Tracey Warr's Blog, page 13

A Welshman’s Beard

The National Archives UK, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This final week of the Blog Tour for my latest novel, The Anarchy, features a review from Jean M. Roberts on The Books Delight: ‘‘The writing is immersive and the pace crisp. The author has skillfully woven a mystery into the narrative. I highly recommend this book to lovers of historical fiction, especially those with an interest in Welsh and Norman history.’

This week’s tour also includes an excerpt on Zoe’s Art, Craft and Life blog. The extract describes a secret message concealed in a Welshman’s beard. The message has dire consequences for many of the characters in the novel.

Over ten weeks, the Blog Tour has included guest posts, interviews, reviews and extracts on 25 blog sites. You can catch up with previous weeks on the Blog Tour link. Thank you to Coffee Pot Book Club and Impress Books for organising the tour.

‘I love libraries and would be quite happy if I could just squat in one’

Duke Humfrey Reading Room, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Photo: David Iliff, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Blog Tour continues for The Anarchy, my latest novel set in 12th century Wales and Normandy. This week there is an interview with me on B for Book Review in which I talk about where I write, how I write, whether I like the ‘bad’ or the ‘good’ characters best, and who I would like to interview from the era of my novel, if that were possible.

You can also find an extract from the novel on Stuart Rudge’s blog. In this extract my hero, Haith the Sheriff of Pembroke, discovers evidence against a blackmailer in Smithfield in his quest to solve the mystery of the sinking of The White Ship .

More details here on the overall tour and next week’s schedule.

Photo left: National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, by Andreas Praefcke, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Fictional Worlds

This is week 6 of the Blog Tour for my latest medieval novel, The Anarchy. MJ Porter asked me about the historical sources I drew on for my research. My guest post is here. I discuss how I use objects in museums, such as the medieval wedding ring pictured above. Its inscription reads, ‘I will serve you until I die.’ In the opening scene of The Anarchy, Nest is married against her will. She leaves her wedding ring on the table in the Great Hall and absconds.

You can also read an excerpt on the Archaeolibrarian site here. The excerpt is a scene in which my heroine, Nest, waits for news from the battlefield of Crug Mawr near Cardigan in Wales, where three of her sons are fighting on the Norman side against their uncle and cousins, who are fighting on the Welsh side.

The Anarchy on Tour – Week 4

Joep Zander at Dutch Wikipedia, CC BY 1.0 NL https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/nl/deed.en, via Wikimedia Commons

Today is the fourth week of the Blog Tour for my latest medieval novel, The Anarchy.

Mary Ann Bernal’s Blogspot includes fun facts on me relating to being May Queen, swimming team captain, and indulging in dangerous dancing.

And you can read excerpts from the book with

Loup Dargent – a concealed message in a beard

Emma Lombard – the bees’ book

New Performance MA at Dartington

Dartington Trust’s new MA Reimagining Performance Practice starts next January. Our first application deadline is coming up – 16 August. This is the only application deadline for the £2,500 scholarship and £2,500 bursary towards tuition fees. The new performance MA is open to practitioners in any artform (theatre, dance, music, soundart, moving image, visual art, writing) or combinations thereof. More information here: 

MA Reimagining Performance Practice

and contact me tracey.warr@dartington.org

Emma Bush is leading a Live Chat on zoom on the programme on Thursday 22 July 4pm

Register here:

Live Chat: Reimagining Performance Practice

Emma Bush is also leading an Arts School Tour at Dartington on Tuesday 27 July 11am-1pm.

Dartington has an extraordinary history and present in performance making with residents and visitors including Ballet Jooss, Michael Chekhov, Imogen Holst, Rudolf von Laban, Merce Cunningham, Mary Fulkerson, Emilyn Claid, Lone Twin, Studio Wayne McGregor, and many more. We have a fantastic suite of performance studios, outdoor spaces to swoon over, a full gamelan, Soundart Radio onsite, and the very long-running and illustrious Dartington Music Summer School & Festival, now under the artistic directorship of Sara Mohr-Pietsch. The Festival is about to fill every nook and crany on the estate with pianos, trumpets, and socially-distanced musicians and music-lovers. 

Dartington Music Summer School & Festival

Michael Chekhov and company in the Dartington Tiltyard in the 1930s; Ballet Jooss in the Dartington Gardens in the 1930s; recent workshop at Dartington inspired by Chekhov, organised by Aller Park Studios, and led by Gretchen Egolf and Adam Chodzko.

Nun on the run

Fontevraud Oiseaux. ErreipEreisseb, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. My banner image above also features Fontevraud Abbey.

It’s week 3 of the blog tour for my latest medieval novel, The Anarchy. You can read an interview with me here.

and read an extract here – a scene in which the heroine, Nest, asks King Henry for help protecting a nun who is on the run from Fontevraud Abbey.

The schedule for more blog tour stops in the coming weeks is here.

The Anarchy on Tour – Week 1

Llansteffan Castle at Sunset with Mist Rolling In
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Llansteffan_Castle_at_sunset_with_mist_rolling_in._Taken_from_Ferryside_beach.jpg
Attribution: Ken Day, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

A ten-week blog tour for my latest novel begins today with a Guest Post on Tony Riches’s The Writing Desk. I’m posting on the inspiration behind my novel, which began with this view of the ruins of Llansteffan Castle on the headland overlooking Carmarthen Bay and its triple river estuary. I travelled past the castle each week commuting by train from southwest Wales to Oxford to work. It so intrigued me that I went and spent a few days staying in the village below the castle, starting to research the novel, imagining my characters moving around in that landscape. Thank you, Tony, for hosting me.

https://tonyriches.blogspot.com/2021/06/special-guest-post-by-tracey-warr.html

The Anarchy on Tour

I am on tour with my latest medieval novel, The Anarchy, for the next ten weeks. New interviews, guest posts, reviews and excerpts are posted each week.

You can find full details of the tour here.

And the Pinterest board is here.

Image opposite is from the Maastricht Book of Hours.

Historical Fiction Conference

I am attending the Historical Novel Society North America Conference this week, which includes presentations by a wide range of best-selling historical fiction writers including Margaret George; Elizabeth Chadwick; Nancy Bilyeau; Sarah Woodbury, who writes on medieval Wales; and Sarah Penner, whose novel centres on an 18th century female apothecary. The conference features sessions with publishers, agents and publicists, as well as conversation rooms on Vikings, the Medieval period and many other historical periods. You can find me in the Bookstore and, if you are registered for the conference, in the Exhibit Faire.

Go on holiday in time