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I’m used to working from home. Up until last September, I did it a lot. I’ve never found it particularly difficult to motivate myself, nor fallen prey to the many possible distractions. Even having three children and my other half in the house, I’m pretty good at either ignoring them, or dropping things for a…

This is just a quick announcement that History has accepted my article ‘Gender, Authority and the Image of Queenship in English and Scottish Ballads, 1553-1603‘. It’s based on papers I gave to the Mary I Quincentenary Conference in 2016 and the EFDSS Broadside Ballad Day in 2019, and it should appear at the end of…

So as I was able to announce earlier this week, the article based on my paper to the MedRen Conference in Maynooth in 2018 has appeared in early view on the Renaissance Studies website, although it’s come a long way from that initial idea. The starting point for the article was the earliest printed music…

I’m really pleased to announce that last week, my first proper research article appeared online in Early View for Renaissance Studies. It’s based on the paper I gave in 2018 to the MedRen conference in Maynooth, and uses the incorrect music on A New Ballad of a Lover Extolling his Lady to explore some of…

A couple of weeks ago I gave a performance of Tudor news ballads for the local history society where I live. It was great fun, as it was their after dinner entertainment rather than a straight public history talk. I took my other half along to provide the accompaniment, and we performed a selection of…

This term, I’m convening a course on the Later Stuarts and the early Hanoverian period. It meant that I had a busy Christmas pulling all the materials together, but I’m pleased with how it’s turned out, and it’s the first time I’ve ever put together a whole module. So far, it seems to be going…

Today, for the first time ever, I am on strike. @LancasterUCU You will not see me on the picket line (at least not yet) because frankly, I’m exhausted. @ucu here’s my #precaritystory On Thursday morning, I posted a series of tweets which look set to be the most-read thing I’ve ever written, or am ever…

As 2019 draws to a close, I find myself with a lot on which to reflect. There has been much to celebrate: I was invited to speak at a major conference in Spain, I’ve had two articles accepted by important journals, and my teaching continues to go well. I even wrote a blog post about…

Given the number of FutureLearn courses that I’ve undertaken over the last few years, it’s been interesting to spend 5 weeks as a mentor on the Lancaster University/FutureLearn course on Lancaster Castle: The View From the Stronghold. The course takes participants through the region’s history from the Romans to the twentieth century, although obviously in…