Nicola Griffith
Saint Hilda of Whitby is a key figure in the history of Christianity in early Britain. Born into a royal family in Northumbria in 614 CE, Hilda entered the church and founded Whitby Abbey.
There she hosted the Synod of Whitby in which clergy from the British and Roman branches of the Christian Church met to debate the then disputed question of how to calculate the date of Easter.
In her historical novel, Hild, based on the early life of the saint, award-winning novelist Nicola Griffith chose to make her heroine bisexual.
In this event, Nicola will be in conversation with historian and OutStories Bristol co-chair Cheryl Morgan. They will talk about the research underpinning the novel, and how we understand ideas of sexuality and gender in the ancient and early-medieval world.
They will address the perils of assuming a linear progression of attitudes from the past to the present day — tolerance is not a purely 21st-century characteristic.
Nicola Griffith grew up in Yorkshire but now lives in Seattle with her wife and fellow writer, Kelley Eskridge. Griffith has a successful career in writing novels and memoir, and editing anthologies of original queer fiction. She has won multiple awards, including six from the Lambda Literary Foundation for books with LGBTQ+ themes.
Tuesday 16th February 2021, 7pm to 8pm
How to take part
This online talk will be held over Zoom. The event is free but you need to register in advance.
Please book your place through the Bristol Museums website: https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/m-shed/whats-on/lgbtq-history-month-nicola-griffith-in-conversation/
Details of how to join the session will be in your registration email.
Thanks to Bristol’s M Shed museum for facilitating this event and to M Shed’s Equality and Diversity programme sponsor: UWE Bristol.
Nicola Griffith’s blog: https://nicolagriffith.com/
Cheryl Morgan’s Mewsings: https://www.cheryl-morgan.com/
