I joined journalist Ella Foote this week for a ‘swimterview’ at the Mixed Pond on Hampstead Heath in London, the setting for Daisy Belle: Swimming Champion of the World. Ella writes for the brilliant Outdoor Swimmer Magazine and the idea was to chat while swimming. Unfortunately I’ve recently ripped the nail off my big toe… Continue reading
Daisy Belle began serialisation on The Pigeonhole this week and it has been a surreal experience being able to read people’s thoughts and comments as they are in the very process of reading the book! It’s exciting seeing which parts of the novel get the most reactions, and to answer readers’ questions as we go… Continue reading
Reviews are coming in on the Daisy Belle blog tour, organised by Anne Cater of RandomThingsTours. ‘Daisy is such an endearing and engaging character, from her first forays into the water aged just four – right through to her adult life and the trials and tribulations of being a woman born to succeed in a… Continue reading
‘Black women were disproportionately jailed and mistreated in London’s infamous Holloway Prison’ – openDemocracy, the independent global media platform, has run an extract from Bad Girls, taken from a chapter on racism within the prison service. The extract can be read here. Continue reading
The Camden New Journal ran a feature on the inspiration behind Daisy Belle, ‘a woman born into a world that believed in female inferiority who knew she must negotiate the men who wanted to exploit her talent.’ ‘Daisy Belle highlights the histories and achievements of Victorian athletic lady-swimmers..and reflects upon the history of swimming in… Continue reading
‘In Bad Girls Caitlin Davies expertly tells the story of Holloway Prison, largely through its prisoners…The journey on which Davies takes us is always thoughtful, sometimes witty, and never judgemental. (She also) looks at the staffing of Holloway, its governors, the prison routines, the prison’s failings, prison life, racism and life after the nick… Continue reading
Daisy Belle: Swimming Champion of the World will be offered to readers via The Pigeonhole next month. Subscribing to The Pigeonhole is free, readers choose the book they want to read and they then receive 10 daily installments or ‘staves’. There are a limited number of slots available, but it’s easy to sign up. Readers… Continue reading
Daisy Belle: Swimming Champion of the World will be on a blog tour in August. The tour will include reviews, guest posts, Q&As and exclusive extracts. Continue reading
‘A biography of a prison over its lifetime, adding to the few single study accounts that we have of British penal institutions. Davies…focuses unapologetically on the inmates’ stories, and gives us an insight into the processes of her research, recounting visits to the prison, crime scenes, and burial places. All this makes Bad Girls an… Continue reading
July 18th The first copies of Daisy Belle: Swimming Champion of the World arrived today, the culmination of a crowdfunding campaign with Unbound that began in June 2017. To hold these books in my hands makes it real at last! Thank you to the hundreds of people who pledged for and supported the book. Continue reading
As from this autumn, students at Endicott College in the USA will be studying Bad Girls as part of their Popular Culture course. The course is taught by Professor Nancy Lee-Jones and I’m thrilled that she has chosen to teach the book. The college, situated near Boston, was founded in 1939 to ‘educate women for… Continue reading
The new books magazine Strong Words has run an interview on the background to Daisy Belle: Swimming Champion of the World. Questions covered a passion for swimming and what inspired my other swimming books. ‘(She) has the uncanny knack of discovering fascinating stories that have often, up until she finds them, been somewhat overlooked.’ … Continue reading
Islington Museum will be putting on an exhibition about Holloway Prison, with a focus on ‘the voices which remain unknown and unrecorded.’ This week I joined some of the volunteers to discuss the chronology of Holloway Prison and the themes that come up over and over again during its 164-year history. The museum has a… Continue reading
‘This history of Holloway Prison examines what sort of women prisoners were held there, what crimes they had committed, and how they were treated. Caitlin Davies argues that those who set up and run the justice system have historically been men – and men have always had a problem with deviant women …. A thoughtful… Continue reading
June 12th Last night was press night at the Almeida Theatre in Islington, London, for a new production of Machinal, the 1928 play written by American journalist and playwright Sophie Treadwell. It was inspired by the case of Ruth Snyder, executed by electric chair that same year, after she’d been found guilty of killing… Continue reading
