Linera Lucas

All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost, by Lan Samantha Chang

2011-11-19T22:05:00.000-08:00

Rarely do I finish a novel and start to read it all over again, but that's what happened with All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost by Lan Samantha Chang. It wasn't just that I was sorry the book was over, but that I was so engaged with the story, the characters, the narrative arc, that I wanted to experience it all over again.

And it is about writers. A real book about writers, instead of all the phony books and movies about writers. The author is Samantha Chang, who is the author of two previous books: Hunger and Inheritance, and the director of the Iowa Writers Workshop. I took a workshop at Stanford from her on the novel, and she was an excellent teacher.

This is a novel I will be thinking about for a long time. Sometimes when I read a particularly good book I feel intimidated. Not this time. Reading Sam Chang's novel makes me want to work on my own novel, makes me understand how wonderful the novel can be, shows me once again why writing is worthwhile.

BOOMTOWN now available

2011-09-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

I have a short story in the anthology BOOMTOWN: Explosive Writing from Ten Years of the Queens University of Charlotte MFA Program.

My story is "The Evangeline," about the WWII rescue at Dunkirk told from the point of view of a woman boat captain. The Dunkirk rescue was in May, 1940, when British soldiers were stranded at the port of Dunkirk in Belgium. The British Admiralty called on everyone who had a boat to get out across the Channel and rescue the soldiers, and the amazing thing is how many did. There are many accounts of this, and many stories, and novels, among them The Snow Goose, by Paul Gallico. Even now, I can't read about Dunkirk without weeping. I was waiting for the emotion to still before I started writing, when I realized that maybe that's now how I write. Maybe I write in the white hot center of the emotion. So I wept as I wrote, and I wept as I researched. (By the time I came to revise, I was dry-eyed, you will be glad to hear.)

Golf books for women

2011-04-18T07:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, the rumors are true. I have taken up golf, or more accurately, golf has taken me over. Who knew it would be that enjoyable to smack a little white ball with a metal stick? So, of course, I've been reading up on golf. Here are the golfing for women books I like. I buy all that I can, whenever I am in a bookstore. That's right, I just march up and purchase every single golfing for women book I find. So now I have all three of them. Clearly, a need exists for more.

Golf Girl's Little Tartan Book: How to be true to your sex and get the most from the game, by Patricia Hannigan, amusing and useful, well-organized, suggests focus on short game is best strategy for most women, clearly true for me, as I'm not going to be a power hitter in this, or any other sport.

A Girl's On-Course Survival Guide to Golf, by Christina Ricci, spiral bound, designed to fit in the golf bag, and be hauled out when confronted with particular problem on the links.

The Women's Guide to Golf: A Handbook for Beginners, by Kellie Stenzel, simply the best place to start.

And although by a man, very important bedside reading, Golf Without Tears: stories of golfers and lovers, by P.G. Wodehouse, helps to keep the maddening qualities of golf in perspective.

British animal voiceovers

2010-12-14T12:56:00.000-08:00

This made the rainy morning all the more pleasant.

book trailer for Midge Raymond & John Yunker

2010-11-28T14:28:00.000-08:00

This is a hoot! Oh, and their books are good too!

submishmash

2010-11-23T14:56:00.000-08:00

Submishmash is a web-based submission system that is getting quite a good bit of buzz.

From the interview with one of the founders of Submishmash:
"So slowly it became clear we should focus on publishers, not writers. If we could solve a problem for independent publishers, then their writers would do well. If publishers had more time and money, then writers would. The present version of Submishmash came from that."

Help is here

2010-11-11T17:21:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we just need a little help....

Ron Butler's Obama in the manner of Gilbert & Sullivan

2010-11-09T08:48:00.000-08:00

Artist Trust EDGE Program for Writers - applications due Dec 6th

2010-10-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

I was delighted to be part of the 2010 Artist Trust EDGE program for writers, and I cannot say enough good things about the program. This is all the business side of writing that never (or rarely) gets covered in MFA programs, or other classes. Artist Trust has been doing professional development programs for visual artists for quite a few years, added filmmakers recently, and then expanded to writers in 2009.

For an application, go here.

"Literary artists who reside in Washington State are encouraged to apply to participate in the 2011 EDGE Professional Development Program for Writers, made possible by generous funding from Amazon.com.

The EDGE Program provides artists with a comprehensive survey of professional practices through a hands-on, interactive curriculum that includes instruction by professionals in the field, as well as specialized presentations, panel discussions and assignments. The EDGE Program focuses on supplying artists with the relevant and necessary entrepreneurial skills to achieve their personal career goals and with the opportunity to develop peer support and exchange.

The EDGE Program for Writers is open to emerging or mid-career writers of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. Applicants must be residents of Washington State but cannot be students enrolled in a graduate- or undergraduate-degree program. Applicants must commit to completing the entire 50-hour program."

Contact: Nirmala Singh-Brinkman, Program Manager
nirmala@artisttrust.org; 206/467-8734 x20; toll free 1/866/218-7878

rain gardens

2010-10-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

The city of Seattle is getting behind rain gardens in the outer Ballard neighborhood, and with any luck, will continue to support them in the rest of the city.

Opera Company of Philadelphia "Flash Brindisi" at Reading Terminal Market (April 24, 2010)

2010-10-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

I particularly like the delighted faces of the onlookers, as they realize what is happening. This is the way to grow an opera audience.

Oscar Wilde 1854-1900

2010-10-24T20:25:00.000-07:00

Oscar Wilde, the great dramatist and poet, died in a shabby hotel room in Paris.
Reputedly his last words were, "Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."

Andrew Bienkowski & Mary Akers on the radio June 30th

2010-06-23T19:10:00.000-07:00

Andrew Bienkowski and my pal Mary Akers will be doing a radio interview on Wednesday, June 30th, for their fine book One Life to Give: A Path to Finding Yourself by Helping Others.

I'm teaching this Saturday, June 5, at the Hugo House Write-O-Rama

2010-06-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

I'm teaching at the Hugo House Write-O-Rama this Saturday, June 5th. A full day of writing workshops, $50 for the whole day, 10am to 5pm. The lineup of other teachers includes Wendy Call, Midge Raymond, Ann Teplick, Dickey Nesenger, Roberta Brown Root, and Judith Roche.

Details and registration at Write-O-Rama.

Postcard Secrets with Linera Lucas
This is a three-part exercise. The first part is to write as the person who sent the postcard. The second is to write as the person who received the postcard. The third part is a secret, to be revealed only in the workshop.

Roy Zimmerman at Phinney Ridge Saturday, May 8, 7:30pm

2010-05-08T09:55:00.001-07:00

I heard Roy Zimmerman last night at Kenyon Hall, and laughed so much I actually slapped my thigh. The woman next to me laughed and cried. This is political satire at its best. Zimmerman is the heir to the crown of Tom Lehrer.

