Authors Electric

I “found” Diana Athill rather late in my reading life, and I have V.S. Naipaul to thank for it. A week after Naipaul’s death, Athill wrote an essay about being Naipaul's editor. She described  admiring Naipaul’s work but disliking the man , and there was such certitude in her storytelling voice that I was immediately hooked.  I hunted down Stet . Part historical overview of British publishing, part break-room office gossip, it was riveting. Athill had been a well-regarded British editor for fifty years, and her own literary career took off after her retirement; this book was published when she was 83 years old. When I read Stet ,  Diana Athill was already a hundred years old, yet meteoric in the British literary scene. She became my hero; this rare, ageless female writer, one who discusses literary nuances and sexual romps with great pleasure. Athill’s editorial training is evident in every crisp, well-crafted sentence.  When she announces her inabil...

There’s a lot of advice for writers out there, some of it very Authors Electric Mari Biella good. Joshua Wolf Shenk’s “Have the courage to write badly” is essential for any writer who doesn’t want to give in to utter despair whilst reading through their first drafts. Harper Lee’s advice to aspiring writers that they would be “wise to develop a thick hide,” is more relevant than ever in the age of Amazon and Goodreads. Paul Theroux’s blunt suggestion that young would-be writers should “leave home” makes sense – your parents are unlikely to understand, still less support, your decision to become a writer and starve in a garret, so perhaps you’d do well to cut the apron strings. As for Dorothy Parker’s advice that the greatest favour one could do for wannabe writers was to shoot them while they were still happy – well, we’ve probably all felt like that at one time or another.           Certain other nuggets of advice, on the other hand...