Deborah Rey

Culture
1

I was sad to hear of Deborah's death, though I do know that she had been ill for some time.


Six years ago when Deborah was editing the magazine La Fenetre I sent a piece to be published with a summary of myself.


Via email I received a blast from Deborah. Unfortunately I don't have the email, but it went something like this: 'If you can't be bothered to write any better than this, clumsy, spelling, punctuation then why on earth should I be bothered to publish you. Think yourself lucky that I've even bothered to answer. Try again and I'll think about it.'


In that short, but to the point email, I learnt a lot. I've always been more careful and I have one agent and four publishers to my name.


I took the book that I was published in by Deborah from the shelf. It was a short piece about dying. Human and dog. Very sad, because as I get older so others are beginning to die.


Farewell, Deborah, and thank you for those words.

2

I had a novel published by an American publisher. He wanted to change all my UK spelling to American. I said do that, and you don't publish. He didn't change a word.

I have a friend who thinks that if an American novel is published in the UK the spelling should be changed, and vice versa. (My friend is not a writer.) I persuaded him that this should not be the case.

3

Both are correct. The other day I had a problem with neighbor and neighbour. Spelling has never been my strong point.

4

Learnt? Learned? Golly you’ve got me thinking now.

5

This is off the subject but I just LEARNT that in British English you say learnt and in American English we always say learned and never learnt. I have a lot to learn!