I am a freelance academic and writer based in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. My areas of interest are literature, landscape, and the history of place, with the natural world at the heart of everything I do. When I am not writing or researching you can find me pottering outside on the smallholding with the children and animals, or taking photographs.

Academic background

My PhD at the University of Exeter focused on Victorian literature, landscape, and archaeology, and from 2014-2017 I held an Honorary Fellowship with the University of Liverpool. I have worked with various companies and charities, including The Thomas Hardy Society and The Jurassic Coast Trust, to produce books, journals, and articles. I have also contributed to international University research projects, and have spoken on Radio 4 and Channel 4.

History Writing

History has always played an important role in what I do. When we learn more about the people and places that came before us, the past becomes alive and tangible. That sense of living connection is not easy to put a name to, but when we feel it, we recognise it.

As well as joining the dots, I enjoy the interrogative part of history. In looking for things we will often pose a question, and proceed to find ways to answer it. But sometimes we need to change the question we are asking. My innovative approaches to research, and the methods I use, are based on linguistics and the exploration of subtle connections between people and place, and a little probability. Not many things in history are certain, so I am always careful to offer most likely scenarios, rather than posit findings as ‘truth.’

My training as a Research Assistant at the University of Exeter led me to work on projects such as the Global Circulation of Literatures, with Professor Regenia Gagnier, and American poetry of the First World War, with Professor Mark Whalan. Most recently I have been working on ‘Heathfield Down’, as the lost location of the Battle of Hastings.

Nature Writing, and the History of Place

I really enjoy discovering histories of places, and the sense of well-being we can enjoy in natural settings. I was largely inspired to begin writing on these subjects after studying the works of the Victorian author and naturalist Richard Jefferies, while at University. When I first read Jefferies’ ‘The Story of My Heart’, a spiritual autobiography, and innovative for its time, something clicked. Jefferies described himself as an adolescent of seventeen, watching the sun rise by the wall of his family home., absorbed by the beauty of the place and the morning, and yet at the same time, feeling an outcast in his rural community for not fitting in. A keen walker, with a vivid awareness of natural phenomena and acute powers of observation, Jefferies gave a voice to the lone wanderer, inspiring many later writers, including Edward Thomas, Arthur Ransome, and Mary Webb.

Fiction

From a young age I wished to write fiction, and would dream up fantastical stories. My first full-length story was written on an A4 lined pad, and was inspired by the ‘Flowers in the Attic’ series by Virginia Andrews. Many years later, after completing a draft of a novel about Virginia Woolf, I entered the first three chapters of the manuscript for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, hosted by the women’s college at the University of Cambridge. To my surprise, out of 283 submissions, my work reached the shortlist of five.

”Rebecca Welshman’s Violet and Crimson dramatized the moment when Virginia Woolf was struggling to write her ground-breaking novel Jacob’s Room and growing close to Rachel, owner of the Violet Nurseries. Rebecca’s prose evocatively captured the texture and appearance of these delicate flowers, as well as the unspoken emotions between the two women.” - Professor Janet Todd OBE, 7th President of the Lucy Cavendish College

While it is probably a blessing that the A4 pad from my teens did not survive, many other stories have, and I continue to work on them.

Commissions

Do get in touch if you would like to commission a piece, or if you would like me to research a place or past event. Previous commissions include essays, prayers, song lyrics, and the editing and improvement of works. You can find examples of my writing in ‘Elsewhere: a journal of place’, and by following the links above to my Portfolio. I can provide high quality images to accompany commissions on nature-writing, or writing on place.

Read some examples of my nature writing, here: rebeccawelshman.wordpress.com/blog

My academic work can be read at: https://liverpool.academia.edu/RebeccaWelshman

Halnaker Windmill, Sussex © Rebecca Welshman

Landscape of a megalithic monument, Pembrokeshire

© Rebecca Welshman

A wild wood, Shropshire © Rebecca Welshman