Email Follies

Here’s the thing about emails: very very safe, but no body language or voice tone and no follow up questions. I’ve embraced it all, of course, and the other technological computer stuff I’m surrounded by, but there are losses. You are reminded when you read older novels and other narratives of daily life.

I'm reading Mary Lee Settle's memoir of her years during the Second World War in England in the WAAF as a 21 or 22 year old. Not the best written of her work-- fascinating but repetitive and depends on swoops of rhetoric and generalizations like "one of that type of English lady who..."

Smoking and partying, conversation as entertainment. More boredom, at least among the upper classes, ennui among the lower in their repetitive tasks.

Today, we’re in a buzz cloud haze of messages and images. Sometimes I think it’s the technology depressing me. Sometimes I think it’s just weariness or a night of bad sleep, or maybe it's old age opening up in front like the mouth of a cave, sloping down, and surprisingly bright, but bright that loses some details.

Here's an interesting corporate take on the etiquette of email.

Microsoft? Really the Devil? Or Just His Spawn?

I couldn't get online last night and, to make a two and a half hour story short, I found out from Verizon (our DSL provider) that Microsoft had sent out a recent automatic security update that was "interfering with some customers' ability to get online." There were calls to Microsoft, there was disabling Zone Alarm, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but they did tell me, finally, how to uninstall the security update. I'm beginning to agree with nephew Greg about how Microsoft really is the devil...

Meanwhile, Joel is about to make the next big change in his life: he's finishing up a year as a software engineer, coming to see us, visiting Israel, starting graduate school. See below for where. The view is of San Francisco from their window in the apartment they'll be leaving soon.

June 30, 2008

Well, I just finished a decent draft of a short story called “The Roy Critchfield Scandals.” As usual, the hardest but most necessary part, especially in a short story, is to cut. HOWEVER! I have now officially found a great use for journals and blogs! I'm going to put my best outtake here!I took out one of my favorite passages in the story for slowing down the pace-- it'sll all philosophy and travel memories. So here’s the passage, which is in the voice of a woman named Ann Harding, who mentions both her late beloved husband John and her present boyfriend, Abe, who takes her to Europe:

One of the things John Harding taught me is that growing up means learning to live with many truths and many falsehoods in the same person, including yourself. So I try not to complain about some of the nonsense people believe at the First Baptist of Kingfield because there’s so much I value there: the words of the King James translation of the Bible, a fine peroration at the end of a solidly argued sermon. Old fashioned hymns that put you in the spirit whether you take it literally or not. I love the whole thing, although to be perfectly candid I consider it as much of an artifact as great painting or a bridge or the Parthenon in Greece which I hope to visit someday.

Or the Pantheon in Rome, which I have visited. Abe and I stayed in a hotel on our last trip overlooking that domed church that was originally a temple to the Roman gods, and is still called “All Gods” even though it’s a Catholic church! This amuses me no end, how people can keep the sense of the sacred but change what the thing is sacred to.

Mostly, though, that Pantheon was simply the most beautiful human-made building I’d seen up to that point in my life. The window in our hotel bathroom opened directly overlooking the dome, and in the evening, I pressed my face out at its huge dark curvature, nothing between it and my face but air. Voices and car horns came up from the piazza and someone’s apartment was nestled in next to the dome on the other side, and pigeons flapped rose up into the immensely dark blue sky.

Abe said "Let’s go eat, Annie," and I said, "Not yet. "

Books for Readers #110

June 29, 2008

I’ve been reading less since my son was born twenty three years ago. In my hurry to waste no time and get just the books I want, I confess I have been using the Internet more and more to buy books. I also go back to books I already own like my Oxford complete Jane Austen or my set of Trollope’s Barchester novels, or Dickens or Eliot. But books accumulate alarmingly, and not always books I love. So I’m trying out a brand new service, a paid lending library. Or, to make it sound more 21st century, it’s like Netflix for Books. There are a couple of these services available, but I chose Paperspine because– okay, I’ll be honest– they had some of books available to borrow. The way it works is you pay $14.95 a month and keep a list of books you want to borrow-- a queue. You borrow as often as you want, one or two books at a time. Return postage is included in the fee. So far, the only thing I don’t like is not being able to dog ear corners of pages. Here’s some of what I’ve been reading from Paperspine.

Nahid Rachlin’s memoir of childhood and young womanhood, PERSIAN GIRLS, was wonderful and sad, probably more satisfying in the first two thirds, but gripping all the way through. It’s about Iran, of course, but also about the lives of all of us who left home and went far away. The heart of the memoir is the relationships among women, first the richness of the life of the hijab’d women in Rachlin’s very religious aunt’s house and then the passion between two sisters. It is also about the pain of daily life in an overtly patriarchal society. It’s hard to say sometimes, however, if the pain comes from family dynamics or from the stresses of living under totalitarian regimes.

Another very strong book I read is the extremely popular Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD. This is one book I envy him having written. I had been led to believe it was totally bleak, but maybe the reviewers haven’t read much post apocalyptic literature, of which it is in some ways typical of the genre. It doesn’t bother much with explanations of why things are as they are, and instead of a heroic loner Mad Max character, it’s about a man and a boy. It is also an old man’s book, by which I mean to compliment it: its hopefulness is not the biological optimism of a young animal but a measured, experienced hopefulness of long living and accumulated wisdom. It’s a book with beautiful spare writing, with nuclear winter or at least nuclear Autumn, with infants roasted on spits, with a theory that having beautiful dreams means you are giving up, that there is no god, that god is dead, that god is possibly present in human goodness. There are plenty of horrors, and lovely passages of dialogue between father and son: Are you okay? I’m okay. Are you talking? I’m talking. Are you sure. Yes. Do you want to tell me your dream? I’m scared. It’s okay. Are we going to die? Of course, but not necessarily now. The possibly hopeful ending is believable because every ending is in fact to die or to live a little longer.

