Elizabeth Hopkinson's Hidden Grove

As I write this, there are only 15 days to go until the UK publication of Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb.  I am a huge fan of the Farseer/Tawny Man trilogies, and especially of the Fool.  I was devasted by how his story was left hanging at the end of Fool's Fate, and am very excited (and somewhat nervous) to see how things will progress in the Fitz and the Fool trilogy. Robin Hobb's Fool is one of the all-time great fantasy characters.  However much we get to know him, he will always remain a mystery.  (Is he even truly a he, for a start?)  A self-confessed coward yet courageous, affectionate yet capable of inflicting deep hurt, learned yet a fool, he shifts gender, changes colour and is impossible to pin down.  His love for Fitz is heartbreakingly touching, and his androgyny and insistence that love doesn't require sex make him, for me, one of the great asexual icons. The Fool has influenced me professionally as well as personally.  It i...

Back in March, I wrote a post about "the castrato poet", Filippo Balatri.  I said it would be great if someone who knew Italian could translate a website I'd found about him and his autobiographical poem, Frutti del Mondo. It gives me great pleasure to say that Leon Conrad, who I interviewed in my last blog, has done just that!  What follows is Leon's rough (and amazingly speedy) translation of a section of Frutti del Mondo  dealing with Balatri's visit to London.  According to Leon, this extract really shows off Balatri's sense of humour, as well as being a fascinating insight into the life of a castrato singer.  A huge thanks to Leon for this favour. It’s dedicated to ‘The Hon. Mr W orld’ by his humble servant.   This is a rough summary of  the section which covers  his trip to the UK , along with some additional notes added on to the text on the website.   I  arrive in  a marvellously walled city. Accompanied by a nobleman. I ask...

One of my most popular posts on this blog has been, "Giving Birth to Hairy Worms", all about the Renaissance belief in spontaneous generation (ie giving birth without the need for sexual reproduction).  While the idea may seem far fetched, it turns out that spontaneous generation is in fact all around us.  And it's called parthenogenesis. In fact, it's right in my garden.  The round things growing on my tree are oak galls.  They are created by wingless, asexual female gall wasps, which are born from galls in the tree roots, created by winged females, who have mated with males.  The tree galls hatch more wasps, which begin the double cycle again.  So every other generation of female gall wasps will be asexual and wingless.  The next generation will be sexual and winged. Other creatures that reproduce asexually incude aphids, which produce exact clones of themselves, and a certain species of ant. Amazingly, parthenogenesis is not limited to small creatur...

Last night, my daughter and I watched Frozen for the first time.  (Yes, I know, we took a while getting around to it).  I don't intend to write a review of Frozen here (basically, I didn't think it was as good as Tangled ).  But I do mean to say that I found the heroines a bit annoying.  They were too loud for me, too independent, too feisty. I've never liked feisty heroines.  Right from reading Little Women as a child.  I know so many people wanted to be Jo, but I wished Beth could have been the writer (as well as a pianist).  Then she would have been like me, right down to the name.  Growing up, I identified with Marty South (Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders) , following Giles about, too afraid to admit she loved him, Fanny Price (Jane Austen's Mansfield Park ), bossed about by everyone in the house with only Edmund treating her like a human being) and especially the Lady of Shalott, trapped in her tower, unable to cross the room.  (Yes, we'r...

Yesterday, I did an author event at Blackwell's Universty Bookshop, Leeds, talking about my historical fantasy novel, Silver Hands.  Seeing as only people who were available at 2pm in  Leeds could be there on the day, I thought I would post the answers to one or two Frequently Asked Questions about Silver Hands and writing in general. Q: How long did it take you to write Silver Hands? A: I got the first ideas for the story after reading The Handless Maiden in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 2007.  I started actually writing down the story in June 2009.  I finished editing and started submitting in 2011, and the book was published in 2013. Q: How do you discipline yourself/Do you have a writing routine? A: I always find this question hard to answer, as I think my feelings about writing are more devotion than discipline.  I would rather be writing than doing anything else, but sometimes it is hard to get motivated because of anxiety/depression.  The best advice I ever...

Following on from my last blog about bird lore, I came across a piece of artwork on Twitter (ironic!) that seemed to conjure up the spirit of Tammo ( the bird charmer character in my work-in-progress the Angelio Trilogy ) perfectly.  It is by talented British artist, Rachel Toll (@Elidanza) , who has kindly agreed to let me share it with you here. My character, Tammo, is given the ability to charm birds with his flute.  This can also cause him to form a close bond with the bird in question, as happens with his pet crow, Coronis.  If you think this idea sounds a lot like Mozart's The Magic Flute , you're right.  And that's why Tammo's sworn twin, Carlo, always calls him Tamino. This piece of artwork seemed a perfect gift for Tammo.  (Perhaps I could give it as an Easter present to him!)  And since Tammo plays the flute, I had to try the tune on my flute too.  Because not all the notes were visible on Twitter, I improvised the bits I couldn't see,...

Spring has come to Britain at last!  It is April, when: smale fowles maken melodye, according to the poet Chaucer.  It's a time when birds fight for their territories, find their mates, build their nests and lay their eggs.  Outside my house, the favourite visitors are starlings, magpies, crows, pigeons and blue tits.  I'm sure we will see new young ones in the course of time. While working on my Angelio books, I have turned up a lot of interesting research regarding birds.  I thought I would share some of it with you here.  Here are 10 interesting facts: 1.  A common trick for a pet goldfinch was to draw up a tiny gold bucket on a chain to get its drink of water. 2.  "Whistling bullfinches" could be taught to sing a selection of folk tunes. 3.  Castrati were taught to imitate birdsong in their vocal performances. 4.  In Sufism, the language of the birds is a mystical language of angels.  (See The Conference of the Birds by 12th cen...