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The Next Big Thing

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 18:18:38 +0100

Here is my self-interview in the Next Big Thing meme. Mary Biddinger, author of Prairie Fever, St. Monica, and O Holy Insurgency, has started a self-interview series called The Next Big Thing. I’ve been tagged by T.J. Jarrett (a wonderful poet and friend) to participate. Here’s my response based on my first collection of poems, A Hymn That Meanders which was published by Wising Up Press in June 2011.

What is the working title of the book:

A Hymn That Meanders.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Where didn't my ideas for the book come from? I derived a lot of my inspiration from the physical landscapes of Cuba, Provincetown, and Joliet, Illinois. Then, of course, those people in my life at the time played a major (perhaps in some cases too big) of a role, from the whale watch crew whom I worked with at the time, to my family, to my then-lovers.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Mainly my own coming-age-passage from my late 20's into my 30's. I was also grappling with a lot of my past, including my familial issues including my own turpitude involving my blue-collar Illinois hometown, then my subsequent travels to Provincetown, MA and Cuba. Essentially this book was an interrogation of my former self from puberty into early adulthood.

What genre does your book fall under?

Poetry.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Oh boy. A young Jennifer Beals circa Flashdance could play me. The extras from Waterworld (or any other rejected B-movie involving an ocean) could play the whale watch crew. Marissa Tomei could be my mom.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

A young woman on the brink of thirty looks behind, ahead, and finally, in front of her very own reflection in her search of self, love, and self-love.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript? Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Roughly three years to write, revise, and publish. I was inspired to write this book because I felt that not only having written a book by thirty was a lifelong landmark and dream, but I also felt the urge to make sense of that very endeavor through the actual writing of the book itself. Heather Tosteson, the founder of Wising Up Press was a major inspiration in ways that have forever and continuously honed my poetic skills.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Anyone facing exile, family drama, addiction, or nihilism either within themselves or their surrounding world would resonate with this book.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

My book was published by Wising Up Press in June 2011.

The next poets to be tagged are Jeannette de Beauvoir and Lori Desrosiers Stay tuned.

Is The Term "Poetry Bestseller" An Oxymoron?

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:48:38 +0100

I have recently been on a roll trying to promote my first book of poems. And I am realizing something; it's a recent trend, I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but it's called poets like to complain. We poets have several topics of lamentation. I have listed them off for future reference:

1.) We like to complain that we don't make any money.

2.) We love to complain that nobody reads us.

3.) We really, really like to complain that nobody reads us and that we don't make any money.

4.) We LOVE to complain that we have neither agents nor publicists like those fiction writers do, thus we have little hope of promoting ourselves.

Long before my first book of poems, "A Hymn That Meanders" was published by the wonderful Wising Up Press, I've been guilty as charged in repeating these lamenting mantras. However, upon the publication of my actual book, I have also realized that as poets, as have a few things that we need to be HAPPY about as well.

Now, I should warn you. I am a cockeyed, relentless optimist; an unlikely paradigm for a myself, a woman whose main topics that resurface in her poetry include heartbreak, neuroses, loss, and death. So, take my impressions with a grain of salt, maybe even the whole shaker, but here are some of the positive discoveries I've made since publishing a first book of poems:

1.) Poets have a much, much longer shelf-life than most other genres. Hooray! In other words, whereas it may take us a longer time to learn the ropes in order to wriggle our way to self-promotion, we have a much longer grace period allotted for our books to take off. According to an excellent blog that features a series of first book poets, according to poet Oliver de la Paz, we have an average of two years until our first book of poems really takes off. So, whereas for the average fiction writer, if a book doesn't receive some immediate attention starting from the first 6-8 months of publication, well, you're screwed. Whereas for poets, we have about two years to get our asses in gear, to set up readings, to send to reviewers, to send to first book awards, and to blog relentlessly on the topic--just some of the inexpensive marketing tactics that I have acquired.

