Exciting book news! & newsletter update

& a little Haruki Murakami, Novelist as a Vocation

Apologies for the quiet period with the newsletter but things have indeed been afoot - including, good news!

I am delighted to have signed a book contract with The History Press, the UK’s largest dedicated history publisher, publishing more 200 books annually over their national and local titles. Visionary: The Woman Who Changed Medieval England will come out with them in the UK in 2026 with US and international/translation rights to follow. Many thanks to literary agent Clare Grist Taylor and THP editor Claire Hopkins for making this happen!

My book fits in very well with the History Press’ strengths in ‘Women in History’ and medieval titles. We’ve agreed on a hearty number of illustrations and when the time comes, I’m excited to see a cover as snappy as their recent ones. Here’s a preliminary blurb to whet your appetite:

Meet Birgitta of Sweden: the most famous woman writer no-one has heard of.

Who would believe that late-medieval England’s most famous woman writer was a fourteenth-century Swedish saint? But the more than 700 Revelations Birgitta documented over the course of her lifetime were to take England by storm, inspiring the likes of Margery Kempe and transforming how the English understood women and power. Yet despite her fame, Birgitta never fitted established ideas about authorship and literary history. Her story has been all but forgotten – until now.

In VISIONARY, Laura Saetveit Miles explores the life and work of this extraordinary wife, mother, activist and holy woman, taking us into the archives to share the precious manuscripts preserving Birgitta’s texts and charting her influence through the eyes of eight medieval English men and women who became some of her biggest fans, including the theologian cardinal, Adam Easton; the blind poet, John Audelay; Margaret Beaufort, mother to Henry VII, and a prophesying housemaid called Elizabeth Barton.

Their love of Birgitta reveals what the saint meant to a nation, the remarkable range of her influence and why we should remember – and celebrate - her legacy today.

Some newsletter adjustments

After a few months trying out Substack and learning more about the potential of the platform, I have decided to adjust my approach a bit to make it more sustainable for myself as well as more accessible for readers. Newsletters will now come out every 2 weeks (likely Fridays or over the weekend, since I write these in my spare time). I’ll have one newsletter for all readers and pro-rata refund those that have paid. Instead of a podcast version of newsletters for paid readers, I’m considering the ‘Voiceover’ feature Substack offers, of recording a reading of each post that’s linked to that post directly, if there’s enough interest: do you want this ‘podcast’-like option? Reply in the comments!

I like the idea of making the written posts more accessible for those who might prefer to listen instead of read, but I want to make sure that these voiceovers will be listened to before I commit :-) If even a few of you would appreciate the aural option, I’m happy to provide.

I’ll be continuing with the writing-process-centric content as has been the emphasis the past few months, while integrating more and more medieval / literary / history / religion content—some related to Visionary the book, some related to my other research. If you want more of a particular topic—drafting tips, time management, holy women, mysticism, etc—just leave a comment on a post and I’ll get inspired. I have tons of material and truly appreciate the chance to write more and reach a broader audience, both to bring the medieval to the people and to bring people (and myself) to a better version of their own creative process.

Now for a bit of substantive content!

Haruki Murakami, Novelist as a Vocation

Perhaps you know the novels of contemporary Japanese author Haruki Murakami? I read Dance, Dance, Dance in undergrad as part of a life-changing ‘Historical Survey of Japanese Literature’ course, and a smattering since, including 1Q84. I’ve just finished the recent Novelist as a Vocation, one of his excellent non-fiction books along with the one on running, and found some real gems that I’ll be sharing and discussing in the coming newsletters. Here’s a few relevant reflections from the chapter “Making Time Your Ally: On Writing a Novel”:

When writing a novel, my rule is to produce roughly ten Japanese manuscript pages (the equivalent of sixteen hundred English words) every day. This works out to about two and a half pages on my computer, but I base my calculations on the old system out of habit. On days where I want to write more, I still stop after ten pages; when I don’t feel like writing, I force myself to somehow fill my quota. Why do I do it this way? Because it is especially important to maintain a steady pace when tackling a big project. That can’t work if you write a lot one day and nothing at all the next. So I punch in, write my ten pages [1600 words], and then punch out, as if I’m working on a time card. (95)

…

Isak Dinesen once said, “I write a little very day, without hope and without despair.” I write my ten pages the same way. Cool and detached. “Without hope and without despair” says it perfectly. I wake early each morning, brew a fresh pot of coffee, and work for four or five hours straight.

This regular, even writing practice parallels Ernest Hemingway’s, that he describes in In Our Time, where he writes every morning and stops when he still knows what he’s going to write next (and then goes to the beach). There’s a real sustainability to working smoothly—easier said than done, but a practice that must be practiced to achieve. As in, if writing every single day to a set goal seems completely impossible, not because of other commitments but because you only manage to write when you’re ‘inspired,’ then this regularity is definitely worth working up to because the return of being liberated from fickle inspiration and freed to produce predictably will be enormous.

But—what about writer’s block, etc? Elsewhere in his book he discusses writer’s block or what he does when he doesn’t actually feel inspired, which does happen. He switches to translation, exercising his brain in a parallel but slightly different way, resting his writing muscles but keeping his brain limber and ready to go. I think having these other activities ready on the sidelines is key: ‘productive procrastination’ such that you actually accomplish something, but also get yourself as ready to write as possible.

May your writing and thinking be without hope and without despair for the next two weeks!