tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45524593510316505582024-03-11T15:18:59.231+00:00Elizabeth Hopkinson's Hidden Grove From the author of Asexual Fairy Tales.Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.comBlogger159125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-89887662624171487792023-11-11T14:29:00.000+00:002023-11-11T14:29:03.136+00:00With a Shovel and a Pick and a Little White StickGrandma & Grandad, c.1940-43There are a lot of misconceptions about history. One that I frequently encounter regarding the two World Wars of the 20th century, is that men were either classified as fighting fit and sent to armed combat overseas, or classified unfit for service and stayed at home. I’ve never seen a historical drama that represents my Grandad’s experience in the Pioneer Corps Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-43056453571690284592023-07-25T12:50:00.000+01:002023-07-25T12:50:41.832+01:00A Real Sopranist Back in February, I wrote a piece for LGBT+ History Month about the castrati singers of the 18th century, and my character Carlo in the forthcoming Cage of Nightingales. In that piece, I said, “It’s impossible for us now to know what the leading castrati really sounded like.” That may still be true. (The intense levels of training they went through from boyhood would probably be illegal nowElizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-89594147820873636732023-07-01T15:48:00.000+01:002023-07-01T15:48:07.599+01:00Bradford Lit Fest: Never Forget Where You’re Coming From This time last week, I was at the joy that is Bradford Literature Festival. My whole town taken over by all things book-related!I went to three completely different talks, two of which I had bought and read the books for in advance. (The other one I will probably buy when it comes out in paperback). They were:The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson JosephPainted People: Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-32975600412282283962023-06-15T17:24:00.000+01:002023-06-15T17:24:40.202+01:00The Hu in Liverpool: Culturally Appropriate The Hu onstage at Liverpool’s O2 AcademyI’ll admit that things have not been easy for me since my last blog. There’s a lot of (understandable) hurt and anger out there when it comes to cultural issues. And I’m not emotionally robust enough to take it.Which is why it was so restorative this week to finally see one of my favourite bands - The Hu - live onstage in Liverpool. It was my first Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-90282345203353012162023-05-09T12:59:00.002+01:002023-05-09T12:59:55.318+01:00Colonialism and the Beast In 2021, I wrote a blog post entitled Unconscious Bias: A Conscious Confession, in which I recognised my own tendency to make first-impression judgements based on names, accents, colour, appearance etc. Well, now I'm confessing to the presence of blind spots as regards my own White Privilege.Specifically relating to my favourite fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast.A couple of weeks back, I Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-23859059818410800462023-04-03T13:55:00.001+01:002023-04-03T13:55:45.151+01:00The Kraken and the Minotaur I’ve just come back from co-leading a Book Club holiday near Oxford with HF Holidays. It was hard work but rewarding. The book I chose - and about which I led discussions - was Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, which I wrote about in a previous blog. I chose it for its many references to Narnia and the ideas of CS Lewis and Owen Barfield, two of Oxford’s famous Inklings. But there wereElizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-32349600406021767452023-02-13T10:44:00.000+00:002023-02-13T10:44:47.235+00:00Our Flag Means Obsession!I’m in love!! ♥️I’ve fallen deep in fandom with quirky pirate rom-com, Our Flag Means Death. It’s been so long since I’ve had this kind of a fangirl high that I was starting to worry I no longer had it in me. But fear not! I may have the body of a middle-aged woman, but I have the heart and stomach of an asexual, greygender teenager, with a thing for the Golden Age of Sail, impossible love, and Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-12457504769031457092023-02-07T15:34:00.006+00:002023-02-11T17:31:45.449+00:00LGBT+ History Month: Carlo and the Castrati Me and Carlo: BBFs (by Kirsty Rolfe)I’d like to introduce you to Carlo.Some of you may have met him before, but he’s one of the two heroes of Cage of Nightingales, the first of my Angelio novels, which is finally due to be published this year by Deep Hearts YA. Carlo is a castrato singer. When we first meet him, he’s thirteen years old, a student at the Conservatorio