http://www.bookmarket.com/newnovels.htm

This page has a list of 400+ book editors including editors of first novels with full address, phone number, fax, e-mail and website address. Truly amazing.

http://www.caderbooks.com/pubfaq.html

On this page you will answers to questions ranging from how to find an agent to how to write a good book proposal. The information provided is concise and well articulated. Continue Reading »

(from left) Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs

Columbia University, 1945

Beat Generation refers to a small group of writers in 1950s who believed in spontaneity, intense experimentation and freedom of expression, both in their writing and their lives. The Beat movement rejected capitalism, militarism and materialism.

The bohemian lifestyle and beliefs of the Beats made them notorious in the eyes of many. They indulged in sexual liberation, drug use for enhanced creativity and hedonism, religious mysticism and freewheeling. Continue Reading »

I am sure you haven’t heard of the phrase ‘reaction writing’ before. I hadn’t until today. What happened was I was writing a scene for my novel which needed a couple of passing characters. I created two very short character sketches. Out of the two, one was good and the other quite mundane. I re-read the second one and recognized it as Reaction Writing. At once I deleted it and wrote a new character sketch totally out of my imagination. It was novel and it read much better. If I had created a character out of Reaction Writing, it would have been too common to hold the reader’s interest. That character alone would have collapsed my scene even if I had written it well. Continue Reading »

Virgil reading at the house of Maecenas

It was in the Augustan age that Roman literature reached its zenith with the works of writers like Horace, Ovid and Virgil being published. It is referred as the Augustan age because Rome was ruled by Emperor Augustus during the period starting from 27 BC until his death in AD 14.

In British literature, Augustan age refers to early 18^th century in which writers such as Alexander Pope, William Congreve, Joseph Addison, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe and Richard Steele wrote. Continue Reading »

I wrote this review for a website on 26^th May, 2004. Yesterday I retrieved the copy of it from underneath the earth It still has my views intact so I thought I would share it here with you. Here is the review of one of the most loved books by Lawrence:

The uniqueness and the strength of originality of the novel lie in the idea of travel as an end in itself. According to Lawrence travel is seen as a symbol of life where planning and craving for permanence need to be shunned and fulfilment found in the process of travelling which leads to nowhere. Continue Reading »

I wrote this book review for a website on 26^th May, 2004. Yesterday I retrieved the copy of it from underneath the earth It still has my views intact so I thought I would share it here with you.

The novel disturbed my sense of synchronization when I first started reading it. Having mostly read classics it was a change, which took me a while in getting used to, then liking it and soon enough enjoying it. The abandonment of the rules of grammar for effect works very well for the novel and it quite deserves the fame it has got. The time span of the book is astonishing and the author’s treatment of it is laudable. Continue Reading »

Francis Otto Matthiessen coined this name for the major literary works that were coming out from the north-eastern United States in the middle of the 19^th century. Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau. Mattiessen discussed their works in his book: American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman that was published in 1941.

By the time Matthiessen wrote this book, Emerson’s Nature (1836), “Self-Reliance” (1841), “The American Scholar” (1837); Melville’s Moby Dick (1851); Thoreau’s Walden (1854); Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) and Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1855) had already become masterpieces. Continue Reading »

Born on August 1, 1947 in Kingston, Jamaica, Lorna Goodison is primarily a poet along with a short story writer and a painter. Her poems focus on mixing of cultures, women’s concerns and effects of colonization. When she was a teenager, she began to publish her poetry anonymously in Jamaica Gleaner.

Her first collection of poems, Tamarind Season was published in 1980. Tamarind Season means hard times as other food doesn’t grow. It has a parallel with her writing career which began with a passion for painting, which still is a hobby. She has painted covers of all her books. Continue Reading »

Born into a middle class family on March 24, 1921 in Guyana (then under the British rule), Wilson Harris first became friends with poetry and moved on to become a world famous novelist and essayist. After studying at Queen’s College in Georgetown from 1934 to 1939, he became a government surveyor (1942-58). It was as a surveyor that he gained knowledge of the savannahs and the rainforests that became the setting of his fiction. His critical essays question hybridity, cross-culturalism and trans-nationalism. Homer influenced him greatly in his early years. Continue Reading »

Born in British India on May 10, 1927 in Allahabad, Nayantara Sahgal is an Indian writer in English whose fiction has received worldwide recognition. She is the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru’s sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. During the emergency imposed by her first cousin, Indira Gandhi, she stood up against the totalitarian government, giving evidence of her independence of thought. Throughout her life she has stood for freedom, religious tolerance and non-violence. Continue Reading »

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was born on August 17, 1932 in Chaguanas, Trinidad. He was educated at Queen’s Royal College, Trinidad and University College, Oxford. He worked briefly for BBC as a writer and editor. He was knighted in 1989. In 2001, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. He lives in Wiltshire, England.

Celebrated as one of the most prolific writer in English literature across the world, his works have been compared to that of Conrad’s. Indian ancestors, a Trinidadian childhood and migration to England caused a deep rootlessness in him that found voice in his fiction.

Continue Reading »

I find that taking your own interview is a good way to get to know yourself better. The best thing about it is that it doesn’t seem like work. You may get a few surprises on the way too. I haven’t tried it yet, but recording your interview can also be enlightening. When I record it, I’ll upload it here too. So here’s me interviewing me. (Applause)

Q. Do you think most of the works of writers are autobiographical? Is it much like poetry in that aspect, which takes its material largely from the poet’s experiences?

A. I wouldn’t say most works, alter ego interviewer, but I would certainly say debut works. I think most writers use their personal lives sparingly like they might have their home as the setting and not the characters and the events. Even when you are using autobiographical stuff, it needs to be dramatized, exaggerated, beautified, to make it readable. Without these tools of fiction writing, a prose cannot stand just on the feelings of the writer. Continue Reading »

Enough of writing prompts, let’s do something else. How about arguing? Yes, polite, of course. I only fight in private.

You answer two questions (I have invited my blog readers to participate in this discussion through mail) and we might discover some truths, which we can all benefit from.

For Readers:

Which genre do you read? (Your favorite) Why do you like it?

For Writers:

Why do you write? Why do you write in your chosen genre? Continue Reading »

Action
As usual, her husband has created a row in the street below. Tired of his antics, she looks on from the window when she sees a young man approaching her husband. He takes him to a corner, stabs him and walks away. The wife smiles and goes back inside.
Why does she want her husband dead? Who is the man who killed her husband? Continue Reading »

Action
Our man went crazy after his family died in war. He is lonely and sad. That is when an acquaintance of his suggests a change of place. He decides to go to Hawaii islands. From the boat, he sees a dolphin. The dolphin comes near him and plays with him. Thinking he has finally got a friend, he dives into the water. That is when he discovers that he can swim like a fish.
You tell me: How does he use this skill? Is it just a shift from one abnormality to another? Continue Reading »