by Virginia Lloyd | May 31, 2008 | Blog, Memoir
Robert McCrum, who for the past ten years has been the Literary Editor of The Observer, recently left his post. Signing off, he wrote this wonderful history of the last decade in book publishing for The Guardian, in the form of 10 short chapters. Travelling from...
by Virginia Lloyd | May 26, 2008 | Blog, Young Widow's Book of Home Improvement
Some favourite moments from the Sydney Writers Festival, which ended yesterday: Jeannette Winterson’s fiery opening fanfare to the whole event at the Opera House on Tuesday An esteemed expatriate writer advising me, as she signed my copy of her book, that...
by Virginia Lloyd | May 23, 2008 | Blog, Young Widow's Book of Home Improvement
Big sigh of relief as my first-ever Sydney Writers Festival panels came and went without a major hitch, and I even managed to sell quite a few copies of my book. A cast of loyal supporters (including my mother, my publisher, my editor, and a few dear friends) came to...
by Virginia Lloyd | May 20, 2008 | Blog, Improve your writing
Last night was the official opening of the Sydney Writers Festival, which began with an impassioned and lightning-sharp address by Jeannette Winterson at the Sydney Opera House. She danced between Picasso and politics and poetry with a dazzling athleticism of mind....
by Virginia Lloyd | May 13, 2008 | Blog, Improve your writing
The PEN Poem Relay – the Olympics of freedom of expression – is in full swing en route to Beijing for August. The poem “June” by imprisoned Chinese journalist and poet Shi Tao has now been translated into more than 90 languages. The poem is...
by Virginia Lloyd | May 10, 2008 | Blog, Young Widow's Book of Home Improvement
Recently I mentioned some tentative steps I’d made inside bookstores to see who had stocked my book, and where they had placed it on their shelves. I have two updates to that post, one ridiculous and the other sublime. The ridiculous: the bookstore that had...