Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum: Reflections on Good Friday
In this epic narrative, Lanier unfolds the drama of Christ’s passion as seen through the eyes of the women in the Gospels. Her searing poetry connects women’s suffering and oppression in male-dominated culture directly to Christ’s great mystery of redemption and triumph over the forces of ignorance and evil. Lanier upholds virtuous women as Christ’s true imitators.
Read MoreAnnouncing Ophelia, the Feminist Plague Rat
Ophelia is the official mascot of my upcoming Dark Lady’s Mask Book Tour and will be appearing with me at my author events! Don’t miss out on the fun!
Read MoreShakespeare’s Sisters—A Celebration of Renaissance Women Writers
April 23, 2016 marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death with worldwide celebrations to mark his legacy. But what about the women? In her essay A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf imagines the life of Shakespeare’s brilliant sister Judith, barred from the grammar school because of her sex and forced to hide her writing from her family. To escape a forced, arranged marriage, she runs away to London to seek her fortune in the theatre, only to end up pregnant, abandoned, and destitute. Out of despair, she kills herself. “It would have been impossible, completely and entirely...
Read MoreLife Begins at 42: Saint Hildegard’s Guide to Becoming a Midlife Powerfrau
We live in a youth-obsessed culture. The cosmetic industry pushes wrinkle creams and hair dye on us while celebrities resort to Botox and surgery to preserve an illusion of eternal girlhood. We live longer than ever before, yet advancing age, once a mark of honour, has become a source of shame. But what happens when women embrace midlife as an inner awakening and call to power? One such woman was Saint Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), powerfrau and late bloomer par excellence. Her youth was dire. Offered to the Church at the age of eight, she was entombed in an anchorage. Though she...
Read MoreSaint George’s Day
My horse wearing a fly rug in the colours of Saint George. She’s Welsh and doesn’t look too impressed. George is the patron saint of England and his feast day is still celebrated on April 23 with the displaying of the English flag, which bears George’s red cross. In medieval tradition, Saint George was the Virgin Mary’s champion knight; England itself was regarded as the Virgin’s dowry. Saint George’s cult had both elitist and populist aspects. On the one hand, he was the saint of nobility and monarchs. To join the Guild of Saint George, one had to...
Read MoreHow Oliver Cromwell stole Christmas
No Christmas for you! Does Christmas make you want to shout Bah Humbug? You are not alone. Nor is the much touted “War Against Christmas” anything new. Oliver Cromwell goes down as history’s biggest Grinch. The Lord Protector and his Puritan-led parliament literally stole Christmas in mid-17th century England.A fervent Puritan, Cromwell was on a mission to cleanse his nation of what he perceived to be papist excess and decadence. He and his fellow Puritans regarded Christ’s Mass as an unwelcome revenant of Catholicism, “a popish festival with no biblical...
Read MoreAbout Mary Sharratt
An American author living on the Silver Coast of Portugal, Mary Sharratt is on a mission to write women back into history. She is the author of Revelations and seven previous critically acclaimed novels, including Daughters of the Witching Hill, the Nautilus Award–winning Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen, The Dark Lady’s Mask: A Novel of Shakespeare’s Muse, and Ecstasy, about the life, loves, and music of Alma Mahler. When she is not writing, you can find her riding her beautiful Welsh mare.
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