With two friends from University of East Anglia's MA in prose, I've organized a reading of new works from emerging writers at SLAM King's Cross on 20th July at 7 p.m.
Nine talented readers, seriously fresh short stories and novels, and a drinks break between sets because there's a bar. I'm reading a bit from the draft of my novel, Domestication.
"My dear," I said breathlessly to Irais, when I had got into her room and shut the door and Minora was safely in hers, "what do you think -- she writes books!"
We stood and looked at each other with awe-struck faces.
"How dreadful!" murmured Irais. "I never met a young girl who did that before."
"She says this place is full of copy."
"Full of what?"
"That's what you make books with."
"Oh, my dear, this is worse than I expected! A strange girl is always a bore among good friends, but one can generally manage her. But a girl who writes books -- why it isn't respectable! And you can't snub that sort of people; they're un-snubbable."
"Oh, but we'll try!" I cried, with such heartiness that we both laughed.
- Elizabeth and Her German Garden, 1898
"Poor Linda," she said, with feeling. "Poor little thing. But, Fanny, don't you think perhaps it's just as well? The lives of women like Linda and me are not so much fun when one begins to grow older."
I didn't want to hurt my mother's feelings by protesting that Linda was not that sort of woman.
"But I think she would have been happy with Fabrice," I said. "He was the great love of her life, you know."
"Oh, dulling," said my mother, sadly. "One always thinks that. Every, every time."
- The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford