Skip to main content

Weekly Geeks: Fun Facts about Helen Hollick

For Weekly Geeks this week, I would like to revisit one of my favorites from the past. This particular geeky assignment was posted by Dewey back in November of 2008, just weeks before she died. Here's what she posted then:

This week’s theme is: fun facts about authors.

How to:

1. Choose a writer you like.
2. Using resources such as Wikipedia, the author’s website, whatever you can find, make a list of interesting facts about the author.
3. Post your fun facts list in your blog, maybe with a photo of the writer, a collage of his or her books, whatever you want.
4. Come sign the Mr Linky below with the url to your fun facts post.
5. As you run into (or deliberately seek out) other Weekly Geeks’ lists, add links to your post for authors you like or authors you think your readers are interested in.

As you can see, the task is simple this week! Of course, if you did this one before, pick a different author to write about. If you are
like me, and can't choose just one, go ahead and write about two (or three.)

I remember this challenge from last November well. The last time I participated, I chose Victoria Holt as my author—I chose her because I was reading and enjoying Mistress of Mellyn at the time. This time I figured I’d do the same with my current read: A Hollow Crown, Helen Hollick (I needed something chunky, as with about two feet of snow on the ground, I'm trapped for the present moment!).

Hollick is the author of the Arthurian trilogy series, which many of you have read (I haven’t, yet), as well as a couple of novels set before and during the Conquest (A Hollow Crown and Harold the King). She also write a historical fantasy series called the Seat Witch series. Technically, AHC, which is about Emma of Normandy, wife to King Aethelred of England and then Cnut, is a prequel to Harold the King, which is set during the conquest, but it was written afterwards. A Hollow Crown opens with Emma's marriage in 1002, and follows her story up through 1042. Emma was the mother of Edward the Confessor, and the great-aunt of William the Conqueror. At over 800 pages, it's an ambitious undertaking, but I'm really enjoying the story. Well not enjoying so much (there's a fair amount of violence and death 150 pages in, but what else can you expect from Danish raiders?), but Hollick is a very good writer who tells her story well.

On to the author herself: according to Wikipedia, Helen Hollick was born in 1953, and worked for a number of years as a library assistant, where she developed her interest in the medieval period. Her Arthurian trilogy was accepted just around the time of her 40th birthday. She lives in Walthamstow, England with her husband and adult daughter, both of which ironically suffer from dyslexia. She is a member of the society of authors, and served as a consultant on the film 1066. In 2009, Sourcebooks began reprinting her Arthurian trilogy; Harold the King and A Hollow Crown are due to be republished in the near future (I heard somewhere that one of them is getting a new title?).

Photograph of the author taken from the author’s website.

Comments

pussreboots said…
Another author I haven't read (or heard of). My post is about Nick Bantock
Marg said…
A Hollow Crown is getting a new title. I can't remember the whole title, but it is going to be something with Queen in it.
Yet to read her. Will check her out.

WG: Sylvia Plath
Suey said…
I love Arthur books. I'll keep these in mind.
Sounds like something I might enjoy!
You reminded me of Victoria Holt...oh man I read so many of hers in the past! I'll have to find her again.
~

http://mywindowswideopen.wordpress.com/
Erotic Horizon said…
I agree - another author for me to check out....

Loving the blurbs on the books already...

Thanks for the introduction...

E.H>

Popular posts from this blog

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars

Six Degrees of Barbara Pym's Novels

This year seems to be The Year of Barbara Pym; I know some of you out there are involved in some kind of a readalong in honor of the 100th year of her birth. I’ve read most of her canon, with only The Sweet Dove Died, Civil to Strangers, An Academic Question, and Crampton Hodnet left to go (sadly). Barbara Pym’s novels feature very similar casts of characters: spinsters, clergymen, retirees, clerks, and anthropologists, with which she had direct experience. So it stands to reason that there would be overlaps in characters between the novels. You can trace that though the publication history of her books and therefore see how Pym onionizes her stories and characters. She adds layers onto layers, adding more details as her books progress. Some Tame Gazelle (1950): Archdeacon Hoccleve makes his first appearance. Excellent Women (1952): Archdeacon Hoccleve gives a sermon that is almost incomprehensible to Mildred Lathbury; Everard Bone understands it, however, and laughs