#urbanities

Letter from an Unknown Writer

after Martial

We met one night at a book launch, we drank, we talked, we laughed. I said, “I’m writing a novel,” and you said, “Send me a draft.”

So I sent it via email hoping a well-placed word from you would get me started; I waited, but never heard.

Now you’ve published your latest and the critics applaud you in print, it’s a runaway bestseller and Hollywood’s taken the hint.

I read it myself last weekend and my entrails turned to stone— my book, but so badly rewritten, you’d almost made it your own.