Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #FlashHistories

Most recents (6)

Panel on flash historical fiction with 2 @FlashBackFic flashbackfiction.com editors and Jude Higgins at #FlashHistories
They get sent a lot of stories about witches, cowboys, nuns, and "a lot of gadzookery"

And also lots of very good historical fiction, max 500 words. The best emphasise emotion, story, characters, and wear their history lightly, e.g. use of one word, "musket", can take you straight to a particular period.

Q: How much can you make up?
A: It depends on the contract you make with the reader.

#FlashHistories Philip Carter of @ihr_history on brevity in historical writing

Aubrey's Brief Lives (still v readable and funny) good, but not the first

National biographies continued the tradition - Dictionary of National Biography, ac length of entries 1000 words

#FlashHistories poet Anna Kisby Compton starts from 19C French newspaper reports of witchcraft, e.g. a bewitched crockery cupboard.

She focuses on the feelings, suspends ridicule and judgment

Quotes Tamas: poetry the ideal vehicle for things that don't make total sense

#FlashHistories Camille Ralphs, poet: we're proud of English language, but its colonising history is horrific, when we look at etymologies

And male domination encoded into it

Geoffrey Hill: poets should acknowledge these histories and make it more innocent

#FlashHistories @WritingByZoe creative writing inspired by histories of witches

Most of the source material is very grim, but ... belief that witches could steal men's penises and keep them as pets

The fact that some men cringe at this poem makes it more enjoyable to read it at events

#FlashHistories @PaulMMCooper, Fall of Civilization podcast

Idea of "flash histories" can mean historians writing less and leaving creative space for the reader's imagination.

Historians tell stories, but sometimes only in that opening anecdote

Related hashtags