#HNS2021 Conference Preview by Stephanie Barko - Hi HNSNA 2021 Conference Registrants and Board Members - Glad to be with you again! If we met in Scotland in 2018 or Florida in 2013, I look forward to reconnecting with you. And if we've not yet met, I'm keen to virtually meeting you Saturday, June 26 … Continue reading Demystifying BookBub: Sneak Preview from Stephanie Barko

#HNS2021 Conference Preview by Patricia Marcantonio - Unless you have a working time machine hidden away in your office, then you’re going to have to research if you’re writing historical fiction. Be it hitting the books, the Internet, interviewing historians or all of the above, researching the past can be daunting and challenging, but also a lot of fun.  Researching history will … Continue reading Researching History: Daunting, Challenging, and Fun

#HNS2021 Conference Preview by Julianne Douglas, Mariah Fredericks, and Karen Ogden - With their life-and-death stakes, mysteries have had a profound narrative power since Wilkie Collins wrote The Moonstone in 1868. In a mystery, the reader often strongly identifies with the protagonist, an amateur sleuth or professional detective encountering clues and experiences simultaneously with the reader. As a result, both … Continue reading Sharpening the Blade: Borrowing Elements from Mysteries to Craft Compelling Historical Fiction 

#HNS2021 Conference Preview by Trish MacEnulty - A famous writer once said that writers are the only people who can admit they hear voices and no one thinks they’re crazy. The problem for us is when we don’t hear those voices. Every writer gets stalled sometimes. Call it being blocked, call it the silent treatment … Continue reading Stymied in Your Fiction? Talk to Your Characters!

#HNS2021 Conference Preview by Jennifer Steil - Women through history have been more passive than active. True, or false? That’s certainly the conventional wisdom that allowed men to scrub most of our female ancestors from the history books. Yet writers of historical fiction know better. In truth, women have done far more of the heavy … Continue reading Creating Characters Who Belong Where You Put Them