I also borrowed a much-recommended memoir– I mean, everyone seems to love THE GLASS CASTLE by Jeannette Walls, and it is a real life page turner: it’s about a family in which the kids essentially raise themselves. I liked less Augusten Burroughs’ RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, another highly popular memoir of spectacularly bad parenting– but Burroughs seems a little more interested in cleverness than in the people– but you can’t stop reading this one either.

Thulani Davis’s MY CONFEDERATE KINFOLK: A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY FREEDWOMAN DISCOVERS HER ROOTS is also nonfiction, but a very different reading experience. Davis makes something that is entertaining in the highest sense by taking her own genealogical studies and deeply serious topics (slavery, race in America) and turning them into a wonderful and painful story. It is set during the Civil War in the region of the South near the Mississippi River, and in the period of Reconstruction and the so-called Redemption that followed when the ugliness of Jim Crow and lynching and all the rest were experimented with and then institutionalized. You always knew, of course, that a lot of people were murdered in white supremacist terrorism, but you didn’t necessarily know how systematically the attacks were made on educated black men and women who had leadership potential– the ones who were taking on offices and legislative roles during that brief ten years when black people had the vote. The outstanding figure in this book is Davis’ great-grandmother Chloe Tarrant Curry, whose relationship with Will Campbell, a white planter, is fascinating, especially concerning “Chloe’s white child” (Davis’ grandmother) Georgia Campbell. When Will Campbell dies, he leaves everything he has to Chloe Curry who manages the farm, educates her children, and leaves money and property to them. She figures out how to make the system work so that she founds her own matriarchal dynasty of educated black people (not just the white man’s daughter, either, but her other children as well). There are other resourceful women in the book as well, like Will Campbell’s white mother, who apparently spent the Civil War in a wagon, following the troops and helping her soldier sons.

Finally– NOT from Paperspine– THE CROSSROADS by Chris Grabenstein is a fun, fast-moving young adult ghost story. The story has a lot of ghosts, all entertainingly human, and it has a touching ending when the main character’s ghost friend fades back into being dead.

-- Meredith Sue Willis

MORE NINETEEN SIXTIES MATERIALS

I was a participant in the student sit-ins at Columbia University in 1968, but never really understood what the experience of the Black students there was like until this spring, especially thanks to an excellent and moving DVD called !VALA! by Sherry Suttles. You can get a copy from her at
Sherry A. Suttles
250 Layne Blvd. #201
Hallandale Beach, FL 33009
sas59@yahoo.com
954-457-2047

Susan Kahn recommends Carl Oglesby’s RAVENS IN THE STORM . She says, “Oglesby takes the reader through a very personal ride through the late sixties. He became President of SDS in 1965, visited campuses across the country, then Hanoi and finally Cuba. His time in SDS came to an end with the split over Weatherman politics. It is a very well written book which gives the reader a real sense of spirit of protest and the political tensions within the movement.”

Katherine Brewster recommends Mary Gordon’s novel PEARL.

Also, see the list in Newsletter # 109

PHYLLIS MOORE HAS BEEN READING....

“SWEETNESS IN THE BELLY by Camilla Gibbs and ALL SOULS' RISING by Madison Smartt Bell... two very visual/anthropological novels I've read more than once. I found myself immersed in the cultures described and learned a lot in the process. Since a recent trip to Louisiana, I've developed an interest in both Cajun culture and that region. As a result, Gerald Swick recommended I read the ‘cop novel’ CADILLAC JUKEBOX by Louisiana's James Lee Burke. It certainly reveals the culture and world of the bayou. To my way of thinking, Cajun folks are the most like mountaineers. LEARNING TO FLY, the final memoir of Mary Lee Settle, is well worth reading. She pulls few punches in describing her personal struggles as well as her evolution as a writer.”

SHELLEY ETTINGER SAYS DROP EVERYTHING AND READ ANN PANCAKE!

“...I mentioned the book I'd just started, and now I've finished it and must urge you to please abandon everything else in your life and read it immediately. STRANGE AS THIS WEATHER HAS BEEN by Ann Pancake. It's about a West Virginia family and how it's affected by the coal industry's latest atrocity, mountaintop removal. Politically it's very interesting but even aside from that, the writing is astounding. Breathtakingly original language. Just amazing writing. Also, the core of it is the main characters' relationship to the land, something no book I've ever before read has conveyed so powerfully.”

MARION CUBA ON THE ART OF SELF-PUBLISHING

Marion Cuba offers us the following detailed detailed discussion of her experience. Take a look at her website. The book is about people who escaped Hitler and went to Shanghai. See Shanghai Legacy.

After doing research on self-publishing companies—almost going with one that clearly wasn’t going to give my book the time required—I read a book rating the various POD (print-on-demand) publishers. Booklocker.com was the one most highly recommended on value, quality, an advantageous contract, and its own website (considered an asset). I went with Booklocker.com and had—and continue to have—an excellent experience.

One thing that is different from other pod publishers is that Booklocker.com rejects about 90% of the writers who apply. They wish to take authors who fill certain requirements. Why? Because they wish to have writers who will sell a good amount of books. Other pod’s take anyone, thus making their money with no investment in how many books an author will sell.

To be accepted at Booklocker, a writer DOES have to pledge to do a lot of work. And, it IS a lot of work.

First of all, your manuscript has to pass muster. You must also indicate your plans to market the book; Booklocker doesn’t try to “upsell” you on their own marketing services as other pod’s do.

You never communicate with them by phone! Everything is done via e-mail—including payment, corrections, orders, questions. Even, using their template, the manuscript. I for one had to learn all of this—broke my head over it, actually—but I got the product I wanted.

They would have provided an individual cover at a price, or a template cover (oft-used) for a bit less. I happened to have located an art director whose work I admired and got him to do the cover. I therefore paid less to Booklocker.

My book was completely professional looking. And, unlike the other pod publishers, I did not have to use Booklocker’s name, thus identifying me at once as a self-publisher. I was free to use a name I chose.
I was able to obtain many reviews, book readings, blurbs, and pr for my novel, SHANGHAI LEGACY. I do believe this was due to my hard work of marketing, outreach, and my subsequent website, http://www.shanghailegacy.com. But I am sure the production quality of the book and of Booklocker’s constant advice, support, and suggestions was a huge part of my success.

