When I first started out, I read the "little book" by Strunk and White. Their mantra was: "Keep it short, stupid." So I wrote neat little sentences. Didn't work…

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle didn't just pop up one morning and write The Speckled Band; he wrote thousands of other words that nobody remembers today. And that's pretty much true of all the great writers: The stuff we read is really just the tip of iceberg. So start writing.

There is a joke that goes: "They laughed when I sat down to write." That was me. Then I decided to write a book…

The great queen lives in our imaginations. You can like her, you can hate her, but you cannot turn your eyes away from her…

So what did Cleopatra actually look like? The current generation thinks she looked like either Elizabeth Taylor or Adele James. Earlier generations favored Claudette Colbert, Theda Bara, or Sarah Bernhardt. But are any of those depictions really true? Probably not…

Cleopatra: the very name evokes imagery. Her full name was Cleopatra VII Thea Philopater. Cleopatra means “glory of the father” or “father-loving goddess,” depending on the translation…