In the art gallery, listeners are given a fuller, more multidisciplinary experience. It's a way of getting literary people into the gallery, and the attendees of the readings get to experience the artwork as well.

Hearing from the writers is very useful to apprentice writers. They gain inspiration and learn more about the craft. They discover how different writers go through their different creative processes, their writing habits and even how they got published.

When we hear a writer read from his or her work, we hear nuances we might have missed: the writer's intention [and] we get something a little extra. It's a good show for both entertainment and education.

In a good literary memoir, you're basically rendering the essence of the experience. Whether someone is called Jane or Susan, who cares?

Having been an English literary graduate, I've been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since.

The critic will certainly be an interpreter, but he will not treat Art as a riddling Sphinx, whose shallow secret may be guessed and revealed by one whose feet are wounded and who knows not his name. Rather, he will look upon Art as a goddess whose mystery it is his province to intensify, and whose majesty his privilege to make more marvellous in the eyes of men.