Books/Personal/Writing

Historian? Author? Writer?

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One day, Rebecca Rideal wrote a history book, intended for the general, non-academic reader. You know the type – the sort of person who is interested in history, wants to know about the world they live in and what shaped it, but doesn’t want, isn’t interested in, perhaps hasn’t had the sort of education where they can handle, a dry academic monograph. We should be glad – after all, back in January, we were told that ‘Popular history writing remains a male preserve.’ Good ol’ Rebecca, doing her bit to redress the gender imbalance!

Rideal was interviewed in The Guardian, and The Guardian pulled out some exciting-sounding quotes, because, well, it’s a newspaper, and that’s what they do. Especially now that online newspapers are obsessed with lacing their bylines with as much clickbait as possible. ‘The time of the grand histories is coming to an end,’ Rideal declared. It’s a headline that makes people sit up and take notice, and sit up and take notice, they most certainly did! The Guardian is no doubt raking in much advertising from Rideal’s interview, but unfortunately for Rideal…. well…. Some people on Twitter got upset.[1]It’ll be a cold day in Hell when I’m able to say 5 minutes have gone past without some people on Twitter not being upset about something, but there we are.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 It’ll be a cold day in Hell when I’m able to say 5 minutes have gone past without some people on Twitter not being upset about something, but there we are.
Books/Writing

Wherein the author poses in a bookshop

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Helen went to Waterstones
Helen went to Waterstones

Today, I went to Waterstones in Birmingham and saw Poison Panic on the shelf. It was my book! In a book shop! Not only does my book exist, but… it was on a bookshelf! In a shop! So I paused by it, and posed in an awkward fashion, with Tom Hardy’s naked torso just out of shot above my head, Ian Brady leering into the side of the picture, and PD James (gawd bless ‘er) just lurking beneath.

My book. Hurrah! There were more copies on the other shelf. Thanks to the combined forces of coincidence, my surname, and the alphabet, Poison Panic sits next to a book on the Hell’s Angels, written by the bloke who gave Lee Marvin the stripey T-shirt he wore in The Wild One. So I’ve been told.

Appropriately, perhaps, another poisoner can be found beside my Essex ladies – Carol Baxter’s The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable, on Tawell, the “Kwaker”, accused of murdering his mistress with prussic acid. He was caught when the police chased him down using the telegraph, after Tawell had escaped by train. There wasn’t a letter Q on it, hence they spelt Quaker “Kwaker”. You’ll meet him in Fatal Evidence – although Professor Taylor wasn’t an expert witness at the trial, one of his books was. Had there been Waterstone’s in the 1800s, I’m sure Taylor would have stood by his tomes on the shelves too, and asked someone to do a quick sketch as cameras weren’t too quick back then.

Hel's poisons
Hel’s poisons

And so that’s what I did on Saturday.

Books/Writing

Live Poison Panic Twitter Q and A

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If Victorians did Twitter.
If Victorians did Twitter.

My book Poison Panic is published on Thursday 30th June. Join me between 12pm and 2pm for a live Twitter questions and answers session. Use the hashtag #poisonpanic

If anyone asks something that requires a long answer that Twitter won’t cope with, I’ll reply on here and link to it. I reserve the right not to answer all questions asked.

I look forward to speaking to you!

Bird image from The Graphics Fairy.

Out and about/Writing

Shadow drawings

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One of the reasons why Alfred Swaine Taylor is an interesting person to write about is that, when he wasn’t rummaging through jars of human innards looking for poison, he had an artistic side and experimented with photography. When Fox Talbot revealed his sciagraphs (‘drawings of shadows’) – which were generally referred to as ‘photogenic drawings’ – at the end of January 1839, Taylor was fascinated and began his own experiments at once. When he couldn’t get Fox Talbot’s recommended silver compound to yield results, he came up with his own characteristic way round it – he used ammonio-nitrate of silver, ‘a compound which has been used for many years as a test for arsenic.'[1]Alfred Swaine Taylor, On the Art of Photogenic Drawing, London: Jeffrey, 1840, p.6. He didn’t patent his process – he seems to have had a low opinion of those who did – and not long afterwards, he enthusiastically embraced what we now recognise as photography, using a camera (or ‘camera obscura’ as they were then known).

Examples of Taylor’s photography survive in two albums which are in private hands,[2]See articles in the History of Photography journal, by Stephen White (vol 11, July-September 1987, pp.229-35) and Laurence Alt (vol 16, winter 1992, pp.397-8). and I have been unable to contact the owners, so I won’t be able to use them in my book. Fox Talbot’s are held at the Science Musuem, but I wondered, given how clear Taylor’s instructions were, whether I could make my own photogenic drawings. The problem was, where would I lay my hands on the ingredients to make my own solution of ammonio-nitrate of silver? And hopefully, without ending up on some sort of alert list?

As luck would have it, an opportunity arose to make a cyanotype. I didn’t realise you could buy kits to make these, but I was able to make one at a workshop. Somewhat ironically, given that Taylor’s photogenic drawings used a compound which was used for identifying the presence of a poison, the cyanotype process actually uses a poison – cyanide. I was very excited to come up close and personal to Lady Cyd. It uses two compounds – ammonium iron(III) citrate and potassium ferricyanide, and was discovered by Sir John Herschel in 1842. So if it seems similar to the photogenic drawing, then it is – same process, different chemical. I think this is as close as I’ll get to the technique Taylor used.

