Charles Baxter Q&A

Here is an interview I did with Charles Baxter for The ASJA Monthly, which I edit.

BDB: You began as a poet. Do you think this was because you grew up in a literary family (with Brenda Ueland as a friend of the family--how lucky!)? Or did you just have a thing for language early on?

CB: I saw Brenda often, and she bullied me, as a strong aunt might, and in a pleasing way. She told me that I should do what I wanted to do in life. It was radical advice. My family wasn’t especially literary, though my parents had known some novelists, such
as Sinclair Lewis and Robert Penn Warren, in their day. I began as a poet—as most poets do—because I had an intense inner life exacerbated by solitude, and because I fell in love with poetry at the age of seventeen, when I first read the work of James Wright.

BDB: When did you turn to fiction, and why?

CB: I dabbled in it until I was in my thirties, when I began to dedicate my life to it. I noticed that my poems were all narratives, and I found that I was particularly interested in characters, and in sequences: what people do when they’re under pressure, how they get themselves into interesting trouble. That’s the interest of a fiction writer.

BDB: I read a funny story in a Ploughshares profile about you that you had
an agent who asked you why she hated your first novel. Care to elaborate?

CB: It was unpleasant. I’d sent this agent (not my current agent, of course) a novel manuscript, and she said over the phone that she hated it; then she asked me why she hated it. I told her that I didn’t know. She insisted that I answer her. She was very cruel, of course; she had a mean streak.

BDB: And then you gave up writing fiction, deciding you would teach and write criticism?

CB: Yes. Well, I didn’t give up writing it. I resolved to give it up, but I couldn’t, quite.

BDB: But then you didn't quit--you merged three novels into one....

CB: No. What I did was to write a story, “Harmony of the World,” about a failed artist, which is what I thought I was. In the story, he’s a musician, not a writer. With the irony of which life is so fond, the story was published and anthologized and lifted my spirits a bit, so that I thought maybe I could live in the world as a writer after all. You never know who or what will give you permission to be the person you want to be. Brenda Ueland had, but few others had, in my case.

BDB: Since then, you've published four novels, the lastest being The Soul
Thief. What inspired this book?

CB: It began in an odd way, with something that happened to me years ago, when there was, briefly, an imposter Charles Baxter. Also, I have a friend who, when she was a freshman at Duke University, found that her roommate was stealing her clothes and beginning to imitate her, unconsciously. And lately I’ve been thinking about MySpace and Facebook, and how virtual identities can be concocted in our time. It’s a very strange feature of our age, this trading-off of identities.

BDB: One of your books, Feast of Love, was turned into a movie. How satisfying was this experience?

CB: I was pleased that they wanted to make a movie of the book, which I knew would be very difficult to adapt. Many talented people worked on that movie.

BDB: How do you generally begin: theme, character, image?

CB: I never know. It changes from project to project. Sometimes I begin with a dramatic image, of someone-doing-something. I don’t have any rules about where I should begin. Out with the rules!

BDB: As well as novels, you've published nonfiction, which I always recommend to my students because of your non-generic slant. Talk about your collection, Burning Down the House, and how this came about, as well as the controversy at least one of these essays inspired.

CB: I’ve been associated for years with the Warren Wilson College MFA program for writers, and I’ve given many lectures there. I revised them for that book. It was never my intention to give how-to lectures. If you give how-to advice, you’re involved in the how-to-write-literature racket. Instead, I tried to isolate certain features of cultural life (how we gossip, for example) and compare those features to how we tell, write, and read stories. Two essays in that book (Burning Down the House) got me into some controveries: the essay “Against Epiphanies”—which some readers mis-read as an attack on insight—and the “Dysfunctional Narratives essay, which was interpreted as an attack on our mealy-mouthed Chief Executives, who had disavowed responsibilty for bad outcomes. That’s just what it was.

BDB: How do you merge all of the various forms you write and publish in--short stories, novels, nonfiction? How do you decide what you're going to spend the next however long on a particular project?

CB: It’s whatever I also want to do next. I follow my impulses.

BDB: You're also an instructor! You must be highly organized, to be so prolific and to teach as well.

CB: No. I feel that I’m completely disorganized. It’s a wonder that I get anything done at all.

BDB: By the way, how do you teach writing? I've read that you"eschew how-to
tutorials on fiction writing."

CB: I try to read the work as closely as I can, and then describe it to the writer. After that, if the form and content seem to be at cross-purposes, I’ll try to say why.

BDB: In The Soul Thief, there is some of the best description about Los Angeles, as if you've never been here. Yet, you say you've traveled here often. Talk about writing landscape.

CB: You sometimes have to write about a place as if you’re a stranger to it. The description of LA in that book is a stranger’s description of it, in which details that residents take for granted are made strange again—odd, and worthy of attention. I never get used to LA, much as I sometimes like it.

BDB: Do you ever concern yourself with the marketplace? Seems the marketplace hangs over so many writers' heads.

CB: No, not any more. If you think too much about the marketplace, you turn into a hack. Of course you think about readers, but you can’t be too concerned with sales.

BDB: What are your reading right now?

CB: I just finished Richard Price’s Lush Life and Scott Spencer’s Willing. I’m also re-reading War and Peace, in sections, and I have Imre Kertesz’s Detective Story nearby.

BDB: Any words of wisdom for our [ASJA] members?

CB: No. I probably need words of wisdom more than they do.

The economy and publishing

BJK asked me to address the following here: "How does the economy affect publishing? Buying manuscripts etc?"

There are others who could address this question better than me, but first I would ask BJK: Why do you want to know? Why is this important? How will it affect your writing? If I tell you I've heard that the economy is making it even more difficult to get published, what will you do? Will that make you write harder or take a vacation?

All kidding aside, I'm thinking that you should check out MJ Rose (you can Google her). She talks about business a lot. Or you should forget about it.

Not what you were hoping for, huh?

Lion hug

Not about writing.....but so sweet.

David Benioff interview

David Benioff recently spoke with my co-host Marrie Stone on my show, "Writers on Writing." But there was a broadcasting glitch, and not only was no one able to tune in, it also will not be podcast. So here is some of that interview, thanks to Marrie.

David Benioff is an author and screenwriter. He adapted his first novel, The 25th Hour, into the feature film directed by Spike Lee. He also adapted The Kite Runner for screen and wrote the script for Wolverine. In addition he is also working with D.B. Weiss on an HBO adaptation of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, which is due out in 2009. Stories from his critically acclaimed collection When the Nines Roll Over appeared in Best New American Voices and The Best Nonrequired American Reading. He is a graduate of our very own UC-Irvine MFA program. And it is his latest novel, City of Thieves, published by Viking that we’ll be talking about this morning.

(The following is a synopsis taken from the publisher’s comments about City of Thieves.)

A writer visits his retired grandparents in Florida to document their experience during the infamous siege of Leningrad. His grandmother won't talk about it, but his grandfather reluctantly consents. The result is the captivating odyssey of two young men trying to survive against desperate odds.

Lev Beniov considers himself "built for deprivation." He's small, smart, and insecure, a Jewish virgin too young for the army, who spends his nights working as a volunteer firefighter with friends from his building. When a dead German paratrooper lands in his street, Lev is caught looting the body and dragged to jail, fearing for his life. He shares his cell with the charismatic and grandiose Kolya, a handsome young soldier arrested on desertion charges. Instead of the standard bullet in the back of the head, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful colonel to use in his daughter's wedding cake. In a city cut off from all supplies and suffering unbelievable deprivation, Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt to find the impossible. A search that takes them through the dire lawlessness of Leningrad and the devastated surrounding countryside creates an unlikely bond between this earnest, lust-filled teenager and an endearing lothario with the gifts of a conman. Set within the monumental events of history, City of Thieves is an intimate coming-of-age tale with an utterly contemporary feel for how boys become men.

