Patricia Furstenberg, Writer of Historical Fiction, Children's Books
Travel via Stories
Is, the Romanian blouse, is admired for its beauty, its patterns, and its symbolism. Yet its truest story begins long before the first stitch.
Continue reading “The Hidden Story Woven into Ia, Romania’s Amazing Blouse”
In the Carpathian lands wood was never only material. It was a way of life, forest turned into geographical landmark (Transylvania, Trans-silva, the land beyond the forest). Wood was shelter and church, and then it became memory.
With the arrival of German Saxons in Transylvania during the middle of the 12th century, the craft tradition of painted furniture started out of with necessity before it became decoration. Colours arrived later, as an afterthought to survival.
And yet it is colour that outlived so much else.
In my novels When Secrets Bloom and Beneath the Snow I draw on this medieval Saxon tradition: not as background detail, but as silent architecture beneath the lives of my characters. Because painted wood is never passive. It tells as much as it remembers.
Continue reading “Saxon Painting and its Hidden Language in When Secrets Bloom”
We are lucky each winter to spot so many colorful birds in our garden, to have it turn into a theater of feathers and folklore. There are brilliant flashes of color, bold intruders strutting like conquerors, and quite a few picturesque personalities.
I am so happy to share with you not simply a list of birds, but a procession. And each one arrives with a story. Find more African birds and their legends here.
Continue reading “Colorful Birds in a South African Garden, International Bird Day”
Red and white color my thoughts well ahead of 1st of March. In the Romanian tradition, on the first day of spring (in the Northern hemisphere), twined together, threads of red and white spring forward on Mărțișor day, quiet yet insistent. Unassumingly simple. Deceptively small. A charm no heavier than Spring’s first breath.
But red and white are never accidental. They’ve followed humanity across centuries and continents like faithful companions.
So why do red and white spell Spring?
Continue reading “Why Red and White Became the Colors of Mărțișor on March 1st”
Pressed Poppies is a short story told through two voices, echoing across the quiet space where hearts once met. It is a story of parting. A parting that is wordless, weighted, and irreversible. Where affection shrinks under the burden of duty or pain; where all that was left is unsaid. What remains is remembrance: delicate, haunting and full of questions. And red, as the poppies once shared.
Out on Spillwords Press today!