Roy Zimmerman: Real American
Saturday, May 8 7:30 PM
Phinney Neighborhood Center
6532 Phinney Ave
Seattle, WA
$14

from Seattle Folklore Society site:
"Ever wonder who was the composer/lyricist behind that hysterical Colbert Report skit? Who was that fabulous voice Amy Goodman played between guests? That featured blogger for the Huffington Post? It was Roy Zimmerman. Just check out his videos on You Tube...Roy has been actively touring the country for 20 years, producing numerous recordings, countless YouTube videos and a host of satisfied listeners. He’s even better in person!"

Hugo House class Saturday, May 15, 1-5 pm

2010-04-28T14:59:00.000-07:00

I'll be teaching a one day class at Hugo House on Saturday, May 15, 1-5 pm.

Reading Like A Writer (a reading class)

As readers, we want to know why we let dinner burn while we turned the pages of one book, but left another unfinished. As writers, we want to know how to effectively steal the shiny bits. For both readers and writers the key is in understanding how to read like a writer. In-class readings will be from contemporary and classic masterworks.

Instructor: Linera Lucas
Meets: Saturday, May 15, 2010
1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Min: 5 Max: 15
General: $96
Members: $86.40

Sign up online for spring classes here, or call Hugo House at 206.322.7030.

UW spring quarter class May 3 - May 24

2010-04-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

My spring quarter class through the UW Women's Center runs from May 3 - May 24, 2010, four Mondays, 7-8:30 pm, $45.

You can register online here,
or call the Women's Center at 206.685.1090.

Writing Your Story, Finding Your Voice
Every woman has a story to tell, in her own voice. In this four-week session we will release our stories, silence our inner critics, and have a good time! Come prepared with pen and paper, your imagination, your fears and joys, your secret expectations. We will focus on short pieces of prose and poetry, using lively free-writing exercises. For those new to writing, and those who want to revisit the freedom of the beginner.

more from Flannery

2010-04-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

"The type of mind that can understand good fiction is not necessarily the educated mind, but it is at all times the kind of mind that is willing to have its sense of mystery deepened by contact with mystery."

Flannery O'Connor 1925-1964

2010-04-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

"It is said that when Henry James received a manuscript that he didn't like, he would return it with the comment, 'You have chosen a good subject and are treating it in a straightforward manner.' This usually pleased the person getting the manuscript back, but it was the worst thing that James could think of to say, for he knew, better than anybody else, that the straightforward manner is seldom equal to the complications of a good subject."

Bette Davis 1908-1989

2010-04-07T12:33:00.000-07:00

from The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, edited by Clifton Fadiman.

"Bette Davis's attorney told her a rumor was spreading throughout New York that she had died. Miss Davis was unworried: 'With the newspaper strike on I wouldn't consider it.'"

I'm reading Friday, March 26 at Jack Straw

2010-03-17T16:56:00.000-07:00

I'll be one of the readers at the Final Presentation for the 2010 Artist Trust EDGE Professional Development Program for Writers, along with my fourteen other classmates.
Please join us for an evening of readings. The event is free.
DATE: Friday, March 26, 2010
TIME: 7:00–10:00 pm
LOCATION: Jack Straw Productions, 4261 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA 98105

Literary EDGE Program Graduates:
Lana Ayers, Ellie Belew, Amelia Boldaji, Sarah Callender, Katy Ellis,
Lauren Fink, Robert Flor, Linera Lucas, Larissa Min, Jennifer Munro,
Jessica Murphy Moo, Ruby Murray, Cody Pherigo, Ann Teplick,
Elissa Washuta.

Pilot Books

2010-03-09T08:57:00.000-08:00

Take a look at the newest bookstore on the block, I can't wait to go there -
Pilot Books. Capitol Hill, natch, upstairs in the Alley Building, 219 Broadway East.

And check out this article on them from Reading Local: "In the entire month of March, Pilot Books will observe a daily celebration of small and independent presses as part of Small Press Month."

Midge Raymond teaching at Richard Hugo House

2010-03-08T11:49:00.000-08:00

Midge Raymond is teaching the Master Class in prose at Richard Hugo House, starting Monday, March 22, and running through May 24. Midge is a fine teacher, and I highly recommend her class. For more information, see the class listings here.

From the Richard Hugo House site:
"The goal of this workshop is for writers to complete, or fully revise, at least one short story or essay. With an emphasis on the short form, we’ll look at the elements of good narrative—including character, story, dialogue, setting, and voice—through examples and discussion but primarily in the context of student work. Each writer will have the opportunity to workshop a story or essay twice during the duration of the class, and we’ll discuss revision and critiquing methods, as well as how to gain insight into one’s own work through reading and responding to the work of others. The first portion of class meetings will be devoted to writing exercises and readings, with the majority of each session devoted to workshops."

Mararet Atwood

2010-02-25T14:41:00.000-08:00

So all around the blogosphere, (the lit-blogosphere that is,) those ten rules for writing fiction from The Guardian are buzzing and droning on. I like Margaret Atwood's. If you want to read the whole list of authors, go here.

Margaret Atwood

1 Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.

2 If both pencils break, you can do a rough sharpening job with a nail file of the metal or glass type.

3 Take something to write on. Paper is good. In a pinch, pieces of wood or your arm will do.

4 If you're using a computer, always safeguard new text with a memory stick.

5 Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.

6 Hold the reader's attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don't know who the reader is, so it's like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What fascinates A will bore the pants off B.

7 You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but essentially you're on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine.

8 You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.

9 Don't sit down in the middle of the woods. If you're lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.

10 Prayer might work. Or reading something else. Or a constant visualisation of the holy grail that is the finished, published version of your resplendent book.

the novel is about other people

2010-02-23T09:11:00.000-08:00

"I don't know why so many writers, unpublished and published, should find this so hard to grasp: the novel is about other people. A first novel must always be about other people. The function of the novel isn't self-expression: it isn't to sort out your life, it isn't to change society. Above all, it isn't about you. You must use your own experience, direct and indirect, but only as the purposes of the story dictate. You must realize that you yourself don't matter. Only the work matters. You have to get rid of yourself, or at least try to."

-John Braine, How to Write a Novel.

Mr. Braine wrote Room at the Top, The Crying Game, and eleven other novels.

animals

2010-02-02T18:38:00.000-08:00

"No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation."