ONLINE READING

THE ADIRONDACK REVIEW Summer Issue is now online at http://adirondackreview.homestead.com/. The Summer Issue features great fiction, poetry, and book reviews. Furthermore, it showcases the winner and finalists of the 2007 Photography Prize. THE ADIRONDACK REVIEWis also pleased to announce that the 46er Prize for Poetry is now open to submissions. For more information, please see the website.

ON THE AIR

More Cat Pleska! Listen here: Cat Pleska. Cat also writes to say she is in the process of creating a CD called THE LAST STORYTELLER of 8 of her radio essays for sale this summer. She reports that a workshop in Erie, PA is using mp3 files of them for inspiration and as examples of writing for radio.

GOOD NEWS

Bill Zavatsky has won a Guggenheim fellowship this year to write his poetry.

Kathy Seal’s new book is out: PRESSURED PARENTS, STRESSED OUT KIDS. See http://www.kathyseal.net/.

Cervena Barva Press is pleased to announce the publication of A CURE FOR SUICIDE by Larissa Shmailo. Shmailo writes (as the founder of Fulcrum Magazine Philip Nikolayev points out in his introduction) as if she is …” constitutionally predestined to sing out her lines…her eyes filled with life and love, pain and death, freedom and coercion, the real of the mind and the imagined of the heart.” Order online at http://www.thelostbookshelf.com/cervenabooks.html

Anne Whitehouse has a new poem “The Refrain” in AMARILLO BAY, vol. 10, no. 2, May 2008. See http://www.amarillobay.org/contents/whitehouse-anne/refrain.htm
Anne’s web page is www.annewhitehouse.com.

Ed Lynskey’s third P.I. Frank Johnson mystery, PELHAM FELL HERE, is due out immediately from Mundania Press (http://www.mundania.com/books-pelhamfellhere.html). Set in West Virginia/Virginia, it has been called "a delight" by James Crumley, and has received positive reviews in the LANSING STATE JOURNAL and MIDWEST.

Listen to an interview with Suzanne McConnell about being a student of Kurt Vonnegut at the Iowa Workshops that includes a snippet of Vonnegut himself reading from his work: Vonnegut

Chris Grabenstein’s YA book described above has a great web site: http://www.chrisgrabenstein.com/ya/crossroads.php

WORKSHOPS. READINGS, BOOK PARTIES

Launch party for Chris Grabenstein’s adult mystery HELL HOLE (Ceepak Mystery #4) at Captain Dave's Firehouse: Tuesday, July 22, 7 PM, The quarters of FDNY Engine 23, 215 West 58th Street. All proceeds will go to charity! See his website at http://www.ChrisGrabenstein.com

SUBMIT

The Appalachian Writers Anthology is encouraging submissions of original works of poetry and fiction (up to 2500 words). The submission deadline is September 1, 2008. For information about the anthology and submission guidelines, please see http://www.shepherd.edu/ahwirweb/anthology/.

RATTLE seeks submissions by August 1. Next winter's issue, #30, will feature the work of cowboy/western poets. If you happen to be a rancher/cowboy/western poet, send your unpublished poems and essays by August 1st. They are always open to regular submissions—about 75% of the poems in every issue are open to any style, genre, or poet. Visit http://www.rattle.com/submissions.htm for guidelines.

CITY LORE has launched City of Memory, a grand repository for New York City's stories told in audio, video, images and text. They are seeking stories or poems that are associated with a particular NYC place, and photographs. Navigate to http://www.cityofmemory.org, click ADD STORY to have your story included on the map. Every story needs an address – although the address can also be an intersection. If you have video or audio, you would like to include, let us know and we will upload it for you. Let us know, too, if you encounter any problems entering your story.

I LOVE TO WRITE DAY

Here’s something different: Take a look at http://www.ilovetowriteday.org/

READINGS IN NYC AREA

Saturn Series Poetry Reading @ Nightingale Lounge
213 2nd Avenue, 7:30 pm, $3, $6 minimum at the bar

7/7 - Roslyn Rabin
7/14- Elise Buchman
7/21 - Theda Detlor
7/28 - Larissa Shmailo

HANGING LOOSE PRESS 2008-2009 CATALOG

One of our finest and oldest small presses has a new catalog out–books by Tony Towle, Marie Carter, and Sharon Mesmer and Michael Cirelli and more– see their webpage at http://www.hangingloosepress.com/ and, for readings and other upcoming events, see their blog at http://www.hangingloose.blogspot.com/ for information about readings and other upcoming events.

DUSTBOOKS

One of the oldest and best sources of books on getting writing and directories of small presses and little magazines is Dustbooks, at http://www.dustbooks.com

ABOUT AMAZON.COM

I’ve been reporting for some time in this spot that Ingrid Hughes writes: “My union newspaper says, ‘Forget Amazon.com, which has engaged in union busting on two continents. Try Powell's Books (http://www.powells.com)- the largest unionized bookstore in America....An alternative way to reach their site is from http://www.powellsunion.com; prices are the same but 10% of your purchase will go directly to the [Powell’s bookstore] union's benefit fund.’” For the complete discussion, see the comments of Jonathan Greene and others in Issues #98 and #97 .

Now Amazon is causing a new stink in the publishing world! They are demanding that certain publishing options be replaced by their exclusive Print on Demand Company Book Surge. Take a look here to read more: writers weekly

WHERE TO FIND BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS NEWSLETTER

If a book discussed in this newsletter has no source mentioned, don’t forget your public library and your local independent bookstore. To buy books online, I often go first to Bookfinder or Alibris. A lot of people I know prefer to use the unionized bricks-and-mortar bookstore Powells that also sells online at http://powellsbooks.com. Good sources for used and out-of-print books are Advanced Book Exchange at http://www.abebooks.com and All Book Stores at http://www.allbookstores.com/ . Both Bookfinder and All Book Stores both have a special feature that tells you the book price WITH shipping and handling, so you can compare what you’re really going to have to pay.

