doing research for historical fiction, getting the word out about your book, why dinosaurs changed my life, and how the internet is both a frightening time suck and the best way for indie authors to network and share their work with a readership.
I am an an unabashed pirate fan. Whenever swords are crossed, buckles swashed, or mateys are a-hoying I am there. So when I found out about Ian Nathaniel Cohen’s book, The Brotherhood of the Black Flag, I was all aboard. Get your inner Rafael Sabatini on and join us…
Ian, welcome. What’s your story?
My name’s Ian, and I’ve been writing or making up my own stories in one fashion or another for as long as I can remember. I’ve written on-air promos for radio shows, created an online course of Asian film which I still teach, I’m a former guest blogger for Channel Awesome and the Comics Bolt, reviewing classic movies, books, and comics – many of which have inspired my own work.
I know we both dig Errol Flynn movies. What’s your novel about?
The Brotherhood of the Black Flag is a historical thriller set at the end of the Golden Age of Piracy, when the newly-United Kingdom is cracking down on piracy while also contending with Jacobite insurrections and an economic crisis. In the midst of this, we have Michael McNamara, who was dishonorably discharged from the British Royal Navy. In desperate need for a fresh start, he sets sail for Kingston, Jamaica, hoping to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. Fortunately, McNamara is talented with a blade, which gives him the chance to become a local hero. His feat of arms brings him to the attention of Captain Stephen Reynard, once the most dreaded pirate in the Caribbean, who’s now reformed and turned pirate hunter. To earn a pardon, Reynard has vowed to apprehend seven pirate captains. McNamara, eager for the adventure and the opportunities it could bring, joins Reynard’s quest for redemption. His travels under Reynard’s command pit him against treacherous seas, bloodthirsty buccaneers, and an insidious conspiracy that threatens thousands of lives.
Your boy Michael McNamara has a lot of Peter Blood in him. What is it about this time period you find so fascinating.
I grew up on Hollywood swashbucklers and the literature and
history that inspired them – and one of my goals in writing The
Brotherhood of the Black Flag was in part to capture the spirit of
those classic films. The more I read and watched, the more I started coming up
with my own ideas for historical swashbucklers, packed with action, romance,
and hopefully solid character development. A pirate tale seemed like a natural
fit for that kind of story, and then it was just a matter of doing enough
research to find the right time and place to best suit the ideas I’d committed
to going with. Plus, I get to showcase less-familiar elements of a somewhat
familiar historical era, such as the Jacobite rebellions, which readers will
hopefully find interesting.
As for the main character, he’s intended to be a classic, archetypal heroic figure, which some may find a welcome change from anti-heroes and villain protagonists. However, I can relate to his lack of clear direction and uncertainty about what to do with his life when his youthful ambitions don’t work out the way he hoped they would – and lots of other readers probably might as well, for one reason or another. So many stories are about the main character trying to fulfill a lifelong dream, and I thought it would be interesting to work with a character who didn’t know what they wanted anymore. It also makes his path unpredictable – yeah, he’ll find his path by the end of the book, but what will that be? What will he choose?
Totally unfair question- what’s your favorite scene in the book?
Without a doubt, the scene where McNamara first meets Captain Reynard and Reynard auditions him for a place on his crew by challenging him to a duel. There are lots of sword fights in Black Flag, but I think I had the most fun writing that one, and I enjoyed the challenge of trying to depict a cinematic swashbuckling fight on the printed page, rather than going for gritty and realistic combat. I also had an absolute blast coming up with snarky, witty banter between McNamara and Reynard before and during their duel.
I agree, that scene was a lot of fun, and over a pint we can play the casting game for who plays who in the movie. Meanwhile, where can people learn more about you and your work?
I have my own website, the INCspot, where you can find out more
about me and my work – https://iannathanielcohen.weebly.com/ I’m
also on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads, and I try and respond to any and all
comments I receive, so drop on by and say “hi!”
We interrupt this interview for a shameless plug. Acre’s Orphans has won a much coveted “Discovered Diamond” award for historical fiction. You can read the review here, or just take my word for it and buy the book.
HI all. My first Las Vegas area book signing will take place Saturday, June 29 at the Barnes and Noble in Henderson, NV from 1-3 PM.
