desertslave
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2008
- Posts
- 5,491
And had a blast!
The Author: Deborah Harkness
The Books: A Discovery of Witches; Shadow of Night
I admit it, I enjoy GOOD vampire/paranormal-type stories. I'm also a history freak (majored in medieval history for a while) and rabid book lover, so this series is right up my alley. Take a peek at Amazon for a decent synopsis of the first two novels.
The talk was basically an interview followed by a Q&A, and it was quite entertaining. I was reminded of several posts here as I listened to her. She described issues with characters not behaving as she intended them to and writing on weird things at weird times (McDonald's napkins stapled together).
What truly gave me giggles was her story about her students teasing her. She's a college history professor (her colleagues were somewhat horrified that she didn't write under a pseudonym) and her students have had great fun reading her book reviews to her. Apparently she's used to giving pep talks to students who score a B+ on papers/projects...now they're returning the favor and feeding her words back to her rather gleefully.
She wrote an Easter Egg for me in the acknowledgments of Shadow, crediting her academic mentor with her love of history. This mentor (Lacey Baldwin-Smith) also happened to teach my high school history teacher, and conveyed to BOTH of them a love of history and a truly dynamic style of teaching. My prof taught history as if it were gossip from a tabloid, at times, and I'll forever treasure his classes. (I strongly disliked history/social studies before I had him). I know I'm geeking, here, but it was a thrill to know that I had this tiny connection with an author. She even told me a story, while signing my copy, about her student days.
Good night, and I even accidentally learned a thing or two.
ETA: If you're interested, here's the video from the live stream:
https://new.livestream.com/poisonedpen/ShadowOfNight/
The Author: Deborah Harkness
The Books: A Discovery of Witches; Shadow of Night
I admit it, I enjoy GOOD vampire/paranormal-type stories. I'm also a history freak (majored in medieval history for a while) and rabid book lover, so this series is right up my alley. Take a peek at Amazon for a decent synopsis of the first two novels.
The talk was basically an interview followed by a Q&A, and it was quite entertaining. I was reminded of several posts here as I listened to her. She described issues with characters not behaving as she intended them to and writing on weird things at weird times (McDonald's napkins stapled together).
What truly gave me giggles was her story about her students teasing her. She's a college history professor (her colleagues were somewhat horrified that she didn't write under a pseudonym) and her students have had great fun reading her book reviews to her. Apparently she's used to giving pep talks to students who score a B+ on papers/projects...now they're returning the favor and feeding her words back to her rather gleefully.
She wrote an Easter Egg for me in the acknowledgments of Shadow, crediting her academic mentor with her love of history. This mentor (Lacey Baldwin-Smith) also happened to teach my high school history teacher, and conveyed to BOTH of them a love of history and a truly dynamic style of teaching. My prof taught history as if it were gossip from a tabloid, at times, and I'll forever treasure his classes. (I strongly disliked history/social studies before I had him). I know I'm geeking, here, but it was a thrill to know that I had this tiny connection with an author. She even told me a story, while signing my copy, about her student days.
Good night, and I even accidentally learned a thing or two.
ETA: If you're interested, here's the video from the live stream:
https://new.livestream.com/poisonedpen/ShadowOfNight/
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