Author Archives
An American author living in Pendle Witch Country in Lancashire, Northern England, Mary Sharratt is on a mission to write women back into history. She is the author of seven acclaimed novels.
Her most recent book, ECSTASY, about composer and life artist Alma Schindler Mahler, is now out in paperback. Her other novels include THE DARK LADY'S MASK, about Aemilia Bassano Lanier, England's first professional woman writer, and ILLUMINATIONS: A NOVEL OF HILDEGARD VON BINGEN, which won the Nautilus Gold Award, Better Books for a Better World. Her 2010 novel, DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL, presents the Pendle Witches of 1612 in their true historical context as cunning women and healers.
Mary's articles have appeared in WALL STREET JOURNAL, HUFFINGTON POST, PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY, and MINNESOTA MAGAZINE. She is a regular blogger for FEMINISM AND RELIGION.
Visit her website: www.marysharratt.com
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Sweet Dark Mystery of Winter by Mary Sharratt
For many years, I suffered from Seasonal Affective Disorder. As soon as the clocks went back in autumn and the nights grew dark, I’d fall into a contracted space. The days seemed too impossibly short to get things done. Even… Read More ›
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Join the Resistance by Mary Sharratt
“Rest is resistance,” journalist Cassady Rosenblum wrote in her recent essay in the New York Times , entitled “Work is a False Idol.” This statement completely undermines our American work ethic that elevates productivity to the highest altar. Rosenblum, a journalist… Read More ›
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The Life-Changing Magic of NOT Showing Up by Mary Sharratt
“Showing up is 80 percent of life.” This oft-repeated maxim, attributed to the now disgraced Woody Allen, has become a modern cliché. Recently the variation of this sentiment that’s making the rounds is, “The hardest thing is showing up.” While… Read More ›
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Why Life Balance is a Feminist Issue by Mary Sharratt
The move to Portugal all but forced me to heal my relationship with time and productivity, to create a life that was sustainable and nurturing.
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The Goddess in Portugal by Mary Sharratt
Most people know Portugal as a deeply Catholic country with a rich Islamic past and an ancient Sephardic Jewish heritage reaching back to Roman Lusitania. But what about the country’s pre-Roman, pre-Abrahamic Goddess cultures? Like many foreigners, I moved to… Read More ›
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Plague Year Pilgrims: Let’s Keep Walking
Throughout our long Covid crisis, our daily walk offered precious respite from the tedium of being perpetually housebound and viewing the outer world through electronic screens. Walking brought us exercise and fresh air. It cleared our heads, lifted our mood,… Read More ›
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REVELATIONS: The Mysticism of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
My new novel REVELATIONS is drawn from the lives of two medieval mystics who changed history—Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, two very different women whose paths converged and who, I believe, have much to teach us today. Women’s spiritual… Read More ›
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The Way of the Mystic
Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are coming out of a long pandemic winter and entering a new season of waxing light, hope, and growth. Yet these continue to be turbulent times. Even with the progress of the Covid… Read More ›
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Embracing Darkness by Mary Sharratt
I have long struggled with winter. I grew in Minnesota where winters were long and brutally cold. I remember hauling myself through hip-deep snowdrifts on my walk to elementary school and that was in the suburbs! The North of… Read More ›
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The Via Feminina: Revisioning the Heroine’s Journey by Mary Sharratt
Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, the Hero’s Journey, is outlined in his 1949 book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Drawn from his studies of comparative mythology and Jungian psychology, the Hero’s Journey has become a foundation myth of modern culture. The… Read More ›
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The Time of Your Life by Mary Sharratt
Between the ages of 24 and 36, I made my home in Munich, Germany where I taught English to professional adults and began my writing career. My first novel, Summit Avenue, was published in May 2000 when I still lived… Read More ›
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Margery Kempe: The Self-Made Mystic
I’ve always been fascinated with the women mystics, such as 12th century powerfrau and visionary Hildegard von Bingen, the heroine of my 2012 novel, ILLUMINATIONS. Likewise my new novel, REVELATIONS, which will be published in April 2021, is centered on… Read More ›
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The Other Side of the Mountain by Mary Sharratt
I love my new life in Portugal and I’m so happy and grateful to be here. However, I have encountered one major roadblock–I simply cannot replicate my daily writing routine that I’d relied on in the UK for nearly twenty… Read More ›
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A Deep Ecology of Horse Manure by Mary Sharratt
My recent move from Northern England to the Silver Coast of Portugal has been a radical change on so many levels. Not only am I coming to grips with a different climate and culture and immersed in learning a very… Read More ›