RESPONSES TO THIS NEWSLETTER

Please send responses and suggestions directly to Meredith Sue Willis at MeredithSueWillis@gmail.com. Unless you instruct otherwise, your responses may be edited for length and published in this newsletter.

BOOKS FOR READERS is a free, independent newsletter written and produced by Meredith
Sue Willis. To subscribe, send a blank email to Readerbooks-subscribe@topica.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Readerbooks-unsubscribe@topica.com. Copyright 2008, Meredith Sue Willis

Back from West Virginia..Again

I’m just back from a few days in West Virginia– had an excellent one day workshop with the Morgantown branch of the West Virginia Writers, George Lies and Mary Lucille DeBerry and others organized a just-right sized workshop with Robert Tinnell the screen writer and Robert W. Walker the novelist (both of whom live in WV now) and me and more. There were workshops, some critiquing, a panel, socializing– around 40 participants with that wonderful West Virginia mix of high school, college, retired and everything in between. I got to visit a little with Norman Julian and met lots of new people, all interesting– it took place at the Monongalia Arts Center.

The rest of the time I spent with Mom, who is rushing around getting ready to leave for a few weeks– she is going to Ohio with my cousin Harley, then she’ll fly to us to see Joel when he is in, then either I’ll take her home or she’ll go back to Harley’s. Not clear yet.

I’ll probably end up taking her, as, in spite of the grueling drive, I so enjoy just being in West Virginia with the blue haze on the intense green of the nearby hills with their choppy tree-topped summits– I can never describe those northern West Virginia hills: they are shorter than farther south, not so steep, still have some open fields. They always feel very close by, and the silhouette when the light is behind them is of a badly cut little boy’s hair: irregular and endearing.

Inconvenient Global Warming

June 12

I finally read a Christmas gift from Joel, I think-- Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. It was very short, like an article in the New York Review of Books but with nicer pictures) I had avoided and dreaded this, but it is actually such a pretty book, and I think a lot of what I read is going to make more sense to me now– the temperature of water, the relative fragility of the arctic ice, how the drowning of coastal cities is maybe less crucial than weather patterns (and this month we've had a lot of severe weather). Why didn’t Gore get elected president? There would be no war in Iraq, we would have signed on to the Kyoto treaty, there would be two more reasonable people on the Supremes. Some of his sidebars were a bit much about his family, but he two interesting analogies: his sister dying of lung cancer apparently in her late forties or early fifties and the misinformation from the tobacco companies, and the relative success of the ozone layer crisis: governments CAN work together etc. etc.

Hot and Busy

We are in the middle of a major heat wave– the Accuweather report on the Internet has an alarming red thermometer with cartoon heat wiggles, and here in Essex County, NJ we had a power outage yesterday for six hours, 75,000 customers, and meanwhile ’m reading An Inconvenient Truth which I’m glad I’m doing as I had been dreading it, and it’s actually pretty simplified and straight forward and the pictures are too pretty to be really depressing.

I hope I don’t get caught in a blackout in NYC today, final writers’ group at Edith’s.

I had hoped for really intense work this week, too, my first week with days having NO teaching or meetings (Not many, but a couple). I’ve been trying to catch up, actually vacuuming the bedroom around the just-installed air-conditioner when the power faded, then went out. I took it as a message from the Powers That Be that I wasn’t meant to run a vacuum...

Last week I had a visit to a school in Jersey City, my regular Advanced Novel Workshop, Social Action Committee, Schools Committee, the North Wildwood Beach Writers Conference, AND my Jump Start Your Novel One-shot on Saturday. Plus Sunday was Ethical and the Sciaino family graduation party for Ryan and Anne. I hasten to add that there was nothing here I don't get pleasure and satisfaction from doing, but it was a lot, and I'll be going to West Virginia for a couple of days next week.

Lots of Images!

Lake Buel Trees

May 27. 2008

We've been at the lake for the long week-end, mostly bright and cool, and everyone spent time lying on the beach all bundled up and I shot up at the sky and got some trees. David took photos I liked of me and Andy: You can see we're bundled up but happy. Paula Hatch gave us tickets on Saturday night to see the Shakespeare & Company farce Ladies' Man, and on Sunday night we were part of the millions who went to see the next Indiana Jones. Sometimes it's good to be part of the crowd? I worked hard on the manuscript I've been finishing up, and not I'm looking at some busy weeks--when did June get so busy?

Illustrations by Rachel Burgess-- see more at her website.

5-21-08

You find so many nice things on the web-- Rachel Burgess is a young artist with a beautiful nuevo-Victorian style, at least in her books illustrations. Take a look at her website!

Back from WV

Back from the long drive home from West Virgina. My mom is doing well-- took her cast off and is walking around smartly, taking dog biscuits to her canine friends, etc. etc. We visited with Edith and Margie, made trips to Wal-Mart, ate out, and hiked around East Shinnston. Such green, everywhere, Sideling hill, Shinnston, and then back driving down Prospect Street.

Tomorrow is my talk on 1968 at Ethical Culture, and I'm nervous about it-- had trouble focusing on it while I was down there. Well, after this, I've a pretty low key, for me, span coming up. Looking forward to a good sleep, then get up and complete this-- a way to share, to put us all in a kind of perspective.

Saturday with Art and Horses

More gray-rainy (grainy?) days, but it is also getting densely green. Green beginning to close in overhead as the leaves come out, green underfoot in the yards, already ahead of us grass cutters.

This has been a wide ranging day. Andy and I went up to Montclair to the art show to see the pottery work by young Ethical Culture member Christopher Geissler, and ran into an artist whose work we have on the wall downstairs, Linda Adato -- the sweet "umber" colored "Morning Mail" with a radiator and a chair. Her new work is in color, and reminds me, when she does cityscapes, of Ella Yang , but Adato's are smaller, not oils, some she does now are monoprints, but also etchings. So that was nice, and Chris got interviewed for TV, and Andy bought a cup and a small pitcher. We ate, also in Montclair, at an interesting Turkish restaurant, Lalezar that I enjoyed a lot, drove up to Eagle Rock reservation, looked at the 9/11 memorial with its rather awkward old fashioned art, but a great view-- of fog mostly, today. Then to Garden of Eden, Andy's first visit, and he liked the cheese. And home, and we watched the Kentucky Derby and the Place horse, the only filly in the race, ran her heart out and broke her two front ankles and had to be destroyed. That was a really sad moment--you get excited for an hour because it's the Derby, and then there's this.

