HISTORICAL FICTION
and The Search for Truth

The Twenty-Seventh Annual Key West Literary Seminar

The Past Is Never Dead. It’s Not Even Past.

-William Faulkner



For centuries, writers of fiction have employed historical events, people, and settings to create dazzling literary landscapes--narratives fraught with possibility, improbability, and inventive delight. Join us in 2009 as we bring together world-renowned writers of historical fiction and noted historians to talk about their journeys into the past (real and imagined) and to explore and share their many ways of knowing and understanding what has come before.


Session 1: January 8 – 11, 2009
Workshop Program: January 12 – 15, 2009
Session 2: January 15 – 18, 2009


Join our community of passionate readers, as we explore such intriguing questions as:


  • How do writers use imagination to understand the past, and how does that process help us see what is true in the present?
  • What does it mean to re-imagine or re-invent history?
  • Why would a writer bother? How do writers do it?
  • How do writers of historical fiction transform the past into a story
  • which is alive in the present?
  • How do writers of historical fiction achieve authenticity? In voice? In character? In setting?
  • What is the nature of subjective truth? Can we ever really know what happened in the past?
  • What makes imaginative insight sometimes more compelling than literal truth? How do we know what is true?
  • What do historians think about historical fiction?
  • How do historians make the past come alive? How do they create literature?
  • And what is so compelling about the past that we as readers are so enthralled?


About our 2009 Seminar:

Each session will have its own panelists and topics of discussion, though a few panelists may appear at both sessions. It is possible to register for either or both sessions. Panelists will be assigned to sessions in the Spring of 2008. If there is room, it will be possible to switch sessions once assignments are known. The Seminar is independent of the workshop program, though we do encourage workshop participants to attend one of the Seminar sessions. Workshops will be announced in the Spring.

The cost of the Seminar is $495. A $100 deposit holds your place. Deposits are fully refundable through June 30, 2008.

The Seminar is by its nature small and intimate. An early sell-out is anticipated and advance registration is strongly encouraged.