Archangeli, a Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-35914172020901978882023-01-03T11:13:00.000+00:002023-01-03T11:13:24.554+00:00A Susanna Clarke Christmas In these chilled-out days that bring the Christmas season to an end and crank the new year into a slow beginning, I’m looking back over the benign influence of Susanna Clarke on the Christmas I’ve just had.It began well before Christmas - in November, in fact - with my annual re-read of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Such a comfort read during the long, dark nights! Then there was Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-12085560785537880212022-09-17T13:08:00.001+01:002022-09-17T13:08:49.589+01:00Tolkien’s Ace Princess? The Rings of Power: Amazon Studios, 2022Like many, I have been enjoying Amazon’s new drama series, The Rings of Power, based on JRR Tolkien’s mythos regarding the Second Age of Middle-Earth, Númenor and the Undying Lands. It’s driven me back to the source texts, to discover from where the creators of the series got their ideas. One of those source texts is the book of Unfinished Tales.Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-10406775967037880642022-08-03T18:53:00.000+01:002022-08-03T18:53:21.069+01:00Howl’s Moving Castle: Always More To Discover Warning: contains spoilers for the books and film.This year’s theme at Swanwick Writers’ Summer School is “Back to the Movies”. I’ve decided to go as a character from one of my favourite films ever: Howl’s Moving Castle.For that reason (as if I needed a reason!) I’ve been re-watching the film and re-reading the sequels, Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways. And as with the moving castleElizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-41724826062881837072022-07-06T09:21:00.000+01:002022-07-06T09:21:14.789+01:00Mid-year Book Freak Out I got this list of questions from watching Jen Campbell’s YouTube channel (although someone else created the list). I think it’s mainly aimed at YouTubers, but I’ve adapted it to my own purposes, because it looked like fun. A selection of books.Best book you’ve read in 2022 so far. How can I possibly choose? I’ve bought a lot of folklore books this year, mostly second-hand, which are Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-43414205066616971722022-05-25T11:29:00.000+01:002022-05-25T11:29:13.458+01:00Mythical May: A Picture Journal The “Merry month of May” has been filled with myth, legend and folklore for me. Here are some highlights.1st MayOn May Morning, following the rare Black Moon, I walked the Pilgrim’s Way with my family, barefoot across the sands to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.That evening, we created a fantasy version of the island in a game of Wanderhome.2nd MayA visit to the amazing Barter Books in Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-70188285022300181132022-04-11T12:18:00.000+01:002022-04-11T12:18:58.245+01:00Sorry, I’ve Got No Head!In my latest book, More Asexual Myths & Tales, I retell a story from Latin America that I call “The Wife With the Flying Head”. Support More Asexual Fairy Tales on Kickstarter.I first came across this story in Jen Campbell’s The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers (2021). As soon as I read it, I knew I wanted to retell it. It’s about a wife who - whenever she is in Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-83736753547945494752022-03-23T12:30:00.003+00:002022-04-09T09:23:36.529+01:00Help! I’m Made of Glass!I’ve written on a third collection of Asexual Fairy Tales. It’s crowdfunding now on this link. One of the tales I discovered - and which I retell in the book - comes from the pen of Miguel de Cervantes, the 17th-century author of Don Quixote. It’s called “The Glass Lawyer”. The title character Tomás Rodaja, a lawyer from Salamanca, has never been in love. When a lady’s advances to Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-28556900240679543442022-01-27T17:12:00.000+00:002022-01-27T17:12:16.279+00:00A Mermaid SaintTwo mermaid dolls27th January is the feast day of St Muirgen, also known as Li Ban or Liban. She appears in a number of old Irish annals, such as the Martyrology of Donegal and the Annals of the Four Masters. There's nothing unsual about that: the history of Ireland is crammed to bursting with saints and martyrs. But what's unusual about Miurgen is that she is a mermaid.According to the stories, Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-6561104509446913052022-01-09T22:55:00.000+00:002022-01-09T22:55:33.008+00:00First Voyage of the Coracle This Saturday I became a full member of the Community of Aidan & Hilda, a dispersed New Monastic community inspired by Celtic Christian spirituality of the 1st millennium AD. Its members