MS: It feels like it would be terribly easy to fall into an entirely macabre tone in this book, given the subject matter, given the stand-out scenes which I won’t give away. But if one can imagine the Siege of Leningrad in any detail at all, you can imagine what went on. And yet that’s not the feel of this novel. It’s not oppressive and hard to take. It’s got its moments, but it also has moments of real humor and sex and love and the whole spectrum of emotions. Was it difficult to lift your characters out of this molasses of despair and keep them going in the face of all that adversity?

DB: I was fortunate enough to be able to visit St. Petersburg with a friend and translator while working on this book. One thing that really struck me, and this is true in other countries as well, but particularly in Russia, was how fiercely connected the Russians are to their literature. People walking around quoting Pushkin all the time. I don’t know who the American equivalent of Pushkin might be, but I know we don’t quote literature in this way.

From the diaries I studied, it became apparent that the Russians really did stay connected to their culture during the siege. They still wrote, they still read, they still attended theater and concerts. If the first violinist was on the front lines, they turned to the second violinist. If he was gone, they found another. They were very attached to culture and to humor. They didn’t give up who they essentially were in the face of what was going on around them, and I wanted to retain that spirit in writing the book.

MS: You said that Ann Patchett once told you to chose the single best book on the given subject and study it obsessively. As opposed to reading a dozen books on the subject. What’s the wisdom in this advice?

DB: Ann was one of my mentors at UCI. She wrote this fabulous book called The Magician’s Assistant and she seemed to know magic in and out. I asked her about research and she advised getting the one definitive book and studying it fiercely. The thinking being that if you studying too many texts or books on a subject, you become someone who sets out to write a sort of high school report that may be factually accurate, but is lacking imagination. With that said, I was too overwhelmed to enter into a project so big—the Siege of Leningrad—something that happened long ago and far away, without really getting my facts straight. So I read quite a bit. But the real texts that I relied upon were Harrison Salisbury’s, “The 900 Days” and “Kaputt,” by Curzio Malaparte, an Italian journalist who was an early Fascist (he marched on Rome with Mussolini) before becoming disillusioned with the movement. He had remarkable access to the German and Finnish officers commanding the invasion of Russia, his writing is beautiful, and I ransacked his reportage for many key details. And the diaries.


MS: I like the device of putting your characters on a deadline. There was a ticking clock in this novel, and also in “The 25th Hour.” Something needs to be solved or done by a particular time or there’s some consequence. It strikes me as a good suspense builder, and a good way to keep momentum. Is this a screenwriting ploy or something you build into most of your material?

DB: After my first book was rejected, and I worked up the courage to sit down and read all the rejections, the gist of the feedback was that nothing was really holding it together. The novel took place over 30 years and there was no cohesive story. At first, I thought they were all wrong. I thought they were just idiots who didn’t understand what I was trying to do. But after I sat with it, I realized they were right. So I forced myself to have some structure to the narrative in the form of something having to be accomplished. The 25th Hour has a deadline. It’s the 24 hours before this man goes off to prison. And this novel obviously has a deadline motivating the movement of the novel. I think it’s a good way to keep yourself on track.


MS: One thing that struck me, and maybe this is just because I knew you were a screenwriter going into the book, but this is a very visual novel. There are some novels that you feel—you’re in the character’s brain and there are amazing insights and ways of looking at the world—and this had that too. But there are other novels that you really see. This had the feeling of a movie playing in my brain. The language was almost tactile somehow. Talk if you would about how your screenwriting informs your fiction writing, and what the two mediums can give to each other.

DB: The good part about screenwriting is that it made me a very disciplined writer. Working within the constraints and pressures of time . . . you have to tell a story, a fully fleshed out story, in 120 pages. If you see the number 200 or more on your page count, you’re done and over. So there’s a real discipline to telling a story in a compressed time. The bad part of screenwriting is that it makes you a lazy novelist. While I can just write “interior restaurant” on a script and I know the production director and lighting guy and location scout will take care of it all, you can’t do that in a novel. You have to slog through descriptions of where you are and make it come alive on your own. And that takes discipline. The first section of this novel took me months because I was out of practice on describing things well.


MS: You had this to say about writer’s block: “Writer’s block, I think, is often the result of a frustrated anticipation for inspiration. But if you’re writing for a living, you can’t sit around waiting for the muses. You get your butt in the chair, you turn on the computer, and you write, and if the writing’s no good you keep doing it anyway, because that’s all you’re good for.” I rearranged a few words for radio. But I do like you combating the notion of inspiration or the muses or whatever it is we think we need to write.

DB: I have this friend who I went to college with. Brilliant writer. I always thought he was the best writer among us. And now he barely has written a word. Every few days he writes me these gorgeous emails. And on the one hand, I’m so happy to receive them. They’re beautiful and poetic, and on the other hand it makes me so angry that his talent is going to waste. He always says he’s waiting for inspiration, or he’s stymied because he can’t write until he feels he really has some insight or some phrase or something important to say. We’ve been having this debate for years and years, and I’m so frustrated with him because it’s just wonderful talent going completely to waste. You can’t wait for inspiration. It’s rare. It happens, but it happens so infrequently that if you rely on it, you’re doomed.

MS: You came out of the UCI MFA program. No need to let that influence your answer here. But seriously, I’m curious about your feelings on MFA programs in general and what you may have gained from it in particular.

DB: I do see value in the MFA programs. For one thing, I was able to study with some incredible writers. Ann Patchett, Geoffrey Wolff to name a few. What the MFA program did was give me time to focus on nothing but writing. And while I know there are people out there who can handle a job and keep writing (Khaled Hosseini is one rare example, who kept writing while practicing medicine), that’s not easy for most of us. And while I was in the program, I was teaching undergraduates which paid for my time there. And being around that kind of intellectual stimulation was very exciting. So it gave me time and focus and access to amazing writers.

MS: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

DB: My advice to screenwriters is to read more screenplays. Good screenplays. “Carnal Knowledge” and “Chinatown,” to name a couple. We’re told as novelists to read, read, read. But I don’t think scriptwriters are given the same advice, and it’s a shame.

My advice to novelists is just to get into the discipline of sitting down to write. There’s no other way around it.

Six words on love and heartbreak

Do you know about the book,, Not Quite What I was Planning: Six Word Memoirs from Writers Famous and Obscure? (My co-host Marrie Stone, interviewed the editor on the show a few weeks back.)

Well, they're looking for submissions for a new collection due out on Valentine's Day. Here's the link if you'd like to submit your six-word memoir.

Lauren Weisberger doesn't wear Prada

Here's a photo from our evening at the Newport Beach Public Library. Lauren Weisberger, seated beside me, came to talk about her new book, Chasing Harry Winston, and of course we talked about her first book, The Devil Wears Prada.

I met Lauren in the conference room with her media escort and her husband Mike. She wasn't wearing Prada, not that I thought she would be, but somehow I thought if you wrote a book about something that happened to you while you worked at the biggest fashion magazine, that you would be into fashion.

