About me

Tracey Warr - photo of the author

Hi, I am a fiction and non-fiction writer.

Historical Writing

My historical novels are published by Meanda Books.

Medieval Fiction

I have published six novels set in early medieval Europe. I research, elaborate and imagine into the gaps of what is known about real medieval women who receive, at best, a few lines in a medieval chronicle. My research draws on history, medieval literature, medieval artefacts and maps and on the surviving remnants of medieval sites.

Occitan Medieval Heroines

My first novel, Almodis: The Peaceweaver, set in 11th century France and Spain, was published in 2011. It was shortlisted for the Impress Prize for New Fiction and the Rome Film Festival Book Initiative, and received a Santander Research Award. My second novel, The Viking Hostage, set in 10th century France and Wales, was published in 2014 and topped the Amazon Australia bestseller list in historical fiction. These two standalone novels focus on two generations of the La Marche family in the Occitan-speaking region of medieval France.

Nest ferch Rhys – Medieval Wales

I was awarded a 2015 Literature Wales Bursary for work on my Conquest trilogy, set in 12th century Wales, England and Normandy – Daughter of the Last King,  The Drowned Court, and The Anarchy.  This trilogy of novels centres on the turbulent life of the Welsh noblewoman Nest ferch Rhys.

Trobairitz Sleuth – Medieval Murder Mystery Series

Love’s Knife is book 1 in my latest series of medieval fiction. Beatriz de Farrera is a trobairitz – a female troubadour – at the court of Philippa of Toulouse. Together with her deaf friend, Anna, she must solve a murder.

Three Female Lords

I received an Authors’ Foundation Award from the Society of Authors for a biography on three medieval sisters, entitled Three Female Lords, which is my other current writing project.

Writing in the Vicinity of Art

A new collection of my art writing was published in September 2024 in hardback, paperback and ebook. Writing in the Vicinity of Art, Volume 1. Volume 2 is coming soon.

My art writing includes The Midden (Garret, 2018) on art and ecology, Remote Performances in Nature and Architecture (Routledge, 2015), Setting the Fell on Fire (Editions North, 2009) on contemporary rural art and The Artist’s Body (Phaidon, 2000). I have published numerous essays on contemporary artists with publishers including Intellect, Black Dog, Palgrave Macmillan, Merrell/Barbican, Tate and Manchester University Press and in Journal of Writing in Creative PracticePerformance Research journal and Times Higher Education.

During Frontiers in Retreat I participated in the Zooetics project with Jutempus and undertook residencies at HIAP, Suomenlinna Island, Finland and Centre d’Art i Natura, Farrera in the Catalan Pyrenees.

I was an artist/writer in the Exoplanet Lot exhibition organised by Maison des Arts Georges et Claude Pompidou and installed extracts from my future fiction, ‘Meanda’, alongside the River Lot, which I developed during a residency at Maison Daura in Saint Cirq Lapopie. My other art projects have included River Runs with Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas and Giacomo Castagnola at Modern Art Oxford; As Above So Below with Allenheads Contemporary Arts;  guest curator for Outlandia treehouse in the Scottish Highlands with London Fieldworks.

The Water Age is a series of three books I developed during my involvement with the Frontiers in Retreat art and ecology research project. The books are future fictions, adult art and writing workshops and children’s art and writing workshops – all focused on the idea that we may be living with more water in the future. More on these books here: Meanda Books.


I am a member of the Society of Authors, the Historical Writers Association, and the Historical Novel Society.

My previous academic posts have included Programme Lead, Fine Art at Oxford Brookes University; Programme Lead for MA Contemporary Arts and for Arts Management, Dartington College of Arts; Guest Professor, Public Art MFA, Bauhaus University, Weimar; and Art History Tutor, Saint Francis University in France and for the Open University.

You can follow me on Facebook on

Tracey Warr Historical Writing

Or on Bluesky

@traceywarr.bsky.social

You can sign up to my quarterly newsletter, Just Meandering, for updates on my work.

Get in touch.

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7 Comments Add yours

  1. HookzBM's avatar HookzBM says:

    Hiya Tracey

    Thank you for coming in today and sharing your work and experiences with my class today.

    The session was informative.

    Rochelle

  2. Shane Mullen's avatar Shane Mullen says:

    Hi Tracey, it’s Shane. I really miss the minibus outings and everything Dartington, although I still manage to get here on a regular basis. Hope you are OK.

    1. Tracey Warr's avatar traceywarr says:

      Hi Shane! Let me know if you are next in the area. Would be good to catch up. We are just launching the new Dartington Arts School and two new master’s programmes this September.

  3. Shane's avatar Shane says:

    Ooooohhh…you’ve brought courses back to Dartington. Out of the ashes the candle has been lit!…(sort of thingy)

  4. Julia Warr's avatar Julia Warr says:

    Hi Tracey. I was with either Gina Buenfeld Murley or Paola Zambrano or Emer Grant last night (at an art opening ) and one of them let me know about you. We have a very rare name!
    Which one was it? If any? I also met an artist called Johnstone. Maybe it was him!

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