Goodbye Edinburgh

This is Alexandra Harris (author of Romantic Moderns) and myself  happily signing away at Edinburgh.  Really surprised that there are still people who can afford to buy hardback books - that can only be good.  There were a surprising number of Kiwis in the audience too - about half a dozen people from New Zealand and all Katherine Mansfield fans.

Michael Holroyd has also been appearing at Edinburgh and he entered the biography debate with an article in Friday's Guardian about the death of literary biography.    That type of  'life and work' is gone, he says, and he's right.  People are 'writing lives backwards', writing group lives, or parts of lives, in other words being totally experimental.  I've always been against the dry-as-dust academic tome full of facts about the subject, but utterly lifeless.  No wonder readers want something more exciting and illuminating!   Michael's comments are more ammunition against the academic lobby who don't like the way I've written my Mansfield biography - it's written for readers, not critics.   And that seems to have worked.  I had a quick coffee with my publisher after the event and it seems that the first edition of the book has almost sold out - reprinting time.  Yippppeeeee!!!!   

I had a lovely time in Edinburgh.  But now it's back home to clean out the fridge, pack the suitcases and dash back to Italy for some 'creative space'.   No Tuesday Poem this week because I will be travelling today and tomorrow, so apologies to the fans of the TP blog.  Normal service will be resumed next week.

I've also been having adventures of a different kind associated with my exploration of the world of the Haida Gwaii indians and will report on that later in the week.