I think I mentioned before that I live in Estero, Florida. It is just south of Fort Myers, on the southwest coast of Florida. My home is about five miles from Estero Bay, which leads out to the Gulf of Mexico. Mound Key, the man-made island capital of the Calusa nation, is about six miles from my home.
Living down here, you quickly see the names “Calusa” and “Ponce de Leon” everywhere. A quick Google search for “Calusa” found Calusa Nature Center & Planetarium, Calusa Construction, Calusa Park Elementary School, Calusa Pines Golf Club, Calusa Brewing and many more, all in the local area.
I think I became interested and checked out a few websites. In a short while, I became amazed at the sad, amazing story of this tribe that lived right here. You could live your whole life in Estero, Fort Myers, or Naples and never know about this culture that thrived here longer than the USA and then just disappeared. I read some more and visited some sites, and I was hooked.
Two years later, I keep reading more books and articles and learning about more Calusa sites. I’m not a historian, but I do enjoy learning, and I glad I started this. This week I passed 40,000 words and expect the book to get to about 110,000.
I did run into a problem with my research this week, and I would appreciate your advice. My plot is based on a group of Calusa warriors rowing and sailing across the Gulf of Mexico to meet with Montezuma. Well, I found out this wasn’t feasible, and I want my book to be accurate. Therefore, I am not sure if I should still refer to this project as “historical fiction.” It might be better to say it was “inspired” by historical events. Please tell me what you think.
In the mean time, Amazon is delivering a new book tomorrow, Discovering Florida: First-Contact Narratives from Spanish Expeditions along the Lower Gulf Coast by John Worth. I’ll tell you about it in a few weeks.
Hi Will, an interesting read. Thanks. Glad you are enjying your research. I'm just commenting on your question re 'Historical Fiction' and I'm not sure I see the issue. I guess we all have different ideas about how accurate historical fiction should be, and probably most would agree that accuracy is a worthwhile goal.
On the other hand, I believe there is huge scope in the 'fiction' part of the the equation, and that must come down to the author's judgment. Is it history, or is it fiction? It's necessarily both, and my own view is that if we're honest about the liberties we take - perhaps in an Author's Note or some such, in which we outline the liberties we took in the interests of drama/plot etc - that it's okay to take such liberties. Hope this makes sense.
Keep up the good work. :)
Wow, i love how you got interested in this topic.