When you’re writing fiction, you have to make shit up. That’s a given, right? 

I spent two years in 2015-16 writing the no-longer-in-existence The Awakening, the first book in a fantasy trilogy based on my experiences living and working in the Northern California cannabis community.

One of the places that I made up was a city called Caere, a place inspired by my travels to Ireland and Italy that I had my main character, a young woman named Faith, visit in the pre-narrative storyline.

I thought I made the place up. Turns out, it actually exists. Or rather it existed, and its ruins are only about 120 kilometers (75 mi) away from where I live in Italy.

But here’s the really fun tidbit of that story.

When I got robbed while traveling in South America back in 2017, and those a-holes took my computer, external hard drive, etc., they stole all of the first draft of The Awakening as well as the half-finished draft of book 2, The Journey.

I never rewrote those books. I might someday. I still have the outlines and I still think they’re pretty good.

But once my son was born (10 months almost to the day after that robbery, 2017 was a wild year), and our new little family moved to Italy, I went back to a different book idea that had been poking at me since my first trip to Italy in 2013 (check out these gems!). 

This book was set in the ancient Mediterranean. A book about sacred prostutition and Mediterranean piracy. 

As I started my research on ancient Etruria, the pre-Roman civilization that was concentrated in Central Italy and literally dug the tombs that my current village of residence is built on, I stumbled on the most important port city in ancient Etruria and the famous temples (and sacred prostitution) in guess where??

Yup, Caere.

You know what’s funny is that for a long time I felt like I should rewrite The Awakening and The Journey and then tackle what I thought might be The Becoming. 

People tried to console me after that robbery, where I lost years worth of intellectual property with saying “But can’t you rewrite what you lost?”

The answer to which is a resounding “Are you fucking kidding me?” because whatever I rewrote, while it might be good or even better than what I originally penned, would not be what I had written. Plus writing it the first time was fine. Rewriting it felt like torture.

Those words were long gone, deleted I’m sure with a few deft button clicks so that those dicks could sell my gear on the black market for cheap.

But I digress. The point here is that I felt like I should rewrite them but I really didn’t want to. What I wanted to write was this new book, Making Love to Phoenicians.

And discovering that a place that I thought I had dreamed up for my now-gone novel was not only real but was literally the center of the setting for this new book… it felt like it meant something. It felt like a sign.

Work on Making Love to Phoenicians has been S L O W . The pandemic effectively shut down my ability to research for awhile and then I took a year to write, publish, and market The Trouble with Wings, my travel memoir.

But this book is still happening. And I’m ratcheting it up in the priority list of shit I need to create and put out into the world.

As someone who very much believes in things we can’t see or understand, a coincidence like that feels profound.

The opportunity to live on top of an Etruscan necropolis within driving distance of no less than three research destinations, and a quick plane or boat ride to literally all the rest…

Working in a vineyard that very possibly could have been land that my lead character’s family worked 2500 years ago…

Existing in this world where, as a woman, visibility can be dangerous and we need new stories about the virtues and nuances of being human…

It feels powerful.

It feels important.

It feels like a sign that I need to write this story and I need to write it now.

If you’re reading this right now and you feel like you need a sign to let go of something that got away and chase what your heart is wanting now… This is your sign. GO. Create! Do what you want even if it doesn’t make any freaking sense.

Or maybe you’re an ancient history nerd like me that obsesses over well done historical fantasy series (City of Brass, The Bear and the Nightingale, and Poppy War are freakin’ top!).

Making Love to Phoenicians is this WIP, set partially in the ancient Mediterranean world of 500 BC and partially in 1960s Rome when three very important gold tablets were discovered at the temple of Caere dedicated to the goddess Astarte (Phoneician version )/Uni (Etruscan version).

There’s sex, scandal, loss, love, seeking, and redemption. And juicy history and magical realism brought to life. And lots of I’m-booking-my-ticket-right-effing-now descriptions of the Mediterranean.

I’ll get an email list set up soon if you want to nerd out on research and travel with me.

(But if you want to travel with me, for now may I invite you to join me inside The Trouble with Wings?)