Elizabeth Hopkinson's Hidden Grove

I hate the modern Hallowe'en, but I love the idea of a "Season of Remembrance", running from All Saint's Eve on October 31st to Armistice Day on November 11th.  In my opinion (and experience, as someone who has provided the music for a lot  of funerals) death isn't spooky or morbid (if that's not nonsensical).  It's natural, as natural as leaves falling from trees and the year turning from summer to winter.  The dead are not to be feared.  They are our ancestors, our relatives, our family.  It's good to spend time remembering them, praying, or simply lighting a candle. Neither must Death be a figure of fear or horror.  Death can be kind.  We have only to think of the late Sir Terry Pratchett's wonderful character of Death, who always spoke in capitals, and walked with Sir Terry at the end.  Or the compassionate Death, narrator of The Book Thief , who gathers children's souls in his arms during the air raids. In that vein, I g...

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.  ...

I recently picked up a second-hand copy of Nigel Cawthorne's The Strange Laws of Old England.   As a source for story ideas, this is a brilliant resource, full of all sorts of strange legal goings-on, not just in Old England, but also in Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man etc. One thing that caught my attention as a fantasist was a short paragraph saying about Henry III - the king responsible for the re-issued version of Magna Carta I was fortunate to see myself this year in Lincoln.  (There is more than one copy, in case you are about to protest that it is somewhere else!)  The book says that Henry signed a law making it a capital offence to kill, wound or maim a fairy. This sounds almost as if Henry III was making the fairy a protected species, as we would do nowadays with endangered animals.  However, although Henry III had a menagerie, I doubt the fairy was considered an endangered species in the 13th century.  In fact, as a super-pious king, and one who passe...

Shaun Evans, Natalie Dormer and Aneurin Barnard in The Scandalous Lady W. Photo: BBC2. Today, I enjoyed a family day out at Harewood House, near Leeds, West Yorkshire.  One of the things I was most looking forward to was a chance to see the portrait of Seymour, Lady Worsley, subject of BBC2's recent courtroom drama, The Scandalous Lady W.  The BBC2 website has this to say: "In 1781, wealthy heiress Seymour, Lady Worsley, caused outrage when she cuckolded her husband, respectable MP Sir Richard Worsley, and ran away with her lover Captain George Bisset. Furious, Sir Richard responded  by suing Bisset for criminal conversation and demanding a record £20,000 for the damage done to his property - Lady Worsley. While Seymour and Bisset hid out in a London hotel, Sir Richard and his lawyers set about proving his wife's infidelity through a series of devious schemes. When the case came to court, Sir Richard lied about his relationship with Seymour, painting a perfect picture of ...

       Picture from Swanwick website. It's that time of year once again when I arrive home, tired but happy, from a week in beautiful Derbyshire with my fellow writers. I've been attending Swanwick Writers' Summer School for about 10 years now, and it always helps my writing career in a new way.  In the early years, it was invaluable for learning new skills, and for getting inspiration for my stories.  Many of my short stories - Awaken the Dawn is one that springs to mind - began life at Swanwick.  Then it became a place where I could meet agents face-to-face and discover that they were normal human beings.  And this year, my highlight was time chatting with another delegate, who helped me create a plan to organise my time and maximise on my success.  Let's see how it goes! Swanwick is also the place where I first learned the skills of teaching a writing workshop.  This year, I led an early-morning session - with the aid o...

This last weekend, I went to a convention in Derby for fantasy/sci-fi/horror writers, called EdgeLit.  It was the first time I had been to this or any convention - except for the time I went to pick up my James White Award at the 2005 Hugos, which was a flying-visit blur of nerves, Alan Lee, and people in Ming the Merciless cloaks.  This time, I had actually paid  to go.  It turned out to be a very enjoyable day, both inspiring and entertaining. As is often the case with such things, one of the best sessions was one I only decided to go to at the last minute: a panel discussion entitled  Into the Grimdark – Is Darker Fantasy a Trend, or Here to Stay? The discussion began with an attempt to define Grimdark as a sub-genre.  There was some disagreement as to whether George RR Martin ( Game of Thrones etc.) came under this heading.  I think it was generally agreed that Scott Lynch's Locke Lamora books did.  As far ...

12th July sees the publication of Come into the House , a new anthology from Corazon Books, showcasing the winners and short-listed entries from a  competition they ran in partnership with The Historic Houses Association (HHA), to write a short story either inspired by or set in a historic house. One of those stories is my tale, "The Yorkshire Defiance," inspired by Shibden Hall in Halifax, West Yorkshire.  Outside the local area, Shibden is best known for being home to lesbian diarist and landowner Anne Lister in the 19th century.   Read my blog on Anne Lister and Charlotte Bronte's "Shirley" But there is much more to the Hall than Anne Lister.  When I went to Shibden Hall to write my entry for the competition - "in situ" - I drew inspiration from 18th-century family portraits in the Great Hall, and from earlier members of the Lister family. One such character was Martha Lister, who grew up at the Hall along with her sisters, attending t...