So I spent more time than I should have concerned with what to wear. Should I wear my best white pantsuit that I bought at Nordstrom last year? I almost emailed Lauren to ask what she was going to wear, so we would sort of match, but didn't. I decided to dress the way I always dress for literary events, which is how I usually dress in general, only not as casual (no tee-shirts, no pull over cotton jerseys, no black workout pants, no faded jeans). I did bring along my knock-off Prada bag. It was meant to be a joke, but I don't think Lauren found it funny. (Later I decided she was burnt out on Prada jokes and people thinking she was into Prada.) I bought it a few years ago at a flea market in Pennsylvania because I loved the lime green color and size. The Prada logo put me off, though.

I don't want to buy a knock-off, I told my cousin John.

So Sharpie in the logo, he said.

That's tacky, I said, buying the bag but leaving the Prada logo alone. When I carry it, I turn the logo side toward my leg so the logo doesn't show.

I was happily surprised Lauren was dressed casually in white jeans and sandals. She likes to buy jeans, perhaps more than she should (says she). Her diamond wedding band caught the light as big diamonds will. I loved the ring.

In the conference room she said she thought we should only talk a little and use the time for questions. She said she hated the media. I commiserated. So many radio and TV people are only interested in sound bites, I said. I told her I thought we'd talk for 30 minutes or so and then take questions. She thought that was too long. I said it would be okay. She said she liked questions. I said it would be fine. I worried, though, that she seemed nervous.

But it was fine. It was actually great fun. Lauren seemed to genuinely have a great time, too.

Before an audience of 230, Lauren and I talked about her books, but we also talked a great deal about writing. One tidbit I took away (that a lot of us took away) is that Lauren is distracted just like the rest of us, with email. Even a speck of dust can seem fascinating. And yet the girl is extremely productive. I found that inspiring, that she's distracted often and is so productive anyway.

In the photo, you'll see Lauren and me seated, and behind us are Lauren's new husband Mike, NBPL Executive Director Tracy Keys, and Event Coordinator Janis Dinwiddie, with Dinwiddie Events. Kudos to Tracy and Janis--the library has been bringing in solid authors and helping to quench the Orange County thirst for literary events. Yay, Tracy and Janis!

Noir on tomorrow's show

If you're on my e-list for the radio show, you've received this. If not....

Tomorrow, Weds. June 11, for the entire hour, we'll have three authors--Naomi Hirahara, Gary Phillips, and Susan Straight--talking about noir. I'm excited!

Naomi is the author of the Mas Arai mystery novels and the noir short story: "Number 19." Gary is the author of the Ivan Monk and Martha Chainey series, and a lot of short stories including the noir story "Roger Crumbler Considered His Shave." Susan is a novelist ("Highwire Moon" was a National Book Award nominee), and the noir short story: "The Golden Gopher," which won an Edgar. All three of the stories highlighted above are in the collection: "los angeles noir," published by Akashic Books.

Tune in at 9 a.m. Pacific at 88.9 FM KUCI or listen on iTunes. Eventually the show will be podcast and you can find it (and many other podcasts) here.

So You Want to Write a Memoir?

My student Sarah shared this article with me. A good list!

Alice Munro's Free Radicals

When I'm skimming through the New Yorker or Tin House or any number of other journals with formidable-to-crazy good short fiction, I maybe read the first line and if it doesn't grab me, I go on to the next. Life's too short for a short story--or essay or novel--that doesn't sing.

This morning I roamed the New Yorker web site looking for a short story for my Gotham class and I found this one by Alice Munro. I could not stop reading.

She knocked my socks off with "A Bear Comes Over the Moutain," that was made into the movie, Away From Her. Incredible artistry. But I don't want to influence you. Read it. Tell me what you think.

Point of view

A couple of Pen on Fire blog readers have questions about point of view.

Bibliophile says:

Hi B, I've been writing different parts of the same story in many different points of view. I've got at least 5 main characters, all speaking in first person. I then spent a week revising everything to omniscient... spent another week reading every chapter on POV in my collection of writing aid books. I had an idea to make one character in to the 'listener,' the one collecting all these stories from the other characters, but thought that might seem amateur-ish. Any advice?

And Christina says:

I finished reading a novel by one of my favorite authors. This particular novel has three main characters. For two, she uses first person; but for the other character, she uses third. It didn't confuse me as a reader, but as an aspiring writer; I feel like I need to know why this was done. I couldn't find the significance of using a different POV for this character - besides the point that the character was dealing with a lot of pain and in the end, she ended up killing her mother.

What do you think about using different POV's in your novel? Is there some type of rule out there that this author broke? As I said, this character was fighting through a LOT. Do you think the author switched the POV on her readers because it was easier to tell the story from a third person POV; rather than take us through the characters inner toil from her POV? Or perhaps when dealing with customer going through a lot mentally, it is better to use a third person POV?

I'm not trying to attack the writer; there's so much I need to learn about writing fiction - so when I see something I've never seen before, I just have to ask!

Well ... that's a lot to chew on.

I'll just give my thoughts and if others reading this blog have thoughts/opinions, please feel free to let them fly. I'm not the last word on this subject.

I don't think there are any fast rules on point of view. As soon as an author or writing teacher says, "This is the way!" someone comes along to break it. In my humble opinion, you do what works for the story you're writing.

I do think when you're writing a short story, using more than one point of view can get to be too much. It's so such a short form!

But with novels, like so very much in life and writing, it just depends. If you use more then one point of view, you've got to have a reason. Often the reason writers do this is that they wanted to get at various aspects of story and they just couldn't do that using one point of view character.

Usually you wait to change point of view characters with a new chapter. Although Ann Patchett did not do this in Bel Canto and it worked quite wonderfully. In Atonement, the novel is written in the third person until you get to the end, and then it goes into first person. Worked for me!

If you're writing a first novel, it probably makes sense to stick with one point of view, because you're getting to know the form, and why complicate things for yourself?

These are just my initial thoughts. I'll keep pondering. Meanwhile, if anyone has anything to add, please do!

Events

Finally, I'm posting a slew of events coming up. I hope you can make it to one!

June 10 7:00 p.m., Newport Beach Public Library
In conversation with Lauren Weisberger about her about her new book, Chasing Harry Winston. (Lauren's first book was The Devil Wears Prada.)

July 12 A fun all-day workshop at UC-Irvine Extention: Jumpstart Your Writing. Call UC-Irvine at 949/824-5414 or visit the UCI Web site.

July 13 1:00 p.m., Barnes & Noble, Newport Center, Newport Beach
Talk about essay writing and her essay, "Knitting: My Urban Escape," included in the anthology, Knitting Through It: Inspiring Stories for Troubled Times (Voyageur Press).

September 28 West Hollywood Book Fair
If you haven't attended the fair, don't miss out. It's a great people-watching day with great panels. I will moderate a panel of literary agents in the afternoon. Click here for more information.

October 11 Celebration of California Writers Week
Join me and other authors for a literary day at the Orange Public Library and History Center in Orange, CA. More information can be found here.

Judging a book by its cover

Do you?

I often do judge a book by its cover. So many books are flung onto the porch every week for the show. On the way to the kitchen, I open the (usually) padded envelope and look at the cover of the book. I don't much care whether it's hard cover or paperback, but I like a nice texture and color. If it's teal, turquoise, aqua, or sky blue, so much the better. I've been known to keep these, and make beautiful colored stacks, or organize by color. The author's photo either compels me or doesn't. If the author looks bratty, or arrogant, the book goes in the reject pile. Not that the author has to look friendly, either. He or she just has to look ... interesting and approachable. I can't think of any author worth spending time on the phone with if they're not nice or fun or glad to be there.