Following a talk about the suffragettes and Holloway Prison at HMP Downview in Surrey earlier this year, inmates produced stunning banners as part of Historic England’s HerStories campaign, along with artist Lucy Orta and the London College of Fashion. The banners were used during Processions on June 10th, a mass art work celebrating 100 years… Continue reading
‘A highly readable history…As the group Reclaim Holloway campaigns for the (prison) site to include a Women’s Building to help the community, Davies provides a sympathetic feminist reading of female incarceration by men who could not control them’ – Julie Peakman, Who Do You Think You Are Magazine Continue reading
Strong Words, a new magazine about books, has listed ’10 wonderful books about swimming’, both fiction and non-fiction. They include the brilliant Liquid Assets by Janet Smith, which inspired my book Taking the Waters: a swim around Hampstead Heath – described by Strong Words as ‘an intriguing story brilliantly told.’ Also on the list is… Continue reading
The Jewish Chronicle has run an extract from Bad Girls, from one of the chapters about Holloway Prison during World War Two. This was the time when 3600 Jewish refugees were jailed, on the way to internment on the Isle of Man. Their ‘crime’ was to be an ‘enemy alien’. Continue reading
‘What your favorite authors are reading this summer’ – The Washington Post asked 11 writers what books they will be reading this summer. Ruth Ware, the bestselling psychological crime thriller author, chose Bad Girls. Continue reading
Actor Amanda Root has been reading Bad Girls to help her understand Miss Madrigal – the character she plays in The Chalk Garden, the classic 1955 play by Enid Bagnold, which opens this week at The Chichester Festival Theatre. In the play, Miss Madrigal arrives at a Sussex manor to take up a post as… Continue reading
One of the joys of writing a book is hearing readers’ reactions, especially when they relate their personal or professional lives to stories in the book. Here former probation officer Mike Guilfoyle tells the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies about a woman called ‘Elsha’. Read more Continue reading
Author Angela Buckley – the Victorian Supersleuth – has often found her criminal investigations lead her to Holloway Prison, particularly when she researched the life of Amelia Dyer, a Victorian baby farmer. Read more Continue reading
‘Bad Girls offers many great tales of those who called the now-closed Holloway prison their home…and Caitlin Davies delves into every conceivable story.For those living in the shadow of Islington’s Holloway prison the imagination has run wild for years, concocting images of terrible conditions. Caitlin offers a comprehensive and much-needed answer. The study of Britain’s… Continue reading
The Spring issue of the Journal of the Islington Archaeology & History Society featured Holloway Prison on its cover, as well as running an extract from Bad Girls. The journal also covered the recently re named Cat and Mouse Library next to Holloway Prison (the new name is a reference to the Temporary Discharge for… Continue reading
‘Women who broke the law throughout much of British history often also broke another taboo: what was expected of their gender. Caitlin Davies’ book explores HMP Holloway, the London lockup where many of these female felons were incarcerated. It’s fascinating both for its portrait of larger-than-life women and the ways in which they were regarded… Continue reading
‘Caitlin Davies’ revealing account of the jail’s 164-year history offers overwhelming evidence for her thesis, that ‘ever since Holloway opened, women have been held up to different standards: were they good wives and mothers, did they know their place?’..(She) makes a good case for the prison’s role as ‘a graduating university for militants’…(and) digs into… Continue reading
Stylist chose Bad Girls as one of its ‘unmissable books to read this spring’. ‘Through the story of its inmates, Davies explores how society has dealt with disobedient women – from suffragettes to refugees to women seeking abortions – for decades, and how they’ve failed to silence those who won’t go down without a fight.’… Continue reading
The Life and Times of Mary, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland, by Catherine Layton, has been released by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. It tells the full story of May Caroline, who in 1893 was imprisoned at Holloway. Catherine, an academic who lives in Australia, is related to May Caroline’s… Continue reading
I’m thrilled to be a tutor on Arvon’s non-fiction tutored retreat – ‘Finding the heart of your non-fiction story’ – along with Colin Grant and guest speaker Helen Jukes. The retreat runs from November 18th to the 23rd, 2019, at the Hurst in Shropshire. Two types of grants are available to help cover course fees. Continue reading