Fiction Writer
Scholar
Traveler
I dream of other worlds for historical female figures,
especially those whose creativity was thwarted,
or whose courage was tested.
Welcome to my world!
especially those whose creativity was thwarted,
or whose courage was tested.
Welcome to my world!
In The News:
New Release from Kathleen Renk:
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No Coward Soul Have I by Kathleen Williams Renk
Imagine Percy and Harriet Shelley meeting Anne Devlin, an Irish rebel who had been imprisoned for three years in Dublin’s notorious Kilmainham Gaol for her involvement in Robert Emmet’s failed 1803 rebellion.
It's 1812 and young Percy Shelley, recently expelled from Oxford University, because of his professed atheism, decides to begin his political life by aiding the Irish in their effort to repeal the 1801 Act of Union of Great Britain and Ireland, while trying to complete Emmet’s rebellion. In this alternate history, Percy and his wife Harriet, full of unrealistic and lofty goals, crash against the reality of an oppressed Ireland and proud patriots like Devlin, who have no reason to trust the British, no matter how often they profess to possess Irish hearts. “Kathleen Williams Renk is an absolute master of compelling and intelligent historical fiction that carries not just the events but the people, the emotion. In No Coward’s Soul Have I, an alternate historical fiction, a type of what-if, her characters are as real as you are. This is exquisite storytelling and also immaculate research. Readers will find themselves immersed, contemplating the visceral realities of pre-famine nineteenth century Ireland, a people still engaged in a multi-century struggle to throw off the shackles of colonization. At the center of this telling appear Anne Devlin, the radical English poet, Percy Shelley; his wife Harriet; and Dublin itself. Renk truly weaves the fabric of history with a keen eye from human complexities at all ends of class and intent and nationality. Readers will find themselves not simply in the pages but on the streets and in the kitchens of Dublin, understanding the always flawed nature of human beings, of living history.” — Christina Marrocco, author of Addio, Love Monster, named Best Independent Press Novel of 2022 by the Chicago Writers Association |