Speaking in the past tense : Canadian novelists on writing historical fiction / Herb Wyile.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wyile, Herb, 1961-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Historical fiction, Canadian--History and criticism.

Historical fiction, Canadian.

Historical fiction, Canadian--Authorship.

Novelists, Canadian--Interviews.

Novelists, Canadian.

Authorship.

Genre:

Interviews.

Physical Description:

viii, 327 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Waterloo, Ont. : Wilfrid Laurier University Press, [2007]

Summary:

The extermination of the Beothuk...the exploration of the Arctic...the experiences of soldiers in the trenches during World War I...the foibles of Canada's longest-serving prime minister...the Ojibway sniper who is credited with 378 wartime kills-these are just some of the people and events discussed in these candid and wide-ranging interviews with eleven authors whose novels are based on events in Canadian history.

These sometimes startling conversations take the reader behind the scenes of the novels and into the minds of their authors. Through them we explore the writers' motives for writing, the challenges they faced in gathering information and presenting it in fictional form, the sometimes hostile reaction they faced after publication, and, perhaps most interestingly, the stories that didn't make it into their novels.

Speaking in the Past Tense provides fascinating insights into the construction of national historical narratives and myths, both those familiar to us and those that are still being written.

Contents:

Making History / Guy Vanderhaeghe 25

Walking Where His Feet Can Walk / Rudy Wiebe 53

Confessions of a Historical Geographer / Jane Urquhart 79

An Afterlife Endlessly Revised / Wayne Johnston 105

"We Have to Recover Their Bodies" / George Elliott Clarke 133

Ghosts Are Our Allies / Margaret Sweatman 165

History "from the Workingman's End of the Telescope" / Fred Stenson 189

Pushing Out the Poison / Joseph Boyden 219

In the Lair of the Minotaur / Heather Robertson 241

The Iceman Cometh Across / Thomas Wharton 269

The Living Haunt the Dead / Michael Crummey 295.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9780889205116

OCLC:

76481197