Erryn Lee writes...

Why Historical Fiction? I have always been a reader. When I was young and my mother read to me every night (thanks Mum) but there was really a genre focus. I had glandular fever as a thirteen-year-old and was stuck in bed with boxes of Reader's Digest Condensed books and realised the stories that most captivated me were historical fiction. I have lived many lives and learnt more in HF novels than in any History class. When I decided I wanted to teach it was History and English that drew me. I love writing HF because it means I have to research and I adore learning about the past. What inspired your current project?  I am often inspired by what I study, which is often linked to what I teach. For many years I taught Ancient History (my favourite subject) and so I did loads of research and then turned that into lessons. One of the things about history is you are limited to fact and fact is limited to sources. In ancient times the sources are limited, so too are the facts. One of the h

GERMANIA- AD14 The infant was dead. His limp form was wrapped in what little cloth his mother had been able to scavenge. His tiny lips and half-closed eyes were clouded blue and dusted with dirty grey snowflakes. The mother held him  protectively in the crook of her arm.      There were others, pitifully few, huddled in clumps and clusters, shivering in fear, shock or cold. Those who had been spared the slaughter, the red-cloaked death the Legion had brought with them but none invaded the space she held in the  centre  of the yard. None except a girl-child, solemn-eyed, perhaps five winters old and cloaked in her mother’s heavy woollen shawl, arms bare and goose - pricked, clinging to her unresponsive mother, the woman holding the dead infant.        They were women mostly, a few young, many old. Those aged between had fought alongside their fathers, brothers and husbands against the invaders and fallen as they did. The only male among them, a youth of perhaps thirteen, was bleeding ou