-Fran Lebowitz, Social Studies (1977)

Louis Auchincloss 1917-2010

2010-01-28T11:06:00.000-08:00

I've read many of Auchincloss's novels, but not all. During his long writing career he turned out over sixty books, including novels, literary criticism, and collections of short stories. Yes, he wrote about the upper class, that's what he knew. No, his work is not snobby. Yes, he was an acute observer of human behaviour, and he had a lovely dry sense of humor.

from the NYT article:

"“Class prejudice” was Mr. Auchincloss’s response to his critics. “That business of objecting to the subject material or the people that an author writes about is purely class prejudice,” he said in an interview in 1997, “and you will note that it always disappears with an author’s death. Nobody holds it against Henry James or Edith Wharton or Thackeray or Marcel Proust.”"

In fact, his work most resembles Edith Wharton, another member of privilege who spared them not in her work.

And, of course, RIP J.D. Salinger. But which one would I prefer to sit next to at a dinner party? Easy peasy, Louis of course.

Cheap Beer & Prose at Hugo House Thursday, 7pm

2010-01-27T15:43:00.000-08:00

This sounds like fun. The readers will be Midge Raymond, Maria Semple, Matthew Simmons, and Rory Douglas.
FREE.
For more information, see Hugo House.

winter quarter class, Feb 22- March 15

2010-01-21T16:04:00.000-08:00

My winter quarter class through the UW Women's Center runs from February 22 - March 15, 2010, four Mondays, 7-8:30 pm, $45.

You can register online here,
or call the Women's Center at 206.685.1090.

Writing Your Story, Finding Your Voice
Every woman has a story to tell, in her own voice. In this four-week session we will release our stories, silence our inner critics, and have a good time! Come prepared with pen and paper, your imagination, your fears and joys, your secret expectations. We will focus on short pieces of prose and poetry, using lively free-writing exercises. For those new to writing, and those who want to revisit the freedom of the beginner.

writing is not therapy

2010-01-16T14:19:00.000-08:00

"...writing isn't therapy; on the contrary, it twists and distorts the psyche. If the experience has lost its power to hurt you, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're a better person. The hurtful experience is what is best for the novel, what makes it authentic and alive and not mere fabrication."

-John Braine, How to Write a Novel.

Mr. Braine wrote Room at the Top, The Crying Game, and eleven other novels.

RIP Eric Rohmer 1920-2010

2010-01-11T18:54:00.000-08:00

My favorite Eric Rohmer movie? Probably Claire's Knee (1970) but I've liked all that I've seen, and I really can't say that about any other director, not even John Sayles, or Billy Wilder.

M. Rohmer died today at the age of 89. Details here.

From the above article: "Creating fables both buoyant and grave, Rohmer had a movie personality hard to describe and harder to forget. Like subtle wines, lingering perfumes, his best films — Maud, Claire, Chloe, the 1994 Rendezvous in Paris — are essences all worth bottling."

Yes, I'd have to agree. Watching a Rohmer film is a bit like drinking very good French champagne. I feel witty just raising the glass, and there's nothing to regret the next morning.

New Yorker Commas

2010-01-04T15:32:00.001-08:00

Mmm, a delicious new litblog has appeared on the horizon. Okay, it's undoubtedly been there for a while, but it's new on my horizon.

New Yorker Commas is the name, and lit gossip is the game. Er, okay, I'll tone it down. A little dish, a little dat. Fine. Fine. You don't believe me, go take a look.

Letter-ature

2009-12-29T18:33:00.000-08:00

Warning! For some, this game is highly addictive. Uh, oh, you over there, in the croner, remember, I warned you...
Letter-ature.

Midge Raymond

2009-12-18T19:13:00.001-08:00

I just finished reading my pal Midge Raymond's amazing collection, Forgetting English. The collection won the 2007 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction, and it is easy to see why. Each story is like a novel. I feel I know the characters, and when the story ends, the characters seem to continue.

It's hard for me to pick a favorite, but I think that "The Road to Hana" is the one I remember the most often. That scene with the ring on the woman's hand, how surprising and how right that was. And how the protagonist dips down into the water to avoid hearing what her husband wants to tell her, but hears anyway. Raymond knows just how much information to give the reader.

It is so refreshing to read stories set in faraway places, where the author understands the seduction of the foreign, and the loneliness. Oh, and Raymond knows how to end a story, too. Really, this was a pleasure from the first story to the last. Now I'm looking forward to a novel from her, which I hope will come out soon.

So if you're looking for a good read, trot right out and get Forgetting English.

Manners

2009-12-09T19:40:00.000-08:00

" It is bad manners to contradict a a guest. You must never insult people in your own house - always go to theirs."

-Myrtle Reed, The Book of Clever Beasts, 1904.

I'm teaching at the Hugo House Write-O-Rama on Sat, Dec 5th.

2009-11-23T09:57:00.000-08:00

I'll be teaching at the Hugo House Write-O-Rama on Saturday,
December 5th, along with a slew of swell writing teachers. My class is called Postcard Secrets, and will be offered twice, at 3pm and at 4pm.

Postcard Secrets; 3 and 4 p.m.
This is a three-part exercise. The first part is to write as the person who sent the postcard. The second is to write as the person who received the postcard. The third part is a secret—to be revealed only in the workshop.

from the Hugo House Write-O-Rama site:
"Write-O-Rama is a full day of more than 40 one-hour workshops offered by our creative writing teachers to anyone who wants to write...Write-O-Rama is a benefit for Hugo House. The registration fee is $45...Write-O-Rama is an all day event, but you can come for any part of it. No preregistration required; just drop in."

Richard Hugo House is located on Capitol Hill.
1634 11th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98122
206-322-7030

Robertson Davies 1913-1995

2009-11-17T16:40:00.000-08:00

"To ask an author who hopes to be a serious writer if his work is autobiographical is like asking a spider where he buys his thread."

-Robertson Davies, The Merry Heart.

Naming the World

2009-11-14T16:30:00.000-08:00

Naming the World, edited by Brett Anthony Johnston, is a collection of writing essays and writing exercises, and I'm working my way through it, looking for the good stuff to steal for my own classes. Attributive stealing, so when I assign a prompt, I say, "and this is from Abby Thomas, who writes great memoir" or "from Aimee Bender, fantastic fiction," or "Liz Strout, swell novelist."

I particularly like Liz Strout's chapter on Point of View.
"I have always been interested in the fact that if six people are sitting in a room, whatever happens in that room, it is experienced in six different ways. Each response, of course, has to do with the character of the person involved and this combination - character and point of view - is what interests me most in writing."

Charles Baxter on subtext

2009-11-07T11:36:00.000-08:00

"Obsession and congested subtexts have a tendency to enmesh and co-opt innocent bystanders, who have only common sense with which to combat mania."

from The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot.

