Category: Uncategorized
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Dispatches From the Margins: The Women Diarists of Heian Japan
I know that I’m behind my usual schedule this week, but I took a self-care day yesterday to get a second look at the Carnegie International. And I’m glad I did, because I was able to get some clarifications on musings I had in my May entry, mainly: 1) yes, asinnajaq’s cross-environment installation in the…
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The Illusions of Peace: A Brief Introduction to Heian Japan
Okay, as promised, we’re going to start some discussions on the general milieu of my latest book, Lady Safflower, and it seemed like the best place to start is with its historical setting: Heian-era Japan (794 CE—1185). And while I won’t be able to hit everything involved in a four hundred year timeframe in a…
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RELEASE DAY for LADY SAFFLOWER
Howdy, all! Just a friendly reminder that my next novel, Lady Safflower, is out TODAY on all major platforms (except Hoopla, which is lagging as usual…). I’m so excited for you to meet Nagako, Jūrō, and whole supernatural gang living at the end of an era and the edge between realms! Below you’ll find links…
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PUBLICATION ANNOUNCEMENT for LADY SAFFLOWER and eBOOK SALE!
Hello, my dear readers! I am so pleased to let you know that my (seventh!) novel, Lady Safflower, is coming out THIS FRIDAY, June 26th, 2026! Join me for a brand new historical setting (medieval Heian Japan) and cast of characters (we’ll have emperors, ladies, and Buddhist monks—but also fox spirits, demonic courtesans, and tofu-loving…
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Monks, Masons, and Mozart: Enlightenment Fiction in The Life of Sethos
In my post about Mary Wollstonecraft’s novels, I intimated that the Enlightenment had a bit of a fictional literature problem. In the broad strokes, it’s just very hard to create compelling fiction if you were a serious adherent of the period’s new cult of reason (if not the literal Cult of Reason…) and science. At…
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The World as ‘We’: The 59th Carnegie International
Ooh boy, folks, we are back with another museum entry and it is a doozy! Because it has already(!) been four years, and North America’s longest-running contemporary international art exhibition is back again at CMOA for its fifty-ninth iteration! I actually went at the start of the month during opening week, but as that was…
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Currying Flavor: A Taste of Medieval Cooking
Since it’s been over a year since I taste tested garum for y’all, this week I wanted to do another semi-interactive food entry. But this time around, I wanted to take a peek at some medieval cuisine, and even trying my hand at a recipe reproduction from one of the seminal cookbooks of the era:…
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Guess Who’s Back, Back Again?: Ten More Unusual and Obscure Egyptian Gods (Round 3)
Time flies when you’re having fun(?), so it’s already been two years since we last revisited that endless well that is the Egyptian pantheon, and since the search engines and AI bots can’t get enough of this as a topic, we’re going to dive back in with ten more lesser-known gods and goddesses! 10) Anukis…
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Russian Rashōmon: The Tolstoys’ Kreutzer Sonatas
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” – Lev Tolstoy, Anna Karenina “Some families will literally write four different versions of The Kreutzer Sonata rather than go to therapy…” – Me Lev Tolstoy’s 1889 work The Kreutzer Sonata is one of those famous, top-cited short stories that tends…
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War and Werther: Napoleon the Novelist
Like all men, he desired happiness, but he had found only glory.” – Clisson and Eugénie “Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.” – (probably) misattributed to Cicero Did you know that Napoleon Bonaparte wrote a book? Well, “book” is a bit of an oversell—more of a…
Sarah Holz 