Hello to GoodReads Readers!
Dear GoodReads Members --
I should be honest from the get-go -- I’m one of the world’s last techo-idiots. I really am lost when it comes to computers. I don’t even own a cell phone. I have a website (colummccann.com) but my brother in Portland, Oregon maintains it. But I’m trying, trying desperately to get up to speed. Hence, this site. So hello to whoever's out there ...
I have been made increasingly aware of the importance of the Internet in the book world and I suppose this letter is a way for me do to a small cyber-tour. It’s a pleasure to meet you ... a handshake and a bow and a salute across the wires.
Someone asked me my writing credo the other day. Not sure if I have one. One of my favourite phrases is Beckett's "No matter, try again, fail again, fail better." I suppose all books fail in a way, and the higher the failure the better it will be.
Perhaps one of the other beauties of writing is that you can step into a body, or a geography, even a culture that is not your own. You can catch life for a moment and recreate new life out of it. This is the privilege of fiction, the privilege of a writer and, one hopes, the privilege of being a reader. We become alive in a new space. Adventure in the skintrade, a la Dylan Thomas.
I have been extraordinarily lucky to make my living as a writer. I am keenly aware that it is readers who keep books alive, so a deep thanks -- I know of no other way to say hello.
Best wishes --
Colum
I should be honest from the get-go -- I’m one of the world’s last techo-idiots. I really am lost when it comes to computers. I don’t even own a cell phone. I have a website (colummccann.com) but my brother in Portland, Oregon maintains it. But I’m trying, trying desperately to get up to speed. Hence, this site. So hello to whoever's out there ...
I have been made increasingly aware of the importance of the Internet in the book world and I suppose this letter is a way for me do to a small cyber-tour. It’s a pleasure to meet you ... a handshake and a bow and a salute across the wires.
Someone asked me my writing credo the other day. Not sure if I have one. One of my favourite phrases is Beckett's "No matter, try again, fail again, fail better." I suppose all books fail in a way, and the higher the failure the better it will be.
Perhaps one of the other beauties of writing is that you can step into a body, or a geography, even a culture that is not your own. You can catch life for a moment and recreate new life out of it. This is the privilege of fiction, the privilege of a writer and, one hopes, the privilege of being a reader. We become alive in a new space. Adventure in the skintrade, a la Dylan Thomas.
I have been extraordinarily lucky to make my living as a writer. I am keenly aware that it is readers who keep books alive, so a deep thanks -- I know of no other way to say hello.
Best wishes --
Colum
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message 1:
by
Sarah
(new)
Aug 10, 2012 01:13PM
Please make all of your books available for the Kindle. I have read all of your books already in digital format and fell in love with your vocabulary, phrasing and rounding out of characters. I do buy books in paper form. In fact I have shelves full of them. But once I experienced the intimacy of reading a story on a Kindle which to me is like looking over the shoulder of the writer as he or she types, all need to crowd my shelves with more paper vanished.
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