3 Writers

The reason I like reading William Heinesen is that I can hear him telling a story, but I never hear him writing.

It's the same with George Mackay Brown, who comes from the same part of the world as Heinesen, although a different island.

I told DL, a writer himself, about Heinesen last night. He hadn't heard of Heinesen and wrote his name and the titles of the two books that I'd read in a little notebook he always keeps in his shirt pocket.

I thought about it later, one writer in Northern California writing the name of another writer, who'd lived his life thousands of miles away on a strange little island in The North Sea, into his notebook. It was such a straightforward, uncomplicated gesture, with no trace of self-consciousness or ego other than one writer wanting to read another.