Black Gate Wins World Fantasy Award

Regular readers of this blog know that on Wednesdays I'm over at Black Gate blogging about travel and history. Black Gate started out as a fantasy fiction print magazine before migrating online, where it has become one of the leading blogs covering genre fiction. Doing what I do, I'm a bit of an oddball among the bloggers, but I'm made to feel welcome and I enjoy working on it.

Now Black Gate has been recognized for its contributions in the field by getting the World Fantasy Award at the latest World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, Ohio. Congratulations to my editor John O'Neill and all my fellow bloggers! You can read more about the award here.

I'm Starting a Newsletter!

I'm finally starting a newsletter. Yes, it's one of the things in an author's toolbox that I've been lacking. The first issue of Sean's Travels and Tales will come out in a week's time. I plan to have it come out every two months or so, and each issue will include a travel article, a short story, announcements for any new books, and a coupon for a free or discounted book.

Issue #1 contains an article on "The Lamest Snake Charmer Ever" and a short story from my Toxic World series called "Movie Night at $87,953", which as fans of the series know, is the most popular bar in the apocalypse. Read on if you want to find out the origin of the weird name.

So click on this link to sign up to my newsletter. I promise not to share your email with anyone, because that's a sure way to tank my career!

Travel Tuesday: My Travel Year, A Look Back And A Look Forward

Yours truly in Mzoura, a prehistoric stone circle and burial mound in Morocco, which I wrote about here.

So here we are in another year. As usual at the beginning of a new year, I like to look back on the past year's travel an see what's ahead. This post is a little late because I was, well, traveling!

Last year saw me go to Morocco three times. Mostly I was based in Tangier, working on my current novel, The Last Hotel Room, which is set there. I was even fortunate enough to spend a whole month living in Tangier's medina. My family came down too and I got to introduce my son to North Africa. It's important that he grows up familiar with something beyond Western Europe. We also had our usual Easter and summer stays in England, plus a couple of bonus trips up there!

Besides that, I'm afraid, I didn't travel anywhere. My travel has dropped off drastically since the demise of the late, great Gadling travel blog, which sent me to all sorts of fun places like Somaliland, Ethiopia, and Iraq. The bottom has really fallen out of the online travel writing market and the focus of my career has shifted to fiction and history writing.

Will 2016 be better? It's too early to tell. We'll be back in England at least for the summer, and I'm planning at least one trip to Morocco that will probably turn into two or three trips. It's just so cheap and convenient from Madrid! I'm also pitching editors for various stories on Ghent, Belgium. Other than that, who knows?

Book Review: The Alleys of Marrakesh

The Alleys Of Marrakesh by Peter Mayne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a short account of the author's stay in Marrakesh in the 1950s told with classic English wit and insight. The author lived in a working class neighborhood for a time to improve his Arabic, and his quick grasp of that language really brought depth to his narrative. Unlike many travelogues from the era that read like a camera panning across a scene, Mayne actually introduces us to three-dimensional people and lets them speak for themselves. Many of the stories are quite funny, and I really felt like I was getting to know some of Mayne's oddball neighbors and other people he came to know.
My only complaint was that I felt the book to be too short. I would have like to learn more about these people but unfortunately Mayne ran out of money and had to return home. The book cuts off abruptly, with some stories unfinished and a few missed good-byes. Sounds like the end of any trip!

View all my reviews

Travel Tuesday: Visiting Nimrud before it was Destroyed

As regular readers of this blog know, I visited Iraq in 2012. One of the places I got to see was Nimrud, an ancient Assyrian capital. I wrote about it recently for Black Gate in the article Memories of Mosul before ISIS.

Actually, I was writing an obituary. ISIS has recently trashed Nimrud and another important Assyrian site called Nineveh. They destroyed all the statues, including this winged bull at the Nimrud palace gate. They also continued their practice of digging up artifact to sell on the international black market. They only destroy the big showy stuff for the cameras, the rest they sell so they can buy weapons. I'll be writing a post for Black Gate about Hatra tomorrow, another ancient site they destroyed.

