After much to-ing and fro-ing, the book launch for Why Everything You Know about Robin Hood Is Wrong is set for Saturday 24th November at the Virgin Money Lounge in Glasgow, on the corner of Royal Exchange Square and Queen Street. (Here’s a handy map.)
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Are you feeling lucky, punk?
31 Oct
Because if you are, you could enter my Twitter prize draw to win a copy of Why Everything You Know about Robin Hood Is Wrong before it’s released! And five runners-up will win an .epub copy. Enter by retweeting this tweet and following @kcmurdarasi. See the terms and conditions, if you’re having trouble sleeping.
On the other hand, if you’re not feeling so lucky, there’s a more certain way to get your hands on a copy. Everyone on my mailing list will receive an .epub copy when the book is released on 22nd November (or as soon after that as I manage).
But what if you don’t feel lucky and you still want a paperback copy? Then you can pre-order it, like everybody else, can’t you? Do I have to do everything for you? 😉
Robin Hood is in the shops! (kind of)
11 Oct
I have been feverishly scanning the internet for signs of my forthcoming book, Why Everything You Know about Robin Hood Is Wrong, and it is now listed as available for pre-order on Amazon! It doesn’t show my uber-stylish cover yet, but that should follow in due course.
You will be able to get copies from me, of course, by dropping me a line using the contact form to the right, or by coming to a book event (more details to follow), but it you prefer the convenience of Amazon you can pre-order now. You can pre-order from your local bookshop, too, or ask your local library to stock it. Speak to them; people who work with books are generally nice. (Except the baddie in my current novel, but that’s another story – literally.)
My other news is that Create Work Earn has just been published. This is a book about freelancing and creativity. It’s compiled by Vivienne K Neale, but I have a chapter on portfolio careers. What is a portfolio career? Read the book and find out! (Or you could just Google it; it’s not hard.)
Miss Rabbit – the ultimate portfolio careerist
The wonderful, awful business of being an author
8 SepAs I obviously have oodles of time on my hands, trying to finish a novel (The Sarcophagus Scroll) while simultaneously preparing a non-fiction book for publication (Why Everything You Know about Robin Hood is Wrong), this must be the perfect time to host a question-and-answer time on AMAfeed (Ask Me Anything).
Anyway, whether I am superhuman, or thrive on challenge, or am simply mad, I have scheduled the Ask Me Anything for Tuesday 11th September at 2.30pm, UK time. You can post your questions before then (and I can answer them), but they won’t show up until Tuesday afternoon.
If you know anyone who’s curious about the business of writing professionally, encourage them to pose a question for me. If it throws up anything interesting, I may post the link again once the Q&A has closed.
Thérèse of Lisieux: No credit where it’s due
27 Jul
The latest edition of Premier Christianity magazine features my article on Thérèse of Lisieux, a French nun who had the quickest canonisation of anyone in the Catholic Church up to that date. (Canonisation is being declared a saint, in case you’re not up on the lingo.)
This the article that I mentioned was bumped from the magazine because of Billy Graham’s death, and then leapfrogged by my later article on Richard Wurmbrand. But Thérèse would have loved that. She was self-effacing to the point of being completely self-negating. Her ‘little way’, as she called her philosophy, was about denying every self-focussed impulse, however justified it seemed, and instead living a life of sacrificial love for others, to the greater glory of God.
I found the story of Thérèse of Lisieux challenging. The first challenge was learning how to spell her name, of course. But more seriously, her absolute denial of self makes you question your own ‘reasonable’ level of selfishness. When she was dying of a painful illness, those who didn’t know her well thought that she couldn’t be seriously unwell, because she was so uncomplaining. I am not that uncomplaining, to put it mildly.
I didn’t agree with Thérèse on everything. I think she took self-negation too far, to the extent that she thought it might be wrong for her to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation (specifically the scent of flowers). But there is undeniably something to strive towards in her determination “to appear happy, and especially to be so”, despite the worst of personal circumstances.
You can get a copy of Christianity magazine for free, but if you subscribe at the moment you get the first year at half price (making it less than twenty quid for the whole year), and you’ll be entered into a draw to win £200-worth of Christian books!
Of course, if you want to follow Thérèse’s example, you’d better hope that you don’t win the books. But don’t worry, if you do win them, you can just give them away. 😉
What do you really believe?
