Avi

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Royal typewriter

Clatter, clatter, clatter, DING!

My son is a jour­nal­ist and there­by meets a great vari­ety of inter­est­ing peo­ple. Recent­ly he met some­one who is going into the busi­ness of restor­ing type­writ­ers. That made me smile. For a long time (this was years ago) I resist­ed pur­chas­ing a com­put­er, lis­ten­ing with a bemused smile as peo­ple debat­ed the rel­a­tive mer­its of

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author royalties and payments

Money

It was Samuel John­son, the great 18th Cen­tu­ry Eng­lish crit­ic, writer, and dic­tio­nary cre­ator, who famous­ly said, “No man but a block­head ever wrote except for mon­ey.” Con­sid­er then what the Authors Guild, the USA’s pre­mier writ­ers’ orga­ni­za­tion, recent­ly learned in a mem­ber­ship sur­vey: “The medi­an income of authors (from all sources relat­ed to being a

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turtle

Slowly, Step by Step

I am cur­rent­ly at work on a new novel—doesn’t mat­ter what it is. Though essen­tial­ly done, it has been sit­ting on the editor’s desk for a rel­a­tive­ly long time, while I wait for final revi­sion notes. I don’t know why it has tak­en so long, and I sup­pose it doesn’t mat­ter. The point is the

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[Photo credit: Adobe Stock]

Struggling

I am work­ing on a new book—and I am strug­gling. Giv­en the fact that I’ve pub­lished some eighty books, it may sur­prise some that I am strug­gling. Let me sug­gest why. Every book is a new book, and the suc­cess of one, though pre­sum­ably it gives con­fi­dence to write anoth­er, that is not nec­es­sar­i­ly so. A

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Goodbye Christopher Robin

Goodbye Christopher Robin

I recent­ly watched (on TV) Good­bye Christo­pher Robin, which tells the life sto­ry of the boy so key to Win­nie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne. Accord­ing to the movie, Pooh is the “most loved children’s book of all time.” The depict­ed sto­ry of the boy’s life is a painful one. A.A. Milne, (Christopher’s father) played by Domh­nall Gleeso,

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Medieval Wordbook; Colonial American English

Fug

Read­ers have asked me about my use of lan­guage in my his­tor­i­cal nov­els, par­tic­u­lar­ly words that them­selves are part of the his­tor­i­cal moment. Let it be said that, to begin with, I have a great fond­ness for words, and hap­pi­ly, the Eng­lish lan­guage has an immense vocab­u­lary. Also, I have access on my com­put­er to

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Story Behind the Story #69:
The End of the World and Beyond

From a writ­ers’ point of view, I have been blessed inso­far as I’ve nev­er real­ly been at a loss for ideas for my nov­els. That said, it has got­ten me into trou­ble because, in truth, they are good but some­times half-baked ideas. In my enthu­si­asm I pitch these ideas to pub­lish­ers, who grab hold. Then

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The Fighting Ground, Sophia's War, The Player King

Writing about the history
that hasn’t been written

His­to­ry, you’ve no doubt heard it said a mil­lion times, is writ­ten by the win­ners. But what if you could find out what hap­pened to the losers? If one is going to write his­tor­i­cal fic­tion, it seems fair to assume one needs to read his­to­ry. And if one does reads history—as I do—you won­der about

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The Unexpected Life of Oliver Cromwell Pitts

The Second Book

It’s won­der­ful to receive a review (The Unex­pect­ed Life of Oliv­er Cromwell Pitts) that reads: “Riveting…This first in a new series will cap­ture the hearts and minds of read­ers and his­to­ry buffs alike … Avi’s exam­i­na­tion of the plight of the des­per­ate­ly poor is wor­thy of Dick­ens. Impos­si­ble to put down.” But then, please note, I

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“No Taxation Without Representation”

In the Thir­teen Amer­i­can colonies, ten years pri­or to the Rev­o­lu­tion, there was what was known as the Stamp Act cri­sis, which, in Boston in par­tic­u­lar, brought forth that icon­ic cry. By rep­re­sen­ta­tion it was meant there was no Amer­i­can seat­ed in the British Par­lia­ment. “But,” accord­ing to his­to­ri­an Bri­an Dem­ing, “the idea nev­er gained traction

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