Author. New book: The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective, publ by Yale UP, out Sept 24 2024. Univ of St Andrews. C19th literature and culture.
Twitter friends, please forgive me.
I’m going to be a bore this month, because my new book The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective launches on Sept 24th. 🎺 📢
Watch this space for trailers, giveaways, & signed copies.
Bowled over by the kind reception already.
Twitter, I have a request. It’s my daughter, Rosie’s 5th birthday tomorrow. But my partner has a fever, so we have to self-quarantine for 2 weeks. Her party is cancelled and grandparents barred. Could you send her some pics of your dogs (or animals generally) to cheer her up?
I was at my local library at 9.25 am today. There were 3 of us. One was, I suspect, homeless. The doors opened at 9.30, there was free tea & an inviting, half-completed jigsaw. The warm embrace of books. Smiling staff.
Never underestimate libraries. They are a kind of home.
My father is nearing the end of his life’s journey, but can still muster a smile for Smudge, his partner’s new kitten.
I am so grateful to
@StColumbas
for the light, bright, tranquil hospice where pets are allowed, as are visitors at any time. Cancer sucks. 😢
My dad died peacefully this morning, about 3 am.
I am so grateful to the caring and conscientious nurses, doctors, and volunteers at
@StColumbas
who made his last days dignified, gentle, & comfortable. Thank you also to v many kind friends on here who offer sympathy & support.
@MegsNewshound
This is, says Rosie, the very best thing that has happened to her: ‘a REAL LIVE TALKING DOG!!!!’ She watches Pup Academy and this is real to her.
I’m lucky to have one of the world’s most beautiful commutes. I take the train from Edinburgh to Fife, crossing the Forth Rail Bridge (you may recognise it from Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps). Often I see seals, basking at Burntisland. Sometimes deer & birds of prey. Magical views…
@shahvmira
That is absurd! I pity the child who needed your love & support & would have adored both the dogs & the mum who writes.
My MIL, trying to host a Ukrainian family in the UK, was told her AGA meant kids were at risk. We pointed out that bombs pose a greater threat than stoves.
One of the loveliest nooks in Venice is Gianni Basso’s printshop in Calle del Fumo. He makes business cards & invitations, handprinted on a little press using old type. I interviewed him 10 yrs ago for a magazine, & said I’d return one day to get my own cards.
Today I did.
Working on my stained glass window this evening. It’s a long task. I find the designing & glass painting very relaxing, but the leading & soldering don’t come naturally to me.
Still, I think I am getting better at some things, inspired by
@TamsintheShed
I’m at the British Library this fine Saturday. And so, apparently, is a cat…
Very pleased that feline readers are now admitted, but what book is she consulting?
Did I mention that the English department at the University of St Andrews is situated opposite a ruined castle, beyond which lies the sea? It’s distractingly beautiful. Especially in meetings.
I love card catalogues. I know, I know…digital is so much more efficient. But I like stumbling on 19thc plays with mad titles.
There is also a poetry to the catalogue itself.
QED to Seaweed Hall
Sebastopol to Syren
Tabitha to Vultures
Occasionally, I even feel confronted:
Thank you SO much to everyone who sent pictures and good wishes for my little girl’s birthday! We’re overwhelmed by your kindness. The animals have given us hours of fun and made us feel much less alone. I’m sorry I can’t thank/‘like’ you all individually. Twitter, you amaze me!
I fulfilled a lifelong ambition today of being in the
@guardian
: alongside the
@NewYorker
, the paper I most admired & wanted to write for when I was a wide-eyed teen. In Edinburgh, not knowing any professional authors, it seemed an impossible dream...
One of my favourite things about working in St Andrews is that I can take a lunchtime stroll down to the harbour and see this...Snow on distant hills, waves breaking, ruined cathedral.
My daughter made me a Mother’s Day card that has such a sweet drawing of our two cats that I can’t resist sharing it.
Wishing you a peaceful evening & dreams of Spring on a day that I know brings a difficult tangle of emotions to many people.
I couldn’t be more thrilled to announce that I won the Dr Daisy Ronco Scholarship to spend a week at Gladstone’s Library
@gladlib
in 2024.
I’ve never had any kind of writing retreat or fellowship before & I’m very, very grateful & excited to be going to beautiful Wales. 🏴
In Venice, I enjoy window shopping. By which I mean, looking for beautiful windows and mentally installing myself behind them.
Balcony? Check.
Wisteria? Check
Astonishing view? All good.
