Our resident agony aunt, Dr Darwin, answers a common question: How can I find a voice for my historical fiction? Dear Dr Darwin, Writing courses boast they’ll help you to “find your voice”, and “the voice” is the thing that publishers and therefore agents say they are looking for almost above all. But what does […]
The best historical books of 2018
2018 has been an exciting year for historical writing, both fiction and non-fiction. With the holidays coming up, Elizabeth Fremantle asked fellow HWA members to choose three outstanding books each to recommend as the year’s highlights (and a few older favourites have popped up as well). We hope this selection inspires you, whether you’re looking […]
Writing popular history: Three lessons learned
Read everything you can. Get to know the place you’re writing about. Know when to stop researching and start writing. Those are three of the lessons I have learned in the last quarter century as a writer of popular history. My first book was an oral history of the Vietnam war based on interviews with […]
2018 HWA Crown winners giveaway!
Historia’s latest giveaway is the three remarkable books that won HWA Crowns earlier this month. We’re giving To Die in Spring, White King and Estoril to one winner. Follow the instructions below to enter. You’ve got four chances to win and can enter using any or all of the options: 1. Sign up to the Historia mailing list. […]
Historia interviews: Leanda de Lisle
White King, Leanda de Lisle‘s biography of Charles I, won the 2018 Historical Writers’ Association Non-fiction Crown at an awards ceremony earlier this month. Historia talks to the author of this “quietly revolutionary” book. The HWA Non-fiction Crown celebrates the best in historical non-fiction writing. When did you first become interested in history? I can’t […]
The 2018 HWA Crown Awards winners!
At last the waiting’s over and the winners have been announced. At an awards party held at the Swedenborg Centre in London on 7 November, 2018, and hosted by historian Kate Williams, HWA members and colleagues celebrated the winners of the three HWA Crown awards and the HWA / Dorothy Dunnett short story competition. The Sharpe […]
The fight for our battlefields
“Have you forgotten yet?” (Aftermath, Siegfried Sassoon) Even before the guns fell silent across the Western Front a century ago, staff at the Michelin Touring Office in London were busy preparing guidebooks for motorists intending to go see the trenches for themselves (see images above and below). By the early 1920s battlefield tourism had become big […]
Why the Glorious Revolution was . . . well, neither
On the 330th anniversary of William of Orange’s arrival in England, author Angus Donald argues that the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 was neither a revolution nor glorious, but a coup won by treachery. I went to a friend’s wedding recently. I wore a suit, prayed a little, received Holy Communion and happily belted out Jerusalem […]