Guest Post: K. Hollan Van Zandt

Powerful Women from the Ancient World to Hollywood

Until I began researching and writing my novel, Written in the Ashes (Balboa Press 2011), about the events that led up to the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria, I held a very limited picture of powerful women in the ancient world.

True I had learned in college about Joan of Arc and Sappho, Queen Elizabeth, Cleopatra and Nefertiti -- women of significant merit – and maybe that wouldn’t be unusual, except that I realized I could rattle off the names of hundreds of important men from my history books: kings, generals, philosophers, artists and more; but I couldn’t even name ten women.

Not even ten.

Thinking my private school education had left a glaring hole in my education, I began to ask other friends how many important women from history they could name (from earlier than the nineteenth century). The Oxford grad came up with nine. The Harvard grad came up with eight. My grandfather managed ten. In a group discussion, we all came up with eleven.

But it’s not that women didn’t contribute to history – it’s that history forgot their names. And so currently, it’s easy to think that women are not as capable or valuable as men. Want proof? In America today, women are paid on average 25% less than men for the same jobs, and the Equal Rights Amendment has still not been passed since its introduction by Alice Paul in 1923, though it has been reintroduced to Congress every year since 1982.

I never expected to become a feminist, but that’s what happened. I discovered Hypatia of Alexandria during my writing and research of Written in the Ashes, and I became swept away by her beauty and prowess just as many important men of her day had been.

Hypatia was the first female mathematician/philosopher/scientist/astronomer/mathematician in history. All that came before her in these roles were men. What’s more, much of my research concluded that she was running the Great Library of Alexandria at merely thirty years of age after her father died before she was brutally murdered by a mob of Christian zealots.

Hypatia (circa 410 C.E.) was not born of royal blood, as many queens and princesses who rose in power. She was simply an intelligent and educated lady who impressed everyone around her so much with her inventions and writings that she was frequently visited by kings, magistrates and praetors from around the Mediterranean who sailed to Alexandria to sit at her feet. And she was so powerful in the city at the time that Bishop Cyril preached she was a witch in order to get her killed because she was blocking his road to power.

Though I did not make Hypatia the protagonist of my novel (I was raised on too much Disney to kill my main character), she infiltrated my life, and made me think that I too could rise in an industry previously dominated by men.

At the time I was living in Los Angeles and working in the film industry, wearing several different hats as I explored what it takes to get a book turned into a movie. The stats suggest that not much has changed since ancient history – men occupy about 97% of the jobs in Hollywood behind the camera from screenwriting to directing, and they get paid the most money. (The highest paid person in Hollywood is director Michael Bay
who earned an approximated 400 million dollars in 2009.)

Through some serendipitous connections, my as yet unpublished novel ended up being optioned by three-time Academy Award producer Mark Harris (who won best picture for “Crash”, 2005). Turns out I discovered the best possible line for interesting a mega Hollywood producer in my book, which was, “I don’t think it’s for you.” And I meant it. My novel is about historical Greece and Egypt, and Harris had just won the Oscar for a film about life in modern day Los Angeles.

Well, Harris has good taste. He loved my book and we signed on Josh Conviser, the original writer from HBO’s hit series “Rome” to write our show bible. I stand to write some of the episodes when it gets made. And beyond that, I’ve got a few feature scripts I am working on, one about environmental terrorism and one about women’s rights.Yes, I want to shift that percentage of women behind the camera.

Why?

At a time when women are rising up all over the world to fight injustice and make positive changes in government policy and human rights issues and environmental issues, I think the film industry (and writing in general) is one of the most critical areas for women to go into -- because films influence thought, and that is going to be the way we educate our children about how to make a better world – something women have wanted and worked for throughout all time in all centuries, then and now.

I am a Scorpio born in the year of the Rabbit in California. (Though American by birth, I am convinced my soul is Greek.) I am a nature lover, deep ecologist, and a devoted yogi who holds 7 yoga certifications. My writing mentor is best-selling novelist Tom Robbins, author of Jitterbug Perfume, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and Another Roadside Attraction. You probably know his quote, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”

Website: http://www.kaiavanzandt.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/K-Hollan-Van-Zandt/62326196268

Written in Ashes is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.