Golden Sponge Stick Competition 2009

The prestigious Golden Sponge Stick competition, inspired by the Caroline Lawrence Roman Mysteries series, is a fiction-writing contest for primary and secondary level students (with three age categories). Each student who enters writes a short story or a mystery/detective story/thriller of 1500 words or less, set in Rome or during Roman times, which displays some historical research or knowledge of Roman daily life in the story. Previously this competition was only open to students in the United Kingdom, where the Roman Mysteries novels were originally published, but this year the contest has been opened internationally. The winning entry will receive, of course, a golden sponge-stick!

Full details about this contest, as well as writing tips, are available at Flavia Gemina's (aka Caroline Lawrence) Roman Mysteries Blog. Get those pencils sharpened!

Extreme Makeover at the Official Lindsey Davis Website!

The Official Lindsey Davis Website has just gone online with its new and improved design! Those of you who are fans of this historical novelist who has set many of her books in Ancient Rome will enjoy browsing all the features. It's beautifully arranged and easy to navigate!

Each of Davis' novels has its own page with covers, publication details, a plot summary, and reviews and many even include a very brief passage read by the author herself! Other sections include Lindsey's Page (an occasional blog), news, information about translations, audio,radio and film versions of the Falco novels, plus Lindsey's postbag and rants and all sorts of other fun stuff!

If you haven't read any of Lindsey Davis' novels, you'll probably want to start with Silver Pigs, the first Marcus Didius Falco book.