The fifteenth #TheHollowFlame story is now live on my Patreon and ko-fi: ko-fi.com/post/The-Hol... www.patreon.com/posts/hollow... Includes audio version read by me. A one-off $3 donation gets you access to all stories so far!

The Norman (12th C) font at St Laurence’s, Castle Rising, Norfolk. Those are cats’ heads adorning it: the font was moved from the original Norman church dedicated to St. Felix, the saint I wrote about (not very piously) in the link below. #writing mlthorpeauthor.substack.com/p/st-felix-a...

‘Out on the mudflats oystercatchers and curlew feed in large groups; closer in are redshank and ringed plover. Something puts the golden plover up, and they wheel and glitter in the sun.’ #birds #nature #walking #Norfolk #writing mlthorpeauthor.substack.com/p/this-write...

Camellia flowering in the village today.

"I want you to teach us to dance." ✍️ mlthorpeauthor.substack.com/p/play-for-m...

This May sees the release of Our Land - a feature length documentary film about the Right to Roam campaign, directed by Orban Wallace. www.youtube.com/watch?v=est-...

The 15th century rood screen (chancel screen) at St Nicholas’s, Dersingham. I walked in the moss-and-mole-softened churchyard for a while today, looking for my great-grandparents’ graves. One I could find again, just; the other is now lost to time and lichen.

'Lark song accompanies us through most of the walk; in the woodland sections, tits — long-tailed, blue, great — call. A lone fieldfare is perched in an oak tree... We talk sporadically, about plot tangles, about the birds, about what we can see.'✍️ mlthorpeauthor.substack.com/p/this-write...

#bookreview! 'Irish and Norse mythologies, reinterpreted into something new and wonderful.' mlthorpeauthor.substack.com/p/the-darkes...

Either side of the Peddars’ Way, an ancient trackway/Roman road crossing Norfolk, fields hold Bronze Age round barrows. One, in a small woodland, Anmer Minque, might be the site of a Roman - Iceni battle. A barrow further west is reputedly an Anglo-Saxon moot hill. No wonder my writing flows here.✍️

The fourteenth #TheHollowFlame story is now live on my Patreon and ko-fi: www.patreon.com/posts/hollow... ko-fi.com/post/The-Hol... Includes audio version read by me. A one-off $3 donation gets you access to all stories so far!

How's this for a place to walk and sort out plot tangles? #writing

🔹Keeper of the Sphere trilogy: contemporary fantasy with magic, trolls, and ancient gods; available at Amazon www.amazon.com/dp/B088FGNKTP 🔹Current project: first draft of historical fantasy series about the Oracle of Delphi; expected to be 8 books, ~1450 BCE to ~400 CE; currently on Book 8

Sky and marsh on the northwest Norfolk coast - and the landscape, too, of Torrey, home of the character Audun in An Unwise Prince. ‘the arching sky at Torrey, the saltmarsh, the birds feeding at the tide’s edge. The thought that he was leaving it for many years, perhaps forever, stabbed at him.’✍️

Over the years of coming here, the stories told by my father . . . have blended with my own memories and knowledge. #PlaceWriting mlthorpeauthor.substack.com/p/this-write...

'When gorse is out of bloom, kissing is out of season' Happy Valentine’s Day for those who note it.

A map of Ely’s cathedral precinct (and King’s Ely school) which is the model for Berncastre, the university in An Unwise Prince. It's strange now coming to Ely, because in my mind Berncastre is overlaid on it, and it almost has two existences, the real and the imaginary. ✍️

The 14th C merchant's office at Barley Hall, York: the model for Cenric's small office at his house in An Unwise Prince. I like the fact that 700 years ago, it appeared to be clear that using angled surface to write was better (for back and shoulders? eyesight?) than writing flat. ✍️

The thirteenth #TheHollowFlame story is now live on my Patreon and ko-fi: www.patreon.com/posts/hollow... ko-fi.com/post/The-Hol... Includes audio version read by me. A one-off $3 donation gets you access to all stories so far!

Curves and traceries, King's Lynn Minster. While there is no organized religion in my books, the imagined architecture of the Great Hall at Berncastre, in the WIP An Unwise Prince, is influenced by medieval church architecture.✍️

A ‘Danzig’ chest from the 1400s, of the type carried by Hanseatic ships. Chests like these have a small (but important) role in An Unwise Prince. On display at King’s Lynn Minster. #writing

Where I am, what I'm seeing, what I'm writing, what I'm reading. ✍️ mlthorpeauthor.substack.com/p/this-write...

So worth watching! substack.com/@rawstory/no...

