In Which An Unknown Literary Author Googles Herself
Google ‘Kate Armstrong’ and you will find a multi-millionaire insurance magnate who restored a medieval Scottish castle and is currently reenacting the Highland Clearances on its estate. She hails from Sydney and is an internet tycoon. She and I are not one.
Delve with more specificity into the networked world, and ‘Kate Armstrong Writer’ exposes artists, curators, travel writers, editors. They have engaged in projects ‘focusing on experimental literary practices’. They slaked a childhood thirst for adventure by running away from home, and now inhabit The Lonely Planet. They ‘love the way haikus teach the writer to focus on the briefest, most microcosmic fraction of a moment.’ On this first page of Google results they are, I think, despite their multiple entries, three – like the witches of Macbeth. They are in Vancouver, travelling, and offering global editorial services from no stated location. Google assigns their works to them collectively: one to all and all to one. These are the perils of a common name.
Continue reading “How to be an unknown literary author (part II)”