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Mysticism as a Female Path by Mary Sharratt
Women have been sidelined and marginalized in every established institutional religion in the world. Even in alternative spiritual movements, male teachers and leaders abuse their authority toward their female students and followers. This is why women’s circles and spiritual… Read More ›
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The Grace of Letting Things End by Mary Sharratt
Ms. Boo, aka Queen Boudicca, in the heart of Pendle Witch Country. Though I was born and raised in Minnesota, I have wandered the world as an expat writer nearly my entire adult life, living in Belgium, Austria, and Germany,… Read More ›
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This is a Wake Up Call by Mary Sharratt
George Floyd Memorial, Minneapolis This month I had originally intended to blog on the injustice of UK landowners using Covid19 as a ruse to illegally block public footpaths during lockdown when country walks are one of the few pleasures… Read More ›
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Writing Women Back into Jewish History: Interview with Michelle Cameron by Mary Sharratt
My friend Michelle Cameron’s powerful new novel, Beyond the Ghetto Gates, is a deep dive into women’s history that I thoroughly enjoyed. This is a passionately compelling saga of an ancient way of life on the threshold of… Read More ›
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Fierce Grace in Frightening Times by Mary Sharratt
The Covid 19 pandemic had turned our lives upside down on a global scale. What we as a collective could not possibly have anticipated ever happening to privileged Western people has become our new normal as we are forced… Read More ›
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Embracing Gray by Mary Sharratt
When I turned forty, my hair started going seriously gray. Fearing that this would make me look “old,” I drank the Koolaid and hopped straight onto the wheel of hair dyeing samsara, getting my hair professionally colored every six to… Read More ›
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Seeking Moments of Beauty in a Crazy World by Mary Sharratt
Black Swan by Anna Marija Bulka Our world seems to get crazier by the day. We live increasingly accelerated lives. Our downtime seems to shrink by the second. If I don’t watch myself, I get mired in tunnel-vision, doggedly… Read More ›
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The Company We Keep by Mary Sharratt
Mary shares an uplifting moment with a dear friend’s gorgeous cat. Photo by Kris Waldherr. As a New Year rolls in, many of us make New Year’s resolutions, often based on the received perception that we are not good… Read More ›
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Through a Dark Forest: Fairy Tales as Women’s Stories
My first brush with raw and authentic fairy tales took place nearly thirty years when I was teaching English to Japanese children in Munich, Germany, where I lived from 1989 – 2000. Intending to stock up on children’s literature,… Read More ›
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The Fierce Initiation of Menopause by Mary Sharratt
Modern Western culture despises aging. Aging women are held in particular contempt. Menopause is meant to be something embarrassing and uncomfortable. The pharma industry peddles hormones and other drugs meant to mask our symptoms. Few women see menopause as something… Read More ›
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Embracing Darkness: All Hallows Eve in Old Lancashire
Come Halloween, the popular imagination turns to witches. Especially in Pendle Witch Country, the rugged Pennine landscape surrounding Pendle Hill, once home to twelve individuals arrested for witchcraft in 1612. The most notorious was Elizabeth Southerns, alias Old Demdike,… Read More ›
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Connecting Heaven and Earth: Singing Hildegard
September 17 marks the feast day of 12th century Benedictine abbess and powerfrau, Hildegard von Bingen. Born in the Rhineland in present day Germany, Hildegard (1098–1179) was a visionary and polymath. She founded two monasteries, went on four preaching tours,… Read More ›
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Dancing at Lughnasa by Mary Sharratt
Summer passes all too swiftly. Just yesterday it was spring and the woods were full of bluebells and the hedges frothy with hawthorn. Then, only a few days ago, I noticed that the heather is already blooming. Rowan berries hang… Read More ›
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Declaration of INTER-Dependence by Mary Sharratt
On July 4 countless people in the United States celebrated Independence Day and many enjoyed a long leisurely Independence Day weekend. While there’s nothing wrong with celebrating freedom and all that is good in your country, I’ve become increasingly… Read More ›
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Missing from History: Women Composers by Mary Sharratt
Clara Schumann To a large extent, women have been written out of history. Any surviving record of female accomplishment is often trivialized or dismissed. This seems especially true in the male-dominated world of classical music. When asked to… Read More ›
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Toxic Masculinity: We Need to Talk
Judy Chicago, The Three Faces of Man from Power Play, 1985 On December 1, 2018, I most reluctantly moved off a stable yard where I had kept my beloved mare Boo, aka Queen Boodicca, for ten years. I… Read More ›
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