Elin Gregory's Blog, page 66

A to Z Challenge – F is for

Farming

[click on the picture for the LONG list of other participants]

This is the promised rant – though because I’m me it’s more of a reminder than full blown, all guns blazing fury. Right now, as I type, farming is valued less that it has ever been valued before. At a time when people fight in supermarkets for the last jar of sun dried tomatoes and debate the various qualities of baking flour farming communities are being broken up and ‘industrialised’.

I was infuriated this week to hear peop...

Guest Blog – Kay Berrisford

Today it’s my privilege to hand over my blog to Kay Berrisiford, whose erotic historical fantasies interweaving of Saxon and Celtic legend with a thread of BDSM have been wowing her readers.

And there’s a new one out SOON!

Writing the Greenwood through history – why it’s so much more fun backward!

This month sees the release of Lord of the Forest, the third installation in my “Greenwood” stories, a series of m/m romances set in a mythical English forest, vaguely based on the New Forest, near whe...

Today in the Comfy Chair – Ciaran Dwynvil

My guest today is Ciaran Dwynvil, personal scribe to characters living in a world of demons and vampires with a taste for kink. His third novel, “In Blue Poppy Fields”, is the third in the Guardian Demon series and was published on the 20th of March.

Boro da, Ciaran! Sut da’chi?

Bore da, Elin! Da iawn, diolch. Beth amdanoch chi?

(Don’t worry, folks, all the rest is in English)

Elin: Just a personal question to kick off with. When you aren’t writing, is there any other creative activity you enjoy?...

A to Z Challenge – E is for …

Edward II

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Of all the British monarchs – and there have been a LOT – Edward II is the best known to the LGBTTQ community.

Edward and his Piers having a laugh, painted in 1872 by Marcus Stone.

Edward’s devotion to his favourites was a major factor in causing political unrest during the early part of the 14th century and his “excessive,immoderate,beyond measure and reason” obsession with Gascon knight Piers Gaveston was notorious. Whether th...

A to Z Challenge – D is for …

Dragons!

[click on the picture for the LONG list of other participants]

I’m going to nail my colours to the mast here – I really like dragons.

I live in Wales, where the dragon is king, at one time, Harry Potter fan that I was, my email address was commonwelshgreen and I’ve always been a bit sad that St George killed the dragon rather than offering to swap a few cows for the princess, who Iassumed from my limited experience of princess-like girls would have been skinny, shrill and studded with i...

A to Z Challenge – C is for …

Colour

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We take colour for granted these days. Just look at this blog for instance. I know it's not the jazziest one out there but there are plenty of strong, true intense colours that don't change much from day to day. In the past such reliable colours were considered luxuries and many were used as codes to inform viewers about what was going on.

Red

Yesterday I was writing about the Bayeux Tapestry so I thought I would make a start with t...

A-Z Challenge – B is for …

The Bayeux Tapestry – behind a cut to be kind to those with slow connections as there are pictures.

First of all – tapestry is a misnomer. This is actually a massive piece of embroidery, 230 feet long and about 2 feet wide, in brightly coloured wools on linen. Top and bottom are strips of decorative stitching with trees foliage flowers and tiny figures, some of which are human. the wide strip in the middle tells the story of how and why the throne of England was taken by Duke William of the No...

A-Z Challenge – A is for …

The Anglo Saxon Chronicles

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This is the oldest history of England to have survived . It was probably commissioned by King Alfred who had copies made for each of the big monasteries in England. Once the copy was delivered the local monks would keep their copy up to date, adding to it year by year, in one case until 1154. This is the first major work ever to be written in English

The illustration shows page one of the Peterborough Chronicl...

April [aka where the *&%$ did spring go?]

For a number of reasons that seemed good at the time – it looked fun, or it seemed a nice thing to do, or being scared stiff because I’m not writing and might never write again – I’ve committed to doing far too much in April.

The original idea was that I’d get well ahead of myself by working hard in March, but March has been so bloody miserable I’ve spent much of it under a blanket and have only poked the social media sites that I felt I should poke and have done the things I feel I should do....

Today in the Comfy Chair – Steph Danielson

My guest today is Stephanie Danielson, published as S L Danielson, and the driving force behind Romance First Publishing, a press that has recently celebrated the first anniversary of its founding. She is here today to talk about her latest releases, co-written with Nephylim, Upstaged: Opening Act and Upstaged: Waiting in the Wings, two YA dramas about the men of rock band, Von.

Welcome, Stephanie.

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Elin: Can you tell me a little about yourself? For instance, do you have to have a day job as...