AustLit

'I am not a good correspondent. Whenever I do write a letter it inevitably begins with ‘Apologies for not having written earlier’. Emails are no different. Tom Keneally told me how early in his career he was much puzzled at Frank Hardy’s complaint that the hardest thing about being a writer was the correspondence. Later in his career Tom realized what Hardy meant. Writing is one thing; but all the literary-related-activities, as Frank Moorhouse used to term them, take far more time than the original writing. The endless correspondence with publishers, editors and agents, let alone with other writers, students writing dissertations on your work, and so on, becomes a massive business. Evelyn Waugh had a printed card he would send out saying something like ‘Mr Evelyn Waugh is travelling abroad and has left no forwarding address.’ He made an exception for rich Americans who might buy multiple copies of his books.'  (Introduction)