Writing Historical Non-Fiction

Sunday, Oct 22, 10am-4pm

Open to all

Limited to 12 participants

Hybrid Workshop

Writing original and entertaining non-fiction is hard enough.

But when you set about writing historical non-fiction about true events and real characters that happened many years, decades or even centuries ago, your challenges only increase. You cannot interview your main characters, they are long dead. Archives may be hard to access or expensive. How do you bring to life your locations and scenes and make them accessible and understandable to the modern-day reader?

This all-day workshop with best-selling author and journalist Julian Sher takes you through the steps to make your next project a success – or at least achievable. The topics covered include:

• CHOOSING YOUR TOPIC

• KEY RESEARCH TOOLS – BOOKS

• KEY RESEARCH TOOLS – NEWSPAPERS

• KEY RESEARCH TOOLS – PHOTOS

• KEY RESEARCH TOOLS – LIBRARIANS

• WRITING: START RIGHT AWAY

• WRITING APPROACH

• WRITING STYLE
  
• CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES: (Cultural appropriation. Political correctness, presentism and trigger words.)

• FACT CHECKING
  
• SELLING YOUR BOOK

We will be using examples from some of the best writers of the genre from a variety of backgrounds —  women, men, Black and  Indigenous including Margaret McMillan, Eric Larsen, Sidney Schama, Tanya Talaga, Ben MacIntyre and Isabel Wilkerson.

Participants are encouraged to read samples of these authors’ work and, if they want, Julian’s three historical non-fiction books: The North Star, Until You are Dead and White Hoods. More information on these books at www.juliansher.com/books.

Julian Sher is an award-winning investigative journalist — the author of seven books, a veteran TV documentary writer and director as well as an accomplished. Julian’s latest book tells the little-known story of Canada’s role in the American Civil War. The North Star: Canada and the Civil War Plots against Lincoln, published by Penguin Random House. Released in April 2023, it became an Amazon bestseller hailed as “a riveting and fascinating read”  with excerpts published in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Montreal Gazette and La Presse. He also wrote the award-winning national bestseller Until You Are Dead: The Wrongful Conviction of Steven Truscott about Canada’s most famous murder trial, which led to an official re-opening a 40-year-old case. The best-selling book was re-issued with an updated afterword in 2023.