The sight of tall masts with billowing sails paints a romantic image that brings to mind times when wooden ships scudded across the waves, traveling to distant ports. The purpose of this workshop is to provide participants with a basic knowledge of the Age of Sail from the Middle Ages through the nineteenth century when steam replaced wind as the principal power for moving a vessel from one port to the next. The topics covered include:
- Types of boats and ships
- Their parts
- The language of mariners
- Who’s who aboard a merchant ship and what do they do
- Major ports of call
- Navigation
- Clothing
- Life at sea
- How sailors entertained themselves
- Women at sea and in port
- Trade
- Marine insurance, risks, and naval escorts
- Flags
- Passengers
- Ship building
Workshop participants will have the opportunity to discuss the types of ships they’d use in their stories, character profiles, and how to bring the flair of the sea into a story without making it incomprehensible to the reader. There will also be a variety of activities to reinforce what’s covered in the class to make certain everyone understands what’s covered, for the maritime world is akin to entering a foreign country where English isn’t the native language. At the end of the workshop, Cindy offers to provide a free edit of a chapter from participants’ manuscripts.
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 maritime history while working on The Rebel and the Spy, a historical novel about 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 maritime fiction and non-fiction, maintains an annotated list of the best piracy and maritime sites on the web, and compiles specialized maritime resource lists. She is the Associate Editor of Industry for Solander, the magazine of the Historical Novel Society, and writes the “Red Pencil” column where she profiles authors and compares a selection from their published novels with an early draft of that work. She also reviews for their journal, Historical Novels Review. She is a freelance editor, a content editor of Pyrates Way magazine, and a workshop presenter at conferences and organizations’ meetings. She belongs to the Historical Novel Society, the Laffite Society, the Louisiana Historical Society, the National Maritime Historical Society, and the Red River Branch of Clan Cameron. 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.
For additional information, contact the Campus Coordinator.
Click HERE to register for this class.
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