When I get home, I inhabit a sort of advent calendar in memory, with windows for each day.
My Yr 4 daughter = forced to do times tables at school each day for months & asked to practice 2 x a day at home, ahead of a computer test of fast recall imposed on state schools since 2022.
Utter MISERY for many kids, esp the neurodiverse.
WHY?
True learning is creative. 😢
Sent my own proofs off yesterday.
Now at that stage of pre-publication nerves where you fear yr book:
a) Should still be a tree.
b) Contains errors fathomless to man.
But the cover is GREAT...
Thanks to all those at
@YaleBooks
who made it happen.
In Rye. Visited Henry James’s abode, Lamb House, which has a wonderfully peaceful garden. Later writers E.F. Benson & Rumer Godden lived here.
Benson’s dog Taffy brought him the cook’s menu suggestions each morning in bed, apparently. I think any writer would thrive here.
If you’ve never been to Lindisfarne, I strongly recommend a visit. I’m writing a travel piece about tidal islands & was mesmerised by the gauzy, hazy, dreamlike light.
Rosie (9) is unhappy that her school has started smuggling cauliflower into its macaroni & cheese.
‘The thing about cauliflower is that it’s just the *ghost of broccoli*’
I like cauliflower but will now never be able to see it any other way.
Saw the window at Fisher & Donaldson’s cake shop in St Andrews & couldn’t help thinking about my father, who was diagnosed with glioblastoma this time last year & died in September.
He loved frogs.
One day, in his memory, I hope to make a pond. 🐸
Well, I finally succumbed to the chest infection that my family has had for the last 10 days. So I think it’s time to sign off for Xmas. I wish all of you a peaceful, healthy, restorative break.
Thank you for your companionship & insights in 2023. 🌟
Here’s to a braw new year!
When the wind blows out to sea, the West Sands at St Andrews become like a river, with currents of fine sand streaming toward the ocean. I find the effect mesmerizing. Almost as if the nameless ghosts of the land were traveling back to the water, where all life begins.
Made a pilgrimage on my way home on Friday to Plas Newydd, home of Sarah Ponsonby & Eleanor Butler, the Ladies of Llangollen.
It is incredible, and if you are anywhere near it - esp if you happen to be a Romanticist, a Gothicist, or interested in LBTQ history, you must go. 🧵
On Sunday I made some gently curried parsnip & apple soup. So easy & good.
I’m not a v gifted or fancy cook, but soup is my thing. It feels like the ❤️ of Scottish eating.
Comfort & economy. Can always be stretched to feed more people.
What are your favourite Winter soups?
A pleasing Autumnal sight by the Thames is this produce-stuffed vehicle, which advertises a small, local Italian cafe & store.
My partner has christened it a
car-nucopia.
A long & stormy week of travel disruption & sad news so it’s good to find a calm spot for coffee & a rest.
I’m not a fan of funfairs. The smell of diesel, warm popcorn & vomit. The oversize toys in body bags that nobody can win. The rides that look like neon pumps, with Blakean screaming from the satanic mills as bodies are hurtled to hell. But…my daughter loves them. So here we are.
@johnmoe
David Sedaris gives me hope. I’ve always wanted to believe that one could be brutally waspish in print & also a lovely person, who brought others joy, laughter & cleaner country lanes. It’s like finding a tooth fairy with a sting. Or a philanthropic mosquito. Long may he prosper.
Robert Burns as an Empire Biscuit.
Discuss.
Or you could just gie him a wee nibble. He’d like that.
Finest produce of Fisher & Donaldson, Fife bakers since 1919.
😊🙃Eek! It's publication day today for my book, The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective!!
To celebrate,
@GuyDucker
& I, & a few friends) did a bit of guerrilla film-making. Behold, below, a book trailer in the style of a classic spy movie:
PASS IT ON!
@CA_AstroComm
Doctorate in English Literature. Specialism in 19th-century literature and culture. Over 25 yrs experience teaching undergrads. 3 books; over 60 publications. Scottish. Men can call me Sara or Doctor, but insist on Miss and they’ll be Missing in Action.
My partner observed there was no pasta on the aisles of the local Sainsburys except wholewheat pasta. ‘It seems people would rather die than eat wholewheat spaghetti’. I raised one eyebrow. My 4yr old daughter said hopefully, ‘if the schools close, can we just eat pasta Forever?’
Freezing in St Andrews today & black ice on pavements, but beautiful rosy winter light on the snow-capped hills. Saw over 20 sandpipers feeding at the sea’s edge. White aprons, like French waiters, & an endearing way of running fast, as if by clockwork, hands behind their backs.
