Sophie Haydock, "Madame Matisse"

Sophie Haydock is an author, editor and journalist based in Folkestone, Kent. She is also curator of Folkestone Book Festival. Her debut novel, The Flames, was published in 2022. Her second novel, Madame Matisse, about the women who were integral to the life of the French artist Henri Matisse, was published by Doubleday in March 2025.

Sophie will be giving a guest talk, "Madame Matisse: The Women Who Made the Artist," at the University of Leicester on Wednesday 30 April 2025 at 5.30pm. With Harry Whitehead, she will be discussing the women who shaped the life of the artist Henri Matisse, and the process of turning history into fiction. You can see more details about the event and book a place here. 

About Madame Matisse, by Sophie Haydock
Madame Matisse is an fictionalised exploration of the women who played pivotal yet often overlooked roles in the life of the iconic artist Henri Matisse. Through the lives of three extraordinary women, Sophie Haydock paints an emotional portrait of art, love and sacrifice.

At the heart of the story is Amélie, Matisse's wife, whose quiet devotion to her husband's genius leaves her own dreams to wither in the shadows. Her unwavering support is the foundation of Matisse’s career, but it comes at a steep personal cost.

Then there is Lydia Delectorskaya, the dazzling Russian émigrée who becomes Matisse’s muse and confidante. With her fierce independence and enigmatic past, Lydia’s relationship with Matisse is as passionate as it is fraught, as she grapples with her own identity and her complex role in his creative world. 

When his wife, after forty years of marriage, delivers a desperate ultimatum, a question is born: who will Matisse choose? And what explosions lie ahead?

Finally, Marguerite, Matisse's daughter, emerges as a voice of resistance, forging her own path and confronting the turbulent undercurrents of her family dynamic. As she struggles to define herself outside her father’s shadow, Marguerite challenges the boundaries of art, family and love.

Set against the vibrant canvas of 1930s France, Madame Matisse is a tale of ambition, betrayal and the indelible impact these women had on Matisse’s artistic legacy. Their stories of resilience and sacrifice offer a powerful reflection on the often-unseen forces behind the creation of greatness.

You can read more about Madame Matisse here. Below, you can read an excerpt from the novel. 

From Madame Matisse
Make no mistake: Lydia doesn’t care for beauty, certainly doesn’t chase after it as currency, though she understands the privileges it affords her, as a woman about to turn twenty-nine, with pale skin, ice-blonde hair and blue eyes. She has caught the eyes of enough men in her time, usually the wrong kind. But Lydia knows such beauty is not a thing to build a life upon; it will not last for more than a handful of years, nor would she want it to.

She’s sitting alone in the dark with the cool instrument clasped to her breast, lost in a meditative daze, when she hears Monsieur Matisse calling for her. There’s a shift in his tone.

Lydia returns the gun to her father’s briefcase and checks the clasps are locked securely, pushing her thumbs up against them to test for weaknesses, to see if Amélie’s meddling has inflicted permanent damage. Then she conceals the case once more, hidden until the time comes.

Once it is safely put away, she passes from her room, down the stairs, to the studio where Monsieur Matisse spends his days. Birds call from their cages, wings darting. The artist has his back to her as he tops up their seed. She notices the slope of his shoulders, pulling at the centre of his taupe jacket, the material tight between his shoulder blades. He feels her eyes on him and turns expectantly. Her gaze roams to the fireplace. She looks at a pair of pressed violets, long past their best, their colours faded after many years trapped behind a pane of glass.

"There you are, Lydia. It’s not like you to keep me waiting," he says gently.

There’s a seriousness to his features, and Lydia knows something has changed.

"Your wife was looking for you. Did she find you?" she asks.

He nods, and gestures that she take a seat.

He inhales. Pauses. Her body tenses as she waits for him to continue, her heart pounding. She waits for the words she knows are coming.

"I’m afraid my wife has given me an ultimatum," he says slowly.

Two Poems by Scott Freer

Scott Freer lives in Leicester, is an English Literature lecturer and is editor of The Journal for the T.S. Eliot Society (UK). Turning the Wild West of an allotment into a friable tilth is meant to improve your worldview and vocabulary. The title of the poem ‘Omniscient Certainty’ (below) is borrowed from Jonathan Taylor's book Science and Omniscience in Nineteenth-Century Literature (2007), with particular reference to Pierre-Simon Laplace’s Enlightenment quest for total knowledge.  

Omniscient Certainty

Look towards the edge 
of the allotment
and find a bucket 
to carry the water
to feed a little life into the dried tubers

A tiny hole at the rusting base 
creates a trickling effect
and by the time you cross the earth
from the sunken stream
a continuous trace will lead you back

In the summer the potatoes multiply
And the guttering arches on the shed

Life seems so certain here
Surveying this cherished patch 



Chickenshit

She goes to the allotment
Carrying the chickenshit
To fertilize the potatopatch

I, on the other hand,
Return to our bed
And my morning
Poetic arising

But where’s my chickenshit?
Only a muddy-ascending-noise
And nothing
Material
Rises
Except the cat of course
From out of a duvet-patch

Now, I could tell you about
Our Buddhist neighbours
Whose earth onto-theology is
Plant deep 
Nurture
And wait for 
The mysterious white chickens

Chickenshit, I say,
Without the magical compound
Nothing material (potato/poem)
Rises 

Poem by Shelley Roche-Jacques

Shelley Roche-Jacques’ poetry has appeared in magazines such as Magma, The Rialto, The Interpreter’s House and The Boston Review. Her pamphlet Ripening Dark was published in 2015 as part of the Eyewear 20/20 series. She teaches Creative Writing and Performance at Sheffield Hallam University, and is interested in the dramatic monologue as a way of examining social and political issues. Her debut full collection Risk the Pier is just out, from Eyewear.

