Category: Struggle and Suffrage: Women’s Lives In Bristol 1850-1950

Blog, Children in Need, Children in Need, Struggle and Suffrage: Women's Lives In Bristol 1850-1950

Children in Need, Part II

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Thank you to everyone who put in a bid for a signed copy of Struggle and Suffrage in Bristol during the Children in Read part of the charity fundraiser. Children in Read raised an amazing amount of money — over £21,000!

The winning bid for my book came from a village only a few miles across the fields from where I was born in Somerset, which made me quite homesick.

If you’d like to read an extract from Struggle and Suffrage in Bristol, just click on the image entitled My Current Release at the top right of this page. Pick up your own paperback or kindle version — and it would make the perfect present for anyone who loves the city of Bristol.

Imagine being towed along at high speed behind him!

The very generous winner will be receiving their signed copy of Struggle and Suffrage in Bristol as soon as I can harness Alex to a dog-sled and slither down our frosty valley to the local post office. Good job I’m only joking about the sled—the idea of being towed at high speed through the forest undergrowth in search of a meaty treat behind our confirmed scavenger is terrifying!

It’s minus 2 outside at the moment, and since I broke my ankle a few years ago I’m as nervous as a kitten on slippery ground. I only leave the house to walk Alex, feed the hens and wild birds, and check the greenhouses. The rest of the time I enjoy the glorious sight of the Gloucestershire countryside locked in frost through the window.

The grass has become needles of ice, and a white lacework of cobwebs is draped along the hedges and gates. Luckily I’ve got the fruit trees clustered around the greenhouse heater. The photo shows what happened a couple of years ago when the greenhouse was unheated.

Thank you again to everyone who took part in Children in Need

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Review: Women and The City: Bristol 1373-2000, Edited by Dr Madge Dresser

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https://www.amazon.co.uk/Women-City-1373-2000-Madge-Dresser/dp/190832631X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1514970849&sr=8-1&keywords=madge+dresser
Find out more at http://amzn.to/2Cgv5r0
Women and the City: Bristol 1373-2000 is a collection of essays by respected academics. It’s a lively, absorbing read. A good balance has been struck between well-written prose and contemporary illustrations. The book and its content is presented in a way that invites even a casual reader to keep turning the pages. There’s a handy list of abbreviations right at the front, which is much easier than having to flick through to the index, or notes, each time a set of initials pops up in the text. Other academic works would do well to follow this example.
 
I bought Women and the City: Bristol 1373-2000 to help with research for my own book, Struggle and Suffrage: Women’s Lives in Bristol 1850-1950, but after studying the sections relevant to my own work I went straight back to the beginning of the book and read it all. It’s a mine of information for anyone with an enquiring mind. I’d particularly recommend it to aspiring historical novelists in search of inspiration. The fact that a woman (Ann Barry) held the lease of that stronghold of “Enlightened” masculinity, the Exchange Coffee House in Corn Street offers all sorts of dramatic possibilities, for example. It’s often forgotten that Bristol women struck a significant blow in the fight against slavery. The formation of the Bristol and Clifton Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society is never as widely reported as Bristol’s part in that terrible trade. This book helps to put that right. 
 
Women and the City: Bristol 1373-2000 is curated by Associate Professor of History at the University of the West of England and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Dr Madge Dresser. The breadth of its content and unique style of each contributor makes for a fascinating read. It offers great insight into the history of Bristol and its people. Anyone who knows the city will look at local landmarks with new eyes after reading it.  
 

 

To sum up, this is an invaluable collection for historians, and anyone interested in women’s studies. It’s also an inspiring read for the rest of us.
Christmas, cover art, Highland Hideaway, novella, Struggle and Suffrage: Women's Lives In Bristol 1850-1950

Christmas Won’t Start Here Until Advent Sunday, But…

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Pic #1

Phew, where has this year gone? I promised myself I’d self-publish a Christmas novella last year. It was all ready to go, then my mother fell ill. Everything else was on hold after that.

…the same can’t be said for working on Christmas stories. Magazines need copy in midsummer. The biggest publishers schedule their book releases over a year ahead. Independents and self-publishers have more leeway, but Christmas books released in October can build up plenty of momentum before the Christmas-book-buying-market hits the floor on December 26th.

Since January I’ve been working so hard on my non-fiction project for Pen and Sword Books, Struggle and Suffrage: Women’s Lives In Bristol 1850-1950, today is the first chance I’ve had to look up from my keyboard.

I might be able to manage a release in time for Christmas, but doing anything in a rush is never a good idea, is it? My Christmas novella Highland Hideaway is practically finished, but it still needs editing, and a cover. Both those things take time.

Pic #2

I’m still adding bits to, and amending, the final manuscript for Struggle…  so I’m concentrating on every word, dot and comma of that book at the moment.

I love the autumn It would be a relief to send Highland Hideaway away for editing, instead. Then I can take my time to find a cover design.

The top picture accompanying this blog isn’t romantic, but I came across it while I was combing through Pixabay. Isn’t it stunning? It reminds me of when I lived in Somerset.

Barn owls love the farmland there. We only get Tawny owls among our Gloucestershire trees.

Pic #3

The second and third photos are more suitable for a romantic novella, but they’ll need some work before they’re can become book covers. Highland Hideaway is about a city girl who is marooned in a blizzard with a notoriously tough and uncompromising wildlife photographer. You’ll never guess what happens…although there are a few dramas, twists and turns along the way.

Which of the pictures do you think would make the better cover, and why? There’s a book from my backlist on offer for a comment picked at random on 1st November!