Julia is a professional nerd who can be spotted in the wild lounging with books in the park in Brooklyn, NY. She has a BA in International Studies from the University of Chicago and an MA in Media Studies from Pratt Institute. She loves fandom, theater, cheese, and Edith Piaf. Find her at juliarittenberg.com.
In the great rom-com run of the 2000s, many of the protagonists were writers, both aspiring and established. The characters had high hopes about what mark they could make on the world. Writing about a writer may seem solipsistic, but it gives the story an edge because there are multiple levels: what the writer is going through, and how they’re going to process it for their own storytelling.
Historical fiction about writers provides another interesting angle for writerly interrogation because we know there’s a literary legacy in the process of creation. That’s true for historical novels about real writers, but even fictional writers in fiction are involved in creating the record that the future will read. Historical fiction about writers tends to focus on these writers brushing up against important (or overlooked) moments that the writer of the book wants to process. Dive into the meta layers of history with these books about real writers and fictional writers.
Historical Fiction About Nonfictional Writers
Julia is a professional nerd who can be spotted in the wild lounging with books in the park in Brooklyn, NY. She has a BA in International Studies from the University of Chicago and an MA in Media Studies from Pratt Institute. She loves fandom, theater, cheese, and Edith Piaf. Find her at juliarittenberg.com.
The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn
Jane Austen fans are always ravenously looking for more in her history since it wasn’t as well-documented as other famous male writers. Time travelers Rachel and Liam are on a mission to find Jane Austen and recover a lost manuscript that they think exists due to reading her letters. A scientist of the future, Rachel is forced to play a spinster alongside Liam, acting as a doctor. They have limited time, so Rachel and Liam have to force their way into Jane’s circle and complete their mission.
Miss Emily by Nuala O’Connor
Even though Emily Dickinson was a recluse and we know relatively little about her, she has fascinated poetry lovers for more than a century. In this novel, Ada Concannon becomes Emily’s maid at the point in Emily’s history when she’s living her solitary adult spinster life. Ada remains by Emily’s side while she madly writes and refuses to engage with the outside world.
The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict
This book has the vibe of the Algonquin Round Table, but if they were all famous mystery novelists who solved crimes. Dorothy L. Sayers convenes a club of female writers called the Queens of Crime, which includes other legends Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and Baroness Emma Orczy. To force themselves out of the position of second fiddle to male crime writers, the ladies decide to solve a real mystery together. When they’re trying to uncover what happened to a young nurse named May Daniels, the secrets pile up and spin out of control with dire consequences.
For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain by Victoria Mackenzie
Medieval writers Julian of Norwich and Margaery Kempe both wrote on the subject of Christian mysticism and provided crucial details of Medieval life for the historical record. In two first-person narrations of their own lives in the late 1300s and early 1400s, Margaery and Julian weave stories of how they arrived at their spiritual revelations and refused to back down when told they couldn’t share.
Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray
In the early 20th century, Harlem was bursting with creative and literary talent. Jessie Redmon Fause, editor of The Crisis, gets a front-row seat to the most exciting Black voices. Given the task of finding the best people to highlight by W.E.B. DuBois, Jessie gets to meet and publish luminaries like Langston Hughes and Nella Larsen. But her career aspirations are in tension with her intimate relationship with DuBois.
Historical Writers Invented for Fiction
Home and Away by Rochelle Alers
In modern times, Harper Fleming leaves her job in Chicago to write about sports, since they won’t let her. She plans to interview her great-grandfather in Nashville about his participation in the Negro Baseball League, but when she arrives, she starts caring for him after a stroke. She also finds all his old personal documents, and instead of a history, she chooses to write a novel to protect her great-grandfather’s privacy. She’s eager to reveal this history (through fiction) to the world, but there’s more to the story than she knew.
The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee
Servant by day, sought-after advice columnist by night. Jo Kuan’s double life means that her employers (a wealthy family in Atlanta) won’t be able to find out her secret identity, or even suspect that she has a secret writing life. When Jo uses her column to question the status of race and gender in society, she becomes more infamous than she ever wanted. At the same time, she works to uncover the mystery of her own parentage.
If you want to keep going down the writerly path, here’s a list of novels of all genres about writers, and romance novels about writers.
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