Monarchs ought to put to death the authors and instigators of war, as their sworn enemies and as dangers to their states.
I’m such a fangirl when it comes to other writers. I read 250 books a year, and I’m always talking up books by other authors.
I have faith that worthy but misunderstood or ignored books can still prevail – and when they do, fewer joys are as sweet – but authors have families to support and rent to pay, and for them, I hope for acclaim in their time rather than late-in-life or posthumously.
I’ve always been a geek, so I’ve always used the Internet, perhaps at first for autopromotion, as many authors do.
The standard publishing contract is replete with clauses that strip authors of control over their books.
I’m a big believer that sci-fi lives in literature, that the true sci-fi population is out there reading a gazillion authors.
Nobody can give a good performance unless the authors and composers have written a good part, a fact which is often overlooked.
The world is crawling with authors touring now. They’re like performance artists.
Great authors are admirable in this respect: in every generation they make for disagreement. Through them we become aware of our differences.
‘Ageism,’ or whatever you want to call it, is a very English phenomenon. You don’t get it too much in many other cultures. And no one says it about authors or poets or filmmakers. ‘Oh, they’re too old to make films or write books.’
It’s been more than a decade since I put that self-published novel, ‘Lip Service’, up on a website. Since then, many hundreds of authors have gone from self-published to traditionally published.
At first I read mostly books by Southern authors – black and white – because almost all the people I knew were born and raised in the South, starting with my mother. I remember I got a lot of Erskine Caldwell.
Authors can easily produce ebook versions of novels and shorter work which publishers don’t own.
MCs are authors, and rock musicians who write lyrics are authors, to a degree.
I’m so thrilled to have won the RITA. The award is particularly special because it is given by other romance authors. It’s deeply rewarding and not a little humbling to be honored by such a talented tribe of writers.
A pin has as much head as some authors and a good deal more point.
I’m a very shy person, and I never tried to do theater. I’ve been asked many, many times by the most incredible authors in America to do theater. And I always said no, not knowing what it is to be on the stage and to do theater.
I love J. G. Ballard. I love authors who take the world as we know it and just tweak one thing and say, ‘What if the world were like this?’
I am a voracious reader, so it’s difficult for me to give a list of my favourite authors of all time.
Let us hope that good authors who are bad Christians will find salvation through the books they write.
It’s the misfortune of German authors that not a single one of them dares to expose his true character. Everyone thinks that he has to be better than he is.
Use description of landscape to help you establish the emotional tone of the scene. Keep notes of how other authors establish mood and foreshadow events by describing the world around the character.
The conventional wisdom is that authors get only one chance in this world. If your first novel doesn’t sell, publishers and bookstores lose interest, and your career stalls, barring an act of God or Oprah.
Well, unlike a lot of authors, I will be the one to cop to having a ghostwriter. I’ve always written with someone else.
Writing a song is much like being an author. Yes, we all have tools to write (everyone has a brain I hope!), but that doesn’t all of a sudden make us best selling authors.
As the news agenda goes into warp speed, it becomes ever more difficult for authors writing about current events to keep their books timely and relevant.
I have very purposely never signed up with commercial lecture agencies as most, I think, prominent historical authors do because, to me, that’s a contradiction of who I believe I am given my absorption of the teaching of Martin Luther King, Jr.
I think what’s happening with book advances is something that most of the world just doesn’t fully appreciate, especially when it comes to nonfiction, because writing a book of investigative journalism is an expensive endeavor, and the system works best if you have publishers making bets on authors.
I have an excellent memory – for books and authors, that is. I remember all the books I’ve read.
The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.
I have a band called M&O. We were working on our first album in 2011 or 2012. We were looking for people to collaborate with, and I met Chance through a Young Chicago Authors poetry slam.
The difficulty that many foreign authors face in having their works translated into English has effects far beyond the United States.
As a past president of the Writers Guild, I think women shouldn’t write for free. Maybe you have to do it for a time, to make a reputation, but I think the idea of giving your work away is the beginning of authors not being able to make a living.
Also, there are authors and publicists using the Internet to manipulate opinion, both positively for a work and negatively against the competition. I don’t do this and can’t stomach it, honestly.
Teenage readers also have a different relationship with the authors whose work they value than adult readers do. I loved Toni Morrison, but I don’t have any desire to follow her on Twitter. I just want to read her books.
Dickens is one of those authors who are well worth stealing.
My favourite authors are Jeffrey Archer, for his story telling skills; John Grisham, for the completely new genre he created; and James Patterson, for the way he created a new business model out of writing.
Any debut novel is usually a case of spitting into the wind – or, just maybe, casting your bread upon the waters. Without an established audience in place, first-time authors have to hope for resonant word of mouth and a receptive reviewer or three.
My wife and I set up the business, we were always very open about it and had a business author’s name as many authors do.
Standing out as a writer today requires more than a bright idea and limpid prose. Authors need to become businesspeople as well.
I know most publishers probably don’t let their authors write on Wattpad all the time, but mine are pretty open about it.
There has long been an argument in New York about what, exactly, the purpose of book awards ought to be. One model sees them as a celebration of the unquestioned best and brightest, a triumphal parade for marquee authors who have published in a given year.
Jane Austen is the pinnacle to which all other authors aspire.
I was very lucky to befriend many authors before even signing with an agent, and they were all so supportive of me when I told them I was in the middle of my first book.
Authors are free to ignore their editors’ advice. I often avail myself of this veto power – sometimes out of a pigheadedness for which I’ll pay the price.
My hope is that ‘The New World Haggadah’ will open a new world for readers who will see our heritage through a multilingual prism. I wanted to feature medieval and renaissance authors, resistance in World War II, crypto-Jews and activists during the Dirty War in Latin America, songs of protest, and songs of hope.
That whole idea of chick lit being a thing that you just lump all the commercial female writers into – it went on for years.I’d switch on the radio, and I’d hear, ‘Two female authors are here to discuss chick lit – is it dead?’ and I’d think, ‘Argh, no, not again. Are we seriously still having this conversation?’
Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn’t find anyone to talk to.
Different authors write different ways, have different relationships with their audiences, and those are all legitimate.
Like many authors, I caught the writing bug during my teenage years. I don’t remember the exact day or year, but I remember that reading S.E. Hinton’s ‘The Outsiders’ sparked my interest in writing.
By reading a lot of novels in a variety of genres, and asking questions, it’s possible to learn how things are done – the mechanics of writing, so to speak – and which genres and authors excel in various areas.
We see them when they come to New York. They stay at my wife’s apartment. We have quite a correspondence with them at all times. They play a very important role, the authors in the firm, because so much of the material we publish is suggested by them.
When I started writing, the deal was that publishers gave you a grand or two as an advance to buy some sweets, with the promise that they would make a big putsch with your fourth book when you’d built up a bit of a following. But by the time my fourth book came out, previously unpublished authors were the new big thing.
The contemporary authors I most admire are Nick Hornby and Jonathan Tropper.
Dr. Johnson has said that the chief glory of a country arises from its authors. But then that is only as they are oracles of wisdom; unless they teach virtue, they are more worthy of a halter than of the laurel.