Apparently, a lot of people judge books by their covers. Others judge books by their covers, too.

Do you?

Things to do instead of write

Watch this stop-motion video ... quite mind-boggling.

And look at these little constructions....

And this will get you back to writing....

Actually, that wild stop-motion video made me want to work on my novel. Inspiring! All that art at work.

A bit of log rolling

I love it when nice letters like this one come in:

Hi Barbara!

Just wanted to drop you a short note of thanks!

Earlier today I e-mailed/queried literary agent Bill Contardi. I reached out to him because of your podcast/interview with him in September, 2006. He got back to me immediately! I've included my e-mail to him and his response.

I don't know if he'll eventually take me on, but because of your show a reputable literary agent is willing to give my work a look.

I cannot thank you enough for your show!

Take care,

Ron Alvarez


...

If you haven't already, go my show blog and give a listen.

Critiques: What to keep, what to leave

A former student from one of my online classes asks:

"How do you know what critiques you should use and which ones you should not? I brought in and read some of my work to my writers' group this past weekend and received some feedback. I liked some of their comments but disagreed with others. So I wanted to get your thoughts as to how you should handle feedback."

I generally look for consensus. If a few people are saying the same thing, I pay more attention than if comments are various and random. That's not to say that I don't pay attention to the various random comments, because I do. I seem to pay attention to everything everyone says. Which is not necessarily a good thing.

But consensus speaks loudest of all because if a few people are saying the same thing, then it must be true (I reason).

I also pay more attention to comments coming from someone who writes and reads in my genre.

What I don't pay attention to are comments that sound personal and have more to do with the person offering their opinion than they have to do with the work.

And if there is even one lousy person in a group, it can ruin the entire group for me.

Once, in a group long ago, a member said (of my interracial novel at the time): Well, I don't like black people so I don't have anything to say.

I left that group fast. Ugh!

I also pay attention to comments that resonate. Sometimes someone will say something and immediately I'll say or think, Yes! You're right!

Maybe it's something I sneaked in, wondering if anyone would notice, vowing if they did, I would remove it. Or maybe I was lazy, or maybe it was a darling. Wasn't it Mark Twain who said, "Murder all your darlings"? You know, sometimes we're so in love with something we've written that really doesn't fit in the work, but we leave it in because we're in love with it. Praise those workshop members who find those sentences.

If anyone has more to say about critiques and what to pay attention to, please, have at it. I'd love to hear and I'm sure my former student does, too.

James Frey in Vanity Fair

Don't start reading this instead of writing. Save it as a reward for writing. A good story in June's Vanity Fair.

Back at it

Okay, so we've been spending time getting the studio behind the house together and it's finally become a place where it's quiet and I can work (although new neighbors just moved in upstairs, single guys who work as bartenders, so who knows!).

Yesterday, I pulled out Starletta, with ideas about how to revamp, including changing the title--any ideas? I want to remove "Kitchen" from the title, in part, because it's not a restaurant book. She's a food writer and also because I don't want guys to shy away from the book as some do from Pen on Fire because of the subtitle, which wasn't my idea in the first place, but there you go.

So in the studio, yesterday, I found I wanted to sit here and spread out my stuff. And I did. I worked. And it was good. (I just need to finish getting the courtyard together ... deliver things to Goodwill....)

The long and the short of it is, place is very important. And you gotta like the place in which you're working to do good work. Or else you'll think of any reason to do something else--anything else.

A Carolyn See op-ed piece

I just love this woman. Read this.

Know your audience

The other thing is audience.

It can help to know who writing your writing for. Pen on Fire began with an audience of one. My student Robin. A lot of you know this story. She would become inspired in class but at home her motivation to write fizzled. She jokingly said, If you came home with me, I know I could write.

I said, I'll write a book for you.

Pen on Fire started with my audience of Robin. Soon it spread to include all of my students and others.

Who are you writing for? It could be yourself. But it has to be someone.

Writing is the cure

A friend posed a dilemma about writing and here is what I said to her (which she said was fine to post here, for others to hopefully benefit from):

There does come a point when you (a writer, any writer) finds themselves at the point you find yourself at. Is it worth it? Is the self-disclosure worth raking through the muck of the past and putting it on paper, making art out of it? Is art worth it? Is it productive? Isn't cleaning a closet more productive?

What I didn't say last night, which I ought to have said, and if it's okay with you, I'll post this on my blog so I can say it! is, if there's something else you enjoy more than writing, then maybe you *should* give it up.

In my view, you're a writer. Sure you like other things, too, but you like writing and gain something from doing it. But that may just be my view.

I have considered over the years, at different points, giving it up. But when I ask myself, does anything do more for you, the answer has always been no. I love to knit, I love handicrafts. I studied music for a few years and played the flute. I was involved in the performing arts, and photography. But I always felt--and still do--that something was missing without working on a piece of writing.

Writing is the hardest thing I've ever done. Sure, brain surgery would be harder, but then again, I don't want to be a brain surgeon. And my guess is that for some brain surgeons, writing would be damn hard.

No one can tell you that you should be writing. No amount of strokes or encouragement can make you write every day if you simply don't want to.

But my guess is that if you write a bit every day, you'll want to. You'll work a groove in the brain and in your creative self that will draw you back to your pen and paper, or computer, most days. So much of writing is very much a habit. Like any habit, if you fall away from it, you might think, whatever made me think I liked that habit?

Anyway, only you know what writing does for you, and doesn't do for you. I do know that I've seen your excitement when you were working on a piece that excited you.

I know your friend discouraged you by telling you one of your pieces wasn't in your voice. Voice can take a long time to get to. It takes throwing a lot of words at the page. It truly does. You try out different styles, different tones, different ways of using words, and in this way, voice comes.

Writers need to stop thinking so much--about how we're no good, how we're frauds, how we'll never write anything of substance--and just write. Writing is the cure.

Publishing: Where do we go from here

That's the title of my panel on Sunday and I am greatly looking forward to it. My panelists will be Johnny Temple, publisher of Akashic Books; Susan Weinberg, publisher of Public Affairs Books; James Atlas, publisher of Atlas & Co.; and George Gibson, publisher of Walker & Co.

I am so looking forward to this panel. Saturday, 2:30, Young Hall on the UCLA campus.

.....

And to those who have been asking, illness has passed and I'm back at it, so thanks for asking! And I hope to see you Saturday.

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

Okay, is everyone going to be there? If you've never been, it's a fabulous book festival with a ton of great panels for writers (and readers). Here's the web site. If you're around Young Hall at 2:30 p.m., say hi. My panel on publishing takes place then.

