It May Be Argued That

With Death Comes Honesty.

Vulnerability Of Artists Is Definitely What Makes Organizations Like Pen Necessary Because, As I Tried To Argue, The Actual Work That Writers And Artists Do Has An Ornery Way Of Surviving. Particularly In This Age Of The Internet, It Is Very Easy For Forbidden Work To Be Found Online Somewhere If You Know Where To Look. Artists Themselves, However, Are In Increasing Danger, And Not Just Artists. The Great Concern Is That Year After Year, Rising Numbers Of Journalists Are Being Killed In Pursuit Of Their Work.

Doris Lessing Really Doesn't Care What The Critics Say. In Fact, She Orders Her Publishers Not To Send Her The Reviews And Gets Cross With Them If They Do Because She Doesn't Want That In Her Head. She's Going Where She's Going, And That's Where She Wants To Go.

When You Start Writing About The Stuff That Is The Central Experience Of Your Own Life, You Can Talk About Whatever You Want, In Whatever Way You Want.

This Strange Business Of What It Is To Be A Writer Is This Increasingly Insane World In Which We Live, In Which Surrealism, It Seems, Is The New Realism.