avg_rating: 3.93
name: Joanna Courtney
about: My first literary accolade was a creative writing prize at primary school and from that point on I wanted to be a novelist. I was always reading as a child and often made up stories for my brother and sister on long car journeys. I was also a huge Enid Blyton fan and by ten I was writing my own (doubtless terrible) boarding school novels. Perhaps inevitably, I took my degree in English literature and it was at Cambridge, specialising in medieval literature, that I first discovered what has become a true passion for ancient history. I took a sidestep after university to work in a wonderful textiles factory in Lancashire - a move that led me to my lovely husband, but didn't satisfy my yearning to write. Married and living in Derbyshire, howev My first literary accolade was a creative writing prize at primary school and from that point on I wanted to be a novelist. I was always reading as a child and often made up stories for my brother and sister on long car journeys. I was also a huge Enid Blyton fan and by ten I was writing my own (doubtless terrible) boarding school novels. Perhaps inevitably, I took my degree in English literature and it was at Cambridge, specialising in medieval literature, that I first discovered what has become a true passion for ancient history. I took a sidestep after university to work in a wonderful textiles factory in Lancashire - a move that led me to my lovely husband, but didn't satisfy my yearning to write. Married and living in Derbyshire, however, I took up my pen again in the sparse hours available between raising my two stepchildren and two more of my own. At that hectic time, I primarily wrote shorter fiction and I've had well over 200 stories and serials published in women's magazines. As my children began to grow up and then leave home, however, I have had more time to write.My passion is freeing women from either the obscurity or the mistruths of male-dominated history. My first trilogy, The Queens of the conquest, is about the women fighting to be Queen of England in 1066 - Edyth of Mercia, wife of King Harold; Elizaveta of Kiev; wife of Harald Hardrada; and Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror. My second explores the true story of three of Shakespeare's most famous - and most maligned heroines - Lady Macbeth, Ophelia and Cordelia.I also write WW2 fiction as Anna Stuart. ...more