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 […]
The Prompts You Need to Help You Write the Book You Want to Write by Jem Poster and Sarah Burton
How can you take your writing to the next level? In this follow-up to their acclaimed handbook The Book You Need to Read to Write the Book You Want to Write, Sarah Burton and Jem Poster offer exercises and practical advice designed to set aspiring authors of fiction on their way to creating compelling short […]
Writing about 1066: a male club?
Is writing fiction about 1066, or the Anglo-Saxons in general, the exclusive preserve of a male-only club? Ellen Alpsten was surprised to hear people suggest this. The author of The Last Princess argues that the events leading to the Battle of Hastings merit a ‘female retelling’. In autumn 2024, we celebrate the 958th anniversary of […]
A writer’s career
This month, the third novel by the bestselling historical action author Griff Hosker to come out in 2024 is published. And it’s only March. Griff has published over 175 novels in all. Intrigued as well as impressed, we asked him to tell us about his career as a writer. I was just 7 years old […]
The curiosities of history
How much research do I need to do? It’s a familiar question for writers of historical fiction. But author Robert Wilton has a confession…
The HWA and Sharpe Books Unpublished Novel Award: interview with Richard Foreman
Historia talks to Richard Foreman about about the HWA and Sharpe Books Unpublished Novel Award
How I became a historical fiction writer (I think)
Gill Thompson tells Historia how she became a historical fiction author…
much to her surprise
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,” historian and author Eric Lee recommends. “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 […]