Travel Tuesday: Mysterious Stone Book in Vienna

Here's an odd little sign I spotted in Vienna last year. You'd think it would be hanging above a bookshop or library, but it isn't. Perhaps the building changed hands? Judging from the style, it looks like it was made in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Not that I'm an expert.
Austria's capital is a wonderful destination for art and culture. The museums are in old Hapsburg palaces and the cafes serve up cakes that will kill you with kindness. I got to thinking about Vienna yesterday because former Gadling colleague Pam Mandel wrote about a fun blog post about the Vienna flea market. Check it out. She's a great travel writer!

My Travel Year: A Look Back And A Look Forward

As my regular readers know, I'm an avid traveler. Living in Madrid makes it easier, but various things have kept me from doing much travel this year. I have three main threads in my writing career--travel, history, and fiction. For the past ten years all three have had their ups and downs, and in 2014 travel writing was definitely in a down.

The year started well with trips to Tangier and Belgium. Then the travel assignments dried up and besides our usual family trips to Oxford, there wasn't much of anything. I did manage to slip in two more trips to Tangier, but that's it. This is the first year that I can remember where I didn't go to a new country. I'll have to remedy that in 2015. Call it a New Year's resolution.

So where could I go? I recently discovered there's regular flights from Madrid to Algiers, so that's a possibility if I could drum up some freelance. Hungary and Egypt are also possibilities. I'm sure my career will throw me some curveballs as usual, so who knows where I might end up?!

My Writing Year: A Look Back And A Look Forward

Happy New Year to all of you who use the Gregorian calendar! I just got back from Tangier, where today is just another day except for all the fireworks on the news. I had a nice two-week writing retreat that I'll tell you about in the next post. Right now it seems like a good time to take stock of my writing career and where I'm going.

As I predicted in a year-end post last year, 2014 was my fiction year. I published four novels and two novellas, evenly split between my Toxic World post-apocalyptic series and my World War One Trench Raiders action series. I also wrote some short stories and got a couple accepted.

Nonfiction has been doing OK as well. I'm currently under contract for another military history book with Osprey Publishing, done pretty well with getting writing gigs on Elance, and broke into a couple of new magazine markets. Being a full-time freelancer is always a struggle, though.

So what's in store for this year? I'll be publishing at least two novels in each series, as well as a long-awaited sequel to A Fine Likeness, my Civil War horror novel. There will be a few other goodies coming down the pike too.

I also need to get in gear with promotion. I have yet to figure out how to market my books effectively. This sort of thing doesn't come naturally to me, and I don't want to be "that guy" who's always flogging his books. As a result, I tend to remain more quiet than I probably should. Any advice along those lines would be highly appreciated.

For my writer friends out there, how did your year go? What will you do different in 2015?

Happy New Year!!!

Belgian battlefields and Viking wisdom

If you follow this blog, you know I was recently in Belgium and England. I'm settled back in Spain now and writing up my travels for various sites. Two articles have come out recently. The first is for a cool travel site called The Scout Project, which has published my article on the World War One battlefields in Belgium.

I also have an article out with Black Gate on the British Museum's blockbuster Viking exhibition titled Viking Art, Magic, and Wisdom at the British Museum. This show is full of surprising artifacts like this 10th century gold ear spoon used for cleaning out wax.

I've just been signed up to do a weekly series on historical travel for Black Gate, so you'll be seeing plenty of me over there!

Photo Copyright The National Museum of Denmark.

Post-Apocalyptic A to Z: Underwater Perils

In any post-apocalyptic scenario, the oceans and streams are going to be in trouble. In Soylent Green, perhaps the best post-apocalyptic film of all time, they mention that the oceans are dead. It's hard to imagine killing off life in 71% of the Earth's surface, but actually the ecozones in streams and oceans seem to be less durable than those on land, and much of our waste and industrial emissions end up there.

Right now I'm reading A Drive Through England, written in 1885 by James John Hissey. It's a charming Victorian travelogue with plenty of lush descriptions of unspoilt countryside, but there are sobering passages as well. Hissey mentions that fishing in the Thames isn't what it used to be.

"What a pity it is there are nowadays no salmon in this fine river, and that a Thames trout should be such a rarity and curiosity! As late as 1820, this noble fish had not forsaken this stream, one of seventy-two pounds being captured that year by one Robert Coxen, a waterman, at Twickenham. Salmon still annually make their appearance at the Thames mouth, and if only they could make their way through the dirty water and filth we throw needlessly into the river, there would be as good sport for anglers west of Twickenham as there is north of the Tweed."