Sometimes your feelings are displaced-- or is it that you are caught by the surprise of the one poor horse dying for doing what it was bred and trained to do? The animal is easier to feel than the 3000 names in polished granite. 3000 families' pain is much, much too much?

Someone on the radio earlier this week, was it WBAI's Armand Dimele's show? Anyhow, yes, I think it was, trying to distinguish between Buddhist style compassion where you feel for another's suffering and the kind of empathy where people feel someone else's pain to the point that the empathizer's suffering becomes the real point. That was so interesting to me--when we are young, we often suffer horribly over the terrible things in the world we are just learning about-- we literally ache with the other. But when you are suffering physically, or, say, mourning, it isn't necessarily someone who is groaning in concert with you that you want, is it? The program is here.

Boy, this blog entry sure has a lot of links-- I spend my time now combining writing and looking things up on the web, and then linking to them-- the new world.

Community Forum on Language, Stereotypes, & Communication

The Community Coalition on Race had a terrific forum last night on Language, Stereotypes, & Communication, and Carolyn Hunt did a really super job of directing the actors she and Alysia Souder assembled. The table discussions were apparently quite deep– several people said they’d never have gone so far so fast without the improvisations. I was personally deeply moved by the actors: Luis Marmolejo, Horace Jackson, Naja Selby, and Kate McAteer--- their human energy and skill. It occurred to me that, among other things, they gave the lie to another set of stereotypes-- about actors being narcissistic, can’t talk without someone writing their lines, etc. etc. They opened up so wonderfully to each other and to us, and added all sorts of good stuff to the material we gave them. I especially loved the Evil Word fluid sculpture– wished for it to go on and on–brilliant idea to do several of them as positive/negative (the girl who seems to love being a ‘ho, the woman offended; the kid calling out to his friend “Yo, Nigga!” etc.) My only regret is that the town officials did not come out in force (some of them were there but I wish the others had come too). Another amazing thing: the whole evening was right on schedule, which almost never happens, James VanOosting and Sandye Wilson brief and strong, a full half hour of table discussions, and at the end, I think people felt energized rather than exhausted.

At Columbia University

April 26

It was a very pure delight to be on campus yesterday sunny, cool. It made me at least partly want to be part of now, not to keep gasping over the old black and white photos of Ted Gold and J.J. and Rudd and all the rest. There were pink balloons all over campus, some kind of festival with food and games, people with little kids, all the lovely students tossing frisbees, showing their bodies off, playing baseball in the field with the red flag (which means you’re supposed to stay off the grass) Our graying group not the main event at all, and frankly, that is a good thing.

At the sundial, people reading off the deaths of all 90,000 victims so far of the Iraq war. They hit a gong for each death. This was all day, you’d come out to go to the next venue, and there were the pink balloons and the green lawns with frisbee players and some black and white antiwar banners waving in the breeze, people eating and strolling and the pink and granite buildings– and then the brass gong and softly amplified voices giving a date, “four American soldiers, one four year old Iraqi, in Fallujah...” And then five solemn gongs.

At the law school, across the plaza, that huge chunk of steel in front of Law– twisted horses and hammers--a whole plaza roofing over Amsterdam Avenue that didn't used to be there-- reminder of how the university dominates up there. There was a rather elegantly dressed black woman from a tenants’ organization from Harlem who was heckling Lee Bollinger at the Law panel. She shut up when she was promised to be the first speaker in the Q&A– and of course Bollinger didn’t stay to listen.

April 25, 2008

It’s late, and I’m back from Day 1 at the ‘68 - ‘08 events. The first panel I attended, the feminist one (Catherine Stimpson, Sharon Olds, Ti-Grace Atkinson, Grace Linda LeClair and more) and the law panel (Gus Reichenbach, Lee Bollinger, Ray Brown, Sam ??) were extremely interesting.

Speakers that were especially gripping to me included Grace Linda LeClair the “sex girl” of Barnard who got expelled for living with her boyfriend-- who did not, of course, get expelled from Columbia. She made front page news– and spoke about learning how that icon, “Linda LeClair the sex girl” was so unlike herself-- now a pleasant faced smiling woman with good speaking skills, a sense of humor, grown children, a career (I’m not sure what, but she has run capital campaigns, she says). Sharon Olds appears to be very nice, too– I think I’m looking forward to reading with her tonight.

At the law panel: Gus Reichbach I could have listened to a lot longer, telling about his struggle to stay in Law School, to get accepted by the bar. How nice that we have one of us as a Justice of the New York Supreme Court! Also Ray Brown, very handsome and beautifully dressed, talked about the fact that his cohort was the first (at Columbia College, anyhow) to have a reasonable number of black students– total of 70 or 75 not counting Barnard.

At the black studies panel Thulani Davis told a wonderful story about her father, which I wish Andy's father Howard Weinberger had been alive to her. The story is that her father, a light-skinned man, was studying for a Ph.D. at Columbia in the 1920's, I think. The professors, he said, seemed to be avoiding him, and he assumed it was old fashioned racism, but then one professor called him in to his office and said, “Davis, exactly what are you?”

To which Mr. Davis replied, “Why, I’m a Negro.”

And the professor said, “Well thank God! We thought you were a Jew!”

Andy’s dad always said how Columbia was incredibly anti-Semitic– and I never got it, because it seemed that everyone I knew there (my roommates, the SDS people) was Jewish.

There was, however, a little more to her story: Later, when her Dad was working on his thesis, he was told he should start over with a new subject (was this engineering? Chemistry? Not sure) because there was some German doing the same research, and they couldn’t have a Negro beating out or shaking the glory. So her Dad left Columbia, and we can all relax-- they were racist too.

