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The Mary Rose, by Sue Purkiss
So - you've spent years in search of the wreck of Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose, which you know has lain under fourteen metres of water in Portsmouth Harbour since 1545 - somewhere. In 1971,...
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THE GHOSTS WITHIN A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Penny Dolan
Charles Dickens'A Christmas Carol, In Prose. A Ghost Story of Christmas was written in a single six-week burst of energy and, unusually at that time, appeared as one single volume.Up until that point,...
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Signs of The Times - Celia Rees
I'm lucky enough to live near Compton Verney in Warwickshire. I am a member there and visit often. The Art Gallery's six permanent collections include one of the world's finest collections of Chinese...
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The Greatest Hits of Tacitus - By L.J.Trafford
This month my book, Vitellius’ Feast, was published. It is the last in my four book series that looks at the year 69AD. A year that saw four men compete to become emperor: Galba, Otho, Vitellius and...
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Ancient or modern: language in historical fiction by Carolyn Hughes
A couple of years ago, I joined a panel of published writers (a mix of historical novelists and crime/thriller writers) at an event held at the University of Portsmouth, before an audience of fellow...
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Black on Red, Red on Black: Figure it Out by Elisabeth Storrs
Have you ever thrown a vase? Not in anger but on a potter’s wheel? One of my protagonists in the Tales of Ancient Rome saga does both. In imagining her story, I realised I had a problem - I could...
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Seasons Greetings & A Couple of Creepy Cards by Catherine Hokin
1950s card, not a photo of my houseChristmas cards: to send or not to send, that is thequestion. I wish I could claim my inability to buy/write/post...
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A Poet's Christmas by Judith Allnatt
At the height of his fame, John Clare, the nineteenth century peasant poet enjoyed receiving Christmas gifts that he could never have dreamed of as a Northamptonshire pot-boy, lime-burner or ploughman....
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JUMPING INTO PICTURES by Elizabeth Chadwick
Writing about the medieval period, I am always fascinated by the illustrations and depictions. I thoroughly enjoy studying them to glean the small details of daily life. To me, it's a bit like the...
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Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms by Miranda Miller
As we endure our national nervous breakdown it’s interesting to be shown by this wonderful exhibition at the British Library just how international this country was during the six centuries between...
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The Camargue in France at Christmas-time, by Carol Drinkwater
France has a coastline of approximately 7330 kilometres. Much of it is magnificent and many of those kilometres are uninhabited, wild even. I am a sea baby. The old adage that being by the sea does you...
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Mary and Jesus as refugees by Janie Hampton
'Rest on the Flight into Egypt' by Bonifazio de Pitati (1487– 1553) Once Christmas Day is over, we tend to forget about the small family in a stable in Bethlehem, and what they did next. I’ve been...
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The Wandering Womb - by Ruth Downie
Women! Are you suffering from choking, collapse, suffocation, seizures and the inability to speak? Has your doctor ruled out all the usual causes? Have you considered that your womb may have gone...
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My Mother's War, Part One by Susan Price
My mother, aged 16My mother was nine when the War broke out and like my father and his sister, she was never evacuated, though with my mother’s family this was probably due as much, or more, to a...
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Cabinet of Curiosities - a Baby Dinosaur
A few months ago I wrote on this blog about an ending for me – finishing my life as a civil servant. Since then I've had another ending – and, excitingly, a new beginning – because I've moved from...
View ArticleNo December competition
Because our planned guest for 29th December fell through, there will be no competition this month.
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"All the afterwards": Edward Burne-Jones by Mary Hoffman
The Golden Stairs 1880If you like the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, the chances are you will enjoy the Burne-Jones exhibition at Tate Britain in London, on till February 24th. If, on the...
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Janus - by Gillian Polack
Yesterday I thought a lot of Janus. Christianity’s early rise as a major religion was strongly linked to the Roman Empire, so in the Julian and Gregorian calendars we have a month named after a god....
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Creating Historical Worlds: how does a historical fiction writer create a...
Historical fiction is in some ways like fantasy fiction: the author has to create a world in which readers can believe. That generally means the author has to believe it themselves. Even if we don’t...
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Socrates Talks Sense, and Penguin Classics - by Katherine Langrish
Do you remember Penguin Classics – that fantastic collection of black-liveried paperbacks comprising translations of classic literature from all over the world? They still exist of course, though...
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