D.T. Max on Don DeLillo

I'm going through a pile of New Yorkers that my librarian, Haidee, gave me, and right now I'm in the June 18, 2007, issue. I'm reading a long feature about literary archives by D.T. Max. I just wrote to him for permission to reprint the following long paragraph, which I love, about the literary life:

DeLillo’s letters are often about business—negotiations over contracts, responses to translators—but a few of them provide insight into his austere approach to the literary life. One, in particular, is the kind of note that biographers long to stumble across. In October, 1995, David Foster Wallace wrote to him, “Because I tend both to think I’m uniquely afflicted and to idealize people I admire, I tend to imagine you never having had to struggle with any of this narcissism or indulgence stuff. . . . Maybe I want a pep-talk, because I have to tell you I don’t enjoy this war one bit.” DeLillo responded in November. “I was a semiconscious writer in the beginning,” he writes. “Just sat and wrote something, or read the newspaper, or went to the movies. Over time I began to understand, one, that I was lucky to be doing this work, and, two, that the only way I’d get better at it was to be more serious, to understand the rigors of novel-writing and to make it central to my life, not a variation on some related career choice, like sportswriting or playwriting. The novel is different. . . . We die indoors, and alone, and I don’t mean to sound overdramatic but you know what I’m talking about. Anyway, all of this happened over time, until eventually discipline no longer seemed something outside me that urged the reluctant body into the room. At this point discipline is inseparable from what I do. It’s not even definable as discipline. It has no name. I never think about it. But there’s no trick of meditation or self-mastery that brought it about. I got older, that’s all. I was not a born novelist (if anyone is). I had to grow into novelhood.”

Keeping the dark room dark

I've been in bed for days, sick with something or other, but I'm starting to see the light. Which is when I came across this dark page, a little treat, perhaps, for you...

And if you haven't used up enough time playing, here's another fun way to spend a few minutes, created by a fellow ASJA member who is indeed selling big jugs.

Ayelet Waldman & Michael Chabon

A fun interview at coolsville Readerville.

Scan down for the piece about Maira Kalman's latest book, which I also love.

What an agent said to Charles Baxter

Did you read the piece on Baxter in Ploughshares that I posted yesterday? Oh, read it! This is from the piece. So outrageous.

Don Lee writes:

He [Charles] turned to fiction and churned out three novels, but they were disasters. “They were very abstract, these novels, very schematic, in some sense like bad postmodernism,” he says. “Nothing in them felt particularly real, although I didn’t realize that at the time. You rarely do when you’re working. I thought they were great. I was utterly baffled by the indifference or loathing with which people read them.”

One agent was particularly cruel. “I called her and said, ‘Julie, what do you think of my novel?’ And she said, ‘I hate it.’ And then she said, ‘Tell me why I hate it.’ And I said, ‘Julie, I don’t know why you hate my novel.’ She said, ‘Oh, you must, you wrote it. Tell me why I hate it. Is it the characters? Is it the setting? I just don’t understand any of it. Help me out here. Why do I hate your novel?’ It was an amazing phone call. And I kept having experiences like that. This person I knew on the West Coast read one of my novels and said, ‘Well, maybe your imagination’s poisoned right at the source.’ ”

Charles Baxter

He's been called a "writer's writer," and he's on the show today. (Podcast should be up soon if you miss the show.)

Here's a profile of him that was published in Ploughshares. So much good stuff; I had to share it with you.

Making a Literary Life

I have to thank the universe for Carolyn See. Aside from being a terrific writer, she's a wonderful person, one of the most generous of all writers.

She's been on my show a few times, and last night she spent an hour on the phone with my class of 12, and me.

If you haven't already, read her chapter on magic in Making a Literary Life. The concepts she talks about have been around for a while, and most recently made popular by The Secret.

Her chapter, though, is for writers (and other dreamers). Read it. Read the entire book, actually, more than once. There is so much wisdom and love and fun in this book.

Rambles

Our 14th anniversary! Here's a writing exercise for you: What are we doing in the hard-to-see photo?



Travis' window










JoJo wants to come in.










I'm curious...do you become impatient when the bloggers you visit post infrequently? Take me, for example. I'm so sporadic, I admit. Does it bug you? Or do you have a ton of blogs you visit and so it doesn't matter?

I visit blogs--not often, but I do. Some I wish would post more, others it doesn't matter.

If you would like me to post more often, send some topics this way that you'd like to read about, and I'll do my best.

Snow, and St. Patrick's Day

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

I just went to Writers Almanac and not only read a lovely poem about one of my favorite things--snow--but also the history of St. Patrick's Day.

Are you wearing green? I am. I also spiked my son's milk this morning with green food coloring--about the only time all year I use food coloring in food. How do you celebrate the day?

Also learned that on this day, in something like 1901, Vincent Van Gogh had his first major show--and he was 11 years dead. Yes, I know. Fame after death is a depressing thought, but hey, it's better than nothing, right?

So much for rituals

Just when you think you're in a routine, your routine is blown to bits.

I exaggerate. But only a little.

My goldfish and the tank they live in have been looking sad. So this morning, I decide I'm going to do a quick clean, then write. (I've been putting it off for days.)

I clean the filter and put it all back together but now the filter doesn't work. I end up taking the filter apart and finally, many minutes and attempts to fix it later, get it to work. I go to refill the tank and water sprays everywhere. Now, an hour and a half have gone by, the tank is clean, refilled, and the fish are happy. And the water has been mopped up off the floor.

I think I'll go shower and try to salvage the morning. The day sits before me, splayed out, ready and waiting.

(But I should call Toyota, too, something else I keep putting off.....)

Memoirs are booming

Interesting story in USA Today on the memoir genre.

Rituals

Monday morning. Weekend's over. Time to get serious again. Time to write.

My ritual is (after I get my son to school, walk with Kim, and clean up for my cleaning expert Cornelia who comes every so often) I shower, dress, and stop somewhere for a latte. Regrettably, that "somewhere" is most often than not Starbucks. I've tried all the lattes in my neighborhood and they make the best.

"A grande nonfat latte, extra foam."
"Name?"
"Babette."
When the barista calls my name, she says, Babbit. The one who took my order heard the mispronunciation and says, "Have a good day, Miss," and I think he's also shooting me a look that says, "Sorry...."

If the variant form of "Barbara" were actually my name, I would be more delicate, sweeter, maybe even French!

Barbara has 53 variant forms: Bab, Baba, Babara, Babb, Babbett, Babbette, Babbie, Babe, Babett, Babette, Babita, Babs, Baibin, Barabara, Barb, Barbar, Barbarella, Barbarit, Barbarita, Barbeeleen, Barbel, Barbera, Barbette, Barbey, Barbi, Barbie, Barbora, Barbra, Barbro, Barby, Barra, Basha, Basia, Baubie, Bauby, Beba, Bebe, Berbera, Berberia, Berberya, Berbya, Bibi, Bobbe, Bobbee, Bobbi, Bobbie, Bobby, Bonni, Bonnie, Bonny, Borbala, Varvara and Varina.

Hmm... Barbeeleen. I'd have to live in the South to use that one.

Anyway, so then I drive to the library and find a table upstairs, where mostly what I hear is the ventilation system. As quiet as a church.

I turn on the computer. While it's booting up, I look to my right and see that today I'm sitting beside the fiction stacks. Fiction: DO-ER. Farther to the right: DA-DO. I go to see where my novel will sit. A little above my head, between DelVecchio and Kathleen DeMarco (no relation, not that I know of), above DeLillo.

Now I'm back to it. Done with this blog (thanks for bugging me, Jordan--I think). Time to write.

What were your pre-writing rituals today?

Working in the car

Does anyone else work in their car? More and more it seems I am. When Mary Rakow (The Memory Room) came on the show, she said she often wrote in her car and I thought, Hmmm. I wasn't sure what to think of it. Now I find myself doing just that. It's pod-like. Fewer distractions than the library. I still work at the library, at home, and elsewhere, but now the car is one more place that works for me.

Today, after I dropped Trav at school, I went to Tully's for a grande nonfat latte, extra foam ("How much extra foam? A lot or just a little?" said the naughty sounding barristo who made me feel San Francisco was right here in Newport Beach ... yay!) and then drove to UCI, parked in a radio station space, and worked up until it was time to go in and do the show.

