Robin Blake asks whether it’s possible for writers to retire, examines some famous writers who supposedly did so, and reflects on his own reluctance to stop working.
'If I read through that folder's contents now, I'd probably find a kind of dramatic structure, a story arc; obstacles and setbacks, hope briefly given, then snatched away, and at last a breakthrough. '
19-09-2019
Jonathan Tulloch takes us to a Cumbrian riverbank, circa 1983, for a picnic eagerly awaiting the end of the world at half past three (please pass the ham sandwiches.)
Mary Colson faces down the aimlessness and lack of purpose that takes hold when a book has been finished, but hasn’t yet found its place in the world.
'The novel I believed did not want to be written suddenly wrote itself right to the end in a matter of weeks all because of a few lines I chanced to read one afternoon in a remote house in Wales.'