It was a real honour to be asked by Anna Richenda, recently, if I would review her new self-published novel, The Saint and the Fasting Girl. As a fan of HistoryFish.net her expansive website devoted to medieval religious topics, I had been reading progress reports in her blog about the book’s publication for some time. …
August 7, 2009 – 2:04 pm
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By David Morton
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Posted in Books, History, Medievalism, The Novel, The Writer's Struggle, Writing
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Tagged Anna Richenda, book review, fiction, Henry VIII, historyfish.net, medieval, novels, Saint and the Fasting Girl
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A couple of weeks ago, I had my trial by fire. I attended a meeting of my erstwhile writers’ group and read a passage from my novel.
I had taken a few weeks off work to make some headway on the novel and I had about 40 pages of material from which to choose a passage …
Food is one of my favourite topics, and if I weren’t obsessing here about the Middle Ages, I’d probably be blogging about my food obsessions. Food is not really a concern in my novel (at least not at the moment), but I’ve done a little bit of reading on the topic as research.
Not a great …
April 15, 2009 – 6:35 am
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By David Morton
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Posted in Food, History, Medievalism
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Tagged ale, bread, fasts, feasts, fish, Forme of Cury, Henry III, Le Viandier, meat, medieval, medieval kitchen, middle ages, potage, stew, sumptuary laws
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My two posts on the Top Ten Films of the Middle Ages List (part one and part two), along with a recent addition to the list, continue to be three of the most viewed pages on this blog. Visitors wander in directly from Google, having searched for movies relating to the Middle Ages. And the …
April 4, 2009 – 12:49 pm
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By David Morton
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Posted in Films, Medievalism
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Tagged Barry Unsworth, film, Four Knights, medieval, middle ages, Morality Play, Morality plays, movies, Paul Bettany, Paul McGuigan, The Reckoning, Willem Dafoe
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“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 cleaned …
March 24, 2009 – 8:00 am
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By David Morton
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Posted in History, Inspiration, Medievalism, The Writer's Struggle, Writing, blogs
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Tagged blogs, Detroit Publishing, DH Lawrence, History, inspiration, medieval, Medievalism, middle ages, monasticism, Oregon, Photochroms, procrastination, research, Richenda, Romantic poetry, Romanticism, Tintern Abbey, Washington, William Wordsworth, Writing
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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 …
March 21, 2009 – 10:35 am
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By David Morton
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Posted in Books, Inspiration, The Novel, Uncategorized, Writing
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Tagged Barry Unsworth, inspiration, medieval, Medievalism, middle ages, monks, Morality Play, novel, novels, Paul Bettany, The Reckoning, Willem Dafoe, Writing
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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 so …
