Bringing Pirates to Life

Registration Deadline: March 25, 2012
Class Start Date: 03/26/12
Class End Date: 04/20/12
Instructor: Cindy Vallar
Fee: $15/HHRW members, $25/others

Peter Blood in Captain Blood, Long John Silver in Treasure Island, and Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean conjure up images of buried treasure, black schooners, wooden legs, eye patches, vibrant parrots, walking the plank, and swashbuckling swordsmen. Are these accurate portrayals of pirates? Some are, some aren’t.

This workshop explores the differences between the reality and mythology of Caribbean piracy during the mid-seventeenth through the early eighteenth centuries, and how writers can create believable characters that fit within historical parameters. We look at why individuals became pirates, who’s who on a pirate ship, the rules governing pirates, individuals who interacted with or encountered pirates, and other aspects of maritime life an author needs to know to write a pirate tale. Cindy enhances the workshop with writing assignments, a timeline, and resource bibliographies. At the end of the workshop, Cindy offers to provide a free edit of a chapter from participants’ manuscripts involving pirates.

Past Workshop Participants’ Comments:

Your course presented what I as a writer wanted to know about the times—not just straight history. – Judith Hanes

Your course has been extraordinary to say the least.  Thank you for the extensive information and feedback you’ve offered. – Kathleen Kirwood, His Fair Lady (Signet)

Your ability to put a lot of information in a succinct and entertaining fashion is truly amazing. – Elizabeth Bryant

I use a lot of what I learned in your class in pirate history presentations that I give for groups of seniors and at public libraries. – Claire Britton-Warren, Tales of the Seven Seas Pirate Reenactors

This has been one of the most awesome and informative courses I’ve ever taken.  I feel like I could be a pirate. – Judy Soifer

A retired librarian, Cindy Vallar began researching pirates in college while working on The Rebel and the Spy, a historical novel involving Jean Laffite and the Battle of New Orleans. She is the Editor of Pirates and Privateers, a monthly column on the history of maritime piracy. She also reviews piratical and maritime fiction and non-fiction books, and maintains an annotated list of the best piracy and maritime sites on the web. She is a content editor for Pyrates Way Magazine and she reviews historical novels and writes “The Red Pencil” column profiling authors and comparing pieces from their published novels with early drafts of those works for Historical Novels Review. She is also a freelance editor. She belongs to the Historical Novel Society, the Laffite Society, the Louisiana Historical Society, and the National Maritime Historical Society. She is the author of The Scottish Thistle, her debut historical novel about Scotland’s Rising of 1745, and Odin’s Stone, a romantic short story of how the Lord of the Isles settled the medieval feud between the MacKinnons and MacLeans on the Isle of Skye.  She invites you to visit her award-winning web site, Thistles & Pirates (http://www.cindyvallar.com/), to learn more.

Register!