January 25, 2025 • 61 mins
Our special Off The Shelf Books guest this morning is Douglas Burton. Douglas is a storyteller who pens fiction with strong women characters. He is also an avid historian, a pairing that powers him to be a remarkably talented writer of historical fiction! “Far Away Bird” was his debut novel, focusing on the Byzantine Empress Theodora. The novel won several awards, including gold medals for the IBPA’s Best New Voice in Fiction, Readers’ Favorite Historical Personage, and eLit’s Best Historical Fiction eBook. Douglas’ next book, The Heroine’s Labyrinth: Archetypal Designs in Heroine-Led Fiction, is a work of nonfiction. Tune in to learn what inspired Douglas to write "Far Away Bird" and why he always knew the story would be a trilogy. Off The Shelf Books podcast listeners will discover when to expect second book in the trilogy to hit the book market. This is a fun, engaging, insightful show that readers love gaining valuable and entertaining information from! Listen in!
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the winning literary show Off the Shelf
Books Talk Radio Live. We post Delise Turney, author of
the books Long Walk Up, Horsia, Love for Over Me, Spiral,
Love Has Many Faces, and rosett Us Great Hope. Turn
up your dial and get ready for a blast of
feature author interviews, four one one on book festivals, writing conferences,
(00:22):
and so much more. Ready, let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And get started. So welcome to this morning's Off the
Shelf Book Show. And as I've done for probably about
the last year and a half, we're in our eighteenth year,
believe it or not.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Ah, congratulations, Oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Start this show for our listeners. We're going to start
the show with a quote, and this quote is from
Rosa Parks. To bring about change, you must not be
afraid to take the first step. We will fail when
we fail to try. And that applies to creative arts,
that applies if you're trying to start a business, whatever
you're trying to do. I mean, you got to take
(01:08):
that first step. We talk ourselves out of so much stuff,
so I love with that quote to not do that
as much. So to our office shelf listeners, again, I'm
welcoming you to our Saturday, January twenty fifth show. We're
already coming to the end of January and we have
(01:30):
a wonderful author or on deck for you, who I
will introduce in just a few minutes. But before I do,
I wanted to ask you, especially with January this time
of the year, it's a time when we people start
to of course make resolutions or set goals for things
they want to do. If you do that, I encourage
(01:50):
you to set some time once a month to just
track how you're doing according to your goals, or you
can end twelve months in the same spot that you
started in. But if you are somebody who's focused on
self care, particularly as it involves overdoing things, overdoing things.
We live in a culture where work work grekrek greak
(02:11):
is so honored and admired, it's easy to fall into
where you're just doing too much and you might be
on a brink of burnout, which is not a fun thing.
So this book Pieces of Me deals with a woman.
She's her own business owner. She is phenomenally successful, she's
closing these multi million dollar deals, but she's on the
(02:33):
brink of burnout, of doing too much. If you like
short stories, forty four pages is a powerful short story.
I encourage you to get Pieces of Me. It's at
bookstores everywhere. It's it's only an ebook format, but you
get it. I know it Apple Books. You can get
it of course at Amazon again. Pieces of Me rushing
(02:55):
with courage into the day by yours truly Dennie's Turning.
Encourage you to get a copy of the short story
and let me know how you enjoy Pieces of Me.
And now let us go and meet our very special
officeself guests. And this morning's guest is Douglas Burton. And
Douglas is a storyteller who pens fiction with strong women characters.
(03:22):
Faraway Bird was his debut novel, and it focused on
the Byzantine empress Theodora. The novel won several awards, including
gold medals for the ibpa's Best New Voice in Fiction,
Reader's Favorite Historical Personage, and elit's Best Historical Fiction Ebook.
(03:42):
And his new book The Heroes Lebrne Archetypal Designs and
hero and Let Fiction is a work of non fiction.
And Douglas and his family make their home in Texas.
And I encourage you to check Douglas Burton go Spell
his name for you, and his books out online at
Douglas Burton dot com d o U g l A
(04:06):
s b u r t o in dot com. Again,
that's d O U g l A s A b
u r t in dot com and it is a
great thing about Off the Shelf. You can actually go
over to his website now even as you listen to
today's show. We are just honored to have Douglas Burton
(04:30):
join us on Off the Shelf this morning. Welcome to
Off the Sheelf. Douglas.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Oh, thank you. I am honored to be here.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Uh we so happy to have you with us. The
first few questions I always say I ask every guest
so they our listeners can get a little backstory on
a guest before I start talking about their books. So,
to kick off this January twenty fifth, twenty twenty five show, Douglas,
would you please tell our Off the Chelf listeners where
you grew up and what life was like for you.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yes. I grew up on the West suburbs of Chicago, Illinois,
and I liked writing even then. That's where I really
started picking up writing. I also enjoyed art. It was
Park Ridge, Illinois, is where I grew up. My childhood
was in Berwin, Illinois, but then we moved to Park
Ridge a little bit later, and I went to high
(05:23):
school up there, and I have had just a wonderful life.
I had a good childhood growing up there. And after
high school I left, though, and I moved to Florida,
and I lived in central Florida for you know, about
fifteen years before moving to Texas, so moved around a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah. Interesting, you must have got taught of at Chicago coat.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
You know, Denise, When I go to Chicago in July,
I wonder why I ever left. You know, the Grant Park.
You know, it's at poker Table green Fields in Lake Michigan,
in the beautiful skyline. And then I come back in
the winter, and I'm like, well, there's your answer.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
This were people I know who've gone there in like
the summer, they say, oh my god, they love it.
They love it. But then again, like you said, the winters,
I heard that wind is unlike anywhere else in the country.
Oh and brutal.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
It It comes in from Canada, unobstructed across Lake Michigan
and just slams into the city. And you know, there's
such a thing up there called seasonal depression where during
the winter months, it doesn't it doesn't seem to be
a sunny and the skies are gray and it's cold,
and people tend to stay indoors, and you know, uh,
(06:45):
your mental health takes a little bit of a hits.
You get down and out a little bit. So it's
a real thing. And uh, you know that does happen.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Okay. Now, when you were a kid, what did you
dream of being? What did you want to become when
you grew up?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Unequivocally a movie director. I wanted to be like Steven
Spielberg and George Lucas. I wanted to Yeah, I wanted
to go to Hollywood one day and make movies. And
you know, it seemed like I was on a good
track for that. Early on, I was selected to go
to something called Evergreen Youth Television when I was a
(07:21):
freshman and in high school and it was in it
was in Seattle, Washington, and we learned all the tricks
and trades of you know, making documentaries and movies and
film work and editing. And this was in nineteen ninety one,
so at the time it was right when CGI was
starting to creep in and editing. Films could be computerized,
(07:42):
so it was very exciting. I also toured full sale
for film craft, but our family just didn't earn the
kind of money. And I remember my dad put his
arm around me. He's like, son, you know you're not
we can't afford to send you to this school, right,
And I was like, I guess I know now, you know? Okay, yeah,
(08:07):
so yeah it didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Maybe you'll get back there with your novels. Who knows,
you may go back into movies. You never know. Now,
how did the arts in Austin. I know you were
at an adult when by the time you had moved
to Texas, but how did the arts in Austin affect
you as an artist? I've always heard Austin, Texas is
(08:31):
a big arts town.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
It is. It's so the when I moved here in
twenty twelve into Austin, there was a phrase and they
still say, the phrase, keep Austin Weird. And the mantra
is based on the fact that Austin had started to
explode in terms of population growth. They changed an old
rule that said no building could be higher than the
(08:55):
Capitol building in downtown Austin, so there was this explosion
of skyscrapers going up. When I moved here in twenty twelve,
there was maybe eight skyscrapers, maybe ten. Now there's like forty,
Like it's unbelievable the growth here. Google has come in here,
Tesla is here, now, Facebook, Intel, Dell Computers is based
(09:16):
in Round Rock, which is just so you know, it's
an IT hub. They call it Silicon Hills instead of
Silicon Valley. And so when I got here, the massive
growth was starting to tug on the weird side, which
is what you're referring to, this beautiful indie, creative, you know,
(09:37):
music and arts side of Austin, which was, like, I think,
what I'm trying to focus on is the independent side.
It's not the hard establishment that you might find, let's say,
in La. This was, you know, a strong music scene.
You know, the south By Southwest Film Festival and Music
Festival is here Austin city limits. So there was there's
(09:59):
a push still is a push to maintain that that
weird creative vibe that makes Austin so vibrant.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
In my opinion, that's a great environment to writing in.
So before we talk about far Away Bird in your
other books, who are What actually inspired your love for
writing books?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Huh. My love of writing, our reading and write or
writing books came from I would say J. R. R.
Tolken Earliest. My mom used to read to my sister
and me The Hobbit, and I was actually pretty fascinated
by how her words when my mom was reading could
(10:41):
could auto populate incredible worlds in my mind. And I
really experienced that escapism that books are just perfect for.
And it created a habit in me of reading books
and kind of falling in love with language and prose
and this idea that with just words, I could build,
(11:02):
you know, the Byzantine Empire in your mind. I could
build it in there and you can see it, and
you can experience someone's life vicariously by reading about them.
So I would say it started with The Hobbit and
it grew into multiple books. Stephen King's Dark Tower series
was another one. Memoirs of a Geisha was one of
my favorite early books that dealt with a strong central
(11:26):
female character. Gone with the Wind was another one, and
then I, you know, later on, we'll get into it.
But I started reading some of the other classics with
female leads, like Excuse Me, pride and prejudice. Their eyes
were watching God Jane Eyre. You know, these are classic
books with feminine protagonists, and I became, i guess, intrigued
(11:49):
by some of the differences in the storytelling patterns between
those two, but I never lost that love of reading.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Oh my goodness, you are one of the theos. We've
had another author on a course Obey ten years several
another male author who does also write those strong female characters,
which I appreciate. But what can you tell us next?
What's the inspiration behind Far Away Bird?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Well, when I was in high school, I had a
study hall in the library and I grabbed the book
off the shelf one day, literally at random. That's what
I would do. I would walk around and stare at
the you know, there's kind of it's fun in a
library looking at all those binders, right, And yeah, I
(12:39):
grabbed a book called Constantinople, The Birth of an Empire,
just at random, and I opened it up and it
was about the Roman Empire, and I was like, oh cool,
I'll read a little bit more about the Roman Empire.
And in these pages I was absolutely blown away. So
my image of the Roman Empire was mostly an Italian
centric European uh superpower empire with gallant legionnaires with the
(13:05):
you know, red and gold armor, and Roman emperors that
became either excellent or decadent. And this this you know
Roman columns and building and hip and colosseums, and you know,
this exciting superculture, right that that's what I would you know,
I connected with the Roman Empire. But Constantinople was the
capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, which we almost hear
(13:27):
nothing about, and in the pages of this book it
painted a very different picture. It was an empire that
came at the fall of the Roman Empire, the one
that I just described, that that empire had collapsed, and
yet in the East you had a Roman Empire that
continued on, an empire divorced of Europe, centered in the
Middle East, centered in modern day Turkey, mostly Greek speaking
(13:50):
instead of Latin. It was a Christianized empire instead of
pagan And this was an empire in a world in
an era where like civilization was failing, collapsing, and this culture,
the Eastern Empire, the Byzantine Empire, went on to survive
for another eleven hundred years. And when I encountered this
(14:10):
an empire, not this great empire, but an empire based
on survival and religion, and you know it was it
was multi ethnic, you know, it was multicultural. And I
was like, man, how come we don't know about this side?
