the author of Roma Amor
I live in a Down East coastal village with my husband, a Maine native.
I've been building the foundation of Roma Amor for decades. In my senior year at Mount Holyoke College, I won a Phi Beta Kappa Prize for a forerunner of this historical novel.
After launching a career as an advertising copywriter, I began to rewrite the story from scratch in the mid-'70s. In 1980, the manuscript was accepted for representation by a New York literary agent. However, its length and a relatively unsympathetic protagonist worked against it.
While working as creative director of an ad agency, I explored other approaches to the story. In 1991, I started a freelance copywriting business (see my business website) and branched into co-authorship of four nonfiction books. About 10 years ago, I began — again from scratch — today's Roma Amor.
My personal library of more than 100 reference books about ancient Rome has helped me develop a plot weaving historical personages and events into a story that could have happened. Trips to Italy, Germany, Austria, France, Greece, and England have sharpened my sense of place. I've walked on Roman roads, stood on the Palatine Hill where Caligula was murdered, and peered across the Danube frontier from the site of the long-gone legion fort of Carnuntum.
During this long process, I've had the privilege of studying with several noted authors of historical and literary fiction at workshops, retreats, and in college:
I'm very grateful to them, and to the friends, other fellow writers, and authorities on Roman life who have encouraged, critiqued, and improved the writing of Roma Amor.
Why ROMA AMOR?
I think we all struggle with choosing between what we want to do and what we're supposed to do. Many of us are children or grandchildren of people who were asked to sacrifice themselves to preserve larger values, yet we now live in a culture that celebrates self-indulgence. It's fascinating to imagine how this generational struggle might have played out in Caligula's Rome, when nearly 70 years of peace would have persuaded many younger Romans that duty was an outmoded concept. (It's now been 62 years since the end of World War II, by the way.)
There's another important parallel between the early/mid first century and our era of "imperial presidency." After a hundred years of expanding its influence through war and trade, Rome was realizing that as the world's peacekeeper, it could no longer return to its roots as a squabbling republic. The solution was a good one — rule by a Princeps elected by the Senate — but Augustus's precedent of bequeathing his power to a family member led to trouble before long.
