At this risk of this turning into some kind of birthday blog, I had to post this. Dr Seuss’ children’s classic ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ turned 50 last week. The book was originally a wager, between Dr S (real name Theodore Seuss Geisel) and his editor in Random House, who bet that he couldn’t write
Now I work in marketing and I’ve actually thought about this before. I remember how, when I lived in London, that seeing what people were reading on the Tube was a real barometer of how well a book was doing and often would start a conversation about a particular book when I got into work.
OK technically I don’t know if it matters if a birthday is belated after you’re dead, but catching up on my daily writing mails from Writers’ Almanac today I saw that Philip Larkin’s would have been 9th August (he was born in 1922.) I like the Writers’ Almanac because it’s just the right size for
The last post on Dorothea Brand got me thinking about books on writing and I had a look at my shelves to see how many books about writing I actually had and how many I’d found useful. Like a lot of writers, I probably have quite a few. Some I’ve bought, some have been presents
I’ve just spent the weekend taking part in a yoga workshop, led by John Friend, the founder of Anusara yoga. Now, I don’t really tend to start blogging about yoga because (a) what I don’t know about yoga would fill an ashram and b) because after 8 hours (yes 8!) of yoga over the weekend,
OK technically it should be breakfast ‘in’ Ballymount, but it wouldn’t have had the same impact really, would it? So this morning was my TV debut on TV3’s Ireland AM. I have to admit I was pretty nervous about it yesterday. I’m not sure what I was afraid might happen but all sorts of scenarios
I don’t usually buy the Sunday Independent, but last night my Mum fished an article from the green bin that she had kept for me. It was by Alison Walsh and the headline was “New authors left on shelf in chapter of caution.” Not exactly the kind of article that looked set to put me
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/26/9-of-the-most-amazing-boo_n_659870.html 9 of the best bookstores in the world with some great photos. I’ve only been to one, Strand in New York (18 miles of books) but it’s definitely up there in my favourites! Anyone else any suggestions to add? Other than The Gutter Bookshop in Dublin, obviously…
Nice article in today’s Irish Times, where Eileen Battersby examines why Dublin, a city “firmly planted on a bedrock of words” deserves to be a designated Unesco City of Literature. http://m.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0727/1224275538933.html?via=rel Below is an edited timeline from the Dublin Unesco website dublincityofliterature.com Eighth-century Book of Kells created. Housed in Trinity College Dublin since 1661 Twelth-century
One of the things I like to dip into (sometimes as an excuse to put off doing any actual writing) is to read advice and tips from other writers. Below is a list of 10 good writing tips from Zadie Smith which I received via e-mail from Gotham Writers’ Workshops, originally published by The Guardian.
