
Out Nov-5
Some of my blogging on here – and on my sister site Bookpacking – about Berlin has been selected by the very nice people at Oxygen Books for their new City-lit series city-specific anthologies.
The format is to take a selection of writings about a city from some of the big literary guns, like Hemingway or Stein for Paris, mix it up with more contemporary writers and then give it some edge with some contributions from the blogosphere.
In the Berlin book, my entries will rub shoulders with excerpts from the likes of award-winning war reporter – and short-suffering wife to Hemingway – Martha Gellhorn and David Bowie. Another contributor is Anna Pfunder, writer of the excellent Stasiland.
In my own humble view, to be included alongside the works of such talented people is both an honour and an inspiration. And my own situation perfectly exemplifies the value of writing what you know (cliched but true); but also of writing about what excites and motivates you. Because that passion will come through in your prose.
To paraphrase Sontag, I wonder if this qualifies me for membership of (the very lowest echelons of) the Republic of Letters?