Dennis McDougal (Five Easy Decades), on the show, said, Carry a pen and paper wherever you go. Always.

Because you forget. You think you'll remember that snippet of conversation but you never do. Not as you heard it.

As I sat working on "A Peeping Tom Comes to Call," two young women got in their car beside me. As they did they said something with a particular inflection, and I meant to memorize it exactly the way they said it, but I was caught up in my essay and I didn't write it down.

But that was before Dennis came on and reminded me of what I thought I knew.

The show will be podcast in the next week or so. If you have current technology, it'll be easy for you to listen.

So...does anyone else work in their car?

A sad day for bookstores: Dutton's closing

A cover story in the Los Angeles Times: "For Dutton's books, it's the end."

I love this bookstore. My friend and author Diane Leslie has been a part of it for years. I had a book release party there (and at Book Soup, South Coast Plaza, now closed, too) when Pen on Fire came out.

Is NY and the Bay Area the only places where indy bookstores stay alive? Sheesh.

Here's the story. (You can read the Times story, but you have to register first.)

Homeward bound

Trav and I hated to leave Mammoth this morning. Already we're planning on where to go next, for more snow.

Icicles in the morning....the drive south....the temperature outside--a rarity for these Southern Californians....

A perfect Mammoth day

Morning view














Travis on the gondola







It's just coming down. We could spend many more days here.



Snow has been coming down the last couple of days. Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous.

Mammoth morning

snow

my favorite
color, on the ground, in the
sky, through glass, divine snow

snow

“The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself.” -- Lao Tzu

“To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color, is like living in Alaska and being against snow” -- William Faulkner

Y'all know I love snow, right? Travis and I are in Mammoth. He's snowboarding and I'm back into my book (and loving the snow). If you don't love snow, you might as well stop reading now, because what you will find are links to poems with snow in them, and photos of my morning.

Billy Collins' on snow here and here.

Happy?

A wonderful piece in Sunday's Los Angeles Times.

Obama

Did anyone see Larry King Live last night with Michelle Obama? I liked her--very much, actually. She said something I so agreed with, and it's that if Obama was elected, the world would look at the U.S. so differently. So very differently.

I just visited his web site and donated.

So, who're y'all for, and why?

Perks of publishing

One of the major perks of getting my book published is meeting nice people, many via email.

Here's one blog started on account of my book. The woman who started it says my book not only changed the way she writes, it's changed her life.

So gratifying.....

five poems for you on this day

Poems

Billy Collins' Litany. Man.

Robert Creeley's The Rain. Listen to the reading. Slays me.

Christina Rosetti's Echo

Sharon Olds' I Go Back to May 1937

Oh, and The Lanyard by Billy Collins.

happy valentine's day!

Distractions

I was starting to ask the question, "Do distractions take anyone else away from writing like they do me?" and then I deleted it. Of course they do! Distractions are the bane of a writer's life. Health and money distractions are the worst. How can you argue with someone to write when they have pressing concerns? You can't. Although I have one friend who's having trouble at home and she finds that the more she has trouble, the more she is obsessed with writing.

How nice! I said.

Nice? she said.

Yes, nice! You're writing!

Oh, well, I guess I am, she said.

The last couple of weeks for me have been a bit nerve-racking. Waiting for results to medical tests (everything's fine, it seems). But the waiting has been very distracting. So distracting, in fact, that I've done so little on my novel. Other work, yes. But fiction, no. Thinking about it, planning, plotting--yes. Writing--no.

What a waste.

When I'm distracted in that way, I do other things. Work I have to do, and I knit. I knit so much in the last couple of weeks that my thumbs hurt.

I think of writers I know who've encountered terrifically difficult challenges and got their writing done anyway. One such writer will be on my show tomorrow--T. Jefferson Parker.

What about all of you out there? Time to stop lurking. Post here. Tell me (us) what you do when faced with health and money distractions.

That's enough about me; what do you think about me?

I have at least one blog reader who is a terror at letting me know when it's time to post again or berates me (lovingly, I hope!) for letting too many days go by without posting.

So here's something new, and hopefully not too terribly self-promoting: an interview by Sujatha Samy-Randy, a journalism student from France. We talked recently by telephone. Listening to her lovely French accent and soft timbre, I very much wanted to go to Europe--again.

You should come here, she said. You would like it.

I might never leave, I said.

What do you see out your window?

Of course on Superbowl Sunday someone just had to have a Big Screen brought in before the game. This image sat outside of our house for an hour at least until Travis finally said how strange it was and I looked and saw the teeth.

A good writing prompt is to begin with where you are and what you see. If you have a digital camera, take a picture of what you see and write about it. And if you don't wanna, write about this one.

One of our faithful blog readers says, "Once again I have awakened to disappointment in your refusal to change your blog. So, in my efforts to move your blogging career along, I call your attention to the Calendar Section of todays LA Times and the article on Bi Polarism. Since Bi Polarism seems to be the common connective between artists, musicians and writers you might like to poll your readers who are mostly writers to see how many of them have Bi Polar disorder or if they don't have it would like to have it in order to further their careers. I think this would be a noble public service on your part. No thanks is necessary."

I think this is the story J. is talking about.

So, to please J., I must ask you .... what do you think?

Newpages.com and great first lines

I've talked about NewPages.com before but it's been a while, and who looks at archived blog posts, anyway? It's hard enough keeping current on new blog posts.

Newpages.com is a clearing house of sorts for print and online magazines and journals. Check it out if you're researching publications.

And talk about a first line that'll grab your attention. Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, offers one up right here.

I have grown addicted...

...to the quiet of the library. It doesn't look like much here, and mostly you can't hear the quiet--the blizzard of quiet--which is what I love most.














I also like sitting where I can look out into a patch of wild.

Where do you write, and do you love it there?

More on creating a written photo

The other thing is, in a photograph, you get what you see, but you don't get what you don't see.

In other words, in yesterday's post, if that were a photograph (and I know I have photos of the kitchen circa 1998), you wouldn't get the sounds of the car outside. You wouldn't get the history of the table that Brian and I painted, and you wouldn't get the Rampalski's house across the street (they have long moved away). You wouldn't get Travis' dialogue and my supposed verbal abuse (according to Brian). You only get what you see. And most likely it wouldn't be a panoramic vision.

So right now, where you sit, create a written photograph. Look up from your computer, and straight ahead, what do you see? If all you see is a wall, turn your head a bit. Now what do you see? Or take your pen and paper and go into another room. Go on the front porch. Look out a window. If someone's sleeping, go into their room and take a written photo.

I try to take my own advice. So here's mine:

...

Our younger cat, Rosie, sits on the table beside the front window and sticks her head through the curtains, looking outside at the dark morning sky. It is 6:39 and the sky is periwinkle, with swaths of white. It looks like rain. Through another window a branches stir.

I pull back. The 25-gallon aquarium that sits in the fireplace--the house filled with smoke when during our last few fires so our aquarium took up permanent residence there--sounds like a tiny stream, reminds me of Vermont and the last place I lived there, with the creek behind it. In the winter the creek would freeze over and in the spring you would hear loud thuds and creaks as the ice flows broke apart and the water rushed downstream.

