This July, join me for an intensive week of Historical Fiction at the University of Toronto’s Summer School for Creative Writing.
From July 10-14, we will consider the great delights and minor difficulties of historical fiction: how to conduct research on a period that pre-dates your lived knowledge; the perils of fictionalizing people who actually existed, as well as creating convincing new characters in period; the time-travel of setting fictional events against a real-life backdrop. We’ll look at historical language and period dialogue; catching a sense of immediacy despite the narrative’s location in the past; and of course the ethics of historical accuracy, and the complications of working with worldviews different from our own.
If you have a manuscript in progress and would like a serious boost and some good company this summer, consider the historical fiction course (or any of the other brilliant courses offered at the U of T’s summer school). It’s a great bargain ($700 for the week) and the writers/companions you meet that week will be with you for the long haul.
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For workshops on character development, relationships, or other specific subjects, email me at marina.endicott@gmail.com
I also teach at the University of Alberta, in Humber College’s online Writing Mentorship Program, and at the Banff Centre. To find a course that might be right for you, check one of the links below.
Humber School for Creative Writing
University of Toronto Summer School of Creative Writing
(the W.S. Merwin excerpt on the main page is from his poem “Berryman”)