Notes from the Long Coast
On reaching the notebook
I am grateful when readers write to me, and I am often slow to answer. Part of this is the pace of the work; part of it is a small conviction that a notebook like this one is better if its author is a little harder to reach.
I take on a small number of translation projects each year — primarily literary nonfiction, oral histories, family archives, and the occasional short book. New engagements are considered through existing relationships only. If we have not worked together, the most reliable path is an introduction from someone who has.
Pieces published here may be quoted briefly with attribution. Full reprints, translations into other languages, and inclusion in anthologies require a short written agreement; these are handled on a case-by-case basis, always through an introduction.
Letters from readers — corrections, memories triggered by a piece, stories of your own harbor — are the part of this practice I treasure most. They reach me, eventually, through mutual acquaintances and the long, informal network that readers of slow writing tend to share. If a piece has moved you, it will find a way to me.
I do not give interviews for promotional purposes. I do not appear on podcasts. I do not offer manuscript consultations, blurbs, or public readings at present. I mention all of this not as a boast, but so that no one writes a long and hopeful message without knowing the shape of the reply.
With warmth, and with thanks for your patience,
— Ergin
Currently: finishing a long essay, and a book-length translation that has taken the better part of three years. By appointment, by introduction.