Writing historical fiction is a great way to introduce readers to past times and eras, in a more accessible way, providing an immersive experience. For the writer, whether history forms one of the main elements of your book, or is more of a backdrop for your stories – researching history often presents a barrier. How do you make sure you have the right level of detail in your book, whether it’s set in a highly written-about era, like World War II – or in a time and place where very little is known, like the megalithic stone age in India? Harini Nagendra is the author of seven award winning non-fiction and fiction books, and an ecologist with over thirty years of research experience. This workshop will cover a number of approaches that writers of historical fiction can use to bring earlier times alive – information from libraries and research archives; the occasional racy account from old newspapers; vivid personal details from biographies and autobiographies; and elements of setting from photographs. I will also discuss how writers of historical fiction can use oral histories, personal accounts, songs, recipes and craft to sketches of ‘subaltern’ people: like people of colour, women, children – who are all too often either caricatured, or simply left out of written history.