Luckily the Thames is a lot cleaner than in his day. Salmon and trout are beginning to reappear, thanks to a decline in England's industrial base.

Maybe the fall of civilization would be good for the environment. :-


Image of the Trout Inn at Godstow courtesy Rod Allday. Many pubs are called "The Trout" in reference to the fishing that used to occur nearby.

The Snake Eaters of Morocco

Moroccan Cobra

While in Tangier, I got to do some research about the history of Morocco in the American Legation library. They have an incredible collection, including many signed editions and rare books form the 18th and 19th centuries. One is A Tour from Gibraltar to Tangier by William Lempriere, a surgeon hired to treat the son of the sultan. It was published in 1791 and is a detailed look at the country as it was then.

When talking about the Marabout, who are religious performers you can still see today, the author has this to say.

“The most singular of this class are the Sidi Nasir, or snake eaters, who exhibit in public upon market-days, and entertain the crowd by eating live snakes, and performing juggling deceptions. I was once present at this strange species of amusement, and saw a man, in the course of two hours, eat a living serpent four feet in length. He danced to the sound of wild music, vocal and instrumental, with a variety of odd gestures and contortions, several times round the circle formed by the spectators. He then began his attack upon the tail, after he had recited a short prayer, in which he was joined by the multitude. This ceremony was repeated at intervals, till he had entirely devoured the snake.”

I never got to see the Sidi Nasir and don't know if they're still around. I did meet a Marabout who was hawking his own brand of herbal Viagra in front of the main mosque! No, I didn't buy any.


Photo courtesy Phillipe Geniez.

My travel year, a look back and a look forward

Tallinn in winter.

This past year has been pretty good for me as far as travel goes. I managed to visit three new countries—Estonia, Slovenia, and Austria. In addition I got in some other smaller trips such as visiting an Italian book festival to celebrate the translation of one of my books, did lots of caving, saw Edinburgh, plus the usual visits to Oxford and London. I also visited Tangier three times. I’ve really fallen for that relaxed Moroccan port and I’ve been getting a lot of work done on a novel set there.

Sadly, there was no great adventure travel in 2013. In 2012 I got to visit Iraq and the year before that I spent a couple of months living in Harar, Ethiopia. This year I spent entirely in Europe with a toehold in Africa. Am I getting old? No, it’s just that my travel funds are drying up thanks to my main sugar daddy, the travel blog Gadling, closing up shop.

This is going to make 2014 a tight travel year. Oxford and Tangier are in, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to afford much more than that. Both of those will be working/research trips. Beyond that, I may just hole up in my apartment and write a ton of fiction, like I mentioned in an earlier post.

Of course, the New Year might bring some surprises. Who knows where I may end up in the next twelve months?

What were your big trips in 2013? Anything good planned for the New Year?

My Writing Year: Look Back and a Look Forward

It’s 2014, and like everyone else I’m taking stock of the past year and looking forward to the new one.

This past year has been one of ups and downs in my writing career. I won a travel award for my Iraq reportage, I got into a ghost story anthology, and saw sales of my Civil War novel go up thanks to a free story I posted. It looks like readers like to sample your wares before making a purchase!

The high point was National Novel Writing Month. I’d never done one before. Working furiously through November, I wrote a 71,000 word post-apocalyptic tale called Radio Hope. It’s coming out in February. The turnaround was so quick thanks to my being able to devote my entire energy to the project, plus the helpful aid of my many beta readers. You guys rock!

The big downside to this year was the death of Gadling. It used to be the number one travel blog on the web. I’d worked for it for more than four years, writing more than a thousand posts and doing many fun series to places such as Iraq and Somaliland. Sadly, a reshuffle in the parent corporation led to all the writers being laid off. Now Gadling is a shadow of its former self. Where once a dozen experienced writers reported in from all corners of the globe, now an in-house hack produces one or two rehash posts a week.

It’s sad to see something you love die. On the other hand, it can lead to new things. Gadling took up a huge amount of my time, time I am now devoting to more magazine work and lots more fiction. The year 2014 is going to be my fiction year. Not only do I have Radio Hope coming out, but I’m well into the sequel and plan to write a third in the series before 2015 rolls around. I’m also going to start an action series set in World War One called Trench Raiders. More projects are simmering in my brain pan as well, such as my Tangier novel, so stay tuned!

