First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

When David Sheppard was 20, he considered a literary life, beginning with an extensive trip to Greece. But a potentially deadly encounter with his father derailed these plans, and instead, Sheppard pursued a thirty-year career in aerospace, on the way marrying and fathering two children. Now, 32 years later, he fulfills his life-long literary dream on a three-month solo odyssey through Greece, a journey that quickly becomes a quest to understand his past. In the process of relating his own life stories to those of ancient Greek myth, Sheppard succeeds in creating his own personal mythology,...

Novelsmithing, The Structural Foundation of Plot, Character, and Narration provides the beginning novelist, or perhaps even the experienced novelist who has lost his way, with a discussion of the underlying structure and methods of novel writing. Nowhere else can the aspiring author learn the skills necessary to achieve the organic unity of the novelist's divine trinity: character, conflict and theme, so necessary to a fine work of literature. He will also learn the art of narration, how to lock the conflict, resolve the conflict, all the while, laying out the integral chapter structure. This...

In 480 BC, fifteen-year-old Melaina's biggest worry, she thinks, is wishing to follow Artemis and remain virgin when her mother and grandfather want her to marry and became a priestess. But when the Persians invade, the gods themselves have plans for Melaina, including carrying a divine child and divining for the Greek fleet in a battle to determine the salvation or ruin of all Greece.

The Mysteries, A Novel of Ancient Eleusis is a trilogy set in ancient Greece at the time of the Persian invasion. Historians constantly remind us that in 480 BC, when the great Persian Empire invaded Greece, King Xerxes planned to expand his dominion to the Atlantic Ocean, and if Greece hadn't repulsed the invasion, Western Civilization, together with its democratic institutions, would not exist. Today we would be Oriental. Much has been written about the invasion, but little concerning heroic women. According to Herodotus, feminine influence in the form of the goddess Demeter was a deciding...

The Escape of Bobby Ray Hammer is a second generation "Grapes of Wrath" novel in that Bobby's parents migrated to California during the 1930s, the "Dust Bowl" days. Bobby is just entering his senior year in high school and eager to graduate and go on to college to get out of his rural farming community; however, he realizes that he must resolve family problems that originated, he believes, with the death of his older brother before he can fulfill his dream. Little does he realize the trail of misery he will cause as he uncovers the family secrets that led to his brother's death.