What a writer needs is … Good question, isn’t it? Love, fame, chocolate, a good kick up the arse, a publication contract …? Virginia Woolf famously said that a female writer needed money and a room of her own. In a provocative article Matt Shoard argues that discomfort in one’s living arrangements is more conducive […]
Book Review: Hector and the Search for Happiness This is one of those self-help books that masquerade as narrative. Reading back the sentence above, it sounds a little dismissive and it shouldn’t. Most people need help at differing points in their lives – fulfilling potential is rarely something that the average human achieves alone. Self-help […]
Wishing I was eighteen again Not because of the ‘rejection’ of not making the Sunday Times shortlist. Not even to relive my misspent youth, become a notorious tart and then write a book about it (see review of Belle de Jour later this week), but because I had lunch with Louise Halvardsson earlier in the […]
Why success changes writers Okay, first define success. Is it a success to have been long-listed for the Sunday Times EFG competition? Shortlisted for the Willesden Herald when it was still a £5,000 prize? Runner up in the Guardian flash fiction comp which brought nothing but glory (and precious little of that)? Yes. And I’ll […]
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