Being a Writer

HELEN GORDON is the co-author of Being A Writer (Frances Lincoln) and author of Landfall, a novel published by Penguin. Her journalism has appeared in Intelligent Life and the Guardian. She is former associate editor of Granta magazine and teaches creative writing at the University of Hertfordshire.
TRAVIS ELBOROUGH is an author. His books include Atlas of Improbable Places , The Bus We Loved: London's Affair with the Routemaster , Wish You Were Here: England on Sea and A London Year . He regularly appears on Radio 4 and writes for the Guardian and has lectured on creative and critical writing at The Ted Hughes Arvon Centre, Lumb Bank and The Royal College of Art.

HELEN GORDON is the co-author of Being A Writer (Frances Lincoln) and author of Landfall , a novel published by Penguin. Her journalism has appeared in Intelligent Life and the Guardian . She is former associate editor of Granta magazine and teaches creative writing at the University of Hertfordshire.

JOEY GUIDONE is an Italian illustrator who currently lives and works at the foothills of the Alps. He studied illustration at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Turin and Mimaster in Milan. He was selected by the Society of Illustrators as part of showcase Illustrators 57, and also included in the winner's list of Creative Quarterly Journal's CQ42 and CQ43. Since 2015 he has been represented by Californian agency Salzman International. He is commissioned by both European and US clients and his work has featured in magazines, books and commercial projects.

Being a Writer is an inspiring assemblage of wit, wisdom and hard-won practical advice from some of the world's greatest authors musing on the art of writing and how they came to define themselves as writers. It is an anthology for dipping into, but also for drawing genuine lessons about the whole messy business of writing literature and what it takes to be a writer. Its contributors range from the canon to the contemporary: from Samuel Johnson in eighteenth-century London to Lorrie Moore in twenty-first-century Wisconsin, Being a Writer covers more than 250 years and features novelists and short-story writers from across the world. Through its text and beautiful, original illustrations, the book explores and illuminates the pleasures and pitfalls of the compulsion to write, and aims to inspire and delight writers and readers in equal measure. Chapters include Becoming a Writer, Methods & Means, Failing, The Art of Writing and A Sense of an Ending.