My life has been pretty simple. I grew up in Alabama and graduated from the University of Alabama with a Bachelor's in Advertising. I have spent about the last ten years in web development. In 1998, a friend of mine and I started a web design company we ran for three or four years before deciding to close it due to the demands of school. Since then, I stayed in the web working with various companies in Alabama. I worked for a brief period with Southern Progress, namely with Southern Living magazine and Health magazine, in their web departments. While there, I also wrote for Southern Living magazine, Health.com., and the company's internal newsletter. I write as much as I can. For the last five years, I have been working on my first novel. I am on the third revision now and hope to be finished with this draft by the end of the year. I also write short fiction, though not as frequently as I used to due to the time I spend on the novel. My goal is to have my novel published in the next three years. Other interests include: History (particularly medieval and ancient civlizations), Reading, Foreign Language (I currently speak Spanish but plan to learn as many as I can), Landscape Photography, the outdoors, sports (especially college football), and Travel.
Christian Fantasy is a relatively small genre of fiction, though it is a growing one. According to a Washingon Post article last year, Christian Fantasy is on the rise, sparked by the success of J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter series. So what, exactly, constitutes Christian Fantasy? ChristianFantasy.com provides a good in depth… Read More »The Growth of Christian Fantasy
Mail, often referred to as “chain mail” (a term later applied to this type of armor in the Victorian era), was the armor of choice worn by the medieval knight. Constructed of small rings of iron wire linked together, the mail coat formed a flexible metal mesh that was often worn… Read More »The Making of Mail Armor
Two armies face off across an open field. You’ve set the scene; the battle is about to begin, but what do you do now? How do you capture the chaos and frenzy of hand-to-hand combat on paper? Do you try to gather a sweeping panorama of the battle from an… Read More »Writing a Battle Sequence (Novel Excerpt Included)
For up-to-date information on getting your novel published or finding the right literary agent to represent your work, consider the following blogs: Guide to Literary Agents A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing Caren Johnson Literary Agency Agent in the Middle BookEnds, LLC – A Literary Agency Chip MacGregor’s Agent Blog Diana… Read More »A Guide to Publishing and Literary Agents
George Raymond Richard Martin, well-known author of the fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, on September 20, 1948. Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and Marist High School. His writing career began at a young age when he would write and sell… Read More »Author Profile: George R.R. Martin
For purposes of this post, I will focus on the medieval sword of Western Europe, namely England and France and Scandinavia, from the 10th to the 13th century. The sword was an instrumental weapon for the knight during the Middle Ages. As most combat was conducted up close hand-to-hand, you… Read More »The Medieval Sword
I’ve been trying to locate magazines dedicated to the period of the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, my local bookstores don’t stock anything of the sort. I ran across a few online but don’t know if they’re any good. Does anyone subscribe to any of these? Know of others that you would… Read More »Medieval History Magazines
The movie that sparked my interest in the medieval period was Robin Hood Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner. Ever since, I have been enamored with anything and everything dealing with the Middle Ages: movies, historical fiction novels, non-fiction books, television documentaries. The next in line: Nottingham, directed by Ridley… Read More »Christian Bale as Robin Hood
I thought I would start a series of author profiles, highlighting a new author each week. The profiles are intended to give you some background information about each author: where they grew up, how they got started, what they’ve written, things of that nature. I thought I would start with… Read More »Author Profile: Bernard Cornwell