Drawing on her panoramic reading and her experiences of the authorly life cycle, Atwood surveys her trade with a mix of seriousness and gentle fun“You may find the subject a little peculiar,” warns Margaret Atwood, before she discusses the writer’s relationship with mortality. “It is a little peculiar. Writing itself is a little peculiar.” Atwood’s survey of her profession makes this seem like an understatement: after all, she argues, writers have been placed in close company with the devil and the dead; they have secret identities and hidden doubles; they are death-defying magicians, self-erasing nobodies, even – if you want to get “murky and pretentious” – shamanistic travellers. This book prefers to stay on the side of clarity and self-deprecation, combining evidence drawn from her panoramic reading – one chapter deals with The Tempest, The Wizard of Oz and Klaus Mann’s Mephisto – with her own experiences of the life cycle of an author. She tempers the seriousness of her questions – What is a writer? For whom do writers write? – by poking gentle fun at her trade, describing the machine-like publishing industry as “cog eat cog”, and quietly mocking endless discussion panels. Yet Atwood sees her kind reflected everywhere – from Gilgamesh to The Beast With Five Fingers – and works hard on their behalf: advocate, analyst and always, writer.•To order On Writers and Writing for £7.99 (RRP £9.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2015-01-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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There has lately been a rising backlash against the ubiquity of personal writing. Hamilton Nolan’s anti-confessional diatribe in Gawker claims that journalism students are now taught only to write about themselves, which I can say as a full-time faculty member at a journalism school is patently... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2013-01-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Eoin Colfer has been named as the author of the first of Puffin's eleven Dr Who short stories... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This month's starred BlueInk reviews offers a look at some of the best literature the self-publishing community has to offer. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-01-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hilary Mantel's Man Booker Prize-winning Bring Up the Bodies (Fourth Estate) has secured a... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-01-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Haynes Publishing Group has reported a 2% drop in overall group revenue in the second quarter of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-12-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Booksellers have warned there is no room for a repeat of last year's Yodel pre-Christmas... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-12-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#mixed reviews
29th Street Publishing sees no reason why selling subscriptions shouldn’t be as easy as blogging. At a time when print magazines such as Newsweek and tablet publications like The Daily are shuttering, the team at 29th Street Publishing is betting on the future of magazines for iPad and... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2012-12-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#print magazines
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Hot Key Books has launched a free interactive writing project, "Fleur Hitchcock's Story... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-12-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Cairo leg of the Edinburgh World Writers Conference has been cancelled due to the violent... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-12-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ten young writers have been shortlisted for the Guardian Hot Key Books Young Writers Prize, with... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A couple of years ago, I embarked on a quixotic quest: I gave up the Internet. Surfing, emailing, YouTube-watching—it had taken over my life, eating into time I wanted to be spending with my family, my students, and my work. I documented my four-month Internet fast in a series of articles for... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2012-11-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bonnier children's publisher Hot Key Books has become the latest publisher to join the boom... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-11-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Perhaps the muse only came to you at the same time those first few gray hairs popped up on your head. But when you pick up the odd book review or magazine, you are disturbed by the cult of youth.You’re a writer of a certain age. Perhaps you started a family when you were younger, and now your... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-11-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#short story
The shortlist for the 2012 Educational Writers’ Award has been announced today (19th... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-11-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things, announced at the Sharjah International Book Fair that she is currently working on a new novel. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2012-11-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This month's starred reviews of self-published books includes a SF mystery set in dystopia where people live in domed cities and a memoir of Mexican immigration to the US. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2012-11-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Believer has published an interview with author Maurice Sendak, in which Sendak doesn't hold back his thoughts on the publishing business. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2012-11-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Can fraudulent writers, aka Johah Lehrer, ever be forgiven? Or should they simply be cast into permanent exile from the literary world? Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2012-11-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#literary world
Pan Macmillan is the latest publisher to start offering creative writing tutoring. It will begin... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-11-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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More Info Hands-on with Kobo's Glo and Mini e-readers (video) Kobo Glo review: another illuminated e-reader lights up the market Amazon Kindle Paperwhite review While tablet and smartphone manufacturers battled it out over screen sizes, e-reader makers seem to have settled on an... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2012-11-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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