California Writers Week Historical Fiction Panel

FIGHT FOR PROGRESS: READ HISTORICAL FICTION! Come hear three historical fiction novelists discuss how issues such as women’s rights, religious tolerance, and anti-discrimination resonate from the past in modern historical fiction.

With experience writing in periods and contexts as disparate as war-plagued Europe in the 1480s, a quirky 1970s circus, a captive woman in the Trojan War, a 13 th century BCE Hittite queen, and the Flying Nightingales of WWII, this author threesome will entertain you as we take on the past and the ways historical fiction illuminates our current world.

About the Authors

Tim Schooley

Tim Schooley’s first job out of high school was as a circus clown with Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey Circus. When he discovered he was not that funny, he went to college at UC Santa Barbara and then law school at UC Berkeley. He spent 35 years as an appellate lawyer, taught appellate law at UC Davis Law School for 10 years, and worked first as a “writ attorney” and then as the managing attorney of the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, in Sacramento. All along, he wrote fiction, but waited until his retirement to publish his debut novel, The Wool Translator, which follows a Christian boy and a Muslim girl across religiously fractured Europe of the 1480s. Tim’s forthcoming novel, The Circus of the Vanishing Elephant, is based (very loosely) on his employment as a circus clown. Tim lives with his wife in Fair Oaks. His website: www.timschooley.com

Judith Starkston

After spending too much time reading about and exploring the remains of the ancient worlds of the Greeks and Hittites, including degrees in classics and a long teaching career, Judith Starkston figured out what it was all good for. Judith now writes historical fantasy set in the Bronze Age world of Greeks and Hittites. Her five novels bring women to the fore—whether the Trojan War captive Briseis or a remarkable Hittite queen whom history forgot, even though she ruled over one of the greatest ancient empires. Her website: www.JudithStarkston.com

Laura Walker

Former Sacramento Bee reporter and columnist Laura Jensen Walker is the award- winning author of more than 20 books including Thanks for the Mammogram and the bestselling, Agatha-nominated Murder Most Sweet. Captivated by the tales of an overlooked group of WWII RAF women—the Flying Nightingales—Air Force veteran Laura knew she had to tell their story in her historical debut, Death of a Flying Nightingale. You can contact Laura through her website: https://laurajensenwalker.com.