Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield

We consider ourselves fortunate to have become friends during our early twenties, back when we were at the very start of our literary journeys. We were both English teachers living in rural Japan, and we had both been writing in secret in between lessons, but it took us almost a year to pluck up the courage to “come out” to each other as aspiring authors. We made our mutual confession over bowls of spaghetti in an eccentric, garlic-themed restaurant. Our delight at discovering a friend with the same dream eclipsed any prospect of possible rivalry.

From that moment on, although our lives took us geographically in different directions, we trod a joint path as writers. After returning home to the UK, we lived many miles apart but helped each other from afar, reassured by the knowledge that our friend was also eschewing a well-paid profession and making do in the pokiest of apartments to buy some time to write. We shared and critiqued drafts of stories, passed on news of writing courses and contests, and soon confided in each other about our ideas for books.

Sweetest to us during these years were what we termed our “writing weekends.” On these occasions, we’d travel across country by train to hole ourselves away in one another’s homes. We spent hours engrossed in our separate worlds on the page but came together to discuss our chapters in cramped kitchenettes—one of us slicing vegetables, the other toasting spices, both of us sipping from large glasses of wine. Together, we’d celebrate any successes: an acceptance on a master’s program, a place on a competition shortlist, signing with a literary agent. As time wore on, however, we’d more frequently find ourselves commiserating over the receipt of yet another publisher’s rejection slip. Read More