The 4thcoming series is all about introducing you to our authors. If you’ve ever wondered what your favourite 4th Estate author is currently reading, listening to or what their writing ritual is, then we’ve got all those answers for you.
Name: Gabriel Tallent
I wanted to write many years before I became good at it. I practiced writing in the same way that a pianist practices scales or a tennis player practices serves. I worked on sentences, then paragraphs, then scenes, over and over, until I got them right. If you want to become a writer, you may find the same is true for you. There is a long apprenticeship before you can write a full-length novel—and ages before you can write a good one. However, you can develop traits in yourself that will make it more likely you will succeed.
I am not saying you can’t be an excellent writer without developing these characteristics—authors’ personalities are replete with bizarre idiosyncrasies, social deviance, not to mention serious drug and alcohol abuse that sometimes obscure the work, itself. Admittedly success for any writer is rare, but here are a few ideas that might those of you who are writing.
It must seem like one of the odder ideas for a book – page after page of old postcards, with just a sentence or two below each image as a caption. But I can explain.
About a year ago, on a quiet day at the office, I started posting postcards on Twitter. Not for their collectable beauty or even for their historic interest, but simply because I had one or two knocking about the house and the messages intrigued me. But as soon as I saw them pop up on my phone, I was hooked. I could see that, presented this way, the messages on the most ordinary old postcards were loaded with a humour and poignancy that, despite their age, is startlingly fresh. Something like gold glitters behind the faded ink and smudged postmarks.
I can’t remember when I started writing Reservoir 13. It’s been a long time coming, and it’s not always been easy. Life has often got in the way, as it has a habit of doing. None of the things that got in the way have ended up in the novel, but they’re still a part of the story.
International Youth Day marks a day to celebrate the contribution youths make to society, yet the experience of being ‘young’ varies so dramatically amongst individuals. Despite what many may wish, it isn’t the case that every young person has a stable environment to grow, develop and achieve his or her potential. The fact that young people are often deprived of those opportunities, through no fault of their own, is something that still shrouds me. Read more…
‘My novel Mainlander is set in Jersey over twelve days in October 1987. It features some very tangled relationships, so here I have tried to imagine how the characters would have approached Valentine’s Day, had it fallen within the timeframe of the book.’ Read more…
On Thursday the 19th of November, the legendary Homer Hickam will have two very special books published by HarperCollins Fiction, and by 4th Estate. HarperCollins are releasing Carrying Albert Home, while we at 4th Estate are reissuing the very-much-still-in-demand Rocket Boys. Homer Hickam was kind enough to write something for us about how one very much became the other, so many years later… Read more…
In celebration of one of our very favourite days of the year, Fireworks night, we bring you our very favourite whizzing, whirring, wheeling, burning moments in literature – moments where fireworks symbolise everything from sexual impotence, passionate friendship and perishable beauty. Each moment offering proof that, after all, ‘no one talks cant about fireworks’. Read more…
