Nan Hawthorne

Nan Hawthorne is the author of the blog, The Blue Lady Tavern, a first person commentary on life in Anglo-Saxon England by Leofwen, a woman who runs an alehouse in a fictitious kingdom.

Hawthorne's first novel, The Story: A Medieval Tale and How It Came To Be, also concerns this time and place. It is the culmination of years of work that started with play-acting at summer camp in Southeast Alaska with a friend when they were young teens. The characters they created and came to love for more than 35 years first saw print on Nan’s blog, and now come to life in a book. The Story combines the original stories with a short memoir of how the stories came to be, plus a full-length retelling in a gritty adventure/romance set in 8th century Anglo-Saxon England. The Story is expected out in March 2008. It will be available as both a paperback and an ebook. You can keep up to date on the novel's blog

Hawthorne has had a long and varied career in several fields, including the professional management of volunteer resources (in which she also wrote and trained), and as a writer on topics related to disabilities and employment. Sight impaired herself, she is indefatigable. Nan recently inauguarated the Independent Writers' Guild. She shares her writing time with running a creative writing group online, Ghostletters, with a weekly online radio show, the Shannon O’Neill Memorial Celtic Music Hour (named for a character in The Story), Anglo-Saxon reenactment (the picture shows Nan in her favourite role as Leofwen Taverner), and her individualistic style of tapestry making and crocheting.

Hawthorne is the author of Loving the Goddess Within: Sex Magick for Women, (Delphi Press, 1991) a sensitive and poetic call for the strengthening of women’s self esteem using body positive images and ideas drawn from Goddess traditions.