And it became almost an obsession for me to read
every book I could on Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire.
(14:31):
And when it came to I always wanted to write
a book that took place in this world, because there
seemed to be no stories that took ask you, can
you think of a movie that took place in the
Byzantine Empire.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah, like there's none.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
So I always wanted to do that. And when the
time was right for me, when I had gotten my
skill level to an acceptable workable level, I really wanted
to tell the story of Byzantine Empress Theodora, who started
her life impoverished. She was a prostitute, and this woman
(15:08):
would go on to become one of the greatest, arguably
the greatest empress in Byzantine history. She helped to influence
part of the Legal Codex, which had several laws aimed
at the betterment of women, what we would call women's rights.
And this was back at the five hundreds, and she
(15:30):
helped to influence these laws, and I just couldn't help
but think that this story should be commonplace. Everyone should
know about her. So that's really where those things came together.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Oh my goodness, you just walked around and just pick
a book out of nowhere. The interest should be trying
Far Away Bird? Now, can you give our listeners. You
spoke a little about the Empress Theodore, but can you
give a brief overview of the novel Far Away Bird?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Yes, I wo'd be happy to I This novel's very
close to my heart because you know, you think about
writing historical fiction and you have all these historical elements,
and what I wanted to do with Empress Theodora with
something very specific. She, I believe, in my opinion, has
been mostly defamed through history because of her checkered past,
(16:23):
because of her She wasn't just a prostitute. She had
gained notoriety in this profession where she was rather infamous
and kind of known in certain circles. So she was,
you know, like a Paris Hilton. You know, maybe you
know fifteen years ago where everyone knows about her, but
(16:43):
it's not all necessarily the most flattering stories. Anyway, only
male historians have told her story in her past, and
they one author in particular, historian told stories about her
that once you read them, you cannot forget them. Their
lewd stories. They're over the top stories. And I feel
(17:03):
like this was done on purpose because after because it
won't matter what she did as an empress if you
encounter these stories. And so I think some history classrooms
feared to discuss her because of this lurid past, kind
of muddying the waters of her accomplishments as an empress.
So I wanted to tell the story that addressed that
(17:25):
past in a very human way. I encountered something in
a completely unrelated reading called counterphobia, in which people do
things aggressively that's used to that they are scared of.
And so one of the examples this book was getting
into is female exhibitionism, and how a lot of women
(17:49):
that are very aggressive in this light, some not all.
Every personality is different, but there is one group of
personalities that, for female exhibitionism, came from a childhood trauma
where they're constantly in a state of overcoming this fear
by going right at it basically. And so it made
me realize that that's sounded an awful lot like Empress Theodora,
(18:14):
someone who was aggressive in her youth and then went
on to write or influence at least women's rights as
an adult. So I wanted to reconcile those two things,
and I wanted to destigmatize her by telling a story
of a young person in an impoverished setting in an
exploitative industry and what that did to her, and how
(18:36):
she dealt with it and overcame it, how she found
her own resolve to take on the entire system to
defend what she believed were unprotected women in a society
that didn't seem to care.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Now who a little bit more about the visiting Empress,
or if you can describe her personality, how old is
she at the start of the book, what's going on
in her life then? And does her personality change?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Does well? Her personality changes in terms of how she
relates to her world, her society, But her personality is
very similar. I start the book when she's fourteen years old,
and she is attracted to dangerous things. She is attracted
to danger. In fact, the book opens up with a
(19:32):
full scale rebellion, a real one one that's in the
historical documents that is occurring. There are riots against the emperor,
and all of Constantinople is chaotic because there's this repecton
and she is attracted to this, and she's aware of
her attraction to even the violence of the men in
the streets and the things going on, and so she
(19:54):
is the type of person that runs toward danger. Now,
she gets herself into a lot of trouble, and her
older sister called around this all the time. She sees her.
Her older sister sees Theodora as foolish and reckless and
you know, get you know, she, you know, getting herself
into trouble. But Theodora kind of can't help herself. So
but she's a take charge type. She also, when cornered,
(20:15):
has a propensity to strike back hard, and yet she cares.
She is very empathetic toward people. So she finds herself
when other women or people are in danger, the type
of person that kind of just intervenes, whether it's a
(20:36):
good idea or not. And so those personality components are
there at age fourteen, and they follow her all the
way up to when she is on the throne.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
How did she and she's fourteen at the start. I'm
hoping she's not into prostitution at fourteen, but I know
things were different many many and things were very.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Different back then. And if the parents aren't specifically the father,
if the father is absent and her father dies in
that rebellion that I was telling, so when the when
the father has gone, and income is impossible. Because women
weren't necessarily allowed to just go out and work into
the city, they could do very limited things like seamstress,
(21:26):
you know, spinning wheels and things like that. There was
very limited number of so a lot of women ended
up going into prostitution because that was a guaranteed way
to make money for the family, and it was This
might sound strange, but that was how the professional class
of women were viewed. Like professional women did this job,
(21:47):
you know. And so when Theodora fought for those women,
she wasn't necessarily fighting for prostitution. Obviously she was against it.
She was fighting for the women's ability to earn income
without some guy there or somebody else there taking money
from them. That's what she was going for.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
How did she rise to power? Did somebody see her
and fall in love with her? And that.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Is how the history books portray it that the future
Emperor Justinian passed by her in the slums of Constantinople
and saw her at the spinning wheel after she had
renounced prostitution, and just was smitten by her and ended
up marrying her. But I found that to be less
(22:36):
likely or very unlikely, that that an unmarried prince would would,
you know, elevate someone that would love at first sight
to the point, because it's in his best interest to
marry a princess who would bind him to another house
so he could strengthen his position. So why would he
(22:56):
pass on all of these offers to go into the
scandalous relationship with a woman he just happened to spot
so far away. Bird takes the position that they had
a pre existing relationship before this, And what I have
(23:16):
set up is that she is recruited by the imperial
officers close to the throne to spy on behalf of
the emperor in order to provide information, and her spymaster
is Justinian, the future son of the future emperor. They're
not there yet, and during this relationship where they're getting
(23:38):
information for each other, Justinian realizes, you know, just how
smart and brilliant she is, and how this gem is
is is unseen by no one notices her, and he
really starts to fall in love with her fairly quickly,
but it's a profet. He can't sleep with his spies,
(24:01):
so it creates a lot of tension between the two
and she even they even have a discussion about which
laws she you know, she's trying to convince him that
there's things wrong in the brothel district and how women
are exploited, and you know, he entertains the conference. He's like,
you know, tell me, what, what would you change if
you could change it? And she has some answers for him.
I would change this, I would change this, and I
(24:22):
would change this. And so I show that there's a
pre an actual imperial relationship that existed in the clandestine arts.
She learns the art of seduction and all of these
things as a spy, and this develops later. If you
read the book, you'll see where we get to how
she ends up having an official open relationship with Justinian
(24:46):
and why. And I want the readers to be convinced why.
He said, I'm not interested in a princess, even if
they can help me strengthen my cla. I want this
woman at my side forever, like she's she's the deal.
So hopefully I can convince you that this is a
completely believable relationship.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Oh my gosh, how how close do you stick You've done?
Your research is obvious? How close do you stick to
real historical facts in the novel? Because this is a
work of fiction, How close do you stick to real
life facts.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
As meticulously as possible? I changed one detail early on
the books, based on hearsay, say that her father passed
away when she was seven or eight. For reasons that
you and I already discussed. I thought that was just
too young. You know that that that I didn't. It
(25:45):
would be hard to write a story from from that perspective,
So I changed that to age fourteen. But that was
pretty much the only detail I changed. Now, I everything
that is in the history books, and I have like
a library at this point of very obscure books, some
books that only have a single press printing it, some
(26:05):
books that are out of uh print and circulation. I
have academic publications that you can only get by paying
for the I have mind history to grab all sorts
of details, and I organize them and I make sure
that no matter how embellished I get in my storytelling,
or how deep and specific and rich, that ultimately the
details on the surface all stay the same. So it's
(26:31):
very historically accurate, like that rebellion to start it off,
that's a real rebellion. A lot of characters are actual
historical figures, and their personalities are based on their their
records in history. So it's meticulously researched, and ultimately you
should be able to read even a Wikipedia page about
her and and and see that my story follows that perfectly.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Okay, Can you describe if way backte Byzantine or Byzantine
the Eastern Roman Empire, what was it like for our
listeners during the emphasis childhood? How can how would you
compare it to some place today? How can people even
(27:18):
give to feel what was going on back then?
Speaker 3 (27:22):
It was such a unique era, and I have just
fallen in love describing it because it is she is
standing when she stands on us on a road in
the Roman and the Byzantine Empire East Roman Empire. In
her era, she is standing between antiquity and the medieval era.
The medieval era, according to historical records, begins in the
(27:45):
year five hundred and ends in the year fifteen hundred.
It's a one thousand year period of history. She's in
the five hundreds early five hundreds. So in fact, her
and Justinian's reign, they have such wide sweeping changes, wide
sweeping changes that what he thought he was doing was
(28:05):
restoring the Roman Empire that had collapsed in the West,
and what he really did was remake the world in
what would become the Medieval era, which was a theocratic,
very religious era and also very different. You know, gone
where the he shut. He's the one who shuts the
school of Athens. So paganism ends in her life like
(28:28):
in her lifetime. For the most part, Christianity had already
been a dominant force in the empire since the three hundreds,
so we're about two hundred years later, five hundred years
after you know, the death of Christ, and so it's
it's not it's already institutionalized, but this is the first
(28:50):
time that they start building buildings that are separate. They're
no longer converted pagan temples. You start to get the
emergence of the Christian basilica. The Hagia Sophia is constructed
in this generation. So while there's this great comeback for
civilization under a Roman Christian empire. There's also a lot
(29:11):
of anxiety because it's not the Roman Empire of old.
This is before just Inning and Theodora took the throne. Society.
Civilization was in retreat. Barbarians were running around through Europe,
they were overtaking cities, There was no central authority. You know,
great monuments were falling into complete disrepair or were destroyed,
(29:32):
and so there was an anxiety amongst people that you know,
a barbarian army could have pop up on the horizon
and maybe there's no Roman Empire to stop them or
to oppose them, and you know, maybe you get sold
into slavery, which is what happened. A lot of these
people were captured and sold into slavery. You know. So
it was it was not a secure and stable time.
It felt like civilization was losing and was going to
(29:55):
continue to lose. And the Justinning and Empress Theodora era,
once they take the throne, they pretty much civilization fights
back and they they go on to create what's considered
a Golden Age.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Oh my goodness, Yeah, I love the book cover. How
did you find your cover illustrator George Frey.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
So I grew up with George. Actually we grew up together,
and he was always into art ever since I knew him.
And he went to the American Academy of Art in
Chicago and he ended up moving down to Florida with
me there for a while, and when it came time
to do the cover art, he he really wanted to
(30:40):
do it. So we we discussed what we wanted and
we hashed it out and he came up with, you know,
he thought it was in He thought it was important
to show a little bit of the risky attributes in
her life so that readers weren't completely taken off guard.
