“As an editor, I read Charlotte Rogan's amazing debut novel, 'The Lifeboat,' when it was still in manuscript. I read it in one night, and I really wanted my company to publish it, but we lost it to another house. It's such a wonderful combination of beautiful writing and suspenseful storytelling.” WritingStillsWantedBeautifulNightHouseLostCompanyNovelWonderfulStorytellingCombinationEditorsPublishOne NightManuscriptsDebutBeautiful WritingCharlotteLifeboats Author:Karen Thompson Walker
“As a journalist, I would talk to writers, directors, creative people, and discover that for an awful lot of them, the moment they became successful, that was all they were allowed to do. So you end up talking to the bestselling science-fiction author who wrote a historical-fiction novel that everybody loved, but no one would publish.” PeopleEndsMomentsFictionTalkingNovelCreativeSuccessfulDirectorsScience FictionHistoricalAwfulJournalistHistorical FictionPublishCreative PeopleFiction Novels Author:Neil Gaiman
“It was the ponderous battering ram of his novels that opened the way through the genteel reticences of American nineteenth-century fiction. . . Without [Theodore] Dreiser's treading out a path for naturalism none of us would have had a chance to publish.” WayChanceFictionNovelPathCenturyPublishNineteenth CenturyNaturalismRamsTreadingTheodoreReticenceBattering Book:The Best Times: An Informal Memoir Source: The Best Times: An Informal Memoir
“I'd written my first novel for adults, which was called Basic Eight and was set in a high school, and we were having a devil of a time selling it. It ended up in the hands of an editor of a children's publishing house, for which it was entirely inappropriate. She said, "Well, we can't publish this, but I think you should write something for children," which I thought was a really terrible idea.” ThinkingShouldWritingFirstsWellsChildrenSaidIdeasHandsSchoolHouseNovelWrittenTerribleHigh SchoolDevilAdultsEightSellingEditorsPublishingPublishInappropriatePublishing House Author:Daniel Handler
“Read non-fiction. History, biology, entomology, mineralogy, paleontology. Get a bodyguard and do fieldwork. Find your inner fish. Don't publish too soon. Not before you have read Thomas Mann in any case. Learn by copying, sentence by sentence some of the masters. Copy Coetzee's or Sebald's sentences and see what happens to your story. Consider creative non-fiction if you want to stay in South Africa. It might be the way to go. Never neglect back and hamstring exercises, otherwise you won't be able to write your novel. One needs one's buttocks to think.” IfsThinkingWayWantNeedsWritingStoriesMightHappensAbleFictionCasesNovelCreativeMastersExerciseSouthFishesSentencesBiologyNeglectCopiesSouth AfricaPublishNon FictionCopyingBodyguardPaleontologyButtocksFieldworkHamstringsCoetzee Author:Marlene van Niekerk
“My first book published in France was translated and titled Exercices d'Attente in 1972. It was a collection of short works written and published in Romania. In 1973 I was ready to publish the novel Arpièges, which I had started writing in Romanian and of which I had published some fragments under the title Vain Art of the Fugue. Some years later, I finished Necessary Marriage.” WritingYearsFirstsArtBookNovelWrittenReadyFinishedFranceVainTitlesCollectionsFragmentsPublishRomaniaFugue Author:Dumitru Tepeneag
“Each time I have the urge in me to make a statement or send a message or to issue a manifesto, I don't bother to write a novel. I write an article and publish it in a popular newspaper, or I make a television appearance.” WritingNovelIssuesTelevisionMessagesAppearanceNewspapersStatementsBotherUrgesArticlesPublishManifestos Author:Amos Oz