Shrink

In here I’m fine. It’s watercolour prints
and plants, and wisely-chosen magazines.
I’ve thought all week about the goals we set.
How I must stop and think and draw deep breaths.
You said we need to figure out what triggers
the attacks. Did you call them attacks? 
What’s triggering the rage. The incidents.

I’ve really thought on that. The one at work
the other day. For God’s sake! They’re good guys!
Collecting for charity - dressed for a laugh
in floral blouses, lipstick, sock-stuffed bras
and heels – I guess I knew one shove would do. 
I didn’t mean for him to break his leg. 
But he was asking for it dressed like that.

I still can’t quite believe they called the police.
Second time in a week. Who knew that taking
adverts down on trains was an offence?
I had to climb onto the seats to reach,
but then the plastic casing slid clean off.
I wrenched the poster down and stared at it.
Are you beach body ready? I was not.  

There’s no getting away from it.
Even at night
it’s all bunched up tight 
in a sack of dark
above my head.
Or it stretches away 
like the pier, or hospital corridor, 
through the stale bedroom air
and there’s me at the end of it
there –  tiny – 
shaking my fist silently.

But let me try to keep my focus here.
The worst of it is when I hurt my son.
A children’s party is a hellish thing.
And this one had a clown who made balloons:
a flower or tiara for the girls, 
swords for the boys. I didn’t say a word.
I simply smiled and helped set out the food.

I nearly made it past the party games.
Musical statues. Robin Thicke. Blurred Lines. 
There comes a time – a limit, I should say:
it’s five year olds gyrating to this song.
The music stopped -  I yanked my frozen son
and scrambled through the streamers to the door.
Through You’re a good girl. I know you want it.

Unfriending soon began – and Facebook throbbed 
into the night – She calls herself a mum.
She’s fucking nuts. It’s just a fucking song.
And worse, the snidey stuff, the faux concern.
It must be awful to be in that state
where something like a song can trigger that.
She has some issues. Let’s give her a break.

A break! Yes please!
I’m sad face, sad face. Angry face.
The trolls of Twitter 
sent me almost off the edge.
Why d’ya hate men so much @suffragette?
Look at her! Jealous!
The bitch needs shutting up.
I know where you live.
I clutched the blind,
and stared into the dark
each night for months.

I lost the fight online. Or lost the will.
I said I’d try to focus on real life.
Now that’s become as messy and as grim.
I keep returning to the Town Hall steps.
I must have played that scene a thousand times.
I knew the strip club bosses would be there
in James Bond suits and aviator shades.

The dancers, I had never seen before.
I left the meeting, having said my bit
and found them waiting cross-armed on the steps.
One blocked my way, with eyes I won’t forget:
so green and angry. What right did we have?
Did we want them to lose their fucking jobs? 
It was alright for us - the la-di-da’s.

I’m not alright. I think that’s why I snapped.
I really wish that I could take it back. 
I don’t remember everything I said. 
I’m pretty sure I mentioned self-respect
and then the men came out and shook their heads.
If I had stopped and thought and drawn deep breaths
would that have worked? What else do you suggest?

Suzi Shimwell - Featured Poem

Last week, poet Suzi Shimwell gave a wonderful guest talk and reading for first-year Creative Writing students and the public. It was one of a programme of a guest talks by writers, publishers and professionals we run throughout the year.

About Suzi
Suzi Shimwell is a free verse poet who divides her time between Leicester and Cambridge juggling a Ph.D and a career in teaching. In her free time she runs the Cambridge Free Inkers writing group and edits The New Luciad. Her poems have appeared in Agenda Broadsheet, From The Lighthouse, The New Luciad and Cake.


Below is one of the poems she read during the guest lecture.



A poem only about toothbrushes

“I can’t put toothbrushes in a poem, I really can’t!”
Sylvia Plath, Interview 30th October 1962

In this poem there will be only toothbrushes.
There is just one in the glass,
moulded in hard blue plastic with two thousand
tough nylon bristles;

there is another in the bin
under the sink.
It’s pink. 

Geraldine Bell - Featured Poem

As part of our annual programme of guest speakers for Creative Writing, the poet Geraldine Bell gave an excellent talk this week, for first-year creative writers, other students and the public. She talked in detail about her experience of critical and reflective writing in relation to her own poetry. Geraldine is in her final year of a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester, and her poems have previously been published in Ambit, Dream Catcher and Brittle Star magazines. Here is one of her poems:

Pink Papers

These punishing pink paper notes

Are always telling me what’s to-do.

Their dog-eared corners growl and snarl

And aggressively pull at my shoe.

To slice one errand off the list;

Thou art the best o’ the cut throats.

But three more Fleances take its place

As heirs in black, on paper notes.

These punishing pink paper notes

Are always telling me what to do

With a righteous sense of duty;

And worst, in my own writing too.

Geraldine Bell