Are you a language teacher who’s secretly a great writer “in the wings”? Feel you’ve got a great novel in you just waiting to come out? Take heart, the following six people were just like you!
1 J.R.R. Tolkien
Author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien taught English Language at the University of Leeds.
2 James Joyce
Author of Ulysses and The Dubliners. Joyce taught English for a Berlitz school in Austria-Hungary.
3 Aldous Huxley
Author of Brave New World. Taught French at the elite public school Eton, where Eric Blair (George Orwell) was one of his students.
4 J.K. Rowling
Author of the Harry Potter series. Rowling worked as an EFL teacher in a private language school in Portugal while writing the first Harry Potter book.
5 Frank McCourt
Author of Angela’s Ashes, ‘Tis and Teacher Man. McCourt taught English literature at a high school in New York.
6 Nick Hornby
Author of High Fidelity, About a Boy, Fever Pitch. Hornby worked as an EFL teacher in London (and I have a colleague, Duncan Foord, who worked with him!)
Does anyone else know other famous authors who taught English while trying to make ends meet? Let me know in the socials!