[A gentle request: If you enjoy the literary works I share, please do pass on to other reader/writer friends. Every bit helps us fledgling writers grow. And please stop by to share comments as I always reply. Thank you.]
I have written about letters as a literary art form a few times before, particularly how they have their own practices and rituals too.
Letters between writers and editors are an interesting sub-genre. My all-time favorite is the book-length collection of letters between Sylvia Townsend Warner, a British writer, and William Maxwell, her American editor. Read an excerpt here.
I recently wrote a piece for Scroll sharing three very different letters between writers and editors. In one, Henry David Thoreau is upset about a sentence being cut from an essay without his agreement. In another, Virginia Woolf writes to complain about an awful sexist book by a famous male writer. And, in the third, Hunter S Thompson swears black and blue at a writer for not turning in promised work.
Read the full article at Scroll.in
I enjoyed this look at letters–each writer’s voice is so distinctively there in their correspondence that it felt a bit like time travel and peering over their shoulders.
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Thanks, Judith. Yes, each voice is so uniquely different. That’s another thing I enjoy about reading the letters of writers — you can get a sense of their personal voices. Appreciate you leaving a comment.
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