Novelist Maggie Gee, discussing her just-published memoir My Animal Life, with Salon co-organizer Sarah Glazer, answered questions about how far an author should go when writing about family and friends, the motherhood-work dilemma and surviving in the jungle of literary publishing.
Maggie Gee, the award-winning novelist, this year published a memoir entitled My Animal Life, her first non-fiction book. Her many novels include The Ice People, The White Family (shortlisted for the Orange prize), My Cleaner and My Driver.
She was the first female Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, and her work has been translated into 13 languages. Critics have acclaimed My Animal Life for its uncompromising honesty and elegant prose. “A vivid portrait of a woman finding her way through the maze of class-ridden, post-war England, the 60s, feminism and how to be a mother and a writer,” says Diana Melly.
Sarah Glazer is a journalist whose articles on have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post and Congressional Quarterly. She writes a monthly blog, State of the Art, on publishing and writing for the website SheWrites.com.