Elizabeth Hopkinson's Hidden Grove

A master-mariner's daughter, looking for her place in the world Born in Hollyport, a shipping town on the English coast, sometime in the winter of 1690.  Presently 16 years old. Family: father, Isaac Rosewood, a master-mariner and ship owner.  Two younger sisters, Susanna (15) and Martha (10).  Mother, Mary Rosewood, is deceased. Current occupation: managing her father's household and business accounts. Skills: arithmetic, languages. Interests: reading, learning new things. An dutiful daughter, who has had to take on her mother's role at home.  Even though she's spent all her life surrounded by ships and sailors, she's never thought of herself as a person to travel or have adventures.  She is quite shy and reserved, but can argue with her sisters. She hates to be intimidated and will resist if forced into something.  Even though she is normally obedient, she will disobey if she feels threatened.

Last night, I spent several hours with a very enthusiastic bunch of people who were doing a sponsored sleepout for the homeless as part of a national initiative called Sleepout 2012.     The group I was with were in the car park of a charity called Keyhouse in Bradford, but there were similar groups up and down the country sleeping for homeless charities, live-linked to London via the Community Channel, where celebrity sleepers included "Branson" and " Daisy" from  Downton Abbey !   The Bradford group raised over £10,000.  One chap raised nearly £1000 on his own.  As some residents of Keyhouse were there, we could see for ourselves what a difference the money would make. I was invited to read a "bedtime story", although I don't think anyone was remotely ready for bed at that point.  As I was there for several hours, I also wrote a flash fiction "in situ", partly inspired by a piece of artwork being created during the course of ...

I don't yet know what the front cover for my forthcoming novel, Silver Hands will be like, but I'd like to talk you through the image I created myself for the Silver Hands page of my Hidden Grove website. There are three images blended together in there.  (Can you spot them?)  The first is a drawing of the novel's main character, Margaret Rosewood.  (More of her in future blogs).  I drew that myself with pencil, pen and oil pastels.  I had a bit of help, copying the overall face shape from Miaka in the manga Fushigi Yugi, although I think she looks a bit like me as well.  (And a bit like Belle in Disney's version of Beauty & the Beast !  Not intentional.  Although an interesting coincidence). The other two images are of places I went to research the story of Silver Hands.  One is of the frigate, the Grand Turk , when it was harboured in Whitby.  It was built for the TV series Hornblower (1998-2003), in which it featu...