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A Favourite Place to Write - by Ruth Eastham
I’ve put pen to paper in a few unusual places over the years – in an ice cave, on a camel, by the crater of an active volcano… But there’s something about the Café San Marco in Trieste that finds me...
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The Elephant in the Room - by Eve Edwards
This blog is coming out on my book birthday - Dawn is dawning, so think of me singing a little round of happy birthday as I sit in my study.For my entry today I've been pondering the plight of animals...
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This day in 1916 - by Katherine Langrish
Photo courtesy of New Zealand History online http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/co-ordinated-attacks-western-frontOn this day in 1916, the battle of the Somme was four days old. I'd like to...
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Go Easy Mabel - Joan Lennon
If you haven't heard of The Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project (Department of Special Collections, David C. Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara), you're in for a...
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Scheherazade's tips for surviving 1001 nights as an author - Katherine Roberts
Scheherazade: 19th century painting by Sophie AndersonLet me introduce you to Scheherazade, the Persian princess who bought us the 1001 enchanting tales more popularly known as the Arabian Nights.Some...
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COMING HOME by SUE GEE....reviewed by Adèle Geras
"Sunlit India was always there, always behind their lives."This sentence sums up the story of Will and Flo Sutherland and their children, Bea and Freddie. Sue Gee's very autobiographical novel tells...
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'The Great Crypt Robbery' by Karen Maitland
On 8th July every year, until the draining of the fens in the 1700's, the common land around a hamlet called Brothertoft, near Boston, on the Lincolnshire Fens would be invade by several hundred people...
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Dancing Homer by Caroline Lawrence
Zeus's box of trinkets and propsLast week I saw two dramatic stagings of Homer's Iliad. The first was Simon Armitage’s The Last Days of Troy at the Globe. It was interesting, but never gripped me. I...
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A very welcome development – Michelle Lovric
The history of medicine is the history of mankind. We know ourselves through the adversities our bodies face and the ways in which, through the ages, we have confronted them. Our cultural identities...
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Dating 101, by Laurie Graham
Writing about pre-Revolutionary Russia (as I’ve been doing recently) I’ve had to deal with calendar complications. I’m no stranger to them. For several years I belonged to an Orthodox parish under the...
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The problem with Gone With the Wind by Tanya Landman
Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'HaraIn March this year a Cambridge University college chose Gone With the Windas a theme for its May ball. When Mamusu Kallon, a student at the college,pointed out that the...
View ArticleCUNNING PRESTIDIGITATION: On Writing Historical Fiction – Elizabeth Fremantle
Some thorny issues encountered when writing historical fiction:WEARING RESEARCH LIGHTLYIt is tempting, when your research has thrown something idiosyncratic about a particular period, to try and weave...
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Belle - a film review Catherine Johnson
Sarah Gadon as Elizabeth and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as DidoThis film Belle, is remarkable for many reasons, it's directed by a black woman (and ex Grange Hill-er Amma Asante) it's historical and there is a...
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The Packhorse Trains
by Marie-Louise JensenI posted last month about the slowness of wagons on narrow rutted roads in the 18th Century. There was another form of transport that was far quicker and less affected by the poor...
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The Somme - then and now: by Sue Purkiss
On the 1st July 1916, the Battle of the Somme began. The plan was for the British and their allies to attack the Germans along a 15 mile line, stretching from Serre, north of the Ancre, to Curlu, north...
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Dark Aemilia - Review by Ann Swinfen
Aemilia Bassano is someone who has intrigued me for years. She was one of the first women poets to be published in England, and the very first to be published in the same way as a professional male...
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A Visit from The Daughters of Time - Celia Rees
On July 1st, Catherine Johnson and I visited Cornelius Vermuyden School on Canvey Island to talk about The Daughters of Time Anthology and our stories, Return to Victoria (Emily Wilding Davison - my...
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ONLY REMEMBERED ~ ‘Powerful words and pictures about the war that changed our...
byTheresa Breslin… it’s time for farewells…This line is from an extract of a recently discovered diary of an unknown French soldier as he goes off to war and into action in 1914. It was chosen by...
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'From the Horse's Mouth' by A L Berridge
Historians can be a sad bunch when it comes to primary sources. We talk of gold, of ‘treasure trove’, and last month I even called the letters of a colour sergeant ‘the Holy Grail’. There’s something...
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Personal Histories by Imogen Robertson
"Distribution of Races in Austria-Hungary"Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd, 1911It’s no doubt the influence of the anniversary of the beginning of WWI, but I’ve been reading a lot about the...
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