Oil and Marble

Top 10 Must See Art in Italy

Top 10 Must See Art in Italy

There are so many works of art in Italy, what MUST you see when traveling across the peninsula? When you come back home, and your friends say, “Did you see ________?” You want to be able to say YES, right? But how are you supposed to know which pieces are the most significant when the list of “iconic” works in Italy is so long?

10 Ways Our World is Like the Renaissance

10 Ways Our World is Like the Renaissance

After studying the Renaissance for nearly 25 years — and writing books about it — I seen striking and strange similarities between our era and that era of exploding art and science from 500 years ago. So, here are my Top 10 Ways Our World is Like the Renaissance

Top 10 Recommended Books for Fans of Oil and Marble

Top 10 Recommended Books for Fans of Oil and Marble

My Top 10 Recommendations for nonfiction & fiction reads for fans of Oil and Marble.

Recommended Books on the Craft of Writing

Recommended Books on the Craft of Writing

Often when I teach a writing workshop, my students ask for my favorite books about the craft of writing. So here’ s my odd list—a combo of books about writing prose, screenplays, and even musicals to help you find the kinds of books you want to read to improve your craft.

How to Write When You Don’t Have Time to Write

How to Write When You Don’t Have Time to Write

We’ve all heard it a million times: to be a writer, you must write every day.

But in a world of jobs and kids and cooking and sleeping and shoveling snow, how are any of us supposed to find the time to sit down and write? Every day? Impossible…

Bibliography for Oil and Marble

Bibliography for Oil and Marble

A lot of people ask about the research that went into my art historical novel, Oil and Marble. I’ve been obsessed with Michelangelo, Leonardo and the Italian Renaissance for over 20 years (I’ve read every book I could find, crawled into …

Find Other Leonardo da Vinci Novels

Find Other Leonardo da Vinci Novels

If you're anything like me, you're eager to read Walter Isaacson's upcoming biography of Leonardo da Vinci. But it doesn't come out until October 17th, so what are you going to do until then? To tide you over, here's a list...

Scratching Out a Little Girl’s Dream

Scratching Out a Little Girl’s Dream

Today, the Slovakian translation of my novel arrived. That’s two translations so far (the first was Spanish), and my publisher says there are more on the way. Oh, if I could’ve shown myself this picture when I was seven… or sixteen… twenty… thirty-eight.

On Revisiting the Last Supper

On Revisiting the Last Supper

The first time I visited — over 20 years ago — the painting felt distant. I’d studied it for so may hours in a dark art history classroom that I didn’t know how to connect with the thing itself. The second time, I focused on studying every …


10 Unique Books for Writers

10 Unique Books for Writers

Now that my debut novel has hit the Los Angeles Times bestseller list and garnered glowing reviews (including from The New York Times), other writers often ask which books helped me develop my craft.