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I survived the Siege of Paris and all I got was this token.

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  Okay, let me start by saying that the title of this post is sort of a joke. I  am  going to talk about a commemorative souvenir token that people who lived through the 1870–1871 Siege of Paris could buy, but the “all I got” part isn’t at all how most of them would have thought of it. As France continued to lose the Franco-Prussian War and the month of September, 1870, progressed, Parisians (and visitors to Paris) realized that the Prussian army would soon surround the city. In a short time, Paris would  be cut off from the rest of the world and besieged. And so, many residents and visitors left the city as quickly as they could. An understandable decision, of course, and one that many of them were probably grateful for, since those who stayed in Paris experienced hunger, extreme cold, disgusting bread and other food choices, and even a month of heavy bombardment by the Prussians for those who lived on the Left (South) bank of the Seine. That said, it wasn’t always easy for those who
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Please take out your pencils

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  In the nearly three years since I published Hearts at Dawn , I’ve had a few surprises, but by now, I figured they were over. But I didn’t take into account that people notice different things, which makes writing (not to mention life) endlessly surprising.   Recently, a new writer friend and I have been reading each other’s books. I was thrilled that he liked Hearts at Dawn   - but there was something he’d found confusing. He’d noticed that at one point Orin describes Beauvoir, the town Claire’s brother lives in (and, eventually, an important plot point), as being  “almost exactly due east” of Paris. But every other time I’d described where it was situated, he noted, it was said to be west of the city.   When he told me this, I was totally shocked.   In all this time that Hearts at Dawn  has been out in the world, no one else has ever noticed this - myself very much included. I’ve re-read my manuscript multiple times, including once last year, just before my friend  Rip Coleman , fo
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Time traveling, basements, and other news

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  La Joute des mariniers  by Nicolas Raguenet   ( image source )   Researching the past isn’t easy - and I’m learning that certain time periods are even more difficult to visualize and understand than I might have expected.   What I hope will be my next novel is taking me to a different time in Paris’s history, and I’m trying to get down to the depths of it, to be able to see and hear and smell it (even though it apparently smelled pretty gross) -- as much as someone who didn’t actually live then, can. One thing I can be sure of: The traditional shape of a brioche hasn’t changed in centuries, as this 18 th  century painting by Chardin attests!   Detail from   La Brioche by Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin   ( image source )   This need to do some serious time traveling to a different era means that I’ll be taking a break for a few months from posting on this blog.   I will always be fascinated by the Siege of Paris, and I continue to read firsthand accounts for fun. For instance, my most
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