Write What You Know?

It would appear that "writing what you know" is for suckers. I've always thought it was terrible advice, especially if the person doing the writing only knows about college (excuse the self-call). Not only will you have less fun than you might have writing about, say, the Boer War, or circumnavigating the globe on an inner-tube raft, or Tommyknockers, but you'll also run the more financially significant risk of boring the hell out of your readers. So two authors are to be commended on their recent success with going far afield of what they know. (Note: I haven't read either of them. I accept no resposibility if they bore the hell out of you.)

The first of these literary adventurers is Colum McCann, author of the new novel Zoli. The book takes as its subject the plight of the Slovakian Roma during World War II and in its aftermath. It's received favorable reviews so far, and if you live in Manhattan and like books, you can attend his reading on February 12 at Hunter College, where McCann is a professor of creative writing.

Tuesday, February 13th at 7:30PM Faculty Dining Room (8th floor, west building) Hunter College 68th Street & Lexington Avenue Colum McCann is the author of two collections of short stories and three novels, including This Side of Brightness and Dancer, both of which were international best-sellers. His most recent novel, Zoli, came out this year. His fiction has been published in 26 languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ and other places. In 2003 Colum was named Esquire magazine's "Writer of the Year." Other awards and honors include a Pushcart Prize, the Rooney Prize, the Irish Independent Hughes and Hughes Novel of the Year 2003, and the 2002 Ireland Fund of Monaco Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award. He was recently inducted into the Hennessy Hall of Fame. His short film "Everything in this Country Must," was nominated for an Oscar in 2005. Colum teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Hunter College. To reserve seats, please call 212.772.4007 or email the Special Events Office at spevents@hunter.cuny.edu

The other big winner is Stef Penney, the unknown British writer who took the first Costa Book of the Year Award (formerly the Whitbread Award). That's £30,000, earned the old-fashioned way: research.

Stef Penney’s portrait of a small Canadian settlement in deep midwinter was so authentic that when her winning novel, The Tenderness of Wolves, was published in north America, Canadians were convinced that she had spent weeks researching the book there. In fact, the author who lives in east London, did all her research at the British Library. Acute agoraphobia meant that she could not travel by aeroplane or train for 15 years. The Tenderness of Wolves is a murder mystery that takes place in 1967 on Dove River, a lonely snowbound town on the Hudson Bay.