I was in Liverpool this weekend, visiting my old university chum Jen, and the annual River Festival was on. A celebration of culture and watery activities was going on across Liverpool’s iconic waterfront, and the Open Eye Gallery was hosting a “sun photograph” workshop. It was run by Rachel Brewster of Little Vintage Photography, who just so happens to be related to Sir David Brewster. He was a Scottish scientist who took a great interest in Fox Talbot’s work, corresponding with him over the development of calotypes (making photographs on paper, an alternative method to the Daguerrotype); he also invented the kaleidoscope.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Alfred Swaine Taylor, On the Art of Photogenic Drawing, London: Jeffrey, 1840, p.6.
↑2 See articles in the History of Photography journal, by Stephen White (vol 11, July-September 1987, pp.229-35) and Laurence Alt (vol 16, winter 1992, pp.397-8).
Books/Writing

How to index a book – or not

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Arsenic, arson, Bulwer-Lytton....
Arsenic, arson, Bulwer-Lytton….

Apart from the obvious difference between fiction and non-fiction – one’s pretend and the other isn’t (more or less) – a non-fiction text should have an index. Indices are awesome, a handy way to zip around a book without having to wade through the entire tome, but have you ever stopped to wonder what compiling an index involves?

This is something I have been wondering since I started work on Poison Panic, for the simple reason that my book would need an index. Gulp.

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Books/Writing

Birmingham RNA Writers Day

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A scribble of writers?

Writing can be a lonely endeavour, so it’s great that there’s ways for us to meet up. There’s local groups, or there’s associations and organisations you can join, depending on what genre you write in. As I write historical crime and fiction with a romantic twist, I’ve joined the Historical Writers’ Association, I plan to join the Crime Writers’ Association, and I hope one day to join the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA).[1]To join the HWA and the CWA, you need to have been commissioned to write a book by a publisher. The RNA is similar, but it also has an annual New Writers’ Scheme, whereby you can join after … Continue reading

I have to say that the RNA are one of the most active (and pro-active), friendly and welcoming groups you could ever wish for. You don’t even have to be a member to attend some of their events. I have been to several lunch meet-ups with the ladies (and a bloke!) and on Saturday, I was one of the presenters at the Birmingham Chapter’s Writers Day. Held in the rather grand environs of the Radisson Blu on Holloway Head, this was a full day with five speakers and opportunities to mingle – and sell books! I think everyone learnt something, be it about planning, revisions, marketing and social media, and how to publish short stories.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 To join the HWA and the CWA, you need to have been commissioned to write a book by a publisher. The RNA is similar, but it also has an annual New Writers’ Scheme, whereby you can join after submitting a manuscript to them. The RNA has also opened its membership to self-published authors who have sold a particular number of novels.
Personal

Cousin Fred’s garden mausoleum

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joanna-the-mad
Joanna the Mad stands beside her husband’s coffin. By Francisco Pradillo, held at the Prado, Madrid

What I am about to write might surprise you. Or perhaps not, given that it’s written by someone who’s posed with a skull (don’t worry, it wasn’t real). It certainly surprised me when I first heard about it. A conversation with my mum, as we drove to Sainsbury’s one day, went like this:

“I’ve got in touch with descendants of grandad’s cousin in New Zealand.”
“Ohh… what was he called…? Fred, was it?”
“Yes, that’s right. Fred, and he – .”
“Grandad said he kept his wife’s body in a glass coffin in the lounge.”
“He -? Sorry… did you just say – ?”
“He was a bit peculiar.”
I stared blankly through the windscreen. My grandad’s cousin kept his dead wife in his lounge? How on earth does one broach this with one’s newly discovered relatives? “Oh, I hear your grandad…. erm….”

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Writing

Interview: Verity Holloway and “Beauty Secrets of the Martyrs”

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I was on holiday in Kefalonia as a child when I saw my first dead body: the rather wrinkly 16th century St. Gerasimus. He wasn’t on view for tourists, only for the eyes of the Greeks, but my grandad had spent so long faffing about with his Kodak that we were the last two tourists left in the church when his coffin was opened. He almost looked as if he was asleep, but it was hard to see if he was breathing under his thick velvet brocade gown. A monk chanted as a queue of penitents shuffled towards him, each kissing a velvet cushion placed over the papery saint’s feet. A little boy – about the same age as me –  was lifted up so he could kiss the cushion. Having been raised Congregational, going each Sunday to a chapel which didn’t even have the mere suggestion of coloured glass in its windows – no statues, no gilding, and certainly no incorrupt saints – the spectacle fascinated me. Perhaps because my father was an undertaker (our family Volvo estate doubled as transport for “customers”), it had extra resonance, as if seeing St. Gerasimus helped me to understand what my dad did, dressed all in black with his very large umbrella.

Since that day, the concept of incorruptibles has fascinated me, so when I found out that Verity Holloway had written a novella about them, I knew I had to read it. Set in a not-too-distance future, as the world’s rising waters consume the land, St. Silvan is looked to as a symbol of hope by the residents of the drowning world. The pretty-boy saint travels by night, visiting other incorruptibles, including secular figures such as Lenin and an Anatomical Venus. A saintly Avon Lady, he recommends lipstick and powders to touch up the ancient figures. But as St. Silvan starts to remember who he was in life, the cracks start to show.

I spoke to Verity about her novella, her writing process and about her book The Mighty Healer, which is out later this year.

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