NOTE—An earlier blog, Doing Your Research Right, discussed my research habits when writing historical novels. This is a follow-up blog.  *  *  * I guess I should have known what day it was when I showed up at the old watchtower in Berlin in 2011. I didn’t...
Most people have heard of Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, and Raphael, although some primarily know them as the names of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Their true fame came from being four of the greatest Italian artists in history. If they ever add a fifth...
The teenage girl entered the forest on what appeared to be an ordinary stroll, stopping to pick wildflowers along the way. In truth, she was on a secret mission to deliver an important message to a British paratrooper hiding in the Arnhem forest during World...
With the Olympic games of 2016 still fresh in my memory, I was surprised to learn recently that just before the time of Jesus, Herod the Great rescued the Olympic games and made sure they continued to be played on various Greek islands. He did this because he loved...
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind but now I see. Chances are, you have heard these lyrics many times. These are the words from "Amazing Grace," one of the greatest songs of all time. What you...
One of my favorite new TV series has been the Netflix original, The Crown, which tells the fascinating story of Queen Elizabeth II, current queen of the United Kingdom. The Crown focuses on the early years when Elizabeth first became queen in 1952, and one of the...
I can still remember when I first saw A Charlie Brown Christmas. The Christmas special aired on December 9, 1965, and I would have just turned 10 years old. I recall being out on the playground across the street from my house in the Chicago suburb of Villa Park when I...
Fidel Castro is dead. But the Ladies in White live on. Yoani Sanchez, one of the strongest voices for freedom in Cuba, tells about the origins of the Ladies in White movement in a 2011 opinion piece in The Washington Post: "Eight years ago, Laura Pollan was a...
I’m not sure what historical novelists did before the advent of the Internet. What takes a matter of minutes to discover on the Internet today probably took hours of library work in the pre-Web Stone Age. A case in point: In my first historical novel, The...
"For the first time in centuries, scientists have exposed the original surface of what is traditionally considered the tomb of Jesus Christ," says an online article from National Geographic. "Located in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem,...