History has been a passion of mine since I was old enough to sit around “the grown-up table” at holiday dinners and listen to memories that introduced conversation and involvement to the room, along with smiles, outright guffaws—and an occasional tear (or moment of silence). At family reunions, I was the kid on the porch with the storytellers or the one on the grass beside the oldtimers under the shade tree. I’ve never outgrown that passion; in fact, it has grown into a continuing interest in learning and teaching history.
But, in my mind, the importance of history is the “story”—not instead of the facts, the people, the event, or the place but in addition to—the why and the how, the underlying (and frequently socially based) reasons and explanations for what happened.
While I enjoy editing “real” history for nonfiction works, I’ve also come to focus on two special, historical niches over the years:
- personal history, including family histories and business history, and
- historical fiction.
Interestingly, editing either of these genres allows me to make even more use of my particular interest in history than a purely historical look sometimes can and can result in a deeper, richer look at history. After all, in my opinion, the stories of the why’s and the how’s—combined with the facts, the persons, the events, and the places—help to convey what I prefer to think is real history.
Do you have a piece of history-themed nonfiction (or history-based fiction) that you’d like our team to edit? Then, let’s work together to pass along the whole picture of what happened . . .