A Painting Artist

I’ve been thinking for some time now that the power dynamic between author and publisher has shifted, in favour of the author. Which is great news. This has happened, largely because the options to self-publish and distribute have grown up and become respectable, rather than being a disadvantaged teenager. This respectability has given authors an opportunity to generate more income for themselves, rather than giving the lion’s share to the publisher, and therefore also build their brand, and touch their tribe.

The author Nick Kettles is doing this with his book, ‘The All-Seeing Boy and the Blue Sky of Happiness’, which recently garnered an endorsement from His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Impressed with this achievement, and curious about how he had done this, I have interviewed him for my blog. His insights into his creative process are worth reading, if you are struggling to find an audience and publisher for your book. His secret is so simple, and yet easy to overlook in a marketplace that thrives on noise …

Read the full interview.

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Ursula K Le Guin’s review in Saturday’s Guardian newspaper, of Margaret Atwood’s new novel – The Year of the Flood, is worth reading purely for the quality of her writing, and critical analysis. That is, the quality of Le Guin’s writing and analysis.

As I studied the illustration in the review, I noticed it was by Clifford Harper. Something about the way in which the two women faced one another in the illustration, both standing on the rooftops of different buildings, perfectly illustrated the radical subject matter of this novel. These women are what Atwood calls The Gardeners, an eco-religious sect who farm rooftops.

Le Guin says: “Their hymnbook rhythms and Blakean dodges are appropriate to their sentiments, which aren’t as simple as they might seem at first:

But Man alone seeks Vengefulness,
And writes his abstact Laws on stone;
For this false Justice he has made,
He tortures limb and crushes bone.
Is this the image of a god?
My tooth for yours, your eye for mine?
Oh, if Revenge did move the stars
Instead of Love, they would not shine.”

In an endnote in her book, Atwood invites us to hear these Gardeners’ hymns, which are printed about every third chapter, and sung on her websites, and to use them “for amateur devotional or environmental purposes”.

I looked up Clifford Harper’s website, and found there just a stunning summary and collection of these radical black and white illustrations, which speak, as he says, louder than words.

http://www.agraphia.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/29/margaret-atwood-year-of-flood