People ask what the Women’s March on Washington was for, anyway, as if not rallying around a single discrete issue is mere silliness. To them, I say: if only there were a single, simple, self-contained issue. Gosh, wouldn’t that be great? Here’s the thing. When trouble advances, women are pretty much always on the front …
At what point in writing does one book become another? In the editing, rewriting, re-editing and re-rewriting of a project engaged over years, should we just call it a different book? (The shadow question is, of course, at what point does one pack it away, brush off one’s hands, and turn to something else?) In …
Here’s what I just posted on Huffington Post… and then, here’s the problem with it. Now if only there were about three hundred more 300‘s. Maybe not in blood and gore but movies with kick-ass women from ancient Persia and Greece. Then, more people would get what has so captivated me about Amytis, Cassandane, and …
300, Awesome Ancient Women, and the Perils of Historical Fiction Read More »
These mid-August days, some 2500 years ago, witnessed a violent turn-about in power — regicide followed by a week of king-less days. Imagine for a moment the uncertainty, the chaos. Imagine the mother of the assassinated king. Still alive, for the time being — a foreigner in a court conflicted about its cosmopolitan nature, a …
Translating the book of Numbers, I came across a curious story that I’ve never paid much attention to before (Num 25:1-18). The setting is the infamous sin at Peor — of Israelites hooking up with Midianite women and taking part in their religious practices. One gets the impression that the Israelites were bored out of their …
Cozbi, the murdered Midianite… and a woman, at that Read More »
