Authors Electric

Some years ago, another writer, whom I respected said to me, “You have a distinct voice.”  She had read a couple of my books, and at the time, I was writing erotic fiction. Her words caught me off guard.  “Oh?” I felt somewhat ambivalent toward her statement. “I guess my writing’s become predictable.”  “I don’t mean that,” she said. “I mean you have a certain way of telling a story.”  She was offering a compliment, but in that moment, I couldn’t fully appreciate what she was saying. I took it to mean she had read enough of my stories to notice a recurring pattern, a particular style of writing. I filed away her words in my brain, confident I’d eventually understand them more clearly.  To have one’s own style isn’t a bad thing, right?  I’ve been reading erotic fiction for years, so it’s not a stretch to think I’ve adopted stylistic details from authors I’ve admired. At age eleven, I read Pauline Réage’s Story of O . I didn’t understand all of it, but it made...

William Faulkner These days most of our correspondence comes via email, but it's still nice to receive a letter in the post - unless it's a bill! But we do take the good old Royal Mail for granted but that's not surprising seeing as it has been around for 500 years. It was back in 1516 that King Henry VII established a 'Master of the Posts' which was a position that evolved into the office of the Postmaster General. It was another 19 years however before the postal service was available to the general public. And then the cost of postage was paid by the recipient. I somehow don't think that would work these days with all the junk mail we receive. The policy of having the receiver pay for the letter ended in 1840 when Sir Rowland Hill introduced the Penny Black stamp. However, MPs were able to send mail for free so long as they stamped their 'frank' or mark on the letter. Uniformed postmen first appeared on the streets in 1792 ...