Cherry Potts, Writer

Category: history

  • The Bog Mermaid wins Quill Prose Prize

    Excited to announce that The Bog Mermaid has won the Quill Prose Award 2022, run by Red Hen Press There won’t be a publication, we couldn’t agree terms on the contract, but still, a prize is a prize. Read about the book itself here Read about searching for the right place to set the book…

  • Writing the Past: The Bog Mermaid

    Video from the Arachne Press Writing the Past event for Hither Green Festival 2019 at Manor House Library. An extract from the 1926 thread of this novel.  

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 31st

    The final birthday post for March, and again no specific birthday so here is a late one: Margaret Webster March 15, 1905 – November 13, 1972 American born actor who became well known on stage in the UK before returning to the US as a highly successful Broadway stage director, noted for record breaking long…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 30th

    Birthdays seem to be scarce in this neck of the calendar, so here’s a bit of not quite history for you. Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Where thou diest there will I die,…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 29th

    No particular birthday today so let’s celebrate Louisa Lumsden CBE (1840-1935), the first prominent female figure at the University of St Andrews. Louisa was one of the original students of Girton College Cambridge.  She taught classics there and later at Cheltenham. In 1877 she became Head of St Leonard’s school in St Andrews. In 1895…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 28th

    Today let us raise a glass to Jane Rule 28 March 1931 – 27 November 2007 Jane Rule was the author of many lesbian novels, and an early exponent of the happy ending, most famous for her 1964 novel Desert of the Heart (filmed as Desert Hearts), what a relief it was to find her…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 27th

    Today’s birthday cake is baked for Maria Schneider  27 March 1952 – 3 February 2011 Maria was an actor, best known for Last Tango in Paris. She was bisexual, and once  committed herself to a psychiatric institution to be with her lover,  photographer Joan Townsend, “They locked her up, and so I had to do…

  • The Actual Historic Wedding-Tea Party March 29th 2014

    A slight side-step here. It is now legal for same-sex couples to get married… but no one I know got married today, because, like us, all our friends are in civil partnerships (or they are not planning to get hitched in any shape or form). So I was feeling a bit grumpy about the government’s…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 25th

    A glass of port for today’s birthday girl: Elizabeth Vassell Fox, Lady Holland 25th March 1771-1845 Elizabeth had an affair with Henry Fox and gave birth to his child while she was married to her first husband Godfrey Webster. She married Fox immediately following her divorce from Webster and became hostess to many Whig party…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 25th

    Today’s birthday girl is Olive Schreiner, 24th March 1855 – 1920 South African author and prolific letter writer. Olive was a feminist, socialist, pacifist, vegetarian, rational dress advocate, anti-vivisectionist would-be doctor and thinker, you name it she had a position on it. She corresponded with everyone, from Edward Carpenter and Havelock Ellis to Emily Hobhouse…