http://www.sarahdunant.com/blog Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:28:50 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging! http://www.sarahdunant.com/blog/2011/06/hello-world/ It is the strangest feeling, sitting at my computer in a little room in North London, watching spring 2011 outside the winter, surrounded by leaning towers of history books, as I sink myself into Rome five hundred years ago. At this moment I am in the coliseum,  1494, where on ... http://www.sarahdunant.com/blog/2011/04/the-borgias/ The place is the city of Ferrara in Italy - in itself one of the best kept secrets of renaissance history when it comes to tourism. Ten days ago I found myself walking its streets again towards the convent of Sant 'Antonio in Polesino, with its deeply peaceful exterior coutyard ... http://www.sarahdunant.com/blog/2010/06/back-to-the-convent-where-it-all-started/ I suppose the best thing about life is the challenges it throws up. And if you had any idea quite how hard it might be, you would be tempted to say no. So maybe sometimes better not to know. Last weekend in the one of the most surprisingly lovely churches in ... http://www.sarahdunant.com/blog/2010/05/nuns-with-nail-varnish/ Having been having the time of my life on this book tour. I wish I could say it has come from selling books (I fear the days of book shops gigs are numbered)  but also because the time you actually get to do that - to really talk to people  ... http://www.sarahdunant.com/blog/2010/04/when-women-couldnt-sing/ Well, just when I thought I couldn't stand another plane ride (why is it that every plane I take gets delayed)  I hit Dallas and the Dallas Art Museum for the greatest gig in ages. Fabulous hall, big and intimate at the same time, an audience who were so up ... http://www.sarahdunant.com/blog/2010/04/half-way-across-america/ Maybe this is the hardest of all. It is spring here in England after an  especially gruelling winter: the first blossoms and blue blue skies. Very tender and special, as only English springs can be. But I have to get on another plane tomorrow,  this time heading West to New ... http://www.sarahdunant.com/blog/2010/04/the-last-waltz-apologies-to-the-band/ First, I like to apologise to all those who have visited this site and not had me respond to their posting. I have been travelling a great deal over the last six months, then teaching in St Louis for a month, and then trying to get my feet back on ... http://www.sarahdunant.com/blog/2010/02/another-year-another-journey/ Having been on the road with Sacred Hearts and the Renaissance for almost four weeks (how rich and interesting to carry a convent of women around with you in your head) I am due a short break on a small gulf island off he coast of British Columbia and Vancouver ... http://www.sarahdunant.com/blog/2009/08/heading-out-for-the-west-coast-with-apologies-to-dylan/ So, someone sent this to me today and I was fascinated to read it. : http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/08/sarah-dunant-bares-all.html It is quite close to my heart because ,of couse, while the renaissance is known for its beauty and wonder, it was also a time of huge violence and brutality.  That I certainly believe. And ... http://www.sarahdunant.com/blog/2009/08/interesting-review-blog-on-new-yorker-site/