My Writerly Life

  • WRITING WITH A LILT

    Over the years I’ve noticed that I am drawn to literary writing with a lilt—a cadence as though the author was a poet or came from a culture like Ireland or Scotland, with their shared Gaelic history. Anne Michaels, a Canadian poet, writes in a loosely structured novelistic style and infuses her poetic self throughout.… Read more

  • THE REAL CROMWELL?

    History is written by the victors. . . and then rewritten over the following decades, as it suits those in power. Or makes good reading or an exciting film. This is never more obvious than the changing descriptions of Thomas Cromwell, who rose from relative obscurity to great wealth as the chief adviser to King… Read more

  • GROWING OLD

    Very few literary novels deal with the delicate subject of growing old. After all, even the most scholarly author, the most erudite, needs to attract readers, and this is hardly a jolly topic—old age, with its proximity to death. And yet, if literary works are an exploration of the human condition, aging must be among… Read more

  • NOVELS AS MOVIES

    In 2025, a spate of movies were released based on literary novels, modern and classical. There was Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (a re-imagining of Mary Shelley’s gothic work); Francois Ozon’s The Stranger (Albert Camus’ 1942 novella); Kei Ishikawa’s A Pale View of Hills (Kazuo Ishiguro);Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet (Maggie O’Farrell) and Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams (Denis… Read more