2.) Poets have to sell much, much less in order to make a bestseller list. According to Timothy Ferris, the New York Times Bestseller of "The Four Hour Work Week," says there are more than 200,000 books published in the US in a year, and less than 5% ever sell more than 5,000 copies. On top it it, getting onto the New York Times Bestseller List is akin to breaking through a forcefield of Fort Knox security-level proportions. Many bestsellers have been on that list for YEARS.

Now, as a poet you may read these stats and weep, right? WRONG. As a lesser known genre, yes, we have a harder time becoming known on an international level or of selling many copies of our book, However, to our advantage, because there are fewer of us, because PoetryLand is an insular, teeny tiny little dribble of spit in the teeming literary ocean, guess what? The word spreads easier and faster about who we are and what we do. And please see item #1 when I say that we have MORE time to do this. In other words, as a poet, you may just have to reserve having a Michiko Kakutami review for your Whiting Award, however, making a weekly GENRE-SPECIFIC bestseller list such as the Poetry Foundation's is entirely possible. You may need to sell as little as sixty books in a given week. So, whereas our readership is smaller, the statistics for success are actually skewed in our favor. We just need to view our genre in relation to our audience. And we can make our smaller audience work to our advantage. Use readings to help to spread word-of-mouth reviews about your book. Attend conferences where you will become re-acquainted with other poets who will then have incentive to purchase your book, conveniently right at the conference itself.

3.) Being published by a university or independent press does NOT in render your book ineligible to win a major book award. Because, guess what? Almost all poetry publishers are independent, including W.W. Norton. There have been several PEN New England Award Winners that have been published through university or independent presses, such as University of Pittsburgh or Perugia. So, when you apply for those first book awards,you can be realistic about it. We're all lumped into the same boat together. I usually begin to feel intimidated when I enter those book awards in which ALL books published in the past year are eligible to win. I'm not going to lie; I see Tony Hoagland's name under the Previous Year's Winners and I begin to sweat. I recommend NOT LOOKING at any of the past winners while entering these really prestigious book contests, because it will make you feel like a deflated raft.

So, is all hope lost for poets, or can we make our tiny following and even tinier readership work to our advantage? I believe that every landscape is different; some soil is fertile so that any vegetation can come to fruition. Other landscapes are arid, less adaptable, so you have to work within those confines and try to see what other seeds germinate. I believe poetry marketing to be so; you have to try a bunch of different systems and see what takes root. Accept the landscape and try to make it work to your advantage.

In my next blog, I am going to specifically talk about some of the specific marketing tools that I've been using to self-promote. Also, to be fair, I will be talking about some of the REAL gripes and grievances that we face as poets. So stay tuned.

Stymie Magazine Reading at AWP 2012

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:05:48 +0100

March 2nd, AWP Writers' Conference Stymie Magazine Reading from 7-9PM. Come hear me read, along with other talented poets published by Stymie. The reading is located at Theory, 9 W Hubbard, Chicago, IL 60654, 312-644-0004. info@theorychicago.com.

Talking Information Center

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:12:08 +0100

I am pleased to announce that my gracious colleague Renee Summers will be hosting me as a guest as the Talking Information Center's Poetry For You on Tuesday January 17th at 11pm.

The Talking Information Center is an acclaimed organized that offers a comprehensive radio show to blind viewers. I am proud to be a part of this effort. I will be reading from my book, A Hymn That Meanders, from some of my newest poems, and from my favorite poems written by others. You will be able to tune in by listening to their live webstream on Tuesday, January 17th at 11pm or listen to the show afterwards at anytime by accessing an mp3 link that I will post to my site.

In Response to Stephen Bloom's Atlantic Article

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:34:35 +0100

When I initially saw the consternation on Facebook regarding Stephen Bloom's Atlantic article, "Observations From Twenty Years Of Iowa Life", I wasn't sure what to think. My peers from The University Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communications all had strong opinions and none of them positive. So, naturally I had to read the article myself. Bloom's article features an extremist's opinion of Iowa, ranging from describing Iowans as "wasteoids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth," to the native demographic sanctifying the smell of pigshit.

