Reminder of HAS walk
& HASreadings by three poets

next event
HASpanel on 'RECONCILIATION'

HAS will host a panel discussion on 'Reconciliation' in post-Holocaust, post-communist Europe, as a theme in contemporary writing in fiction, travel essay, memoir, biographical and critical study,. All the panellists have lived abroad for significant periods and have first hand experience of the topics they will speak about. Each will give a brief presentation, followed by debate and discussion with the audience. Afterwards, over drinks and nibbles, you can meet the panellists individually.

Lesley Chamberlain, whose most recent book is Freud: the Secret Artist. Her previous works include the acclaimed study Nietzche in Turin and two books on Eastern Europe, In the Communist Mirror (travel essays) and In a Place like That (fiction). She lives in Hampstead with her husband, the Czech ambassador. She will talk about reconciliation in art and psychoanalysis. Peter J. Conradi, whose most recent book is the widely-reviewed biography of Iris Murdoch, about whom he has written and lectured extensively. His previous works include a study of Dostoyevsky and, as co-editor, a book of essays on the role of the British Council in Poland during the troubled period 1938-1998. He will speak about reconciliation in Central Europe following the fall of communism.
Shusha Guppy, whose most recent publication is Three Journeys in the Levant. Her previous works include acclaimed memoirs about Iran before the fall of the Shah, A Blindfold Horse and about arrival in the West in the late 1950s, A Girl in Paris. She is London editor of the American literary journal The Paris Review. She will talk about reconciliation in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean areas.
Shelley Weiner, whose most recent book is Arnost: a reconciliation. Her previous novels include The Joker and A Sister's Tale. South African by birth, she is well known in North London for her courses on creative writing. She will speak about reconciliation within the Jewish community between those who underwent widely different experiences as a result of the events in Europe of the 1940s.

            Date: Wednesday 24th April 2002

            Times: 6.30 - 7 p.m. Meet and chat over a drink
                         7.00 - 8.15 p.m. Panel discussion (about 10 minutes' talk from
                    eachmember, questions and then general discussion with the audience)
                         8.15 - 9.00 p.m. Small party for panel members and the audience (we
                    have to be out of the Museum by 9 p.m.)

         Place: The Freud Museum, 20 Maresfield Gardens, Hampstead, NW3 5SX
        (nearest tube: Swiss Cottage; second nearest tube is Hampstead).
           Cost: Reservations made before 10th April: £4 for HAS members; £6 for guests.
         After 10th April: £6 for HAS members; £8 for guests. Places are limited.

Members, you are welcome to bring guests to the panel discussion - put your and your guests' names on the back of the cheque, payable to HAS, and send it to: Pat Farrington. If you are not a HAS member but are interested in the panel discussion, you are welcome to come to this event at the guest's rate - Send your cheque, payable to HAS, with a covering note, to the same address.

Following Stoddard Martin's thought-provoking reflections on the HAS panel on 'gatekeepers' in publishing in the last newsletter, we now publish a timely and hard-hitting personal piece on the same topic from Melissa Nathan, author of 'Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field' (2000) and 'Persuading Annie' (2001).

Into the lions' den

'How long did it take you to write your book?' people repeatedly asked me three years ago when I shocked them all by not only starting or even finishing a novel, but actually getting it published. This meant that real adults with real salaries - agents, publishers, critics, that is, the 'gatekeepers' of publishing - were taking me seriously enough to work on my behalf and help my dream come true. 'About thirty years,' I'd reply honestly, not realising how this thought would haunt me for the next two years when the process of producing other novels was forced to go into overdrive.

I now think of those heady days as a time of lost innocence, after having had another book published, changed publishers and started on my third novel. Without wanting to sound too pretentious, I now feel differently about what was once my passion: sadder and less idealistic. I believe that's the result of walking through those gates into the gatekeepers' habitat; an uncomfortable mix of the focussed, powerful, business world and the emotionally exposing, organic creative process.

I'm very grateful to my agent, publisher, critics and bookshops, too, of course, without whom I would not be a published writer. Yet at the same time, they have effectively persuaded me over the last three years that my earnestness was naivety, my sense of self-belief was arrogance and my sense of autonomy irrelevant. They've also made me question how far creativity and business can ever really work together. And I'm sure they're just as unsure about that one as I am.

My agent, Maggie Phillips at Ed Victor, has been the exception to the rule. She empathises yet instructs and, I believe, understands how vulnerable the very process of writing makes one. Unfortunately, I didn't take her first ever piece of advice - something I have learned the hard way not to do again. She wanted to auction my first book, but I already felt loyal to the publishing company that had first said 'yes'. After all, they'd bought me a hot chocolate in a posh hotel. They had also offered me £3,000 for two books, including all rights - U.S., translation, film, television, audio, stage and radio. Maggie took away most of those rights and improved the deal to £8,000 and so my life as a published author began; feeling diminished on £4,000 a year.

