Casey Cep of The New Yorker has written the best piece on Marilynne Robinson I have ever read. As some of you know, Robinson has a new book out in her “Gilead” series. It is titled Jack. In these excerpts,...
historical writing
How historian Martha Jones writes
Martha Jones of the Johns Hopkins University is Rachel Toor‘s latest interview in her “Scholars Talk Writing” series. Here is a taste of Toor’s interview with Jones: Advice about writing? Jones: Write. Revise. Repeat. In my early career, I mistook speaking...
Episode 71: Writing History for Young Readers
Have you ever wanted to write a children’s, middle-grade, or young adult history book? How do you get started? What is the process like? Do I need an agent? In this episode, we talk about writing history for young readers...
A Writing Group of Boston-Area American Historians Gets a Story in *Publishers Weekly*
Check out Alex Green’s piece at Publishers Weekly. The writers group, known as “The Squad,” includes historians Kevin Levin, Liz Covart, Sara Georgini, Megan Kate Nelson, Heather Cox Richardson, and Nina Silber. (Covart and Georgini have been guests on the The...
Early American Historians on the Opinion Page
Yesterday I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts to participate in a session at the annual meeting of the Society for the History of the Early American Republic devoted to historical writing for popular venues. The session was titled “Early America on...
Robert Caro on Working in Archives
Robert Caro, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Lyndon Johnson biographer, recently published Working: Research, Interviewing, Writing. Here is a the publisher’s description: For the first time in book form, Robert Caro gives us a glimpse into his own life and work...
Yoni Appelbaum on Historians Writing for the Public
If you don’t know about Yoni Appelbaum, he is the ideas editor at The Atlantic. He was also our guest on episode 3 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast. In this video, Appelbaum chats with John Dichtl of the...
Writing Accessible History
Last summer a group of K-8 history teachers urged me to write a popular biography of Philip Vickers Fithian. Here is what I wrote back then: I am always amazed when I talk to people who develop strong emotional connections...
How NOT To Write Your Second Book
The Junto blog is running a series of posts on this topic featuring some excellent historians. The posts stem from a roundtable presented at the 2017 meeting of the Society for the History of the Early Republic. It was organized...
On Writing Your Second History Book
Benjamin Park, an early American historian who teaches at Sam Houston State University in Texas, has live-tweeted a great session from the annual meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR) on how to go about...
How Does Annette Gordon-Reed Write?
She is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family and she was a guest on episode of eight of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast. And have I mentioned that she gave the 2012 American...
How to Write a Book Proposal
Dan Berger, a history professor at the University of Washington Bothell and the author of Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era, has a helpful post up at Black Perspectives with some tips on how to write a book...
Yet Another Jill Lepore Interview
You may recall this post from yesterday. Today we offer a new Jill Lepore interview post. B.R. Cohen of Public Books interviews Lepore about “the challenge of explaining things.” Here is a taste: BRC: As we talk about the historical...
How Robert Caro Writes
Most historians spend their careers jumping from topic to topic. They finish a book on one subject and then move on to something different. Perhaps they stay within their general area of expertise, but they seldom spend their entire life...
How to Write a Book Proposal
Over at Black Perspectives, Keisha Blain of the University of Iowa interviews Dawn Durante of the University of Illinois Press about how to write a book proposal for a university press. Durante acquires books in Asian-American history, Latino History in...
Yes, I Can Do Better
Brent J. Aucoin is a Professor of History and Associate Dean of the College of Southeastern in Wake Forest, NC. He is also the author of a brand new book Thomas Goode Jones: Race, Politics and Justice in the New South....
How to Write Academic History for a Public Audience
Do you want to write good history for a general audience? Alane Salerno Mason, the Executive Editor at W.W. Norton, offers some advice. Keep your introduction brief, and introductory People the story Let the people move Honor chronology Don’t bury...
Civil War Historian James McPherson on Writing
Over at The Chronicle of Higher Education Rachel Toor interviews the Princeton historian, Pulitzer Prize-winner, and author of dozens of books on the Civil War-era. Here is a taste of her interview: How did you tackle such a gigantic project —...
Ben Carp Responds to My Academic History Post
I have long admired the work and ongoing career of Benjamin Carp. In case you don’t know Ben, he is the Daniel M. Lyons Professor of American History at Brooklyn College. He is also a prolific historian and public scholar....
On Writing the History of the American Bible Society–Update 118
Well, the last time I updated the readers of The Way of Improvement Leads Home on my progress on The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society I boldly announced that “I think the manuscript is finally out of...