Travis likes noise. He doesn't like it to be too quiet. He misses the sound of the aquarium in his room and at night turns on a miniature electric volcano, for the sound, as he goes to sleep. He blames his desire for sound on me. He says it's because I vacuumed when he was a baby, getting him used to sound so he could sleep anywhere and not need quiet, as I usually do unless I'm exhausted.

Now Rosie turns this way and washes herself, sitting back like a cartoon cat, her legs splayed this way and that, her white-tipped paws pointed at me.

....

Creating a written photograph gets you accustomed to paying attention to the details and gets you writing visually and viscerally.

If you feel like it, post your written photo.

Create a written photo

A long time ago Andrea Schulz, my editor at Harcourt, suggested I post chapters or sections that didn't make it into Pen on Fire. I've been meaning to. So let this be the premiere entry!

..........

The kitchen clock, with the watercolor painting of a blue-eyed sun and his full dark lips, ticks loudly. The green wicker chair on which I sit creaks as I shift my position. Clean dinner dishes crowd the red dish drainer.

The retro high chair with chrome arms and legs and duct-taped vinyl is pulled close to our small round kitchen table. Brian and I painted it with acrylics and lacquer. Its sides go down. And hanging from a white cabinet knob is a vintage red fabric heart that my student Robin gave me for Christmas that first year she took my class. January 1998.

Does the past exist if you neglect to record it?

A year later I wrote this:

It is nine o’clock on a balmy June night. Travis, almost four, took a late nap and is still sleeping. Knowing him, he will wake at midnight, kick up his heels, and be ready to party.

The front door is open, and Leao, our Portuguese water dog who has webbed feet but hates going in the water, lies on the carpet midway between the open door and me. The houses in this beach town sit so close to one another I occasionally hear the shake and shimmy of a neighbor’s washing machine.

Strains of jazz from somebody’s stereo drift across the fence along with the rumble of voices, and the computer I work on which is usually rather quiet now sounds loud. Someone's phone rings, a car whishes by, and someone else parks and slams the car door. I’m sitting in a direct line with the front door, and it’s dark out, getting late, so I get up and ease it shut.

Before I do, I look outside. Across the street, the Rampalski’s porch light is on, and in the corner house Jordan’s room throbs and changes colors from the TV.

When I sit back down, the refrigerator motor kicks in. The noise distracts me but Brian likes it. For him, a quiet fridge when he returns from a gig in the wee small hours of the night makes for a too-quiet house. For me, the fridge, plus the hum of the laptop, makes the room a prime source of noise pollution.

On a day last week when my nerves felt particularly jangled, Travis was yelling, and I said, “You’re creating some real noise pollution, honey.” In his low key style, Brian said he wasn’t sure, but I may have just committed verbal abuse.

Of course the past exists if you don't record it. But its details drift away. You strain to remember.

Writing down the details can evoke a scene more than a photograph can. And I've been a photographer for a lot of my life!


Set the timer (an exercise)

Record a scene with words (instead of, or in addition to, taking a picture). Note the details--what it sounds like, smells like, looks like. Include snippets of dialogue.

I'm in love ...

...all over again, with the library. I tried renting an office in town but so far they're so expensive, and not quite right. So the last two days went to the library to work on Starletta (I'm deeply enmeshed in the refining stage, which is difficult, and also a gas). Yesterday I arrived at the library early enough to nab a study room, but today I was too late. So I found a quiet corner and loved the ceiling, with it's white painted exposed pipes and hoses, and how the wall at the opposite end of the structure was farther away than the farthest area in our cottage (ha! easily!) or a Starbucks or anywhere else I could work about now. So quiet, too. I strained to listen and heard little. Love it love it love it.

Saroyan Prize

Just came in....deadline is soon....

Re: Call for Submissions.
Deadline for Entries: January 31, 2008

Dear Colleagues,

Nominations are now being accepted for the third William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. This award, given by Stanford University Libraries in partnership with the William Saroyan Foundation, recognizes newly published works of fiction and non-fiction with a $12,500 award for the winner in each category. The prize is designed to encourage new or emerging writers and honor the Saroyan literary legacy of originality, vitality and stylistic innovation. While normally biennial, this third round of the award is on a triennial schedule, having been timed to coincide with the Saroyan Centennial celebrations taking place in 2008. For entry forms and more information on the prize, including entry forms and rules, visit the Saroyan website for prize info..

Entries must be received on or before January 31, 2008.
(Scroll down for a press release on the prize.)

Best regards,
Sam Petersen, for Stanford University Libraries

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
**Ms. Sam Petersen, Sam Petersen Associates:
(650) 854-5575, sampetersenpr@aol.com

William Saroyan International Prize for Writing to be Awarded in 2008
Award coincides with Saroyan Centennial celebrations

Stanford University Libraries, in partnership with the William Saroyan Foundation, announced today the launch of the third William Saroyan International Prize for Writing (Saroyan Prize). Intended to encourage new or emerging writers and honor the Saroyan literary legacy of originality, vitality and stylistic innovation, the Saroyan Prize recognizes newly published works of both fiction and non-fiction. A prize of $12,500 will be awarded in each of these categories, and the prize winners will be recognized publicly during Stanford’s Saroyan Centennial celebrations on September 5, 2008.

Literary fiction, including novels, short story collections, and drama, will be eligible for consideration for the Saroyan Fiction Prize. Literary non-fiction of any length is eligible for consideration for the Saroyan Non-fiction Prize, most particularly writing in the Saroyan tradition: memoirs, portraits and excursions into neighborhood and community. Entries in either category are limited to English language publications that are available for individual purchase by the general public. Entries must be received on or before January 31, 2008. Official entry forms and rules are available at http://saroyanprize.stanford.edu .

“The Saroyan Prize is an integral part of the library’s ongoing and active involvement with the Saroyan archive, but it also provides a wonderful opportunity for Stanford students and alumni, as well as literati everywhere, to interact actively with the emerging literary figures of our time.” said Michael A. Keller, Stanford University Librarian. “Such interaction is a distinguishing feature of a Stanford education. We are particularly pleased to be offering the prize during this centennial celebration of Saroyan’s birth, when so much attention is being given to Saroyan’s life and work.”

“The Saroyan Foundation is pleased to be involved in fulfilling Saroyan’s dream of establishing a writing prize to encourage and perpetuate the art he so loved,” said Haig Mardikian, President of the William Saroyan Foundation. “Saroyan not only had a great passion for writing, he was also an accomplished visual abstract artist; so it is particularly fitting that this award is being granted during the Saroyan Centennial celebrations where we are commemorating many of Saroyan's artistic achievements.”

The first William Saroyan International Prize for Writing was awarded in 2003 to Jonathan Safran Foer for his novel Everything is Illuminated (Houghton Mifflin, 2002). The second Saroyan Prize, awarded in 2005, was the first to be offered for both fiction and non-fiction. The fiction prize was awarded to George Hagen for his novel The Laments (Random House, 2004); the non-fiction prize went to Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman for The King of California (Public Affairs, 2005).

William Saroyan, an American writer and playwright, is a Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winner best known for his short stories about humorous experiences of immigrant families and children in California. Much of Saroyan’s other work is clearly autobiographical, although similar in style and technique to fiction. Saroyan was the fourth child of Armenian immigrants. He battled his way through poverty and rose to literary prominence in the early 1930s when national magazines began publishing his short stories, such as The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze, My Name Is Aram, Inhale & Exhale, Three Times Three, and Peace, It’s Wonderful. Saroyan soon moved on to writing plays for Broadway and screenplays for Hollywood, including: My Heart’s in the Highlands, The Time of Your Life, The Beautiful People, and The Human Comedy.

