Kathryn McConaughy's Feast of Adventures

I’ve gotten a lot of comments lately about how “original” my story “Guardian of Our Beauty” was.   While I’ll readily admit that not that many writers set fantasies in the Ancient Near East, I’m not the only one!   So, for those of you who would enjoy some more Ancient Near Eastern fantasy, here are a few that I’ve encountered. (First, a quick note.   The “Near East” refers to the geographic area now usually known as the Middle East—Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, parts of Iran.   The Arabian peninsula is also part of this region, although we don’t know much about what was happening there during the ancient period.   The “Ancient” part of “Ancient Near East” refers to the period between the beginning of civilization there and the 1 st century AD.) My favorite Ancient Near Eastern fantasy series is the Farsala trilogy by Hilari Bell.   This trilogy ( Fall of a Kingdom, Rise of a Hero, Forging the Sword ) is a magical take on the Ro...

Five Magic Spindles will be out on July 22.  I am terribly excited, and I hope you are too!  One of the other anthology authors, Rachel Kovaciny, has been hosting a series of interviews with the authors on her blog, Hamlette's Soliloquy.  Check out http://hamlette.blogspot.com/ and look for her posts from June 2, June 9, June 16, and June 23.  We've all had a chance to go through the book's galleys, and the influencer readers have now received their e-copies of the book.  Ironically, the influencer readers see the final version before we authors do!  (I'm really curious to know who ultimately won a certain grammar battle in my story... The editors and I went back and forth about a particular verb form several times.  They kept changing it to a perfect tense form, I kept changing it back to a past progressive.  The funny thing is, the first few times I thought "Oh, I must have made a mistake," and changed it without realizing that I was ...

>>For as long as she can remember, clear-eyed Palli has known that the fate of her city depends on her.   Cursed by an angry magician, blessed by a mysterious traveler, and assisted by three mighty allies, Palli will fall asleep on her wedding day.   But more perils are in play than the ill-speaking of one disgruntled sorcerer.   Can Palli’s curse be turned into the salvation of her city?<< I was so excited to have my story "Guardian of Our Beauty" selected for a new anthology by Rooglewood Press ( Five Magic Spindles, a collection of five Sleeping Beauty retellings)!  I ended up setting my story in the Ancient Near East--or, at least, in a fairy-tale version of it.  Historically minded readers may be able to identify the Sea Peoples and spot the fall of the Hittite Empire occurring in the background.  (Although I'm fairly sure that sea-monsters and winged lions didn't have too much to do with the original course of events!) And I am ve...