Arthuriana and the Queer Medieval

I am an accidental medievalist—snared by the Early Medieval through story not scholarship. Now I’m using fiction informed by scholarship to try change public notions of the Early Medieval. Here’s an interesting open-access journal article assessing one aspect of my impact.

Hild’s cross

I love the cross Hild wears on the cover of HILD and MENEWOOD—but it’s probably not what she would have worn

Nativity scenes

Was Francis of Assisi to blame for all those interminable nativity plays school children and their cruel teachers use to both amuse and horrify their parents? And would there have been nativity plays in 7th-C Britain?

Two Battles — the Battle of Hatfield

Part One of my two-part examination of the major battles that bookend Menewood.

Buy My Book!

MENEWOOD is out in the UK in paperback. As any writer will tell you: the hardest part of being an author isn’t writing the book, it’s selling it to readers who are inundated with choice. I’m guessing even Bede sometimes shouted desperately: Buy My Book!

Feast Day of James the Deacon

Today is the Feast Day of James the Deacon, one of the original Roman mission to Britain, and a huge influence on Hild.

Menewood is out now!

The second novel about Hild, Menewood, is out now in North America in hardcover, audiobook, and ebook, and in the UK in audiobook and ebook, with the hardcover available in late November. It has a gorgeous cover by Anna and Elena Balbusso—the same artists who painted the Hild cover. And, as with Hild, I forgive […]

Hild’s bynames #5: Cath Llew

In HILD, Hild acquires four bynames or epithets. In MENEWOOD she acquires more, the first of which is Cath Llew, or lynx. Here’s a post—maps! drawings!—about how and when that happened.

Hild and Menewood at the Leeds International Medieval Congress

I’ll be doing an event at the Leeds International Medieval Congress on Wednesday 5th July at 7pm, with Elaine Treharne, Megan Cavell, Jennifer Neville, Joshua Davies, and Matt Hussey. Please come!

Totems and banners: Edwin and Oswald

What totems and banners did Edwin and then Oswald carry as kings of Northumbre? Sometimes the clue is in the name. Sometimes, eh, not so much. Another chewy post about martial iconography and the Angles, Irish, and Picts of early seventh-century Britain. Or: Fun with colour and cost!

Menewood!

Nearly ten years after HILD, the sequel is almost here. MENEWOOD will be available wherever books are sold on October 3. Here’s a first look.

Spear—Arthurian Legend and Sixth-Century Wales

In April I published Spear, set in early sixth-century Wales. It’s an Arthurian retelling but not much like other Arthurian tales.

Hild’s bynames #2: Butcher-bird

The taxonomic name for the great grey shrike, Lanius excubitor, is Latin for butcher sentinel. Sentinel because of the way shrikes stand tall on top of a post, as both a warning and declaration of territory: they practically shriek vigilance and eagerness to tangle. (They remind me of new bouncers at a club: overready to get into it.) And butcher because they spike their prey—smaller birds, mice, lizards, bees, crickets—on thorns and barbed wire fencing, like feathery little Neroes playing with Christians.

Making my own Hild art

While writing both Hild and Menewood I drew dozens of maps to help work out everything from travel routes to weather events to Hild’s thinking to battle tactics. These sketch maps are full of private code and wouldn’t make sense to most readers. But every now and again I like to post one to illustrate a point. So I started […]

Making sense of Cadwallon (or, An excuse to play with maps)

In which I talk about Cadwallon, his origins, faults, and battles—as one giant excuse to play with maps

Gemæcce

The story of making the novels about Hild of Whitby

menewood