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purely to get published; A Place of Greater Safety emerged only when she contributed to a Guardian piece about writers’ unpublished first novels.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 ]
In our series “Can Writing Be Taught?” we partner with Catapult to ask their course instructors all our burning questions about the process of teaching writing. This month we’re featuring Made in China author Anna Qu, who will be leading a year-long Online Memoir Generator for writers of color... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-09-28 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Hodder & Stoughton has landed a memoir by Keith Brymer Jones, star judge of Channel Four’s “The Great Pottery Throwdown”. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-23 20:55:02 UTC ]
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Sphere has pre-empted In Two Minds: Stories of Murder, Justice and Recovery from a Forensic Psychiatrist by Dr Sohom Das. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-22 23:05:16 UTC ]
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The two women are joining Zando, an independent publishing company founded last year that plans to work with authors and sell books in unconventional ways. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-09-21 12:55:08 UTC ]
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Monoray has secured a deal for In the Shadow of the Mountain, the “heart-breaking and empowering” memoir from climber Silvia Vasquez-Lavado, which will soon be adapted into a film starring Selena Gomez. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-17 20:43:04 UTC ]
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Rajika Bhandari talks about her memoir “America Calling: A Foreign Student in a Country of Possibility” and how students from other countries benefit the U.S. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2021-09-13 14:26:03 UTC ]
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Fiction Drawing inspiration from the writing of Lesley Nneka Arimah, Edwin Okolo creates a world of birth factories, colossal levees, secret labs, and New Biafra, where we find Ameli, Lotanna’s wife—because he chose her. Those colossal levees, rising... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-09-13 14:09:11 UTC ]
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“Feeling afraid to obey the demands of your own heart? Is there anything more human?” Jennifer Finney Boylan considers Henry David Thoreau and the risks we take to live our full truth. | Lit Hub Memoir Who was Laurie Colwin, and what makes her (newly reissued) fiction so relevant today? | Lit... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-09-13 10:30:34 UTC ]
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Anna Qu is the guest. Her new book, Made in China: A Memoir of Love and Labor, is out now from Catapult. From the episode: Anna Qu: I think I was trying to capture a couple of points. The first point is really arriving at a single moment of betrayal, and that betrayal was reporting […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-09-13 08:48:59 UTC ]
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With Harlem Shuffle, the Underground Railroad author moves from heavy historical fiction to a heist, but he’s still just doing his weird thing. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2021-09-12 09:40:00 UTC ]
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Wildfire has acquired Love from the Pink Palace: Memories of Love, Loss and Cabaret Through the AIDS Crisis, a memoir by Jill Nalder, the real-life inspiration behind the character Jill from Channel 4's "It’s a Sin". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-09 20:53:00 UTC ]
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Grisham, also a former top aide to Melania Trump, to publish memoir containing ‘surprising new scandals’ in October The former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, also a former top aide to former first lady Melania Trump, will release a memoir in October. Related: ‘Bring it’:... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-09-09 19:11:26 UTC ]
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David Ulin read four of the recall candidate's books, from the jeremiad "Showdown" to the memoir "A Lot Like Me," and found not a writer but a brand. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-09-08 13:00:05 UTC ]
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Dawn Turner’s memoir gives a tutorial of urban decay, White privilege, poor city planning and the influence of fads and digital advances on Black urban teenagers. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-09-08 12:00:00 UTC ]
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In ‘Forever Young,’ the 75-year-old actress opens up about life before and after ‘The Parent Trap’ Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-09-05 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Five years ago, when in her late twenties, Emma Gannon released her first book: Ctrl Alt Delete: How I Grew Up Online. It’s a funny and thoughtful memoir which charts her formative experiences on the internet as a Millennial woman born in the same year as the World Wide Web. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-03 14:05:09 UTC ]
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Shawna Kay Rodenberg recounts her childhood in a religious sect and in rural Kentucky. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-09-03 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Why did author Kate Clanchy get an opportunity to rewrite a memoir others called out as racist and ableist? Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-09-03 10:34:00 UTC ]
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A memoir from Congressman Jamie Raskin goes to Harper, Penguin signs Coll’s last Afghanistan book, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-09-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
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At Ploughshares, Kat Chow discusses Seeing Ghosts, her memoir that examines grief and sorrow through the lens of three generations of her Chinese-American family. “I’ve always been drawn to writing about the body—our physical selves and how they reflect our inner lives—and how our bodies are an... Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2021-09-02 20:30:39 UTC ]
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