Nadine Gordimer

2009-11-05T15:29:00.000-08:00

"Powers of observation heightened beyond the normal imply extraordinary disinvolvement: or rather the double process, excessive preoccupation and identification with the lives of others, and at the same time a monstrous detachment...The tension between standing apart and being fully involved: that is what makes a writer."

-Nadine Gordimer, Introduction, Selected Stories.

Jack Straw writers at the Central Library on Sat, Nov 7, at 2 pm

2009-11-02T09:46:00.000-08:00

Come hear the Jack Straw writers read at the Central Library on Saturday, November 7th, 2-3:30 pm. The readers are Lana Hechtman Ayers, Anna Bálint, Rachel Dilworth, Alma García, Laura Hirschfield, Kim-An Lieberman, Priscilla Long, Michael Magee, Madeline Ostrander, and Storme Webber.

The reading is free. Parking under the Central Library is available for $5.

"The purpose of the Jack Straw Writers Program is to introduce local writers to the medium of recorded audio, to encourage the creation of new literary work, and to provide new venues for the writer and their work. The program was created in 1997. Each year a single curator selects 12 writers/writing teams out of dozens of applicants based on artistic excellence, diversity of literary genres, and a cohesive grouping of writers."

more Atwood

2009-10-31T12:10:00.000-07:00

From Negotiating With the Dead. Atwood on her childhood and her capable and outdoorsy family.

"My own view of myself was that I was small and innocuous, a marshmallow compared to the others. I was a poor shot with a 22, for instance, and not very good with an ax. It took me a long time to figure out that the youngest in a family of dragons is still a dragon from the point of view of those who find dragons alarming."

Margaret Atwood

2009-10-30T09:44:00.000-07:00

from the introduction to Negotiating With the Dead:

"I'll begin with the standard disclaimer. I am a writer and a reader, and that's about it. I'm not a scholar or a literary theoretician, and any such notions that have wandered into this book have got there by the usual writerly methods, which resemble the ways of the jackdaw: we steal the shiny bits, and then build them into the structures of our own disorderly houses."

Maria Callas 1923-1977

2009-10-28T17:59:00.000-07:00

from The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, edited by Clifton Fadiman.

When Maria Callas was singing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, she was interviewed by a reporter who said, "You were born in the United States, you were brought up in Greece, you are now practically an Italian. What language do you think in?" Miss Callas replied, "I count in English."

Salley Vickers

2009-10-23T12:49:00.000-07:00

My new fav writer is Salley Vickers and no, that's not a typo, Salley is the Irish word for willow. I'm right now slowing down as much as possible, for when I finish reading Mr. Golightly's Holiday, I will have finished all novels available to me in the states, and will begin in pine over the upcoming book, due in the UK soon, but expen$ive to ship here. So far my absolute favorite of her novels is The Other Side of You, which came out here in 2008, and deals directly and deeply with "The Supper at Emmaus" by Caravaggio.

It is rare indeed to read such good writing about such a good painting, and with such exciting and deeply felt characters, but that's not all. These are characters that live after the last page is closed. Vickers' two favorite authors are Penelope Fitzgerald and Shirley Hazzard, and they are on my top ten list, so I thought I would feel right at home, and I do.

Oh, and did I mention how compelling the story lines are?

Lydia Davis at Seattle Arts & Lectures on Nov 4.

2009-10-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

Wooo hoooo! Lydia Davis is coming to Seattle to read on Wednesday, November 4th, 7:30pm at Benaroya Hall. Tickets start at $25, less for students and under 25. No senior discount, rats.

Lydia Davis was interviewed by Sarah Manguso for The Believer in the January 2008 issue. The following is from the introduction:

"Her writing defies generic classification. Some of her fiction could just as easily be called essay or poetry. Many of her stories are extremely short. Her narrators are often given a drastically narrow scope but an extremely sharp focus. Their observations might be described as dispassionate—sometimes humorously so—and for this reason the considerable emotional component of Davis’s stories is often subtextual.

Davis works as a translator of French literature and philosophy, and is well known for her translation of Proust’s Du côté de chez Swann, which earned her wide critical acclaim. Her other translations include books by Maurice Blanchot, Pierre Jean Jouve, and Michel Leiris.

She has won many of the major American writing awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship for fiction, and was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government. She was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. On hiatus from teaching at SUNY Albany, Davis lives and works in upstate New York."

Bertie on the news

2009-10-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

Komo News - SoCal Fire Dogs rescued.

From the article:
"Hundreds of dogs left behind or who ran away during the California wildfires last month are finding new homes around Western Washington - thanks to a local pet rescue group. Many of the animals were about to be euthanized until Ginger's Pet Rescue in Seattle intervened. Now the group is bringing the dogs here - to start a new life."

And the lead photo for the article is my own sweet Bertie, whom I adopted Saturday. I named him Bertie after Bertie Wooster (think Jeeves, PG Wodehouse) because in spite of all that must have happened in his five years, this dog is twenty pounds of optimism.

Here is Bertie in my office:

In an Uncharted Country, stories by Clifford Garstang

2009-09-16T16:48:00.000-07:00

Press53 has done it again. This time it's a collection of short stories by my pal Clifford Garstang called In an Uncharted Country.

They are all so good, it's hard to pick a favorite, but "Hand-Painted Angel" is the one I keep coming back to. Warm in tone without ever being sentimental, with engaging characters, this is a holiday story about a family secret, but the secret is not the focus of the story, instead the story is about how we make important decisions, and the person with the secret is a secondary character.

I'm also still thinking about the title story, and here's a line that shows the skill of the author, describing how the two main characters married young - "the hungry fit of their untested bodies." That simple phrase shows so much.

So if you're looking for a darn good read, trot right out and get In an Uncharted Country.

Seattle Book Fest Oct 24-25 in Columbia City

2009-09-02T15:12:00.000-07:00

The Seattle Book Fest is happening on the weekend of October 24 & 25th in the hip Columbia City. Authors, events, books, etc. Check the website for information if you want to be an exhibitor or join the list of authors.

canine dancin'

2009-08-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

Check out this extremely happy Golden/human duo. This is a whole new world of obedience called Freestyle, I think. Let me know if I've got it wrong please.

Lorrie Moore reading in Seattle on Friday, Sept 11

2009-08-28T09:30:00.000-07:00

Elliott Bay Book Company is bringing Lorrie Moore to Seattle on Friday, September 11th, at 7pm, at the Seattle Central Library. Moore's new book is a novel, her first in fifteen years, A Gate at the Stairs.

Microsoft Auditorium, Seattle Public Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave.
Free admission is on a first-come, first-serve basis.

For more information, check out this link.

