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purely to get published; A Place of Greater Safety emerged only when she contributed to a Guardian piece about writers’ unpublished first novels.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 ]
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 ]
More news stories like this
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 ]
More news stories like this
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 ]
More news stories like this
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 ]
More news stories like this
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 ]
More news stories like this
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 ]
More news stories like this
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 ]
More news stories like this
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 ]
More news stories like this
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 ]
More news stories like this
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 ]
More news stories like this
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 ]
More news stories like this
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 ]
More news stories like this
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 ]
More news stories like this
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 ]
More news stories like this
Historical fiction is dominant (?), the Non-Fiction Finalists for the National Book Award, and Salem's Lot is set to scare. All in today's book news. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-09-12 21:35:54 UTC ]
More news stories like this
With a memoir, a Broadway turn in 'Moulin Rouge!,' a planned tour and new music, Joanna 'JoJo' Levesque is back in control of her career. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-09-12 10:00:34 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Questlove, best known as one of the more famous drummers to ever live and co-founder of The Roots, released a memoir this month called Hip-Hop is History. Co-written with his regular collaborator, Ben Greenman, this personal narrative builds on a growing canon of hip-hop lit. Fans will be... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-09-11 17:25:37 UTC ]
More news stories like this
A medieval heist, a Halifax murder, a Dutch wartime winter and a daring 1939 journey to Shanghai provide egress for any taste. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-09-11 12:42:39 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Best Historical Fiction of the Century, New YA out this week, Neurodivergent romance novels, and more. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-09-09 16:08:01 UTC ]
More news stories like this
“I’ve never felt the presence of my own death so close to me,” writes Nahil Mohana while chronicling the toll of living with endless displacement and fear in Gaza. | Lit Hub Memoir Shannon Bowring asks, “How do you create a written world that honors the spirit of the place that inspired it while... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-09-05 10:30:24 UTC ]
More news stories like this