Fiction and History

Category: From the novelists and fiction writers

  • What I didn’t have time to read at History is Lunch

    Watching time and leaving a chunk of it for questions didn’t allow me to read from Morkan’s Quarry when I spoke August 11 at History is Lunch. I wouldn’t trade the fifteen minutes of Q&A we exchanged Wednesday at the Winter Archives for the world! But below is what I would have read from the…

  • History is Lunch: Who let the novelists out???

    Lecture given August 11, 2010 at History as Lunch lecture series, William Winter Archives Building, Jackson, MS I want to thank Chrissy Wilson for inviting me to speak at History as Lunch. I’m not certain how many other novelists, fiction writers have spoken here, so I am humbled by this privilege and I am very…

  • Introduction to a reading at St. Paul’s Catholic Church

    Prayer of St. Francis de Sales May the Lord guide me and all those who write for a living. Through your prayers, St. Francis de Sales, I ask for your intercession as I attempt to bring the written word to the world. Let us pray that God takes me in the palm of His hand…

  • Oops! Someone published the marketing director

    Delivered at Salt Lake City’s AAUP meeting June 17, 2010 because Colleen Lanick made me do it I want to thank Colleen Lanick, publicity manager of MIT Press, for inviting me to share with you all an author’s experience in the current marketing climate. Throughout the sixteen years I’ve been in the university press community,…

  • What I almost said before recalling: It’s all about the characters!

    Here’s what I almost said. Preparing to give Morkan’s Quarry its first launch in Mississippi at my hometown bookstore, Lemuria in Jackson, I thought tons about Ozarks history needed explaining. So I was going to light in with all this stuff that follows. “If you will indulge me, let me tell you a little about…

  • The miracle of readers

    Readers are a miracle. I know that now after powering through the marketing an author needs to do to make signings work. Thank goodness I had help from Moon City Press and especially James Baumlin who masterminded two of the signing events in Springfield. Without that assistance and without these signings, how would I have…

  • Tips and rules to use in writing historical fiction

    These are the lecture notes I used at Missouri State in W. D. Blackmon’s class and at the Creamery Arts Center. Have any of you written fiction set at a time before you had the ability to remember, set at a time before your first memory? Are you comfortable with it being called historical fiction?…

  • Why fiction? Why history? And a call to historians to write Civil War Springfield

    What I will say this morning at Ozarks Technical Community College Thursday, April 15 10:00 a.m.–11:15 a.m. Lecture/Signing, Springfield, MO: Ozarks Technical Community College, 1001 E. Chestnut Expressway, Linclon Hall 211 I want to thank Kay Murnan, Social Science Chair, for inviting me, and thank my long time writing friend Michael Pulley for bringing us…

  • The contract: You have two paragraphs to define your universe

    In preparing to return home and talk about Morkan’s Quarry to people in Springfield, Missouri, the toughest set of lectures to prepare for oddly ought to be the easiest set. I’m having difficulty conceiving what to say in two workshop settings slated to be “On the writing of historical fiction.” By the definitions of most…

  • Working definition: Emotional truth

    Emotional Truth A visceral, heartfelt connection that arises between reader and character or characters through the unfolding (and possibly the resolution) of an invented, narrated conflict, a connection so powerful that the reader perceives reality and truth in what is known to be pretend, known to be fiction. This truth arises through a combination of…