Julia Child 1912-2004

2009-08-26T16:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've seen the movie and I loved it. Meryl Streep really got Child, and Amy Goodman was, as always, a delight. Then the other night I accidentally watched PBS, and there was the real Julia, patting a chicken with butter, preparatory to roasting said bird. Then she carved the bird. Ah, I remember watching her, and how I learned to make souffles from Volume I. Volume II is mostly unstained, but Volume I has pages that stick together. Julia Child made me a cook.

So these are the volumes I have, but jeepers, I did not pay $295. Probably more like $20 total, which was a lot of money, when I bought them, just after dinosaurs roamed the earth...

And really, Volume I is the one to have.

Oh Freddie, Freddie 1946-1991

2009-08-22T16:23:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we just need a little Freddie. Leather and knee socks, rockin' Freddie, just rockin'.

The Collagist

2009-08-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

Check out The Collagist, a lively new online venture from Dzanc Books, full to the brim with short stories, essays, poetry, and reviews.

from editor Matt Bell's note:
In this debut issue, we've got new fiction by Chris Bachelder, Kevin Wilson, Kim Chinquee, and Matthew Salesses, plus an excerpt from Laird Hunt's forthcoming novel Ray of the Star. Charles Jensen, Oliver de la Paz, and Christina Kallery each contribute several new poems apiece. In non-fiction, Ander Monson provides an innovative personal essay in the form of an "assembloir," while David McLendon's essay relates his personal experiences with the master teacher, editor, and writer Gordon Lish, exploring the impact of Lish's mentorship on both his own writing and his everyday life. Lish's story "I'm Wide" (which originally appeared in his collection What I Know So Far) is also reprinted in this issue, which I hope you'll consider first as its own unique piece and then again, in tandem with McLendon's essay.

Women Up On Blocks by Mary Akers

2009-08-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

Wow, I just finished reading my pal Mary Akers' new short story collection, Women Up On Blocks, and it was a blast.

So many good stories, but my favorite has to be "Thunderstones," about young love and family interference and the smacking effect of old time religion. Here's a line that shows how clear and evocative the writing is:
"She can feel her future mother-in-law's insipid happiness creeping toward her through the pew cushions."

These are stories about women who make, or have to make, big decisions, and Akers knows her territory well.

I heartily recommend this collection, published by Press53, which once again proves to be a great source for lively reading.

Reading Local: Seattle

2009-08-14T10:20:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this fine blog Reading Local: Seattle for a great calendar of readings in the area. Here's a description from the website:

Reading Local: Seattle is interested in documenting as much as we can find out about locally produced literature, zines, pamphlets, blogs, novels, chapbooks, poetry, performance and anything else concerned with the written or spoken word. We aim to include regular profiles of Washington State writers, locally produced lit, events, and places where these things can be found either in bookstores, community libraries, or roadside bins.

We are related to the equally locally-concerned Web site, Reading Local: Portland, part of Reading Local.

If you have ideas for topics you would like covered please post them, or e-mail me directly. If you are a regular producer of lit events, I would like to make sure your events are covered. Furthermore, there are some modest steps you can take to make sure your events are easily discovered and attended. For more information, see the site, Social Media for Writers.

Your Fellow Book Junkie,
Matt Briggs

Alison Lurie's REAL PEOPLE

2009-08-13T16:22:00.000-07:00

Here's the last line from Real People by Alison Lurie, and no, this won't spoil the story for you:
"If nothing will finally survive of this life besides what artists report of it, we have no right to report what we know to be lies."

Hey, go ahead and read the whole book. I just finished it, and it was splendid. Short, vibrant, with lively characters and a swell plot. Highly recommended, except for those without a sense of humor.

Tin House in a nutshell

2009-08-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

This is just what the Tin House summer workshop experience is like.

Eel Pie Island, near London

2009-08-08T12:56:00.000-07:00

Eel Pie Island is famous for music and literature. And I remember, dimly, that when I was a baby and we lived outside London, we lived not far from the island.

London:
London: Eel Pie Island

Backwards & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays

2009-08-06T10:19:00.000-07:00

Backwards & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays was written by David Ball expressly for those reading scripts for production. But it is a fine book for revision of all kinds. And Mr. Ball really knows his Hamlet. A high compliment from one who also knows her Hamlet. Also, the book is short. Pithy, even.

notes from Tin House, July 2009

2009-08-05T09:34:00.000-07:00

I went to Tin House this summer, and workshopped with Steve Almond. Here are my notes from the panel on endings. The last paragraph was Samantha Chang, and it really resonated with me.

Notes from Tin House July 2009 Endings
Panel with Lan Samantha Chang, Ann Hood, and Ron Hansen.

The types of endings:
Single conclusion
Epilogue
Epiphany
Ironic ending or false epiphany
Denouement
Envoi (sends you off to another story, the envoy disappears)

Endings that don’t work:
A hurried ending, rushing to the conclusion
Loose ends
Pointlessness
Unrealistic endings
The Dougie Houser ending, adding in the moral, “what I learned today was that friends are important.”

"You really have to know your story and what it is about to write the ending. If you are having trouble with the ending, ask yourself 'what’s been bothering me for the past few years?' to figure out what happens in the end of the novel you are working on." -Lan Samantha Chang

Teaching summer quarter July 27 - August 17

2009-07-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

I'm teaching Summer Quarter at the UW Women's Center. But the class will not be in Cunningham Hall, where the winter and spring classes were held. The summer class will be in Sieg Hall, room 228, near the Drumheller Fountain.
Here's a campus map.

Online registration is now closed, so please call the Womens Center at 206.685.1090, (Monday- Friday, 9am - 5pm) to register.

Writing Your Story, Finding Your Voice
4 Mondays July 27-Aug 17, 7-8:30 pm, Sieg Hall room 228, $45

Every woman has a story to tell, in her own voice. In this four-week session we will release our stories, silence our inner critics, and have a good time! Come prepared with pen and paper, your imagination, your fears and joys, your secret expectations. We will focus on short pieces of prose and poetry, using lively free-writing exercises. For those new to writing, and those who want to revisit the freedom of the beginner.

FlashFiction.net by Randall Brown

2009-07-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

FlashFiction.net is a new site by Randall Brown. And a very fine resource for all things flash!

Er, yes (coughs and points toe) I have a flash on the site. Look under authors, then under L.

author readings at Tin House next week

2009-07-06T14:24:00.000-07:00

If you're going to be in the Portland area next week, check out the great lineup of lectures and readings as part of the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop.

