Historical Writing

I have published five 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.

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 by Impress Books in 2014 and topped the Amazon Australia bestseller list in historical fiction. 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. My novels are published by Meanda Books.

I am currently writing a series of medieval murder mysteries centring on a female troubadour in southern France. The novel will be serialised on Substack from November. You can subscribe to receive daily chapters.

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 will be published in September 2024 in hardback, paperback and ebook. You can preorder the ebook now – Writing in the Vicinity of Art.

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 Practice, Performance 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 recent 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.

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

I am organising the Historical Novel Society UK 2024 conference at Dartington Hall.

I teach on MA Poetics of Imagination at Dartington Arts School. 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.

T WARR CV

You can contact me at traceykwarr [at] gmail.com

You can follow me on Twitter @TraceyWarr1

You can follow me on Facebook on

Tracey Warr Historical Writing

or Tracey Warr Art Writing.

You can sign up to my bi-monthly newsletter for updates on my work.

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