Historical fiction offers more than just entertainment. It brings the past alive for modern readers. Writers can question what we know, speculate, explore new perspectives and redress absences in the historical record. Paul Burke explains. Historical fiction can be fun, a light entertainment, as with any genre. There is nothing wrong with that; but I […]
Why one author changed the genre she writes in
What makes an author change the kind of books they write? Even when they’re well known and successful for the genre they’re writing in? Lizzie Lane, best known for her saga series, explains why she took a jump into the unknown with a new book set 2,000 years earlier, during the time of the Roman […]
The joys and challenges of writing historical non-fiction
Geraldine Roberts considers her experience of researching her new book, The Rebel and the Peacemaker, and the joys and challenges that go with writing historical non-fiction. The Rebel and the Peacemaker is about the Regency power couple Mary and Charles Bagot, who were trailblazers on the diplomatic circuit and documented the highs and lows of […]
Discovering Shanghai’s International Settlement
Shanghai, the ‘Pearl of the Orient’, was invaded by Japanese troops in 1941. The comfortable lives of the Westerners living in the city’s International Settlement were over. Deborah Swift looks back at the history of what happened, and her experiences of researching it for her latest novel, The Enemy’s Wife. At the end of my […]
Thoughtlands by Jacky Colliss Harvey
In the literary footsteps of such walkers as Rebecca Solnit and Lauren Elkin, and in the character of the ‘rambleuse’, Jacky Colliss Harvey traverses the county of Suffolk from west to east, from velvety farmlands to uncompromising sea. She is in excellent company – her fellow walkers range from Daniel Defoe and Robert Louis Stevenson […]
Can books save lives?
A pioneering library was set up at Endell Street Military Hospital during the First World War. There, the women who ran the hospital used reading as therapy for the damaged soldiers. Louise Morrish writes about the library, which inspired her latest novel, and asks: can books save lives? If we could step back in time, […]
Historian or novelist? Writing fiction based on facts
Is the historical fiction author a historian or novelist? Julie Owen Moylan considers her own experience of writing a novel based on the known facts about two iconic women in the 1950s. Writing about real people is a challenging enterprise for both novelist and historian. How can we best sum up a life of many […]
It’s never too late! How trying and trying (and trying again) made me a published author
Fiza Saeed McLynn looks back on how she finally became a published author when her debut novel, The Midnight Carousel, came out after years of trying and trying again to get an agent. It’s never too late, she says, and offers the tips for first-time authors she learned from her experience. Way back in April […]