Weekly Geeks #24 - Fun facts about authors

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 here 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.

Haven't done a Weekly Geeks for a while, but this one looks like a lot of fun. I've decided to focus on British author, Elizabeth Chadwick.

1. Elizabeth Chadwick won a Betty Trask award (an award for young novelists under the age of thirty five for a first novel of a romantic or traditional nature) for her first ever published novel, The Wild Hunt. (Click link for my review of this book)

2. The award was presented to her by HRH Prince Charles

3. In 1994, Elizabeth Chadwick was hired by Columbia Pictures to write the book of the movie First Knight, which starred Richard Gere and Sean Connery. (Coincidentally, for a very short time I used to know a girl who was an extra in that film!)

4. On her Musical Soundtracks blog, Elizabeth Chadwick shares the songs that she used for inspiration in her writing. Whilst her novels are very firmly placed within medieval times, her musical tastes range from Billy Joel to Metallica, Kate Bush to Feargal Sharkey.

5. Part of her research is done through her passion for reenactment with Regia Anglorum. She can regularly be found dressed up in medieval clothing, cooking and eating medieval food! An added bonus is that she uses some of her own photographs from RA events in her book trailers. I think that gives them an incredibly personal touch!

6. Another of her research tools is to use Akashic record. To find out more about this interesting subject, click here.

7. On her main blog, Living the History, Elizabeth often shares incredibly detailed posts about her research trips etc. If you are at all interested in medieval times, then this should be a stop on your blog rounds!

8. EC's latest books are difficult to get hold of in the US, but a couple of them are being released by Sourcebooks in the US next year. All I can say is make sure you get hold of them, because they are excellent reads, and it would be fantastic if more of her books were available there as well. If you are really interested in getting hold of her books, then I recommend The Book Depository, who have free postage to certain countries around the world. I think that you can also get them from Amazon.ca.

My reviews of the books are in the links below:

The Greatest Knight
The Scarlet Lion
A Place Beyond Courage
The Time of Singing

9. Most of this information was gleaned from Elizabeth Chadwick's recently revamped website.

And that's it for this week's Weekly Geeks post!