I’m delighted to be returning to the UK next month as the recipient of the 2019 Di Yerbury Residency Award, through the Society of Women Writers NSW.

From North Devon, I’ll undertake research for my second historical fiction Borrowed Milk. The story is inspired by the wife of a wealthy squire, Elizabeth Brand. Her insistence on breastfeeding her babies was considered so remarkable that when she died in 1636 it was recorded on her memorial brass that she left behind ‘6 sonnes and 6 daughters (all nursd with her unborrowed milk)’.

My own story is set in and around Exeter in the 1600s, and follows a married woman who is hired to wet-nurse the child of a prosperous merchant family. Borrowed Milk explores the delicate personal, physical and commercial relationships between the two families.

Many thanks to Di Yerbury and the Society of Women Writers NSW for this wonderful opportunity.

From left to right, previous recipients of the Di Yerbury Residency Award, Felicity Pulman and Valerie Pybus, with Helen Thurloe and Professor Emerita Dianne Yerbury AO