The Author

Our story takes place in Paris, precisely in Saint-Germain-Des-Prés, where your favourite author (me, obviously) is sitting at a small café called Café Fleuret. You should go next time you’re in town.

It is the morning, I am having a coffee, and I am surrounded by books that will probably never be read by customers who are glued to their phones. I would know. I am one of them.

I’m sitting up straight, my glasses at the tip of my nose, wearing my brown autumn palette and my weathered loafers, just as you would in the Mecca of all things of the mind. I should have brought my notebook and my fountain pen. Or an old typewriter. Or The Paris Review. Or some Proust. 

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But instead, I’m looking at my phone. An interesting development happened in my life recently, one which, as a somewhat publicly married woman, is getting rare—I have to say, sometimes, to my (mild and fleeting) regret. A famous author that I follow and admire messaged me, and we’ve ignited one of these conversations which are th…