Blog

  • Nerd alert – Roman military households is published!

    This feels like a brag but my book is now in print, and there is little point in writing it a book if nobody is going to read it so I thought I’d post about it. This is an academic book – it does have some stories in it, biographies really, that can be picked… Read more

  • To green knights and men

    Shortened days and storm-blown power cuts call for stories, and the loss of my uncle, my mum’s step-brother, echoing the loss last year of Steve’s dad has put me out of tune for the familiar schmaltz of Christmas Victoriana.  But stories demand nothing but that I read with them; no need to rouse from sugar-slugged… Read more

  • Original words.

    My head is full of thoughts that are not my own. Since I could first understand words and language people have shared thoughts with me – in conversation, on the telly and radio, and most of all through writing. These thoughts are carried by words, as learning to become a researcher emphasises – plagiarism, not… Read more

  • The auriga in my head at conferences.

    Recuperating today after going to a great conference yesterday in Chester, which is objectively one of the UK’s prettiest cities. I grew up not far away in Stafford and my heart always relaxes a little at the sight of black and white timbered buildings; somehow it still feels like home. But conferences. In theory I… Read more

  • Book proofs – and women as authors of their own words at the British Library

    They’ve arrived! The proofs of ‘Military Households of Roman Auxiliary Officers’ have arrived from the publisher and I’ve got a week to go through them and send any corrections I need to make before the printing presses will roll (if that what they still do?). Maybe a bit of to-ing and fro-ing but very soon… Read more

  • Losing yourself in a museum of stories

    Last Wednesday I was feeling stressed out by onrushing book deadlines and went to the Story Museum at Oxford. I felt quite silly and self-conscious as a grown-up going by myself into a museum that is clearly ‘for kids.’ Never mind, I told myself as I marshalled my excuses. No. 1. I have a very… Read more