francesowen.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

What are you doing for lunch? Fancy joining us for a five-minute history read? The Historia newsletter will be out at lunchtime with a round-up of our top stories and news about awards. See you later!

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

#WriteCBC task from @rachloudriscoll.bsky.social: Write a mini-scene where the setting is central. Is it friendly, hazardous, or a victim? Try to convey not just the place, but the importance of its role. That might mean bringing in conflict or raising a question that involves the setting.

submitted 3 days ago • 71 comments

Surviving Winter in the Middle Ages https://www.medievalists.net/2025/01/surviving-winter-middle-ages/ #winter #medievalsky #historysky

submitted 64 days ago • 2 comments

In case you missed it Cfp for the Defoe conference - as usual also accepting papers on topics related to Defoe and his times. #18thC www.defoesociety.org/conference/

submitted 64 days ago • 1 comment

My forthcoming novel features in @historia-hwa.bsky.social's list of novels for 2025 for January! Scroll down the link; #TheBalladofMaryKearney is the second cover you'll see www.historiamag.com/historical-b... #historicalfiction #writingcommunity #author Thank you, @francesowen.bsky.social

submitted 66 days ago • 0 comments

Happy New Year, lovely people!

submitted 67 days ago • 1 comment

The final JST #JacobiteStudies Virtual Workshop of the term is coming up on Tues, 26 Nov at 5pm UKT. We’ll be welcoming Stefano Baccolo and @f18cal.bsky.social to the digital dais to discuss their recent work on the courts of the Stuart heirs in exile after 1766. jdb1745.net/events/jstwo...

submitted 104 days ago • 2 comments

Big shout out for @lizfremantle.bsky.social 2024 Gold Crown Award winner from the Historical Writers Association @francesowen.bsky.social #historicalfiction Read my #Bookreview of #Disobedient for the Historical Novel Society here: historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/diso...

submitted 105 days ago • 2 comments

Congratulations to @bridgetwalsh.bsky.social, debut Crown Winner 2024 Historical Writers Association! @francesowen.bsky.social #historicalfiction #Victorian #noir Read my #BookReview for the Historical Novel Society here: historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/the-...

submitted 105 days ago • 1 comment

🚨#SarsfieldHomecoming Project🚨 First trailer of a TV documentary dedicated to the project and produced by Scratch Films for RTÉ! Filming began in September 2023 and will end… when the project ends! Very grateful to Liam McGrath for his interest in our work. youtu.be/fEodMunCfrM

submitted 107 days ago • 1 comment

What a shame. Our children had a wonderful day out at Archaolink when they were little. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

submitted 106 days ago • 0 comments

A haunting piece about reconstructed prehistoric homes that have been abandoned and are themselves now becoming archaeology: 'Fragments of material culture ... are slowly becoming archaeology within the interior: this time we can witness the end of a prehistory.'

submitted 106 days ago • 5 comments

It's happening: my ERC Consolidator project 🪶#FEATHERS🪶is organising a 3-day international conference on early modern scribal culture & manuscript production at @unileiden.bsky.social on 7-9 May 2025. See Call for Papers (deadline for abstracts 20 Dec): student.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/20...

submitted 106 days ago • 4 comments

Many new writers ask about #synopses. Synopses are, by their nature, anti-novels and reduce the richest of plots. For the artificial purposes of submitting to an #agent, they’re crucial. Keep them brief, punchy, informative and don’t give the ending away or drain the lifeblood from the story 1/2

submitted 106 days ago • 5 comments

Acc to @financialtimes.com it appears that the Tortoise deal re The Observer might be subsidised by................. ................ the Scott Trust www.ft.com/content/6045... (£)

submitted 106 days ago • 6 comments

Official photo from the @historia-hwa.bsky.social Crown Awards ceremony. I was there in my capacity as judge of the Nonfiction award. Here's the winner of that award, Henry Hemming, and the back of my head 😂

submitted 106 days ago • 1 comment

19 November 1745: From Hexham, Field-Marshal Wade informed the Duke of Newcastle that advance parties of the Jacobites were moving to Penrith and that he would be forced to return to Newcastle due to severe weather, lack of supplies, insufficient forces, difficult terrain and sick soldiers.

