C. P. Lesley

People tell you to “write what you know,” and my blog expresses that philosophy. I’m a historian writing historical fiction set in early modern Europe and the steppes, so you will find lots of mini-history lessons there—more fun, I hope, than the ones you may have suffered through in school. I’ve worked in publishing for two decades and make up one-quarter of Five Directions Press, a writers’ cooperative launched in 2012, so I have lots to share about the business as seen from both sides. And like every other writer, I have to cope with the technological challenges posed by the twenty-first century, so I blog about those, too—especially the new publishing climate and the social networks that constitute such a large part of the modern marketing universe.
 
Last but not least, I blog about books: reading them and writing them. In addition to nonfiction works, I have published five novels under the Five Directions Press imprint and this pseudonym, C. P. Lesley, and am working on a sixth. I also host New Books in Historical Fiction, where once a month I talk to other writers about their novels, their research, and their writing lives. I announce each new interview here the week it goes live.
 
So that’s what this blog is about: what it’s like to write about the past but live in a rapidly changing present, to be a historical novelist in the Internet Age. I hope you find some or all of it useful enough that you will stop by once a week to see what I’ve added.
 
You can also connect with me on Facebook (C P Lesley), Pinterest (Catriona Lesley), Tumblr (cplesley), and Twitter (@cplesley). I am most active, however, on Goodreads, the Internet book club (C.P. Lesley). You can follow New Books in Historical Fiction at @NewBooksHistFic (Twitter) or like us on Facebook. Look forward to seeing you there.