Writers' stories

My entire childhood I hoped to write books, and entered the publishing industry after college on the now humorous assumption-humorously wrong, and also humorously correct for reasons I did not then understand-that being an editor would help me realize that dream. I became a full-fledged book editor in 2007, after the assumed unpaid internship and then editorial assistantship.  Read more

I've always been interested in family stories, my father's in particular. He grew up in a Cypriot village at a time of political unrest, during the island's struggle for independence. His education was cut short because his father couldn't afford the bus fare to school. In the 1960s he moved to England with ten pounds in his pocket and spent his first night in a telephone box.  Read more

I'm still very much in the apprentice stage of writing. I read somewhere that you need to write a million words before you know what you're doing - so I'm headed that way, but I'm nowhere near there. But, for what they're worth, here are some of the things I've learned along the way.

I've a very structured and disciplined writing routine where I begin a novel in January, I write four days a week from 9 to 6, my book is due May 31st, I edit during the summer, and I publish in the fall. As I write a novel a year this has been my discipline and though it may sound restrictive and non-creative, it feels the exact opposite.  Read more

I was paid a £12,500 advance to write my book, Open Up. Sharing this publicly, even as the author of a book about our emotional relationship with money, was initially petrifying, but I ended up revealing it in the book - it's there on page 17.  Read more