Short stories, poetry, novel synopsis, and more.
GRAVEL ROAD TALES
Kristi Schirtzinger
This website is titled Gravel Road Tales because my life is a rural life - one that I find ever-fascinating and moving. Not all my stories are American rural. The gravel may be the stones of an ancient Roman road, the cobblestone of a Italian village, or the cracked sidewalks of a busy city. My characters tell me their stories and I write them down. I love the journeys we go on!
Let's go for a walk.
SHORT STORIES AND A POEM
THREE SUMMER MOONS
Historical Fiction
"There once was a king with the cunning and intelligence to live among his enemies and accumulate great wealth in the midst of them. As he reposed one day in the sun and shadow of the vast forest, Coetir Sanctaidd, a great bristled boar came to him. It said, “Prasutagus, as you lie there dreaming of your green fields, countless herds, and the majestic stallions in your pastures, your kingdom is being set upon. Rise now and mind to it, or you will become like your neighbors who labor under the subjugation of their enemy and yours.”
Aside from yearning to be a bard-in-training instead of a queen-in-training, sixteen-year-old Ceridwen wants for nothing. Her parents rule the prosperous Iceni tribe of southern Britannia, who live as allies to the most powerful nation in the ancient world, Rome. Her younger sister is her trusted confidant, and she is pledged to the boy she’s loved since childhood. Ceridwen’s idyllic life changes, however, when her father dies and his allies turn violently against them, ransacking her family’s settlement, raping Ceridwen and her sister, and scourging their mother. The queen responds to these violations by amassing an inter-tribal army and laying down a plan to destroy any Roman city that dares to stand against them.
Rising to the duties of her title and training, Ceridwen commits to fight alongside her sister and mother. Yet as her mother’s army swells larger and larger, taking one city after another, Ceridwen senses that greed and blind vengeance are driving the war more than the quest for freedom. As Ceridwen begins to trust her moral boundaries, she also begins to trust others for the encouragement and resources she needs to act within them. In the context of one of the most infamous coups in Celtic history, THREE SUMMER MOONS explores the issues of duty to family, duty to country, and duty to self through the eyes of the sixteen-year-old protagonist caught up in its turbulence.
_svg.png)