The William Saroyan Foundation was officially founded by the author on December 30, 1966. Since then, distinguished professors, business executives and high-ranking government officials have accepted appointments to the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Commencing in 1990, the Trustees set a goal of bringing together into one single archive his entire literary estate. A decision was finally made by the Trustees to offer Stanford University the assembled Saroyan Literary Collection with provisions that would safeguard in perpetuity one of the rare treasure troves in American literature, carrying on the legacy of Fresno, California’s own native son, William Saroyan.

Stanford University Libraries & Academic Information Resources supports the teaching, learning and research mandates of the University through delivery of bibliographic and other information resources and services to faculty, students and staff. It is tackling the challenges of the digital age while continuing the development, preservation and conservation of its extensive print, media and manuscript collections.

# # #

Books

So...a survey....

1 - What's the best book you read in 2007?

2 - What's the best book you read in 2007 that was published prior to 2007?

3 - What's the one book you read in 2007 that you wanted to like--that the critics liked, or loved--but you didn't?

4 - What's the best movie made from a book that you saw in 2007? (Didn't have to be made in 2007...)

5 - Any books you received as gifts recently that you want to read, are reading, or tried to read (and couldn't)?

Answer any or all......

Back to Starletta's Kitchen

I love holidays and like to prolong the holiday as long as possible--obviously. Our tree is still up, blue lights still line are yar and front of the house. Yesterday was the Epiphany, which is a signal to us to take down the tree, dagnabbit, but not yet. Not yet....

But Travis is back at school, and as promised, I'm back to Starletta, mostly reviewing notes and reading the first chapters, making notes. It's good to be back.

I'm also looking for office space--just the teeniest space is all I need--in town, within a 10 minute walk. Somewhere outside of the house (know of one?). I have one lead which I'll check out today. All of my work is pretty much home-based, so I'd love a place nearby where there's no internet, no phone, no nuttin' except my novel to work on.

If you work at home, how do you stay focused on your work and refuse to be distracted by email, cleaning, phone, etc., and if you have an office outside the house, when did you get it and has it helped?

Happy New Year 2008!

Okay, ante up those resolutions, guys and goils.

My resolutions are the same as they are every morning of my life--be sweeter, more generous, more productive, smarter, eat healthier--with one additional resolution: finish Starletta's Kitchen by the time I go to New York in April.

What about yours?

Along the lines of eating healthier, on tomorrow's show my guest will be Melissa Clark, a food writer, who has a fun diet book called The Skinny. We'll talk about food writing, writing essays, writing process, and what writers can do to stop or decrease zee writers'--ahem--spread.

Speaking of writer's spread, here's a recipe for muffins that's in the oven as we speak--as I speak, anyhoo. Not sure how great it is for decreasing writers' spread, but the muffins are among our faves.

I wrote a piece for the old Westways magazine some years back (the column was called Food Souvenir) and included this recipe. (It's adapted from a recipe from the Willows Palm Springs Historic Inn, which I wrote about for the Los Angeles Times Weekend Escape.) We love it. Enjoy, and Happy New Year!

Crazy for Cardomom Muffins

(Makes 15 regular muffins or 30 mini-muffins, or mix them up, as I do.)

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or a cup of w/w and cup of unbleached white, or all white, depending on your inclination)

1/2 cup, plus 2/3 cup sugar

3/4 cup chopped toasted walnuts

2 large cage free organic eggs (or equivalent egg replacer)

1/2 cup nonfat yogurt (or if you like rich muffins, use sour cream. I used to use sour cream, when I didn't gain weight just by looking at fatty delicious foods....)

1/2 stick of butter, melted

1 1/2 cup peeled and grated tart apples

1 tsp. ground allspice

3/4 tsp. powdered cardamom

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, 2/3 cup sugar, 3/4 tsp. allspice and 1/2 tsp. cardamom. Set the mixture aside. Lightly toast the walnuts in a frying pan.

Whisk eggs, sour cream, melted butter. Mix in the apples. Add the dry mixture to the wet. Add 1/2 cup of the walnuts. The remaining sugar, walnuts, allspice and cardomom will make the topping.

Fill muffin pans with paper liners or spray with oil. Fill muffin tins and top with the remaining spice and sugar mixture. Bake for 20 minutes or so, until brown (bake for less if you make the mini muffins).

Restless without a book you're sunk into?

I'm reading a couple of books (always, a couple of books, it seems) I'm enjoying (The Artful Edit and Claire Davis' Labors of the Heart), but when I'm not deep into a book, I feel ... restless.

I came across Marisa de Los Santos' Love Walked In at my local Barnes & Noble. I wrote down the title and contacted the publicity department. I wanted to talk to Santos on my show. This week I've been restless without a book I'm crazy about and today her book arrived (she's on the show next month). And now that I have a book I feel I may love, I feel more relaxed.

Do you go through this, too? Without a book you're mad about, you feel at loose ends?

Bookstore report

People are not reading as much as they use to--or at all--so say the reports on reading and the Internet and book sales, but I'll tell ya, I've been to my local Barnes & Noble a few times in the last couple of weeks and it's busy! It's New York busy! Lots of people milling about, looking at books, buying books, and hanging around. I love it.

What's your bookstore like? C'mon....time for bookstore reports! (And I hope books are making up at least a portion of your holiday gifts.)

Have a great holiday...!

Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach

Seems I pick up so many books these days--for the show, mostly--that I just can get into. I don't know if it's me or the book. Probably a combination of both.

But I have read one that I loved: On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan's new book. It's received mixed reviews, and I think part of the problem is that it's a book for older readers who've made choices that in retrospect may not have been the best choice.

If you haven't read the book and plan to, then don't read on. What's to come is a SPOILER of sorts.

But the main character, Edward, makes a decision on Chesil Beach that changes the course of his life, that he regrets to his dying day, and realizes if he hadn't been stubborn, if he'd reached out to Florence, if he'd been more patient and loving, he might have lived out his days with the girl of his dreams. But he wasn't.

I don't think younger readers can relate to that and maybe that was the problem. When you're young, you think you'll live your life with no regrets, that the choices you make are all valid, good ones. And later you find that perhaps not all of them were.

So what are you reading that you love? I ask this question a lot, don't I?

Too busy to write?

I love the holidays but I'm with everyone else: Things become so busy and accelerated that it's hard to find time to write. Not to write emails, of course, and Christmas cards and this invitation and that, but to work on fiction--it's the last thing I put time into doing. After my ongoing deadlines--The ASJA Monthly and teaching, there are cookies to bake, shopping to do and costumes to construct. (Tonight my one class is having our annual party, and this year we're going as literary characters. Brian and I rented costumes yesterday so I think we're going as characters from a Dickens novel or The Count of Monte Christo.)

So this is one more thing I love about the holidays, this year, anyway: I'm too busy to work on my book. So Starletta awaits me, and I dwell on what I want to do with her and the story when I return to it. Which is good because I've hit another wall and need to figure some things out.

Are you finding time to write?

Grammar/style guides

One of my online students feels she's lacking in the basics and asked me which books I recommended she read.

Here's my short list:

Elements of Style by Strunk and White

Spunk & Bite by Art Plotnik, a great follow-up to Elements

Woe is I and Words Fail Me by Patricia O'Connor

And if you're interested in writing fiction, Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway and Ron Carlson's Ron Carlson Writes a Story would make for a great beginning.

What are your recommendations?