There are the sparkling debut novels that become runaway successes; those are few and far between. Then there are the clumsy first novels that get published—good, but primarily a raw first effort on a long and torturous path to becoming a mature writer. Then there are the novels that get shelved away, waiting to be […]
...moreThe prospect of publication, the urgent need, as they see it, to publish as soon as possible, colors everything [my students] do….It will be hard for those who have never suffered this obsession to appreciate how all-conditioning and all-consuming it can be. Why are unpublished writers mocked and published writers respected, even by people who […]
...moreNora Crook, in perhaps the most exciting click ever to happen on the internet, made the discovery of a lifetime when she came across previously unpublished correspondence from the late Frankenstein author Mary Shelley. The article at The Guardian describes several letters written by Shelley shortly before her death. “Perhaps most touching is her pride […]
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