The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast

By Heather Rose JonesArts Books Fiction History

The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast episodes

October 03On the Shelf for October 2026 - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 353
On the Shelf for October 2026
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 353 with Heather Rose Jones
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
In this episode we talk about:
Summer book selling
Spin-off projects from the blog
An interesting new publisher: Lavender Octavo
Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
DeVun, Leah. 2020. The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance. Columbia University Press, New York. ISBN 978-0-2311-9551-5
Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
The Price of Treason by Corinne Astier
Staying Above the Snakes (Wild Hearts on the Western Frontier #2) by Carmilla Deane
Flora: My Heart Will Pay the Price (Motherline Saga #2) by Amber L. Ricketts
A Divine Comeback by David Imper
A Companion for Miss Ledbury (Fallowmere Novels #2) by Verity Fairbanks
A Fortune for Miss Pomfret (Fallowmere Novels #3) by Verity Fairbanks
Finding Each Other by Faithe Stephens
Finding Freedom by Maggi Petton
What a Lady Wants by Viola Velarossi
Hidden Hearts (Fugitive Hearts #1) by Margaret Fridley
The Corrected Heading by William Ferrier Jr.
The Riveter's Heart by Koda James
The Stolen Women by Alysandra Dutton
Of Her Blood by Rozina Hyland
Beau Scamp by C. M. Harris
Kitty (The Bennet Sisters #1) by T.J. Ryan
Raven by Lyndsay Faye
Where Ashes Bury Her (The Women of Sapphire #1) by L. Creeke
Rottenheart by Kat Dunn
My Darling Girls by Marina Scott
The Translator by Annabelle Marx
Unspeakable Things by Elizabeth Hand
Venus, Vanishing by Rebecca Birrell
The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain
Angel on Fire by Annette Pritchard
Upstate by Kim van Alkemade
All's Fair in Love and Duty by Sarah Jacklin & Phoebe Rose
Other Titles of Interest
The Soldaderas by Sofia Guadarrama Collado
Death by Misadenture by Jane Bitomsky
Beneath the Stone by Haven Reyes
Last Minute Addition
Ochre, Quarta, or Ivy by Jeannelle M. Ferreira
What I’ve been consuming
The Regency Switch by Helen Gaskell
A Lady's Guide to Scandal by Sophie Irwin
Call for submissions for the 2027 LHMP audio short story series. See here for details.
A transcript of this podcast is available here. (Interview transcripts added when available.)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
Twitter: @LesbianMotif
Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
Website: http://alpennia.com
Email: Heather Rose Jones
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
38 min
September 19Is Your Sapphic Protagonist Worried About the Wrong Things? - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 352
Is Your Sapphic Protagonist Worried About the Wrong Things?
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 352 with Heather Rose Jones
In this episode we talk about:
How to make the conflicts in a sapphic historical romance more realistic
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
Twitter: @LesbianMotif
Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
Website: http://alpennia.com
Email: Heather Rose Jones
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
19 min
September 06On the Shelf for September 2026- The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 351
On the Shelf for September 2026
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 351 with Heather Rose Jones
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
In this episode we talk about:
My non-fiction book The Theory of Related-ivity: A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category
Resources for the Anthropic class action settlement
Authors Guild explainer
Writer Beware resource page
Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
The Copper Line (Still Sisters #1) by Gabi Prevot
The Bitter Cut (Still Sisters #2) by Gabi Prevot
The First Tin (Still Sisters #0.1) by Gabi Prevot
The Yard Light (Still Sisters #0.2) by Gabi Prevot
The End Crowns All by Bea Fitzgerald
Locusta by Emily Dexter
Sweet Mother, I Cannot Weave by T.D. Cloud
Empress, Goddess by Morgan H. Owen
My Betterhalf: A Novel of the Ladies of Llangollen by Genevieve Sinclair
A Study in Silence by Elizabeth Louise
A Match for Lady Adelaide by Verity Fairbanks
Time Never Waits (Chathom Chronicles # 1) by Samantha Calcott & Melinda Lauer
Her Lady's Companion by Odette Valehart
The Crooked Medium's Guide to Terror (Crooked Medium #2) by Stephen Cox
A Ruin of Roses by Corinne Astier
The Last Telegram of Mrs Hudson by Mattea Orr
A Deadly Entanglement (Harriman & Mancini Mystery #2) by Cathy Pegau
The Borderless Sky by Kim Kirkley
The Marigold Room by Josephine Bray
You Made Me Love You by K D Jensen
The Quiet Fields by Zinnia Bradley
Other Books of Interest
Crazy Woman (The Crazy Woman #1) by K'Anne Meinel
Women of Adventure (The Crazy Woman #2) by K'Anne Meinel
Hearts on the Table by Susan Metallo
What I’ve been consuming
How to Fake it in Society by K.J. Charles
The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri
Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
A Murderous Business by Cathy Pegau
Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher
Nine Goblins by T. Kingfisher
Call for submissions for the 2027 LHMP audio short story series. See here for details.