It has come to my attention that life is very stressful for everyone at the moment.
In light of this, here’s twenty seconds of peaceful seascape from my commute. Around Burntisland, which is a much more beautiful place than the name suggests. Sending sympathy & strength.
We are leaving our tree up for another week. Our 8 year old requested it & the motion was seconded by both cats, passing in the House by a vote of 4 to 1.
Moving on is not our best skill, or our favourite pastime in this family.
And, in this instance, that’s ok.
Once in a blue moon, I am not teaching on a Friday morning, the weather is fine, & I get to go for a long walk on the West Sands at St Andrews before work.
Today is that blue moon. Join me. It’s beautiful here.
I have escaped. And it is blissful.
I was obliged to take some work with me, so I’m trying to Be Good.
But right now, on Lido, I can hear a woodpecker & see velvety purple irises & the hazy green of trees in bud. First meal outdoors this yr.
I wish you all a very happy weekend.
Here’s Rosie on her birthday. She says thank you! We managed to have fun, with your help, under difficult circumstances. Though you can’t see him, Pinkie, her invisible whippet, is in the pic. He’s something between an imaginary friend and a heavy hint! We don’t (yet) have a pet.
@Natasha_Walter
I don’t feel that men should adjudicate these cases. As military tribunals judge soldiers, so women who’ve experienced the exhaustion, confusion, terror and mindblowing pain of pregnancy and birth (despite, for most of us, it being a worthwhile and wished for process) shld judge.
I learned yesterday that my uncle - my mum’s brother - died of COVID-19. He was a deeply kind man, who worked all his life as a GP. I will remember him for his slow, thoughtful manner of speaking and listening, his lovably big ears, and his eyes-closed laugh. RIP Andrew Fairlie.
Somewhat nervous to report that yday I handed in a book draft to
@YaleBooks
It’s a chunky monkey, & has been a monkey on my shoulder for years, so I’m glad to see it swing off into the trees - but will readers like it?
Looking forward to resuming social life. Whatever that is.
Oxford, being Oxford, yesterday.
Like many people, I spent some unhappy yrs as well as happy ones there. But now, when I go back, it’s like the town is a very handsome, very charming man who everyone knows can be a bit of a bully — but you can’t deny those cheekbones.
I love radio. It was my nurse as a child. I was always ill. Measles, meningitis, flu. Lying in bed w the blind down, I listened, rapt.
So being invited onto BBC radio to talk female detectives is thrilling.
Yday Radio London & on Tuesday I’m on
@BBCWomansHour
!!!
Faints. 🥰
Kings X & Euston packed like chaotic scenes from some wartime evacuation as damage to overhead wires at Peterborough cancels services north. I commute London to St Andrews & I’m so EXHAUSTED by regular cancellations & delays. Waiting in cold for hrs, dripfed info; the STRESS.😞
@curious_founder
This is truly appalling. Those of us fighting for a livable planet can learn a great deal from yr research. Not just about the viral madmen we face, but the tactics we need to adopt to rout them. Be tenacious; be everywhere; marketing the truth well is as vital as being right.
Swam yesterday in the St Andrews tidal pool, near my office. Audience of tourists who clearly thought me mad. But swimming in the rain is a joy. Raindrops scatter the water’s surface w scintillating points of light. Moody, inky sky.
Like academia, the hardest bit is getting in.
The thing has happened that has happened to me SO many hundreds of times that I ought to be used to it.
But no.
My train stops at Leuchars, in the middle of sod-all. I run for the connecting bus to St Andrews.
The driver sees me.
I’m at the stop.
He drives off.
It’s a game.
I’m lucky this week to be in Wales on a writing fellowship at Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden.
It’s very bookish here & very blossomy & very birdy. 😊
The Merlin birdsong app identified 10 species from my window incl. chiffchaff, blackcap, greenfinch & great-spotted woodpecker!
Wishing you all a very happy, creative New Year!
Our camellia used to flower in March, but with rising temperatures it has become a Christmas bloom. I love its rococo flounces in a grey, damp season.
I hope 2024 will bring political sanity, nature restoration, & personal joy.
Managed to visit Iona while I was with the Erraid community.
A ‘thin place’ as one resident said, where the fabric that separates mundane & spiritual life is gauzy, transparent. Very peaceful.
There is one of the tiniest post offices I’ve ever seen: just a shack by the beach.
Lausanne by night.
There were kids swimming in the lake at 9pm. I wish UK waters were clean enough to make this commonplace in Summer.
