Tired of Today’s Tech: Writing Historical Fiction in a Technocratic American Present ‹ Literary Hub

The last time I wrote a novel set in what I considered to be the present was 2009-2010. The iPhone had appeared in 2007, but it had nothing to do with my characters, who were poor or old or both and lived on the scrappy outskirts of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Since then, my books have taken place in Florida, but not the Florida of today.

First, I dialed the year all the way back to 1865, indulging in a full year of research-histories and cookbooks and botanical guides and documentaries on DVD scattered all over my office and living room. Did I delve into a bygone century because I was hitting the age (my early forties) when men famously become interested in history? Perhaps.