Using Historical Resources to Improve Your Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories
September 15, 2025
2730 Historic Decatur Rd #204, San Diego, CA 92106
If your book or story is set in the past one way to set the mood, establish the setting, and authentically describe your characters is through careful historical research. Depending on your period, a variety of easily accessed resources are available to you. Author and history professor emeritus Richard Carrico will provide a roadmap to newspapers, journals, photographic images, and archives that can provide both accuracy and setting for your stories. Period clothing, phrases, slang, and other colorful details await your discovery. Hint: don’t have your antagonist open a pack of cellophane wrapped Camels in 1925 even if he is a lug.
Richard Carrico earned an M.A. in History from the University of San Diego. Richard taught history, anthropology, and Native American studies at San Diego State University for thirty years before retiring in 2024.
He is an Army veteran and an award-winning author of historical nonfiction. Richard focuses on eclectic topics that vary from Indigenous people, Spanish colonial history, archaeology, and most recently, true crime. He has authored more than twenty academic articles that have appeared in professional journals and at least twenty articles in popular magazines.
Richard’s A History of Wines and Wineries in San Diego County is in its second edition and is carried by several local wineries. His Strangers in a Stolen Land, the story of San Diego County’s Native Americans, is used as a textbook at several universities. Richard’s most recent book, Monsters on the Loose won second place at the 2024 Book Fest and was a Silver Falchion Award Finalist at the prestigious 2024 Killer Nashville event. In late October 2025, Richard will launch his most recent book, Unearthing Southern California’s Lost City: The Archaeology and History of El Presidio de San Diego.
His short story, “Animals Who Talk, Sing, and Dance,” received an Honorable Mention Award from Writer’s Digest Magazine. His most recent piece, “Habla Espanol? If You Rodeo You Do,” was published in Cowboy Up in November 2024..
