Dickens, Brick Collectors, and Unusual Leisure

Dickens, Brick Collectors, and Unusual Leisure Stephen Jarvis On Writing

My new novel, Death and Mr. Pickwick, tells the story behind the creation of Charles Dickens's first novel, The Pickwick Papers. Although Death and Mr. Pickwick is entirely self-contained, and requires no previous knowledge of The Pickwick Papers , the two books of course bear a relationship to each other. Indeed I take Dickens's first illustrator, Robert Seymour, as my main character - a man who shot himself shortly after completing a picture of a dying clown for Pickwick. I've often been asked: what are the things in my background that led me to write this novel? And I suppose people expect me to say, "Oh, I have had a lifelong fascination with nineteenth-century literature in general and Dickens in particular." But the answer to the question may surprise you - it's not literary at all. Read on...

Visions of Home In Conversation with Katherine Taylor

In Valley Fever, Katherine Taylor examines high-class small-town life among the grapes - on the vine or soaked in vodka. It's a blisteringly funny, ferociously intelligent, and deeply moving novel of self-discovery. Here she talks to us about California's Central Valley, the deadly Valley Fever, and accepting where you're from. Read on...