Monsters and Strange Creatures with Natalie Lawrence

Monsters and Strange Creatures with Natalie Lawrence

Natalie Lawrence is an author and illustrator who explores our relationship with the natural world, looking through multiple lenses - from the biological to the mythic and psychoanalytic. She completed a MSc and Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge, exploring the making and meanings of monstrous creatures in seventeenth century Europe.

She published her first book as a teenager, Feathers and Eggshells, inspired by Hampstead Heath and the birds she was entranced by as a child, and published Planta Sapiens with Paco Calvo in 2022. She has also given a TedX talk, appeared on BBC Radio, and worked with installation artists.

In this chat, we talk about humans' fascination for monsters, how the walrus was originally conceived of as being a monster, the Hydra of Hamburg, cryptids as contemporary monsters and the ways in which our understanding of what is real and what exists has changed over the centuries.

Buy Enchanted Creatures: Our Monsters and Their Meanings: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/12992/9781474619035

Find Natalie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/natalie.j.lawrence/

And her website: https://nataliejlawrence.com/

Get your free guide to home protection the folklore way here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore/

Become a member of the Fabulous Folklore Family for bonus episodes and articles at https://patreon.com/bePatron?u=2380595

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Fabulous Folklore Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/fabulous_folklore

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