And that's a real image of Constantinople. We contacted intellectual
(31:04):
who resides in Istanbul, Turkey today, and he has digitally
recreated that and he took a screenshot of Constantinople, ancient Constantinople,
and we were able to use a realistic city scape
that she's looking down upon in that book cover.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Oh my goodness, that's pretty cool. I wanted two more
questions where we talk about your next nonfiction. Can you
introduce us to some of the other major and minor
characters who make an appearance in Far Away Birds.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Yes, so Justinian makes an appearance. He is not the emperor.
He is a palace guardsman and his father is the
head of the bodyguards like the Secret Service, basically is
his father is the head of the bodyguards to the emperor,
and he is gathering information because as the emperor ages,
Emperor Anastasius the real emperor, as he ages, there's a
(32:00):
concern that he has not named a successor. You might
find this very interesting, but when you think of Roman
emperor as they always name a successor, this emperor, Emperor Anastasius,
refused to name an heir, and there was a democratic
election of the next emperor, which is very very rare
in the Roman Empire, a democratic feature like this. Now,
(32:24):
they didn't go to ballots and cast votes, obviously. What
they did was to crowd into the Hippodrome, which is
a chariot racing stadium, kind of like the one in
ben Hur. They crowded in there by the fifty sixty thousand.
They had many representatives and guilds that would cram in there,
(32:45):
and without an emperor, they would they would reveal a
candidate in the Emperor's box and if everyone booed them,
you know, then he's not. If they got a rousing, loud, commanding,
decisive cheer the crowd, they're elected.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
But the people had a voice. They had a voice.
In the Byzantine Empire. A lot of times the emperor
would watch a chariot race right there, and if you
wanted to press him on a policy, you would have
a professional crier of a man. Usually women were not
allowed in the hippodrome, so it's definitely a man with
a very clear, powerful voice, and they would call out,
(33:27):
you know, hey, release this prisoner, or hey, you know,
you know taxes are too high, or take this policy
out of here, and they would yell at him, and
he would have his own crier who would shout back
from the imperial box and be like, you know, sit down,
you lection, or or the Emperor has heard you, and
(33:47):
we'll take what you said into consideration. And sometimes they
would change policies, and sometimes it got real heated, and
if the emperor did not handle himself in these exchanges,
it could lead to massive riots throughout the city because
think about it, You've got fifty sixty thousand people standing
around who might all of a sudden be pissed at
the emperor, so they would storm out of the hipodrome
(34:09):
and perhaps light fires and go marauding through the streets.
So it was such differenter. So anyway, Emperor Anastasius Justinian
is in there. Theodora's sister Camido is in there. There
is a Roman general who was disgraced named Hypatius. He
was the nephew of the Emperor Anastasius. He was that nephew.
(34:32):
He was a disgraced man who lost his chance at
becoming an emperor because he was captured and made hostage
to the enemy at one point, which is embarrassing, and
lost all of his clout. He becomes a major force
in the story. There's a governor named Hassibolis in North
Africa modern day Libya, where Theodora goes, and he is
(34:55):
in the story. He ends up mistreating Theodora very severely.
He's a bad guy, and she stands up to this
man decisively, and it's a pretty heroic part of the story,
but she stands up to him for very specific reasons. Also,
Pope Timothy the Third is a character in the story.
What a lot of people don't know when I say
(35:16):
the pope. We think of the Pope in Rome. Well,
at the time, there were three popes. There was the
pope in Rome, there was a pope in Alexandria, and
there was a pope in Constantinople. There was even a
pope in Antioch, by the way. But what happened was
with the rise of Islam, those territories fell into Islamic hans,
and so those popes kind of vanished, they lost their power,
(35:38):
and the only pope remaining was the one in Rome. Wow,
isn't that crazy? So there was other popes. So she
meets the pope in Alexandria, which is modern day Egypt,
and she converts to Christianity under his tutelage, and so
he's in it. So there are several historical characters. A
friend of hers, another Spine Macedonia, who is in the
(36:01):
history books. She is in there and she has she's
my favorite character. She is a mentor to Theodora. She
is mentoring her how to spy on men, uh, and
not just like seducing them, like smiling and you know,
fluttering your eyelashes kind of stuff, like how do you
control a man? How do you get him to do
things he knows he shouldn't do, and share information he
(36:22):
knows he should. You know, how do you get him
to stay loyal to you, not for this one night,
but forever, you know, for months or years on end,
you know, real strict spy work. And what she's what's
cool about Macedonia is her messages are not just how
to spy. She's actually teaching her empowerment, serious empowerment wisdom,
which on accident, she's mentoring Theodora how to become an empress.
(36:46):
It's real cool stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Oh my gas, the history and and oh my goodness.
And then it's for the readers to know. You really,
it's really a great work of historical fiction. What have
readers been saying about Far Away?
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Well, the book won several awards, some very difficult ones,
and I'm extremely proud of it confirms that I have
told her the beginning of her story correctly, like I
feel like I connected it. I made it a human,
real story where the history is in the background. It
doesn't read like a textbook. And so it won those awards,
and the commentaries have been very positive, specifically women readers
(37:25):
who have read it. Because I didn't just wing this.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
You know.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
I wasn't because there's some sensitive stuff in the book.
I wasn't guessing about that stuff. I got a lot
of input, I had sensitivity readers coming in, and I
spent years sometimes just to write a single sentence to
make sure I got that single sentence right, so that
when people read her her and the challenges that she
was up against and how she felt about it and
(37:50):
what was going on on the inside, that it rang
with authenticity, that it did not sound like a guy
winging it about, you know, you know, the kind of
conflicts that she was experiencing. So and I feel proud
of that, and proud of that because because I had
(38:10):
so much input from so many women and that they
trusted me to help me with all of this.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. Far Away Bird listeners,
if you love any type of a storytelling, but then
historical fiction. There people love historical fiction Far Away Bird
by Douglas Bird, and I encourage you to get a copy.
He is a historian for real far Away Bird. Now, please,
(38:40):
as we shift gears just a little, please tell us
about the heroines, labyrinth archetype of designs and heroin fiction.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Oh so there, actually I did not plan on writing
this book, like right now, I'm in the middle of
book two for Theodora, I'm in book two, but I
intended to write book two immediately, but I was delayed.
I got derailed because while writing Faraway Bird, there's the
issue that all writers run into about story structure. How
(39:11):
do you structure your story? And I use the hero's journey,
which is a very widespread story structure strategy, and it's
based on real life the All Star Wars, Lord of
the Rings, the Matrix, Superman nineteen seventy eight, like all
(39:31):
the Lion King. All of these stories fit the Hero's journey.
And what that means is events occur during the story
that are archetypal, which means so the word archetype can
be broken down into two sides, arco which means primal,
and type, which means model. So an archetype is a
(39:54):
primal model. So, for an example, meeting the Wise Guide
is an archae type of design in the Hero's journey
where the hero encounters an older wise mentor who then
teaches them about the world. And this mentor a lot
of times has a secret identity. They pretend to be
a simple grandpa but the really this this amazing figure
(40:15):
from the past, like Obi wan Kenobi, like Gandolf. You know,
Morpheus in the matrix is the wise guide. So although
the expression of each archetype is different, you know, Morpheus
is very different from Obi wan Kenobi, who's very different
from Gandalf. Although although they're completely different on the outside,
(40:37):
underneath the hood, the archetypal design is the same. An
old wise character who had a past, who knows about
the world, who has the ability and wisdom to teach
the hero. You know, all these things are the same.
You know, they're often disguised in society and they they
come and they find the hero or the hero finds them.
(40:59):
So that's the archetyp and it can be redone in
a million different ways, and that's great. And then if
you string together enough of these archetypal designs, you get
what writers dream of, which is a full character arc,
meaning the character starts from one thing and ends in another,
and it's a full story. Writing a book is difficult
to have that full arc. It's very difficult. Tons of
(41:21):
writers get lost in the woods writing about events that
don't seem to have a beginning or an end, and
It's a terrible problem that almost every writer has faced
in their life, if not are still facing. So the
Hero's Journey helped solve this. My problem was when I
was writing Far Away Bird, the Hero's Journey started to
(41:41):
go awry. It did not work. It was starting to
fail me on so many levels. And this was mortifying
because I had studied the hero's journey for twenty years.
So when I started researching in a little bit more.
The main criticism of the Hero's Journey is that it's
a little too male centric.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Right.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
It's a hunter warrior quest, and a lot of women
in academia have written books about this. They're like, this
is not a one size fits all. A lot of
women weren't connecting with the hero's journey. It was either
the hunter going out to fight big game or the
hero setting out to slay the dragon, and not every
woman was connecting with the hero's journey is the same way.
(42:22):
So I tried to find something that maybe was a
little bit more female centric, something that revolved around female protagonists.
And there was a lot of stuff out there, but
none of it seemed to help me as a writer.
So I started what would become I did not know it,
but what would become a lifelong passion to study heroic
(42:47):
women in fiction. So I was like, I'm going to
reread all the classics. I'm gonna watch all the movies.
I'm gonna watch the great TV shows that all have
a woman as the feature character, the lead character, and
just see if I could tech my own archetypal designs,
my own patterns in their stories. And I did. I
found eighteen archetypal designs, and when strung together, they form
(43:09):
a narrative arc and it is not the hero's journey.
And it has moved me. It has actually changed me
because I see a lot of female characters now not
in the light of the hero's journey, but in their
own light. You know, a hero in in the Labyrinth
dealing a lot of female characters in their books deal
(43:31):
their conflict as against their own native culture, which is
not the same. The hero usually leaves his native culture behind,
it goes off into the wilderness and the distant lands
in the far away territory, whereas heroines tend to stay
at home and their villains are close to them. Yes,
(43:52):
their villains are members of the native culture. They are
close and proximate to them. Sometimes they live in the
same house, sometimes there at their job place. So that
is a fundamental difference between the Hero's Journey and The
Heroines Labyrinth, and I think it was important enough to
explore in its own light.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Is the book written for novelists more so or screen
playwriters both?
Speaker 3 (44:20):
It's for writers. It's for storytellers who are struggling to
organize their stories. Especially I read one time a blog
and it was written by a woman and she was lamenting.
She was sad that her memoir that she was writing
didn't seem to follow the hero's journey because she didn't
bring back some great treasure that benefited all of society,
(44:43):
and so she was depressed in a way it sound
in the tone she was upset, or at least discouraged
because she didn't think maybe her life had the importance
of the hero's journey. And I thought to myself, that
cannot be her conclusion. It can't be. And she ended
up finding My Heroines Labyrinth, and she ended up citing me, uh,
(45:04):
saying that she was intrigued because here was a new
form of heroism that did match her life. And uh,
So it's it's for memoirrists. It's for novelists, screenwriters, and
even role playing gamers like the Dungeons and Dragons crowd.
They end up designing stories and then roleplay them. This
(45:26):
also helps with that.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Okay, now we learned so much about ourselves while we're writing,
and it's not I don't think we set out to
do it. But what did you What did you learn
about yourself while you were writing the heroes Labrinth and
for Waybird.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
I learned that I learned, well, I learned several things.
