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A book on writing from the Costa Award winning author of "Day" and "The Blue Book", based on her "Guardian" blogs. After 6 novels, 5 short story collections and 2 books of non-fiction, Kennedy has the authority to talk about the craft of writing books. These are missives from the front line, urgent and vivid and full of excitement.
Synopsis
Offers readers and aspiring writers everything they need to know about the complexities of researching, writing and publishing fiction. This book ends with the transcript of the author's celebrated one-person show about writing and language that she has performed round the world to huge acclaim.
Book Details
Publisher:
JONATHAN CAPE
Publication Date:
07-Mar-2013
ISBN:
9780224096973
Observer review
On Writing by AL Kennedy review
Nicholas Clee the observer Sun 10 March 2013
As many people want to create fiction, it sometimes appears, as to read it. For them, the news from AL Kennedy's On Writing is mixed. On the one hand, Kennedy makes it clear that she feels blessed to have her job. She has a relentless but glamorous schedule: in the period covered by these blogs (first written for the Guardian) and essays, she appears at festivals; she is bombarded with commissions; she teaches; she performs a one-woman show; she writes a new novel, delivering it as usual to one of the most prestigious literary imprints in the English-speaking world. On the other hand, the schedule is so relentless that she damages her health. She regularly succumbs to viruses, and loses a good part of 2011 to an exceptionally nasty infection of the inner ear.
We learn that Kennedy does not value her appearance, lives alone, and has many valued friends. This is a writers' journal, though, not a memoir. It offers encouragement, advice, and words of caution. If Kennedy impresses on her readers perhaps through her virtuoso account of how to develop the line "A man walks into a room" that writing is rather hard, she will have done a great service.
