Cherry Potts, Writer, Editor, creative writing tutor; Lesbian, cat-mother, would-be singer. Any of these can crop up here.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 19th

Alice French aka Octave Thanet March 19, 1850 – January 9, 1934 Alice French was an american writer of stories, journalistic essays and novels, using the pseudonym Octave Thanet – she chose Octave for being non gender specific. In 1883, Alice and her widowed friend Jane Allen Crawford set up home at Clover Bend Plantation…

March 23, 2014
The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 18th

Not strictly a birthday, as all I have for today’s admirable woman is a baptism date, but never mind, it will do. Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, Comtesse de la Fayette (Baptised) 18 March 1634 – 25 May 1693 I love those french aristocratic names, they go on for ages. Anyway, so Marie was a…

March 23, 2014
The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 17th

No Birthday today, so lets look back to yesterday and celebrate I. A. R. Wylie. 16 March 1885 – 4 November 1959. Ida Wylie (known to her friends as Uncle) was a novelist, screenwriter, magazine writer and poet. More than 30 of her works were made into films between 1915 and 1953. Ida had a…

March 17, 2014
The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 16th

And today, let’s put on our glad rags and celebrate Rosa Bonheur March 16th 1822 – May 25, 1899 Oh my dear sir, if you knew how little I care for your sex you wouldn’t get any ideas in your head. the fact is, in the way of males, I like only the bulls I…

March 17, 2014
The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 15th

No official candidate for today so lets skip ahead a day and celebrate with Caroline Herschel 16 March 1750 – 9 January 1848. Caroline was born in Germany and moved to England at the age of 22 to keep house for her older brother William, having been brought up by her mother to effectively be…

March 17, 2014
The Historical Birthday-Party March 14th

Sylvia Beach was born on March 14, 1887 in America. She studied French Literature at the Sorbonne in 1917, discovered a bookshop La Maison des Amis des Livres and fell in love with its proprietor Adrienne Monnier and lived with her for the rest of her life, apart from when she was interned during WWII.…

March 16, 2014
Live from TLW LEXiCON

A lovely sunny day in Faversham and Alix & I are womaning the stall for Arachne Press at LEXiCON in the Alexander Centre. I’m on stage later reading and taking part in a panel on cross genre writing. The timetable is a bit all over the place, but there’s something going on in the main…

March 16, 2014
The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 13th

Today we raise a glass to Janet Flanner, March 13 1892 – November 7 1978. Janet was a journalist, writing for the New Yorker, and as a war correspondent. She lived in Greenwich Village and there met and fell in love with Solita Solano (Sarah Wilkinson). Janet and Solita featured as Nip and Tuck, a pair…

March 14, 2014
The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 12th

If not a fellow traveller, today’s birthday belongs to someone who was definitely and definitively a traveller . Hester Stanhope 12 March 1776 – 23 June 1839. Hester was delightfully eccentric. She moved from being hostess for her uncle, Prime Minister William Pitt the younger, via a dramatic shipwreck at Rhodes, to become an archaeologist,…

March 14, 2014
The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 11th

No particular birthday today, so going back to that 8th March that was choc-a-bloc, lets share cake with Una Troubridge 8 March 1887 – 24 September 1963. At the tender age of ten Una lost her heart to a splendaciously ample and properly upholstered principal boy… whose sex was never for a moment ambiguous ……

March 11, 2014