Books: Is this an essay? Karl Whitney looks at the art of short-form writing
Karl Whitney: author and writer
After I published my first book there was a brief flurry of interest that soon died down, as these things will. When such a flurry happens you might end up being asked to do a variety of things that only tangentially relate to the largely thankless and lonely task of sitting down on your own and writing a book. One of the things I was asked to do was to write a piece about spa towns in central Europe for an inflight magazine. It came out of nowhere, was very much out of my comfort zone, and, perhaps because of those reasons, sounded interesting.
Prior to this, I had spent years pitching ideas to editors with little joy. To be approached to do something like this was novel. Great, I thought — I must have finally made it! I went to Austria and the Czech Republic, taking notes about the places I visited and sampling the often-sulphurous lukewarm water that squirted from the ground.
