Authors Electric

A Late Beginner by Priscilla Napier Perhaps it’s an age thing (nooo, don’t all shout at once) but I find myself increasingly drawn to memoirs these days. This has led me to conclude that anyone enduring an eccentric childhood is duty-bound to write about it, if only to add to the sum of the bizarrest human knowledge and general mirth.  This view doesn’t allow for various other essentials eg the ability to write in a way that actually engages the reader…. But I suppose that is for a publisher to decide. In the case of memoirs I’ve read in the last year or so, I am very glad the publishers did decide, and even gladder for the perspicacity of Slightly Foxed Editions , in rescuing many out of print gems and giving them new life. A Late Beginner by Priscilla Napier, Jessica Mitford’s Hons and Rebels , Hermione Ranfurly's To War With Whitaker  (though to be fair that is a young person’s memoir, not a child’s) and now, Mango and Mimosa by Suzanne St Albans, whose childhood was ar...

Isn't there something missing? I'm sure most of you reading this will be as relieved as I am that I'm not going to be scratching around for new things to say about Wild Wood. We had a wonderful launch party in the Slightly Foxed bookshop in Gloucester Road, another in the Albert Club in West Didsbury, and a third last night at the Conservative Club in Uppermill, near Oldham. Now, still slightly hung over from Ma Ferret's Special bitter, I intend to lie back and wait for the money to roll in. In case my fellow authors assume that that is just a normal part of writers' fantasy, let me tell you of something rather wonderful that happened today. I opened a letter and found a cheque from sales of my cut-down and edited version of Herman Melville's Moby Dick. (Pleased to see that my voice recognition engine did not put in a hyphen. Like me, it assumes that that unnecessary, and technically incorrect, punctuation mark was stuck in by a junior printer while Herman...