Sinead Keegan

  This post was first published on www.NoDeadWhiteMen.wordpress.com, 15 June 2013. When I tell people that I edit a blog for which other people write and that does fairly well in terms of hits-per-day, I usually get a look that says, "Oh, so you're not one of those 'writers' who says she writes, but really just mucks around in her pajamas all day."  But the minute I say that I use Facebook and Twitter I can see them picturing me back in my red, snowflake, flannel pajamas clutching a cup of coffee, surfing the internet for cat videos and calling it "writing". This is, unfortunately perhaps, untrue on several fronts. First, my snowflake pajamas aren't flannel and I wear pink or blue tracksuit bottoms when I'm working from home. Second, I don't drink coffee. And third, I don't while away time on the internet. That is not to say I don't waste time. I do. I, like all self-respecting writers, am a connoisseur of procrastinat...

Even if it's not yours. Have we all forgotten what we learned in playschool/Montessori/kindergarten? If you haven't anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all Be a good sport Be a good friend Sound simple? I reckon so too. So then why do people in the literary world seem so intent on ripping one another to pieces? Any success in art is a success for all artists. Art is a struggle for anyone in a time of drastic budget cuts across the world. We are facing a time when children are being taught fewer art classes and have less time to spend on figuring out who they are as individuals, never mind how to express that artistically. I think we should be cheering the latest book release, the latest prize winner, the latest success of any description. Last summer Tea Obreht was named the most recent winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction . Instead of  rejoicing at the success of a woman who was born in the strife of the war in the Balkans, the literary world tu...