This will be a shortish post, as I'll be heading out soon to the Historical Novel Society's 6th North American conference, which is in Denver this coming weekend. I'll be speaking on a panel, "The Art of Book Cover Design for Historical Fiction," on Saturday afternoon, and have been practicing the presentation in my office today to make sure that it's timed appropriately. There are five of us speaking, so we have about seven minutes apiece. I think I'm good to go.
It's actually been a busy summer presentation-wise, since last Tuesday evening I gave an introductory workshop on historical fiction for my university's Academy of Lifelong Learning, which provides continuing education for adults in the local community. There were 24 people signed up – a larger crowd than expected. It was great to see so much interest in the topic. The attendees had some good questions at the end, about trends, anachronisms, subgenres, and so forth.
One of the handouts I gave the audience was a guide to current trends in historical fiction, with a list of titles and descriptions. Since I promised to make it publicly available, it's linked above as a pdf. There are plenty of titles I didn't include, since I wanted to keep it to a reasonable length... but if you have favorite titles on trendy topics you'd like to recommend, please leave them in the comments.
For those readers and authors who'll be at the conference, I look forward to seeing you there!
About Me
- Sarah Johnson
- Collection management librarian, readers' advisor, avid historical fiction reader, NBCC member. Book review editor for the Historical Novels Review and Booklist reviewer. Recipient of ALA's Louis Shores Award for book reviewing (2012). Blogging since 2006.
Thanks so much! I already knew most of the Roaring Twenties titles, but you focused my attention on some of them :-)
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm sure there'll be more to come!
DeleteThis is a really useful guide, Sarah. Thanks for sharing it. Looking forward to meeting you at the conference!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Looking forward to meeting you later this week!
DeleteThank you so much for this great list! I already have some titles on my TBR but this helps me focus as to which ones should be next.
ReplyDeleteJust a note, Winspear's The Care and Management of Lies is a stand-alone, and not part of the Maisie Dobbs series.
Thanks for that correction! I'll have to fix that once I'm back at work and have the original file in front of me again.
DeleteJust back - correction made! What I get for putting the file together last-minute... :}
DeleteYay! Very excited to see you at HNS soon :)
ReplyDeleteHi Meg - looking forward to seeing you again!
DeleteEnjoy your time in Denver!
ReplyDeleteDo you think many more titles in the time-travel historical will be showing up with the television success of Outlander? It takes some time to have something ready to offer and agent, etc. so maybe in a year and a half we may be drowning in Gabaldon sort of historicals?
Love, C.
Thanks! Still hoping to make it to Denver today. After delays and two missed flights, then getting routed through Phoenix, it would have been faster to get there via car.
DeleteHmm. My guess is not many. The first Outlander book came out in 1991, and there haven't been many authors jumping on the bandwagon since. I think it's just a hard act to follow since it's such a mix of different genres.
OTOH, I'm seeing a lot of new historicals that are being marketed as similar to Game of Thrones in some way. Which seems to be shorthand for: long books, gritty action, lots of characters will die :)
And lots of rape and degradation of nekkid women. Sigh. But that's good manly stuff of real true honest history as it really is which makes writing historical fiction safe for manly males, as so often, as with romance, this is concerned a woman's category of fiction.
DeleteLove, C.
Sarah, hope you enjoy your weekend and that your talk goes well! In the time travel historical genre I think Barbara Erskine cannot be beaten - her "Lady of Hay" is a classic!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely a classic. It's more reincarnation than time travel, but the same overall (sub)genre. And it will be 30 years old next year and still continues to be popular - quite an achievement! And thanks!
DeleteCurious about your main points in discussing book covers. Do people speculate on the popularity of faceless women?
ReplyDeleteThe faceless/headless women phenomenon will definitely be mentioned. There's speculation that the covers let readers picture their own heroines, or maybe they let the readers imagine themselves as the heroines. I prefer to see the faces, but there's no denying the popularity of the trend.
DeleteHelp please! I can't seem to access the PDF!
ReplyDeleteSorry it isn't working for you - it's working OK for me, and the HTML is correct. It may be a problem with Acrobat on your end? If you like, send me your email address at sarah dot readingthepast dot com and I'll email you a copy once I'm back in the office next week. Thanks!
DeleteSarah, thank you for the kind inclusion of your conference handout. A little bit of the fun of being there, even from a distance! Hope the conference was everything you hoped it would be -- times two!
ReplyDeleteI did have a good time, thanks. And I'll post the presentation from the Denver conference (my part of it, anyway) shortly!
DeleteYes, I've thought of those reasons for the facelessness--I guess it's better than a Barbiesque face--but it still seems vaguely sinister to me. And certainly, now, repetitive!
ReplyDeleteIt is somewhat creepy. For me, even a partial face is an improvement over no head at all.
Delete