Discovering the true story of Mary Ann Britland

Category: Writing

Mary Ann Britland book update: Top 10 achievements of 2017

Holy crap! Can you believe it’s almost 2018? Where did the year go?

2017 has been a full-on year: personally, professionally, politically, everything…ally. For me, it’s brought big changes to my day job and lots of travel, both of which have been great. However, it’s been a lot to juggle with the Mary Ann Britland book. Mary Ann’s story keeps proving to be richer and more complex (which are just polite ways of saying “stranger” and “even more contradictory”) than even I realised. Which is ultimately a good thing, because it makes for a bigger, better, more interesting book. But a bigger book also takes more time to write. And while I’m extraordinarily lucky to only work four days a week (a luxury most writers and artists can’t afford), there are only so many hours in the day.

But it’s getting done. In fact, I’ve actually done a lot this year and set the groundwork for even more work in 2018. So I’m celebrating with a slightly self-indulgent list of my top 10 Mary-Ann-Britland-related research and writing achievements for 2017. I’ve also whacked in some Victorian Christmas pics for the seasonal lols.  They’re from the British Library’s Flickr, which is full of awesome vintage photos and illustrations that are all free to download. The captions are mine and 100% historically accurate. Totally.

Santa the Undead Christmas Yeti. “Peace to his ashes” indeed.

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Draft deadlines and getting my shit together

I’m baaaack! It’s been almost a month since I returned from my combined research and holiday trip to the UK (which I’m still calling a researchiday. Trust me, it’s the new bleisure) and I’m finally settling back into my normal non-travel life. I miss the midday pints. I do not miss the jet lag.

Lots of people have asked how my trip went. Did I find out everything I wanted to know? What was the most exciting discovery? If I was on a “research” trip, why was my Instragram full of pictures of me in pubs? Well, the answers to questions one and two are pretty closely related. And I’m taking the fifth on the third (which I’m not really entitled to do because I’m Australian, but let’s just skip over that… )

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