Now high-class call girl Belle de Jour offers her services for £25 an hour...
... to show you how to write your memoirs, naturally!
AS a London call-girl, she was paid hundreds of pounds by clients for a night in her company – and it seems Belle de Jour is still able to extract premium rates for her services.
These days the notorious sex worker-turned-author is offering phone and internet sessions for £25 an hour.
But instead of plying the oldest trade in the world, she is now offering help and advice to aspiring writers.
Under her nom de plume, Dr Brooke Magnanti wrote a blog called Belle de Jour: Diary of a London Call Girl – claiming it was based on her own experiences.
The risqué tales spawned two successful books and were later made into a hit TV series starring actress Billie Piper.
They included detailed descriptions of life as an expensive prostitute, from debating the literary merits of Martin Amis with naked clients to smuggling whips into luxury hotels,
Eventually Dr Magnanti ‘outed’ herself as the anonymous writer of Belle de Jour in 2009. The 41-year old writer later moved to Ardna- murchan in the West Highlands ‘for the solitude’.
Now she is helping other writers turn their experiences into memorable prose. On her website she says: ‘Your life could make an amazing story.
‘There has never been a better time to be a memoirist. Let me help you start putting thoughts on the page. Interested in writing fiction based on and incorporating your own unique experiences? Let’s talk. Together, we can kickstart your creative flow.’
Her sales pitch goes on: ‘I offer two services: one is consultancy, where we talk about the craft of writing. The second service is manuscript report. I can advise you on how to get the most out of the material you have.’
A £50 fee secures two hour-long discussions on the phone or on Skype. Further blocks of two hourlong sessions cost £40. Feedback and advice on manuscripts starts at £200.
One happy customer wrote on the website: “She struck a perfect balance, giving equal doses of patience, support and frank appraisal.’
Another commented: ‘Brooke’s masterclass remains one of the most inspiring days in recent memory. The practical advice and the opportunity for immediate critique and comment on my creative writing was so valuable.
‘The exercises stretched my comfort zones... That’s some of my most treasured writing.’
A third added: ‘She gave really helpful and encouraging feedback and great insider advice on getting published. With her help I’m now much more confident in my project and am determined to get it out there.’
The advice sessions follow a writing workshop Dr Magnanti gave in Glasgow in 2014. The Memoir Masterclass with Belle de Jour cost £139 and promised to be a ‘a lively one-day workshop which combines practical advice with hands-on activities designed to stretch your boundaries’.
Drawing from her experiences, she promised to teach would-be writers the ‘craft of knowing what to share and what to leave out’, how to create a ‘bond’ with readers and how to ‘build a narrative arc from the chaos’.
She said at the time: ‘Memoirs are not only for, or about, the rich and famous.
‘Many are stories of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances – examining personal triumphs, bouts with illness, relationships, work and much more.’
Dr Magnanti was born in Florida but moved to the UK in her twenties to study for a PhD in forensic science at Sheffield University.
She has said she became a prostitute to help fund her studies, and in 2003 started her highly successful blog about her experiences.
‘Let’s talk. I offer two services’