I began reading this article with an open mind. I had Bloom as a professor at The University of Iowa. I will say this much: although he did not reflect much of the warm, fuzzy, cockeyed optimism that many of my professors displayed, he was one of the more encouraging instructors that I'd encountered. This bit of information is essential, if only because, throughout my erratic and wild journey since graduating, from living in New York City's East Village as a struggling poet-come-cocktail waitress, to working as a deck dork at a whale watch boat, to finally becoming a newly-published author, I shall never forget those people who believed that I, Maria Nazos, could write. So, I owe him that.

I am going somewhere with this, so stay with me.

My purpose of this blog is neither to defend Bloom nor to disparage him. I am not from Iowa, I was born and partially raised in Athens, Greece, then in Joliet, Illinois. Nonetheless, I think I myself am an unlikely (and therefore qualified) candidate for someone who has spent four years (and some of the best years) of her life in Iowa. Thus, I consider myself an impartial observer. During my time spent in Iowa City, attending The University, I've seen a little bit of everything that the state has to offer.

What astounds me is Bloom's overall neglect to touch upon Iowa City at all. And this is indeed a city, according to a 2010 census that has a population of almost 70,000. Bloom describes his initial reaction to the University as having been "Where are all the people?" Come on, Bloom. Maybe the campus was more mellow twenty years ago, but you know damn well that during most months excepting the December before Christmas, that Iowa City has an ample, flourishing student body.

Iowa City is also largely liberal, too, again a fact that he has elected to leave out, saying that he has visited all 99 of the Iowan counties. OK, well, aren't you leaving some crucial details out? Also, for someone who claims to have wrangled in his statistics, claiming that Iowa will soon prove to make gay marriages defunct, here's an interesting fact: Iowa City is the third gayest city in the US, according to The Daily Iowan.

On the other hand, I don't entirely disagree with Bloom, either. Yes, economic depression is a very real thing. Yes, I *do* recall living in Iowa, being a dark-haired woman, with skin a shade darker than a paper bag. I do also recall virtually every conversation at The University starting out with the instigator squinting at me, cocking his or her head and not so much asking as stating, "Where are you from?" as if there weren't a hundred different implications hidden within this statement they would quickly be unearthed.

I had heard every assessment about my ethnicity from, "You just look foreign for some reason," to a million different erroneous guesses from Venezuelan to Arabic to American Indian. I recall being furious because at one of the local Iowa City bars, a group of men called me, "Hot Tamale." I got "compliments" such as "exotic." When I was last in Iowa City for one night two weeks ago, my boyfriend was appalled to see at a local bar, that a guy flippantly called an Asian-American woman, "Mexican."

As you can imagine, by the end of my undergraduate career, I was one angry young woman. Well, these statements are indeed reflective of what is Iowa's predominately white population. I've not heard such a plethora of culturally-ignored statements in any other place I've lived. So, yes, I did encounter some covert xenophobia while living in Iowa, and I feel that is well worth mentioning. So, when Bloom (albeit mistakenly) says that Iowa is 91% white (whereas it is actually 96%), he is not wrong to imply that this and any homogeneous culture proves problematic.

On the other hand, I had never encountered any students having to endure "Come to Jesus" lectures with their hyper-religious parents. And sorry Bloom, you fucked up when you admitted to Willie Geist that you've only seen photo essays of men drinking before their hunting expedition as opposed to bearing eyewitness. Also, there are a number of other basic statistical/geographical facts in the article, from his inaccurate analogy of Iowa's size, to his misconstrued details of how turkeys are hunted. These are basic facts right out of writing 101, and one of the reasons why I make a terrible fiction writer: you've got to cover your tracks. I know you aren't a hunter, Bloom, but that doesn't make you exempt from this practice. These inaccuracies cause his opinion to lose newsworthy traction.