I will be there with copies of my award-winning “Lucca le Pou” novels, Acre’s Bastard and Acre’s Orphans. Stop by, grab a cup of coffee and get a signed copy of these books. I’ll also be dropping big greasy hints about my next novel as well.
Certain periods in history are more interesting to us than others. Depending on where your family’s from, your feelings about the events in question, and what country you live in, your mileage may vary. For example, World War 1 into the Russian Revolution, the Renaissance in Florence, and The Crusades are more interesting to me than the US Civil War (1.0) or the War of the Roses.
Enter Catherine Kullmann and her novel, The Duke’s Regret. She thinks what is known as “The Regency” in Britain qualifies… let’s see why.
What’s your deal Catherine?
I am Irish, married (for forty-five years), a mother (three sons) and a grandmother (one granddaughter, one grandson).
I love travelling, meeting people, good food and drink, classical music, especially opera
I prefer radio and live theatre to cinema and tv
I cannot live without books or tea
I am fascinated by history and love visiting historic sites and buildings of any period.
I write novels set in England in the extended Regency Period from 1795 (when the later Prince Regent married to 1830 (when he died as King George IV)
Look at you, all organized with bullet points. What’s The Duke’s Regret about?
Some characters slip into your books unplanned and
unheralded only to play a pivotal role in the story. So it was with Flora, the
young Duchess of Gracechurch in The
Murmur of Masks and later in Perception
& Illusion. Flora own story revealed itself slowly. A devoted mother
who befriends young wives whose husbands are ‘distant’, it becomes clear that
the relationship between her and her husband Jeffrey is also distant.
They married at a young age, she not yet seventeen and he some years older. In 1815, at the end of The Murmur of Masks, both are in their thirties with many years of life ahead of them. I began to wonder what would happen if one of them wanted to change their marriage. This led to my new novel, The Duke’s Regret.
A duke can demand
anything—except his wife’s love.
A chance meeting
with a bereaved father makes Jeffrey, Duke of Gracechurch realise how hollow
his own marriage and family life are. Persuaded to marry at a young age, he and
his Duchess, Flora, live largely separate lives. Now he is determined to make
amends to his wife and children and forge new relationships with them.
Flora is appalled
by her husband’s suggestion. Her thoughts already turn to the future, when the
children will have gone their own ways. Divorce would be out of the question,
she knows, as she would be ruined socially, but a separation might be possible
and perhaps even a discreet liaison. Can Jeffrey convince his wife that his
change of heart is sincere and break down the barriers between them? Flora must
decide if she will hazard her heart and her hard won peace of mind when the
prize is an unforeseen happiness.
The Duke’s Regret contains spoilers for The Murmur of Masks and Perception & Illusion. So as not to mislead readers, I have therefore combined them in The Duchess of Gracechurch Trilogy. All three books are available as eBooks and paperbacks.
You are obsessed with this time period. What gives?
It
is the beginning of our modern society. The Act of Union between Great Britain
and Ireland of 1800, the Anglo-American war of 1812 and the final defeat of
Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 are all events that still shape
today’s world. At the same time, the ruling aristocracies were being challenged
by those who saw the need for social and political reform, while the industrial
revolution which led to the transfer of wealth to the manufacturing and
merchant classes was underway. Women, who had few or no rights in a patriarchal
society had begun to raise their voices, demanding equality and emancipation.
Following the collapse of the Treaty of Amiens in 1803, the United Kingdom was at war with Napoleonic France until 1815. Unlike other combatants in this long war, Britain was spared the havoc wrought by an invading army and did not suffer under an army of occupation. War was something that happened elsewhere, far away. For twelve long years, ships carrying fathers, husbands, sons and brothers sailed over the horizon and disappeared. Over three hundred thousand men did not return, dying of wounds, accidents and illness. What did this mean for those left behind without any news apart from that provided in the official dispatches published in the Gazette and what little was contained in intermittent private letters?
The question would not leave me and it is against this background of an off-stage war that I have set my novels. How long did it take, I wondered, for word of those three hundred thousand deaths to reach the bereaved families? How did the widows and orphans survive? What might happen to a girl whose father and brother were ‘somewhere at sea’ if her mother died suddenly and she was left homeless?
What’s your favorite scene in the book?
It’s hard to say. I love this one, where Jeffrey is
accepted by his nine-year-old daughter Tabitha. Up to now, Tabitha has
addressed him formally as ‘Your Grace’ or ‘sir’
Tabitha raised her rope again. “I’m
going to see if I can skip thirty times without stopping.”
