Suspend Your Disbelief

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Day Jobs of Famous Writers


If you’re reading the FWR blog furtively, hunched in your cubicle over your TPS reports, this post is for you. You are not alone: almost all writers need a day job to support their art. Lapham’s Quarterly reveals the day jobs of some famous writers, such as Charlotte Bronte, Franz Kafka, and William Faulkner in trading-card format.

Or quiz your friends: Which novelist helped create the modern London police force? Which novelist made only $1838 per year in today’s dollars? If these writers could turn out masterpieces like As I Lay Dying and In the Penal Colony and the Chronicles of Barsetshire while working, you can too.

Now get back to your writing, and don’t let your boss see you.


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