by Amal Chatterjee, ‘Editor’s Preface’
“Writing
before all, is communication. It is communication with oneself and one’s inner
life even before it is communication with another. More broadly than that even,
writing achieves something. It externalises what was previously internal and
half-recognised. It allows thought to create itself by leaving a trail.”
by
Kathryn Heyman
“The short story is that rare form of literature that follows just one rule, which is that there is no rule. It is fluid like water, can flow in any direction or be stagnant. It is like a fleeting feeling, a glimpse, a moment in time. It is not meant to satisfy but to whet your appetite for more good writing,[...].”
by Sabyn Javeri
“When
you let language lead rather than trying to constrict its movement, it frees
the language and allows it to express itself in new ways through you, through
your individual voice. It is this that identifies the individual, gives the
individual identity within the tradition. And it is this that makes writing
creative and original.”
by
Colm Breathnach
“But
just as in our non-writing life we never truly know what is going to happen
next, what I was looking for each time was the poem beyond the poem I sat down
at first to write. [...] So the process of feeling in the dark for a poem
begins.”
by
Jane Draycott
“It
is as if the story is not quite complete without a discussion about it. This
may be in recognition of the reader writer duality that surrounds the story;
that after the story is written it needs to be read to complete its cycle of
being.”
by
Fred D’Aguiar
All quotes from Creative Writing, Writers on Writing edited by Amal Chatterjee