Swallowed by a Whale

Various

£12.99

We send all orders via Royal Mail: within the UK, choose from 1st Class, 2nd Class or Special Delivery; for the rest of the world, International Standard or International Tracked. Delivery and packaging charges are calculated automatically at the checkout.

To collect orders in person from the Bookshop, choose Click and Collect at the checkout.


British Library Publishing
28 August 2025
ISBN: 9780712355544
Paperback
224 pages

From the publisher

Edited by Huw Lewis-Jones

Original advice on how you can start writing from 60 contemporary authors, drawing on their unique experiences and journeys to the written word. Advice is grouped for easy references, from how to begin and picture scenes, to writers’ golden rules. Illustrated with over 20 original drawings

In this specially commissioned anthology, 60 accomplished authors share secrets and insights into their writing lives: on their inspirations, methods, wild ideas and daily routines; on the pleasure and the pain in achieving their literary goals; on how they started out and how they hope to continue. They outline some golden rules for staying on track and talk candidly about what goes wrong as well as right.

Emerging talents sit alongside much-loved authors whose books have sold in their millions. Each reflects in their own way on the creative process and the compulsion to write. How to find inspiration? How to get the words right? How to cope with writer’s block? And where do the good ideas really come from?

Includes contributions from Cressida Cowell, Matt Haig, Joanne Harris, David Mitchell, Jan Morris, Onjali Q Raúf, Raynor Winn, Michael Rosen, Irvine Welsh, Tracy Chevalier, Thomas Keneally, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Tom Gauld and Benjamin Myers.