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EDITORIAL
THIS is the issue in which Mslexia sets its feet firmly down in the mud of the material world. Apart from Rosie Jackson's investigation of the creative potential of the right hemisphere, we've set aside the mental and spiritual rewards of writing and entered the grubby, grubby world of money.
It's been an illuminating few months. I've been phoning up various househoid-name authors and asking them what they earn. Considering your average Brit would rather own up to passing wind than confess their gross income, people have been remarkably open. (Unless they're lying, of course).
Apart from the nitty gritty of authors' earnings, we've been getting into tac, too. And the costs and benefits of self-publishing.
It seems that writers need to be rather hard-nosed about what used to be called out 'prospects'. Blurred consciousness might help the creative process, but it doesn't contribute to economic viability. As level-headed-but-lyrical Helen Dunmore once wrote: 'I learned a lot more about writing and money through observing writers who saw no contradiction between their creativity and an efficinent, sharp-witted management of their business affairs.'
Debbie Taylor
Editor
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Contents: Issue 3
Autumn 1999
Special features
AGENDA: MAKING MONEY
The poverty of the best-selling author
Respected literary authors earn a pittance compared to the kinds and queens of genre. Debbie Taylor investigates who’s making serious money our of writing.
THE MSLEXIA INTERVIEW
Novelist U A Fanthorpe talks to Debbie Taylor
› Read from the interview
› Read the Author's Method
› Browse interviews
OTHER FEATURES
Daddy’s darling girl
Ros Coward analyses the enduring appeal of romantic fiction in the so-called post-feminist age
When the right had doesn’t know what the left hand is doing
How writing with your left hand can put you in touch with the creative processes of your right hemisphere: Rosie Jackson explains
Is UEA the best MA?
The low-down on postgraduate writing courses
What’s wrong with vanity publishing?
Deborah Durbin makes the case for DIY
MIND AND BODY: The Dreamers, the Critic and the Book Juliet Shepherd undergoes hypnotism for writers’ block
New Writing
MAN & BOY
Poetry and prose selected by novelist Hilary Mantel
› Read new writing 3
› Browse new writing
REGULARS
• Letters
• Essentially Esther DIary of an adjectivally-challenged author
• News
• Getting Started… in short stories
• Nuts & bolts adjectives, sentence structure. Millennium Bug
• The Blank Page: WRITING WITH VULNERABLE WRITERS with Margaret Wilkinson
› Try this workshop
› Browse workshops
• Guide to guides: Writing for self-discovery
• Poetic forms: Linda France's regular tutorial on the main poetic forms: Sestina with a specially-commissioned example by Carol Rumens
• The Slush Pile at Curtis Brown
• Word Surgeon: Dr Ingrid K tackles a case of Confusion
• Icon Gallery: 10 things you need to know about Anne Rice
BOOKS
Reviews: Celebrity novels, Whodunit heroines, Poetry, First novels, Citron Press
Best ever books by women Wendy Robertson chooses Beloved by Toni Morrison
Bedside Table Edwina Currie
DIRECTORY
Competitions, submissions requests, grants, courses, events, contacts, venues
› Add me to the Mslexia listings
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