submitted 110 days ago • 0 comments

18 November 1745: Lieutenant-Colonel James Durand sent his report of the fall of Carlisle to Lieutenant-General John Folliot. In the report, he blamed the Cumberland, Westmoreland and Carlisle militia for "having absolutely, to a man" refused to defend the place. RA CP/MAIN/7 f.44-44c.

submitted 111 days ago • 1 comment

After accounts of a new bayonet drill being introduced to the British Army by the Duke of Cumberland prior to the battle of Culloden, the Scots Magazine of November 1746 stated that after investigating "there is no foundation... of an alteration having been made in the manner of using the bayonet".

submitted 109 days ago • 1 comment

I've taken the liberty of creating the beginnings of a #JacobiteStudies Starter Pack for Bluesky. If you'd like to join please feel free to let me know by responding here or shooting me a DM. go.bsky.app/xt9yhH

submitted 117 days ago • 6 comments

A call to all un-agented authors who have written a sweeping historical love story. My submissions are open, and I am waiting to read your book. www.dhhliteraryagency.com/david-h-head...

submitted 116 days ago • 23 comments

And authors earn for each borrow under #PublicLendingRights

submitted 106 days ago • 0 comments

Et pour clore ce petit parcours dans les galanteries XVIIIe siècle, ceci ! En vrai cela parle de tout et de rien, en vers ou en prose, on ne sçait pas bien… Mais la page de titre est fabuleuse !

submitted 106 days ago • 13 comments

From the FT the other day. I had no idea.

submitted 170 days ago • 26 comments

The Discoveries writing development programme and prize for unpublished women writers in the UK accepts novels in any genre of adult fiction, with entrants invited to submit the first 10,000 words of their novel and a synopsis

submitted 106 days ago • 2 comments

Here’s one for all you proofreaders.

submitted 107 days ago • 257 comments

This is amazing. A Lithuanian researcher, Ernesta Kazakėnaitė, has identified the earliest surviving manuscript in a Sámi language: ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/je...

submitted 106 days ago • 12 comments

Thought I'd do a thread on writing tips that I might add to from time to time... 1) I've cited this one before on the other place... A description of a person or a place should tell you as much about the person doing the describing as the person or place being described. Examples below.

submitted 107 days ago • 18 comments

The HWA members' newsletter is out! Later than usual because of all the fantastic party photos, including this one of Emma Darwin, Gold Crown winner Elizabeth Fremantle, Ned Palmer and Matthew Plampin. There's also HWA, book and history news

submitted 107 days ago • 0 comments

Someone on social media asks "What counts as historical fiction?" and I'm reminded of my Dear Dr Darwin column over at Historia, the online mag of the @historia-hwa.bsky.social https://buff.ly/3V5eGAj which digs into just this question!

submitted 107 days ago • 0 comments

This is Vera.

submitted 107 days ago • 1 comment

The latest #househistory feature in today’s Bricks & Mortar in The Times!! I provided snippets of history for a fascinating C17th house in Shropshire! 😀 #househistories #property #history

submitted 107 days ago • 0 comments

So, I bought a work of art at auction and paid a lot of money for it – I mean a lot – and I'm worried I've been scammed. It's arrived and it just doesn't look right. It's called Yes! I Have no Bananas – see the pic below. what do you think I should do?

submitted 107 days ago • 13 comments

I have a very NSFW poem in the Ten Poets Charm the Pants... Not sure if that makes you more or less likely to buy it. Oh! And a completely work safe one in the Everyman Poems of London just visible above with umbrellas on the spine. I have now peaked. Thanks @sidekickbooks.bsky.social

submitted 107 days ago • 1 comment

I wonder when the campaign will be launched to have 'The Perkin Warbeck' in Taunton renamed to 'The Richard, Duke of York'? 🤷🏾‍♂️. Tudor propaganda even seeps though the brewing industry, it seems

submitted 107 days ago • 3 comments