Friends and Magnolias

April 13

We had dinner last night with Tony and Mary, such fun to be with them after so much time passed. We discussed aged parents and youthful offspring. Tony is going back to work as a principal after retiring! Ryan and Anne about to graduated respectively from Northeastern and Rutgers. I still miss having them across the street, that terrible storm of a summer when Joel left for college, they moved, and Charley Brown kicked the bucket while being boarded at the Maplewood pet store. That came up during our conversation, and I almost cried. Mary said, “Imagine how you’d feel about a dog!”

Magnolia Haiku

Magnolia blossoms
Sweet and potent hanging there–
Defiance of gray.

Grass suddenly green:
Magnolia time has arrived:
Pink backyard geysers.

Books for Readers # 107

ONLINE CLASS COMING UP IN JULY

I'm offering a four-session online creative writing class called Summer Stories during the month of July 2008 for writers of memoir and personal essay as well as short story and novel. The class is appropriate for beginning writers but will give ample stimulation to advanced writers who want to move forward with their projects. Students who have taken this class in the past will find new exercises included and, of course, new responses to new work. There will be exercises and individual feedback on up to 1000 words per week. Sessions will be posted online and emailed on July 7, 14, 21, and 28, 2008, with homework due a week later. The class will close as soon as it is full. For more information, see http://www.meredithsuewillis.com/summerstories2008.html

I’VE BEEN READING...

....just a little more Maria Edgeworth! (Is this an addiction?) Last issue I wrote about CASTLE RACKRENT. Next I read THE ABSENTEE. Many people think this first of Edgeworth’s novels was her best, and I would agree that her novels of manners are more uneven, but she’s worth reading even when she’s sloppy. After reading THE ABSENTEE, I did an edit of the Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) article about it as follows: “ Just before coming of age, Lord Colambre, the sensitive hero of the novel, finds that his mother Lady Clonbrony's attempts to buy her way into the high society of London are only ridiculed, while his father is in serious debt as a result of his wife's lifestyle. Colambre falls in love with his mother's companion, his supposed cousin, Grace Nugent. Colambre travels incognito to Ireland to see the country that he still considers his home. Along the way he is briefly ensnared by a cold hearted adventuress who wants him to marry her daughter and who informs him that his beloved Grace is not Mr. Nugent's daughter at all, but rather an illegitimate child! This is confirmed by letter by his mother, who, while a social climber and generally frivolous, is very loving to Grace and has never told her about her parentage. Colambre is heart broken and feels he can never love a woman with such a heritage.

“He visits his family estate and discovers that his father's agents are oppressing the local peasantry and probably cheating his father as well. He reveals himself to the evil agents, and there is a race back to London, Colambre trying to stop his father from signing documents that would ruin some of the good peasants, the agent's agent trying to get the papers signed. Colambre makes it back just in time to stop his father from ruining the people, and he then assists his father in paying off his debts, on condition that the Clonbrony family return to live in Ireland. The final section concerns Colambre's love for Grace and how it is discovered that she is– yes!– both legitimate and an heiress! There are many turns of plot and lots of information about Ireland as well as Irish dialect and details of shallow London fashionable life and the egregious results of the propertied classes treating their Irish lands as a resource to be exploited rather than as a relationship among classes and with the land.”

The things I dislike about the novel are the hero’s fastidiousness about legitimate birth, and the heroine’s apparently bottomless passivity. You have to remind yourself that the biggest argument against female passivity is Edgeworth herself, who ran an enormous family and their property and wrote books and traveled besides.

Then, just to complete my little Maria Edgeworth festival, I also read a purported biography, MARIA EDGEWORTH by the Hon. Emily Lawless– a funny old fashioned book published in 1905. I bought it used, online, and it turned out to be a reject from the Santa Cruz, California, Public Library– last checked out on March 24, 1923! The writer, an Anglo-Irishwoman like the author, loves CASTLE RACKRENT, but not Edgeworth’s other books. She also thoroughly disapproves of Edgeworth’s patriarchal papa. It wasn’t the biography I was looking for–although I did enjoy meeting Hon. Emily. Which seemed to have been the real subject of the book.

I also read HEALTH PROXY by Robert Roth, which was recommended here by Carole Rosenthal in Issue #104. It’s really pretty stunning– all about life in tiny gray apartments in the Village among people who were (and still are I suppose) cutting edge and political and full of talk. It is extremely gripping, that in-your-face quality of the ancient mariner stopping you and holding you with his extreme honesty. It’s the insistent scrupulousness with which he examines himself, his friends, and his failings that engaged me. I really couldn’t put it down. See Carol Rosenthal’s comments.

Final notes: I re-read Allen Ginsberg’s HOWL after my husband bought it for me and brought in home from the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. It is much funnier than I remembered, and I had totally forgotten some of the wonderful short poems.

And, for something completely different– I read the Phaidon COURBET by James H. Rubin after visiting the big Courbet Retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. I didn’t know I liked Courbet particularly, and wasn’t all that overwhelmed by the melodramatic series of youthful self portraits in the beginning of the exhibit, but by the end, I really was overwhelmed by the hunting scenes, the landscapes, the dead fish, the bowls of wonderfully imperfect apples. The book is an excellent, reasonably priced introduction to him: to his democratic, anti-upper class approach to life and art, and to his self-publicizing. He has some of that quality of the Newly Discovered, Much-celebrated Self that you find in Whitman’s poetry. Good art book– I often go to the Met’s big exhibits and decide not to buy the enormous catalogs with their scholarly articles and large price tag. Also, I don’t want to have to carry them home on the train. Ten I buy the Phaidon introductions instead!

Finally, speaking of Wikipedia, I hope everyone is using it not just for the odd bit of information, but also to put in notes about your favorite writers and other subjects. It is especially important to put in short articles about writers who may be missed otherwise: overlooked or young writers, regional writers. You should also edit the articles on subjects you care about. I did a whole edit of the article on “The Death of Ivan Ilych,” which I thought was tendentious in a bad direction. Wikipedia is so often the first source that comes up on Google that it has become an important influence on human knowledge. So share what you know– it only succeeds when everyone’s information is shared.

