Imagining the Past’s new season features live recorded sessions from the 2019 HNSA conference brought to you by our host, Greg Johnston. Our  fourteenth episode explores the allure of France has often inspired historical novelists to conjure the romance and tumult of its history. Kate Forsyth’s latest novel, The Blue Rose, transports the reader to the perils of the French Revolution and the exotic world of Imperial China. Natasha Lester’s The French Photographer deals with more recent history of World War II France and America. Jackie Ballantyne discusses why Kate and Natasha were drawn to set their books in France, and how they discovered new stories to tell about a country that continues to fascinate.

Imagining The Past

14: Imagining the Past-HNSA2019-A French Affair: In conversation with Kate Forsyth and Natasha Lester

Imagining the Past’s new season features live recorded sessions from the 2019 HNSA conference brought to you by our host, Greg Johnston. Our episode thirteenth explores the challenges faced in researching pre-history when there are no written records? How do you approach interpreting Middle Age chronicles? Or choose between a plethora of conflicting primary sources when delving into modern history? Isolde Martyn investigates the research challenges faced by Ilka Tampke, Gillian Polack and Pamela Hart when they tried to find answers that may or may not be known.

13: Imagining the Past-HNSA2019-The Things We Don’t Know: research challenges across eras

Imagining the Past’s new season features live recorded sessions from the 2019 HNSA conference brought to you by our host, Greg Johnston. Our twelfth episode explores History and Mystery: weaving a web of truth and lies in detective fiction.  Writing historical crime fiction is like a treasure hunt for authors who dig up nuggets from the past to recreate old crimes and mysteries, both real and imaginary. How do authors lay down clues to keep readers (and the central characters) guessing whodunit? How do you balance the interlacing stories of detective, murderer and victim? What sources do authors use to set the scene and solve the crime using old-fashioned methods of crime detection? Felicity Pulman tracks down the answers to these questions and more with Malla Nunn, Katherine Kovacic and Tessa Lunney.

12: Imagining the Past-HNSA2019-History and Mystery: weaving a web of truth and lies in detective fiction

Imagining the Past’s new season features live recorded sessions from the 2019 HNSA conference brought to you by our host, Greg Johnston. Our eleventh episode explores the silver screen: scriptwriting and adaptations.  More and more historical novels are being adapted for screen with lavish production values and high profile stars. What is the secret to writing scripts compared to books? How do scriptwriters condense intricate plots into a few hours screen time while maintaining complexity of characters and themes? What elements are producers searching for when considering a story? And are compromises needed when wooing an audience compared to a readership? Jesse Blackadder, Malla Nunn and Mira Robertson discuss with Kelly Gardiner the different approaches required when writing novels, adaptations and screenplays.

11: Imagining the Past-HNSA2019-The Silver Screen: scriptwriting and adaptations

Imagining the Past’s new season features live recorded sessions from the 2019 HNSA conference brought to you by our host, Greg Johnston. Our tenth episode explores Parramatta, the second penal settlement established in Australia. When Thomas Keneally and Meg Keneally decided to set their Monsarratt detective series there, Meg sought the assistance of local historian, Gay Hendrikson, to dig into the township’s history. Gillian Polack learns how Meg and Gay formed a working relationship to trace the footsteps of the Keneallys’ characters, locate potential murder sites, and pore over history together, and how their collaboration extended to Meg’s first solo novel Fled.

10: Imagining the Past-HNSA2019-Walking Side by Side: collaboration between historical novelist and historian

Imagining the Past’s new season features live recorded sessions from the 2019 HNSA conference brought to you by our host, Greg Johnston. Our ninth episode explores the survival of the fittest: challenging interior and exterior landscapes.  A stark Australian landscape is both menacing and beautiful in Rachel Leary’s Bridget Crack with a protagonist who must overcome physical and psychological threats. David Whish-Wilson’s  The Coves explores the brutality of Australian renegades in the unlawful streets of 19th century San Francisco while Stephanie Parkyn’s Into the World forces her heroine to face ocean hazards while striving to protect a dangerous personal secret. Lisa Chaplin explores these authors’ sources of inspiration, and what it takes to create characters who battle internal fears in a fight for survival against nature and man.

9: Survival of the fittest: challenging interior and exterior landscapes

Imagining the Past’s new season features live recorded sessions from the 2019 HNSA conference brought to you by our host, Greg Johnston. Our eighth episode explores Regency madness and inspiration.  The Regency period lasted a mere nine years while Prince Regent George ruled as his temporarily mad father’s proxy. The glamour and charm of the era has lasted far longer with a plethora of novels set in in those times first made popular by Georgette Heyer in the 1920s. Alison Goodman, Anne Gracie and Anna Campbell chat with Elizabeth Jane Corbett about their inspirational sources, their own passion for the period, and how they have played with the tradition of Regency romance.

