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October Competition
Open to UK Followers only - sorry!Closing date 7th NovemberTo win one of five copies of James Shapiro's Book 1606, answer the following question in the Comments section below:"Which of the three plays...
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Well done, Sister Suffragette! by Mary Hoffman
I suppose my three daughters first learned of the Women's Suffrage Movement through the rather jolly medium of Glynis Johns singing Sister Suffragette! in Mary Poppins. There was Mrs Banks, cheerfully...
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Charles' Cold - Telling It Like It Was/Is - Joan Lennon
Here is William Hazlitt's portrait of Charles Lamb, painted in 1804. And here is Charles' not-in-the-least over-the-top description of the common cold, in a letter to a friend in 1824 -Do you know...
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Sigmund Freud, historical novelist? By Vanora Bennett
An important part of every historical novelist’s work is looking for the first glimmer of the next story. Finding that apparently unexciting fragment from the past that suddenly makes your storytelling...
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'She went like the snow': Grace Darling and the price of fame - Katherine...
Why a post about Grace Darling? Along with Florence Nightingale, and Flora Macdonald who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape from mainland Scotland to the Isle of Skye (cue the Skye Boat Song) she must...
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Remembering, Remembering three quarters of a century of 5 November in...
I love the way special days change over time. I just asked my mother what 5 November was like when she was a child. “Nothing,” she said. “My mother said it was Christian.”In Melbourne, Australia in the...
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Short cuts, serendipity and short-sightedness by Lydia Syson
In the summer I took a short cut through the British Museum. I had just recorded a short Vox on ‘Why I Write’ for the Royal Literary Fund Showcase and was on my way to the British Library, where I had...
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RIDDLEY WALKER by Russell Hoban .... by Adèle Geras
Followers of this blog will know how fond I am of cathedrals. I've written about them often enough, but this post is about something else. It was sparked, however, by a visit to Canterbury Cathedral....
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Curing Charms and Killing Kings by Karen Maitland
I love old dialect words and one of my favourites from the West Country is bless-vore meaning a spell or charm intended to do good. I was suddenly reminded of bless-vores when I heard the news that, in...
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The Joy of Roman Britain by Caroline Lawrence
In 2014, my publishers suggested that I write a series of books for children set in Roman Britain. My first series, The Roman Mysteries, came out over ten years ago and although the books are still...
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Art versus Lit-Life – Michelle Lovric
A few years ago I wrote a children’s book called Talina in the Tower. The eponymous heroine is an impudent book-worm who lives in a tower on the edge of Venice. The villains are some creatures I...
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A Dark Night in Ballykissane, by Laurie Graham
Ireland’s centenary year of commemoration of the Easter Rising is already underway. It began, officially, with a re-enactment of the event widely regarded as the rallying moment for republicanism: the...
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We Need to Talk About Slavery by Tanya Landman
One of the many reasons I read and write historical fiction is because of the way the past shapes the present. Nowhere is that more evident than with the trans-Atlantic slave trade and modern day...
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ON EQUALITY AND THE FEMALE PROTAGONIST – Elizabeth Fremantle
Middle-aged Novelist Joins Political Party: it’s not much of a headline but as an inveterate political fence-sitter and someone who has never felt a particular affinity with the Westminster suits,...
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Ganseys Catherine Johnson
Hello! I was going to write a piece about the Morant Bay rebellion, a turning point in the history of Jamaica which happened one hundred and fifty years ago in the parish of St Thomas in the East of...
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Literary-historical dogs I have known, by Y S Lee
As the child of Southeast Asian immigrants, I grew up feeling somewhat appalled by the idea of sharing a house with a dog. Yes, our family had dogs when we lived in Singapore, but the dogs' place was...
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Remembrance
Mine is not the kind of family that has a lot of documentation about its history. I know virtually nothing from any further back than my grandparents' generation; on my mother's side, I don't even know...
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NEIL OLIVER at the HARROGATE HISTORY FESTIVAL by Penny Dolan
Not long ago, I spent a most enjoyable and interesting time at the Harrogate History Festival, a long weekend that is run by the Historical Writers Association., hearing a host of speakers, both...
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Hunter's Moon - Celia Rees
On Saturday, 14th November, people gathered in front of Coventry's new cathedral. They were there to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Luftwaffe's raid on the city but the old cathedral,...
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Playing Blind Man's Buff - researching the world of the war-blinded by...
Most writers of fiction, historical or otherwise, like to set themselves challenges - whether it’s delving into the near or distant past, researching aspects of a skill outside their usual frame of...
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