Tea & History Speaker Series: The Story of the Brickworks with Lucy E.M. Black

So many of Whitby’s historic homes are made of brick – have you ever wondered about the companies and people who crafted them? The Brickworks by Lucy E.M. Black is a work of historical fiction spanning the period 1879-1910. The research and writing process for this novel took six years, and included travel to Scotland and Saskatchewan for in-depth study. This presentation will cover the history of brickmaking, the Tay Bridge disaster, bridge-building and the importance of progressivist ideology to two (fictional) Scots emigrants who came to Canada and established a brickworks in a small rural community. Local sites were used as points of reference. A close look at how facts are merged with fiction to create verisimilitude in a work of historical fiction.

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