Two weeks ago, I made my way with trepidation towards Paignton in Devon, UK. After awkwardly getting a taxi to drive me out to the Premier Inn, checking in to my room, and waiting interminably for another taxi to take me to Dartington Hall just outside of Totnes, I made it to the first night of the Historical Novel Society’s 2024 UK Conference. I was so overawed and busy that I completely forgot to take any pictures of the venue, so I’ve resorted to using a Wiki Commons photo:

The main hall and west wing. It wasn't snowy when we were there, but just as grey. 

The buildings were quaint but beautifully historical and made for a perfectly apt setting for the Historical Novel Society conference. (Plus, there were loads of quiet nooks and crannies and beautiful scenery to get lost in and write.) The cobbled courtyard ringing the central lawn did seem to transport you to another time and place.

             The only photo I took of the grounds - a random tent set up near                the entrance to the gardens. Taken from the outdoor seating of                  the White Hart. 

The impossibly hard trivia quiz proved the perfect ice-breaker, as I found myself meeting several lovely authors from all over the globe (see the links below to check some of them out)!

                               Name badge picked up at registration

A subset of us from the Paignton group had such a nice evening that we missed the conference bus to the Premier Inn and pooled for a taxi home later on!

Saturday morning kicked the conference off in earnest, with a thoughtful and humourous keynote speech from the prolific and legendary Bernard Cornwell. His experiences and advice regarding screen adaptations of one’s works had us in stitches!

             Bernard Cornwell at the lectern in the Great Hall. 

The panel on making the medieval period come to life in historical fiction, featuring Elizabeth Chadwick, David Gilman, and Matthew Harffy (chaired by Derek Birks and Sharon Bennett Connolly) included several insightful pieces of advice about how to make a historical world come to life (particularly when you don’t have as many records to work off of…). I made several notes throughout the session that ranged on everything from worldbuilding to character development to historical re-enactors.

I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t grab a photo of Ian Mortimer’s turn at the lectern, as I was far too busy furiously taking notes as he spoke! This was one of the most interesting and thought-provoking conference sessions, in which Mortimer described the limitations of the traditional academic view of history and provided a more relative basis for historical writing and interpretation in post-modern philosophy (‘Free History’), one in which the line between fact and fiction is (necessarily) less distinct. This sort of abstraction and philosophy of the field was right up my alley, and I encourage you to take a moment to read Mortimer’s lecture, which he graciously posted to his website for us to re-read and continue to mull over.

After that exhilarating session, I was thrilled to listen to Katherine Mezzacappa pick the inimitable Kate Quinn’s brain about her writing process. Her method of getting into the heads of her characters, in which she figures out what expletive each character would say if they stubbed their toe, was revelatory. I loved how much she touched upon her novels written in the Roman period, contrasting them against works depicting later periods in history. She was giving us a taster for Sunday’s Roman panel (more to follow) which I very much enjoyed!

                              Kate Quinn sharing her genius!

I was so inspired by the morning’s sessions that I skipped the parallel sessions to plot out and make an earnest start on shaping Roman Equestrian 2 into a proper novel! But you’d better believe I didn’t miss my chance for Kate Quinn to sign my copies of her books! I brought along ‘Daughters of Rome’ and (finally) purchased ‘Mistress of Rome’ from the conference book shop. Kate was very sweet and signed both books as I chatted my foolish head off. I shared my affinity with her horse-crazed character Diana from ‘Daughters of Rome’ and I love how she signed my book:

She shared that not much has been done on the screen option for ‘Day of Fire’ beyond all the authors involved inking the contracts - here’s hoping we get more Romans heading to our TV screens in the future!

I got dressed for the gala dinner in the west wing, where I got to meet the lovely Cathie Dunn (who hosts the Coffee Pot Book Club and blog tours) in person and met Nancy Jardine, Paula Lofting, Pam Thomas, and their wonderful crew for the first time!

Thanks to Rachel E. Joyce for taking some photos of me dressed in my Roman getup for the gala!

On the way into the Great Hall, I was fortunate enough to bump into Ruth Downie (of the incredible ‘MEDICUS’ series) and had a bit of a fangirl moment. She was so kind and reassured me that none of us authors really know what we’re doing!

At dinner, I was seated next to a young woman named Clare Lehovsky, who has written a poem about the legend of Romulus and Remus from the POV of their she-wolf surrogate mother. I highly recommend you give it a read! Ian Mortimer provided an entertaining talk about the hyperbolic history of the UK’s ‘oldest pubs’ and the evening was capped off with The Sea Gals performing beautiful sea shanties.

Sunday morning started with Diana Gabaldon (in conversation with Chris Humphreys) giving a refutation (of sorts) of Bernard Cornwell’s keynote speech. Her approach to the adaptation of her ‘Outlander’ series has been radically different from Cornwell’s ‘take the money and run’ stance, and it was fascinating to listen to her experiences writing scripts and acting as a consultant on the show. Gabaldon’s done so much for historical fiction authors because she’s broken just about every accepted rule and succeeded (wildly) regardless. Don’t accept the twaddle from agents and publishers that there ‘is no market’ for your book - you just have to beat down the doors by creating it!