However, at the same time, I am shocked to see The University of Iowa's donors writing to the President, telling her that they will revoke their funding. In my experience as a college professor, I can tell you that colleges are the biggest corporation of all, and one of the most repressive venues that I've ever encountered. In my experience as an adjunct professor, I loved and students and loathed the administration. So far as I was concerned, the higher you travel up the college hierarchical rung, the less you will find people who are passionate about the students' education. How dare these people hold their money over The University's head, threatening to withdraw funds unless Bloom abandons his teaching position. That last time I checked, we were living in North America, not living under a Fascist regime. Since when did it become such a liability for a writer to get into some trouble?

As a writer, I firmly believe that is what we are here for: to get into trouble. And every day I ask myself, "Where did all of the badly-behaved writers go?" We're all so goddamned cautious, if only because academia gives us no reason to feel safe. So, why Bloom has been receiving anti-Semitic emails and threats to his job feels preposterous.

We should get into trouble. We should stir up the muck. We should be pissing people off. We live in a world where Snooky from The Jersey Shore has just written a bestselling book. We do inhabit an America not unlike the Iowa that Bloom described, but one that lies that a virus of ignorance waiting to engulf the minds of those who think freely. In order to think freely, we require an onslaught of ideas. For the donors of The University of Iowa, a college town to revoke this right is an unpatriotic act.

To quote the poet Tony Hoagland: "Until we speak the truth, there can be no tenderness."

And there is more than one truth, however as a writer, I feel that Bloom was speaking truths that aligned with his own personal beliefs. It seems to be hypocritical for those in power to retaliate and say, "We're not like that!" Then abuse their power by exacting a narrow-minded punishment. I hope that this country's academic system can eventually be as expansive as the heartland land itself, in all of its beauty and ugliness.

Recent Updates From The Past Year

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:33:05 +0100

Greetings, Gentle Readers!

This is your host Maria, signing in to keep you abreast of my updates from the following year...after a loooong hiatus.

2010-2011 has been a productive year for me. I am proud to inform everyone that my first full-length collection of poems entitled A Hymn That Meanders was published by Wising Up Press. The book is available from Wising Up Press, (the preferred method of purchase), Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. I also encourage you to check out the other quality books published by Wising Up Press also, in addition to familiarizing yourself with the overall mission of the press itself. You would not be wasting your time. You can also read some of my book blurbs as written by Thomas Lux and Thomas Sayers Ellis.

The next up-and-coming event: this March 16-18, 2012, I will be the featured Poet-In-Residence at the first annual Provincetown Women Writers Retreat. If you are interested, please do check out the website, or feel free to contact me for details. Attendees will be able to relax, write, network, and of course, feel free to engage in one-on-one conferences with me.

Next, I have also been blogging for Boxcar Poetry Review. The journal has been featuring blogs written by first book poets. We guest bloggers have been tackling issues such as promotion, writing about family members, and how to obtain the right book blurbs. So, check those blogs out, especially if you are expecting your first book! My essays are entitled, "Silence In The Rough: When Your First Book Breaks Through To The Truth," and "First Book Dilemma: How To Write About Those You Love And Those You Don't Love Anymore."

I also have work forthcoming in Stymiemag, The Raleigh Review, and The New York Quarterly. I will keep everyone posted as to when these issues are released. I hope the almost-new year is finding everyone happy and healthy. Drop me a note, either via email or on Facebook and let me know how you are doing.

Nelson Mandela

Sun, 26 Dec 2010 19:58:15 +0100

So, in light of having gotten through the formidable time known as The Holidays, (I think I am telling on myself here, that I am indeed a Grinch), but I am pretty sure I have been feeling erratically lately. And I am pretty sure I just used one of my co-residents as a confessional Kleenex.

I'm not really sure how it began, but I've been reading this book "Lifeskills for Adult Children." So turns out that most Adult Children of Alcoholics have the tendency to "lie" to themselves, thus not expressing how they actually feel for fear of being "found out."

