History
Sarah Gristwood has written widely on history for publications such as BBC History Magazine, History Today, and HistoryExtra, often tying in with the themes of her books. Her articles cover subjects including royal power, Tudor politics, and the cultural codes of the past.
Around the release of The Tudors in Love, she contributed a feature to HistoryExtra exploring how courtly love shaped the romantic and political lives of the Tudor dynasty. This writing reflects her interest in how historical ideas still echo in modern culture.
Opinion and commentary
Alongside her historical work, Sarah has contributed commentary, features, and essays to newspapers and magazines including The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Times, and the Evening Standard. Her journalism often applies a historical perspective to contemporary subjects — from monarchy and gender roles to cultural identity and personal experience.
For The Telegraph, she wrote a feature titled “Naked embraces and Arthurian fantasies – a Tudor guide to seduction,” drawing connections between historical ideas of romance and today’s expectations around love and relationships.
In 2023, she published a personal essay in The Guardian, “Who am I without him? What I learned about grief from reading other widows’ stories,” written after the death of her husband, film critic Derek Malcolm. The piece explored grief through both a personal and literary lens, referencing the experiences of other women across time.
Her views on royal history and public memory have also appeared in outlets such as Vanity Fair, Smithsonian Magazine, and The Daily Mail.
In digital media, Sarah contributed regularly to Huffington Post UK, and was part of The History Girls, a blogging collective of women historical writers. Across platforms, her work reflects an ongoing interest in how the past continues to inform personal and public life.
