

Physical actions bring to life the scenes you write
Last month Book Daily published my blog on how physical actions enable the reader to imagine your scene more vividly. For example: When...


MIRIAM’S HOUSE WAS AIR CONDITIONED
The peristyle is an interior garden bound by evenly spaced columns that support a shady roofed portico over a stone walkway. In Miriam’s...


Come Smell the Roses
Rather than as a place for contemplation or inspiration or as a place to represent or control nature, the purpose of a Roman garden was...


Cleopatra Wasn’t the Only One
Despite Plutarch and other ancient historians’ accounts, modern toxicologists challenge the notion that Cleopatra died from the bite of...


Dressing for Dung, Excrement, and Phlegm
A reader of my blog of September 20, focusing on the tufts of dungs, puddles of excrement, and medallions of phlegm that blotched the...


WAS ALEXANDER’S DEATH NATURAL OR WAS HE POISONED?
Alexander the Great died in Babylon at the age of 32 after suffering ten days of a high fever. Theories concerning the cause of his death...


Who do you think you are? Cleopatra?
Unlike today, fashions were slow to change in the Ancient World. Without steel needles, sewing was a difficult craft. The women had a few...


Get along better in Roman Alexandria
Wanna get along better in Roman Alexandria? One way, of course, is to read the thrill-packed historical adventures in the Miriam bat...


HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT VOMITING?
According to some biologists, the smell of one person’s vomit can trigger vomiting in others. This reaction is regarded as an advantage...


Ready to see and be seen?
Miriam would go to the agora, the central marketplace in Alexandria, just to see and be seen. She describes it for us in THE DEADLIEST...