The Story Behind my Pseudonym

 Hi there,

Grace Bertram here. I thought I might provide a brief explanation of why I chose the name Grace Bertram as my pseudonym on this blog.

 So we have a family friend, who collects antiques and upon a family visit several years ago, he noticed I was interested in the Victorian writing desk he'd collected. While he was showing us the desk (and I was enraptured), he picked up a small bag that contained a hand-written game: Shakespearean cards. 

My imagination was instantly kindled. Who was it that put the effort and time in to create this fabulous game and why did they do it? They must have been full of expertise when it comes to literature, because the game consisted of 40 Shakespearean cards, each containing a quote from a play by Shakespeare. It was all hand-written,  beautiful cursive. And there were pink cards and white cards with an instruction/rules-of-the-game card, explaining the pink cards were for the ladies and the white for the gentlemen. The aim of the game was each lady or gentleman must read aloud the quote on their card and everyone had to guess which play it came from. 

So I wrote something. In honour of the creator of Shakespearean Cards (which the family friend had given to me as a gift to keep - oh, bliss). 

What I wrote initially was a short story about a girl called Jane and her Regency adventures with a group of friends, playing Shakespearean Cards among other things. I was studying Pride and Prejudice at the time for English Literature and felt inspired to experiment writing in a Regency style. 

Then I embarked on the adventure of writing an epistolary story. And that was where and when Grace Bertram was born. She became my protagonist,  my main character, who narrated the story in the form of her diary entries. When Rosemary Grey invited me to join her on her blog, I was instantly enamoured with the idea and I'm so happy I joined. As Grace Bertram, of course. 

😉