The respected US novelist and historian Shelby Foote believed that “novelists and historians are after the same truth”. But, he said, “the facts [alone] will never give you what happened”. That’s because the facts alone amount to little more than journalism. Readers (and publishers) want more. They want good storytelling. The kind you get in a good novel.

This workshop aims to help you create better stories by supercharging your nonfiction with some techniques that fiction-writers use. With your technical palette broadened, you’ll paint a better, more vivid picture. Your history, biography, or memoir will come to life. It’ll become creative nonfiction – without ever straying from the facts.

In this workshop we’ll look at the gamut of storytelling and how fictional techniques are used in some recent nonfiction books. We’ll consider the degree or proportion of what’s used in each – is it tastefully inviible or uncomfortably overdone? – and discuss whether the results justify the means.

Creative nonfiction has been defined as “true stories well told”. Come along and learn how to tell yours better. 

About the presenter: A former copywriter, journalist, magazine editor, and newspaper subeditor, Robert Cox is the author of five books of history and three of short fiction. “Cox is indeed an accomplished prose writer. His style combines clarity and precision – and is a pleasure to read” (Henry Reynolds).