Writing

A previously unpublished writer has described the "extraordinary" moment a publisher offered him a six-figure advance on a three-book deal.

The translator is a writer. The writer is a translator. How many times have I run up against these assertions? - in a chat between translators protesting because they are not listed in a publisher's index of authors; or in the work of literary theorists, even poets ("Each text is unique, yet at the same time it is the translation of another text," observed Octavio Paz).  Read more

At least ten times a day I ask myself, "What the f*ck is wrong with people?"

I suspect I'm not alone in this; we live in particularly trying times and people prove their idiocy or ugliness on the daily.

Writers who find themselves mired in procrastination would do well to take a page from Marcel Proust's most famous book. Specifically, a page from In Search of Lost Time in manuscript form.  Read more

Grandmother did most of her work in bed. She had a special tray with folding legs that served as a desk. She would sit up against a stack of pillows, with a cashmere cardigan over her nightdress, and write longhand on loose sheets of foolscap. Pots of tea were ferried to her by my grandfather, who would have been fully dressed in a tweed jacket and tie and working from his study downstairs.  Read more