Robert Day’s Reviews > The Handbook of Creative Writing > Status Update

Finishes with a nice glossary. If this was a test, I would have passed with 100%.

Ch48 - Making a Living as a Writer. Verdict: difficult but doable. The key is to write well and write lots.

Ch47 - The Writer as Teacher. A creative writing teacher speaks.

Ch46 - Literary Life: Prizes, Anthologies, Festivals, Reviewing, Grants. Seems to focus on these as money-making opportunities, rightly or wrongly. Interesting in passing. The back end of this book seems to cover some of the more fringe activities. As an outlet myself, perhaps I ought to pay more attention.

Ch45 - Copyright. Skimmed and skipped over this chapter without feeling guilty. A lot of legalese from two lawyers. Read only if you're mad or paranoid that your agent is trying to diddle you.

Ch44 - The Literary Agent: TV, Radio and Theatre. Detailed analysis, by an agent, of the small print around agent representation. Read only if you're writing in this field.

Ch42 - The Literary Agent (Novel). "I'm on your side, honest, Guv." Life from the point of view of an agent. Sounds well meaning, but rather defensive and vague.

Ch41 - Publishing Poetry in Britain. I always wonder, when I read in these articles that publishers have a backlog of two years, whether there's a way around this; a way to get to the front of the queue. I suppose it's all about supply and demand. If the supply is high and the demand is low then either the price must fall, or a poetical nuclear war (or similar catastrophe) must occur in order to lower supply. Hmm.

Ch40 - American PoBiz (Poetry Business). Advice to poets wanting to publish their poems from a small publisher of poems in the US. Irrelevant to me (and to most of the world judging by poetry sales volumes). Plus - poets are such snobs!

Ch39 - Publishing Fiction. An insider in the publishing business talks about where editors find readers, how an editor decides who told read first (and what to publish), how editors acquire books, what an editor (and copy-editor) does and gives some dog and don't say to writers (solicit, don't argue, edit thoroughly, research agents/publishers, think about criticism, read a lot). Good chapter.