One I think I was a little blind, I guess
to the different experiences women have in life from guys.
You know, I just didn't think much about it. I guess.
You know, you you go through life and you're the
(46:06):
center of the story in your life, and you, you know,
you're you. The kind of conflicts that make sense to
you are ones that you've experienced, and you're like, oh, okay, yeah,
all this makes sense. But when writing about Theodora, I
realized that, you know, her wounds were a little different,
and uh, you know I I started reading literature and
(46:27):
books and having conversations that dealt with abuse and mistreatment,
exploitation and how there's a built in terribleness to all
of this where it's hard to talk about it. It's
(46:47):
really hard to talk about it, and so this thing
just stays invisible. And and there's a there's an incredible
sadness that I was experiencing when reading this, because because
it's like this thing that could not get expressed, it
has to stay hidden or buried in a lot of cases,
and then you the woman or in some cases the man,
(47:09):
carries this around with them, right, they carry this around,
it goes unanswered, and it's quite a paradox. And this
was all invisible to me, and so encountering it and
really not just like reading about it, but internalizing it
to the point where I was trying to articulate it,
and then talking to people and getting in conversations with
(47:29):
people privately who who shared stories and in things people
I never would have imagined sharing these stories. The reality
of it and the pervasiveness, how often it happens, and
how how many people have experienced some shade of this
kind of abuse or this sort of being cornered. It
(47:51):
completely broke my heart and stayed with me, and it
changed me so thoroughly on the inside that the writing
went from a historical biographical, though I think something a
little bit more than that, and I think that's why
it won the awards. I think because this is I
(48:12):
think the reality that was addressed in it. I think
I think that elevated the story way beyond just a historical. Wow.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
You know, the author is in the story as much
as you try to stay out your own essence, just
any creative you're in your work. Now, can you give
us a glimpse. You said you're writing on book two
telling Theodore's story. What is there a working title? When
can we expect to see it on the market? And
can you give us an overview of this book too?
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Yeah, book two, I'm about sixty five percent of the
way through it. It's very different from book one. She's
an adult, she's on the precipice of becoming an empress.
It's a very underappreciated period of her life. She is
put she she is living with Justinian in a palace.
It's a scandalous relationship. And she's not an empress and
(49:08):
he's not an emperor yet, and I and the and
part of the drama becomes she is you know, she's
living in two worlds. You know, the the aristocracy sees
her as a low born person, a former prostitute, who
absolutely doesn't belong in this palace and in this life.
And she's kind of muddying up the heir to the
(49:30):
throne because all these Roman princesses should be marrying this guy.
Why is she blocking this? And then when she goes
back to her old life to see her old friends,
they don't like her. There's also some prejudice there, you know, Oh,
you think you're better than us. You know, you're you're
hoity toity. Now you live in a you know, you
don't know what it's like to be down here in
the slums anymore. So she feels rejected on both sides,
(49:53):
and it really pains her because she her identity is
struggling here. She doesn't really know where she belongs, if anyone.
And secondly, at the end of Faraway Bird, she vows
to fight against men who take advantage of women. And
the guy the men who get away with it is
how she the guys who get those who get away
(50:13):
with it. She she doesn't like those guys, and she's
she has vow because she was spared and because she
succeeded in her mission. In Far Away Bird, she promised
to fight for other women in this capacity, and she
runs into all kinds of problems and book to trying
to fight this fight. It's not so easy, you know.
You can't just slam your foot down and say stop it.
(50:35):
There's a system in place, there are people in place,
and they oppose her, and she starts to get into
the nuts and bolts of what it means to stand
up for a woman. Maybe the woman, maybe this woman
doesn't want you to stand up for her. Maybe the
man's too powerful. Maybe you know, you know, it rocks
the boat too much. And she's in this weird place
(50:56):
where she doesn't really have real authority yet. So she
runs into major problems trying to affect change, as we
would say today, major real problems trying to help certain people,
and she ends up getting kind of mired into the
dark side of power and how to express it and
where you might have to do something less than savory
(51:19):
in order to strike a blow to someone who deserves it.
And it's a very different story, but she's getting there.
And also she becomes an empress in book two, and
by the time she puts that crown on her head
after reading book one and two. I hope all readers
will be absolutely convinced on how she got there. We
(51:39):
will have gone with her step by step, and we
will see what she's planning to do once she becomes
an empress. She's going to take on the entire empire.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Oh my gosh. When you think about her humble beginnings.
Is if somebody had told power when she was fourteen
or seven, I mean he said historically and she would
do that. She probably wouldn't have believed it herself.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
Oh no, not at all. She an impoverished girl who
is living in the red light district. But you know, like, oh,
you're gonna become an empress. It's like, yeah, you know,
like nobody does this.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Oh my goodness, what a story. Will there be a book?
Will there will there be a book three?
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Yes, this has always been designed to be a trilogy.
Book three. She will be an empress in full and
we will see her flex her muscles. But she is
going to go up against the entire culture at this point.
So whereas she's kind of involved in book two with
local politics and some of the real people opposing her.
(52:46):
Men who are you know, certain people who are exploiting
women who are kind of locally entrenched. Now she's going
to take on the city, you know, women in Egypt
versus women in Greece, women in Constantinople, like all women,
or she's going to try. She's up against every locality, right,
every local play, and uh so she's also up against
(53:07):
the entrenched government. To her old men and obviously are
going to struggle to see it through her eyes, and
she's going to have to convince them or pressure them,
or make them agree with her that this is wrong
and has to be dealt with. And in book three,
we're going to see how she succeeds and how the culture.
(53:29):
The culture is going to turn against her, and it's
going to lead to massive political unrest and she's going
to end up on top. Oh my god, it's going
to be It's it's going to be a climax that
no one's that not many people know about, but it
should be a stunning climax to this lifelong cause that
(53:51):
she has refused. She refuses to give up.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
Are they do you say this as a movie. It's
funny you said you wanted to be a director. I'm
listening to you. I could see this. It's in movie
for him. Are there plans? Do you have any plans
to try to reach out and see if you could
have this made into a movie.
Speaker 3 (54:10):
Yeah, it's so funny. You said early on in our
discret You're like, maybe you will. I was like, man,
I hope she's right. I do see it as a
film or as a series. I don't want to do
anything with it until it's done because book one is
standalone at one Awards. It would be so fun to
(54:30):
try to promote this, but it's only part of her story.
And I think until I tell all three, until I
get to the end of book three and people see
what this story is with all of the gravity and
all the weight, from fourteen year old exploited girl to
one of the arguably the greatest empress of all time
(54:51):
and an early pioneer for women's rights at a time
you know, you know, almost thirteen hundred years before the
women's rights movement, where she was the old cause. There
was no cause, there was no movement, it was just her.
I think the full story will blow people away, and
I think she should become a household name, and I
(55:11):
think she should get credit for being such an early
pioneer for someone who who risked her life and I'm
not kidding, risked her life because she just refused to
settle for anything less than legal protection for women that
she knew were being exploited. She refused to give up
on that, and she puts her life on the line.
(55:33):
So I think, when I get to the end, I'm
gonna I'm gonna. I'm going to rewrite it as a screenplay.
And I know a few screenwriters in Hollywood. I know
a few people who can maybe help me out. And
my goal, my long term plan, is to sell this
for dramatic rights. And I if I die and this
becomes a film that a lot that millions of people
(55:55):
end up seeing, I feel like I will have achieved
a goal myself that I wow.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
Ah, this is a book you just came across walking
through the library and study hall. Look out, Oh my goodness, unimaginable,
just an amazing, amazing story. As we come to the
end of the show, I do always like to ask
our guests this for our listeners put off the shelf,
(56:21):
who themselves might be writers, or they might have another
product or service through they want to market and see
become more successful. Could you, Douglas, please share three to
four steps you've taken that you have found to be
effective at getting the word out about your books.
Speaker 3 (56:39):
So I have appeared on podcasts and YouTube channels to
discuss it. This is my favorite because I actually get
to talk to another person about it, and we might
go on tangents, we could talk about things other than
the book, and I really enjoy that process and it's authentic,
it's real, you know, it's a real conversation. I found
that to be the best way to just be yourself
(56:59):
and have those conversations, and people who are interested will
listen in and they'll be like, huh, that really does
sound interesting, versus like putting banners up on webs You know,
those work, but they're less personal to me. Also, the website,
if you're interested in getting your have a website, have
(57:20):
a landing page where people can go and learn a
little bit more and maybe watch a video or two
or read a blog. And then also go to writing conferences,
you know, be out there in public, sell your book,
meet people and talk to them, write at your booth
and and sell them and buy other books, you know,
buy other books. Like you said, Denise, I found a
(57:43):
lifelong on mitigating passion from granted from by taking a
random book off the shelf at a library when I
was eighteen years old, So you never know what you'll
find in a book.
Speaker 2 (57:56):
Yes, working off the shelf, listeners get a copy of
your books.
Speaker 3 (58:00):
You could find it on Amazon dot com. That's your
number one so or that's the most popular site. However,
I always recommend independent bookstores. So if you're like here
in Austin, we have book people, I strongly encourage people
to go to your local book bookstore or their website
and try to purchase it there. They're both both the
(58:21):
heroines Labyrinth and Faraway Bird are available there as well.
Speaker 2 (58:24):
Okay, do you have any upcoming speaking engagement that our
listeners could support you on?
Speaker 3 (58:31):
Not yet. Twenty twenty five is just starting to take shape.
I am sending out some applications to a couple places,
but if I do, or when I do, I will
be posting them on my website, and that is Douglasaburton
dot com.
Speaker 2 (58:45):
And lastly, if you're on social media, where can our
listeners find you on social media?
Speaker 3 (58:51):
I have just started to make a presence on x
which has turned out to be a fairly decent place
I had not been on it for forever, but I'm
starting to run into a bunch of people I know
on X and running into some other professionals. So at
Douglas A. Burton on X. I also have a Facebook
page Douglas Author Douglas A. Burton there as well. Those
are my two social medias.
Speaker 2 (59:14):
Okay, oh my goodness, what a pleasure? Oh my? And
just the way you came across this story that starts
off book one. Then he said it was always intended
to be a trilogy bar Way Bird. He's working on
the second book. He's about sixty five percent of the
way through that there will be a third book. And
this story is about the Byzantine Empress, Theodor, who's a
(59:37):
real was a real, live person who you could study on.
This is just amazing historical fiction. It's one awards including
gold medals for the ibpa's Best New Voice and Fiction
Reader's Favorite Historical Personage, and Elitz Best Historical Fiction Ebook.
And he has a nonfiction book out as well that
(59:59):
he won Ange Labrinth's ARCHETYPEO Designs and Hero Led Fiction.
But the first of the three in the trilogy about
the Impress is Far Away Bird. Encourage you to visit
Douglas Burton online at Douglasaburton dot com. D O G
D O U G L A s A b U
R T O N. Thank you so much Douglas for
(01:00:22):
being here on office. Self truly enjoyed having you on,
as I'm sure our listeners have enjoyed you as well.
To all of our listeners, thank you for tuning in.
