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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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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The Art of Reclaiming Lost Time by Mary Sharratt
Last year I made a list of my recurring negative thoughts. Topping my list was: “There’s never enough time.” As a freelance writer, I lead a life of frantic multi-tasking, each month peppered with deadlines and to-do lists, newsletters to… Read More ›
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I am in Peace: The Ministry of Margaret Fell by Mary Sharratt
This linoprint of Margaret Fell can be ordered here. Pendle Hill will forever be associated to the Pendle Witches of 1612 who live on in the undying soul of the landscape and its folklore and who inspired my 2010 novel,… Read More ›
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Reclaiming Sacred Music by Mary Sharratt
Women Singing Earth by Mary Southard Here is a hymn of praise, a beautiful and intimate piece meant to be sung. Reader, I invite you to guess the author of this text and the sacred figure to whom this work is… Read More ›
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Review: Sara Maitland’s A Book of Silence, by Mary Sharratt
“What I want to do is live in as much silence as is possible at this point in our history.” – Sara Maitland, A Book of Silence Scottish author Sara Maitland is an intriguing amalgamation of… Read More ›
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Time’s Up for Bullies by Mary Sharratt
The Virgin Mary says #Time’s Up for Bullies: illumination from a 13th century manuscript Bullying is rife in our society and it’s not just school kids who have to deal with it. Bullies flourish in the work place, in academia,… Read More ›
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Rest as a Radical Act by Mary Sharratt
This summer I committed an act of radical and deeply liberating change. I started taking Sundays off, a new thing for me. As a writer, I had come to regard Sunday as just another working day, part of the… Read More ›
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All Hallows Tide in Old Lancashire by Mary Sharratt
My 2010 video docudrama about the Pendle Witches. Fun fact: my Welsh pony makes a guest appearance here. Come Halloween, the popular imagination turns to witches. Especially in Pendle Witch Country where I have lived since 2002. This… Read More ›
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Three More Herstorical Divas to Die For by Mary Sharratt
Last month I blogged about Three Herstorical Divas to Die For. But since herstory is teeming with heroines whose praise needs to be sung and whose legacies deserve to be remembered, I now present three more Herstorical Divas to inspire… Read More ›
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Three Herstorical Divas to Die For by Mary Sharratt
The Urban Dictionary defines a diva as a woman who exudes great style and confidence and expresses her unique personality without letting others define who she should be. In my mind, a diva is a woman who stands in her sovereignty… Read More ›
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Forgotten Female Surrealists by Mary Sharratt
While Frida Kahlo is arguably the world’s most famous woman artist, most women in the surrealist movement have been overlooked. But Frida’s sister surrealists now seem to be experiencing a long overdue resurgence, with recent international exhibitions showcasing Leonora Carrington,… Read More ›
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A Short History of Maligned Women by Mary Sharratt
Women who stand out and dare to seize their power have been maligned throughout history. Even today many people are uncomfortable about the very idea of a powerful woman. Witness how Hillary Clinton was demonized in the 2016 presidential… Read More ›
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My Heroine’s Journey: Writing Women Back in History by Mary Sharratt
We have been lost to each other for so long. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust. This is not your fault or mine. The chain connecting mother to daughter was… Read More ›
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In the footprints of Machig Lapdron by Mary Sharratt
Machig Lapdron, female Tantric Buddhist mystic and lineage founder I’ve just returned from an illuminating trip to Bhutan, high in the Himalayas. Bhutan is a Buddhist kingdom and the world’s youngest democracy. On our last full day in this… Read More ›
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Book Review: FLORENCE IN ECSTASY by Jessie Chaffee
Jessie Chaffee‘s Florence in Ecstasy is the most luminous debut novel I have read in a very long time. Imagine, if you will, a darker and more literary version of Elizabeth Gilbert’s popular spiritual seeker’s memoir, Eat Pray Love. This… Read More ›
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The Motherhood of God by Mary Sharratt
Doing a recent talk on pioneering woman writers, I like to do the Before Jane Austen test with my audience. Who can name a single woman writer in the English language before Jane Austen? Alas, because woman have been written… Read More ›
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Shakespeare’s Sister Revisited: A Circle of Female Lineage by Mary Sharratt
What do groundbreaking 17th century poet, Aemilia Bassano Lanier, and 20th century feminist icon, Virginia Woolf, have in common? A lot actually. In her 1929 essay, “A Room of One’s Own,” Woolf imagines the tragedy of Shakespeare’s brilliant sister, Judith,… Read More ›
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Straight from the Horse’s Mouth: Celebrating Epona by Mary Sharratt
The following is a guest post by Mary Sharratt’s Welsh mare, Miss Boo aka Queen Boudicca The ancient Romans and Gauls knew something that many modern day humans have forgotten. Mares are divine. The worship of… Read More ›
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The Power of Silence by Mary Sharratt
In darkest midwinter, in the hectic rush of the holiday season and its often anticlimactic aftermath, I find myself craving silence and solitude. I’m in hibernation mode and want to curl up in a cave like a bear and sleep…. Read More ›
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Mother Demdike, Ancestor of My Heart, Part 1 by Mary Sharratt
Pendle Hill, seen from the back of my house, in May. The Soul of Gaia is the numinous earth beneath my feet, her soil cradling the bones and the stories of the ancestors who have died into the land… Read More ›
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Calling on the Muse: A Meditation for Creative Spirits by Mary Sharratt
The world at large might view artists and writers as free spirits rocking la vie bohème, but creative people know that it’s much more complicated than that, especially if we’re striving to earn even a modest living from our work…. Read More ›
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Book Review by Mary Sharratt: ESTHER by Rebecca Kanner
We have been lost to each other for so long. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust. This is not your fault or mine. The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the word passed… Read More ›
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American Renaissance Festivals and the Yearning for Merry England
When I was a student in the 1980s, I spent my late summer weekends in another realm. Donning a green gown I had sewn myself, I became a Renaissance woman, or a low-budget facsimile thereof, my cheap, silver-plated goblet hanging… Read More ›
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Rewriting Religion: the radical poetry of Aemilia Bassano Lanier by Mary Sharratt
Aemilia Bassano Lanier (also spelled Lanyer) is the heroine of my new novel The Dark Lady’s Mask. Born in 1569, she was the highly educated daughter of an Italian court musician—a man thought to have been a Marrano,… Read More ›
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Lucy Pick’s Pilgrimage by Mary Sharratt
In medieval Europe, religious devotion provided an alternate narrative for women’s lives in a male-dominated culture. Defiant women who stood up for themselves in the face of rape, incest, and murder were hailed as virgin martyrs. Religious vocations, such as… Read More ›