These flash-fiction pieces take you to a pub unlike any you've known, where identities are uncertain and stories take you places you might not want to go. ✍️

Customers of the Fermi's Wake Season Pass by @thebrainofchris.bsky.social are in for a treat! An amazing new extra, coming soon... 🖼️

I typed these words today. It’s done. At least in first draft form. 23 months. 151,000 words. By far the most complex book I’ve ever written. Now it sits for a while, and then the revisions begin. ✍️

A Daughter of Warwick: the story of Anne Neville is Available now in audio narrated by Alex Lee. http://mybook.to/dow ##HistoricalFiction ##WOTR ##RichardIII

2000 years ago, his enemies wrote his story. Isn't it time we heard it from him? SON OF ROME: mybook.to/0HMl SECOND IN COMMAND: mybook.to/FQ9CeKf SOLDIER OF FATE: mybook.to/5bIc brookallenauthor.com #BlueSkyAuthors #Kindle #KindleUnlimited #KindleBooks #HIstoricalFiction #History #Rome

A new Sunstack fionaforsyth.substack.com/p/an-oculist...

The 11th #TheHollowFlame story, ‘Serpent’ is live on my ko-fi and Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/hollow... ko-fi.com/post/The-Hol... Featuring audio version by yours truly. As always, big thanks for all my supporters!

'...at Cheverie, he can see the water of the Minas Basin. He stops, like a tourist, to look.' ✍️ mlthorpeauthor.substack.com/p/traps

'In his pocket is a letter; in that letter, an offer of a job.'✍️ mlthorpeauthor.substack.com/p/imprinted

'The ground is hard, stone-like. It feels as unchanging as granite. His boots make no imprint, as if the land rejects the passage of human feet.' ✍️ mlthorpeauthor.substack.com/p/imprinted?...

Serious about series – Great fun to write and read! @helenhollick.bsky.social asks a few authors to give their thoughts: ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com/2026/01/doin... @abelfrageauthor.bsky.social @susangrosseyauthor.bsky.social @marianlthorpe.bsky.social @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social

A story from #Guelph's history. mlthorpeauthor.substack.com/p/back-to-life

Congratulations to Helen Hollick and all my fellow authors! FATE: Tales of HIstory, Mystery, and Magic is a finalist in the Coffee Pot Book Club historical fiction awards!

In my current WIP, the head of the university has a white cat. (Why? Because Cillian, in the Empire's Legacy series, did - continuity over the centuries.) I came across this piece today on Oxford's college cats, real life being echoed in my fictional world! #cats oxfordclarion.uk/college-cats...

And now for something completely silly.... #cats mlthorpeauthor.substack.com/p/medieval-c...

Do you live near #Guelph (Ontario)? I'm co-launching my new story collection Beyond the Wall at Peter Szabo's launch for his debut novel The Revived, at the Albion, Thursday Nov 6th 6 - 8:30 pm. I'd love to see you there! (No elevator, sadly, so be aware.)

A lovely review of my collection of short stories and verse!

Every year, October and juncos arrive together. open.substack.com/pub/mlthorpe...

The e-book of Beyond the Wall, my new short story collection, is now available for pre-order. Oct 31 release. (Not a fan of the particular e-book platform? DM me.) books2read.com/u/3LO82w The paperback will be available about the same time, and I'll post that information then. #booksky

"I like it here at the docks, among the ships and the cargo and the crying gulls." #booksky mlthorpeauthor.substack.com/p/the-birthd...

Surpassed 100,000 words on An Unwise Prince today. I might get the first draft finished this year after all! #booksky

The working cover -- not the final one -- for my next book, a collection of my best short stories and verse from the past 25 years (!) of being a published author. Out in late October - more details to come. #poetry #shortstories #fiction #Booksky

‘I looked around me, at the plain and the mountains, and thought about what had happened here, the blood and bones lying beneath the soil.’ #shortstory #fiction #historicalfantasy

Huge thanks to ‪@liisp.bsky.social‬ for both her review of Bjarndýr and the Marsh Monster and her 'character reveal' for some of the main characters from the works-in-progress, the duology An Unwise Prince and A Distant Obligation.

🏁Last book read: Dragonfired by J. Zachary Pike 🏁Current read: Empire’s Reckoning by @marianlthorpe.bsky.social 🏁Added to TBR: The Chosen One Con by @trudieskies.readindiefantasy.com 🏁Next read: whatever’s on my NetGalley, I need to catch up 😬 Share yours! #BookSky

The August edition of A Muse Bouche Review is out with stories from @reneegendron.bsky.social @marianlthorpe.bsky.social @jpgarlandauthor.bsky.social Arlene Davies-Fuhr and Wendy Nuttall mailchi.mp/7a91b581238b... #shortstories #muse #readingcommunity