writer | editor | artist
Rembrandt’s astonishing painting of the anatomy lesson is temporarily housed at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague. I couldn’t wait to see this painting. In fact, I’m afraid I rushed through rooms full of many of the other paintings that are temporarily housed there while the Mauritshuis is being renovated just to find it. (I…
Dutch writer and illustrator Marie (Rie) Cramer was born in what was then the Dutch East Indies (Java) in 1887. Her father was often at sea, and two of her older sisters were sent to school in the Netherlands in the 1890s. By 1896, however, Rie, her sister Erna, and their mother had all settled…
A Monster Calls is a young adult novel, featuring stunning occasional illustrations by Jim Kay. The story was first conceived by Siobhan Dowd, a well-known children’s writer, but when she passed away before she could complete the work her publisher, Walker Books, commissioned Ness to complete the work. In subsequent interviews, Ness has described the…
The Stella Prize came into place partly as a result of the debates that erupted in the Australian literary landscape after a series of literary award shortlists had few, or no, women on them. The ensuing debates about the visibility and worth of women’s contribution to literature, gender bias in publishing, reading and reviewing, and…
I’m going to write a whole slew of really LONG posts soon. In fact, I have drafts of about six on my hard drive, but while I have intermittent internet access it’s a bit challenging. I promise. Really. Coming soon, blog posts on: Frans Hals Museum, The Anatomy Lesson of Nicolaes Tulp, polders, gables and…
The second half of the seventeenth century is known, in the Netherlands, as the golden age of the Dutch republic or – more simply – the golden era. But just prior to this period of increased wealth and prosperity, a group of artists and intellectually met regularly at the castle of Muiden, which is just…
While I was visiting the Brontë Parsonage Museum, I picked up a flyer for a wonderful competition you might like to enter. The competition includes two categories: a poem on the theme of NOISE (up to 40 lines) an essay on the work and lives of the Romantics and their circle (up to 3000 words) Closing…
A long, slow, cold day in the north of England. In the morning, as I walked from my hotel to the train station, the sky was a deep, bruised colour, and as the train pulled out of York snow began to fall. By the time I reached Haworth the fields and roads and houses and…