Opening the door to historical fiction.
For people who love exploring the past.
As the Arizona Chapter of the Historical Novel Society, we host free public events for readers, writers, and authors alternating between Phoenix and Tucson.
If you enjoy historical fiction of whatever kind and for whatever reason, you’re welcome to join us!
Scroll down for more information and details on upcoming events.
“Historical fiction makes us feel. It presents to us a truth more human than what history books present.”
— Susan Vreeland
Upcoming Events
April 27, 2024
Victor Lodato
11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. — Author presentation, Q&A, book signing
Location: 544S 5th Ave, Suite C, Tucson
Lodato will join us in this cozy event space located in a renovated historic building just minutes from the UA campus. His presentation will include a reading and insights on fiction writing and publishing.
Complimentary light refreshments will be provided by HNS-AZ. Lodato’s novels will be available for purchase at the event through our partnership with Mostly Books.
Admission is FREE, though attendance is limited and reservations are appreciated.
Victor Lodato is a playwright and the author of the novels Edgar and Lucy and Mathilda Savitch, winner of the PEN USA Award for Fiction. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and The National Endowment for the Arts, his stories and essays regularly appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, and elsewhere. His novels and plays have been translated into 18 languages. Born and raised in New Jersey, he now lives in Oregon and Arizona.
In his new novel, Honey, readers meet a woman as tenacious as Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge and as irresistible as Andrew Sean Greer’s Arthur Less: Honey Fasinga, the glamorous daughter of a notorious New Jersey mobster, who is returning home at last, ready to reckon with her violent past.
Past Event Highlights
March 2, 2024
Teresa H. Janssen
Teresa Janssen discussed the inspiration behind her debut historical novel, The Ways of Water, and shared a few short excerpts during a captivating reading.
The novel was inspired by the childhood of Josie Belle Gore, Teresa’s grandmother, the daughter of a Louisiana locomotive engineer and a Texas seamstress. When Josies’ family was separated by circumstances beyond her control, the teenager was forced to journey alone through the boom-and-bust Southwest to eventually arrive in San Francisco in the early twenties. It’s a story of loss and redemption, hope and forgiveness, set in the rugged beauty of the Southwest during one of the most turbulent periods of American history.
“I write to make sense of things: to make sense of generational trauma,” Teresa said. “My novel is an effort to understand the family I come from, and in doing so, I’ve come to understand myself. Sharing stories can foster our healing.”
Teresa encouraged both the readers and the writers in the audience to pass on their stories, to preserve them before they are lost. If not through writing, then with verbal recordings.
January 6, 2024
Melissa L. Sevigny
The term “research immersion” took on new meaning for audience members at our first event of the year. Author Melissa Sevigny shared that she took to the Colorado River with notepad in hand during combined writing research and an invasive-plant-species-removal trip for her book, Brave the Wild River. The result: dissolving ink on paper as she was immersed in the rapids, and a rapid rewrite of notes each night at camp.
She shared her use of a personally commissioned wall-sized map of the Colorado as the organizational tool of choice. Upon it, she jotted notes about scenes, geography, flora, historic events, and dates to structure her book. (Click here to watch a brief video from her presentation about the map.) Sevigny also stressed how important it was for the Grand Canyon to be its own character, alongside its stars, Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter.
Sevigny’s book is creative nonfiction at its best, with a literary flair that captures the same spirit and intent of historical fiction.
Dec. 9, 2023
Aimie K. Runyan
Runyan joined us to discuss her success in publishing five historical novels and provided insight about collaborative writing ventures with other authors. She shared her experience crossing genres – to include historical romances, as well as women’s fiction. A resident of Colorado, she has been honored as a Historical Novel Society Editors’ Choice selection, as a three-time finalist for the Colorado Book Awards, and as a nominee for the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer of the Year. She’s hard at work on The Liberty Scarf, set in WWI, a collaborative work with authors J'nell Ciesielski and Rachel McMillan.
August 12, 2023
Jessica McCann
Award-winning novelist Jessica McCann discussed the relevance of neurodiverse characters in historical fiction. Her novel Peculiar Savage Beauty was named 2018 Arizona Book of the Year and shortlisted for the international 2020 Rubery Book Award. Publishers Weekly called it a “gripping, atmospheric novel [that] meshes a seminal event in American history with a suspenseful plot and insightfully etched characters.” Set in 1930s Kansas, the book’s main characters include Woody, an autistic savant born in an era long before any medical diagnosis would explain his peculiar ways and unique talents.
April 15, 2023
Ash Davidson
Davidson joined us to discuss her writing journey and lessons learned publishing her critically-acclaimed debut novel Damnation Spring. The book won the Reading the West Award for Debut Fiction and was named a best book of the year by The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Newsweek, Kirkus, Amazon, the Chicago Public Library, BookPage and BookRiot. A resident of Flagstaff, Davidson is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is currently at work on her second novel about a family of wildland firefighters in the American West.
February 11, 2023
Nancy E. Turner
Bestselling Arizona author Nancy E. Turner, joined us to discuss aspects of historical fiction writing. Her debut novel, These is My Words, chronicles the spirited Sarah Agnes Prine living in Arizona Territory (and early Tucson) from 1881-1901. Winner of the Arizona Author Award, the novel also was a finalist for the Willa Cather Literary Award. Nancy’s most recent novel, Light Changes Everything, revisits Arizona Territory through Sarah Prine’s niece, Mary Pearl, in 1907. Nancy is the author of four additional works of historical fiction: Sarah’s Quilt, The Star Garden, The Water and the Blood, and My Name is Resolute.
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