Unsurprisingly, I realize I have a tendency towards wanting to act tough and intact. So, in an attempt to rectify any self-deception, I spilled my guts, unwittingly to one of my fellow residents. I told her about my mother. How talking on the phone with her for ten minutes enforced my relief that I'd elected to stay in Santa Fe for Christmas. I told her about my family. How during this time of year, I usually tend to go a little bonkers. I am reminded of being the target for a lot of passive-aggressive, toxic teasing, then being accused of, "not being able to take a joke."

I caught myself, mid-gush in the kitchen, telling her this, and I stopped. "Did I just tell you all that?"

And she imparted some advice to me:

"When I reached a point where I believed that I could do anything, everything just fell into place. Before that, I never felt like I could measure up. Your family is no different; because they've not felt compelled to do something different, as you grow, they will always find something to pull apart. And this isn't a local struggle, it is a struggle throughout different countries as well. The difference is, in the US, women are just starting to achieve. But that is not the same as reaching power."

She then proceeded to give me a pep talk, telling me that I was lovely and beautiful. I almost cried. All I could think was, everything happens for a reason, and this is no coincidence.

I realized that the other day, I saw my favorite Nelson Mandela quote on an acquaintance's fridge. Listening to this woman's words inspired me to print it out and hang them above my computer. I need these words like air. As I sit down to work on my book, I need them to work under:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Remember that. As I continue on with my book, going into what will f(hopefully) be the last draft, on a lonely day after Christmas, I am trying to roll these words over and over again, in my mind.

Loneliness And the Art of Reading

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 19:47:25 +0100

I realize as I veer closer to my time back in Ptown, that I have felt an acute something: loneliness. I realized, being in a room for the last three months, excepting visits back to the Cape, then Georgia, I have pretty much been here, all alone. I'm pretty solitary by nature; I generally like being by myself, and electing when to be social, in which case, I can appear to be the most social human ever. Rest assured, I am not.

In the meantime, however, amid all the submitting to literary journals, and trying to ride the Taoist wave, despite the rejections of what I feel is some of my strongest work to date, I realize the surest way to free myself from the egoistic shackles is to reunite with a good friend: books.

Since moving around to about six different hotspots in the last year--maybe even more--from a demented ex giving a helping hand to my getting ousted from my already-unpleasant living quarters, (I am even more tired of glossing over actual, past events, than I am discussing them) to the angelic Jeannette de Beauvoir and Paul Cezanne boosting my homeless couch-crashing ass out of the dredges of homeless, to finding the most piecemeal ways of "living" in the Ptown winter, actually netted some amazing results. I found myself at The Wellspring Writers' Retreat, on the beaches of Costa Rica, finally, to renting a lovely little cottage by the sea, with an even lovelier roommate.

Anyway. Now, as I move closer to cohabitation, at Bruce's--or should I say OUR place, (I have to say, who am I kidding. I've basically lived there since we got together in February. But to two commitment-phobes like us, it took us a year to admit it to ourselves), I realize that I've left my precious books at Jeannette's where she so generously allowed me to store them.

Well, when I come back, our stark, ocean-view apartment is going to meet a rude awakening: books, books, and more (probably dusty as shit) books.

Right now, I am reading some good ones. I am wrapping up "Angry Women," edited by the brilliant Andrea Juno. This book is about a new, radicalized feminism, interviewing such compelling speakers such as bell hooks, Wanda Coleman, Kathy Acker, Avtial Ronell, and much more. These brash femme fatales speak unabashedly about S&M, tattooing, piercing, deconstructionism, rape, and much, much more! This book rocks.

I'm also reading "Life Skills For Adult Children Of Alcoholics," and its companion workbook. It teaches adult children of alcoholics (ACoA), how to learn real-life lessons (asking for what you want, defending yourself without losing your temper, etc.) might have bypassed them, due to their dysfunctional upbringing. Works for me!

