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Tuesday, March 31, 2020

A Belated Theme Reveal For A - Z Blogging Challenge 2020

I hadn’t planned to do the Challenge this year, after a lot of confusion last year over how to find anything on their spreadsheet, but I decided to have a go anyway, as it makes me write something every day, and last year I did find some enjoyable new blogs and excellent bloggers to follow. This year I will visit some blogs and comment at least once. Likewise, I will visit the blog of anyone who comments here.

 Wikimedia Commons


So, this year’s theme is the Arthurian legend. I am a huge fan of things Arthurian. I’ve read a lot of books, from mediaeval poems to modern novels, over the years. Arthur was the subject of my English Honours thesis, way back when, the title “Arthur: From Epic Hero To Master Of Ceremonies In Middle English Literature.” I’ve written some Arthurian tales myself, some of them published and two still awaiting a market. One of those is a novella I wrote last year, on the theme of “Sir Gawain And The Green Knight”. The trouble is, hardly anyone these days is buying novella length fiction, and the market for which I wrote it was only taking urban fantasy. My own fault for not noticing that bit of the blurb, but there is a story now, which I would never have written if I had paid attention! Anyway, there will be a post about “Gawain And The Green Knight.”

I will also be mentioning some of my favourite modern authors of this kind of fiction, so watch this space! 

10 comments:

Deniz Bevan said...

Oh, that's a great theme! Looking forward to your posts!

Sue Bursztynski said...

Thanks, Deniz! Are you participating too?

Brian Joseph said...

This sounds like a fun challenge. It is really cool that you have written some Athurian tales yourself.

Sue Bursztynski said...

Thanks, Brian! I’m just writing A is for Arthur now.

AJ Blythe said...

Oooh, I like Arthurian. Looking forward to reading your posts, Sue.

I'm not A-Zing this year. I was away over Feb/March and I need to be able to pre-schedule all the posts so I'm taking a break for this one. Although I did come up with an idea for a theme - I'll just have to shelve it for next year :)

Sue Bursztynski said...

Thanks, Anita, hope you enjoy this. Nothing wrong with sitting back and enjoying other people’s stuff for a while.

Roland Clarke said...

I'm playing A to Z catch-up today as getting way behind - even got unread theme reveals, Anyway, I've been reading Arthurian tales since my childhood - I still have my copy of A.M Hadfield's King Arthur and the Round Table, which my Great Aunt gave me when I was seven (1960). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22329957-king-arthur

I've kept coming back to Arthur, whether reading Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon or learning about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in my teens, thus discover Professor J R R Tolkien.

Looking forward to you A to Z posts, Sue.

Sue Bursztynski said...

Hi Roland! I haven’t heard of the Hadfield book, but it must have been aimed at children. Did it have illustrations? I do love Arthurian art.

I’m not a great fan of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s book, though it’s supposed to be one of the classics. I hate what she did to Arthur in that book. I did quite like the idea of Merlin as a title, though not his name, Kevin!

Roland Clarke said...

Ye, I believe it did. My wife has to get it from the bookshelf for me so I'm guessing. Sorry. Goodreads says, "...Enhanced by the Howard Pyle illustrations..."

Sue Bursztynski said...

Ah, Howard Pyle! Wow!