Categorising fiction may help to sell books, but it says little about how writers write or readers readIn her Reith lecture of 2017, recently published for the first time in a posthumous collection of nonfiction, A Memoir of My Former Self, Hilary Mantel recalled the beginnings of her career as a novelist. It was the 1970s. “In those days historical fiction wasn’t respectable or respected,” she recalled. “It meant historical romance. If you read a brilliant novel like I, Claudius, you didn’t taint it with the genre label, you just thought of it as literature. So, I was shy about naming what I was doing. All the same, I began. I wanted to find a novel I liked, about the French Revolution. I couldn’t, so I started making one.”She made A Place of Greater Safety, an exceptional ensemble portrayal of the revolutionaries Danton, Robespierre and Desmoulins, but although the novel was completed in 1979, it wasn’t published until 1992 – widely rejected, as she later explained, because although she thought the French Revolution was the most interesting thing in the world, the reading public didn’t agree, or publishers had concluded they didn’t. She decided to write a contemporary novel – Every Day Is Mother’s Day – purely to get published; A Place of Greater Safety emerged only when she contributed to a Guardian piece about writers’ unpublished first novels. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-11-27 12:30:00 UTC ]
Book claiming to tell story of abusive relationship was denounced by their children as fabricatedAmazon confirmed on Tuesday the removal of a memoir from its site that purports to tell the story of an abusive relationship between the late actor and model Kim Porter and her longtime partner, the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-10-02 13:14:09 UTC ]
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“I aligned with stories that were messy and vulnerable. Writers who were messy and vulnerable.” Betsy Lerner remembers working with writers who had demons to wrestle with. | Lit Hub Memoir Caroline Carlson recommends 10 new children’s books that span the globe. | Lit Hub Reading Lists Cornelia... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-10-02 10:30:16 UTC ]
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It was raining the day I met Elizabeth Wurtzel. She arrived at our offices wrapped in a wool scarf. I was a newly minted editor at Houghton Mifflin, and we were considering her memoir on depression, then titled “I Feel So Down I Want to Die.” She apologized for being late. She fished in her […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-10-02 08:55:10 UTC ]
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Is it Andrew Cuomo’s time to shine?The former governor, who resigned in disgrace in 2021, is strongly considering a run for mayor, now that Eric Adams has been indicted. If Adams resigns, a special election will be triggered, and many think Cuomo is sure to enter it. This might be his best... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2024-10-01 16:45:16 UTC ]
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This year’s contenders for the main prizes also include Percival Everett, Hisham Matar and Kaveh AkbarSalman Rushdie, Miranda July and Percival Everett are among this year’s finalists for the National Book awards.Rushdie, who is receiving his first nomination, is competing in the non-fiction... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-10-01 14:15:10 UTC ]
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Kim Porter's children take aim at a purported memoir detailing her relationship with Sean 'Diddy' Combs: 'Claims that our mom wrote a book are simply untrue.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-09-25 18:22:50 UTC ]
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I was young when I first started using words to avoid reality. The earliest examples can be found in my teenage journals which, while not quite fiction, display a decidedly ambivalent relationship with the truth. I wrote around the subjects of my sexual orientation and gender identity as if I... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-09-25 08:57:01 UTC ]
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In 2016, Game of Thrones fans online went wild when they found out the meaning of Hodor’s name. In this excerpt from his memoir Beyond the Throne, Kristian Nairn tells the surprising story of what happened while he filmed it. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2024-09-24 10:30:00 UTC ]
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Searches, as our publisher first described to me, is an artful essay collection exploring the nature of artificial intelligence and our complicity with technological capitalism. Through a blend of memoir and cultural criticism, the author Vauhini Vara uses the tools of Big Tech (namely ChatGPT)... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-09-20 08:56:45 UTC ]
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Plus cover reveals, the Booker Prize shortlist, and the trailer for HEARTSTOPPER Season 3 . Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-09-19 14:30:00 UTC ]
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Myself and Other Animals draws on an unfinished memoir and a book from a trip to Australia in 1969, and will coincide with what would have been the author’s 100th birthdayA final posthumous work of autobiography by Gerald Durrell is set to come out at the end of the year, publisher Penguin... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-09-18 14:36:23 UTC ]
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This story was co-published by the journalism non-profit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. “Poor people” are “my people” Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance has said. In his best-selling 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, he claimed a similar possessiveness, while at the same time... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-09-18 11:31:11 UTC ]
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These new books include a fantastical dark academia set on a secret campus, the memoir of an Indigenous climate activist, a drag queen romance, and more. Which ones are you adding to your TBR? Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-09-17 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Eric Roberts' memoir isn't a Hollywood reclamation job designed to kick-start a once-buzzy career. Roberts knows all too well that his erratic behavior damaged his relationships with friends and family, including his sister Julia Roberts. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-09-17 10:00:30 UTC ]
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Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers on consent, power, and age gaps in queer relationships. | Lit Hub Memoir Tracking the ongoing fight against creeping fascism in American schools: “The ultimate goal is to justify a takeover of the institutions, transforming them into weapons in the war against the very... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-09-16 10:30:01 UTC ]
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National Book Award longlist week, historical fiction and the literary canon, THE POWER BROKER at 50, and more in this week's biggest book news. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-09-14 16:03:33 UTC ]
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In his memoir “Frighten the Horses,” Oliver Radclyffe recalls his gradual awakening to the sexuality and gender identity he spent 40 years denying. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-09-14 09:00:06 UTC ]
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WARNING: This article contains details of abuse. In his new memoir Just Say Yes, Quirks and Quarks host Bob McDonald charts his path from an unhappy and sometimes abusive home to Canada's foremost explainer of all things scientific. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2024-09-13 14:31:59 UTC ]
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Tracy O’Neill’s Woman of Interest is a quest memoir: a voyage there and back, out and in. The book recounts the author’s search for her birth mother during the frightening heights of covid, “a pandemic that had miniaturized life.” Enlisting the help of a PI named Joe, a former CIA operative,... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-09-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
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In the years since this memoir was first published, readers have asked me a number of questions: What does your family think of the book? How did you start writing a memoir in essays? Is the book available in Spanish? The question that took me by surprise, though, came in 2020 on the eve of […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-09-13 08:55:35 UTC ]
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