Writer
The Rich Writer Myth One of the biggest myths about becoming a successful novelist is that it means you must be rolling in it. ‘Six-figure-advance’ trips off the tongue very easily, as if it were normal. ‘Royalties’ sounds juicy. Money: still something that people who want to write a novel want to write a novel for. […]
Fear of failure is the block that comes up more often than any other when I am working with writers. It is the holding category for about the half the content of ‘Write the Damn Book!‘ It is the bucket into which writers can throw a great deal of their negative self-talk: what if it’s rubbish? what […]
“Man is known by the company he keeps.” A great deal of my recent research on Christopher Marlowe has involved looking at the wider social networks of which he was a part. This can get pretty obscure by most people’s standards, but since so many amateur sleuths looking into the Shakespeare authorship question seek information with […]
Dr Barber is a lecturer in the English and Comparative Literature Department of Goldsmiths, University of London. Her area of interest is Early Modern literary biography, with research focused primarily on Shakespeare and Elizabethan poet and dramatist Christopher Marlowe.
Ros Barber is an award-winning writer of both historical and speculative fiction. Her debut novel, The Marlowe Papers, described by the New York Times as “a remarkable book”, was awarded the Desmond Elliott Prize, jointly awarded the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award, and long-listed for the Women’s Prize for fiction.
The Year In Brief If you have limited time to spend with me, or a short attention span, here is my year in terms of firsts. Because firsts always mean you are moving forward (unless they are shit ones… no, even if they are shit ones). First… appearance on Woman’s Hour review in the Times […]
Ros is an experienced speaker. In addition to papers at international academic conferences, her talks for general audiences include several at Shakespeare’s Globe, and two Shakespeare presentations for the British Council. Media appearances include national and international TV and BBC Radio 3/4.
On April 14th I’m talking about writing style at Senate House in London, as part of the Open University’s Contemporary Cultures of Writing series. I’m hoping to attend at least one of the other events in the series, too. I’ll be talking about the difference between academic and creative writing styles. I switch between the two […]
The very belated second half round up of 2013 may have to wait. 2014 has begun with a flurry of activity around the release of the US paperback, including my first articles for the Huffington Post. The first, 7 Brilliant Writers Who Were Overshadowed by a Contemporary was quite a hit, with over 900 social […]
No question about it, I had an extraordinary year. On my birthday in January I was given one of the best presents I have ever had: I was asked to step in and teach a week at Arvon Lumb Bank, Yorkshire, at short notice. Coincidentally I was just setting off that morning to spend my […]