READINGS

Sunday, July 12th 2009
8 p.m. Lan Samantha Chang, Kevin Young, Steve Almond

Monday, July 13th 2009
8 p.m. Karen Shepard, Ann Hood, Walter Kirn

Tuesday, July 14th 2009
8 p.m. Jan Elizabeth Watson, Stephen Elliott, Keith Lee Morris

Wednesday, July 15th 2009
8 p.m. Anthony Doerr, David Shields, Charles D’Ambrosio

Thursday, July 16th 2009
7:30 p.m. Special Celebration for Tin House’s 10th Anniversary
To be held in Downtown Portland

Friday, July 17th 2009
8 p.m. Bret Anthony Johnston, Ehud Havazelet, Ron Hansen

Saturday, July 18th 2009
8 p.m. Aimee Bender, D.A. Powell, Jim Shepard

All readings (except for Thursday) to be held in Cerf Amphitheater on Reed College Campus. Door charge to readings is $5.

Sir Thomas Beecham 1879-1961

2009-07-05T22:44:00.000-07:00

Sir Thomas Beecham was a famous conductor and impresario who founded the London Philharmonic, and was influential in both British and American classical music.

When rehearsing Handel's Messiah, Beecham said to the choir, "When we sing 'All we, like sheep, have gone astray,' might we please have a little more regret and a little less satisfaction?"

from The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, edited by Clifton Fadiman.

Chihuahua

2009-07-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

And the big Doberman is quietly bemused as the little Chihuahua dances around the apartment. Makes me dance in my chair.

Home of the Brave

2009-07-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

My pal Jeff Hess has edited an anthology of stories about men and women in the service called Home of the Brave: Stories In Uniform. The publisher is the always excellent Press 53.
"A portion of this book’s proceeds are being donated to USA Cares, a non-profit 501(c)3 organization that assists post 9/11 military service members and their families to cope with the financial burdens resulting from their service to America."

Contributors include Tim O'Brien, Kurt Vonnegut, Mary Akers, Tobias Wolff, Zoey Byrd, James Salter, Hannah Huber, Kevin Jones, Valerie Hamilton, Bruce Overby, Chris Offut, Tracy Crow, and Sarah Davis.

Hess has put together a fine collection, starting with WWII and finishing up with Iraq and Afghanistan. As he says in his lively introduction, "Short fiction shows us things we might never have known, even if we've experienced it already."

And it's a darn good read for the summer time too. Take it to the beach, or the nearest sofa on a rainy afternoon. Glory, trouble, worry, fear, blood, and courage, they are all here, between the covers of this fine anthology. I heartily recommend it.

Web Site Story by College Humor

2009-06-30T20:38:00.000-07:00

Quite amusing. A tip of the rain hat to Ellen Meister for this.

click here

Jessica Handler

2009-06-19T15:28:00.000-07:00

My pal Jessica has written a fine memoir called Invisible Sisters. The reviews have been excellent, and now the book is high on the Movers & Shakers list for Kindle. Here's a sample from the review in the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
"The opportunity to reclaim herself came when Sarah died in 1992. Still unable to mourn, Handler envies a friend who sobs at the funeral, and finally confronts her father, furious with him for leaving her sister’s shiva early—-and for leaving her, as well. “You still have a daughter,” she tells him. “I’m still alive, and I don’t want you to leave.” It’s the first step toward breaking her family’s conspiracy of silence, and in refusing to stay invisible to him, or herself."

For me, it's the clear, fine writing, and the emotional honesty that make this book soar. Here's an example: "I have been to London and Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and Guadalajara. I know the lyrics to nearly every Beatles song. I have soothed celebrity egos and squelched producer tantrums in Hollywood greenrooms. I can give a pill to a cat, and can thump a cantaloupe and make a good guess as to whether it's ripe. I can parallel park. I can sing harmony. I can make gazpacho. But losing the sister I knew best diminished me."

And I can personally attest to several of these accomplishments, having been a grateful passenger as Jessica drove, sang harmony, and slipped her car into an amazingly narrow parking spot. This is a fine book, and I suggest to my readers that you trot right out and buy it.

free poetry workshop with Peter Cole, June 23

2009-06-15T15:01:00.000-07:00

Peter Cole will be giving a free poetry workshop on Tuesday, June 23, at Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle, 3-6 pm.

from the MacArthur Fellows website:
"Peter Cole is a translator, publisher, and poet who brings the often overlooked works of medieval Spain and the modern Middle East to English-speaking audiences...Underlying Cole’s translations is an implicit message of cultural and historical cross-fertilization that is also evident in his work as a poet and a publisher. His Ibis Editions publishes little-known works translated from Arabic, Hebrew, German, French, and Ladino, enlightening English-speaking audiences to the thriving literary tradition of the Levant."

'O sole mio" Trio Ginoble-Boschetto-Barone

2009-06-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

All good voices, but I am partial to the skinny one with the glasses. American Idol, Italiano. Check out the stunned look of the Italian pre-teen girls, near the end. Ai, amore.

Teaching summer quarter July 27 - August 17

2009-05-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

My summer class at the UW Women's Center will be on Mondays,
July 27 - August 17, from 7-8:30pm, $45.

Register by calling the UW Women's Center at 206.685.1090.

Writing Your Story, Finding Your Voice
Every woman has a story to tell, in her own voice. In this four-week session we will release our stories, silence our inner critics, and have a good time! Come prepared with pen and paper, your imagination, your fears and joys, your secret expectations. We will focus on short pieces of prose and poetry, using lively free-writing exercises. For those new to writing, and those who want to revisit the freedom of the beginner. $45.

travelling

2009-05-29T19:13:00.001-07:00

"The traveller sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he came to see."
-G.K. Chesterton

Alice Munro wins the Man Booker

2009-05-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

Amazing. That's what this is. The best living short story writer in English is actually being recognized. Alice Munro has won the Man Booker Prize. If you haven't read an Alice Munro short story, now is the time. What? You say you don't like short stories, you only read novels? Well, you are in luck, because Munro short stories are like novels, only a bit shorter. Everything is there, the characters, the setting, the plot, the complications. And, like Chekhov stories, the characters live on after the reader finishes.

I suggest starting with "What is Remembered" and then going on to "Nettles." Both are in Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan 1751-1816

2009-05-26T14:15:00.000-07:00

(Sheridan was a noted Anglo-Irish playwright. His most famous plays are The Rivals, and The School for Scandal.)

Two royal dukes, meeting Sheridan in London's Piccadilly, greeted him familiarly.
Said one, "I say, Sherry, we were just discussing whether you are more rogue or fool."
"Why," replied Sheridan, taking each duke by the arm, "I believe I am between both."

from The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, edited by Clifton Fadiman.

Pet Project

2009-05-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

I'm a fan of Pet Project, a swell blog by my pal Sarah. Stop on by! Lots of good advice on cats, dogs, and other critters, as well as product reviews, DIY, and news from the pet frontier.

