Irene Soldatos

This is where I tell you a few things about myself. I was born in Greece but moved to Oxford with my parents when I was six. After a few years we moved back to Greece, but tended to spend a couple of months every year in England. This went on for fifteen years. It has made me bilingual and somewhat confused. Part of me is very, very British, part of me not remotely so. There are some things I will never understand. Cricket, for example. It has been explained to me repeatedly but it continues to elude me -- its rules as much as its attraction. On the other hand, I played rounders at school, jam roly-poly with lashings of custard is my idea of the perfect pudding, and I approve of eccentricity, in both dress and behaviour (a very un-Greek thing to do. Eccentricity is not something the national psyche approves of. Sadly.)

I eventually moved back to England, to Leeds this time, to do a Master's and then a Ph.D. in Musicology. This was after getting a B.A. in English from the University of Athens.

I read a lot. Both fiction and non-fiction. I love science as well as history, but I am, if I'm honest, a history buff. I decided to study history as a hobby, rather than as a profession, since there's already three historians in my immediate family. Discussions on the price of wheat in 14th century Crete -- or how it may be proved that someone mentioned in one particular notarial register can be proved to be the same person as someone mentioned in a chronicle as having taken part in a rebellion -- would be, and still are, the normal fare round the family table. I thought three people dealing with that sort of thing every day were enough for one family. Still, it hasn't proved possible to evade the bug altogether.

Unsurprisingly, I love music. But my tastes range from Motörhead to François de Couperin, and from Rammstein to Mahler. I am a geek -unashamed and proud to be called one. I am a dedicated pen-and-paper gamer, and a vocal advocate of all things Open Source. I'm also an archer. I haven't shot in some time, unfortunately, but put a bow in my hand and I still know what to do with it. I also know what to do with several of the Chinese weapons in my collection. I have trained with a fan, with a flute, with a spear, and with a Dao sword. I'm terribly rusty of course these days so, knowing what to do with them, wouldn't necessarily equate with actually being able to do something with them.

I live in Marburg with my husband and two black cats. Fyren and Phaedra.

And if you're that way inclined you can get in touch with me through Twitter, or my website: http://www.irenesoldatos.eu