come from many different countries and branches of the church, but all follow a common Way of Life and daily prayer pattern, as well as meeting and supporting each other in various ways. (Mostly via Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-24913429983814215482021-12-17T09:10:00.000+00:002021-12-17T09:10:15.868+00:00Berry Christmas! “The holly bears a berry as red as any blood…” There are many berries we associate with Christmas time. I still need to get around to making this year’s frozen haws (hawthorn berries) into some kind of jam or syrup. (Blame the post-vaccine fatigue!) I’d like to share with you three traditional Christmas tales about berries and cherries.The Miracle of MarjattaI retell this episode from Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-69009550277051009772021-11-30T11:12:00.000+00:002021-11-30T11:12:37.384+00:00So Many Beauties, So Many Beasts! Beauty and the Beast is my favourite fairy tale. I will read just about any version of it. So I thought I would share with you some of my Beauty and the Beast collection, arranged into categories for your convenience.Classic tellings1. Madame Le Prince de BeaumontThis is the classic version on which most modern retellings are based. (I have it as an e-book). Although here, Beauty is one of Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-2994961786716321622021-10-25T12:43:00.001+01:002021-10-25T14:56:13.535+01:00Ace Week: Reviewing Ace-Rep Fiction It’s Ace Week! A week set apart to raise awareness of identities on the asexual/aromantic spectrum and to campaign on issues that matter to us. For example, why young people should learn about ace-spec identities in school. This year, I was asked by Stonewall to make a 59 second video on that topic, which should appear on their TikTok during this week.But I’ve also been reading. To help Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-46359991238619621132021-10-08T15:40:00.000+01:002021-10-08T15:40:15.668+01:00Shout Out to the Bookshops!We might not have seen much of them during the pandemic, but bookshops are still here for us. Personally, I've still been ordering through bookshop sites, even while I've been at home. And now that I'm tentatively stepping back outside, the one thing I look forward to most is time spent browsing in bookshops.But this week, I'd like to give a specially big shout out to the three bookshops who are Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-82448562301071058952021-08-31T21:05:00.000+01:002021-10-08T14:08:34.581+01:00Witch or Saint? A Fine Line Today, I visited two famous caves in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire: St Robert’s Cave and the much more famous Mother Shipton’s Cave. Both are located by the banks of the River Nidd in the remains of Royal Forest of Knaresborough. Both once housed figures who were considered capable of working (or speaking) wonders. Both spoke truth to power in their day. So why is Ursula Shipton (neé Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-57760503918591492432021-08-14T12:23:00.002+01:002021-10-08T12:57:26.126+01:00Swanwick in the Time of COVID. My 2021 Swanwick programme and notebook.Normally, my week at Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in Derbyshire is the highlight of my summer. But normality is something none of us has seen for the best part of two years. This year, I had my head in the sand, pretending it wasn’t happening until almost the last moment, afraid to either cancel or not cancel.So let’s just say that when I arrived Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-85533760137038741412021-07-18T13:24:00.001+01:002021-10-08T11:55:24.121+01:00The Anne Lister PilgrimageA few weeks ago, I walked the Anne Lister Pilgrimage in Halifax. This is a self-guided walk, going from Halifax Minster to Shibden Hall and back, with “pauses for thought” along the way, relating to Anne’s life and faith. This is my first pilgrimage since becoming a member of the Community of Aidan & Hilda, and I did it on the last day of Pride Month, wearing my Gentleman Jack T-shirt. IElizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4552459351031650558.post-58149830763581675612021-03-11T10:43:00.000+00:002021-10-08T14:05:37.387+01:00Unconscious Bias: A Conscious Confession “The Origin of Love”, Anna Hopkinson 2019.Yesterday, something happened to me that has not happened before. I had to part ways with an editor on moral grounds.The person in question objected to my explicit reveal that the protagonist and his nemesis were conjoined twins in a former life. The reason? Apparently, two pairs of conjoined twins in one story “stretched credulity” and raised Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10404111400436001557noreply@blogger.com0