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November 2009
17 November 2009
The Back of the Book
What happens the instant after you flip a book over might make the difference between bestseller and remainder.
Why?
17 November 2009
Word of the Year?
According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, it's "unfriend".
15 November 2009
Advice to Aspiring Novelists: Don’t Shoot Yourself
"After the publication of the World According to Garp and numerous other bestsellers, John Irving does not really have to worry about his career. But, for those looking to break into the book-writing business today, Irving is far from envious."
10 November 2009
Should Books be Shorter?
"So many books could do with severe editing to remove extraneous material, repetitions and all the rest – “kill your darlings” as any creative writing tutor will tell you - but if the final manuscript then comes in at 30,000 words, or less than a hundred pages, it will not look like good value for money, and the publishers will have another marketing hurdle to overcome."
07 November 2009
Are Writers Born?
"Anita Desai, the acclaimed Indian author and Professor Emeritus of creative writing at MIT, reignited the debate this week when, speaking alongside her daughter, Kiran Desai, she suggested creative writing courses ultimately distract writers from finding their own voices. What is needed is peace and quiet for the alchemical process of storytelling to take place.
"Even though I have taught creative writing programmes, they are awful," said Desai. "You have to withdraw into a world you have invented and be alone while you are inventing it. Once you have closed yourself into an inner world, you are truly free. There is no influence, there is no pressure. It's important to say I'm not listening to anyone else...""
07 November 2009
The Internet is Killing Storytelling
So says Ben McIntyre.
"Click, tweet, e-mail, twitter, skim, browse, scan, blog, text: the jargon of the digital age describes how we now read, reflecting the way that the very act of reading, and the nature of literacy itself, is changing.
The information we consume online comes ever faster, punchier and more fleetingly. Our attention rests only briefly on the internet page before moving incontinently on to the next electronic canapé."