Tapestry of Bronze

a set of novels based on Heroic Greek myths

The Tapestry of Bronze is a series of historical novels by Victoria Grossack and Alice Underwood, set in the ancient world.

The first strand in this tapestry is Iokaste, the story of the Queen of Thebes who was both wife and mother to Oedipus. In this novel we answer millennia-old questions: when did Iokaste realize she was married to her son? And what did she do about it?

All the Tapestry of Bronze novels are based on the Greek myths and take place in the time of heroes, during the Late Bronze Age. Reading the myths closely, and noting the connections between characters, we are creating a set of interwoven stories. We use archaeological and geographical information whenever we can find it, in order to reconstruct a past that might have been; however, these are still works of fiction and should be read as such.

At this website you can find information about the novels we've written, and our current writing project. We share our approaches to writing, and some of the story behind the stories. We also provide some of the information we used for our research, both a print bibliography and links to other sites.

To contact the authors, send an e-mail to "tapestry at tapestryofbronze.com".

Breaking News!

Tapestry of Bronze is holding a series of poetry contests dedicated to the Olympian gods. You can enter the third one, dedicated to Poseidon (Neptune), between the dates February 15, 2009 and April 30, 2009. You can read the entry rules now so you can get started on your poems, by clicking on Odes to Olympians Poetry Contest.

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Kedros Publishers of Athens, Greece has published Niobe & Pelops: Children of Tantalus in Spring 2009! Yes, this is in Greek... Even if you don't read Greek, check out the beautiful cover at

Niobe's Cover (Greek version)

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In January, 2007, we terminated our contract with the original publisher of Iokaste. The book is now in the hands of our agent, Alice Tasman of the Jean V Naggar Literary Agency. Copies can still be purchased at Amazon: select one of the other sellers.

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Victoria wrote a series of articles at Fiction Fix - interviews with booksellers. The most recent are in the April 2007 issue of Fiction Fix, and include interviews with Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands in Tempe, Arizona and Amelia Reisling of Books without Borders in Eugene, Oregon. Previous interviews (found in the archives) include: Laura Hansen of Bookin' It in Minnesota;Pam Headrick of A Thirsty Mind in Texas; Fern Jaffe of Paperbacks Plus in the Bronx; Cindy Heidemann, a representative of Publishers Group West; Karen Hopkins, a representative of Random House; Cindi White of the bookstore Title Wave of Alaska; Betsy Burton of The King's English in Salt Lake City, Utah; Karen Spengler and Becci West of "I Love a Mystery" in Mission, Kansas; Lyn Roberts of Square Books; Lelia Taylor of Creatures 'n Crooks; Mitchell Kaplan of Books & Books of Southern Florida; and with Susan Warren of South Point, North Carolina. To see these interviews, click on the current issue of Fiction Fix, or visit the archives.

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After having her writing columns used in many situations (sometimes without permission) Victoria has pulled together her columns on Levels of Structure in Fiction to make an e-book. To check it out, GO HERE.

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Iokaste was published in Greek in spring 2006 by Kedros Publishing, one of the top five publishers in Greece!

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The April/May, 2006 issue of Neo Magazine has a piece on How Two American Women wrote about Greek women. We thank the staff of Neo for their interest.