Harriet Marsden

Journalist

harriet1marsden@gmail.com

Freelance journalist, editor and speaker available for commissions and broadcast appearances. Based in London but open to international and collaborative work.

Beat: politics, culture, arts and travel — the quirkier, the better. Also available for branded content and copywriting. My first novel, a fun feminist account of the six wives of Henry VIII, is available to pre-order.

Follow me on Twitter for trite takes, Instagram for vapid narcissism or TikTok for attempted relevance.

Recent favourites

The Independent • 21st January 2021

The Birdman of the Tower of London and the missing ravens

Nothing in Edgar Allan Poe’s majestic poem The Raven prepares you for their smell. But Christopher James Skaife, Yeoman Warder and Ravenmaster of the Tower of London, knows it only too well. “Ravens are quite smelly, especially babies, it’s quite pungent, and I only have a small house tucked into the walls of the Tower of London … the ravens like to walk around our house, and they poo everywhere. That was the first thing my wife moaned about.”

New Statesman • 12th January 2021

What debunking the myth of Henry VIII can teach us about Brexit

It took writing a book about the wives of Henry VIII in the viral haze of a Brexit transition year for me to realise: I’ve been here before. Break from supranatural European bloc? Rife social division? English exceptionalism cosplaying as patriotism? Adulterous manchild at the helm? It struck me: are we living in a Tudor fever dream?

Foreign Policy • 8th January 2021

As Britain Gawps at U.S. Chaos, Violence Could Cross the Atlantic

Ever since a reality TV personality was elected president of the United States, British political journalists have gotten into the habit of staying up all night to gawk. Elections, by-elections, Twitter storms, impeachment proceedings—thanks to the time difference, we wake up and predict what might happen across the pond and then fight sleep to watch events unfold.

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