--- Meredith Sue Willis

JEREMY OSNER...

...says, “I found a just mind-blowing passage on blindness in Pamuk's "The Black Book" -- quoted most of it http://readin.com/blog/?id=1124
(Did I mention to you what a wonderful book Saramago's "SEEING" is? It's set in the city of "BLINDNESS" four years later, a political fable. The both books in combination are, I think, hugely more than the two of them separately.)” Notes on SEEING: http://www.readin.com/blog/?k=book:seeing

MORE BEST BOOKS

Magdalena Ball of http://www.compulslivereader.com recommends her best 2007 books: Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD and Emily Ballou’s APHELION. She says “the two books couldn’t be more different. McCarthy, as I know you know, is the spare king of desolation. No other writer could do what he did in that book and pull it off with the same sense of beauty and even renewal (but only the merest hint). Ballou, on the other hand, is almost baroque by comparison. Her writing is linguistically rich and upbeat always.”

LOTS OF GOOD NEWS!

Pamela Erens’ novel THE UNDERSTORY (reviewed here in Issue #100 ) was named as a finalist for the LOS ANGELES TIMES Book Prize in First Fiction. Very exciting news!

Carter Seaton, author of FATHER’S TROUBLES, has been awarded the 2007 Denny C. Plattner award for Outstanding Non-Fiction for her piece “Those Who Came,” which appeared in the 2007 Spring Edition of APPALACHIAN HERITAGE, a literary journal published by Berea College.

Jennifer DeWitt reports that she has just an article published in the DAILY RECORD of Madison/Chatham, New Jersey in their special section called "Madison Chatham This Week". Looks like it will be a regular gig for me. She thinks this may be a regular column, too. See it at
http://www.madisonchathamthisweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080305/NEWS01/803050377and her article for Senior Citizens Guide magazine:
http://www.seniorcitizensguide.com/nenj/articles/from-page-to-stage.htm. She says that having two non-fiction articles published has also inspired her fiction writing.

Glad Day Books and Triboro Pictures have announced the official website for the film based on Leora Skolkin-Smith's EDGES, set to be shot on location in Jordan and Jerusalem: http://www.thefragilemistress.com

Diane Lockwood’s book WHAT FEEDS US is one of two poetry collections featured
in the new e-issue of RATTLE. The feature includes 5 poems from the book. See
http://rattle.com/eissues.htm

Penny Harter’s new collection of poems THE NIGHT MARSH is just out from WordTech. The publisher's web page for the book is http://www.wordtechweb.com/harter.html, and Penny’s page for the book is http://www.2hweb.net/penhart/publications.html . Here’s a sample poem:

Feeding the Horses in Texas
for my father

Dad kept yellow corn from the feed store
in a garbage can out behind the shed.
Dawn and dusk, he shoved a rusty scoop
deep into that can, dumping hard kernels
of boyhood memory on the family farm
into a galvanized pail.

Then he sniffed the wind and nickered
until two horses crossed the neighbor’s field
to rest their muzzles on the split-rail fence
and talk to him.

And he made more horse noises,
grinning back as they curled floppy lips
to bare big teeth and munch this ritual gift
from an old man lost in his yard,
who raised that steel bucket
as if to his own mouth.

BRIEF MENTION

TEMPORARY PEOPLE by Steven Gillis (Black Lawrence Press, April 2008) is now available for pre-order on Amazon. Gillis is the author of the novels Walter Falls and The Weight of Nothing, both finalists for the Independent Publishers Book of the Year and ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year 2003 and 2005.

Warren Adler’s NEW YORK ECHOES has just been published, to be followed shortly by FUNNY BOYS, a new novel. Adler is the author of THE WAR OF THE ROSES and many other books.

Judith Victoria Hensley ‘s TERRIBLE TINA has just been published. See the website at http://www.judithvhensley.com.

A new book by Norman Jordan. Learn more .

SARAH'S GIRLS: A CHRONICLE OF BIG UGLY CREEK by Lenore McComas Coberly

A NEW RESOURCE

Ed Myers writes to say he has found an interesting resource for writers, redroom.com. (http://www.redroom.com/) Ed says, “Someone described this to me as Facebook for writers. The site's goal is to provide writers with a networking site and a place for building a community of writers and readers. One has to apply and get screened, etc.....It looks promising to me in several different ways...Have a look.”

ONLINE– AND ON THE AIR!

Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 9 p.m. is the broadcast date and time for Diane Gilliam Fisher's amazing volume of poetry, KETTLE BOTTOM. West Virginia Public Radio's version, produced by Kate Long, is sure to be a very special and long remembered program.

A new book review online: THE INTERNET REVIEW OF BOOKS, Carter Jefferson, Editor,
editor@internetreviewofbooks.com . See the website at http://internetreviewofbooks.com/

Barbara Crooker recommends http://www.innisfreepoetry.org/ – which also has several of her new poems.

Magdalena Ball (http://www.compulsivereader.com) Is the host of Compulsive Reader talks which is live at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/compullsivereader the second Tuesday f the month at 6 p.m. It is permanently available in podcast form.

The HAMILTON STONE REVIEW’S Issue # 14 is up at http://www.hamiltonstone.org/hsr14.html featuring selections from Hamilton Stone Edition's 2008 Book List by Rebecca Kavaler, Jane Lazarre, Eva Kollisch, and Rochelle Ratner; and poetry by Bobbi Lurie, CL Bledsoe, David Thornbrugh, Alex Cigale, Georgios Tsangaris, John M. Bennett, Burt Kimmelman, Jamie Cooper, Cheyenne Nimes, and Laurie Price.

READINGS AND EVENTS

PARK SLOPE’S 440 GALLERY– Claudia Carlson and others read on Sunday, April 13th from 4:40-6:00 pm at 440 Gallery, 440 Sixth Avenue (at 9th St., F to 7th Ave.) CONTACT: Brooke Shaffner at brshaffner@hotmail.com. Admission Free

MIGUEL ORTIZ AT TEACHERS & WRITERS
Wednesday, April 16th at 6:00 PM
Miguel Ortiz
King of Swords
Miguel Ortiz's new novel is a sweeping historical work based on the life of his grandfather in Puerto Rico.

