Literary Birthday – 25 June – Linda Spalding

Happy Birthday, Linda Spalding, born 25 June 1943.

Six Quotes

Every family is an epic. Even a single generation has so many stories tucked away that ten thousand pages would be required to tell them all.
I usually work on a computer, but I make notes all over the place and sometimes write sections by hand. I work sporadically but feverishly. Once started, I can go on and on for hours until the dog barks to be let out or the doorbell rings or I realise I’m too hungry to move my hands.
After months of working alone, when the only voices you hear are in your own head, the pleasure of being surrounded by writers and readers is huge. I do have moments when I want to retreat and curl up alone in a big foetal ball, but the fun of companionship wins out every time.
I’ve always let myself write. I’ve kept journals and written stories. In my thirties I wrote a novel, all by hand, in a spiral notebook. I had no real thought of publishing it, but when I moved to Canada and met other writers, I decided to rewrite the novel and look for an agent.
I read and reread A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett a thousand times. This was the edition with the wonderful coloured glossy pictures and it surely provided all the direction I needed for later life.
[I write] just about anywhere, but I’m happiest in my upstairs study at home in Toronto. That’s where all my books and toys and photos are.

Linda Spalding is a Canadian writer and editor whose work has been honoured many times. She is married to novelist Michael Ondaatje. She won the Governor-General’s Literary Award for her novel, The Purchase.

Source for Image: 94queenst, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Author_Linda_Spalding.jpg