Just finished Anita Shreve's "Strange Fits of Passion." Pretty good, but I think Jeannette's better.

The I-Ching: Book of Changes. But this book is more of a way of life; a kind of blood sister to my world.

A book of poems by David Groff.

And whatever else I can find lying around either the Santa Fe College Library, or The Art Institute's lovely but very cluttered library.

What are you guys reading? Care to share?

Guest Blogger: Jeannette Angell On Her Excellent E-Book The Crown & The Kingdom

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 19:08:24 +0100

Greetings Gentle Readers.

Lately I've been blogging more so than usual. Now, enough about me. Today I want to shine the spotlight on my dear friend and colleague Jeannette Angell. She is going to be guest-blogging today on her e-book entitled "The Crown and The Kingdom." Jeannette is a wonderful friend, and an even more wonderful writer. You can find her at jeannetteangell.com. You can download "The Crown and The Kingdom" on Amazon. Also, please follow the book on Facebook.

It is with great honor and deep humility, that I present to you my Blogger Guest of Honor: Jeannette Angell:

There’s a saying that history was written by the winners. That moves a lot of people—the poor, women, racial minorities, children, “enemies” of any given culture—right out of the limelightBut why should we care? What does it matter what happened to them—or, in point of fact, to anybody—in the past?I write a lot of fiction that take place in the past. Partly because it means I don’t have to do as much plotting: history provides us with some amazing true stories. Partly because we can best recognize what we have in common with all of humanity, our fears, passions, desires, hopes, dreams, and defeats, when they’re placed in another time from our own.

My newest book, The Crown and the Kingdom, started out as the first of those two considerations. In “doing” history at school and reading about it in my spare time, I fell in love with medieval France, especially in the later middle ages as events seemed to accelerate toward the renaissance. So I started this novel that dealt with the real conflict of 14^th-century France: the struggle for temporal rule between the king of France (the crown) and the pope (the kingdom of God).

It’s gone through a lot of changes since that time, and with the changes has developed into something else, something that any modern reader can appreciate: the need for individuals to find meaning in their lives. The value of the life of an individual was a new concept in the 1300s, and no one was talking about it, but it became a vibrant part of the renaissance and my characters are beginning to see themselves as people who have rights … to hold land, to have a say in government, to fall in love with whom they choose.

The Middle Ages has become a familiar place to nearly everybody who reads or goes to the movies. Tolkien and George Martin, C.S. Lewis and Marion Zimmer Bradley have romanticized it, and yet it doesn’t need that much help: the Templars’ mysticism and secrets (made famous by The Da Vinci Code) and the intrigue of the Inquisition (explored in The Name of the Rose) are only a small part of what was happening in France at the beginning of the fourteenth century. It was a turbulent time that reads like the script for a soap opera. And while the king of France was orchestrating major events on the world stage, his four offspring were busy creating history of their own, with treason, murder, adultery and deception flourishing in Paris and London.

It was a time of unicorns and witches, of angels and demons. There was God and the Son and the Holy Mother, and the Son’s magic turned bread into flesh and wine into blood. Apple trees needed a song to make good cider, and cats sucked the breath out of babies.

It was also a time to play with power, to determine who should rule the world: king, pope, or wizard. It was a time for princesses to fall in love rashly and to marry wisely, and for fortunes to be made and reputations to be ruined.

It was 1300.

The king was Philippe IV, known as Philippe le Bel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_France), and he was responsible for instilling a sense of national consciousness in the heart of a disparate people. But if his reign was marked by triumph, it was also marred by tragedy.

The struggle between temporal and religious powers was nothing new, even in 1300, but it took Philippe's vision and ambition to create from the struggle a new sense of national identity. It was, in many real and important ways, the beginning of France.

