History That’s Not Musty Or Fusty: Masterclass with Martina Devlin
Info
Date: March 8, 2025
Time: 10.30 am – 4.30 pm
Duration: 1 day
Level: Intermediate |
Cost: €115 (€103 Members)
Location: Irish Writers Centre
In-Person on Saturday 8 March 2025.
Course Summary
“…real solemn history, I cannot be interested in…the men are all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all.” Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
Historical fiction delivers emotional rather than literal truth, and among its strengths is its ability to help us to think differently about the past. Unless the writer does their homework it won’t feel authentic, but no one wants to read a novel framed as a school history lesson. The challenge is to bring history alive with a well-told story that has enough authentic material to be credible – and enough imagination to be absorbing.
Course Outline
A one-day masterclass on writing historical fiction from a successful novelist with a track record in this field. The class will deal with the craft including:
- Clear point-of-view and themes
- pacy plot
- developing interesting and vivid characters
- believable dialogue
- in-depth research
all of which contribute to world-building and the creation of a novel.
Course Outcomes
At the end of this masterclass, participants will have acquired the tools, as well as the confidence, to begin or develop their work of historical fiction.
Martina Devlin is an author and newspaper columnist. She has written nine novels, two non-fiction books, plays and a collection of short stories. Her latest novel, Charlotte, explores Charlotte Brontë’s Irish connections. Other novels include Edith about the Irish R.M. co-author Edith Somerville; and The House Where It Happened about the 1711 Islandmagee witchcraft trial, which led to a plaque erected to commemorate those wrongly convicted following a campaign she initiated.
Prizes include the Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Prize and a Hennessy Literary Award, and she has been shortlisted three times for the Irish Book Awards. Martina writes a weekly current affairs column for the Irish Independent for which she has been named National Newspapers of Ireland commentator of the year, among other journalism prizes. She holds a PhD in literary practice from Trinity College Dublin.
