Notes from the Book Release

Last month St. Helena Montessori hosted a Book Release for me! It was a wonderful event and it was great to see so many friends and family there. I’ve shared my comments below that I delivered there.

Years ago, I was teaching my Ancient Humanities Class, and we had come to the part in Roman history  when the Carthaginian general Hannibal led his troops, with elephants, over the Alps into Italy. The Romans, who thought this feat was impossible, were put into a panic. One of the seventh grade girls interrupted the narrative to exclaim, “Did that REALLY happen??” Yes, it did happen, I told her. We are now just in the process of trying to find out exactly which route over the Alps he took. She couldn’t believe it, and that historical fact stayed with her for the rest of the semester.

“Did that REALLY happen?” It dawned on me that it should be one of my goals, as a teacher, to present history in such a way that students ask that question all the time. And over the years, other historical facts joined Hannibal crossing the Alps in drawing special attention from students: The battle of Thermopylae, Sparta (just Sparta, it’s a big deal), Spartacus’s slave revolt, The Battle of Zama, Julius Caesar’s assassination, Boudicca’s Revolt in Britain, The Battle of Teutoburg Forest, Masada,  Alexandria and its inventors and inventions. Students at St. Helena Montessori first meet Heron, a main character in my book, in the Keepers of Alexandria course, which is taught at the end of the elementary years. That telling of Alexandria’s history imagines Heron when he was a boy.

When I was first musing over the idea of writing a book, I really wanted Heron (as an adult) and Alexandria to play a major part in it. With my inside information about what draws students to ancient history, I looked over the events of the first century AD, when Heron lived. I wanted to take events from the ends of the Roman Empire and weave them together into a story. Can you imagine that century, for just a moment? What a century to witness! Events momentous and awful. The reign of Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome, and the Julio-Claudian dynasty that followed, for good and bad. The birth, life, death and Resurrection of Christ. The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, which had not exploded in centuries. The great fire at Rome. The siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. You can forgive those in the first century who thought that the world would end soon.

At those opposite ends of the Roman Empire, Britain and Judaea, native people with their own culture and historic homelands worked to throw off Roman rule. While these older cultures clashed with their Roman conquerors, Heron of Alexandria lived and worked in a city that faced its own Roman occupation. It had not always been this way for Alexandria. Founded by Alexander the Great, for hundreds of years the city had been independently ruled by the Ptolemies, a dynasty that poured resources into making Alexandria an intellectual center of the world. Alexandria was also home to the youngest of the seven wonders, the Lighthouse. At almost 500 feet tall, it was a literal and figurative beacon for the Mediterranean world, providing light to sailors trying to navigate the perilous north African coast, and knowledge to minds seeking enlightenment. Its beam blazed at least 37 miles out to sea and the same distance into the desert, drawing caravans from the East. Once a ship entered Alexandria’s public harbor, the Harbor of Happy Return, Alexandrian harbor officials boarded it in search of books. If they found a text that did not already exist in the Library, then the owner would have to wait to receive it back until a copy was made.

The Library held hundreds of thousands of books (and by books, I mean scrolls). It was the goal of the Ptolemies that it contain all human learning and knowledge, and that scholars from the world come there to access it. It entered into fierce rivalries with other libraries- Pergamum, for one- and each city recruited librarians, some of whom became famous in their own right. These librarians pioneered fundamental tools we take for granted today when we research: alphabetical listings of authors in libraries, the index, the glossary, and the commentary.

Joined to the Library was the Mouseion, a kind of research center that contained a zoo and botanical garden. Scholars lived and worked near the Mouseion, received high salaries and paid no taxes, and accessed the Library when they needed to. And what kinds of innovations did they create there? Herophilus performed the first anatomy studies on human cadavers. Euclid and Diophantus, the ancient father of Algebra, lived and worked there. And theories of both a sun-centered and an earth-centered solar system were proposed in Alexandria.

And then there was Heron. He wasn’t the only famous inventor in the ancient world, but in Alexandria he was known as the Machine Man. His creations include the vending machine, an automatic theater, and the steam turbine. The theater is considered one of the first examples of a computer program: in a rectangular box mounted on a column, scenes from mythology would play out mechanically, with little figures coming onto each scene and exiting it. Each scene was controlled by a central dowel with rope wound around it, and around pegs that were driven into it. Every peg represented the beginning of a different scene- a different command.

I can get lost in ancient history, especially in a place like Alexandria, because it really did happen. Other authors excel at world-building, but I suppose I enjoy world-rebuilding far more. Because what a shame if people were to not know about Alexandria! This became my war cry as I wrote, and it still motivates me as I write and teach to this day.

And so, between 2019 and 2020 I wrote Faelan and the Miracle Machines. I took a year off from teaching and wrote while my two year-old napped. I told no one except my immediate family! At least in my case, I suspected I might be crazy to even attempt writing and publishing a book. I knew the odds were against me.  And I didn’t know how to bring Faelan up in conversation. “So I’m writing a novel…” “Cringe!!” as the kids say.

Turns out that spring of 2020 was a good time to not teach. I do remember pausing, as I wrote, to watch the governor announce on tv that the lockdown would begin. I thought I would never finish the book, since there was competition for my laptop now, and humans around, all the time.

But time, I’ve found, isn’t the worst enemy of the writing process. If I weren’t writing then I would put Faelan and his story on the back burner in my brain as I made dinner or washed hair, and the time that the events of daily life required would often give me a chance to find a solution to a problem in the story, or a different way of wording something. If I needed to research something more, then I’d write down a reminder for later in the evening when I would be able to write again. 

I found a publisher, and a wonderful editor in Vivian Dudro. She and I worked through the manuscript multiple times. I especially remember editing the story in a hotel room, while we were evacuated during the Glass Fire in October 2020- evacuated along with everyone else!  And I found that time a consolation- I could escape the uncertainty and smoke to learn about and contemplate a world that wasn’t without problems, but could help me find new ways of looking at our own.

This really became one of the central themes in Faelan and the Miracle Machines: education can be a consolation, both while it is being acquired, and as you reflect on it in the decades that follow. I wish for everyone an education that you can carry with you through the years, one that forms you without you necessarily knowing it at the time. Something that can give you perspective, in times good and bad; an education filled with stories of daring deeds and inspiring works of genius. I hope you enjoy reading Faelan’s tale, and that it transports you, for a while, to Alexander’s city.