Last weekend saw a bit of a change for me as I attended Staffordshire History Day, run in collaboration between Staffordshire & Stoke on Trent Archive Service, Keele University and the Centre for West Midlands History at Birmingham University.  I'd been invited to make a presentation based on the research I did for my Masters degree last year, Victorian prostitution in Lichfield, 1877 – 1896, Lichfield being, of course, a cathedral city in Staffordshire.
 
Interestingly, the first speaker of the day, Michael Guest of Keele University, was presenting his PhD work on the Vicars Choral in Lichfield in the 18th Century; as he noted when we handed over, it wouldn’t be often that the History Day would be able to boast of hosting a Vicars and Tarts event!  The presentation went well, everyone laughed in the right places, and I'd be more than happy to do more in this vein in the future.  Thanks for inviting me, Staffordshire archives! (and also for your permission to use the tweet below).  It was also very good to meet up again with fellow speaker and former WM History student, Cathy Schling, and of course with the Director of the Centre for West Midlands History, Dr Malcolm Dick.

From Victorian prostitution to neo-Victorianism, though, I'm back to more familiar territory this weekend, though, as with fellow writer Steven C. Davis I’ll be travelling to Northampton to take part in Steampunk at the Lab, an event at the Legendary Labour Club.  Music is provided by BB Blackdog, Birthrite and local chaps Gladstone, and we’ll also be presenting one of our now-equally legendary ‘Star Wars: Steampunk’d’ workshops.  And we’ll have copies of all our books available for perusal and purchasement.
 
Tickets are £5 on the door – hope to see you there.