@joedragovich.bsky.social
History writer, digital archive nerd. Words in @nytimes.com, @historytoday.com and @sdtimes.bsky.social. Associate Fellow, Royal Historical Society. 📚 https://lnk.to/Hawkhurst Runs @historyclippings.bsky.social
In view of the already overcrowded state of the book-market, the author of this little work feels that some apology is due to a much-enduring public for his temerity in adding yet another drop to the stream.
I'm going to start every book I write with an apology for writing the book from now on.
From 1892.
If you think the book market was oversaturated in 1892, buddy I got bad news for you...
#writesky #authorsky
Check out my appearance on BBC Secret Kent.
I talk about the Battle of Goudhurst, the high water mark of the Hawkhurst Gang.
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
#kent #c18th 🗃️ #smuggling
Really enjoyed meeting everyone at the #HWACrowns25 yesterday.
A great evening with great writers!
The Carlisle Indian School digital archive has a lot of great primary material for the first federal Indian boarding school.
carlisleindian.dickinson.edu
Thrilled to be Highly Commended in this year's HWA short story contest!
My story this year has some elements based on an old family story about a hobo working for a traveling preacher. Thrilled to be able to keep that little story alive through fiction!
Really pleased to be long listed again this year.
I don't usually write fiction and the Dorothy Dunnet competition is a great opportunity to do it!
Grimma Wormtongue is a Lord of the Rings character that sounds like a Harry Potter character.
15.08.2025 20:22 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
My article for @nytimes.com is in French!
It's the first time anything I've written has been translated.
www.ledevoir.com/societe/scie...
That feels like a writer achievement unlocked.
#writing #writesky
Thanks! That's one of the most surprising things I learned while researching this. The cola wars were partisan, especially when Carter was very close to Coca Cola.
29.07.2025 19:59 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Check out my piece in the @nytimes.com about the 1980s cola space race.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/s...
Worked with some great editors and a spoke with interesting people while I was working on this. Really pleased to see this published.
#space #nasa #spaceshuttle #challenger
www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/people/...
Come see where the Hawkhurst Gang went on trial if you're in #chichester on a Thursday morning!
#smuggling #c18th
As a writer, you're going to do things that are a waste of time.
Do them anyway.
Send that pitch, write that piece outside your niche, research that crazy obscure subject.
It will probably come to nothing, but you'll learn something and it might be amazing.
#writingcommunity
Meticulously researched with a brisk writing style that does not allow you to put the book down. It should be made into a television series. - Lou Ferrante. Bestselling Author and Broadcaster
Louis Ferrante picture.
It's a real honor that Lou Ferrante endorsed my book!
When a former mobster and bestselling author likes your book, it really means something!
amzn.eu/d/h1tPRU1
#booksky #histbookchat 🗃️ #kent #sussex #smuggling.
Still time to get the book delivered for Christmas!
22.12.2024 20:26 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Hey thanks! Glad you enjoyed the podcast.
It's interesting because that was recorded before the election and Bluesky got big. Little did I know how popular this place would get!
Hawkhurst book cover.
I get it, you don't know what to buy your dad/uncle/grandpa for Christmas.
Get him my book if he likes crime!*
*Reading about crime, not doing crime. Actually, get it for him if he likes doing crime too.
www.amazon.co.uk/Hawkhurst-Co...
🗃️ #histbookchat #smuggling #kent #sussex
Screenshot of tweet showing my book in the Kent Archives.
My book is in an archive. The historian circle of life is complete.
Really great to see it stocked so close to where it takes place!
#booksky #histbookchat #authorsky
Thanks!
17.11.2024 10:09 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
This is it right?
amzn.eu/d/eVuN7Us
My stupid fan theory: #tropico is the Anno game that can't be made because none of the years in the 20th century add up to 9.
17.11.2024 09:36 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0I had never heard of that one before. Thanks for the tip! I'll grab a copy.
17.11.2024 08:31 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Hey whatever gets you writing!
15.11.2024 20:52 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
I was in the UK ten years before I realized the Pudsey had nothing to do with Remembrance Day.
Like I thought he was some sort of friendly cartoon war wounded.
Anyone in the #writingcommunity know of a good lit mag that takes historical fiction submissions?
I've got a story: 3500 words, takes place in 1910s, book-club fiction. Long-listed for the Dorothy Dunnet award.
Not necessarily looking to get paid, just to get a clip.
#historicalfiction #writing
Starting a #tropico game and playing a leader where I try to make people's lives better, even though I don't have to, feels like an act of rebellion right now.
11.11.2024 23:43 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
I did a straw poll on my other account on where people found their last history book.
The takeaway for me is:
A book finds you, you don't find a book.
Marketing is important for authors. Who knew?
#booksky #authorsky
Lukewarm take on the War on Drugs is also a bad take on the Hawkhurst Gang...
www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/2462744...
satellite image of eastern Ukraine, August 2022
satellite image of eastern Ukraine, August 2024, showing brown streak of destruction from the fighting.
Two satellite images of Eastern Ukraine:
August, 2022 and August 2024
The brown streak in the second picture is the front.
The war's destruction is visible from space.
#ukraine 🇺🇦
from the NOAA JSTAR mapper.
www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/mapper/
My short story, Purity, got long-listed in the HWA Dorothy Dunnet Short Story Competition
Really honored to be there with some great #histfic writers!
#HWADDSS24
www.historiamag.com/hwa-dd-ss-20...
Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #409,951!
18.09.2024 07:18 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0