Bats hawking for insects above my head. Street life mellow - courting couples, female joggers relaxed after dark.
I could get used to this.
I’m doing a grad seminar on life-writing next week. So I have a question: what are your favourite biographies & why?
Also, can you think of good examples where structure or treatment is unusual, eg. starting from the end of the life, then going back to the beginning.
Thanks!
My father is dealing with the worst health news at the moment - a fast-moving brain cancer.
So I am going to take a Twitter break.
Please take care of yourselves, each other, and the planet while I’m away.
@joshraclaw
@katiedimartin
Yes. I witnessed st similar as a grad student & have rarely gone to any conf since over several days. I hate the Wimbledon aspect, where there is a well-attended ‘Centre Court’ (where Profs talk about ending marginalization) & satellite courts w junior scholars & ‘minor’ authors
An update. Two seals in ‘happy banana’ pose on the train journey home. (They are quite far away; you’ll have to take my word for it). I also spotted a hare at a field margin near the railway line. I feel very privileged to see so much beauty on my way to & from work. 🏴 😃
@CeliaRichards0n
@guardian
Oh come on
@guardian
. You must know that the whole ‘National Trust bans [fill in the blank]’ is continuous loop Torygraph propaganda on behalf of Reform Trust, who want to take over one of our best, most environmentally conscious orgs. Don’t bandwagon jump. Read the small print.
Slightly shy about posting this. But I took on Sir Jonathan Bate in the Scotsman this week. I love some of his critical writing, but he’s wrong when he says that state school students have lost the ability to read long books.
They just need adaptable, realistic curricula.
The best days at St Andrews are the ones where there is time for a beach walk before class.
Beatific morning light today, after a grey, wet, windy week.
Fancy coming to work as a post-doctoral fellow in English at St Andrews for 2 years? This is an open call for those in any field. Applications by 12 May.
Please retweet & circulate widely to prospective applicants.
If you’re ever in St Andrews & want a Winter walk in peace, where the batik of bare tree branches against blue agate sky weaves a powerful mystery, then do as I did today & take the 95 bus to Cambo. Aconites like lemon drops & snowdrops in the green. Ginger pigs, too. Wood & sea.
My partner observes that the social distancing signs in our local park look more like instructions for a duel. Pistols at dawn; walk several yards in opposite directions; salute each other like gentlemen; FIRE!
As a sun-shy Scot, who always quips that Scots, like wine, come in two colours - white and red - I am posting this annual reminder:
Check out your Vitamin D
I take supplements (erratically) but mine last week was waaaay below recommended levels. No wonder I was tired.
Bracing myself for my father’s funeral this week. This may be an Unpopular Opinion, but I really *loathe* cremations. Why?
(a short thread, w/ a view to starting an honest conversation about how we might find a greener way of going in the UK) 🧵
In the midst of all the awfulness, I invite you to look at my copy of the Strand Magazine for 1900, which just arrived. I bought it for the stories. But I can’t help looking at ‘The Magic of Hairdressing’, which may offer inspiration for the enormities of the next Met Gala.
@TillyLovesBooks
Seconding all the suggestions above, but adding that you might consider becoming a member of the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Also free, just need address/ID. It’s a stunner. Galleries & cafes of the V and A are a terrific bonus on yr breaks.
Went to a debate at the Scottish Parliament yesterday.
I love the simplicity of being able to do this; the openness of the public gallery; & the relative civility of the chamber, with little of the schoolboy jeering and braying of Westminster PMQs.
The view ain’t bad, either.
Doing your tax return is like giving birth. It’s painful & exhausting & takes far longer than is consistent with human endurance.
Then you forget.
And by the next time it’s due, you have absolutely no idea how you did it before. 🤔
Rosie (6) has drawn a Christmas elf.
A little boy in her class gave it an F-
He actually wrote that on her drawing, the wee shite.
I guess this is the modern equivalent of pulling girls’ pigtails.
Anyway, I have put the drawing on our mantelpiece.
Elf esteem is important.
Welp. I got v little sleep last night. As per usual. But what a gorgeous morning in St Andrews!
I love the gentle Autumn sunlight in Scotland that makes the old stone sing.
Rosie (who will be soon be 5) told me with a worldly air: ‘the thing about boys is that they are just interested in talking about two things’.
Me: ‘Really? What things?’
Rosie (with a sigh) ‘Cars. And poo.’
