Incidents in the Lives of Writers.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

True events are sometimes as strange or as exciting as the fiction that authors write about. See this board for Miss Prudence O'Shea:

vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/8454/horror-supernatural-fiction-bystander

Do you know any events in the lives of authors that could be out of fiction, or are just plain odd? Also did any authors fictionalise them?

Here is one where the poet Dylan Thomas is shot at by an angry soldier after discovering his wife's relationship with the writer:

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/dylan-thomas-shack-end-cliff-2494640?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-44682014.amp

[jamesdoig]

The Gibbons twins: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_and_Jennifer_Gibbons

Chris Mikul always has great examples of weird books and writers in his Biblio-Curiosa magazine.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

That's a sad story.

I believe Arthur Conan Doyle helped overturn miscarriages of justice.

[Deleted]

Oct 5, 2023 13:33:17 GMT 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr said:

Do you know any events in the lives of authors that could be out of fiction, or are just plain odd? Also did any authors fictionalise them?

I can relate to this on a personal level. I spent close to 6 months researching and writing a historical novel about the year of the four Caesars. (Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, A.D.69) My main character was a fictitious wealthy Roman senator that I had created. After I had written it the company that I worked for transferred me from Massachusetts, U.S.A. to British Columbia, Canada.

I had the novel all typed out and somehow in the arduous process of packing, moving, and unpacking I lost close to 100 pages. I had typed it all out on an old fashioned typewriter and had nothing saved, because I had been worried about being hacked and of content theft. 

[Shrink Proof]

Oct 5, 2023 13:33:17 GMT 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr said:

Do you know any events in the lives of authors that could be out of fiction, or are just plain odd? Also did any authors fictionalise them?

I'm not sure if it counts, but the notorious incident in Deraa, Syria, in T E Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" might. He relates that in 1917, during the Arab Revolt, he entered the Turkish-held town of Deraa on a spying mission but was captured by the Turks. He describes being interrogated, beaten and raped. Later (post WW1) revelations from his letters revealing that he regularly paid a man to beat him with birches made folk wonder about the long-term consequences of this episode.

More recent research, including electrostatic analysis of Lawrence's diary, (from which the pages containing the relevant dates were ripped out) has raised the possibility that he invented the whole tale as by 1917 he was already a devotee of S&M.

What was fiction and what was historical event may never be known...

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Oct 5, 2023 19:36:15 GMT @wicca said:

Oct 5, 2023 13:33:17 GMT 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr said:

Do you know any events in the lives of authors that could be out of fiction, or are just plain odd? Also did any authors fictionalise them?

I had the novel all typed out and somehow in the arduous process of packing, moving, and unpacking I lost close to 100 pages. I had typed it all out on an old fashioned typewriter and had nothing saved, because I had been worried about being hacked and of content theft. 

This reminds me of when Thomas Carlyle loaned the philosopher John Stuart Mill his only manuscript of the first volume of his work on the French Revolution, and a servant of a friend used it to kindle a fire.

lostmanuscripts.com/tag/thomas-carlyle/

[Deleted]

Oct 6, 2023 11:44:20 GMT 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr said:

Oct 5, 2023 19:36:15 GMT @wicca said:

I had the novel all typed out and somehow in the arduous process of packing, moving, and unpacking I lost close to 100 pages. I had typed it all out on an old fashioned typewriter and had nothing saved, because I had been worried about being hacked and of content theft. 

This reminds me of when Thomas Carlyle loaned the philosopher John Stuart Mill his only manuscript of the first volume of his work on the French Revolution, and a servant of a friend used it to kindle a fire.

A goat herders mother used part of the Qumran scrolls (Dead Sea Scrolls) to start a fire in her hut not knowing what her son had found. We can never know what was in those scrolls and can only guess.