IN AN AGE OF COMPARISON CULTURE AND GLOSSY SOCIAL-MEDIA LIVES, IT’S HARD NOT TO QUESTION YOUR OWN PROGRESS. BUT THERE’S NO RIGHT PATH TO LIFE AS THESE WOMEN, WHO ARE TURNING CONVENTION ON ITS HEAD AND SHARING WISDOM AS THEY GO, DEMONSTRATE…

Literary news andreviews with alocal flavour

How and why women fall through history’s gaps

Leigh Lawson has embraced acting and poetry with the same determination that sustained Marie Lloyd, the music-hall queen whose memorabilia he collects, as Carla Passino discovers

John Marlowe, a shoemaker from Canterbury, died in 1605. His son Christopher had failed to follow him into the trade, choosing the more unreliable life of playwright, poet and jobbing spy. It had been

I WOKE up after a vivid dream of Eleanor. I’d had quite a few recently. Eleanor was my half-sister. She was older than me – the daughter of Dad’s first wife, Dorrie. My mum only found out he had a fir