Publishers are a strange breed. They can realise your dream, but at the same time shatter it forever. My publishers did their best and promised me the world, but every time I felt an opportunity present itself, nothing happened. Even though I got a unique quote from Jilly Cooper for my cover, even though the film option on my first book was sold to Scala Films and I was asked to write the screenplay, even though my book got accepted in Sainsbury's and W. H. Smith's and received rave reviews both within trade and consumer publications, it sank without a trace. I'd discover that I had sold out in a Covent Garden chain within weeks of publication, but had never been re-stocked. Friends would constantly say that they had tried to get the book, but couldn't find it anywhere. I'd see advertisements for the publisher's favourite book everywhere, yet none for mine and many other equally good books. And then I looked at my royalty cheque when it finally arrived and realised I'd have got more for a four-page feature in a weekly women's magazine.

These are common enough incidents, and ones I'm sure that publishers would be able to respond to with sensible, rational arguments, but the fact is that one year on, I was disillusioned, depressed and despondent. People outside the business couldn't understand how I wasn't still thrilled at being published. But the novelty wears off soon enough. It's like someone who's been married for ten years and discovered that marriage isn't all it's cracked up to be, being told, 'Cheer up. At least you're married!' My publisher told me to be patient. These things take time. Oh, and can we have another book by next January, please? I delivered my first draft by December and had changed my style - I hoped my 'voice' had matured a little - but I was encouraged not to because I now had a following. I had to add more gags and take out the sub-plot's sad ending. I now had to write to deadline, think of the reader instead of just me, and not expect too much success from my year's work. Passion and hope felt like things of the past. My writing had been transformed from a creative process into a marketing opportunity.

At the HAS meeting on the subject of 'gatekeepers' in publishing, the wonderful writer Tracy Chevalier said that publishers make books. I disagree. Writers write books. Publishers sell them. They couldn't do it without us. Admittedly, we couldn't manage it without them - but it works both ways and I believe that publishers, sitting in their swish London offices, replete from another lunch meeting, can all too easily forget that. And the writers, in their sheds overlooking the back garden, fragile from having exposed their emotional innards during the process of writing, can forget the importance of their role in the equation. Agents, too, can forget how vulnerable writers can feel unless they write a book themselves. Ed Victor, the famous literary agent who has just written his own diet book, when interviewed by Radio 4's Libby Purves, said that as an agent he is a tiger, as a writer he is blancmange.

As for the post-production 'gatekeepers' - the critics and the bookshops - they too have their share in trashing the dream, only putting their money and effort behind the big names. After all, this is a business. Bookshops want to make money and critics want to get read. Why unearth a hitherto unknown writer when there's a new angle on established writers like J. K. Rowling or Zadie Smith? And then those same critics lambast today's new writers for not being the great literary giants of the past. I hate to sound so bitter so early in what I hope is going to be a long career, but perhaps, just perhaps, it's as much the gatekeepers' fault as the little Daniel's, wandering innocently through those grand gates into what sometimes feels like the lions' den.

So, where am I now? Have I recaptured my early passion, while still developing my style? The simple answer is 'just about'. But to do that I had to write a play, some short stories and poems, without any input from any publishers, form a local writers' group for support and motivation and change publishers. So far, it's worked, although there have been black moments on the way and, unlike David, I had only myself to rely on.

© Melissa Nathan 2002

Contributions to HASnotes are welcome. Copyright remains with the authors and HASnotes. The views expressed in HASnotes are those of the authors of the articles and not necessarily those of HASnotes. HASwebsite: http://www.societyofauthors.org/HAS
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forthcoming event : HASdebate on Literature and Philosophy

What do we mean by a "novel of ideas"? Why is this description enticing, while a 'philosophical novel' sounds a turn-off? To try and answer these questions and in particular to look at the discussion of moral questions within fiction, HAS will be holding a panel debate on Philosophy and Literature. It will take place in the Freud Museum on June 6th, 6.30 to 9 p.m. The speakers will be Lisa Appignanesi, Sophie Botros and Jonathan Ree. For more details or to reserve a place please contact Bob Solomon

Lisa Appignanesi has written many novels, of which the latest is the psychological thriller Sanctuary. She has also written much non-fiction, including a much praised family memoir, Losing the Dead, which is also a meditation on memory and its workings, as Alzheimer's robs her mother of her past. She has also published translations, including the memoirs of an Afghani woman, My Forbidden Face. She has also done much work for British and French television, including programmes on Salman Rushdie and Henry Moore.

Jonathan Ree has been trying for more than 25 years to bridge the gap between philosophy and other kinds of literature. He has written about Descartes, Heidegger, Marx and Kierkegaard, and his books include Proletarian Philosophers, Philosophical Tales and I See a Voice. He has recently given up working as a university teacher in order to concentrate on more interesting things.

Sophie Botros has lectured on Philosophy and Medical ethics. She has set up seminars to help peers and MPs think through the issues in Reproductive Ethics. At present at Birkbeck College, she has written many articles for journals, in particular exploring the link between philosophy and literature. In Acceptance and Morality she uses Raskolnikov's acceptance of his punishment in Crime and Punishment and Julien Sorel's acceptance of his death in The Red and the Black to draw distinctions between different kinds of acceptance of one's fate.