This Month in History Writing: Essays, Women's Prizes, and Stacks to Watch
Society of History Writers Roundup | June 2025
Dear History Writers,
Welcome to this month’s roundup of new additions to the Directories, the place to connect history readers and writers, plus a few extra bits and pieces.
Before we dive in, I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who submitted their work for publication with the Society of History Writers. With an overwhelming amount of well-written and well-researched responses, we now have guest posts lined up until November 2025. These range of standalone short stories to novel extracts, as well as Renaissance art history and 1950s London pollution.
I also have a couple of exciting interviews lined up for the coming months, including the brilliant
, who writes about Byzantine history on Substack. She recently wrote a response to that Note describing the not-for-profit work that went into building medieval cathedrals, astutely explaining why it really isn’t that simple. You can submit your questions for Madeleine through the chat thread at the link below, before Sunday 29th June.All the best as always,
Holly
Editor, Society of History Writers
Contents
New Additions to the SHW Directories in June 2025
2025 Women’s Prizes for Fiction and Non-Fiction
Featured in June 2025
Coming up in July 2025
New additions to the SHW Directory | May 2025
How to add your newsletter to the Directory
The SHW Directories are another way to connect readers with writers. Divided by chronological period, they contain over 100 history newsletters, fiction and non-fiction, all published here on Substack. You can browse them all HERE and add your own at the link HERE.
Non-Fiction | Medieval History
. A Substack that explores the many facets of the Medieval world, predominantly situated in the Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age. Whilst also looking at modern paganism and folklore. Check out Tom’s Instagram page HERE. . My novice conjectures on all things medieval. I love to engage with the narratives of medieval history, but also dig deep and explore the challenging nuances and complexities of the Middle Ages and how historians grapple with them. I'm usually camped out in the early Middle Ages exploring the post-Roman West. 
Non-Fiction | Modern History
Mandylion Press by Mabel Taylor and Madeline Porsella. Modern history, primarily 19th century, connected to our daily lives and contemporary media. Mandylion is the brainchild of Mabel Taylor (who has an MA in Design History and works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and Madeline Porsella (Currently working towards a PhD in Art History from Yale University). The newsletter is an outgrowth of our independent press, which publishes forgotten novels written by women and weirdos in the long nineteenth century. Our newsletter is a place where we share current research and obsessions which range widely. We also host our podcast, 1-800-1800, on Substack. There, we call up one year of the nineteenth century each epsiode, chosen at random, and gab about what was happening in art, culture, and politics in the period. You can find out more about the Mandylion Press HERE.
Non-Fiction | Thematic
Art History
by Guillaume Duprez. Transporting the reader to a Moment of Wonder with 100% factual stories about artists and monuments from the past. The tone differs for each story and can sometimes be funny but always fact-based. Most photos illustrating the articles are mine; they should demonstrate that all articles come from first-hand experience. You can find more of Guillaume’s work HERE and at the link below.
2025 Women’s Prizes for Fiction and Non-Fiction - History Picks
Non-Fiction
Agent Zo: The Untold Story of Courageous WW2 Resistance Fighter Elżbieta Zawacka, by Clare Mulley. Shortlisted. ‘This is the incredible story of Elzbieta Zawacka, the WW2 resistance fighter known as ‘Zo’. The only woman to reach London from Warsaw during the Second World War as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command, Zo undertook two missions in the capital before secret SOE training in the British countryside. As the only female member of the Polish elite Special Forces – the SOE-affiliated ‘Silent Unseen’ – Zo became the only woman to parachute from Britain to Nazi German-occupied Poland. There, whilst being hunted by the Gestapo who arrested her entire family, she took a leading role in the Warsaw Uprising and the liberation of Poland.’1
Embers of the Hands, by Al Barraclough. Longlisted. ‘For the first time, you can immerse yourself in the day-to-day lives of extraordinary culture which spanned centuries and spread from the edge of the North American continent to the Russian steppes, from the Arctic wastelands to the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphate.’2
By the Fire We Carry, by Rebecca Nagle. Longlisted. ‘A powerful work of reportage and American history that braids together the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation’s earliest days, and a small-town murder in the 1990s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land more than a century later.’3
Fiction
The Safekeep, by Yael van der Wouden. Winner. ‘An exhilarating tale of twisted desire, histories and homes, and the unexpected shape of revenge – for readers of Patricia Highsmith, Sarah Waters and Ian McEwan’s Atonement. It is fifteen years after the Second World War, and Isabel has built herself a solitary life of discipline and strict routine in her late mother’s country home, with not a fork or a word out of place. But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel’s doorstep – as a guest, there to stay for the season… In the sweltering heat of summer, Isabel’s desperate need for control reaches boiling point. What happens between the two women leads to a revelation which threatens to unravel all she has ever known.’4
A Little Trickerie, by Rosanna Pike. Longlisted. ‘A Little Trickerie is blazingly original, disarmingly funny and deeply moving. Portraying a side of Tudor England rarely seen, it’s a tale of belief and superstition, kinship and courage, with a ragtag cast of characters and an unforgettable and distinctly unangelic heroine.’5
The Artist, by Lucy Steeds. Longlisted. ‘PROVENCE, 1920. Ettie moves through the remote farmhouse, silently creating the conditions that make her uncle’s artistic genius possible. Joseph, an aspiring journalist, has been invited to the house. He believes he’ll make his name by interviewing the reclusive painter, the great Edouard Tartuffe. But everyone has their secrets. And, under the cover of darkness, Ettie has spent years cultivating hers. Over this sweltering summer, everyone’s true colours will be revealed. Because Ettie is ready to be seen. Even if it means setting her world on fire.’6
Featured in May 2025
Coming up in July 2025
🖊️ 1st July 2025: A guest essay by
, ‘Rebellion and Faith: Caste War of Yucatán, the Church of the Speaking Cross and the Cruzob Maya’.🖊️ 8th July 2025: A guest piece of historical fiction by
, entitled ‘The Resistance’.👩💼 16th July 2025: An interview with
.🖊️ 24th July 2025: A guest essay by
, ‘The five-day smog that choked London’.📖 31st July 2025: Roundup of all new additions to the Directory
https://womensprize.com/library/agent-zo-the-untold-story-of-courageous-ww2-resistance-fighter-elzbieta-zawacka/
https://womensprize.com/library/embers-of-the-hands-hidden-histories-of-the-viking-age/
https://womensprize.com/library/by-the-fire-we-carry-the-generations-long-fight-for-justice-on-native-land/
https://womensprize.com/library/the-safekeep/
https://womensprize.com/library/a-little-trickerie/
https://womensprize.com/library/the-artist/