What’s new?

I’m so thrilled to discover that — along with the wonderful Olivia Laing — I am the 2014 Eccles British Library Writer in Residence! That will keep me cheerful all next year and beyond. Cheerful and busy — as along with chair A.C. Grayling, and fellow judges Alastair Niven, Jonathan Bate, Dan Glaser and Sarah Churchwell, we’ve chosen a longlist for the 2014 Man Booker Prize for Fiction: watch out for the shortlist in September!

I’m writing for The New Statesman, The Financial Times, The Economist, The New York Times… follow me @EricaWgnr where I’ll post links to my pieces! Meantime,  the show I’ve made, A Concert of Stories, with storyteller Abbi Patrix and percussionist Linda Edsjo is now part of the touring repertoire of Compagnie de Cercle — here are details about the show, and where to see it (mostly in France, and in French…). If you want to read about how it came about you can do that here. My novel, Seizure, is published in French now as La Coupure. If you’re heading that way… “Seizure is terrific.” Philip Pullman

Upcoming events

On Friday, August 8, I’ll be discussing my research for my forthcoming biography of Washington Roebling, builder of the Brooklyn Bridge, at the British Library: the talk is free and open to all. There are many other great talks this summer too — come along.

September 18-21 I’ll be in Budleigh Salterton, in Devon, at the lovely literature festival there: talking to Hilary Mantel, Kate Mosse and others. A good excuse for a weekend by the sea…

Quote of the day

• Work without dignity — “Here was wealth greater than ever known before — wealth gained not by men as producers but as masters of capital, middle men, investors and speculators; wealth that held the living of the many in its hands, but which had largely lost the sense of stewardship. And here was work that lacked dignity; wages fixed without bargaining; regulation and control in place of the old freedom.” The United States in the 1840s and 1850s; from Avery O. Craven’s Civil War in the Making, 1815-1860