Please come back here next Saturday, and after the show
stream you can listen to them anytime, any day of
the week and share them with book lovers everywhere. This
(01:00:44):
particular show you might want to share with historians, historians
and people who really appreciate strong women characters. And this
is a based on a real life I didn't even
know about her, and I've taken a lot of reading
until I did research for this interview with Douglas. As
(01:01:05):
I always tell you to our listeners, you are so amazing,
you are absolutely incredible. Please go out and create a
wonderful day for yourself. See you back here next week.
Thank you so much, Douglas.
Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
Thank you Denise. It's been such a pleasure to talk
with you today.
Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
Thank you bye for now.
You're listening to the winning literary show Off the Shelf
Books Talk Radio Live. We post Delise Turney, author of
the books Long Walk Up, Horsia, Love for Over Me, Spiral,
Love Has Many Faces, and rosett Us Great Hope. Turn
up your dial and get ready for a blast of
feature author interviews, four one one on book festivals, writing conferences,
(00:22):
and so much more. Ready, let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And get started. So welcome to this morning's Off the
Shelf Book Show. And as I've done for probably about
the last year and a half, we're in our eighteenth year,
believe it or not.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Ah, congratulations, Oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Start this show for our listeners. We're going to start
the show with a quote, and this quote is from
Rosa Parks. To bring about change, you must not be
afraid to take the first step. We will fail when
we fail to try. And that applies to creative arts,
that applies if you're trying to start a business, whatever
you're trying to do. I mean, you got to take
(01:08):
that first step. We talk ourselves out of so much stuff,
so I love with that quote to not do that
as much. So to our office shelf listeners, again, I'm
welcoming you to our Saturday, January twenty fifth show. We're
already coming to the end of January and we have
(01:30):
a wonderful author or on deck for you, who I
will introduce in just a few minutes. But before I do,
I wanted to ask you, especially with January this time
of the year, it's a time when we people start
to of course make resolutions or set goals for things
they want to do. If you do that, I encourage
(01:50):
you to set some time once a month to just
track how you're doing according to your goals, or you
can end twelve months in the same spot that you
started in. But if you are somebody who's focused on
self care, particularly as it involves overdoing things, overdoing things.
We live in a culture where work work grekrek greak
(02:11):
is so honored and admired, it's easy to fall into
where you're just doing too much and you might be
on a brink of burnout, which is not a fun thing.
So this book Pieces of Me deals with a woman.
She's her own business owner. She is phenomenally successful, she's
closing these multi million dollar deals, but she's on the
(02:33):
brink of burnout, of doing too much. If you like
short stories, forty four pages is a powerful short story.
I encourage you to get Pieces of Me. It's at
bookstores everywhere. It's it's only an ebook format, but you
get it. I know it Apple Books. You can get
it of course at Amazon again. Pieces of Me rushing
(02:55):
with courage into the day by yours truly Dennie's Turning.
Encourage you to get a copy of the short story
and let me know how you enjoy Pieces of Me.
And now let us go and meet our very special
officeself guests. And this morning's guest is Douglas Burton. And
Douglas is a storyteller who pens fiction with strong women characters.
(03:22):
Faraway Bird was his debut novel, and it focused on
the Byzantine empress Theodora. The novel won several awards, including
gold medals for the ibpa's Best New Voice in Fiction,
Reader's Favorite Historical Personage, and elit's Best Historical Fiction Ebook.
(03:42):
And his new book The Heroes Lebrne Archetypal Designs and
hero and Let Fiction is a work of non fiction.
And Douglas and his family make their home in Texas.
And I encourage you to check Douglas Burton go Spell
his name for you, and his books out online at
Douglas Burton dot com d o U g l A
(04:06):
s b u r t o in dot com. Again,
that's d O U g l A s A b
u r t in dot com and it is a
great thing about Off the Shelf. You can actually go
over to his website now even as you listen to
today's show. We are just honored to have Douglas Burton
(04:30):
join us on Off the Shelf this morning. Welcome to
Off the Sheelf. Douglas.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Oh, thank you. I am honored to be here.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Uh we so happy to have you with us. The
first few questions I always say I ask every guest
so they our listeners can get a little backstory on
a guest before I start talking about their books. So,
to kick off this January twenty fifth, twenty twenty five show, Douglas,
would you please tell our Off the Chelf listeners where
you grew up and what life was like for you.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yes. I grew up on the West suburbs of Chicago, Illinois,
and I liked writing even then. That's where I really
started picking up writing. I also enjoyed art. It was
Park Ridge, Illinois, is where I grew up. My childhood
was in Berwin, Illinois, but then we moved to Park
Ridge a little bit later, and I went to high
(05:23):
school up there, and I have had just a wonderful life.
I had a good childhood growing up there. And after
high school I left, though, and I moved to Florida,
and I lived in central Florida for you know, about
fifteen years before moving to Texas, so moved around a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah. Interesting, you must have got taught of at Chicago coat.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
You know, Denise, When I go to Chicago in July,
I wonder why I ever left. You know, the Grant Park.
You know, it's at poker Table green Fields in Lake Michigan,
in the beautiful skyline. And then I come back in
the winter, and I'm like, well, there's your answer.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
This were people I know who've gone there in like
the summer, they say, oh my god, they love it.
They love it. But then again, like you said, the winters,
I heard that wind is unlike anywhere else in the country.
Oh and brutal.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
It It comes in from Canada, unobstructed across Lake Michigan
and just slams into the city. And you know, there's
such a thing up there called seasonal depression where during
the winter months, it doesn't it doesn't seem to be
a sunny and the skies are gray and it's cold,
and people tend to stay indoors, and you know, uh,
(06:45):
your mental health takes a little bit of a hits.
You get down and out a little bit. So it's
a real thing. And uh, you know that does happen.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Okay. Now, when you were a kid, what did you
dream of being? What did you want to become when
you grew up?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Unequivocally a movie director. I wanted to be like Steven
Spielberg and George Lucas. I wanted to Yeah, I wanted
to go to Hollywood one day and make movies. And
you know, it seemed like I was on a good
track for that. Early on, I was selected to go
to something called Evergreen Youth Television when I was a
(07:21):
freshman and in high school and it was in it
was in Seattle, Washington, and we learned all the tricks
and trades of you know, making documentaries and movies and
film work and editing. And this was in nineteen ninety one,
so at the time it was right when CGI was
starting to creep in and editing. Films could be computerized,
(07:42):
so it was very exciting. I also toured full sale
for film craft, but our family just didn't earn the
kind of money. And I remember my dad put his
arm around me. He's like, son, you know you're not
we can't afford to send you to this school, right,
And I was like, I guess I know now, you know? Okay, yeah,
(08:07):
so yeah it didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Maybe you'll get back there with your novels. Who knows,
you may go back into movies. You never know. Now,
how did the arts in Austin. I know you were
at an adult when by the time you had moved
to Texas, but how did the arts in Austin affect
you as an artist? I've always heard Austin, Texas is
(08:31):
a big arts town.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
It is. It's so the when I moved here in
twenty twelve into Austin, there was a phrase and they
still say, the phrase, keep Austin Weird. And the mantra
is based on the fact that Austin had started to
explode in terms of population growth. They changed an old
rule that said no building could be higher than the
(08:55):
Capitol building in downtown Austin, so there was this explosion
of skyscrapers going up. When I moved here in twenty twelve,
there was maybe eight skyscrapers, maybe ten. Now there's like forty,
Like it's unbelievable the growth here. Google has come in here,
Tesla is here, now, Facebook, Intel, Dell Computers is based
(09:16):
in Round Rock, which is just so you know, it's
an IT hub. They call it Silicon Hills instead of
Silicon Valley. And so when I got here, the massive
growth was starting to tug on the weird side, which
is what you're referring to, this beautiful indie, creative, you know,
(09:37):
music and arts side of Austin, which was, like, I think,
what I'm trying to focus on is the independent side.
It's not the hard establishment that you might find, let's say,
in La. This was, you know, a strong music scene.
You know, the south By Southwest Film Festival and Music
Festival is here Austin city limits. So there was there's
(09:59):
a push still is a push to maintain that that
weird creative vibe that makes Austin so vibrant.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
In my opinion, that's a great environment to writing in.
So before we talk about far Away Bird in your
other books, who are What actually inspired your love for
writing books?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Huh. My love of writing, our reading and write or
writing books came from I would say J. R. R.
Tolken Earliest. My mom used to read to my sister
and me The Hobbit, and I was actually pretty fascinated
by how her words when my mom was reading could
(10:41):
could auto populate incredible worlds in my mind. And I
really experienced that escapism that books are just perfect for.
And it created a habit in me of reading books
and kind of falling in love with language and prose
and this idea that with just words, I could build,
(11:02):
you know, the Byzantine Empire in your mind. I could
build it in there and you can see it, and
you can experience someone's life vicariously by reading about them.
So I would say it started with The Hobbit and
it grew into multiple books. Stephen King's Dark Tower series
was another one. Memoirs of a Geisha was one of
my favorite early books that dealt with a strong central
(11:26):
female character. Gone with the Wind was another one, and
then I, you know, later on, we'll get into it.
But I started reading some of the other classics with
female leads, like Excuse Me, pride and prejudice. Their eyes
were watching God Jane Eyre. You know, these are classic
books with feminine protagonists, and I became, i guess, intrigued
(11:49):
by some of the differences in the storytelling patterns between
those two, but I never lost that love of reading.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Oh my goodness, you are one of the theos. We've
had another author on a course Obey ten years several
another male author who does also write those strong female characters,
which I appreciate. But what can you tell us next?
What's the inspiration behind Far Away Bird?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Well, when I was in high school, I had a
study hall in the library and I grabbed the book
off the shelf one day, literally at random. That's what
I would do. I would walk around and stare at
the you know, there's kind of it's fun in a
library looking at all those binders, right, And yeah, I
(12:39):
grabbed a book called Constantinople, The Birth of an Empire,
just at random, and I opened it up and it
was about the Roman Empire, and I was like, oh cool,
I'll read a little bit more about the Roman Empire.
And in these pages I was absolutely blown away. So
my image of the Roman Empire was mostly an Italian
centric European uh superpower empire with gallant legionnaires with the
(13:05):
you know, red and gold armor, and Roman emperors that
became either excellent or decadent. And this this you know
Roman columns and building and hip and colosseums, and you know,
this exciting superculture, right that that's what I would you know,
I connected with the Roman Empire. But Constantinople was the
capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, which we almost hear
(13:27):
nothing about, and in the pages of this book it
painted a very different picture. It was an empire that
came at the fall of the Roman Empire, the one
that I just described, that that empire had collapsed, and
yet in the East you had a Roman Empire that
continued on, an empire divorced of Europe, centered in the
Middle East, centered in modern day Turkey, mostly Greek speaking
(13:50):
instead of Latin. It was a Christianized empire instead of
pagan And this was an empire in a world in
an era where like civilization was failing, collapsing, and this culture,
the Eastern Empire, the Byzantine Empire, went on to survive
for another eleven hundred years. And when I encountered this
(14:10):
an empire, not this great empire, but an empire based
on survival and religion, and you know it was it
was multi ethnic, you know, it was multicultural. And I
was like, man, how come we don't know about this side?
And it became almost an obsession for me to read
every book I could on Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire.