It Will Come To Me by Emily Fox Gordon

2009-05-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading It Will Come To Me by Emily Fox Gordon, which is an excellent novel, funny, insightful, sharply observed, and a pleasure to read, but such a poor choice of title.

The cover is, if possible, even worse than the title. The cover is a baby floating above some undistinguished red brick buildings. The cover image made sense once I had read the final chapter, but not before. The title is too easily forgotten, and should have been something else, something indicating wit and and academic satire.

Random House calls the novel "A sharply observed comic novel about a writer straining against the role of faculty wife." Hmmmm. Fine, as far as it goes. Every time a book is actually amusing there seems to be something disparaging about that fact, as if only dreary seriousness were to be accorded real respect.

However, I enjoyed the book, found it well-written and well-constructed, with searing conflict and dead-on descriptions. Here's Gordon on a gathering of local writers:
"To catalog the rivalries, grudges, betrayals, lapsed friendships, divorces, feuds, and physical assaults that had severed past connections between the people in the room would require the kind of mind that finds histories of the Balkans comprehensible." And then, amazingly enough, Gordon goes on to provide concrete and hilarious examples.

Awakening by W. Thomas Edwards

2009-05-15T09:37:00.000-07:00

A soul is made to sing, and sing it must.

It must to other things attend, also, but when its shape is done

It sings.

And sometimes when the vessel that it moves knows that it’s there,

The singing breaks the bounds of clay

and can be heard.

What shape its song, it matters not

The reason for the singing is the key to understanding

What it is the soul is singing.

The greatest gift I know is grace

And is not won,

But poured upon us like some ancient Greek libation on the ground

Where some soaks in and some runs off the rocks.

Just when that soaking fills the soul to bursting out

The vessel sings

In joyous praise of grace and Giver.

Three times it sings each song in laud of

God the Three-in One.

Greg Palmer 1947-2009

2009-05-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

My old friend Greg Palmer died on Friday, May 8th. We went to high school together, and later Greg hired me to do radio theatre when he was the Station Manger and Program Manger at KRAB Radio, in the early 1970s. My first day at work he was fired by the board.
"Hi, Greg," I said, coming in the door.
"Bye, Linera," he said, grinned at me, and left. He knew I'd be fine. He was, of course, correct.

Greg was a writer, TV producer, host, presenter, and commentator extraordinaire. I last saw him at the signing of his most recent book, Cheese Deluxe, a memoir of his high school job as a short order cook at the Samoa, a burger joint on Mercer Island in the late 1960s. The signing was at Island Books, and the reading was jammed with old friends from his year and my year and the ones in between and around. I knew he was ill, but still, his death is a loss. Greg was a good person, and the world is poorer for his leaving.

Elinor Lipman's newest book

2009-05-09T09:28:00.000-07:00

Elinor Lipman has a new book out, called The Family Man. I'm eagerly awaiting it. I've loved her other novels, her funny, wry sense of character, her impeccable plots, and the clarity of her voice. And also her actual voice, as I listened to the audio book of The Pursuit of Alice Thrift in the car, and she read her own words.

Here's the link to her readings.
Unfortunately, Seattle is not on the current schedule, but perhaps in the future.

Paul Muldoon reading Monday May 18

2009-05-01T09:13:00.000-07:00

Paul Muldoon, poetry editor of the New Yorker and Princeton professor, is reading at the UW on Monday, May 18 at 8pm, as part of the Roethke Reading series. The reading is free. Mr. Muldoon won the Pulitzer in 2003 for Moy Sand and Gravel.

From the website:

"Paul Muldoon is the Howard G. B. Clark '21 Professor at Princeton University, Chair of the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts, and the Poetry Editor of the The New Yorker. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His major works include New Weather (1973), Why Brownlee Left (1980), Meeting the British (1987), Madoc: A Mystery (1990), Hay (1998), Horse Latitudes (2006), and Moy Sand and Gravel (2002), which was awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize.

In addition, Mr. Muldoon is the recipient of the 1996 American Academy of Arts and Letters award in literature, the 1994 T.S. Eliot Prize, the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize, the 2003 Griffin International Prize for Excellence in Poetry, the 2004 American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the 2004 Shakespeare Prize, the 2005 Aspen Prize for Poetry, and the 2006 European Prize for Poetry."

Bellevue Arts Museum free day Friday, May 1st

2009-04-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

The first Friday of the month is free admission at the Bellevue Arts Museum. I want to see this one: The Book Borrowers, Contemporary Artists Transform the Book.

from the website:
"The Book Borrowers highlights 31 works from locally, nationally and internationally renowned contemporary artists transforming books into sculptural works. Pieces in the exhibition explore the book’s inherent qualities and reflect upon this unique juncture in time."

Keep the Fleece

2009-04-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

Keep the Fleece is: (from the website)

* A celebration in honor of the United Nations International Year of Natural Fibres
* An international effort to raise 250K for the largest fiber flock in the world in partnership with Heifer International
* A community for people of all ages, nationalities and skills dedicated to promoting the importance of natural fibers by creating the world's longest scarf
* A competition for fiber artisans
* A place where anyone can learn more about the valuable and precious world of natural fibers by sharing knowledge, skills, resources and products

for Earth Day, Thomas Merton 1915-1968

2009-04-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

"Think of it, all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody...What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, intelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges...Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen."
-Thomas Merton

Elizabeth Strout has won the Pulitzer for Fiction

2009-04-20T14:03:00.000-07:00

The Pulitzer Prizes have been announced, and the winner for Fiction is Liz Strout, for her recent novel in stories, Olive Kitteridge. I haven't read this one, but I've loved Liz's other books. Jeepers, this means that I can now say, in an offhanded way, of course, that yes, I have a friend who won the Pulitzer. Hats off to Liz! Huzzah! Hurray! A fine writer, and a fine human being.

Chekov online

2009-04-19T17:31:00.000-07:00

201 Stories by Anton Chekov has just that, 201 of the master's stories, right there on this here ol' web. The translations, I hear you ask. These are the Constance Garnett translations. Some like her work, some do not.

The titles may be different from those in other collections. And the order is not chronological. From the website:

"Constance Garnett translated and published 13 volumes of Chekhov stories in the years 1916-1922. Unfortunately, the order of the stories is almost random, and in the last volume Mrs. Garnett stated: "I regret that it is impossible to obtain the necessary information for a chronological list of all Tchehov's works." This site presents all 201 stories in the order of their publication in Russia."

My favorite Chekhov stories are
"Lady with the Dog" (#197)
"The Bishop" (#200)
"The Schoolmistress" (188)
and "The Black Monk" (#170.)
Which are yours?

