Quick question about writing historical fiction. I’ve written histfic as a nonsense hobby since I was 13 years old. I read Last Kingdom for the first time sitting on my roof at age 13 and was instantly enthralled by both your storytelling capabilities, how very real the characters felt, and that anyone at all was telling history like that, in that way. Changed my life forever. Since then I’ve loved historical fiction; loved bringing the past to life, the extensive non stop research that took more of my time than the actual writing did—but I’m curious, do you think magical realism has a place in histfic? For example, if there’s a group of welsh pagans living out in the Heath, they believe their gods and magic are real, even neighboring Christian’s were superstitious of pagan magic. If a writer presents those things as real to the audience, as magical realism, is that still historical fiction?

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Kaitlin