A transcript of this podcast is available here. (Interview transcripts added when available.)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
Twitter: @LesbianMotif
Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
Website: http://alpennia.com
Email: Heather Rose Jones
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
24 min
August 29Love for Love’s Sake by Shannon Lippert - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 350
Love for Love’s Sake by Shannon Lippert
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 350 with Heather Rose Jones
This quarter’s fiction episode presents Love for Love’s Sake by Shannon Lippert, narrated by Heather Rose Jones.
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
Twitter: @LesbianMotif
Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
Website: http://alpennia.com
Email: Heather Rose Jones
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Shannon Lippert Online
Website: shannonlippert.wordpress.com
Bluesky: @shannonxl.bsky.social
22 min
August 15On the Shelf for August 2026 - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 349
On the Shelf for August 2026
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 349 with Heather Rose Jones
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
In this episode we talk about:
A brief recap of the podcast’s history.
Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
Roulston, Chris & Caroline Gonda, eds. 2023. Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’ . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
Blumreich, Kathleen M. “Lesbian Desire in the Old French Roman de Silence,” in Arthuriana 7:2 (1997): 47-62.
Paton, Lucy Allen. 1907. “The Story of Grisandole: A Study in the Legend of Merlin” in PMLA vol. 22, no. 2. pp.234-276.
Schleiner, Winfried. 1992. “Le feu caché: Homosocial Bonds Between Women in a Renaissance Romance” in Renaissance Quarterly 45: 293-311.
Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
Bodhi and Gwen by Del Robertson
The Education of Miss Pryce by Hannah Briar
The Language of Flowers (Lavender Society #1) by Hannah Briar
The Lost Brontë by Catherine Friend
Going Down at the Point by Kimberlee Jarrett Wilson
The Harrow Home for Wayward Girls by Jessica Spotswood
The Keeper's Light (Edge of the World #1) by Margaret Fridley
The Tailor's Treasure by Alison McKenzie
The Haunting of Avis Lovelock by M.K. Hardy
Call for submissions for the 2026 LHMP audio short story series. See here for details.
A transcript of this podcast is available here. (Interview transcripts added when available.)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
Twitter: @LesbianMotif
Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
Website: http://alpennia.com
Email: Heather Rose Jones
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
18 min
August 0110th Anniversary Special: Interview with Linda Garber - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 348
10th Anniversary Special: Interview with Linda Garber
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 348 with Heather Rose Jones
An interview with Professor Linda Garber about her research into lesbian historical fiction.
Books and Media Mentioned
Garber, Linda. 2022. Novel Approaches to Lesbian History. Palgrave. ISBN 978-3030854164
Cruikshank, M. (ed) 1982. Lesbian Studies: Present and Future. The Feminist Press at CUNY. ISBN 978-0935312072
Garber, Linda. 2001. Identity Poetics: Race, Class and the Lesbian-Feminist Roots of Queer Theory. Columbia University Press.
Schwartz, Selby Wynn. After Sappho. (novel)
Keen, Suzanne. 2003 Romances of the Archive in Contemporary British Fiction. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0802086846 (credit for the phrase “romance of the archives” which I’ve been misattributing)
Martinac, Paula. Out of Time. (novel)
Davies, Stevie. Impassioned Clay. (novel)
Friend, Catherine. The Spanish Pearl. (novel)
Dickinson (tv series)
Gentleman Jack (tv series)
Arnold, June Davis. The Cook and the Carpenter. (novel)
Faderman, Lillian. 1981. Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present. William Morrow and Company, Inc. ISBN 0-688-00396-6
Hall, Radclyffe. The Well of Loneliness. (novel)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (movie)
The Favourite (movie)
Ammonite (movie)
Saturday Night Live “Lesbian Period Drama” (sketch on YouTube)
Desert of the Heart (movie) based on Jane Rule’s Desert Hearts
A Knight’s Tale (movie)
Giffney, Noreen, Michelle M. Sauer & Diane Watt (eds). 2011. The Lesbian Premodern. Palgrave. ISBN 978-0-230-61676-9
The Belle of Amherst (movie)
Gomez, Jewelle. The Gilda Stories. (novel)
Giddings, Megan. The Women Could Fly (novel)
Korn, Gabrielle. Yours for the Taking (novel)
Pérez, Emma. Forgetting the Alamo, or, Blood Memory (novel
McCollum, Hilary. As a Lover (novel)
McCollum, Hilary. Golddigger (novel)
Gagehabib, LaVerne. The Blacksmith and the Doctor (novel)
Winterson, Jeanette. The Passion (novel)
A transcript of this podcast is available here. (Interview transcripts added when available.)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
Twitter: @LesbianMotif
Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
Website: http://alpennia.com
Email: Heather Rose Jones
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Linda Garber Online
Website: academic website
1 hr 23 min
July 18On the Shelf for June & July 2026 - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 347
On the Shelf for June & July 2026
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 347 with Heather Rose Jones
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
In this episode we talk about:
Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
Moore, Lisa L. 2005. “Queer Gardens: Mary Delany's Flowers and Friendships” in Eighteenth-Century Studies Vol. 39, No. 1 (Fall, 2005), pp. 49-70
O’Driscoll, Sally. 2003. “The Lesbian and the Passionless Woman: Femininity and Sexuality in 18th century England” in The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 44.2-3. p.103-31
Peakman, Julie. 2004. Lascivious Bodies: A Sexual History of the Eighteenth Century. Atlantic Books, London. Chapter 8 “Tribadism: ‘A New Sort of Sin’”
Anonymous. 1697. The history of the intrigues & gallantries of Christina, Queen of Sweden, and of her court whilst she was at Rome faithfully render’d into English from the French original. London: Richard Baldwin.
Abbott, Carmeta. 1993. “The Portrait as Text: Two Depictions of Madame de Saint-Balmon (1607-1660)” in Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, and Social Justice vol. 19, No. 1.
Bell, Rudolph M. 1987. “Renaissance Sexuality and the Florentine Archives: An Exchange” in Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 3: pp. 485-511
Reynolds, Nicole. 2010. “Cottage Industry: The Ladies of Llangollen and the Symbolic Capital of the "Cottage Ornée"” in The Eighteenth Century, Vol. 51, No. 1/2: 211-227
Vicinus, Martha. “Lesbian Perversity and Victorian Marriage: The 1864 Codrington Divorce Trial” pp.92-94 in Journal of British Studies 36, no. 1 (1997).
Liddington, Jill. 1993. “Anne Lister of Shibden Hall, Halifax (1791-1840): Her Diaries and the Historians” in History Workshop, 35: 45-77.
