When we work with history, to a very great degree we are all guessing. But by using motifs of time and history in a fantasy setting, we are acknowledging that this educated guesswork, invention, fantasy underlie our treatment of the past and its peoples - and we are not claiming a right to do with them as we will.

[We let] the universality of fantasy, of once upon a time, allow escapist fiction to be more than just that - to also bring us home.

Bright star of Eanna, forgive me the manner of this, but you are the harbor of my soul’s journeying.

Fantasy is more than an escape from the truths of the world and the past: it is an open acknowledgment that those truths are complex and morally difficult. It offers a different route to creating something which will resonate with readers, in a way which resists the erasure of privacy and autonomy which pervades our modern world.

Eanna love us, Adaon preserve us, Morian guard our souls.

As many have noted, the peril for authors is that our work space is too easily our play space.