Middlemarch by George Eliot

2009-04-15T10:51:00.000-07:00

I first read Middlemarch when I was a teenager. I thought it was a series of romances, tied together with scenes of country life. I next read Middlemarch as a thirtysomething, and thought it was romances in community. Now nearing sixty, I see Middlemarch as well, funny. Still romances, the happy and unhappy outcomes of good and bad choices, still communities, but now, I am more atuned to George Eliot's fine, wry sense of proportion. So in case you were dismissing her as Victorian, fusty, and irrelevant, pray take another look, oh reader.

I read the introduction by Margaret Drabble in one edition, and found it mildly interesting, but the intro by her sister A.S. Byatt in the Modern Library edition is spot on:

"George Eliot did indeed coin the word "meliorism" to describe a belief in gradual progress - the word is attributed to her in the OED. But she had a strong - stronger - sense of black comedy, black tragedy than she is now generally credited with, and a saving savagery in her vision of man's normal and natural inhumanity to man."

Pardon Me (I Didn't Knit That For You)

2009-04-14T17:54:00.000-07:00

Truly delicious, especially the solo by the blonde on the left, and her mention of Elizabeth Zimmerman. Ah, sometimes life is so darn good. Just remember, the higher the hair, the closer to God.

Free readings of Pinter at ACT

2009-04-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

Pinter at ACT for free.

The next reading is Monday, May 4, 7pm, two one-act plays:
One for the Road and Ashes to Ashes, read by Burton Curtis and Mark Chamberlin.

(Upcoming readings on May 18, June 1, and June 15 will be announced soon.)

The FB Aeneid

2009-04-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

From Gawker comes the ultimate parody, The Facebook Aeneid.

It starts with:
"Virgil is singing arms and a man.
What are you doing at the moment?"

A tip of the rainhat to Deb for this.

Humane Society

2009-04-07T13:45:00.000-07:00

I've signed up to become a volunteer at the Humane Society. I managed to go, meet the available dogs, and not come home with six. I don't know who my next dog will be, but for now, volunteering feels like the right way to go. Such nice humans there. And Jack, the red Pomeranian who rules the staff, ah, what a sweet fellow.

Patrick Marnham

2009-04-04T10:56:00.001-07:00

Finally, a really good literary biography, with enough photos, and enough juice. Wild Mary: A Life of Mary Wesley (2007) is thorough, lively, and surprising. Marnham knows Wesley's novels well enough to point out biographical details and how Wesley used her own life as material, and how she changed the details.

Mary Wesley's life was a roller coaster, with two marriages, three children with different fathers, and publishing success when she was seventy. Huge publishing success. At seventy. A life of literature, sex, intrigue, and wartime danger. And she made good use of her life; she made it into good literature.

Peter Donnelly 1939-2009

2009-04-01T08:42:00.000-07:00

Peter Donnelly died on Saturday, March 28th. Back in the 1970s, Peter was my mentor. He was then the Producing Director of the Seattle Repertory Theatre, and I was the Associate Artistic Director of The Conservatory Theatre company. The Seattle Rep was the big daddy and my theatre was the new, mewling child in the hectic Seattle theatre scene. Peter was always there to take a phone call from me, to give me the very best, hard, tough advice. I wish now that I had made the time to see him, but I didn't even know he was ill. I remember his laugh, and his keen intelligence, and his shrewd knowledge of human behaviour.

from the Seattle Times obituary:

"A celebration of Mr. Donnelly's life will be at 6 p.m. April 20 at Seattle Repertory Theatre's Bagley Wright Theatre, 155 Mercer St.Mr. Donnelly is survived by his partner, David Farrar, of Seattle; and his sisters Donna Down, of Winchester, Mass., and Patricia Fabucci, of Lynn, Mass."

NaPoWriMo

2009-03-30T17:24:00.000-07:00

If you were thinking bout doing NaPoWriMo, and were looking for a venue, my pal Deb has one at Read Write Poem. Check it out, nice site.

NaPoWriMo is for April, National Poetry Month. Kind of like NaNoWriMo, write a novel in the month of November. In NaPoWriMo, you write a poem every day for the month of April. I did it a few years ago, and it was a great way to generate a heap of rough work. Much of it dreck, but a few things worth revising.

Grief

2009-03-28T07:39:00.000-07:00

"To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion."
-George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Toby +++++ December 30, 2001 - March 25, 2009

2009-03-26T09:58:00.001-07:00

Writing Your Story, Finding Your Voice

2009-03-18T13:15:00.000-07:00

My class at the UW Women's Center will now be on Mondays,
April 20-May 11, from 7-8:30pm, $45.

Register by calling the UW Women's Center at 206.685.1090.

Writing Your Story, Finding Your Voice
Every woman has a story to tell, in her own voice. In this four-week session we will release our stories, silence our inner critics, and have a good time! Come prepared with pen and paper, your imagination, your fears and joys, your secret expectations. We will focus on short pieces of prose and poetry, using lively free-writing exercises. For those new to writing, and those who want to revisit the freedom of the beginner. $45.

Horton Foote, 1916-2009

2009-03-15T18:38:00.000-07:00

I just saw the movie "Tomorrow," made from the Faulkner short story. Amazing movie. Cinematography was like watching Walker Evans, or Margaret Bourke-White in motion. And the ever pleasing Robert Duvall in the lead. Horton Foote wrote the screenplay, which goes part way to explaining how it came to be so good.

"I believe very deeply in the human spirit, and I have a sense of awe about it. I look around and ask, What makes the difference? What is it? I've known people the world has thrown everything at-to discourage them, to kill them, to break their spirit. And yet something about them retains a dignity. They face life and they don't ask quarters." -Horton Foote

Mae West 1893-1980

2009-03-13T17:18:00.000-07:00

"Goodness, Mae," said a friend, on greeting her, "where did you get those beautiful pearls?"

"Never mind," said Mae West, "but you can take it from me that goodness had nothing to do with it."

from The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, edited by Clifton Fadiman.

Somewhere Towards the End

2009-03-10T14:16:00.001-07:00

I just finished reading Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoir written by Diana Athill when she was 89. It is just what it says, a memoir about being at the end of life, written by someone who has had a lively and vigorous life, full of joy and strangeness. Athill was for many years an editor at Andre Deutsch, a fine publishing firm in London. Her earlier memoir, written when she was a mere 82, is called Stet, and it is on my list to read as well.

This is not one of those hearty, backslapping memoirs about hale nonagenarians who are still bounding over peaks and tiring out youngsters. Nope. This is much more real, but neither is it a recounting of hospital visits and gruesome operations. Athill has pretty good health, but hey, she is old, and deserves her rest. She has lived, and she has payed attention, and her thoughts are well-written, and worth reading.