Inspiring Places: Historyfish.net

“Literature is a toil and a snare, a curse that bites deep.” Or so said D.H. Lawrence. Which gives me some comfort, because I seem to be doing all I can to avoid my writing, this morning. I’ve spent the last couple of hours brewing a Shitake Beef Stew that will be consumed tonight. I’ve


Inspiring Places: Barry Unsworth’s Morality Play

Finally, a respite from the rain and the cold. The sun shines today in Vancouver, and it looks like spring, though the cherry blossoms are nowhere to be seen. The blossoms in my front yard are trying, but they are reluctant to invest themselves in this uneven weather. They look like little popcorn kernels ready


Writing a Novel: You May As Well Be Climbing Everest

It is dark and rainy in Vancouver. Spring should be evident by now, even if we haven’t officially entered the equinox. The cherry blossoms should be out, but there is no sign of them at all. It is cold and miserable. I have taken a few weeks off work to make inroads into my novel


New Pick for the Top Ten Medieval Movies List

It was inevitable, I suppose. Top Ten Lists, by their very nature, must needs be revised every now and then, and herewith I expand my Top Ten All-Time Movies set in the Middle Ages. I’ve just watched an inspiring movie about the Middle Ages that literally bridges that era with the current one. It was


The Middle Ages Still Rule!

Back in January, I wrote a blog post about the medieval era in general and the fact that it suffers as a time overshadowed by the Renaissance, a period of flowering humanism and artistic and cultural progress. I have nothing against the Renaissance, folks, but I am regularly surprised and delighted that the Middle Ages


Writing: The Woes and Joys!

I’ve taken some time off work to give some overdue focus to the novel. For the past week, I’ve been buried in writing, re-evaluating what I’ve done, doing new research and striking off in new and exciting directions. It’s been a productive five days, I would say, and I feel a renewed sense of passion


Inspiring Churches in Out-of-the-Way Places

I’m not religious in the traditional sense, but I find endless inspiration in churches. If not for the glory of God, they are, at least, remarkable monuments to the human imagination — the human striving for artistic and architectural perfection, the capture of enormous space, the making of humankind in the image of a universal