Writing History: A Human Endeavour
with James Boyce
In this workshop, writer and historian James Boyce will reflect on how some of his ideas have grown into a book and ponder how history is made from the scant glimpses we have into past human experience.
How did the topic get chosen? Did the questions change? What are the stages each project went through? How was the mass of research sifted and sorted into a readable narrative? What is it just a rational process or also a dialogue with the unknown?
James will make the case that while even the best trained robot cannot write real history, YOU can.
Bio: Out of a conviction that the past lives in the present, and that history need not be ‘dumbed down’ to be accessible, for 20 years James Boyce has sought to make his living by writing serious history for a general readership.
His first book, Van Diemen’s Land, was described by Tim Flannery as ‘the first ecologically based social history of colonial Australia’ that was a ‘must read for anyone interested in how land shapes people’.
1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia, that reimagined the cultural and legal context for the conquest of the continent, was the Age Book of the year. Both colonial histories won the Tasmanian Book Prize and won or were short listed in multiple other national book awards.
His other books include Born Bad: Original Sin and the Making of the Western World, Losing Streak: How Tasmania was Gamed by the Gambling Industry and Imperial Mud: The Fight for the Fens. His latest tome, Origins: The Making of Australia 1788-1825 will be released by Black Inc later this year.
Registration Information
In case of emergency, phone number is a required field if you are booking tickets for anyone under 18 years old. A mobile phone number is preferable.
TASWRITERS STUDENT MEMBER TICKETS:
Only 1 ticket per student member.
A maximum of 5 Student Member tickets per workshop.
CANCELLATION POLICY:
Cancelling your registration four days or more before the workshop: you can request a 50% refund of the fee.
Cancelling your registration within four days of the workshop: there is no refund of the fee. However, instead of forfeiting the fee, you can do another workshop for half price.
