From my essay up at the AWP Writer’s Notebook:
“I researched and wrote a novel set in 1900
Chicago, but what a cinch compared to writing about 1982 Chicago—though I was
alive in 1982, with a brain actively recording memories. Some American eras
beckon novelists seductively with auras of perpetual cool: Roaring Twenties.
Grunge in the ’90s. The Sixties, everyone’s darling. Punk! Other historical
times are lesser known, allowing the writer to do exactly what she wants: the
1200s. 1823. The Ice Age. But the time setting of my new novel, Silver
Girl, is the late ’70s and the early ’80s, which I found was a challenging
historical period to write about. (Yes, forty years ago is “historical
fiction.”)…”
Read on to see my tips for how to handle modern
historical research: