Bruce Holsinger
Despite its thrilling historical subject--the first use of hand-held gunpowder weapons in the Western world--"The Invention of Fire" (April 2015) was inspired by the most boring thing imaginable. I was reading around in an old book on the administrative history of medieval England, and found a reference to a collection of "handgonnes" in the Tower of London in 1386. This is the first time the word "handgun" was used in the English language, and I realized there must be a story there--and that's the story told in "The Invention of Fire."
More Answered Questions
Jelli
asked
Bruce Holsinger:
Do you plan to continue the Gower series? I picked up A Burnable Book as a 'blind date' at my local library was not disappointed. The Invention of Fire was even better and I have since recommended both books to others. I quit reading another historical fiction novel because it touched too closely to things that were happening at the end of The Invention of Fire and I didn't want that author to ruin the story for me.
Heather Allen
asked
Bruce Holsinger:
Bruce, I immensely enjoyed The Displacements as a native of Miami now living in the upper Midwest. I'm a researcher of writing and literacy practices and particularly geeked out to the novel's multimodality in terms of the different types of texts (in addition to various narratives) included. Why did you decide to include these?
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