8: George and Georgette: Regency madness and inspiration

Imagining the Past’s new season features live recorded sessions from the 2019 HNSA conference brought to you by our host, Greg Johnston. Our seventh episode is a personal history session: In conversation with Nicole Alexander and Ella Carey.  Nicole Alexander writes sweeping epics evoking the grandeur of Australian landscapes, the hardships of rural life, and the turmoil of historic events. Ella Carey introduces her readers to the quiet interconnections through parallel narratives of women living in modern and past times. Both authors draw on the personal to weave tales into a wider historical context. Irina Dunn asks these authors about their writing journeys, the inspiration for their books, and why they draw upon family legend.  

7: In conversation with Nicole Alexander and Ella Carey

Imagining the Past’s new season features live recorded sessions from the 2019 HNSA conference brought to you by our host, Greg Johnston. Our sixth episode talks of Bette and Joan.  Elizabeth I and Joan of Arc have been the subjects of countless books, engendering myth, obsession, and various interpretations of their lives. Linda Funnell asks Jane Caro and Ali Alizadeh why they chose to investigate the stories of these famous women, and how they bring fresh perspective to their histories.  

6: We Need to Talk about Bette and Joan: writing about famous figures

Imagining the Past’s new season features live recorded sessions from the 2019 HNSA conference brought to you by our host, Greg Johnston. Our fifth episode explores The Feminine Mystique.  Ensuring a female protagonist’s thoughts and actions remain true to the norms of by-gone eras and cultures causes headaches for writers – and readers. How does an author maintain immediacy if limited to second hand observations of male dominated history? Should women of the past be depicted with more power and influence than would have been afforded to them? And how do you treat a young heroine in an age where girls were restricted, and children expected to be ‘seen and not heard’? Sophie Masson  examined how to portray plausible female protagonists with Juliet Marillier, Elizabeth Jane Corbett and Kirsty Murray.

5: The Feminine Mystique: Writing strong female protagonists

Imagining the Past’s new season features live recorded sessions from the 2019 HNSA conference brought to you by our host, Greg Johnston. Our fourth episode explores parallel narratives.  Interlocking stories crossing different eras have been used to great effect in historical novels. What plot devices do authors use to trace the connections between their characters? Do writers use the same techniques as in historical mysteries? And how do they balance the competing voices that must be heard in order for revelation to be achieved? Tea Cooper (https://hnsa.org.au/tea-cooper/) , Emily Madden (https://hnsa.org.au/emily-madden/) , Carla Caruso (https://hnsa.org.au/carla-caruso/) discuss with Diane Murray (https://hnsa.org.au/diane-murray/) the challenges of intertwining lives around historical eras.

4: Imagining the Past-HNSA2019-Intertwining Lives Revealed: the mystery in parallel narratives

Imagining the Past’s new season features live recorded sessions from the 2019 HNSA conference brought to you by our host, Greg Johnston. Our third episode explores point of view.  When starting to write, deciding which type of point of view will be exploited is a significant decision with far-reaching consequences. Who knows what? Who sees what? How much do you want the reader to know?  And when? Once the decisions are made, they can be both liberating and confining. Greg Johnston explores ‘the slings and arrows’ of point of view with Robyn Cadwallader, Julian Leatherdale and Belinda Castles.

3: Imagining the Past-HNSA2019- I am a Camera: exploring the nuance of point of view

Imagining the Past’s new season features live recorded sessions from the 2019 HNSA conference brought to you by our host, Greg Johnston. Our second episode explores Creative writing postgraduate degrees which have become increasingly popular in the last decade. Associate Professor Sara Knox (WSU) talks to Dr Jesse Blackadder, Dr Rachel le Rossignol and PhD candidate, Joshua Mostafa, about the benefits of combining the process of completing a novel with a deeper examination of the genre’s purpose, themes, and interpretation of research. Full details of the speakers are available in our News & Interviews tab on our website.

2: Imagining the Past-HNSA2019-It’s Academic: the value of writing degrees

Imagining the Past’s new season features live recorded sessions from the 2019 HNSA conference brought to you by our host, Greg Johnston. Our first episode explores Dispossession and Betrayal: Recovering the Erased history of First Nations People. Indigenous writers, Madison Shakespeare and Lisa Chaplin, discuss with Maori writer and academic, Dr Paula Morris, why Aboriginal history has been suppressed, what is needed to remedy the omission, and how historical fiction can play a role in ensuring past injustices and cruelties aren’t forgotten or repeated. Full details of the speakers are available in our News & Interviews tab on our website.

1: Imagining the Past-HNSA2019-Dispossession and Betrayal

Our final episode for this season features a queen of historical fantasy, Alison Goodman, author of seven novels including her award-winning Lady Helen Regency supernatural trilogy. Alison talks with host Kelly Gardiner about combining fantasy elements in a meticulously researched historical story.

6: Imagining the Past - Alison Goodman

The Imagining the Past podcast series features authors appearing at the Historical Novel Society Australasia Conferences. These celebrations of historical fiction happen every two years. Our host, Kelly Gardiner, discusses researching, writing and publishing historical fiction with acclaimed writers of historical fiction in its many forms from crime to fantasy to literary fiction, set in ancient Rome or the Otago goldfields or the Western Front, and for readers of all ages. The next 2019 HNSA Conference is in Parramatta, NSW, on 25-27 October 2019. #writing #history #historicalfiction #fiction #books #podcast

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Imagining The Past

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