It’s my birthday, so I’m
@DovecotStudios
to see an exhibit on Scottish women artists. Below, Dorothy Johnstone celebrates her friend/amour Cecile Walton in the hay, while Agnes Miller Parker depicts a cat knocking over icons of femininity.
Here’s to women doing their own thing.
I’m inexpressibly relieved to say that my partner and daughter have both recovered from what we assume - but in the absence of tests don’t know - was COVID-19. Here are some of the 1st bluebells of Spring and wild forget-me-nots, seen on one of my 1st trips outdoors. What a joy!
I am flat as roadkill as we stagger to the end of semester two teaching on Friday.
But grateful for the kind students who gave me cards & lovely reviews.
I was never a cool kid. So being ‘the coolest tutor I have had’ is heartening.
It is possible to chill with age.
At the British Museum yesterday for a couple of hrs. Enjoyed the William de Morgan tiles.
But check out the 1570 alarm clock that not only rang a bell but used gunpowder to cause a small explosion & lit a taper so light forced you awake. Mind those bed curtains!
🥱
BANG!
😮
Sunshine. Took a morning walk along the Fife coast, enjoying clear views to the Isle of May. Little but the calls of oystercatchers to disturb the silence. Saw a bench dedicated to Clive Windras that said ‘Friendship is contagious. Sit a while and become a carrier.’ Wry smile.
I took a little walk at Tentsmuir near St Andrews yesterday after teaching. Blew the cobwebs away. Didn’t see seals or otters this time around, but the deep quiet, the stillness of water reflecting sky, the dune-grass combed by wind, slow the heart & steady the mind.
I arrived in St Andrews off the night train yesterday. Painful to alight at Leuchars at 5.44. But beautiful to see the dawn over the sea, its oyster-shell gleam. Today I went for a gentle sunrise swim in Cellardyke. Will be delivering lectures, smelling v faintly of seaweed… 🧜♀️
St Andrews is advertising for the Berry Chair in English. It’s an open call for distinguished scholars. Any period or topic specialism.
Please circulate widely to anyone you feel might fit the bill. Especially the lovely, brilliant, & shy. Nudge them.
@oldenoughtosay
I broke my elbow right off when I was in school. Mean PE teacher made me get up, dress and go to class. I checked myself in to the Hospital ER over the road. They said ‘wow! You really tolerate pain!’ I said ‘my period is 100 x more painful than this & nobody gave me an aspirin.’
@ellieanderphd
1) The marketing team is you. Send out review copies. Create events. Have a plan 6-12 mo ahead of publ.
2) 500 wds a day at yr best writing time. Adds up.
3) Swap WIP w/ readers you trust to buoy & help you.
4) You can’t read endlessly to know yr field. Write yr book already…
Happy Leap Year! Here’s Edward Lear leaping.
As all academics know, this is the one day in the year where, instead of dons proposing to grant-awarding funding bodies, such bodies are allowed to propose to us.
BA: ‘Darling, here’s £500k. Be mine!’
A Don: (Blushing) ‘Why, yes!’
@issyjorden
As so who also lost a beloved daughter to stillbirth, I just wanted to send a hug of sympathy & solidarity. It is the hardest thing. You are very brave. We are many. Eventually, I had a daughter who lived. I hope for light after darkness for you too, whatever form that takes.
There are many sub-varieties of exhaustion.
Physical tiredness, after exercise
Mental tiredness, after hard thought
Moral tiredness, when things are badly wrong but we feel powerless to improve them
The current state of the UK exerts a considerable toll in moral exhaustion.
Venice is a slippery place.
The colours are ravishing. The sudden views as one emerges from narrow, steep-sided alleys, charm with surprise.
But yesterday, my partner had his phone stolen as he was holding an umbrella over our daughter while navigating. 😞
Stay safe, friends.
It's
#HistoryWritersDay24
today & with the discount code HWD24, you get a whopping 30% off my book (& a number of others) at Yale UP, plus free postage & packing. Until midnight tonight!
1 person who likes & retweets this will also win a free signed copy.
Back from Rye. On Thursday we visited Derek Jarman’s cottage at Dungeness. It’s fun to ride from New Romney to Dungeness on a miniature steam train, then explore the lighthouse & ‘desert’ scenery: sea kale, viper’s bugloss, pebbles. A palette of grey, yellow, purple & acid green.
In Dublin for work and pleasure. I introduced Rosie to the wonders of Trinity College Library. The marble rows of famous men intimidated her. But she loved the Book of Kells. I imagined upending the roof & sailing off into the afterlife in a Galley fit for a Queen.