Orr, Dannielle. 2006. A Sojourn in Paris 1824-25: Sex and Sociability in the Manuscript Writings of Anne Lister (1791-1840). (Doctoral Dissertation, Murdoch University)
Roulston, Chris & Caroline Gonda, eds. 2023. Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
Book Shopping
Norton, Rictor. 1997. The Myth of the Modern Homosexual: Queer History and the Search for Cultural Unity. Cassell. ISBN 0-304-33892-3
Mansel, Philip. 2001. Paris Between Empires: Monarchy and Revolution 1814-1852. St. Martin's Press, New York. ISBN 0-312-30857-4
Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
Dreaming of Jerusalem by Susie Helme
Silk Road Runaways by Christine Inserra
Chivalry in the Shadows by Meg Merriet Wahlberg
With My Own Hand: The secret life of Marie Maitland, Scotland’s sixteenth-century Sappho by Ashley Douglas
Bound By Silk & Salt Water by Caren Cross
Tempest: A Novel of Anne Bonny, the Pirate Queen Who Disappeared by K. Knight
The Ruby Reaper (The Ruby Reaper #1) by Eline Evans
The Emerald Eclipse (The Ruby Reaper #2) by Eline Evans
Mr. Moore by Giny Morales
The Miseducation of Caroline Bingley by Lindz McLeod
Caroline's Courtesan (The Comerford Courtesans #4) by Jess Michaels
Pretence & Pretentiousness by Lynn Kear
A Season of Teeth and Silk by Henriette Twinne
The Art of Longing by Michael David
The Green Seal (Blackthorn Hall Romances # 3) by E. L. Vale
What the Willow Kept (The Women of Sapphire #1.5) by L. Creeke
When Embers Find Her (The Women of Sapphire #1) by L. Creeke
The Wrong Widow (Cielo Seco # 1) by D. S. Briar
Gold Rush 1860 by Randa Hink
Two Whoops and a Holler by Carmilla Deane
Charity and Sylvia by Tillie Walden
Disfigured (New York's Gilded Age #4) by Joseph P. Garland
Becoming Legends Elsie-Bessie: A Love Story (book #1) by Barbara Barna Abel & Shannon McMahon Lichte
Lena and Miss Cawkwell by Julie Bozza
Murder by Degrees by Rachel Ford
A Blue Note by Katrina Jackson
Little Wild by Laura Evans
The Malign Ghosts of Summer by Ann McMan
Cold Water by C. R. Ellery
The Rude Bird (New Orleans Noir # 1) by M. R. Dimond
What I’ve been consuming
Platform Decay by Martha Wells
Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorofor
A Change of Pace by J.A. Stevens
Call for submissions for the 2027 LHMP audio short story series. See here for details.
A transcript of this podcast is available here. (Interview transcripts added when available.)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
Twitter: @LesbianMotif
Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
Website: http://alpennia.com
Email: Heather Rose Jones
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
19 min
July 04Women and Same-Sex Marriage in Western History (Reprise) - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 346
Women and Same-Sex Marriage in Western History (Reprise)
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 346 with Heather Rose Jones
In this episode we talk about strategies for getting your historical protagonists hitched across the centuries.
How the concepts of “women”, “same-sex”, and “marriage” are being defined for the purpose of this discussion
Cultures that may have supported marriage between women as an equal option
Cases of same-sex marriage enabled by presenting as an opposite sex couple
The permeability of the “opposite sex” requirement in actual practice
Using the forms and rituals of marriage, even when the legal status was not available
This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here:
Marriage between women
Female husbands
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
Twitter: @LesbianMotif
Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
Website: http://alpennia.com
Email: Heather Rose Jones
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
32 min
June 20So You’re Writing a Sapphic Historical Romance: Questions to Consider (Reprise) - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 345
So You’re Writing a Sapphic Historical Romance: Questions to Consider (Reprise)
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 345 with Heather Rose Jones
In this episode we talk about the questions to ask about sapphic relationships and how they are perceived in your story’s setting:
How easy is it to live outside of the heterosexual marriage paradigm?
What are the economic, legal, and religious constraints on your characters?
What is the ordinary “background noise” of non-sexual displays of affection?
How does the culture of the setting understand privacy and how does that affect your characters’ behavior?
What are the realities and perceptions around sex between women in this setting?
How does the culture of the setting understand gender and sexuality?
How are female couples depicted in popular culture of the time?
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
Twitter: @LesbianMotif
Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
Website: http://alpennia.com
Email: Heather Rose Jones
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
43 min
June 06When Did We Become Lesbians? (Reprise) - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 344
When Did We Become Lesbians? (Reprise)
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 344 with Heather Rose Jones
In this episode we talk about:
The history of words for women who loved women throughout recorded European history.
What words were used?
Where did they come from?
What shades of meaning did they have?
How did those meanings change over time?
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
Twitter: @LesbianMotif
Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
Website: http://alpennia.com
Email: Heather Rose Jones
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
25 min

About The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast

From the publisher's feed

A show about queer women in history and historic literature, plus coverage of the field of sapphic historical fiction. Content note: May include discussions of sex within an academic context.