For my writer friends out there, how did your year go? What will you do different in 2014?

Happy New Year!!!

More on Vienna

Still buzzing from my Vienna trip. My first travel article is out already and there will be more to come. This one is a general overview. The others will be more history oriented.

Vienna is a great place for high culture. I was totally blown away by the galleries and museums, and the fact that many are in palaces. The above shot, for example, is the cafe in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the main art museum that I mention in my last post. That's right, this is the cafe. The rest of the museum is even better.

Vienna is a museum junkie's paradise. Not only do they have all the usual museums (such as a military history museum I'll be writing up for another blog) but they have lots of random weird museums, like an Esperanto Museum (more on that in a later post) and a Globe Museum. The Globe Museum is a compelling place for anyone who loves travel and geography.

As the Christmas season approaches there are plenty of winter markets selling food and gifts. One of them was in the Museum Quarter near my hotel. The little rounded huts you see here sold mulled wine and bratwurst, perfect for a chilly Viennese night. That glowing box had a DJ in it and was pumping out tunes!

Off to Vienna!

Tomorrow I head to wintery Vienna for a week to write various travel and history articles. I'm looking forward to some fun days seeing art, exploring museums, shopping at the winter markets, and drinking Trappist beer.

I'll try to post some of my own pictures during the week. For now, here's a photo courtesy Andrew Nash showing the tram stop at Volkstheater near where I'm going to be staying.

I've started a travel series on Estonia on Gadling, the travel blog that sent me there last week. As you can imagine, the northernmost Baltic state was pretty snowy this time of year, although unusually mild--only 0C or 32F.

Anyway, hit the link and follow my adventures as I explore one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe, visit old Soviet military installations, and explore secret tunnels underneath the capital!

Blogging about travel and history in Iraq

Alongside my Iraq travel series for Gadling, I've been doing a bunch of guest posts for other blogs about my trip.

For Osprey Publishing I wrote about the Baghdad North Gate War Cemetery, where many of the British Empire's fallen from the First World War are interred. For A.J. Walker's blog on medieval history and archaeology, I wrote a guest post about a medieval castle in Iraq. Over at The Adventure Blog I've written about the ancient Arab city of Hatra. I also wrote about Exploring Medieval Baghdad for Black Gate Magazine, which published my historical fantasy novella The Quintessence of Absence.

So head on over to these sites and get some good free reading, otherwise this Iraqi kid will ride his ancient lion over to your house and eat you!

New travel series on Iraq

Yes, I haven't posted on this blog for a while, but there's a new crop of book reviews coming up so it will get a bit more lively here. Right now I'm busy on my latest series for Gadling, which is about traveling in Iraq. I spent 17 days in the country last month and I'm writing a long series about my intense yet mostly positive experiences there. It's called Destination: Iraq. Check it out!

Blogging more than 400,000 words

As my regular readers know, I blog at Gadling, the number one travel blog on the web. (And I'm not just saying that, our hits prove it).

Today my dashboard told me that I broke 400,000 words. To be exact, it said, "You have written 400,143 words on 866 posts since you started publishing 2 years and 179 days ago."

Persistence. Write every day and your publications will pile up.

Tell my boss to send me to Afghanistan

As many of you know, I'm a travel blogger for Gadling, the world's most popular travel blog. I've done several series on adventure travel, including one on taking a road trip around Ethiopia, and another on living in an African city. I did another on visiting Somaliland.

In my more than 20 years of adventure travel, I've never been to Afghanistan, and it's always been at the top of my list. I visited Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province in the 1990's and spent several pleasant weeks among the Afghan communities there. Afghanistan's long history and varied cultures would make a great Gadling series. . .

. . .but I can't afford it. So I need your help. If you'd like to see a boots-on-the-ground series on Afghanistan written by yours truly, tell Gadling to be my sugar daddy. I'll write about culture, history, and daily life, all the things the news ignores. I already know an adventure travel company that can take me there. If enough people vote, maybe Gadling will send me!

Please leave a comment at this link, telling Gadling they need a series on Afghanistan.

[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]