Claire Mitchell – författare

Claire Mitchell is a local resident with a passion for her environment, including magnificent Balmoral. ‘Through The Heads To Balmoral, Sydney’ follows and expands on her previous book ‘Mosman Meanders & foreshore flavours’, which takes a walk on the wild side of Sydney’s glorious foreshores. For over 40,000 years, indigenous Australians lived along our abundant coastline of beaches and bush. Then these foreshores provided a casual picnic playground for the early Sydney elite. Today, both locals and visitors embrace the now public parklands as a beautiful, natural environment to be appreciated and retained. Taking Balmoral as the epitome of it all, Claire traces the past and present development of the foreshores including the people, the land and the food. For over two centuries, the parade of vessels has passed through The Heads, Sydney’s gateway to the world, as they voyaged to and from the distant world. Photographs of local creative works showcase the richness of our cultural heritage, a place where the natural beauty has inspired so many artists, writers and photographers over the centuries. Claire’s picnic suggestions are made with an emphasis on simplicity and seasonal, local produce. Shared platters and finger foods dominate, reflecting the fusion style of our innovative Australian cuisine today. Discover and enjoy!

Nothing brings people together like a common enemy, and witches were the greatest enemy of all.

Scotland, 1563: Crops failed, people starved. And the Devil's influence was stronger than ever—at least, that's what everyone believed. During the chaos of the Reformation, violence against women was codified for the first time in the Witchcraft Act —a tool of theocratic control with one chilling goal: to root out witches (who were overwhelmingly women) and rid the land of evil. What followed was a dark and misogynistic chapter in history that fanned the flames of witch hunts across the globe, including in the United States and beyond.

In How to Kill a Witch, Zoe Venditozzi and Claire Mitchell, hosts of the popular Witches of Scotland podcast, unravel the grim yet absurdly bureaucratic process of identifying, accusing, trying, and executing witches. With sharp wit and keen feminist insight, they reveal the inner workings of a patriarchal system designed to weaponize fear and oppress women.

This captivating (and often infuriating) account exposes how witch hunts of old mirror today's struggles for justice and equality. How to Kill a Witch is a powerful, darkly humorous reminder of the dangers of unchecked power and the resilience of those who dare to challenge it.

History may have condemned the witches, but this book ensures their stories won't be forgotten.

**** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ****''Fascinating and illuminating, this book tempers the justifiable rage with sharp and funny pinpricks to the pompous.'' VAL MCDERMID, author of Past Lying''As well as highly entertaining read, How To Kill A Witch is a tour de force of research, understanding and compassion.'' PROFESSOR SUE BLACK, author of All That Remains. ''Serious and angry, but so completely accessible, How To Kill A Witch is a work of real historical investigation and a fierce warning for our times.'' MALCOLM GASKILL, author of The Ruin Of All Witches''At a time when women''s rights are once again being threatened across the globe, this book could not be a more timely read if it tried.'' SHIRLEY MANSON, Garbage ''Two of Scotland''s most vivid storytellers.'' THE TIMES ''Fascinating, angering'' THE MAIL ON SUNDAY As a woman, if you lived in Scotland in the 1500s, there was a very good chance that you, or someone you knew, would be tried as a witch. Witch hunts ripped through the country for over 150 years, with at least 4,000 accused, and with many women''s fates sealed by a grizzly execution of strangulation, followed by burning.Inspired to correct this historic injustice, campaigners and writers Claire Mitchell, KC, and Zoe Venditozzi, have delved deeply into just why the trials exploded in Scotland to such a degree. In order to understand why it happened, they have broken down the entire horrifying process, step-by-step, from identification of individuals, to their accusation, ''pricking'', torture, confessions, execution and beyond. With characteristically sharp wit and a sense of outrage, they attempt to inhabit the minds of the persecutors, often men, revealing the inner workings of exactly why the Patriarchy went to such extraordinary lengths to silence women, and how this legally sanctioned victimisation proliferated in Scotland and around the world. With testimony from a small army of experts, pen portraits of the women accused, trial transcripts, witness accounts and the documents that set the legal grounds for the hunts, How to Kill A Witch builds to form a rich patchwork of tragic stories, helping us comprehend the underlying reasons for this terrible injustice, and raises the serious question - could it ever happen again?