Illuminations Book Tour!
Schedule of events for ILLUMINATIONS: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen (launch date 10/9/2012)Here are the events already booked. More to be announced!Tuesday, Oct 9—St. Paul7:00 pm —Common Good Books launch event: 38 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul, MN 55105.Wednesday, Oct 10—Edina7:00 pm —Barnes & Noble Galleria. 3225 West 69th Street, Edina, MN 55435. Thursday, Oct 11—Wayzata7:00 pm — The Bookcase, 824 East Lake Street. Wayzata, MN 55391.Monday, Oct 15—White Bear Lake6:30 pm —White Bear Lake Public Library, 4698 Clark Ave., White Bear Lake, MN 55110.Tuesday, Oct 16—Minneapolis 4:30...
Read MoreIn Memory of the Pendle Witches
Here is a copy of the paper I read at the Capturing Witches Conference this weekend at Lancaster University. Academics, writers, and independent researchers from all over the world gathered to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Lancashire Witch Trials. This weekend marks the 400th anniversary of the 1612 Pendle Witch Trials. Throughout the region people will be commemorating this solemn occasion. It’s my sincere hope that these events portray the accused witches not as some ghoulish sideshow but as real people who suffered and died unjustly because of other...
Read MoreOf Witches and Saints: Mother Demdike and Hildegard von Bingen
This summer marks the 400th Anniversary of the 1612 Pendle Witch Trials. In August 1612, seven women and two men from the Pendle region in Lancashire were hanged for witchcraft based on evidence given by a nine-year-old girl. The most notorious of the accused, Elizabeth Southerns alias Old Demdike, escaped the hangman by dying in prison before she could even come to trial. She is the heroine of my novel, Daughters of the Witching Hill.Throughout the Pendle Region, people will be commemorating this solemn anniversary. It is my sincere hope these events portray Mother Demdike and her...
Read MoreThe Illuminating Life of Hildegard von Bingen
My forthcoming title, Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen, will be published on October 9, 2012, and is available for pre-order on Amazon.Who was Hildegard of Bingen?Born in the Rhineland in present day Germany, Hildegard (1098-1179) was a visionary abbess and polymath. She composed an entire corpus of sacred music and wrote nine books on subjects as diverse as theology, cosmology, botany, medicine, linguistics, and human sexuality, a prodigious intellectual outpouring that was unprecedented for a...
Read MorePendle Witch Summer
August 2012 commemorates the 400th Anniversary of the Pendle Witch Trials in which nine people from the Pendle region in Lancashire, England were hanged as witches based on the testimony of a nine-year-old girl. Mother Demdike, the most notorious of the accused witches, died in Lancaster Prison before she could even come to trial. She is the heroine of my novel Daughters of the Witching Hill.To commemorate this solemn anniversary, I will be taking part in several events this summer.8:00 Friday 15 June, I’ll be telling tales of cunning woman Mother Demdike and the Queen of Elfhame at...
Read MoreThe Late Great Canonization of St. Hildegard of Bingen
On May 10, 2012, Benedict XVI formally recognized Hildegard von Bingen as a saint. If Hildegard has long been venerated as a saint with her own feast day of September 17, why did it take the Vatican so long to canonize her? Why Hildegard and why now? The first attempt to canonize Hildegard began in 1233, but failed as over fifty years had passed since her death and most of the witnesses and beneficiaries of her reported miracles were deceased. Her theological writings were deemed too dense and difficult for subsequent generations to understand and soon fell into obscurity, as did her...
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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