I want to extend my thanks to so many of you in following_sea for your support over the past few years as I've brought my age of sail/naval adventure novel to publication.  I also want to make sure you are all aware that I'm giving away an autographed copy to celebrate the one year anniversary of that publication.  For details, see my post from Sunday, hereDave ( Read more... )

It's already been reported that Ioan will be attending a convention in Germany this September. The wonderful ladies at Ioanzone have also discovered that Ioan will be at a convention in, of all places, Dubai in April, as well as another convention in Dallas, Texas this May. May 17-19, to be exact ( Read more... )

So as you may recall from here, here, and here, I tried getting a letter-writing campaign going last year to encourage Ioan to pursue a continuation of Hornblower. Three of us sent letters, and there were others who said they were going to do so too. Well, it's been over a year now, and I, at least, have heard nada. I'm just wondering if nodbear, vespican, and ( Read more... )

Earlier this summer Saint-Malo-Rama (!) posted some pictures of Etoile du Roi, aka Grand Turk, aka HMS Indefatigable at her new berth in Saint Malo, France. (Yes the irony isn't lost on me either ;) They're fascinating pictures, though I don't know what Captain Pellew would make of the state of these sails. Tsk! I was also very amused to see ( Read more... )

Earlier this week, Jan Morris writing in the Guardian and Keith Lowe of the Telegraph both published reviews of Commander, Stephen Taylor's new biography of Sir Edward Pellew. Lowe appears to be rather more familiar with the subject than Morris, but both give very positive reviews to the book, which Lowe describes as "fast-paced and hugely ( Read more... )

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For those who are fans of the lovely Ioan Gruffudd's dulcet Welsh tones you might enjoy listening to some poetry he has recorded as part of the Peace Camp project. Ioan has recorded four poems: Robert Graves' Counting the Beats, the anonymous Ar Lan Y Mor / Beside the Sea, John Donne's Canonisation and Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach. They're all ( Read more... )

This may be totally bogus, but someone posted it on Horatians. If you're interested and happen to have a Facebook, vote for it.

http://www.horatians.org/index.php?topic=589.0

http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/11997

I have no idea why they're considering the set now, but it sounds like a fun idea.

I'm thinking that some members of following_sea may be interested to know that I'm giving a way a copy of my recently published Beyond the Ocean's Edge: A Stone Island Sea Story.   Contest details are on my LiveJournal page.  Contest ends Saturday July 14th.  Winner will be announced on Sunday the 15th.
Dave

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Over the bank holiday weekend we went to visit Eyemouth, a little fishing port on the south east coast of Scotland. It's a pretty spot to visit but the main reason we went is that there is a small maritime museum there that bought several props and sets at the Hornblower prop auction in 2007. Sadly there was no sign of the scale models of the ( Read more... )