Norman Nicholson - A Labour of Love - or Madness, by Kathleen Jones
Just Published by The Book Mill No biographer should write anything for love - biographies are expensive to write and they promote the work and life of someone else, taking time and effort away from your own writing. But, I've just spent two years of what little life I might have left writing about someone else, spending money on air fares, train tickets and hotel rooms which I will probably never get back. I reckon I've probably spent the best part of £10,000, if you add in the permission fees and the printing costs. Does that shock you? When I was approached by the Trustees of the Norman Nicholson literary estate, they (and I) hoped that the book would be funded by one of the big publishers. Norman was one of the Faber poets and had been published as a prose author by Robert Hale and Penguin. But publishing has changed massively in the last five years and there's been a seismic shift in attitude to literary biography. Unless there is some kind of m...