“That will take a
lot of breath. Would it help if I count for you?” Gracechurch asked.
Yes, please, Pap—”
She broke off, biting her lip.
He squatted in
front of her so that she could look into his eyes. “Papa? Would you like to
call me Papa?”
She nodded
vigorously.
“I should be happy
if you did. I am your Papa, am I not?”
She threw her arms
around his neck. “Now you are my Papa. Before you weren’t, not really.”
He rose to his
feet as he hugged her back. “Then I am sorry for it. Will you forgive me?”
She nodded again
and he kissed her cheek before setting her down carefully. She smiled
brilliantly at him, then picked up her rope and held it in the starting
position.
“Are you ready? Off you go!”
Where can we learn more about you and your work?
Thank
you for hosting me and for your interest in my writing. You can find out more
about me and my books at
We interrupt Mike’s interview for a shameless plug. Acre’s Orphans has won a much coveted “Discovered Diamond” award for historical fiction. You can read the review here, or just take my word for it and buy the book.
Even though I have left Chicago’s winters behind for the desert, I will always love that city. There’s something about that town that has made it a focus of history, commerce, architecture and writing for almost 200 years. One of the most tumultuous and fascinating times was the late 60s. Issues of class, race, politics and crime threatened to make the place unliveable. Mike Kerr captures that feeling in his new novel, “The Legman.”
Mike, like me you just fled Chicago winters for the desert sun of Las Vegas. In fact, we just met in person at the Las Vegas Writers Conference. What’s your bio?
A biography is an accounting of one’s life. The accounting of my life can be summed up as follows: Life’s a hallway, not a ladder, something you go through, not something you climb up. Each part, potentially, as good as any other. I’m born, raised and educated in Chicago. One type of education was a bachelor’s in Medical Laboratory Sciences and a master’s in Gerontology. These gave me a good basis for understanding forensic science and population studies. Another was learning that, in the city, where politics is the fifth major sport and, when necessary, a blood sport, the mayor appoints the Police Commissioner and the political machine gets the judges elected. When you control the cops and the courts, you decide justice, unless and until, it’s too much. That’s where I write, Chicago stories on that true-to-life edge.
Your work really feels like Chicago. What is “The Legman” about?
The Legman is historical fiction told in a mystery/thriller style. Chicago, 1969. Unprecedented gang violence. Crumbling of a once-mighty political machine. The mayor, desperate as neighborhoods fold and the ghetto extends, calls for an all-out war with “extreme measures”. The century-old neighborhood of Austin is caught in the cross-hairs of a dangerous scam that explodes into a national incident. The city wants to bury it. It’s too personal for a white Irish 4th-generation Chicagoan and journeyman reporter who teams with a black female artist and academic to find answers amid growing fears of a predator whose horrific past goes deep into the city’s dark history.
When we lived there, we lived in the Western Suburbs along with a lot of the SouthSide diaspora, but for real Chicagoans, everything is personal. What is it about this story that resonated with you?
The milieu of the story is very real and very personal to me. I lived these times. More broadly, as I think all the born-and-raised believe, Chicago is a living breathing character.. It’s a family member. I’m intrigued by all of the family history, the famous, the infamous and that which came and went in a blaze of glory marked by great passions and danger. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses is the promise of a big city, not small-town or rural America. The trouble is, someone is always already there. They don’t want to move over or give anything up. Those are epic battles that go to the heart of survival and just being human.
What’s your favorite scene in the book?
The scene that I read over and over is one of family. Micky, the protagonist, devastated by an horrific incident, visits his parents. His six siblings all change their plans to be there with him. A powerful man, a combat trained and experienced man, he’s capable of great violence and he’s ready to kill. His pain erupts like he’s been gored. The father takes him in his arms, kissing him like he was still a little boy. The others rush in. It’s a military phalanx each protecting a piece of the other. The strength of this family, despite any and all flaws, goes the core of who this character is.
Mike is also part of a growing Las Vegas literary scene with Coffee House Tours.
We interrupt Mike’s interview for a shameless plug. Acre’s Orphans has won a much coveted “Discovered Diamond” award for historical fiction. You can read the review here, or just take my word for it and buy the book.
