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Historical Fiction Quotes

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Historical Fiction Quotes

“Anne's Will by Stewart Stafford Young Shakespeare set off to London town, To quill and ink his masterpiece plays, Still, Anne Hathaway grew anxious; Marriage and family rent twain ways. He vowed to send back funds to them, With a fledgling kiss, Will was gone, Tearful goodbyes of wife and daughters, Stratford shrank, cartwheels spun. The distance honeyed homesickness, The farther from hearth Will roamed, The capital's theatres awaited him; Words etched in stone in folio tome. The absentee bard kept his word true; Admirably providing for kin well, Through a bitter, lonely aftertaste, With only one truism to tell: "For, aye, where'er there was a Will, Truly, good Anne always hath a way." © Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”

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Author:Stewart Stafford
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“The annual award of $5,000 goes to an author for a meritorious book published in the previous year for children or young adults. Scott O'Dell established this award to encourage other writers--particularly new authors--to focus on historical fiction. He hoped in this way to increase the interest of young readers in the historical background that has helped to shape their country and their world.”

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Author:Scott O'Dell
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“I was a journalism major, and I would take creative writing classes as part of that, but I would also look for opportunities to write stories for some of my other classes. So for my course in Scandinavian history, I asked if I could write historical fiction instead of term papers. Sometimes they’d say yes.”

IfsWritingLooksSometimesStoriesCoursesOpportunityTermFictionClassCreativePaperMajorsHistoricalJournalismIf I CouldHistorical FictionPapersCreative WritingScandinaviansTerm Paper
Author:George R. R. Martin
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“As you see, I bear some resentment and some scars from the years of anti-genre bigotry. My own fiction, which moves freely around among realism, magical realism, science fiction, fantasy of various kinds, historical fiction, young adult fiction, parable, and other subgenres, to the point where much of it is ungenrifiable, all got shoved into the Sci Fi wastebasket or labeled as kiddilit - subliterature.”

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Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“After all, that's why we read historical fiction-to be transported to another time, and to be astonished at ancient people's lives and traditions, just as they would probably be astonished at ours.”

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Book:The Egyptian Royals Collection: Three Historical Novels by Michelle Moran: Nefertiti, The Heretic Queen, and Cleopatra's Daughter
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“As a journalist, I would talk to writers, directors, creative people, and discover that for an awful lot of them, the moment they became successful, that was all they were allowed to do. So you end up talking to the bestselling science-fiction author who wrote a historical-fiction novel that everybody loved, but no one would publish.”

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Author:Neil Gaiman
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“"Hard" science fiction probes alternative possible futures by means of reasoned extrapolations in much the same way that good historical fiction reconstructs the probable past. Even far-out fantasy can present a significant test of human values exposed to a new environment. Deriving its most cogent ideas from the tension between permanence and change, science fiction combines the diversions of novelty with its pertinent kind of realism.”

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Author:Jack Williamson
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“As for whether genre considerations influence what I write, they don't at all, but I might sell more books if they did. The Night Journal is a hodge-podge of historical fiction, western, mystery, and contemporary domestic drama. It doesn't settle into a specific market, reviewers have a hard time describing it, and sometimes it gets classified weirdly in bookstores. But from a writer's standpoint, I like that it's hard to categorize.”

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Author:Elizabeth Crook
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“What writers of fantasy, science fiction, and much historical fiction do for a living is different from what writers of so-called literary or other kinds of fiction do. The name of the game in F/SF/HF is creating fictional worlds and then telling particular stories set in those worlds. If you're doing it right, then the reader, coming to the end of the story, will say, "Hey, wait a minute, there are so many other stories that could be told in this universe!" And that's how we get the sprawling, coherent fictional universes that fandom is all about.”

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Author:Neal Stephenson
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“I've always really loved big worlds and the kind of worldbuilding where you can open a portal into a new realm that feels full and complete. At the same time, I also really love history. So the combination of big worlds and history draws me directly into fantasy. Well, it should turn me towards historical fiction but I'm such a perfectionist about research that I'm not sure I could ever write a book in that genre properly. In fantasy, you have to have the same level of precision, but it's not as research-based. Plus, I get to write my little info sheets and draw my maps.”

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Author:Victoria Aveyard
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“I go into any movie that's historical fiction thinking, 'OK, I'm here to watch a work of art, something delivering a series of opinions, and if it's a good work of art, these opinions become so deeply embedded in complexity and richness that I won't even be bothered by the opinions. I'll make my own mind up.'”

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Author:Tony Kushner
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