Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Witches

One of the good things I managed to do this month has been delivering (finally) the translation of my friend Francesca’s book about witches in Lombardy. Now the translation is in her hands – she’ll have to check I got all the plant names and other technicalities right, and then the book will hit the Amazon shelves.
We hope to have it out by Halloween.

The book is quite interesting, as it is a mix of brief essays and short stories, providing insight on many of the stories and legends – but also historical facts – about witchcraft in Northern Italy and in particular in Lombardy and in the Lake Como area.

When the book becomes available, I’ll make sure to put a shout-out here on my blog – this has been one of the most fun, most pleasant jobs I’ve done in 2020, and helped keep desperation at bay.
It will be good to have the book out for public consumption – Francesca deserves all the success she’ll certainly have.


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Writing stories as a kid

I found this incredible video this morning, in which Mary Robinette Kowal illustrates her approach to writing short fiction. It was something I fired up while taking a break for breakfast, and I found myself taking notes. Because it was that good.

But apart from the excellent content, there was something else that gave me pause: the lesson was presented in front of a room full of kids. As in high school kids.

And I found myself wondering what would have been of me, had I access to high-quality writing instruction when I was in high school.

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A story idea in a typo

Today I tweeted about the fact that I have so far submitted 53 stories in 2020. But because I’m the worst typist on the planet (and possibly in the whole system), I tweeted, in fact, about having submitted 53 stories in the year 202.

Trying not to look too stupid, I tweeted again and joked about the year 202 AD, also known as the Year of the Consulship of Severus and Antoninus.
But there’s more, because 202 AD was the year in which female gladiators were banned in Rome.

And I thought… isn’t that a great idea for a story?

So here I am, thinking about an out-of-work former gladiatrix… what a promising character!
And yes, I know there’s a movie about that featuring Pam Grier, but let’s not dwell on that right now.


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All set for Halloween

This morning, a rather surprised-looking delivery guy dropped in front of my door a crate containing a Kickstarter Exclusive box of Tales of Evil, the all-Italian horror boardgame designed by my friend Antonio Ferrara, and produced by his Escape Studios.

Tales of Evil is a boardgame inspired by books like It and TV series like Scooby Doo and Stranger Things – in it, you can play one in a gang of meddling kids, exploring an old dark house.
It is heavy on pop culture references and has its tongue firmly in cheek.

An interesting mix of boardgame, choose-your-adventure book, roleplaying game and alternate reality game, Tales of Evil is absolutely gorgeous and, in the English edition, is masterfully translated.
Just sayin’.

Now I know what we’ll do on Halloween night.


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“Normally” racist

It’s late on a Saturday night, I’m going through one of my usual bouts of insomnia, I’m nursing a hell of a headache, and I’m browsing the blogs that I follow to see what’s up and read a few posts to distract myself.
And I stumble on the post of a guy that has just found out our civilization is fascistic, because just look at the new Oscar award standards, that require a wider representation and diversity – who sets these standards?, the poor soul cries to the skies. Why are they imposing this on us?!
I think I’ve already written about this, but it’s quite surprising finding out the muddy bottom of the internet reaches into your blogroll, and the bottom feeders are actually making noises in my backyard.

And there, in one of the comments, someone gives us the baseline racist statement of the week

That’s the way things have become… just check any movie or TV series from 2000 on: there will be a person of color, and then an Asian, and then on to all the minorities… transgender too, nowadays…

I’m sleepless, I have a headache and a bug just committed suicide by diving in my tea. And now this. Even my renowned zen-like patience has a limit…

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I want my money back

Today I did something I rarely do – I asked for a refund on my last purchase on Amazon, a 7 bucks ebook I bought because I am interested in the topic but also because I am doing some research for my next writing project (contract signed – I am waiting for the advance … my bank is also waiting for the advance … and my insurance company … and my electricity provider).

So, considering this will be a fun project that could lead to more books being written in the series, I decided to check out what I could find on the main topics, to supplement my own collection.
And I immediately stumbled on this new (2018) Italian-language biography of one of the key historical characters – that happens to be Italian himself. I have a couple of bios already, but this one is really recent, and so I bought the ebook.

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