M.J. Porter and Michael Cooke
MJ Porter makes great use of historical maps in writing her historical fiction. Her father, Michael Cooke, has a wealth of knowledge and a vast array of maps and an abundance of knowledge about them. They will present a display of some of these maps, encouraging others to see the value in making use of this valuable resource to bring the physical landscape of the past to life.
M J Porter is an author of historical novels set in seventh-, ninth-, tenth- and eleventh-century Saxon England, and now also, a little further afield, in Viking Age Denmark, and tenth-century East and West Frankia. She has also written three twentieth-century mystery books.
Michael Cooke spent much of his working life in the former Soviet Union and America from the 1970s and by necessity relied on maps for getting around. That requirement resulted in him building a large collection of historical maps starting around 1600 AD alongside the attendant knowledge of cartographers and their body of work.
The Historical Novel Society UK 2024 conference 