Comments for Writers in Oxford

Comment on Advice, please! Children’s books and hybrid publishing by Bruce Hugman

Bruce Hugman — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 09:36:14 +0000

I would be verty doubtful about such services. I used Troubadour in the hope of their helping me market a book I had already self-published – not a strictly comparable project, but some common elements. They produced some very attractive marketing materials but did nothing to place books in bookshops or distribute more generally. My stock of books was actually in my garage (not in a warehouse) and that’s where they would have stayed if I hadn’t done the work myself.
There are some responses and comments on this issue on our Facebook page as well – a general disposition of caution and scepticism, it seems!

Comment on Wifedom: A Poetic Overview using MSN Co-Pilot by Diana Moore by Heather Rose Dunmore

Heather Rose Dunmore — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 11:47:03 +0000

This is really good, Diana, I really enjoyed it. I haven’t read the book but I intend to now.

Comment on When is a biography a novel? by Brenda Stones by Brenda Stones

Brenda Stones — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 08:05:10 +0000

A great further example, thank you, Bruce!
And I’ve just read another contrasting example, this time of a totally fictional life but in a highly researched context: The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier. So it doesn’t fit our main criterion above: it doesn’t take a named, known life; but it does relate the highly possible facts of a skilled artisan’s life in Venice, across implausible but accurate time frames. Really what it proves is our endless fascination with the span of a single human life as a subject for our leisure reading!

Comment on When is a biography a novel? by Brenda Stones by Bruce Hugman

Bruce Hugman — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 15:36:02 +0000

Some years after your reading, Brenda, I came across Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut. This is his imaginative and powerful novel based intimately on the life of E M Forster. It accords with McLeod’s remark that you quote above, though I think Galgut invented many (most?) scenes rather than ‘some’. The distinctive aspect of Galgut’s account of Forster’s life is the intense exploration of his passionate relationships with a handful of exotic young men to whom there are only allusions in the public record, though Maurice, published posthumously, does eventually let the cat out of the bag in a vivid and unambiguous way. Arctic Summer is a wonderful book; it deals beautifully with the Indian periods of Forster’s life, during which A Passage to India was conceived and eventually written.