Authors Electric

My much-delayed operation, total ankle replacement surgery, is finally happening on February 15th, so by the time you're reading this, I'll be recovering in hospital, with a knee to foot plaster cast, and my life will have changed forever. So far, I've managed to avoid breaking a limb, so being in plaster will be a new experience for me - unwelcome, but necessary if I am to avoid either a wheelchair or a mobility scooter. Apart from that, my other nightmare will be dependency, and the necessary, but depressing, mobility equipment, with, possibly, the exception of a knee scooter, which does sound like fun. If you haven't yet encountered these, they are a clever alternative to crutches, which, so far, I'm unable to deal with. Imagine an adult-sized scooter, but with extra wheels for turning in small spaces - you simply put the leg in plaster on a padded support, and scoot with the other leg, meaning some kind of exercise. It also means I can 'park' it - it ...

More than quarter of a century ago I wrote a book called “How to Make Money from Freelance Writing”. It was published by Piatkus and was reprinted and updated a number of times, sometimes under the title “Freelance Writer’s Handbook”. Royalties still trickle in today, even though the working landscape for freelance writers has changed in many ways. Even though my income derives entirely from book writing these days, I have always kept a keen interest in books about the writing and publishing industries in general, always on the lookout for new ways to keep the money flowing in and tips on marketing. The latest one to catch my attention is “The Business of Being a Writer” by Jane Friedman and it by far the best I have come across for a long time. I have been aware of Jane Friedman for some time, following her on Twitter, reading her articles, that sort of thing, so I was pretty confident that it was going to be good when I ordered it. I was not disappointed...

On February 24, 2019,  Manoranjan Byapari was launching a new book, titled There's Gunpowder in the Air , translated by Arunava Sinha . I was lucky to be in Delhi, and meet him.  As an Indian writer, I feel privileged to be alive and writing at a time when so many regional voices from India are available in translation. As a postgraduate scholar in Texas, it had irritated me to see  upper-class Indians with the privilege of their elite English educations building an academic reputation on whether subalterns could speak; clearly, in these cases, the people being spoken for would never read the lofty ivy league theories being spun on their behalf. So it is a pleasure to hear someone like Byapari, a Dalit who taught himself how to read while in jail, speaking for his people while deconstructing his own life. And what a raconteur he is! Having worked as a rickshaw-puller after being jailed for his political views, he spins tales of rage and redemption ...