Hagitude author Sharon Blackie: ‘At 60 I wasn’t ready to give up, I was just starting’
The writer of cult hit If Women Rose Rooted is on a mission to bring folklore to modern readers. She talks about confronting her fears
The writer of cult hit If Women Rose Rooted is on a mission to bring folklore to modern readers. She talks about confronting her fears, communing with nature – and the power that comes with age Like many of the wise women in her books, Sharon Blackie lives miles from anyone.
Hers is the only house on the road winding through a valley deep in the Yorkshire Dales. The River Eden runs along the bottom of her garden, which overlooks the ruins of a castle built, as legend has it, by King Arthur’s father. The writer shares this romantic idyll with three border collies, six sheep, nine hens and her husband, David Knowles, a former RAF Tornado pilot.
It seems an appropriate setting for an author who is on a mission to bring fairytales to modern readers. Blackie runs spiritual retreats and workshops at the nearby Broughton Sanctuary and publishes a popular Substack called The Art of Enchantment. Her books, including word-of-mouth hits such as If Women Rose Rooted and Hagitude, are a beguiling mix of memoir, mythology and eco-feminism – manifestos for a better way of living.
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