Elizabeth Chadwick can remember telling herself stories from the age of three, although writing them down did not happen until she was fifteen when she fell for a knight in the BBC children’s television programme Desert Crusader. The work arising from that initial inspiration led her to realise, still in her teens that she wanted to write historical fiction for a living. It also began a lifelong fascination with the 12th and 13th centuries which she has been studying ever since. As part of her research, she re-enacts with early medieval history society Regia Anglorum. In 1990, Elizabeth’s first published novel The Wild Hunt won A Betty Trask Award. Her novel The Greatest Knight was a New York Times bestseller, and its sequel The Scarlet Lion was nominated as one of the top 10 historical novels of the decade by Historical Novel Society founder Richard Lee. To Defy A King won the RNA’s Best Historical Fiction of the Year award 2011. She is currently writing a trilogy about Eleanor of Aquitaine, stripping back the years of old varnish and embellishment before adding fresh colours and nuances to that particular area of historical story telling. |
Your mind, your high: is recreational drug use morally wrong?
"The Battle of Ideas is free of that stifling British squeamishness about the serious discussion of ideas. It offers a rare chance to join the dots in contemporary politics and culture."
Eliane Glaser, writer & broadcaster; author, Get Real