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Basketry by Janie Hampton
Bronislava and Jan Madejscy with their kablacok willow baskets, are part of the Slow Art in Poland movement, in Lucimia Village which is on UNESCO’s ‘intangible cultural heritage’ list. © Paulina...
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Run Your Town Like a Roman - 12 tips from the past, by Ruth Downie
Human nature, it seems, has changed little since AD 91, when the emperor Domitian issued a set of laws for the town of Irni. Many of them made me laugh, because it was clear that the rules were...
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Pandora and her container
Greek women are on a roll. No, not Arianna Huffington, Melina Mercouri and Irene Papas, but their counterparts in ancient mythology. We had Madeleine Miller's cracking Circe (her first book having...
View ArticleDavid Gitlitz by Gillian Polack
I was going to write about the extraordinary and the enormous today, but we’re living with too much history right now. We don’t need the enormous. We do, however, need a sense that we can continue,...
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Writing and Researching During a Pandemic - by Anna Mazzola
How do you write creatively when you’re living through a global crisis? For much of the first lockdown it seemed that – for me at least – the answer was ‘you can’t’. Trying to fit my law work around...
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Revisiting Mary Kingsley - Joan Lennon
[I've been thinking about travel, in these times without, and would like to repost something I did back in 2013 about the intrepid, fiercely intelligent, witty Mary Kingsley.] Mary Kingsley was a model...
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Belfast 1921 by Sheena Wilkinson
A photo can tell you so much. When I was writing Hope against Hope, set in Belfast and along the new Irish border in 1921, I spent a lot of time walking round East Belfast and trying to see it as it...
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TOUR D'HORIZON by Adèle Geras
The phrase 'tour d'horizon' is one I heard on the 4th February, when I was on my walk, listening to one of my favourite podcasts. It's called The Rest is History and every episode is a conversation...
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'Mighty Hills of Water' by Karen Maitland
Plaque marking the flood of 1606/7 inKingston Seamore ChurchPhoto: Anthony WoodFact is not truth – that’s something both the historical fiction writer and readers know well.My new historical thriller...
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A Balkan story by Mary Hoffman
As you may be tired of hearing, I moved house in December (yes in midwinter, in the middle of a pandemic and just before Christmas). Our books and CDs went into storage until we could get shelving...
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Classics Club during Covid by Caroline K. Mackenzie
Caroline K. Mackenzie tells the story of her Classics Club and how it has provided her with companionship and inspiration during lockdown.Classics Club began with an odyssey around the art and...
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My blog is actually a book - making the most of your backlist blogs
by Deborah SwiftThe BloggerI've been blogging for more than twelve years now, both here, on my own blog and on other people's blogs. The purpose of the blogging was to make people aware of my books by...
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Cherry Blossom Tales - by Lesley Downer
Cherry blossoms at Yoshino. Katsushika Hokusai 1833. Met Museum, Rogers Fund 1922. Public domainうつせみの世にも似たるか花ざくらさくと見しまにかつちりにけり Like the world Hollow as a cicada’s empty shell - Oh cherry blossoms - The...
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Sumer is icumen in, but am I ready for it?
By Susan Vincent You know how the (very) old song goes: Sumer is icumen in (Summer is a coming in) Lhude sing cuccu (loud sing cuckoo) Groweþ sed (groweth seed) And bloweþ med (bloometh mead)And once...
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D H Lawrence, Shipley Hall, and a sad irony: Sue Purkiss
When I was a child, we lived on the edge of a quite large town called Ilkeston, which is in Derbyshire, and which used to be a mining town. At that time the nearest pits had closed down, but there...
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From Spare Oom to War Drobe; Travels in Narnia with my Nine Year Old Self by...
I know Katherine Langrish as a friend but also as a remarkable children’s writer, storyteller, folk and fairy-tale expert and enthusiast, as well as for her richly wonderful blog Seven Miles of Steel...
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Journeys with Miss Graham - Celia Rees
Every book is a journey. A journey from first idea to publication with all the adventures, challenges, pitfalls and complications that an actual journey can entail. Even after a book has been...
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The Good Bits of Nero - by L.J. Trafford
John William Waterhouse - The Remorse of Nero after the murder of his motherThe British Museum has been proudly boasting about the opening of its new blockbuster exhibition on the Emperor Nero, tagline...
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The wonders of medieval wall paintings by Carolyn Hughes
Recently, I read a book that I was surprised I hadn't read before, as it was absolutely my kind of book: A Month in the Country, by J L Carr. The central story concerns a young man, Tom Birkin, who, in...
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Greek courtesans - beautiful, intelligent and savvy by Elisabeth Storrs
Through the female characters in my ‘A Tale of Ancient Rome’ series, I explore the lives of women in the ancient world. One of my favourite characters is a Cretan courtesan or hetaira (literally...
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