My Newsletter

Happy New Year!

January is named after the Roman god Janus, a god with two faces, one looking forward and one looking back. So maybe now is a good time for a little reflection. The beginning of my year saw the publication of my debut novel. Yes, Lily of the Nile: A Novel of Cleopatra's Daughter is now available wherever books are sold. I spent the early days of this month with my nose pressed up against bookstore windows, admiring my baby, a book that was almost eight years in the making.

But as the Greeks and Romans might say, now isn't the time to rest on my laurels. How well a book does in its early months can determine an author's whole career--so, no pressure for me or anything! Meanwhile, as great reviews keep coming in, I have to look forward; soon I'll be editing the sequel, Song of the Nile, which will be out by the end of the year. And that book, let me tell you, is likely to offend many of the reviewers who have been so kind to me so far, but what's a little Ptolemaic incest between friends? Yes, Cleopatra Selene went on to survive the tragedies in her life and became the most powerful queen in the empire...but I have a hard time believing that anyone could get over the suicide of both parents and a childhood as a hostage without some damage to the psyche. Though her story is ultimately one of triumph, some important things inside my heroine are broken and that's going to come out in the sequel.

Anyway, before I start editing, there will be the book tours and the signings. I have a few scheduled and those can be lonely affairs (and hilarious in a pathetic way) so take pity on me and let me see a few friendly faces!

Queen Dido. Thanks to a Roman propaganda poet named Virgil, she's become one of the central mythological figures of the ancient world, a seductress who tried to lure a soldier away from his destiny only to commit suicide when he dumped her.

The real Dido--and evidence suggests that there was a real Dido--didn't resemble the mythological one except insofar as she was a rule-breaker who followed her own passions. She was a 9th Century BC Phoenician princess of Tyre and an adherent of the goddess Tanit. When her father the king died, he saw fit to make her co-ruler with her brother.

Unfortunately, her brother wasn't keen on this idea at all. He captured the palace and killed Dido's husband. Now, Dido had any number of options open to her at this point. She could have retired from public life and submitted to her brother's rule. She could have fled to a foreign kingdom for asylum. She could have married a powerful warlord who might fight for her rights; she could have started a civil war.

But what Dido did sets her apart. She collected her husband's treasure, gathered up likeminded politicians, soldiers and settlers, then sailed off for the coast of North Africa to carve out her very own kingdom. As the story goes, she negotiated with the natives for a plot of land that could be covered by an oxhide. When they agreed, Dido whipped out the fine print in their agreement...tearing up an oxhide into tiny strips so as to encircle a plot of land big enough to build a new city.

Dido built Carthage on that very spot and the Carthaginians would become one of two dominant powers in the Mediterranean. Dido couldn't fit her dreams into the rules of Tyre, so she went out and forged something completely new.

This is a story that resonates with me because I've always believed, "If you can't find it, found it." If you can't find a group of people who share your passions, try to build a community of people who do. I like for young women to know that they shouldn't say no to themselves for fear that there's a whole world out there just waiting to say no to them. Any strange dream or interest you have is bound to be shared by someone else somewhere. Like Dido, you just have to find your tribe. And if you have to break the rules along the way, so be it.

I have a little experience with that. My debut novel, Lily of the Nile, doesn't fit neatly into any one category. I could have made it fit--I was advised to do just that, since historical fantasy is the red-headed step-child of two genres. You're not supposed to put magic in historical fiction. You're not supposed to write about goddess-centric religion or queens whose names no one has ever heard about before. And if you do, you should take on the musty old tone of a lecturing professor while doing it.

Well, what can I say? I'm a rule-breaker. I didn't do anything quite so awesome as found my own civilization, but I think there's a little Dido in me. What about you?