Class Description
From classics like War and Peace all the way up to contemporary masterpieces like The Underground Railroad and the Wolf Hall trilogy, novels have long invoked the past to create powerful stories. However, there’s no denying that historical fiction writers face a slew of unique challenges. How much is historical accuracy to be protected at the expense of the story? How do you transform the glut of historical detail into memorable characters? And how do you approach the past with the values of the twenty-first century? Through a combination of craft lecture, discussion, readings, exercises, and workshops this four-week class will explore strategies for investigating the past, then bringing it to life with your fiction.
Each week, we will explore a new aspect of historical fiction, such as blending fact with fiction, conducting research, and turning that research into compelling scenes. For models, we’ll read and discuss craft essays and fiction by writers such as Philip Gerard, Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich, and Laila Lalami. Each student will have the opportunity to workshop an eight to ten page piece of historical fiction, and receive feedback both on the excerpt and on the overarching situation of the project from the instructor and classmates.
Suitable for any level writer, these techniques will be helpful both in literary and commercial projects. In particular, this seminar may appeal to students recently enrolled in Novel in Progress, who wish to gain insight specific to historical fiction.
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Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
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This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.
Zoom Participation:
In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.