The Empire Strikes Back

A couple of months ago I sent two stories in to a Globe Soup contest. It was set up as historical fiction; buy a ticket and be assigned a historical period at random. I ended up sending in two stories, one about a blacksmith’s son who achieved his ambition of getting a place in the Roman fort near his village and one about a teenage girl who was one of a very few in her village to survive the Black Death.

As always, I spent more time on one story than the other, and grew to be more fond of the characters (that doesn’t mean I didn’t treat them badly, mind; just that I felt sorry for them when I did). And as always, I was looking elsewhere when the results came out. I was shortlisted for one of the stories – not sure which, but I suspect my native blacksmith – and a friend of mine, Sue Cook, was shortlisted for her Roman Empire story.

The winner of that contest was yet another Roman Empire tale. I know Globe Soup has writers from all over the world taking part, but it does seem that the Roman Empire set off a lot of different tales. The winner’s story revolved around the trade in purple dye – my hero ran the bath-house and scrubbed Roman backs. In both cases, the Romans caused a big problem for the native workers they employed.

Sue has finished her story for the Christmas crime anthology (available to pre-order now at https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DKG4TP9Q ) and has gone back to writing her novel based in mediaeval times. I’m fighting through one of those really cluttered times – one or two appointments every day and a lot of driving to get there – but after that, I will go back to my novel about what happens when you tell a real whopper of a lie and get away with it for a bit too long.

And of course – there’s Globe Soup’s short story competition. And the question of where to send my Roman bath-boy next.