Photo courtesy of Library Journal.
We’ve posted several times about the recent Historical Fiction Panel, but let’s be honest, as fans of historical fiction we’re just not tired of posting about it yet! This week, before we put the subject to rest, we wanted to direct your attention to an excellent article written by Historical Fiction panelist Barbara Hoffert, which was inspired by her experience on the panel. Barbara Hoffert is a fiction editor at Library Journal and the author of LJ’s long-running weekly Prepubs Alert column. She is a past-president of the National Book Critics Circle, for which she now serves as Awards Chair. In 2006, she won ALA-RUSA’s Louis Shores-Greenwood Publishing Group Award for excellence in reviewing. An excerpt of her article, written for Library Journal, is below.
Historical Fiction in the Making
By Barbara Hoffert
April 30, 2012
Such is the protean nature of literature in general that we couldn’t exactly define the parameters of historical fiction—not even the time frame, though World War II came up as a dividing line. I did like DeSanti’s wonderful term hybridity to describe the current climate, one in which historical fiction has gotten richer and deeper and might best be summed up through compound terms, e.g., literary historical, historical romance, historical thriller, time-travel historical, and more.
To read the full article, click here!
Thank you again to Ms. Hoffert for her contributions to our panel, and for her excellent description of the night’s events!
