Christy English

Christy at the Met

Monday, March 29th, 2010 | Video Blog Entries | No Comments

Here’s a video of me at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of my favorite places on Earth. A monument to the dead, and to the bits of wreckage that wash up from the past. The dead are silent, but sometimes, through art, they speak.

The Queen’s Pawn in the Wilmington Star News

Friday, March 26th, 2010 | Reviews, The Queen's Pawn | No Comments

Ben Steelman has written about THE QUEEN’S PAWN in the Wilmington Star News online…a shorter version will run in this Sunday’s paper. Thank you, Ben!

http://books.blogs.starnewsonline.com/11645/she-loves-the-dark-ages-but-doesnt-want-to-live-there/

The Queen’s Pawn on WHQR

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 | The Queen's Pawn, The Writing Life | 4 Comments

I am so excited! I am going to be talking about THE QUEEN’S PAWN on Jemila Ericson’s Midday Cafe on Wilmington, NC’s public radio station WHQR…Jemila will be hosting me on Thursday, April 15 and I am thrilled.

The entire process of the novel coming into the world is really an adventure.  I feel like Eleanor riding to Antioch!  Except that no is trying to kill me…ok, so maybe I’m nothing like Eleanor, but it is still exciting…

Here is the link to Jemila’s show…

http://www.whqr.org/originalprograms.html

Starting Out in the Evening by Brian Morton

Monday, March 22nd, 2010 | Reviews, The Writing Life | 1 Comment

This wonderfully complex novel asks a lot of questions, but the one that concerns me here is: how important is success in a writer’s life? In the novel, we see an old man at the end of his life and his career, who still rises at the same time every morning, dons a jacket and tie, then sits and writes for his proscribed six hours a day on a novel that may never be seen by a reader. Two of his four published novels are now out of print, and none of his books ever garnered him acclaim or fanfare. And yet, every day, he rises and gets back to work.

This wonderful novel has also been made into a film starring Frank Langella.  I love the movie, which finds its own poetry, but the novel is truly stunning. I first read it during months before I had a contract with NAL, at a time when I had been writing for almost ten years and was not sure whether or not my own work would ever see the light of day. As I read STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING, I asked myself the same questions that Leonard Schiller asks: Why do I write? Will I ever stop? Even without success as the outer world sees it, is it worth it?

I am grateful for THE QUEEN’S PAWN  and am excited that people will be able to read my work in a couple of weeks. I am grateful that TO BE QUEEN will be released next year, and I hope that it will find readers.  But the question: Is writing worth it, whether anyone ever reads or appreciates your work or not? is still a question every writer must ask herself. For me, the answer is yes.

Potential Cover Copy for To Be Queen

Friday, March 19th, 2010 | Eleanor of Aquitaine, To Be Queen | 7 Comments

I have a rough draft for part of the back cover of my next Eleanor book, TO BE QUEEN…I wonder how many changes we will make before we lock it down? My guess is MANY…

To Be Queen:

A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine

Her father murdered, a young girl sits trapped behind the walls of a fortress. At the mercy of men who would lay claim to her body to conquer her lands, she waits for her betrothed, the King of France , to set her free. But this fifteen year old girl does not need rescuing; she is stronger than any man she will ever meet.

She is Eleanor of Aquitaine .