Our latest Writers’ Project interview is live!
This time, we chose to feature Maggie Green, a cookbook coach and author whose The Kentucky Fresh Cookbook features recipes that were inspired by the fresh, seasonal ingredients of her home state.
You can check out the interview at the Writers’ Project homepage. While you’re there, be sure to check out previous interviews with Jeff Abbott and Cole Wardell!
Usually, it helps to take claims of historical authenticity with a grain of salt… That famous dead writers used your notebooks, for example, or that James Dean wore your khakis.
This is closer to the real deal. In 2004, J. Herbin discovered an authorization in its archives by the writer Victor Hugo to produce a black ink especially for him. The authorization remains in the archives, but the recipe has since been remade into a couple of bottles of ink. Karen managed to get her hands on one of them, and was then kind enough to pass it along to me.
This is not a fountain pen ink; Hugo wrote with goose quills, though steel nibs were becoming increasingly popular. Personally, I haven’t had much luck with feathers, but that did not put me off from trying it out with a glass pen. And what fun it was! The ink is shiny, dense, and saturated. It pops on bright white Clairefontaine and looks handsome on my ivory Habana, too. Because it’s so thick, you have to be a little more careful about bleed-through, and clean your pen carefully (and immediately) after you’re done. Still, it’s an awfully fun ink to play with. About the only complaint I have is that the bottle cap’s a bit finicky and is tough to get off and on.
There aren’t very many bottles left, but if it’s something that interests you, please let us know in the comments, and we’ll ask Herbin if they’d be willing to make more.
Here’s a picture of the bottle:
Just in time for summer, we’ve posted a new Writers’ Project interview with playwright J.D. Eames, who talks about her writing routines, her online mockumentary, and her favorite pens and inks.
While you’re there, be sure to read through our older interviews for more information, inspiration, and advice!
Our latest Writers’ Project interview is live! We did something a little different this time, catching up with Cole Wardell, an as-yet-unpublished writer who lives in Columbus, Ohio.
Anyway, be sure to check it out… and look through our older interviews for more information, inspiration, and advice!
Our latest Writers’ Project interview is live! We did something a little different this time and talked with Stephen Lloyd Webber, who is both a practicing poet as well as a writing instructor. Stephen’s wide-ranging blog offers plenty of inspiration and exercises; he also runs writing workshops and wellness retreats each summer in Italy.
Check out the interview to learn more about Stephen and read his thoughts on writing, teaching, and creativity.
Looking for some end-of-summer reading material? Check out our latest Writers’ Project interview, where bestselling author JT Ellison talks about her research, her writing routines, and her new book, The Immortals.
You’ll also find plenty of food for thought in our archives, where we’ve stored our previous interviews with Jeff Abbott and Damon Young.
Our latest Writers’ Project interview just launched!
This time, we spoke with bestselling suspense author Jeff Abbott, who told us about his life, his writing routines, and his new book, Adrenaline.
You can read the interview at the Writers’ Project website. And if you missed our last interview, with Damon Young, be sure to check it out in the archives.
Exciting news this morning: We’ve just launched a new feature on the website of our parent company, Exaclair, to celebrate writing, creativity, and the tools and minds that make it all possible.
Called the Writers’ Project, it includes interviews with authors from around the world who share tips and techniques and talk about their latest projects. Australian author Damon Young is our inaugural feature; visit the Writers’ Project homepage to learn more about Damon’s writing habits, his new book, Distraction, and the “tangible, intimate quality to the marriage of pen, ink and paper.”
Agatha Christie, disorganized writer — who knew? According to an article on Slate, a newly discovered stash of notebooks reveals the “utter derangement” in her method:
Her less-than-refined writerly day began with finding her notebook, which surely she’d left right there. Then, having found a notebook (not the one she’d used yesterday), and staring in stunned amazement at the illegible chicken scratchings therein, she would finally settle down to jab at elusive characters and oil creaky plots.
At any one time, Christie would have half a dozen notebooks going … [her] promiscuous note-taking meant that any one novel or play might be distributed over multiple notebooks and many, many years.
To learn more about the notebooks, check out John Curran’s newly published book, Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making.
Image via.
Photo by Daniel Azarian
Tell us a bit about yourself — where are you from, where do you live, and when did you start writing?
I live in Philadelphia, in a small village just outside the city, so I have the best of both worlds. I know some of my family lived here in the early 1800s and after a brief foray into Ohio, we returned.
I’ve been writing all my life. I have a copy of my first story, “The Tiny Party,” about a fairy named Flash who told her sister Tiny to arrange a birthday party for her. Tiny did so, and invited Jane, Mary, Sally and Bubble. There was a chocolate cake with white icing and pink candies. Flash collected birthday loot of flowers, ribbons and socks. At another time I will tell you about The Fairy Wedding, when Glisen got married and Bubble played the organ. These exciting tales are written in pencil on yellow tablet paper. No idea of Clairefontaine paper and Herbin inks then! As I grew up, I whipped off a poem for every event, some of which my mother saved for me. There was never any question in my mind that the main purpose of life was to write about it.
When and how did you get into fountain pens and ink? Do you have a favorite pen or ink, either generally or for specific purposes?
I got my first fountain pen, a Waterman which I still use, when I was in my early twenties, a gift from my husband. I’ve been passionate about inks for about five years but I’m a lifelong diarist and I’ve collected notebooks all my life. Recently I discovered the colony of those who love pens, inks, and notebooks on the internet, where I spend happy hours reading reviews of inks and comparing colors.
A favorite color, no. Not just one. I keep a dozen or so pens in an old moosehead cream jug beside my favorite chair, where I have my morning coffee and start writing. Poets sometimes speak about the duende, invisible spirits who bring us writing. I think they help me choose which pen and ink is right for the day or for a particular task. I tend to keep a special pen for each color, as much as I can. For example, I have Herbin Vert Olive in a vintage green marbleized Shaeffer with gold accents. I might put another green in that pen but never another color. I just realized — this sounds a trifle obsessive, doesn’t it? My blues go in a blue Cavalier Pilot, my favorite just now. I write very small so I like fine or very fine nibs and these Cavaliers are very smooth. Karen Doherty (your colleague, I know) just very graciously gave me some Rose Cyclamen, which I lovelovelove. I bought a special pen for it, a silvery-pink Cavalier.
Can you tell us a little more about “Les Encres de Monsieur Herbin”?