(14:31):
And when it came to I always wanted to write
a book that took place in this world, because there
seemed to be no stories that took ask you, can
you think of a movie that took place in the
Byzantine Empire.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah, like there's none.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
So I always wanted to do that. And when the
time was right for me, when I had gotten my
skill level to an acceptable workable level, I really wanted
to tell the story of Byzantine Empress Theodora, who started
her life impoverished. She was a prostitute, and this woman
(15:08):
would go on to become one of the greatest, arguably
the greatest empress in Byzantine history. She helped to influence
part of the Legal Codex, which had several laws aimed
at the betterment of women, what we would call women's rights.
And this was back at the five hundreds, and she
(15:30):
helped to influence these laws, and I just couldn't help
but think that this story should be commonplace. Everyone should
know about her. So that's really where those things came together.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Oh my goodness, you just walked around and just pick
a book out of nowhere. The interest should be trying
Far Away Bird? Now, can you give our listeners. You
spoke a little about the Empress Theodore, but can you
give a brief overview of the novel Far Away Bird?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Yes, I wo'd be happy to I This novel's very
close to my heart because you know, you think about
writing historical fiction and you have all these historical elements,
and what I wanted to do with Empress Theodora with
something very specific. She, I believe, in my opinion, has
been mostly defamed through history because of her checkered past,
(16:23):
because of her She wasn't just a prostitute. She had
gained notoriety in this profession where she was rather infamous
and kind of known in certain circles. So she was,
you know, like a Paris Hilton. You know, maybe you
know fifteen years ago where everyone knows about her, but
(16:43):
it's not all necessarily the most flattering stories. Anyway, only
male historians have told her story in her past, and
they one author in particular, historian told stories about her
that once you read them, you cannot forget them. Their
lewd stories. They're over the top stories. And I feel
(17:03):
like this was done on purpose because after because it
won't matter what she did as an empress if you
encounter these stories. And so I think some history classrooms
feared to discuss her because of this lurid past, kind
of muddying the waters of her accomplishments as an empress.
So I wanted to tell the story that addressed that
(17:25):
past in a very human way. I encountered something in
a completely unrelated reading called counterphobia, in which people do
things aggressively that's used to that they are scared of.
And so one of the examples this book was getting
into is female exhibitionism, and how a lot of women
(17:49):
that are very aggressive in this light, some not all.
Every personality is different, but there is one group of
personalities that, for female exhibitionism, came from a childhood trauma
where they're constantly in a state of overcoming this fear
by going right at it basically. And so it made
me realize that that's sounded an awful lot like Empress Theodora,
(18:14):
someone who was aggressive in her youth and then went
on to write or influence at least women's rights as
an adult. So I wanted to reconcile those two things,
and I wanted to destigmatize her by telling a story
of a young person in an impoverished setting in an
exploitative industry and what that did to her, and how
(18:36):
she dealt with it and overcame it, how she found
her own resolve to take on the entire system to
defend what she believed were unprotected women in a society
that didn't seem to care.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Now who a little bit more about the visiting Empress,
or if you can describe her personality, how old is
she at the start of the book, what's going on
in her life then? And does her personality change?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Does well? Her personality changes in terms of how she
relates to her world, her society, But her personality is
very similar. I start the book when she's fourteen years old,
and she is attracted to dangerous things. She is attracted
to danger. In fact, the book opens up with a
(19:32):
full scale rebellion, a real one one that's in the
historical documents that is occurring. There are riots against the emperor,
and all of Constantinople is chaotic because there's this repecton
and she is attracted to this, and she's aware of
her attraction to even the violence of the men in
the streets and the things going on, and so she
(19:54):
is the type of person that runs toward danger. Now,
she gets herself into a lot of trouble, and her
older sister called around this all the time. She sees her.
Her older sister sees Theodora as foolish and reckless and
you know, get you know, she, you know, getting herself
into trouble. But Theodora kind of can't help herself. So
but she's a take charge type. She also, when cornered,
(20:15):
has a propensity to strike back hard, and yet she cares.
She is very empathetic toward people. So she finds herself
when other women or people are in danger, the type
of person that kind of just intervenes, whether it's a
(20:36):
good idea or not. And so those personality components are
there at age fourteen, and they follow her all the
way up to when she is on the throne.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
How did she and she's fourteen at the start. I'm
hoping she's not into prostitution at fourteen, but I know
things were different many many and things were very.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Different back then. And if the parents aren't specifically the father,
if the father is absent and her father dies in
that rebellion that I was telling, so when the when
the father has gone, and income is impossible. Because women
weren't necessarily allowed to just go out and work into
the city, they could do very limited things like seamstress,
(21:26):
you know, spinning wheels and things like that. There was
very limited number of so a lot of women ended
up going into prostitution because that was a guaranteed way
to make money for the family, and it was This
might sound strange, but that was how the professional class
of women were viewed. Like professional women did this job,
(21:47):
you know. And so when Theodora fought for those women,
she wasn't necessarily fighting for prostitution. Obviously she was against it.
She was fighting for the women's ability to earn income
without some guy there or somebody else there taking money
from them. That's what she was going for.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
How did she rise to power? Did somebody see her
and fall in love with her? And that.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Is how the history books portray it that the future
Emperor Justinian passed by her in the slums of Constantinople
and saw her at the spinning wheel after she had
renounced prostitution, and just was smitten by her and ended
up marrying her. But I found that to be less
(22:36):
likely or very unlikely, that that an unmarried prince would would,
you know, elevate someone that would love at first sight
to the point, because it's in his best interest to
marry a princess who would bind him to another house
so he could strengthen his position. So why would he
(22:56):
pass on all of these offers to go into the
scandalous relationship with a woman he just happened to spot
so far away. Bird takes the position that they had
a pre existing relationship before this, And what I have
(23:16):
set up is that she is recruited by the imperial
officers close to the throne to spy on behalf of
the emperor in order to provide information, and her spymaster
is Justinian, the future son of the future emperor. They're
not there yet, and during this relationship where they're getting
(23:38):
information for each other, Justinian realizes, you know, just how
smart and brilliant she is, and how this gem is
is is unseen by no one notices her, and he
really starts to fall in love with her fairly quickly,
but it's a profet. He can't sleep with his spies,
(24:01):
so it creates a lot of tension between the two
and she even they even have a discussion about which
laws she you know, she's trying to convince him that
there's things wrong in the brothel district and how women
are exploited, and you know, he entertains the conference. He's like,
you know, tell me, what, what would you change if
you could change it? And she has some answers for him.
I would change this, I would change this, and I
(24:22):
would change this. And so I show that there's a
pre an actual imperial relationship that existed in the clandestine arts.
She learns the art of seduction and all of these
things as a spy, and this develops later. If you
read the book, you'll see where we get to how
she ends up having an official open relationship with Justinian
(24:46):
and why. And I want the readers to be convinced why.
He said, I'm not interested in a princess, even if
they can help me strengthen my cla. I want this
woman at my side forever, like she's she's the deal.
So hopefully I can convince you that this is a
completely believable relationship.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Oh my gosh, how how close do you stick You've done?
Your research is obvious? How close do you stick to
real historical facts in the novel? Because this is a
work of fiction, How close do you stick to real
life facts.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
As meticulously as possible? I changed one detail early on
the books, based on hearsay, say that her father passed
away when she was seven or eight. For reasons that
you and I already discussed. I thought that was just
too young. You know that that that I didn't. It
(25:45):
would be hard to write a story from from that perspective,
So I changed that to age fourteen. But that was
pretty much the only detail I changed. Now, I everything
that is in the history books, and I have like
a library at this point of very obscure books, some
books that only have a single press printing it, some
(26:05):
books that are out of uh print and circulation. I
have academic publications that you can only get by paying
for the I have mind history to grab all sorts
of details, and I organize them and I make sure
that no matter how embellished I get in my storytelling,
or how deep and specific and rich, that ultimately the
details on the surface all stay the same. So it's
(26:31):
very historically accurate, like that rebellion to start it off,
that's a real rebellion. A lot of characters are actual
historical figures, and their personalities are based on their their
records in history. So it's meticulously researched, and ultimately you
should be able to read even a Wikipedia page about
her and and and see that my story follows that perfectly.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Okay, Can you describe if way backte Byzantine or Byzantine
the Eastern Roman Empire, what was it like for our
listeners during the emphasis childhood? How can how would you
compare it to some place today? How can people even
(27:18):
give to feel what was going on back then?
Speaker 3 (27:22):
It was such a unique era, and I have just
fallen in love describing it because it is she is
standing when she stands on us on a road in
the Roman and the Byzantine Empire East Roman Empire. In
her era, she is standing between antiquity and the medieval era.
The medieval era, according to historical records, begins in the
(27:45):
year five hundred and ends in the year fifteen hundred.
It's a one thousand year period of history. She's in
the five hundreds early five hundreds. So in fact, her
and Justinian's reign, they have such wide sweeping changes, wide
sweeping changes that what he thought he was doing was
(28:05):
restoring the Roman Empire that had collapsed in the West,
and what he really did was remake the world in
what would become the Medieval era, which was a theocratic,
very religious era and also very different. You know, gone
where the he shut. He's the one who shuts the
school of Athens. So paganism ends in her life like
(28:28):
in her lifetime. For the most part, Christianity had already
been a dominant force in the empire since the three hundreds,
so we're about two hundred years later, five hundred years
after you know, the death of Christ, and so it's
it's not it's already institutionalized, but this is the first
(28:50):
time that they start building buildings that are separate. They're
no longer converted pagan temples. You start to get the
emergence of the Christian basilica. The Hagia Sophia is constructed
in this generation. So while there's this great comeback for
civilization under a Roman Christian empire. There's also a lot
(29:11):
of anxiety because it's not the Roman Empire of old.
This is before just Inning and Theodora took the throne. Society.
Civilization was in retreat. Barbarians were running around through Europe,
they were overtaking cities, There was no central authority. You know,
great monuments were falling into complete disrepair or were destroyed,
(29:32):
and so there was an anxiety amongst people that you know,
a barbarian army could have pop up on the horizon
and maybe there's no Roman Empire to stop them or
to oppose them, and you know, maybe you get sold
into slavery, which is what happened. A lot of these
people were captured and sold into slavery. You know. So
it was it was not a secure and stable time.
It felt like civilization was losing and was going to
(29:55):
continue to lose. And the Justinning and Empress Theodora era,
once they take the throne, they pretty much civilization fights
back and they they go on to create what's considered
a Golden Age.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Oh my goodness, Yeah, I love the book cover. How
did you find your cover illustrator George Frey.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
So I grew up with George. Actually we grew up together,
and he was always into art ever since I knew him.
And he went to the American Academy of Art in
Chicago and he ended up moving down to Florida with
me there for a while, and when it came time
to do the cover art, he he really wanted to
(30:40):
do it. So we we discussed what we wanted and
we hashed it out and he came up with, you know,
he thought it was in He thought it was important
to show a little bit of the risky attributes in
her life so that readers weren't completely taken off guard.
And that's a real image of Constantinople. We contacted intellectual
(31:04):
who resides in Istanbul, Turkey today, and he has digitally
recreated that and he took a screenshot of Constantinople, ancient Constantinople,
and we were able to use a realistic city scape
that she's looking down upon in that book cover.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Oh my goodness, that's pretty cool. I wanted two more
questions where we talk about your next nonfiction. Can you
introduce us to some of the other major and minor
characters who make an appearance in Far Away Birds.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Yes, so Justinian makes an appearance. He is not the emperor.
