Ask the Author: Brian Cathcart
Answered Questions (6)
Brian Cathcart
I have an option that may not be available to fiction writers. I tell myself it's happening because I don't know enough yet, and I need to go out and find out more. So I switch off from writing and go back to rummaging and reading. It has always worked so far.
Brian Cathcart
I like research, but I am never happier at work than sitting at my screen with all my notes around me, working out the best was of telling my story.
Brian Cathcart
Persist. I've been turned down a lot of times, by a lot of publishers.
Brian Cathcart
I'm teaching and I am working with Hacked Off, but I'm also finding that publishing a new book these days involves authors a lot more than it used to. For example, I am setting up a website, thenewsfromwaterloo.com. I have various ideas for my next book, but one thing at a time...
Brian Cathcart
I'm the son of a history teacher and an English teacher, so there was always a chance. And then I became a journalist, a job where if nothing else you have to abandon any fear of exposing your prose to the public. After that, like a lot of journalists, I found there were some stories too big to be told in a newspaper or magazine article.
Brian Cathcart
I teach young journalists and I wanted to illustrate some of the differences in the way news was before we had fast communications technologies. So I thought of Waterloo and looked up how long it took for word of the victory to reach London and how it made the journey. What I found was the kind of tangle of conflicting claims and evidence that I have never been able to resist.
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