On National Letter Writing Day, meet the woman who collects forgotten letters. " In attics, drawers and shoe boxes under beds there are hundreds of stories waiting to be told."

Send us Fan Mail During the Second World War, Ruth Brook escaped Nazi persecution in Germany and followed her wartime sweetheart, a Lancaster Bomber into the RAF. As a WAAF, she quickly found a sense of her own purpose. Ruth was offered a job as a cook, a typist or a flight mechanic. She picked up a spanner and her life began. From welding to hydraulics, WW2 was a intense training ground for a young woman starting out in life. In her 101 years Ruth has packed a lot in. From working as...

Send us Fan Mail Former policewoman and district nurse turned novelist, Jean Fullerton has written over 20 novels but recently published something a bit closer to home, her memoir, A Child of the East End. In conversation at the Write Idea Festival, Jean shared eye-watering stories of her childhood in Wapping, the curse of family secrets, bum-stamping and sexism in the police force and why we romanticise the past, Jean proves there is no such thing as a ordinary life. I started by asking her ...

Send us Fan Mail In the 19th century it was surprisingly easy for a woman to be consigned to the misery of an asylum. Many in fact weren't actually mentally ill. Husband tired of his wife? A woman who bore an illegitimate child? A woman who didn't want to marry the man her parents had chosen for her? Or anyone, in short, who didn't conform to the narrow standards of society. Once a woman was incarcerated, it was almost impossible to get out of a place often described as 'death traps'...

Send us Fan Mail Historical fiction author Kristy Cambron wears a lot of hats. She's a Christy Award-winning author of historical fiction, including her bestselling novels, THE BUTTERFLY AND THE VIOLIN and THE PARIS DRESSMAKER, as well as nonfiction titles. She also serves as Vice President and literary agent with Gardner Literary, where she was named ACFW Agent of the Year in 2024. Kristy squeezed in time to chat with me about our shared love of research and forgotten stories from t...

Send us Fan Mail Neil Barclay is an award-winning civilian librarian at HMP Thameside. Nominated by prisoners, and described by his colleagues as “our library superstar”, Neil has been praised for the outstanding dedication, skill and creativity he has shown in transforming the prison’s library into a dynamic learning and resource centre, much valued by prisoners and staff, and described as “the envy of other prisons”. Here he shares with us his passionate belief that books and reading...