He is a palace guardsman and his father is the
head of the bodyguards like the Secret Service, basically is
his father is the head of the bodyguards to the emperor,
and he is gathering information because as the emperor ages,
Emperor Anastasius the real emperor, as he ages, there's a
(32:00):
concern that he has not named a successor. You might
find this very interesting, but when you think of Roman
emperor as they always name a successor, this emperor, Emperor Anastasius,
refused to name an heir, and there was a democratic
election of the next emperor, which is very very rare
in the Roman Empire, a democratic feature like this. Now,
(32:24):
they didn't go to ballots and cast votes, obviously. What
they did was to crowd into the Hippodrome, which is
a chariot racing stadium, kind of like the one in
ben Hur. They crowded in there by the fifty sixty thousand.
They had many representatives and guilds that would cram in there,
(32:45):
and without an emperor, they would they would reveal a
candidate in the Emperor's box and if everyone booed them,
you know, then he's not. If they got a rousing, loud, commanding,
decisive cheer the crowd, they're elected.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
But the people had a voice. They had a voice.
In the Byzantine Empire. A lot of times the emperor
would watch a chariot race right there, and if you
wanted to press him on a policy, you would have
a professional crier of a man. Usually women were not
allowed in the hippodrome, so it's definitely a man with
a very clear, powerful voice, and they would call out,
(33:27):
you know, hey, release this prisoner, or hey, you know,
you know taxes are too high, or take this policy
out of here, and they would yell at him, and
he would have his own crier who would shout back
from the imperial box and be like, you know, sit down,
you lection, or or the Emperor has heard you, and
(33:47):
we'll take what you said into consideration. And sometimes they
would change policies, and sometimes it got real heated, and
if the emperor did not handle himself in these exchanges,
it could lead to massive riots throughout the city because
think about it, You've got fifty sixty thousand people standing
around who might all of a sudden be pissed at
the emperor, so they would storm out of the hipodrome
(34:09):
and perhaps light fires and go marauding through the streets.
So it was such differenter. So anyway, Emperor Anastasius Justinian
is in there. Theodora's sister Camido is in there. There
is a Roman general who was disgraced named Hypatius. He
was the nephew of the Emperor Anastasius. He was that nephew.
(34:32):
He was a disgraced man who lost his chance at
becoming an emperor because he was captured and made hostage
to the enemy at one point, which is embarrassing, and
lost all of his clout. He becomes a major force
in the story. There's a governor named Hassibolis in North
Africa modern day Libya, where Theodora goes, and he is
(34:55):
in the story. He ends up mistreating Theodora very severely.
He's a bad guy, and she stands up to this
man decisively, and it's a pretty heroic part of the story,
but she stands up to him for very specific reasons. Also,
Pope Timothy the Third is a character in the story.
What a lot of people don't know when I say
(35:16):
the pope. We think of the Pope in Rome. Well,
at the time, there were three popes. There was the
pope in Rome, there was a pope in Alexandria, and
there was a pope in Constantinople. There was even a
pope in Antioch, by the way. But what happened was
with the rise of Islam, those territories fell into Islamic hans,
and so those popes kind of vanished, they lost their power,
(35:38):
and the only pope remaining was the one in Rome. Wow,
isn't that crazy? So there was other popes. So she
meets the pope in Alexandria, which is modern day Egypt,
and she converts to Christianity under his tutelage, and so
he's in it. So there are several historical characters. A
friend of hers, another Spine Macedonia, who is in the
(36:01):
history books. She is in there and she has she's
my favorite character. She is a mentor to Theodora. She
is mentoring her how to spy on men, uh, and
not just like seducing them, like smiling and you know,
fluttering your eyelashes kind of stuff, like how do you
control a man? How do you get him to do
things he knows he shouldn't do, and share information he
(36:22):
knows he should. You know, how do you get him
to stay loyal to you, not for this one night,
but forever, you know, for months or years on end,
you know, real strict spy work. And what she's what's
cool about Macedonia is her messages are not just how
to spy. She's actually teaching her empowerment, serious empowerment wisdom,
which on accident, she's mentoring Theodora how to become an empress.
(36:46):
It's real cool stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Oh my gas, the history and and oh my goodness.
And then it's for the readers to know. You really,
it's really a great work of historical fiction. What have
readers been saying about Far Away?
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Well, the book won several awards, some very difficult ones,
and I'm extremely proud of it confirms that I have
told her the beginning of her story correctly, like I
feel like I connected it. I made it a human,
real story where the history is in the background. It
doesn't read like a textbook. And so it won those awards,
and the commentaries have been very positive, specifically women readers
(37:25):
who have read it. Because I didn't just wing this.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
You know.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
I wasn't because there's some sensitive stuff in the book.
I wasn't guessing about that stuff. I got a lot
of input, I had sensitivity readers coming in, and I
spent years sometimes just to write a single sentence to
make sure I got that single sentence right, so that
when people read her her and the challenges that she
was up against and how she felt about it and
(37:50):
what was going on on the inside, that it rang
with authenticity, that it did not sound like a guy
winging it about, you know, you know, the kind of
conflicts that she was experiencing. So and I feel proud
of that, and proud of that because because I had
(38:10):
so much input from so many women and that they
trusted me to help me with all of this.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. Far Away Bird listeners,
if you love any type of a storytelling, but then
historical fiction. There people love historical fiction Far Away Bird
by Douglas Bird, and I encourage you to get a copy.
He is a historian for real far Away Bird. Now, please,
(38:40):
as we shift gears just a little, please tell us
about the heroines, labyrinth archetype of designs and heroin fiction.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Oh so there, actually I did not plan on writing
this book, like right now, I'm in the middle of
book two for Theodora, I'm in book two, but I
intended to write book two immediately, but I was delayed.
I got derailed because while writing Faraway Bird, there's the
issue that all writers run into about story structure. How
(39:11):
do you structure your story? And I use the hero's journey,
which is a very widespread story structure strategy, and it's
based on real life the All Star Wars, Lord of
the Rings, the Matrix, Superman nineteen seventy eight, like all
(39:31):
the Lion King. All of these stories fit the Hero's journey.
And what that means is events occur during the story
that are archetypal, which means so the word archetype can
be broken down into two sides, arco which means primal,
and type, which means model. So an archetype is a
(39:54):
primal model. So, for an example, meeting the Wise Guide
is an archae type of design in the Hero's journey
where the hero encounters an older wise mentor who then
teaches them about the world. And this mentor a lot
of times has a secret identity. They pretend to be
a simple grandpa but the really this this amazing figure
(40:15):
from the past, like Obi wan Kenobi, like Gandolf. You know,
Morpheus in the matrix is the wise guide. So although
the expression of each archetype is different, you know, Morpheus
is very different from Obi wan Kenobi, who's very different
from Gandalf. Although although they're completely different on the outside,
(40:37):
underneath the hood, the archetypal design is the same. An
old wise character who had a past, who knows about
the world, who has the ability and wisdom to teach
the hero. You know, all these things are the same.
You know, they're often disguised in society and they they
come and they find the hero or the hero finds them.
(40:59):
So that's the archetyp and it can be redone in
a million different ways, and that's great. And then if
you string together enough of these archetypal designs, you get
what writers dream of, which is a full character arc,
meaning the character starts from one thing and ends in another,
and it's a full story. Writing a book is difficult
to have that full arc. It's very difficult. Tons of
(41:21):
writers get lost in the woods writing about events that
don't seem to have a beginning or an end, and
It's a terrible problem that almost every writer has faced
in their life, if not are still facing. So the
Hero's Journey helped solve this. My problem was when I
was writing Far Away Bird, the Hero's Journey started to
(41:41):
go awry. It did not work. It was starting to
fail me on so many levels. And this was mortifying
because I had studied the hero's journey for twenty years.
So when I started researching in a little bit more.
The main criticism of the Hero's Journey is that it's
a little too male centric.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Right.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
It's a hunter warrior quest, and a lot of women
in academia have written books about this. They're like, this
is not a one size fits all. A lot of
women weren't connecting with the hero's journey. It was either
the hunter going out to fight big game or the
hero setting out to slay the dragon, and not every
woman was connecting with the hero's journey is the same way.
(42:22):
So I tried to find something that maybe was a
little bit more female centric, something that revolved around female protagonists.
And there was a lot of stuff out there, but
none of it seemed to help me as a writer.
So I started what would become I did not know it,
but what would become a lifelong passion to study heroic
(42:47):
women in fiction. So I was like, I'm going to
reread all the classics. I'm gonna watch all the movies.
I'm gonna watch the great TV shows that all have
a woman as the feature character, the lead character, and
just see if I could tech my own archetypal designs,
my own patterns in their stories. And I did. I
found eighteen archetypal designs, and when strung together, they form
(43:09):
a narrative arc and it is not the hero's journey.
And it has moved me. It has actually changed me
because I see a lot of female characters now not
in the light of the hero's journey, but in their
own light. You know, a hero in in the Labyrinth
dealing a lot of female characters in their books deal
(43:31):
their conflict as against their own native culture, which is
not the same. The hero usually leaves his native culture behind,
it goes off into the wilderness and the distant lands
in the far away territory, whereas heroines tend to stay
at home and their villains are close to them. Yes,
(43:52):
their villains are members of the native culture. They are
close and proximate to them. Sometimes they live in the
same house, sometimes there at their job place. So that
is a fundamental difference between the Hero's Journey and The
Heroines Labyrinth, and I think it was important enough to
explore in its own light.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Is the book written for novelists more so or screen
playwriters both?
Speaker 3 (44:20):
It's for writers. It's for storytellers who are struggling to
organize their stories. Especially I read one time a blog
and it was written by a woman and she was lamenting.
She was sad that her memoir that she was writing
didn't seem to follow the hero's journey because she didn't
bring back some great treasure that benefited all of society,
(44:43):
and so she was depressed in a way it sound
in the tone she was upset, or at least discouraged
because she didn't think maybe her life had the importance
of the hero's journey. And I thought to myself, that
cannot be her conclusion. It can't be. And she ended
up finding My Heroines Labyrinth, and she ended up citing me, uh,
(45:04):
saying that she was intrigued because here was a new
form of heroism that did match her life. And uh,
So it's it's for memoirrists. It's for novelists, screenwriters, and
even role playing gamers like the Dungeons and Dragons crowd.
They end up designing stories and then roleplay them. This
(45:26):
also helps with that.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Okay, now we learned so much about ourselves while we're writing,
and it's not I don't think we set out to
do it. But what did you What did you learn
about yourself while you were writing the heroes Labrinth and
for Waybird.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
I learned that I learned, well, I learned several things.
One I think I was a little blind, I guess
to the different experiences women have in life from guys.
You know, I just didn't think much about it. I guess.