4 JunFirst of all, welcome to my new subscribers who have come over from the newsletter! (And if you’re thinking, “what newsletter?”, there’s a sign-up button just over there. ➡)
My latest article for Christianity magazine is in shops now. This one is on Richard Wurmbrand, because poor Therese of Lisieux got bumped due to the death of Billy Graham. Fortunately, I can be fairly sure Therese wouldn’t mind – you’ll see what I mean when her article finally comes out.
Richard Wurmbrand, despite having a name that looks very Germanic, was actually Romanian (the “W” is soft, in fact). He is best known for having been horribly tortured and imprisoned for many years because he was a Christian pastor under the atheist communist regime, and he wouldn’t preach what he was told, report on his parishioners to the secret police and generally be a good boy. When he finally got out of the country, he exposed what was actually happening in ‘tolerant’ communist Romania.
I get the impression Wurmbrand would have been quite a difficult man (he’s dead now – died in 2001), stubborn and strong-willed – but God made excellent use of these virtues that could easily be vices. (I can’t help thinking about what the people I write about would have been like in real life – which ones you’d invite to a dinner party, and which ones you’d just send a Christmas card to.)
This article is to tie in with the 50th anniversary of the founding of Release International, which works with and for persecuted Christians around the world, and was inspired by Richard Wurmbrand. They have also brought out a 50th-anniversary edition of Wurmbrand’s book, Tortured for Christ. I suppose I should recommend that you get a copy, but I’m not going to; it’s pretty horrific in places, and things read can’t be unread. Get In God’s Underground instead. It’s also by Wurmbrand but it’s more informative and less graphic.
Wurmbrand was pretty quotable, and the title of this post refers to something he wrote:
“A man truly believes not what he recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die for.”
I hope never to have my beliefs tested by facing death or torture (sorry, Therese), but if it ever did come to it, I hope that I would be found to truly believe the things I say I believe. So what do you believe?
Free audiobooks!
11 MayThroughout the merrie month of May, my novelised biographies of St Patrick and Augustine of Hippo are available from Christian Audio for half price. That’s three hours of educational entertainment for $4.98 (which is about £3.68 in real money).
But better yet, if you take out a free trial membership (cancel within 30 days or you’ll be charged for the following month – you know the drill), you can get them for FREE! If there’s one thing better than a good book, it’s a free good book.
You can also give them as gifts apparently, although I’ve never done that, so I don’t know how it works. Worth investigating if you have a tween/teen/person who’s interested in late Roman, Irish, North African or church history on your birthday present list.
Happy listening!
Europe’s Forgotten Hero
25 AprStatue of Skanderbeg in Tirana
I’ve got an article in the May edition of History Today magazine. This is exciting because it’s a new ‘market’ for me, but also because the article is about Skanderbeg – someone I think more people should have heard of.
It’s easy to assume that Albania’s national hero, a medieval warlord, was always an obscure figure. Albania is a small country, after all, and has often being under foreign domination to boot. The genesis of this article came about when I visited the National History Museum in Tirana and saw a display of old books about Skanderbeg – not in Albanian, but in Italian, German, English, French… Clearly, there had been a time when Skanderbeg (or Skenderbeu in Albanian) was a lot better known. So, years later, when I found out 2018 was the ‘Year of Skanderbeg’, I finally looked into it, and wrote the article.
If you’re interested in Skanderbeg, and want to know about the sources I used, use the ‘Get in touch’ form on the right. Otherwise, simply rush out and buy the magazine. It will be in shops shortly, if it’s not already, and it’s the edition with the bright blue cover and a picture of a very creepy looking mermaid with oversized ears. You can also read the article online.
I’ve got a couple of articles coming up in Christianity Magazine, too, so I’ll blog about them in due course. In the meantime, I need to get on with the work in progress, The Sarcophagus Scroll, which is getting tantalisingly close to the magic 50,000 words at which you can indisputably call it a novel. Better not leave it at 50,000 words, though, since we still don’t know whodunnit or why 😉
Read an Ebook Week 2018
5 Mar
March 4th to 10th is Read an Ebook Week, so all my ebooks are free on Smashwords.
The books included are:
- Leda (YA adventure)
- Office Life (and Death) (humorous short stories)
- A New Year’s Trio (romantic short stories)
- Running for Cover (single romance short story – this one’s always free anyway)
That doesn’t include Patrick of Ireland: The Boy Who Forgave or Augustine: The Truth Seeker because they are from a different publisher – but if you really want them, you can probably stretch to six quid, right? If not, petition your local library to stock them, if it doesn’t already.
K C Murdarasi 