Deborah Swift's Blog, page 57

Mary Beale - 17th Century artist

On Hoydens and Firebrands you can find my post about the first woman artist to make her living from painting. A fascinating independent spirit, her paintings hang in the National Gallery.

"His Last Duchess" by Gabrielle Kimm - Review

This is the sort of book to take away with you on a wet weekend as it immediately conjures a sense of the hot sun of Renaissance Italy.
One of Gabrielle Kimm's strengths is that she is able to convey that heat and light to someone like me, sitting in Cumbria with the grey rain sheeting down outside. Her other strength is in describing the minutiae of life in a Tuscan estate, including a wonderful description of the kitchens, the intricacies of falconry, the manufacture of lime, and most of...

Why do writers reach for the past?

There is a great article on the guardian blog about historical fiction and historical accuracy, for example whether accurate equals good.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/aug/06/lying-historical-fiction
It also says that much of today's fiction is actually historical fiction in that it is set before the writer's lifetime. Most fiction that attracts me is set either in the past, in a foreign country, or in an alternative past.
So what is it that makes so many writers reach for the p...

"His Last Duchess" Interview and Giveaway

I've just posted an interview with Gabrielle Kimm on her new book here

Pop over if you would like a chance to win a signed copy. I've just started mine, review soon!

Writer's journey through a lost landscape

A map of seventeenth century England.

If you click on it, it will open in a bigger window.

Note the little hunting horns dotted all over the map, these are forests. Notice how few roads there are and that none of these are straight lines, but seem to enclose the forests between their net.





If you were to ask the average English person for the names of a forest or two, he might come up with Sherwood Forest (legendary home of Robin Hood), or the New Forest (home to herds of wild ponies) or if push...

London Lunch

On Monday (12th July) I will be in London to sign books at Goldsboro Books in Cecil Court. Many famous names (and quite a few Macmillan New Writers) have been through their doors to put their name to their first editions. I will no doubt pause on the threshold to imagine the other more famous writers that have stood there before me. I will be really happy to have a chat with anyone who might come along, as being a northener, I know hardly a soul in London. I will be there from about 12.30 for...

Giveaway of The King's Mistress by Emma Campion

You can enter this giveaway free at Passages to the Past

Undressing a book

My post about covers and costume design can be found over here

Winchester Writers Conference

Imagine if you will, a massive exam hall, lofty, lit by fluorescent strip-lighting, and containing 60 small square desks set out in rows. Now put a nervous writer in front of each one, holding a sheaf of paper or a dog-eared manuscript. Behind each desk sits an agent, an editor or other industry professional. For fifteen minutes they talk - or should I say shout, before the chairs scrape back, the writers reluctantly leave and are replaced by another eager batch.
The noise is the first thing t...

Publicity, Book Signings and the Birth of a Book

Apparently if an author organises a signing in a place where they have no personal connections, then the average number of copies sold is 6, according to Will Atkins, my editor, who was talking to delegates at the Winchester Writers Conference. (More about that in the next post when I have had time to process it all! Highlights from this great event included an address from Terry Pratchett who described writing as "moving through a valley full of clouds")

I have two signings about to happen - ...