Fiction and History

Category: Fiction and history

  • More ideas on the historical novel: Halbwachs, dreams, recollections

    Finishing Maurice Halbwachs’ On Collective Memory, I find some concepts that I want to roll around. My 1992 edition is a Lewis A. Coser translation from University of Chicago Press. I think a reading of this volume will be of great benefit to any writer who has written or is attempting to write books set…

  • End times and why we write fiction from history

    And why we sell books… This last trip to New York City brought many currents into collision, many strains that I wonder about sparking as they crossed. When I was a child in the Ozarks, there were only two television stations on early Saturday morning. One carried agricultural news—large men in western-style sport coats, plaid…

  • What I did say at Voices of Conflict: From Battlefields to Springfield and Beyond

    Voices of Conflict: The American Civil War from Steven B Yates on Vimeo. Brentwood Public Library, Monday, April 18: Steve Yates, Dr. William Garrett Piston, and Dr. Randall Fuller talk about the genesis of their books. This vimeo link at http://www.vimeo.com/22632952 will take you to the full lecture and Q&A from Monday night.

  • One more trick to writing historical fiction: the timely metaphor

    Bill Harrison used to say to us in workshop, Block that metaphor, Block that metaphor. You could imagine that in some Golden Age back at Vanderbilt there existed sophisticated cheerleaders cruising in tasteful but devastating skirts and sweaters, chanting, Block that metaphor. If you are going to write a metaphor into historical fiction and make…

  • Borders closing: an author’s perspective

    Springfield, Missouri Borders on bankrupt chain’s closure list There is a tumult in my heart about the Wednesday (2.16.2011) announcement that Borders will be closing 200 stores, including the location in Springfield, Missouri, the store in which Moon City Press first launched my novel Morkan’s Quarry. The characters in my novel, the Morkans, owners of…

  • Blogger, meet blogger; you both have a blog in common!

    And a blog to blog about…. One of the heady pleasures of having a book published and marketing that book has been meeting the minds of others. I say minds because on the internet, in the blogosphere, you don’t get that old fashioned introduction, that face-to-face trust. You catch just a semaphore, a Morse code…

  • Notes on Civilians in the Civil War in the Ozarks

    While I have not heard how Friday morning’s panel at the Words & Music Festival will be run, I figured I had better take some notes and share them here. I’m sure Howard Bahr, Roy Blount Jr., and Dr. Alecia P. Long will have plenty to say. 6-1 odds I won’t need any of this!…

  • More on the miracle of readers

    At the Eudora Welty Symposium, Tommy Franklin (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Smonk, Hell at the Breach, Poachers) said that it was a leap of faith to write a book, and an even greater leap of faith that anyone would ever read what you had made up. Perhaps the greatest leap of faith is that a…

  • What I said about optimism at the Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium 2.0

    CAMPUS OF MISSISSIPPI UNIVERSITY FOR WOMEN Columbus, MS Thank you, Dean Richardson, for that warm introduction. And thank you to Kendall Dunkelberg, and thanks to your staff for all of the heavy lifting and logistics that I know will make this Eudora Welty Symposium such a success. It is an honor for the University Press…

  • What I said about optimism at the Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium in Columbus

    CAMPUS OF MISSISSIPPI UNIVERSITY FOR WOMEN Columbus, Mississippi Thank you , Nora, for that introduction. And Kendall, Bridget, Tom, I am in awe of how smoothly and superbly the Welty Symposium is run. More than that I am bowled over by your students, the ways in which they gladly participate, the dreams they have shared…