All that sewing was worth it – the HNS Conference

Several hundred historical fiction fans gathered at Dartington Hall in Devon for a long weekend of indulging in their favourite topic.

Speakers included Bernard Cornwell, Diana Gabaldon, Kate Quinn, S G Mclean, Elizabeth Chadwick and many others including yours truly. The full programme is here.

Ruth Downie, Kate Quinn and I presented about the Romans […]

Military women – in war and fiction

An updated post Several years ago now, I posted on my writing blog about my OU studies in history and how I turned my MA dissertation into a self-published book: Military or Civilians?The curious anomaly of the German Women’s Auxiliary Services during the Second World War. This was my first venture into self-publishing when you […]

Julian the 'Apostate' and that spear...

Of all the ‘what ifs’ of history, the death of Emperor Julian in AD 363 has to be one of the most intriguing. He rejected Christianity, demoted its by then prominent place in the Roman state and promoted Neoplatonic Hellenism in its place. His aim was to reduce Christianity to one of many also-ran eastern […]