Guardian Family: Confessions of a Full Time Mother

[morningpaper]

Confessions of a Full Time Mother

"Kirsty Gunn is not working on her next novel. She is not a columnist for the London Review of Books. She has chosen instead to disappear from the professional world and embrace a domestic life just as rich and interesting and inspiring ... "

PAH! She's opted out of the professional world - well except for this article and the book she has just written about her "year as a full time mum" - full time that is, except for the 30 hours a week that her children are at school in which I presume she fannies about writing drivel like this.

At first I thought it was an ironic joke, but sadly not. Perhaps she is friends with that woman who survived the concentration-camp conditions of Fulham after that breeze blew her wooden grapes off the sideboard...

So all I need to do to get myself into academia is write hideous, self-indulgent tosh?
maybe it isn't going to be as hard as I thought.

thanks for that snowleopard, I think the country needs it

Kirsty is a Chair in Creative writing - so not a SAHM then.
There's hope for me yet...

Maybe she teaches them how NOT to write....
Was Rain any good?

Droile, do pay attention. She is a chair in creative writing, a freelance journalist (god help us) a novelist and has just written a book about being a SAHM. No contradiction there, surely?
It's her burn, you know.

Good God. She CANNOT write, let alone teach others to do so.

I think it's her BUM, Aloha...

charlieq, I hate to sound cyncial, frustrated and bitter, but I bet there's something in there about shagging the right bloke as well...

yeeees Caligula- her hb is in publishing, isn't he [hmmm]

I just had a look for her on the guardian website and it turns out she regularly reviews books for them - as well as holding a "prestigious" chair in creative writing.

The woman is a charlatan and the article's strapline about her not doing any work is just a total lie!

Now an article by Gillian McKeith in Family - that's what we need. It could be about to have your own family poo analysis day using just household utensils.

Creative writing is an enormous growth industry at Universities. As long as you have a burning desire to be the next J.K. Rowling or Ian McEwan and can pay the fees then they are happy to teach you.

Or, 'If a burn, or a desire, they have'

Ah, yes... but the fees thing is probably as important.

Let us not forget the fees! For teaching, coaching, misleading, etc.

'My name is Kirsty, and I've got the X Factor'.

I remember a tutor once telling me at uni. what peanuts of a salary he was on, top uni, won't name it though as may get sued !! They basically made their money through publishing academic articles, books and giving talks.

He also told me that his nanny used to put whisky in his bottle to get to sleep I think he was trying to get me to like him

He was very, very clever though, so perhaps the whisky did him SOME good

yellowrose 'money through publishing academic articles'- from where??

you don't get any. Which is probably why Kirsty has found herself a home in the welcoming British press.

yeh, I know, that's what he said, but we are talking hard core politics in journals only nerds read, not excatly Playboy (which I hear pays well ?), I guess he was exaggerating then ?

Someone said you get about 50 quid for an interview on BBC Radio and your travel expenses, is this true ?

Although if you are a proper academic it is important to make appearances for your reputation, which is why they make appearances for little money I guess !

Alternatively our top brains go to Aus. or US for higher pay, as 2 of my own profs. did

Not much prestige, really, either.

With academic books it often ends up costing the author to publish them because they need to pay for
copyright/some editing or indexing fees upfront. They then earn an miniscule percentage of miniscule sales.

Personally I think it is a damned shame teachers and academics (good ones) don't have much of status here. My dh always bemoans his low status as an engineer, says he feels no different to an electrician, whereas in Germany he would be called Herr Engineur and had high status when he worked in France. Shame really. Some profs. need to be better rewarded/paid.

Wriitng generally is an under-rewarded job. It's why so many writers teach - they have to.