March Roundup
Happy Easter! Happy Sunday! Happy End of March! Happy First Daylight Savings Time Day (UK)! The calendar's done it again!
Anyway, welcome to this month's roundup - there's a decent bit of art appreciation ahead. And a special welcome to the few new subscribers - thank you for joining! I'll try and go chronologically over this month, first with non-writing news then some exciting writing updates. There's an announcement for the future of this newsletter at the end!
The month started well with my interview and welcome with/to English Heritage. I'll be volunteering at North Leigh Roman Villa near Oxford - with training and a uniform and everything - over the Summer. I wrote about my first visit to the site, and its starring role in one of my short stories (the WIP Roman-empire-spanning gem journey) in my second ever weekly roundup last year. (That was when I was on Substack, but it's been imported over.)
All the people I met over video call seemed very interested in my writing journey and all the research I've already done on the site without knowing what was in store for me. Read about the conservation in depth (and the mosaic building open day dates) here. I'll be there some of those dates in June, July and August, but even if you're in the area any of the days it'd be great for you to check the site out. With the amazing surviving mosaic, and the work you'll be able to see on the foundations, it'll be worth it! And the ruins are always free and open year-round if you can't make the dates linked above.
If you've been subscribed to this newsletter for a while, you'll know how kind the volunteers at the site have been, sending me old pdfs and photos to aid my short story writing. I sent the finished section of the story (that begins at the Roman villa and at that point had reached Lyon through trading) their way, seeing what those most knowledgeable of the site thought of my reimagining, and received this feedback:
The detail of Roman life you have packed into the gem's journey is amazing - glittering almost... I felt I was reading a sort of prose poem epic of unusual descriptive immediacy.
I was a bit chuffed with that.
I was also chuffed to have my questions/comments featured on Marc Guggenheim's newsletter. You can read that here, and also see that Marc shouted out and subscribed to this very newsletter - thank you!
Of course go and subscribe to Marc's newsletter, and while you're at it, consume every bit of media's he's involved with, whether incredible TV shows like Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow, his comics work, and most of all his upcoming multiverse romance novel, In Any Lifetime, which you can read about (and read its first chapter) here.
I attended a brief seminar from the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology, a talk by Iza Steiner about the fascinating ancient petroglyphs in Utah and their relationship to the sun. It gave me more notes to add to my story about some of the more fantastical art there. (Just search for 'Intestine Man', and you'll see what inspired me there...)
A week ago I was in Oxford with the family for a wonderful Spring day. Over various visits we've been ticking off colleges, investigating more quads than Morse/Lewis/Endeavour combined. Magdalen College had quite a few quads itself, and we had a nice explore through there, to the deer park and New Building.
We then took a stroll through the water meadow between channels of the Cherwell, seeing a whole rocky beach's worth of anemones in the Fellow's Garden.
Following that, I checked out the Write Cut Rewrite exhibition at the Weston Library, with artefacts from Tolkien to Beckett. Despite all the fragments from big literary names, it was quite relatable really, to see the crossings out and margin-scribblings of some major works. Here's some photos of more visual pieces they had there:
There was a decent amount from both Shelleys, Chatwin's Patagonia Moleskin notebook, and another work I didn't photograph where the writer had literally cut and pasted sentences in a completely new formation on the page. The exhibition is free and there 'til next January, so again if you're by Oxford, pay it a visit (after the villa, of course).
To finish the day we had a meal out, but before that, I went to an exhibition on Flemish sketches at the Ashmolean Museum. I think I can share the above photo as it was their main marketing one. And perhaps you can see why. I love the Bosch-esque demons and visions experienced by the saint, the little pot-creatures, giant head and fish and the pumpkin-like warship. The more you zoom in and pan around the more you see. Imagination like this at the time, I think, is amazing. Like something AI produces but infinitely better and 500 years old!
In the week since, I've had some more updates about some paid archaeological excavations/explorations that I'll be a part of later this year, to do with prehistoric art (like my stories). Hopefully I'll be able to report on those at some point.
You may also remember that last year I beta-read Star Wars non-fiction author Amy Ratcliffe's WIP MG novel. A few days ago she announced the release of her first original fiction book (not the one I helped with). You should all read about Thrill Ride, a theme park romcom, here.
Writing Update
Onto my writing news from this month! First, two major announcements:
I started this month by sending off a document that will be my first piece of published writing, coming to shops near you this summer! I'm very excited to share what exactly this is - stay tuned!
My novel's been longlisted! You can see the whole longlist of Adventures in Fiction's First Novel Award here. This is the first time a competition like this has yielded results of any sorts. It was great to see my name and novel on a list.
I also entered two of my short stories to the Wilbur Smith Author of Tomorrow Award, which I'm just about young enough for!
With my first full-length novel Children of Shadows, I participated in three pitching events too! (Still waiting on results...)
What will be my third full-length novel is also slowly coming along, nearing 95,000 words. The big gem journey interlude short story (yes, the one that starts of North Leigh) is still underway. I've added some more details since my visit to the British Museum last month, but as well as the opportunities coming my way, I've focussed on a shorter piece of fiction this month.
I've written my first comic script! Inspired by the multi-hyphenate creators I've come to know since last year, one of my goals for this one was to write my first comic script. Whether I do more with it anytime soon is another matter.
I couldn't have done it without the advice and examples shared by Cavan Scott and Alec Worley, and more recently on my social media-free weekends, I've been watching through the comics school videos of another comic creator, Jim Zub.
His tutorials, interviews with comic artists of all sorts, as well as any scripts shared on his Patreon, have proved very valuable in informing and reassuring me with my script. I've really learnt a lot about the industry. I still have a lot to read, as well as all the articles on his website. My next step with this project will be to write a proper pitch/outline for the series, maybe get some feedback, and find some collaborators!
But now what you've all (maybe) been waiting for: my plans for this newsletter! When you're spinning plates, might as well add as many as possible to make a colourful display, right?
Biweekly (and by that I mean every other week), I'll be sending out the first of a new feature for this newsletter. The first will be out a week today, on April 7th, the day that attending Star Wars Celebration last year vastly fuelled my writing journey. I'm going to call it:
A long time ago...
Original, I know. But it seems the perfect title, as I want to write more about two of my majors passions: Star Wars, and history.
So, every two seeks I'm going to write something about these two interests, maybe working through my self-crafted timeline order of books/comics on my shelves, or exploring certain aspects of lore, or my own history with the franchise. And for the history sections, I'll start at least by writing about the fascinating ancient sites that are inspiring my short story writing. I'll probably use this feature to write about my own archaeological experiences this year too, as well as in the monthly roundups.
This month's books
This segment showcases the new additions to my research and fiction collections.
A bit of a smaller delivery of Star Wars comics, but all featuring red lightsabres on the covers, so definitely a win. I think the books below are pretty self-explanatory. British prehistory, from the Palaeolithic to Iron Age, features and will feature in my novels. Alice Robert's book on the right there will surely be a great read. I watched the show in the iPlayer last year, about our spread out of Africa.
What will be my fourth novel (I may get to it this year!) will feature Viking-age people of some sort. And the Heritage guide will surely contain a few more insights to bring Roman Britain to life in my stories...
That's the end of this roundup. There was quite a lot to share this month; things are kicking off in Hamer-ville. Thank you so much for taking the time to (skim-)read this email.
Please share this with your friends and family and ask them to subscribe - that would mean the world to me as I do love sharing my various exploits with you all, and would treasure having more people with me on my writing (and life) journey!
Cheers,
Harvey