debra hamel Profile

Debra studied classics as an undergraduate at The Johns Hopkins University and again as a graduate student at Yale, where she specialized in ancient history. Since receiving her Ph.D. in 1996 she has published a number of scholarly articles and reviews as well as publications for a general audience, including several articles that have appeared in MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History.

Debra's book Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece was published by Yale University Press in 2003 and is now available in paperback. The book was written for a popular audience and has been well received by reviewers. The Sunday Telegraph calls Trying Neaira a "gripping story of politics, sex and sleaze in ancient Athens...." The Erotic Review writes that Hamel "turns one of antiquity's more fibrous epochs into a lively and witty slice of history, and gives us a story of cupidity, greed and obduracy, spiced with sexual morsels." See tryingneaira.com for more information.

More recently Debra has been concentrating on her slice of cyberspace. She publishes a personal blog at the-deblog.com and has been writing book reviews for publication on her site book-blog.com since 2003.

Another recent project of Debra's is buyafriendabook.com, a web site that urges visitors to buy a friend a book for no good reason during four Buy a Friend a Book Weeks a year -- the first weeks of every January, April, July, and October. Good books, good karma.

Debra is the mother of two preternaturally attractive girls and the wife of a mustachioed gadfly. She writes and blogs from her subterranean lair in North Haven, Connecticut.