Famous writers on the art of saying no

In Competition No. 3168 you were invited to compose a response on the part of a well-known writer to an inappropriate suggestion about the future direction of their work.

This Austen-inspired challenge produced a terrific entry, so high fives to you all. Dorothy Pope’s Philip Larkin, giving short shrift to the suggestion that he venture into writing for children, stood out, as did Janine Beacham, Nick McKinnon, Nick Syrett and Basil Ransome-Davies. The winners, printed below, are rewarded with £25 each.

You kindly preface your admonition (and I have no doubt that, despite your placations, I am indeed roundly admonished) with such charming encomia that it seems churlish for me here to attempt to counter your intimation that my work offers no great benison of humour. I concede at once that I have not that ebullition of spirits which made Dickens such a master of the ‘knockabout’: comedy so broad was never an arrow in my quiver.