Elizabeth Hopkinson's Hidden Grove

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...

In Silver Hands , Margaret goes on a voyage that takes her from the English coast to the East Indies, feudal Japan and beyond the Edge of the Map.  To celebrate that, I'm launching a special giveaway that will send Silver Hands on a voyage of its own.  Who knows where it might end up? This is how it will work.  I have two copies of Silver Hands to give away.  I will send them to two randomly chosen followers, regardless of where they live in the world.  (If you live beyond the Edge of the Map, that could be tricky, so we'll limit it to non-magical countries! 😉)  It will then be your turn to give the book away to a person of your choice.  They will then give it away to a person of their choice.  And so on and so on.  The idea is to get these two copies of Silver Hands  on the longest voyages possible.   The book will arrive with a special message inside the front cover, welcoming you to Margaret's Voyage.  Read the book.  ...

For the next couple of weeks, I'm running a giveaway for a lucky winner to receive one of these handmade flash fiction bookmark/wristbands from my Etsy shop .  They would make a lovely gift for a friend (dare I say an early stocking filler?!) or just for yourself, to cheer up a gloomy day. The bookmark is printed with a magical and haunting fairy story, that hasn't been published anywhere else.  It is decorated with its own fairy toadstool, and comes with a detachable French-knitted wristband.   All you have to do to enter the prize draw is to leave a comment, either on this blog or on my Facebook page before 4th November.  And you could have your very own autumn fairy wristband to treasure!

Recently, I signed up to receive the first of the Gray Fox Epistles from Sylvia V Linstead, a writer from California.  If you have the money to try this, I thoroughly recommend it.  Every month, Sylvia retells a classic folktale in the context of her native California (March was the Children of Lir and April will be Tsarevna Frog).  She then posts them out to her subscribers, along with beautiful artwork, craft and pieces of nature.  I was especially happy to receive needles of a Redwood tree - not something I am ever likely to see in Yorkshire.  Have a look at Sylvia's blog if you would like to know more.  You can even see behind-the-scenes pictures of how she puts it all together. Actually, I think handcrafts and writing make wonderful partners.  That's why I will be having the launch for my novel, Silver Hands at the wonderful Hand Made in Bradford , which celebrates its first anniversary today.  This has been a wonderful initiative for my...