Marlene Hauser

Newsletter

Off Island novel

Business, Books & Chutzpah

Recently, someone asked me what it felt like to participate in the FT Oxford Literary Festival, and someone else what it felt like to have Off-Island on the cover of the Bookseller, a British trade magazine reporting on the publishing industry. Cringeworthy came to mind. Cambridge Dictionary defines cringeworthy as “making you feel very embarrassed.” Why, I asked myself, does just the thought of being self-published, of paying to appear on the front cover of the Bookseller, make me feel uncomfortable?

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Japanese scene

Heirlooms & Artifacts: Grace & Vulnerability

Hi Everyone,

I love the sunlight in May, especially here in England where grey is the default colour of the sky. For some reason, at this time of year (perhaps because there’s more light), when glancing up from my kitchen table or breezing past the dresser on the upstairs landing, something will catch my eye: an artifact, an object from my childhood, or my father’s life or even my grandmother’s, and I am still for a moment, remembering—dinner tables, conversations, banging doors, birthday candles, gifts and wishes.

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https://unsplash.com/photos/Xh6BpT-1tXo

Marshmallows, Debussy & Leche

Hi Everyone,

In this part of the world, spring means finally getting to venture out of doors, after a dark and relatively cold, remorselessly grey, winter. I’m not sure what came over me this spring but having thought about it for many years—like that online course in financial management from the London School of Economics that I still haven’t signed up for—I actually did buy myself a pair of underwater, or at least waterproof, earphones for swimming. Before now I’d somehow failed to get the job done—too many other pressing issues. Who really needs waterproof headphones for the pool? Who needs Debussy while doing the Australian crawl?

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