The king was Philippe le Bel. The pope was Boniface VIII (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boniface_VIII). The argument was, originally, over royal rights to a clerical subsidy, but quickly escalated and was put to rest – from Philippe’s point of view – by the first meeting of the Estates General.

Boniface's health was failing, and in 1303 he died. He was succeeded by Clement V (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_V), a Frenchman, who immediately and suspiciously moved the Papal See to Avignon. The hundred-year "Babylonish Captivity" of the Church had begun.

The conflicts between the king of France and the Vicar of Christ did not end with the new papal regime. Philippe's next target was a religious order: the Templars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templars), warrior-monks during the Crusades and the moneylenders of Europe ever since. The Templars loaned money - and the King of France owed them more money than most people could count. His debt was to cost them their existence.

Jacques de Molay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_de_Molay), Grand Master of the Order, was summoned to appear before Philippe to answer to charges of heresy. Rumors were circulating - rumors of idol worship, of black Masses, of infanticide. De Molay denied the charges and dismissed the whole affair, but the rumors persisted. Later that year Philippe made a mass arrest of all Templars in France. Confessions were exacted under torture, and the Templars were burned at the stake.

Jacques de Molay cursed his tormentor through the flames, shouting that before the year was out both the pope and the king would join him before the Heavenly Tribunal, there to stand judgment. Pope Clement had no choice but to support Philippe's actions, for to condemn the fait accompli would have been to underscore his own powerlessness.

Philippe's need for control did not stop with the papacy.

During his reign, border skirmishes with Flanders escalated into a full-scale war, a harbinger of the Hundred Years' War that was to follow. Despite remonstrations from his Council, Philippe repeatedly sent French troops into battles for which they were ill-prepared and ill-equipped, and the cost to France for her king's pride was enormous.

Nor was he in control of his own household. His three sons had had marriages arranged for them, all of them to women from Burgundy. Louis, the oldest and heir to the throne, was an imbecile; his wife, Marguerite of Burgundy, had taken a lover when she was fourteen - just months after her wedding. Her daughter, in point of fact, was born a year after that, and much later there would be doubt concerning the child's legitimacy and right to succession.

The middle son, Philippe of Poitiers, was married to Marguerite's cousin, Jeanne; this marriage was apparently welcomed by both parties and successful. The youngest son, Charles, married Blanche of Burgundy, Marguerite's sister. Irresponsible, impetuous, and indiscreet, Blanche had also taken a lover. It was then that rumors about affairs in the royal family began to circulate.

Adultery is treason when the sons of kings are being betrayed.

The rumors did not fall on deaf ears. Robert of Artois, knight in the service of the King of France, was unhappy with the royal marriages, for they had cost him a great deal of land and revenues. The marriages had been the means that Mahaut, mother of Marguerite and Blanche, had used to curry favor with the king and win a lawsuit against Robert. Seeing a means to remove Mahaut from favor, Robert took his case to England. There he persuaded Isabelle, queen of England and daughter of Philippe, to travel to her father's court and denounce the princesses.

So it was that Philippe le Bel had to sit in judgment on his daughters-in-law, and condemn them to life in prison for their treason.

He did not live long enough to regret his decision. Jacques de Molay's prediction came true: a few months after the princesses' trial, Philippe le Bel died. The mentally deficient Louis of Navarre became king upon his father's death, and his first official act was to have Marguerite of Burgundy strangled in her prison cell.

The Crown and The Kingdom by Jeannette Angell

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 18:25:29 +0100

Everyone, I am pleased to announce that my friend and colleague, author Jeannette Angell has published a compelling literary debut of historical fiction with her e-book "The Crown and the Kingdom." You will love her work, because I SERIOUSLY do. If you love me, you will go on Amazon.com and pick up a virtual copy online. It is only 3.99. You would not be wasting your time.

Jeannette is the author of several amazing works, including but not limited to: Callgirl: Confessions of an Ivy League Lady of Pleasure, Wings, Flight, and much more. Please check her out. For more information, visit jeannetteangell.com.