BLOG TOUR Day 28 -an ideal dinner

Do you like imagining the guests you'd have at a fantasy dinner party? I'm telling Jenny Sharp about my five ideal Italian ones today at: Revolving Papyrus

BLOG TOUR day 27 Versatility

By the wonders of 21st technical brilliance, I am simultaneously in Italy, Australia and wherever you are when you read this blog post! But David is definitely with Pat Pledger at Read Plus where the subject is the plusses and minuses of being versatile.

BLOG TOUR day 26 Invented characters

It's a great pleasure to be visiting my old friend Saviour Pirotta today and talking about mixing historical and invented characters in a novel. Swords and Sandals

BLOG TOUR day 25

Today I am at A Dream of Books, talking about my five favourite places in Italy. Tomorrow I'll be off to visit some of them!

BLOG TOUR day 24 The Shadow of Death

Some cheery reflections today over at Books for Teens where Jesse Owen gave David a very nice review yesterday

BLOG TOUR day 23 More Italian favourites

I'm with Karen meek today, choosing some more Italian favourites: Reading Teenage Fiction

BLOG TOUR day 22

is at Floor to Ceilling Books a state I can easily identify with. Find out my Five Favourite Places in Florence.

BLOG TOUR day 21 What if?

So sorry about yesterday's late posting of Liz de Jager's review  at My Favourite Books. She had terrible technical problems. And I was on the road and in the theatre and didn't know!

I am definitely today at The History Girls talking about how pondering on what ifs is a way into historical fiction writing.

BLOG TOUR day 20

Today I'm the guest of Liz de Jager on My Favourite Books as part of the month celebrating fiction for under 14s (July 2011).

BLOG TOUR day 19 Writer as Sculptor

You can find me here today: Mostly Reading YA thinking about how writing a complex novel is not so different from excavating a figure from a block of marble.

BLOG TOUR day 18 From Concept to Copy

David's "bookends": from the "light-bulb moment" to holding a finished copy. You will find us at Anne Rooney's Stroppy Author blog

BLOG TOUR day 17 Republican or Medicean?

I'm back at one of my old haunts today: Armadillo blog talking about what appeals about the Republic of Florence and what about the family of de' Medici.

BLOG TOUR day 16 Art vs Life

Am over in Bath, or in the bath, today at Carly Bennett's tub.

BLOG TOUR day 15 Inspiration

I'm talking at The Bookbag today about the inspiration for David

BLOG TOUR day 14 Celebrity

I'm at a virtual Festival today with Bec Kavanagh: A Thousand Words, talking about celebrity and how it was different 500 years ago.

BLOG TOUR day 13 Michelangelo and Monna Lisa

You can find me back in Australia today - my, how this boy David gets about! - at teamouse books: http://www.teamousebooks.com

I am speculating about whether there was a history between the great sculptor and the model for Leonardo's famous portrait.

BLOG TOUR day 12 Why 1st Person?

I feel right at home today over with my friend Ann Giles, the Bookwitch,, where I talk about why David is written in the First Person: http://bookwitch.wordpress.com

BLOG TOUR day 11 Renaissance rivalry

Leonardo and Michelangelo are such giants of the Renaissance they have TWO posts today: http://falcatatimes.blogspot.com and http://tattystreasurechest,blogspot.com

BLOG TOUR day 10 Handsome is as Handsome does

I am at Fluttering Butterflies today with that hunk of marble, David: http://www.fluttering butterflies.com

BLOG TOUR day 9 My favourite Histfic writers

Read all about it at http://bestfriends-books.blogspot.com

BLOG TOUR day 8 What got me started

... on Historical Fiction? Find out at http://daisychainbookreviews.blogspot.com

BLOG TOUR day 7 My favourite works of art

I'm in Australia today at Words on Paper:http://wordsonpaperya.blogspot.com

The wonders of the Internet!

BLOG TOUR day 6 What’s the attraction of the Renaissance?

Today Mary is blogging at Love That Book about the attraction of the renaissance.

Meanwhile the Renaissance Woman is herself in Italy, so this is her daughter Rhiannon Lassiter posting on her behalf.

BLOG TOUR day 5 Why Italy?

On Friday Mary guest blogged at The Bookette about her long love affair with Italy.

(Rhiannon is posting this on Mary's behalf because she is... guess where?)

BLOG TOUR day 4 Why Florence?

I am over at Kirsty Conner's Overflowing Library blog today talking about one of my favourite places.
www.overflowinglibrary.com/2011/07/blog-tour-david-by-mary-hoffman.html

BLOG TOUR day 3 Why David?

I'm over at http://yabookreads.com talking about "Why David?"

BLOG TOUR day 2 Finding his marbles

Today I am over at Katherine Langrish's wonderful Seven Miles of Steel Thistles blog http://steelthistles.blogspot.com/2011/07/fanfare-for-david.html talking about marble.

Blog of Blogs

It's publication day tomorrow and you must allow me a little gloat here about this fine young man. So far I've been interviewed on Radio 4's Open Book, by the Oxford Times and the Oxford Mail, who married me off to Ross King! (I had a hard time explaining that one to me husband).

Have also had two nice reviews in print (Saturday Times and Financial Times on 2nd July) and the first one, online, was a corker from the Bookbag: http://bit.ly/lLK959

But the real business starts tomorrow, with, TARAAA! The David Blog Tour. You can see the banner with the lsit of dates and places where I'll be for the next month (yes, month!) on the right, a page under Home. Many thanks to Emma Bradshaw at Bloomsbury for helping to organise it and to Anne Rooney for making the banner.

The tour begins, appropriately enough for publication day, at the Blog home (one of them) of Nicola Morgan, whose book Write to be published came out last month. Now, I can't write an unbiased review of this indispensable work, since I urged her to write it and have a quotation from me on the back.

It is the distillation of all her words of wisdom - and how many of them there have been and still are - on her Help I Need a Publisher blog: http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com
If I as the author of over 90 published books find useful stuff in here then you can see how invaluable it is for a beginner.

Anyway, Nicola, thank you for starting the ball rolling for my first Blog Tour.

And while we're on the subject of Blogs, I've started a new joint one, with 25 other writers over at The History Girls: http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com If you like historical fiction, do drop by and take a look.