Craft Seminar: Writing the Restless Dead: On Historical Fiction & the Archive with Maaza Mengiste
Craft Seminar: Writing the Restless Dead: On Historical Fiction & the Archive with Maaza Mengiste
2 Sessions: Saturday + Sunday, June 28 + 29
12:00-2:00pm ET
Maaza Mengiste
Maaza Mengiste is the author of two books of historical fiction. The Shadow King (2019) was finalist for the 2020 Booker Prize, and Beneath the Lion's Gaze (2010) was named one of the top ten contemporary African books by the Guardian. She has been awarded fellowships by the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fulbright Scholars Program, as well as a Creative Capital Award, and an Edgar Award for Best Short Story, among others.
This is a class for those who might have a manuscript and are struggling with the balance of history and fiction. This is also a class for those who are just beginning. Come with a project in mind and be ready to write in class based on prompts.
Saint Augustine says that the dead are invisible but they are not absent. In this historical fiction seminar, we will imagine these restless dead who make a claim on our present lives. Guided by personal and collective memories, as well as myths, archival research, and family lore, this class will begin to name the shape of the absence that the dead leave behind. We will learn how to use research - in archives, in memory, and in family stories - to develop a story. In the hours we have together, I will help you learn how to look at that invisible terrain of the past and see it teeming with life. And how to write it. We will discuss how to balance fact with fiction, and learn the most efficient and effective ways to research. This will be a course helping you move towards a written scene as a way to gain the skills to develop your historical fiction project.
Workshop Highlights:
Understanding how fictional representations of history can provide insight about the present
How to research when the world seems filled with information
Learning to balance between research and writing
To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Friday, June 20.
Maaza Mengiste is a novelist, essayist, and photographer. She is the author of the novel, The Shadow King ( W.W. Norton & Co, 2020), which was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, and was a 2020 LA Times Book Prize Fiction finalist. It was named a best book of the year by the New York Times, NPR, Elle, Time, and more. The Shadow King, called “a brilliant novel…compulsively readable” by Salman Rushdie, is currently available in Spanish, Swedish, French, German, Italian, Romanian, Turkish, and Finnish, with more translations forthcoming.
Her debut novel, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze ( (W. W. Norton & Co, 2010), was selected by the Guardian as one of the 10 best contemporary African books and named one of the best books of 2010 by Christian Science Monitor, Boston Globe, and other publications. Her story, “Dust, Ash, Flight,” which appeared in Addis Ababa Noir, edited by Maaza, was awarded a 2021 Edgar Award for Best Short Story.
She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, a DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Fellowship, a Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers Fellowship, the Premio von Rezzori, the Premio il ponte, a Fulbright Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Award, and a Creative Capital Award. Her work can be found in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Granta, the Guardian, The New York Times, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and BBC, among other places.
