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Worldly Goods, by Laurie Graham
So what’s in your coat pocket? And are you, like me, also hauling around a shoulder bag that feels like it’s full of rocks?When a person is found murdered there can be few things more eloquent than the...
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Book launch hell by Tanya Landman
A few months ago I posted on Facebook:-“I have never had a book launch but woke up vaguely toying with the idea of doing one for Hell and High Water. In my mind it's an elegant affair, on the deck of a...
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THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT KATHERINE PARR – Elizabeth Fremantle
We all know that you can wait a hour for a bus and then three come along at once, but this seems to also apply to characters in historical novels. The particular character I have in mind, due to a...
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Go to Hell or Atlanta, Whichever Comes First Kara Walker at Victoria Miro...
A view of an earlier Kara Walker Installation, Darkytown Rebellion at Sikkema Jenkins Gallery I don't know a lot about the American Civil War. I've read Amanda Foreman's book and a few others. I've...
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Executions
by Marie-Louise JensenThis is a gruesome post. If you are squeamish, don't read on.I was asked to talk to Year 7s and 8s last week about my book the Lady in the Tower and about the Tudors. It's not a...
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The Thought Fox - Sue Purkiss
A few weeks ago, my husband and I were lucky enough to be taken on a tour of Pembroke College in Cambridge. Bron was at Cambridge, and he'd recently realised that someone he knew back then, Nick...
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At the moment, I’m in the writing zone, so my post today is about that subject rather than any historical visit, research or knowledge.Twenty years ago – can it be? – an American author called Karen...
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Arvon Magic - Celia Rees
I'm sure that some of my fellow History Girls and our blog readers will have either tutored or attended an Arvon Course during their writing lives. For anyone who doesn't already know, Arvon runs a...
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Fur coats, frocks, and fast cars - a glimpse into the world of 1920s fashion...
Researching my latest novel, ‘Game of Chance’ - which is published today - has involved me in some enjoyably off-beat areas of research, from the detective stories of the Golden Age, to cocktail...
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Navigating by the Stars - by Ann Swinfen
The American Navy is stepping back in time. The US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, is to reintroduce training in celestial navigation, abandoned in the 1990s in favour of the exclusive use of...
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Christmas Trees, Goats and Daniel Levitin by Imogen Robertson
I was at the Plymouth International Book Festival last Sunday with Holly Davey, talking about how we explore hidden histories in our work in a discussion chaired by the artist Sarah Chapman. It was a...
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In Olden Days by Kate Lord Brown
I am still a 'new girl' compared to many of the illustrious HGs, but the more I write, the more it feels publication is a case of letting go. Studying English in the 80s, our teachers went on endlessly...
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Who Were the Witches? by Leslie Wilson
'Who are the witches, where do they come from? Maybe your great-great-grandmother was one, Witches are wise wild women, they say, There's a lot of witch in every woman today.'We used to chant that at...
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A NEW ADVENTURE: Starting the next project by Elizabeth Chadwick
With my next novel THE AUTUMN THRONE handed in, concluding my trilogy about Eleanor of Aquitaine (although not being published until Autumn 2016) I'm now looking to the next project. This is always an...
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MISS JEAN BRODIE AND THE MORNINGSIDE RIOT by Eleanor Updale
Some place names always raise a smile. Residents of Nether Wallop and Chipping Sodbury must be wearily accustomed to the suppressed giggles or open guffaws that their address can evoke. I’ve had to get...
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The Deluge, by Carol Drinkwater
The Deluge, Gustave DoréSome of you may have read about or seen on the news the appalling floods that hit my homeland of Cannes and its...
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A Brief History of Writers’ Misery by Janie Hampton
Many people aspire to it, but the job of writing is not easy, and never has been. ‘The most seductive, the most deceiving, the most dangerous of professions,’ said the Victorian biographer John Morley...
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Do Bunny Down: when shared war stories can help to heal, by Clare Mulley
When researching biographies I am privileged to meet and exchange letters with many people whose observations, perspectives and actions present new insights into the past, and sometimes into the...
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Shakespeare's 1606 - Interview with James Shapiro
Photo Credit: Mary CreganWe are delighted to welcome James Shapiro to the History Girls as our October guest.James Shapiro, who teaches English at Columbia University in New York, is author of several...
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Cabinet of Curiosities - Gillian Polack presents the objects of her dreams
I wanted to give you a whole set of curious objects today. Haunted objects. They represent a haunted city. Instead, I gave myself nightmares. They're perfectly ordinary objects in perfectly ordinary...
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