Tracey Warr's Blog, page 14

Add women to history and stir

Interview on my historical fiction with Impress Books editor, Ellie Daniels.

Interview on my historical fiction with Impress Books edi...

Interview on my historical fiction with Impress Books editor, Ellie Daniels.

Dartington Arts School Online Open Day – today

Dartington Arts School and Schumacher College are holding an online Open Day later today. Dartington has developed its portfolio of taught programmes – master’s and undergraduate – in the last couple of years and relaunched an Arts School on the Dartington estate in Devon, England. Our taught programmes are validated by University of Plymouth. We are also launching a new arts-focused PhD programme in partnership with University of Westminster.

16.00-19.00 GMT today, Wednesday 19 June, we are holding an online Open Day where you can talk to our admissions and accommodation staff and to the academic staff teaching on each of our programmes. Register here:

Virtual Open Day

Programme includes

16.00 Dr Tracey Warr talking on MA Poetics of Imagination

16.00 Dr Jo Joelson & Dr Tine Bech talking on MA Arts and Place

17.00 Dr Martin Shaw talking on MA Poetics of Imagination

17.00 Dr Tracey Warr talking on MFA Arts and Ecology

17.00 Tim Bolton talking on MFA Cultural Production

17.30 Dr Jo Joelson & Dr Tine Bech talking on MA Arts and Place

18.00 Tim Bolton talking on MFA Reimagining Performance Practice

Register to receive the full schedule with details on Schumacher College programmes too: MA Ecological Design Thinking, MA Regenerative Economics, MA Mind, Movement & Ecology, MA Engaged Ecology, MSc Holistic Science, Msc Regenerative Food and Farming, and BSc Regenerative Food and Farming.

Full Attention Workshop

Online embodied learning workshop with Tracey Warr, Denys Blacker, and Tew Bunnag.

19.00-21.30 (Spanish time) Fri 21 May and 11.00-18.00 (Spanish time) Sat 22 May.

60 euros. Register info@gresolart.com

Tew Bunnag on Taiji and being fully present; Denys Blacker on improvisation, intuition, and mutual presence; Tracey Warr on close encounters with our immediate surroundings to generate artwork such as writing, drawing, photography.

Ecological transition and art schools

I am a guest on the IHME Art, Science and Ecology podcast series talking with Hanna Johansson, Dean of the Academy of Fine Arts at Helsinki University about ecological transition and art schools, Dartington’s learning programme and community, and my own artwork focused around water and rivers.

You can find the podcast on Helsinki Open Waves, Apple podcast, Spotify and Soundcloud.

You can find out more about the overall IHME Podcast series and other guests here.

Full Attention – Zoom Workshop

Full Attention. Zoom Workshop 21-22 May. Be fully present, mutually present, and hyper present with Tew Bunnag, Denys Blacker and Tracey Warr

Download the details here.

full-attentionDownload

Rambling vine

The fey Melusine on a wall in the village of Lusignan, France

I am a guest on Alison Morton’s writing blog today, talking about how living in France inspires and affects my writing.

‘I fell in love with the pace of village life, which gives me focus to write.’

‘My writing is inspired by material culture—objects in museums, archaeology, illustrated manuscripts—and by sensory experiences of places.’

‘I met the original Poldark, Robin Ellis, at my local bilingual literary festival, Festilitt, in Parisot and watched him giving a mediterranean cookery demonstration, sporting a Sex Pistols apron.’

Read the blog for more on rambling vines, how I came to live in France and how the experience turned me into a novelist writing about early medieval Europe. I also refer to my site research in France, including a trip to Lusignan to find out about Melusine (pictured above).

Alison Morton is the author of the Roma Nova thrillers. We met each other at the Charroux Literary Festival in France and at the Historical Novels Society conference.

Image opposite is a lavoir in France, a place for medieval laundry.

Second career novelist

The Conquest trilogy based on the true story of the Welsh noblewoman, Nest ferch Rhys.

Three years ago I was launching my fourth historical novel set in early medieval Europe, The Drowned Court and M.K. Tod interviewed me about being a second career novelist. We talked about my journey from being a contemporary art curator and critic, to an art history academic, to a historical novelist and how I used elements of that journey in my fiction.

In the three year interim since that interview, I returned for a while to academia helping to launch the new Arts School at Dartington and this last year I have had the delightful ‘task’ of teaching on MA Poetics of Imagination with Martin Shaw. My ‘second career’ came full circle and I was able to use my medieval research for fiction writing in my academic work.

Soon, I am heading back to more focus on fiction writing again. I recently published the sequel to The Drowned Court. The latest novel is called The Anarchy. I thought the interview could bear reposting. Thanks for great questions M.K. Tod.

Cover image shows Brousse Le Chateau in the Tarn Valley, southern France, where I was first inspired to start writing medieval fiction 15 years ago. I revisited the village last week.

Ecology of Words

The HIAP (Helsinki International Artists Programme) 2017 Yearbook has just been published online. You can download the pdf here.

The yearbook includes a summary of my Ecology of Words Workshop which took words on adventures around the Finnish island of Suomenlinna. Other artists and writers featured in the yearbook include Jussi Parikka, Riikka Pelo, Jenni Nurmenniemi and Nabb+Teeri.

Struck gold!

17-year-old William Adelin, heir to the English throne, who died in the sinking of The White Ship in November 1120, along with 300 other young Norman nobles, including two more of the king’s children.

A review of my latest historical novel The Anarchy has just been published. The Anarchy is the final book in the Conquest trilogy on the turbulent life of the 12th century Welsh noblewoman Nest ferch Rhys. “When Warr delved into Welsh history and discovered Nest, she must have known she’d struck gold.” Historical Novels Review

Nest was the daughter of the last independent Welsh king, Rhys ap Tewdwr. Her father and two brothers were killed by invading Normans. She was mistress of the Norman king Henry I, kidnapped by a Welsh prince, and much more besides. In The Anarchy, Sheriff Haith explores the mystery of the sinking of The White Ship in the English Channel with the king’s heir onboard. Nest and Haith’s story involves a female Welsh warrior, a bard spy, a renegade nun, goldmines, and the struggle for the throne between Henry’s daughter Empress Matilda and her cousin Stephen.

You can buy books from my publisher Impress at 10% discount this month in celebration of World Book Day or choose to forego your discount and donate a free book to a charity working with refugees.