You know, you you go through life and you're the
(46:06):
center of the story in your life, and you, you know,
you're you. The kind of conflicts that make sense to
you are ones that you've experienced, and you're like, oh, okay, yeah,
all this makes sense. But when writing about Theodora, I
realized that, you know, her wounds were a little different,
and uh, you know I I started reading literature and
(46:27):
books and having conversations that dealt with abuse and mistreatment,
exploitation and how there's a built in terribleness to all
of this where it's hard to talk about it. It's
(46:47):
really hard to talk about it, and so this thing
just stays invisible. And and there's a there's an incredible
sadness that I was experiencing when reading this, because because
it's like this thing that could not get expressed, it
has to stay hidden or buried in a lot of cases,
and then you the woman or in some cases the man,
(47:09):
carries this around with them, right, they carry this around,
it goes unanswered, and it's quite a paradox. And this
was all invisible to me, and so encountering it and
really not just like reading about it, but internalizing it
to the point where I was trying to articulate it,
and then talking to people and getting in conversations with
(47:29):
people privately who who shared stories and in things people
I never would have imagined sharing these stories. The reality
of it and the pervasiveness, how often it happens, and
how how many people have experienced some shade of this
kind of abuse or this sort of being cornered. It
(47:51):
completely broke my heart and stayed with me, and it
changed me so thoroughly on the inside that the writing
went from a historical biographical, though I think something a
little bit more than that, and I think that's why
it won the awards. I think because this is I
(48:12):
think the reality that was addressed in it. I think
I think that elevated the story way beyond just a historical. Wow.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
You know, the author is in the story as much
as you try to stay out your own essence, just
any creative you're in your work. Now, can you give
us a glimpse. You said you're writing on book two
telling Theodore's story. What is there a working title? When
can we expect to see it on the market? And
can you give us an overview of this book too?
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Yeah, book two, I'm about sixty five percent of the
way through it. It's very different from book one. She's
an adult, she's on the precipice of becoming an empress.
It's a very underappreciated period of her life. She is
put she she is living with Justinian in a palace.
It's a scandalous relationship. And she's not an empress and
(49:08):
he's not an emperor yet, and I and the and
part of the drama becomes she is you know, she's
living in two worlds. You know, the the aristocracy sees
her as a low born person, a former prostitute, who
absolutely doesn't belong in this palace and in this life.
And she's kind of muddying up the heir to the
(49:30):
throne because all these Roman princesses should be marrying this guy.
Why is she blocking this? And then when she goes
back to her old life to see her old friends,
they don't like her. There's also some prejudice there, you know, Oh,
you think you're better than us. You know, you're you're
hoity toity. Now you live in a you know, you
don't know what it's like to be down here in
the slums anymore. So she feels rejected on both sides,
(49:53):
and it really pains her because she her identity is
struggling here. She doesn't really know where she belongs, if anyone.
And secondly, at the end of Faraway Bird, she vows
to fight against men who take advantage of women. And
the guy the men who get away with it is
how she the guys who get those who get away
(50:13):
with it. She she doesn't like those guys, and she's
she has vow because she was spared and because she
succeeded in her mission. In Far Away Bird, she promised
to fight for other women in this capacity, and she
runs into all kinds of problems and book to trying
to fight this fight. It's not so easy, you know.
You can't just slam your foot down and say stop it.
(50:35):
There's a system in place, there are people in place,
and they oppose her, and she starts to get into
the nuts and bolts of what it means to stand
up for a woman. Maybe the woman, maybe this woman
doesn't want you to stand up for her. Maybe the
man's too powerful. Maybe you know, you know, it rocks
the boat too much. And she's in this weird place
(50:56):
where she doesn't really have real authority yet. So she
runs into major problems trying to affect change, as we
would say today, major real problems trying to help certain people,
and she ends up getting kind of mired into the
dark side of power and how to express it and
where you might have to do something less than savory
(51:19):
in order to strike a blow to someone who deserves it.
And it's a very different story, but she's getting there.
And also she becomes an empress in book two, and
by the time she puts that crown on her head
after reading book one and two. I hope all readers
will be absolutely convinced on how she got there. We
(51:39):
will have gone with her step by step, and we
will see what she's planning to do once she becomes
an empress. She's going to take on the entire empire.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Oh my gosh. When you think about her humble beginnings.
Is if somebody had told power when she was fourteen
or seven, I mean he said historically and she would
do that. She probably wouldn't have believed it herself.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
Oh no, not at all. She an impoverished girl who
is living in the red light district. But you know, like, oh,
you're gonna become an empress. It's like, yeah, you know,
like nobody does this.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Oh my goodness, what a story. Will there be a book?
Will there will there be a book three?
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Yes, this has always been designed to be a trilogy.
Book three. She will be an empress in full and
we will see her flex her muscles. But she is
going to go up against the entire culture at this point.
So whereas she's kind of involved in book two with
local politics and some of the real people opposing her.
(52:46):
Men who are you know, certain people who are exploiting
women who are kind of locally entrenched. Now she's going
to take on the city, you know, women in Egypt
versus women in Greece, women in Constantinople, like all women,
or she's going to try. She's up against every locality, right,
every local play, and uh so she's also up against
(53:07):
the entrenched government. To her old men and obviously are
going to struggle to see it through her eyes, and
she's going to have to convince them or pressure them,
or make them agree with her that this is wrong
and has to be dealt with. And in book three,
we're going to see how she succeeds and how the culture.
(53:29):
The culture is going to turn against her, and it's
going to lead to massive political unrest and she's going
to end up on top. Oh my god, it's going
to be It's it's going to be a climax that
no one's that not many people know about, but it
should be a stunning climax to this lifelong cause that
(53:51):
she has refused. She refuses to give up.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
Are they do you say this as a movie. It's
funny you said you wanted to be a director. I'm
listening to you. I could see this. It's in movie
for him. Are there plans? Do you have any plans
to try to reach out and see if you could
have this made into a movie.
Speaker 3 (54:10):
Yeah, it's so funny. You said early on in our
discret You're like, maybe you will. I was like, man,
I hope she's right. I do see it as a
film or as a series. I don't want to do
anything with it until it's done because book one is
standalone at one Awards. It would be so fun to
(54:30):
try to promote this, but it's only part of her story.
And I think until I tell all three, until I
get to the end of book three and people see
what this story is with all of the gravity and
all the weight, from fourteen year old exploited girl to
one of the arguably the greatest empress of all time
(54:51):
and an early pioneer for women's rights at a time
you know, you know, almost thirteen hundred years before the
women's rights movement, where she was the old cause. There
was no cause, there was no movement, it was just her.
I think the full story will blow people away, and
I think she should become a household name, and I
(55:11):
think she should get credit for being such an early
pioneer for someone who who risked her life and I'm
not kidding, risked her life because she just refused to
settle for anything less than legal protection for women that
she knew were being exploited. She refused to give up
on that, and she puts her life on the line.
(55:33):
So I think, when I get to the end, I'm
gonna I'm gonna. I'm going to rewrite it as a screenplay.
And I know a few screenwriters in Hollywood. I know
a few people who can maybe help me out. And
my goal, my long term plan, is to sell this
for dramatic rights. And I if I die and this
becomes a film that a lot that millions of people
(55:55):
end up seeing, I feel like I will have achieved
a goal myself that I wow.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
Ah, this is a book you just came across walking
through the library and study hall. Look out, Oh my goodness, unimaginable,
just an amazing, amazing story. As we come to the
end of the show, I do always like to ask
our guests this for our listeners put off the shelf,
(56:21):
who themselves might be writers, or they might have another
product or service through they want to market and see
become more successful. Could you, Douglas, please share three to
four steps you've taken that you have found to be
effective at getting the word out about your books.
Speaker 3 (56:39):
So I have appeared on podcasts and YouTube channels to
discuss it. This is my favorite because I actually get
to talk to another person about it, and we might
go on tangents, we could talk about things other than
the book, and I really enjoy that process and it's authentic,
it's real, you know, it's a real conversation. I found
that to be the best way to just be yourself
(56:59):
and have those conversations, and people who are interested will
listen in and they'll be like, huh, that really does
sound interesting, versus like putting banners up on webs You know,
those work, but they're less personal to me. Also, the website,
if you're interested in getting your have a website, have
(57:20):
a landing page where people can go and learn a
little bit more and maybe watch a video or two
or read a blog. And then also go to writing conferences,
you know, be out there in public, sell your book,
meet people and talk to them, write at your booth
and and sell them and buy other books, you know,
buy other books. Like you said, Denise, I found a
(57:43):
lifelong on mitigating passion from granted from by taking a
random book off the shelf at a library when I
was eighteen years old, So you never know what you'll
find in a book.
Speaker 2 (57:56):
Yes, working off the shelf, listeners get a copy of
your books.
Speaker 3 (58:00):
You could find it on Amazon dot com. That's your
number one so or that's the most popular site. However,
I always recommend independent bookstores. So if you're like here
in Austin, we have book people, I strongly encourage people
to go to your local book bookstore or their website
and try to purchase it there. They're both both the
(58:21):
heroines Labyrinth and Faraway Bird are available there as well.
Speaker 2 (58:24):
Okay, do you have any upcoming speaking engagement that our
listeners could support you on?
Speaker 3 (58:31):
Not yet. Twenty twenty five is just starting to take shape.
I am sending out some applications to a couple places,
but if I do, or when I do, I will
be posting them on my website, and that is Douglasaburton
dot com.
Speaker 2 (58:45):
And lastly, if you're on social media, where can our
listeners find you on social media?
Speaker 3 (58:51):
I have just started to make a presence on x
which has turned out to be a fairly decent place
I had not been on it for forever, but I'm
starting to run into a bunch of people I know
on X and running into some other professionals. So at
Douglas A. Burton on X. I also have a Facebook
page Douglas Author Douglas A. Burton there as well. Those
are my two social medias.
Speaker 2 (59:14):
Okay, oh my goodness, what a pleasure? Oh my? And
just the way you came across this story that starts
off book one. Then he said it was always intended
to be a trilogy bar Way Bird. He's working on
the second book. He's about sixty five percent of the
way through that there will be a third book. And
this story is about the Byzantine Empress, Theodor, who's a
(59:37):
real was a real, live person who you could study on.
This is just amazing historical fiction. It's one awards including
gold medals for the ibpa's Best New Voice and Fiction
Reader's Favorite Historical Personage, and Elitz Best Historical Fiction Ebook.
And he has a nonfiction book out as well that
(59:59):
he won Ange Labrinth's ARCHETYPEO Designs and Hero Led Fiction.
But the first of the three in the trilogy about
the Impress is Far Away Bird. Encourage you to visit
Douglas Burton online at Douglasaburton dot com. D O G
D O U G L A s A b U
R T O N. Thank you so much Douglas for
(01:00:22):
being here on office. Self truly enjoyed having you on,
as I'm sure our listeners have enjoyed you as well.
To all of our listeners, thank you for tuning in.
Please come back here next Saturday, and after the show
stream you can listen to them anytime, any day of
the week and share them with book lovers everywhere. This
(01:00:44):
particular show you might want to share with historians, historians
and people who really appreciate strong women characters. And this
is a based on a real life I didn't even
know about her, and I've taken a lot of reading
until I did research for this interview with Douglas. As
(01:01:05):
I always tell you to our listeners, you are so amazing,
you are absolutely incredible. Please go out and create a
wonderful day for yourself. See you back here next week.
Thank you so much, Douglas.
Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
Thank you Denise. It's been such a pleasure to talk
with you today.
Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
Thank you bye for now.
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