.
| Hearsay: |
Literature festivals and the aggressive marketing of celebrity authors have created a damaging climate for new writing, Doris Lessing, the Nobel laureate novelist, believes.
In her first public appearance since winning the £750,000 prize last October, Lessing said that she felt “desperately sorry” for young authors.
Lessing, 88, told an audience at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London that in the 1950s her publisher apologised for suggesting that she do publicity work. “Now what happens is that if you are a girl who’s good-looking and has written even a passable book you can be earning enormous sums of money very quickly and are then sent on a promotional tour.
“I’ve met girls who’ve said that this was the worst thing that could have happened to them. There are people who can’t write a second book because they are always on the telephone or having to do some TV thing. I feel desperately sorry for them.”
January 2006
December
2005
November
2005
October
2005
September
2005
August
2005
July
2005
June
2005
May
2005
April
2005
March
2005
February
2005
January
2005
December
2004
November
2004
October
2004
September
2004
August
2004
July
2004
June
2004
May
2004
April
2004
March
2004
February
2004
January
2004
December
2003
November
2003
October
2003
September
2003
August
2003
Bookninja © Copyright
The opinions expressed on this site are those of individual participants
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the site owners,
organizers, or other participants.
[powered by WordPress.]
January 24th, 2008 at 10:41 am
hmmmm, not just smart, but also a total babe: amsaw.org/pic1003-lessing007.jpg
I have nothing against publicity, even the undeserved kind. It rankles, ever so slightly, for all the usual “it used to be about the writing” ways, but I feel it is still about the writing at the core. PR folks need jobs too. Click me to find out what I mean.
January 24th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
How horrible it must be to be young and pretty and over-hyped.
The fact that it prevents such writers from completing a second book seems less of a tragedy to me – more like natural selection.
January 24th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
i wonder if she was being sarcastic?
January 24th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
About a year a I was googling for “picture of author and cat”, and I ended up on a blog by an editor for a major publishing house.
This blog was devoted to brutal realist advice for aspiring authors, and the main themes which seemed to come up were along the lines of: 1) be young and cute with an expensive professional author photo; 2) have lots of dazzling description and gushing blurbs for your back jacket; 3) write about something trendy… the quality of writing was never raised as an issue, but perhaps that was presumed.
The definitive piece of advice was: never pose for your author photo with your cat.
The funny thing is that the back cover of ‘The Sentimental Agents’ by Doris Lessing has no flashy blurbs, nor any text at all: just a photo of a nice frumpy old lady and her cat.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Was the cat young and good looking?
January 25th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
All kitties are cute.
Also, the book might have been ‘The Sirian Experiments’, but ‘The Sentimental Agents’ is my favourite.
January 25th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Some cats just get all the chicks, daddio.
January 26th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Last I heard, that cat had been dropped by its publisher for failure to deliver a second book, but had managed to parlay its GG award shortlisting into a gig teaching creative writing part-time at a small college that specializes in hotel & restaurant management.