Schomburg Center Literary Festival 2022: Create Historical Fiction Workshop

Trying to write historical fiction? Join Harlem Writers Guild author Minnette Coleman as she shares ways to chart your vision, anchor artifacts and characters to your story, and research your historical fiction tale outside archetypal means. Remember the tale you want to tell is more important than the history BUT you need the history to tell your tale. Here you’ll find one some techniques to capture history in a literary genre that helps teach as well as entertain.Over the course of 90 mins, discover ways to:

• Add an historical event to your tale to give readers a new way to relate to the past
• Get a better understanding of the variety of historical fiction and how to use these genres to tell your tale
• Learn how to incorporate non-traditional research sources into your tale. What have you learned from personal history, family history, and history of the African diaspora to use in your tale?
• Illustrate why your historical tale is important to share now

Participants should bring one sentence about their tale including the date to use in the workshop activities.

Minnette Coleman is the author of three historical novels: The Tree: A Journey to Freedom, The Blacksmith’s Daughter and No Death by Unknown Hands. An active member of the Harlem Writers Guild, Coleman also wrote Hand-Me-Downs, a one-woman show that she toured across the South.

Harlem Writers Guild (HWG) is the oldest organization of African-American writers, originally established as the Harlem Writers Club in 1950 by John Oliver Killens, Rosa Guy, John Henrik Clarke, Willard Moore and Walter Christmas. The Harlem Writers Guild seeks to give African-American writers a platform to present their art in its entirety without censoring their experience of being Black in the United States of America. In addition to publishing works, the Harlem Writers Guild also acts as an organization to promote social change and an entity that hosts events to celebrate and promote their members. (source: wikipedia) Learn more here: theharlemwritersguild.org

The celebrates authors of African descent and champions literacy and books across genres to amplify Black history and culture. Festival programming features some of the most talented writers and influential figures in culture today. The festival is built on the foundation created by Arturo Schomburg–encouraging freedom of thought, the relentless pursuit of Black history, and the engagement of our imagination towards our collective freedom. The inaugural festival, founded in 2019 as an in-person event, has been virtual for the last two years. 2022 marks its fourth year and will reconvene communities of book lovers to interact with their favorite authors in Harlem, USA. The festival hosts a marketplace of local organizations and vendors, NYPL mobile library, and programs for all ages. Readings, panel discussions, and workshops at the event range from prose to poetry, comic books to young adult novels, fiction and nonfiction. Visit our website at .

The festival will take place in Schomburg’s landmark building at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard, as well as outdoors on 135th Street between Malcolm X and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevards, on stage named after Adam Clayton Powell and Zora Neale Hurston..

PUBLIC NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER By registering for this event, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. By attending an in-person program at The New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold The New York Public Library, its Trustees, officers, agent and employees liable for any illness or injury. If you have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 or suspect you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, please stay home.

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AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at [email protected].

Please note that professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.

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Artwork: Cropped, "Take A Look...The Universe is Yours!", 2019 by Jennifer Mack-Watkins

Photo: 2019 Schomburg Center Literary Festival, author book signing; Isseu Diouf/Schomburg Center

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Blvd, New York, United States