                              The one and only Diana Gabaldon!

Then came my personal highlight of the offered conference sessions: the panel ‘Taking the Romans Public’ featuring three empresses of Roman fiction: Alison Morton, Kate Quinn, and Ruth Downie.

And they came dressed to impress in Roman-era garb!

I have SO admired these incredible women and their books, so I was hanging onto every single word! They brought up insightful points regarding our current-day fascination with the Romans, the (largely inaccurate) adaptations of Romans on screen, and the ways in which they as authors respectively endeavour to show the Roman world in all its complexities (the inhabitants of the empire were NOT all Romans - they were of many ethnicities and races; Roman women encountered far more freedoms and ways in which they could exert ‘quiet power’ than women living in ancient Greece; the radical ways in which Romans treated religion and the impact of those treatments today, to name just a few!).

We got some pretty pictures to illustrate the session once the 'slave' got the tech up and running (Kate sacrificed a goat outside to ensure it would work)!

They did bring up an excellent point: regardless of their quality as entertainment or their historical accuracy, popular media depicting the Romans benefit ALL of us Roman fiction authors as our sales increase when Romans become part of the zeitgeist. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed the Gladiator sequel can do half as much for us as the original film did at the turn of the century!

After the session, I managed to talk to Ruth again, bringing my faded edition of ‘Medicus’ for her to sign. I was saddened to hear work has stalled on the latest adventure of Russo and Tilla, but I shall patiently pray to Mercury that Ruth will deliver us the next book in the series someday in the future!

Alison was absolutely delightful, demonstrating the damage a gladius could do and signing both my copies of ‘Julia Prima’ and ‘Inceptio’ for me! I look forward to seeing her present again at the Dublin International Writers’ Conference!

As an added treat, I got to meet Linnea Tanner in person after the session! She was, like me, meeting her heroes and I thanked her for hosting ‘Venator’ on her blog! If you haven’t yet checked out her Curse of Clansmen and Kings series, what are you waiting for? If you need more Roman soldier/Celtic princess romance in your life (and in my opinion, we all do), you need to start reading Linnea’s series right away!

We regrouped in the Great Hall for Jane Johnson’s session over translating real life to page. Her lecture was as vivid and beautiful as her novels, finishing with a highly emotive anecdote about how researching one of her novels led to her meeting her husband. There was much she offered to teach us, and I spent all of her lecture scribbling as many of her points into my notebook as possible.

For the final parallel session, the studios had closed due to a smoke alarm going off, so Alex Weston’s session over writing historical dialogue took place in the upper solar room. I appreciated how structured her session was, as she came prepared with a PowerPoint (that we unfortunately couldn’t see but received the file as a download afterwards) and conducted the session as if it were one of her writing workshops. The difference between us and her typical university students meant she catered her instruction to historical fiction in particular. It was, once again, a session in which I recorded many, many notes.

The conference closed out with S.G. Maclean discussing her writing process and how she accidentally ended up writing historical mysteries. The importance of place and Maclean’s passion for historical archive research was profound. Her passion once again leant so much to the session, and it ended the conference on a happy, uplifting note.

Cards collected over the course of the conference, surrounding my trusty Roman notebook containing as much of the speakers' knowledge as I could record

I am so grateful to Tracey Warr, Richard Lee, Rebekah Simmers, and Katherine Mezzacappa for putting together an incredible conference. I walked away from it with so many new friends and a wealth of valuable knowledge from a stellar lineup of speakers. I am already looking forward to the time when this ‘colloquy’ meets again!

My conference tote surrounded by my newly signed treasures!

In the meantime, I have a number of authors to shout out and recommend for you to read. Wonderful writers and lovely humans all:

Jennifer Sherman Roberts has written a delightful historical mystery set in 17th century England. Suspected witchcraft, alchemy, loveable characters, and a crafty little crow - what more could you want?

Kate Robertson has a forthcoming Elizabethan thriller releasing in 2025 from Sapere Books, and I can’t wait to read it! Her blog is RICH in fascinating historical research!

Nancy Jardine has already penned six novels in her Celtic Fervour series, set in northern Britannia in the late 1st century AD - when Rome turns its eyes towards conquering the lands of the northern tribes. If you love Roman fiction, you will adore Nancy’s books!

Paula Lofting has written an impressive duology chronicling the Anglo Saxon warrior Wulfhere in the years immediately preceding the Norman invasion of England (with a third book to come). Her ability to faithfully render 11th century life is a marvel!

Virlana Kardash has written a thrilling spy mystery entitled ‘Cherry Blossom Blues,’ and has some very intriguing future novels in the works!