ROSARY O'NEILL, Award-winning New Orleans playwright, announces the representation of a two volume anthology set of her plays by Samuel French: A LOUISIANA GENTLEMAN and OTHER COMEDIES AND GHOSTS OF NEW ORLEANS. Friday, May 9th from 6:00 to 7:30 PM at the Marquis Room of The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY 10003. Call (212) 475-3424 for more information. See her website at http://www.rosaryoneill.com .

JOHN AMEN is reading 4/9 at PoetsWednesday, 582 Rahway Ave, Woodbridge, NJ; 4/10
NYC Pedestal Event at the West Side YMCA (The George Washington Lounge) 5 West 63rd Street (between Central Park West & Broadway) New York, NY 8pm. For more readings, around the country, see http://www.johnamen.com and http://www.myspace.com/johnamen

WORKSHOPS

Meredith Sue Willis’s next one day “Jump-Start Your Novel” workshop at NYU will take place June 7, 2008. NYU’s SCPS Writing Classes are at http://www.scps.nyu.edu/index/continuingEducation.htm?sid=209&durl=WRSP

CONTESTS AND SUBMISSIONS

IMPORTANT NOTE: Meredith Sue Willis makes no claims and has no special knowledge about these contests– please check them out carefully! I just pass on things that look interesting.

THIRD ANNUAL FLASH PROSE CONTEST DEADLINE: April 10, 2008
WriterAdvice, is searching for flash fiction, memoir, and creative non-fiction that grabs, surprises, and mesmerizes readers in fewer than 750 words. If you have a complete story or memoir with a strong theme, sharp images, a solid structure, and an unexpected discovery, please submit. Visit the website, www.writeradvice.com, for details about offering your pieces. Questions? Send an e-mail to Lgood67334@comcast.net. SPECIAL PERK: All entries accompanied by an SASE will be returned with brief comments.

MARSH HAWK PRESS Fifth Annual POETRY PRIZE
Deadline: April 30, 2008
First Prize: $1,000
and Publication of Book
Contest Judge: Thylias Moss
For full guidelines, see Website www.marshhawkpress.org for more information.
MARSH HAWK PRESS Mail to: P.O. Box 206, East Rockaway, NY 11518. Entry fee.

THE INTERNET REVIEW OF BOOKS offers a $100 prize for the best entry in its "Lasting
Impressions" contest. Write a 600- to 900-word book review that includes the reason this book made a lasting impression on you. Send it as plain text in your e-mail message form to this address. Include a bio of 50 words or less. First place - $100 with publication in the May issue of IRB– Second place - $50 and possible publication– Third place - $25 and possible publication. Entry fee - $5.00. Entries and payment must be received by April 20, 2008 Learn more at: http://internetreviewofbooks.com/

JOB/FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

A ROOM OF HER OWN FOUNDATION Invites Applications for Literary Gift of Freedom Award. Deadline: October 31, 2008 A Room Of Her Own Foundation ( http://www.aroomofherownfoundation.org/) is dedicated to helping women artists achieve the privacy and financial support necessary to pursue their art. To this end, the foundation annually provides an award of $50,000 to a woman writer. The foundation's 2009 Literary Gift of Freedom Award will be given to an American woman writer who is a U.S. citizen and will be living in the U.S. during the grant period. Acceptable genres for this grant are poetry, playwriting, creative nonfiction, and fiction. Visit the foundation's Web site for complete program guidelines:
http://fconline.foundationcenter.org/pnd/10012001/giftfreedom

2008-2009 Teachers &Writers Fellowships are now available online at http://www.twc.org/about/tw-fellowship . These fellowships are for people 30 and under who show exceptional artistic promise and are in the New York City area (or have their own place to stay there.) The Fellowship period is October 1, 2008, to May 31, 2009. During that time, T&W Fellows will receive a $10,000 stipend, Office space and resources (e.g., computer, supplies) at T&W, and much more. Applications for the 2008–2009 T&W Fellowships must be RECEIVED by 5:00 PM (Eastern), Monday, July 7, 2008 If you have questions after reviewing the guidelines and application form, please e-mail fellowship@twc.org or call 212-691-6590.

ABOUT AMAZON.COM

I’ve been reporting for some time in this spot that Ingrid Hughes writes:Ingrid Hughes writes: “My union newspaper says, ‘Forget Amazon.com, which has engaged in union busting on two continents. Try Powell's Books (http://www.powells.com)- the largest unionized bookstore in America....An alternative way to reach their site is from http://www.powellsunion.com; prices are the same but 10% of your purchase will go directly to the [Powell’s bookstore] union's benefit fund.’” For the complete discussion, see the comments of Jonathan Greene and others in Issues #98 and #97 .

Now Amazon is causing a new stink in the publishing world! They are demanding that certain publishing options be replaced by their exclusive Print on Demand Company Book Surge. Take a look here to read more: http://www.writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/004597_03272008.html

Coal Miner's Dinner and a Haiku

March 30

Well, the Coal Miner’s Dinner fundraiser for Ethical went off smoothly! Eleven paying guests (one less than originally planned) plus me and Andy. Butter pie was a big hit, as was apple butter. I had a song on Jack Wright's the “Music of Coal” about being poor and eating corn bread and pinto beans, which was part of the meal. We also sampled moonshine and pronounced it excellent! I made slaw using my mother's recipe, pork chops (but grilled on the George Foreman--too many people for me to handle all the pans for frying), fried potatoes, three kinds of bread (sliced white bread, cornbread, biscuits), and then many pies. Everyone seemed to have a good time. I did put out the bench at my mom's request, because her family only had chairs for the parents, but in the end, our guests preferred chairs!

March 26

Lilac crocus here–
Overhead maroon leaf buds
Pale scumble of spring!