The Scriptorium is written and published by Stewart Ferris, the author and publisher behind stewartferris.com. It is one room in a larger set of free craft studios and handbooks for people who write — novels, scripts, non-fiction — and who would like the work to have a public life.
Ferris is the author of more than fifty books, including the writing guides How to be a Writer and How to Get Published, and the Ballashiels Mysteries. He has worked on both sides of the contract: as a writer, and as a publisher since 1990. The advice on this site comes from that double view — what a sentence must do, and what a list will actually buy.
Historical fiction is a demanding neighbour of every other genre. It asks for the usual virtues (character, want, turn) and then adds a century that we can never experience for real. This site exists to make that extra demand practical: definitions, lengths, tropes, research habits, and the unglamorous work of placing a finished book.
Contact
Editorial and general enquiries: [email protected]
Writer’s tools, books and further studios: stewartferris.com