Elizabeth Hopkinson's Hidden Grove

I was born at Christmas time. I think that's why I like winter and Christmas so much. Right now, I am working on a winter fantasy I have been trying to write on and off for years, in which the ghosts of the Wolf Tribe ride on Christmas Eve. I expect all of us book lovers have books we like to read again and again at this time of year. It's lovely to snuggle up on the sofa with a hot chocolate and the Christmas lights on, enjoying a magical read. At the moment, I'm reading The Toy Makers  by Robert Dinsdale, about a magical toy emporium that opens each year with the first snow of winter. I bought the book in summer, and it seemed weird and wrong. Re-reading it in December is just perfect. But I also have some regular favourites: The Box of Delights   by John Masefield. Both the book and the 1980s TV series always thrill me, when I hear the words: "The wolves are running." (Ooh, do I spot an influence? I hear you say.) The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder, ab...

Warning: sexual content I am currently writing a book of Asexual Fairy Tales, which I am hoping to pitch to the crowdfunding publishers, Unbound, very soon. It contains twelve stories from fairy tale, myth and legend, and twelve black-and-white illustrations by Anna Hopkinson, an Illustration undergraduate at the University of Huddersfield, who also happens to be my daughter. One of the tales I retell in the book is Zellandine and Troylus, a very early version of Sleeping Beauty. It's a bit of a controversial choice because Troylus impregnates Zellandine in her sleep, but I wanted to include it. Here's an extract from the book: “Zellandine and Troylus” is one of the earliest known versions of “Sleeping Beauty” and comes from the medieval French romance Perceforest (c.1330-44). It also has echoes of “Rapunzel”, as the maiden is kept in a tower that can only be accessed by a high window. Many commentators find the tale deeply problematic because of its apparent portrayal of non-c...

 Ann Millmore with fellow-Swanwicker Roy Devereaux, back in the day. Courtesy of Mike Brewer. Without doubt, one of the highlights of my year is my annual visit to Swanwick Writers' Summer School. This 6-day long writing fest takes place every year at Swanwick in Derbyshire. It's always good to catch up with old friends, meet new ones, to give and receive encouragement and inspiration.  This year was particularly special as it was the school's 70th anniversary. There were special celebrations, '40s themed events (work it out!) and even a giant birthday cake. One thing that connects the school's past to the present is the Swanwick Yearbook. Every year, delegates are asked to sign their names, along with where they come from. Unsurprisingly on this special year, the book was left open on past years, for current delegates to enjoy the nostalgia. I was reading through the page for 1967 when I came across two names from my home village of Clayton in Bradford. I had no id...

I recently went to see Rupert Everett's wonderful film, The Happy Prince, about the last days of Oscar Wilde. The story is framed by Wilde telling his fairy tale, The Happy Prince, both in his lost past with his sons, and his down-at-heel present with young denizens of the Parisian demi-monde. I have loved The Happy Prince since childhood but hadn't thought to associate it with Wilde's life until now. In the film, there is a clear parallel between the statue of the Prince being stripped of his gold and jewels until he is finally torn down as an eyesore by the Mayor, and Wilde's fall from his heady period of fame, through scandal and prison, towards derision, destitution and death. This led me to think about our own times, which have seen a large number of high-profile celebrities and "national treasures" brought down through scandal and court cases. Some of these individuals have committed genuinely terrible crimes, unlike Oscar Wilde, who was ...

Welcome to the 2018 Fairy-tale Blog Hop. Thirteen fabulous fairy-tale authors have gotten together to talk about their favorite fairy tales. Follow the links at the bottom of each blog post to hop to the next author's website. Collect our favorite numbers to total up at the end and enter to win a print collection of our books! (There are several anthologies, debuts, and even an ARC for a BLINK YA book you can't buy in stores yet!) Dates: Contest runs  from Friday, June 22 to Friday, June 29  with a wrap-up party  at 7:00 EST . (details to come) Note: The grand prize winner will be contacted on Saturday. They have three days to confirm and send their address before the prize is offered to the next person. It's been five years since the publication of my historical fantasy novel Silver Hands . It's based on "The Handless Maiden" (also known as "The Armless Maiden" or "The Girl Without Hands"),  one of the fairy tales recorded an...

These are my thoughts on the Repeal of the 8th. I don't normally do this sort of thing on the blog, but I felt so helpless in the face of angry, hurtful comments that I had to put something into writing. And as I've written a lot about asexuality and so-called "monstrous births" on here, it didn't seem altogether inappropriate.   I have no desire to condemn women to illegal abortions. In fact, I have no desire to condemn anyone, full stop. I understand that abortion may be necessary in certain, extreme, circumstances, but there are several things that deeply trouble me.  1. The unborn have no human rights. In these days when we know more about the life and development of the embryo/foetus than ever before, and when mothers of miscaried babies are asking for death certificates, this seems both hypocritical and backward. I truly think the UN should convene to discuss what rights the unborn ought to have. I don't believe the unborn are the property of the mother ...

Who doesn't love Lettie Lutz, the Bearded Lady character in The Greatest Showman, who sings   the iconic anthem, This is Me ? Yesterday, my daughter took me to a singalong version of the film for a Mother's Day treat, and we both belted out This is Me at the tops of our voices. Both Lettie and the song have become symbols for anyone who feels marginalised or different. It so happens that last week I watched another film about a hairy woman, the very beautiful Norwegian coming-of-age film,   Løvekvinnen , or The Lion Woman, based on a book by   Erik Fosnes Hanson.   It tells the story of Eva Arctander, who is born in a small town in the early 20th century and struggles to find her place in the world. Especially, it concerns her relationship with her stationmaster father, widowed at her birth. I loved this film - which I watched on Netflix - and I definitely want to see it again. One of my best reads of last year was Orphans of the Carnival by Carol Bi...

On this blog, I have written a number of pieces about parthenogenesis and asexual reproduction. The first was this one: Giving Birth to Hairy Worms , which was inspired by a book called The Manly Masquerade. In it, I noted the Renaissance belief that reproduction could happen spontaneously, that things could be born of putrefaction, and that: Women's wombs could spontaneously produce all sorts of things, from monsters and harpies, to wood, glass or combs, to serpents, toads and hairy worms.  (I particularly like the hairy worms.  Why hairy??)  It seems this idea is less far-fetched than it seems, as today I was reading about homunculi. Rather than attempt to explain it myself, I direct you to this article: The Homunculus Inside . (Trigger warning: the photos are not for the squeamish!) It seems this would also be a good time to tell you that my articles on parthenogenesis (as well as my own experience of both asexuality and gynaecological problems) have insp...

Recently, I listened to a radio documentary called Two Thousand Years of Puzzling, tracing the history of the puzzle, from mazes to crosswords and everything in between. It mentioned Charles Lutwidge Dodgson - aka Lewis Carroll - author of the Alice books. Dodgson was a lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church College, Oxford, and loved a good mathematical puzzle. In fact, he seemed to love puzzles of every kind. Just thinking about Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass , I was struck by how many different types of puzzle feature in them. Here are some I noticed: Chess and Playing Cards. The main settings of the two books. Obviously, these are games, but there can be a lot of mathematics involved, and plenty of chess and playing card puzzles have been set and solved over the centuries. Riddles. The infamous, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" Frustratingly, this one has no answer (although Jasper Fforde - that great Aliceophile - comes up with a few i...