If you’re new to this, welcome to my newsletter about writing and whatever else that strikes my fancy. This is named after my childhood newspaper I made via mimeo. If you want to unsubscribe, go to the bottom. If you want to see short bits, scroll down. If you want to send the whole thing to a friend, please do.
The public
book reading as a
cultural art form can be akin to dental surgery if it’s done right. Of course, anyone who has a book published
hopes to have a series of readings, which, in many authors’ minds, might be
much like Caesar entering the Roman Coliseum nightly. Feel the rose petals thrown on your face. Hear the astounding applause. Hail, the chief is here. After you say something pithy and use the
words, “unmitigated pride,” people listen to you read, rapt. They scramble in line to pay $25 a copy and
have you sign something personal for them.
“To Mitzy, with fondness and love.”
From what I’ve
seen at a few Barnes and Nobel readings that I’ve stumbled into, however, are a
handful of people, mostly clerks, being polite. No one buys anything, but the manager has the author sign a few
copies for their display of signed books.
The author calls home that night to say things are going well.
And for an
audience member, there’s nothing worse than being at a reading when, two
minutes in, you realize you can’t endure the work. If you stand to leave, what if the author ridicules you: “What,
I’m not John Updikish enough for you?” he might say. “Or do you prefer something in Harold Robbins or Jacqueline
Suzanne?”
I happened to
be a part of a reading earlier this month for UCLA Extension that was held at
the Skirball Cultural Center, not far from (and higher on the hill than) the
Getty Center in Los Angeles. Twenty-two
of us read for up to five minutes each, which, in theory, could be like having
a dental hygienist hammer away at twenty-two of your teeth with a sharp
instrument, occasionally hitting your gums.
What I saw, however, were twenty-one coming attractions of fabulous
stories and poetry books. (I’m not
counting myself as I couldn’t see me.)
This made me realize that the Writer’s Program at UCLA Extension draws
incredible writers to teach and who are paid only modestly. We seem to do it for the quality of
student. Teaching people who have
desire and passion for their subject is like tying into the city’s water
suppy. The writers who join such
classes follow their bliss. (For a list
of writing classes, both in a classroom and online, go to www.uclaextension.edu/writers. Over 500 writing classes are offered
annually; 150 are online, available to the world.)
When I spoke
at the reading, by the way, I was halfway into an excerpt of the title story,
“The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea,” when I saw the words that one character
says, “No, I’m dying. Stomach and colon
cancer.” I couldn’t speak. My eyes watered, and I felt my face
collapse. I pictured not only my late
brother-in-law who the story is based on, but also my dear mother-in-law,
Marie, who had died three days earlier from cancer. I had visited her on what would be her deathbed the weekend
before. The day after I left, her fever
came back and she closed her eyes. A
day after that, she woke up from her coma-like state, tried to talk, waved over
my wife, her brother and cousin, blew kisses to them individually, smiled—and
died. She was a special person, and for
being an existentialist, she perhaps saw something there—something good?
After the
reading, people said my time on stage was moving and emotional. My reaction in the reading was unintended,
but I learned Marie’s spirit was with me.
Speaking of
readings, I went to one this week by Carolyn See, whose new novel, There Will
Never Be Another You, not only was on the cover of the Los Angeles Times
Sunday Book Review, but also has been getting great reviews across the
country. (You can see a few at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679463178/002-8764066-1274428?v=glance&n=283155
or the one from the Times at http://www.calendarlive.com/books/bookreview/cl-bk-deturenne14may14,0,3580612.story.)
At the reading
at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, See pulled me in instantly with her quips,
making me forget I was at a reading.
The acres of fresh fruit and cookies helped, too. Despite waning vision, she recognized a
friend stepping toward a seat in the back of the crowded room. She told her friend, “Did you know your
ex-husband is in the audience?” and everyone laughed.
Rather than
read right away, she spoke extemporaneously about the book, saying she wrote it
not knowing exactly where it was going.
She was drawn by the feeling that when bad happens, it comes in
waves. “You know how if you get a flat
tire, it doesn’t end there?” she said.
“Next comes your husband saying he’s leaving you, then you lose your
job, and on your way to an emergency, you get another flat tire.” Her book is about three generations of a
struggling Los Angeles family. There’s Edith,
twice widowed, her son Phil, a dermatologist at UCLA Medical Center, and his
wife and their children. See also spoke
about her late partner, John Espey, and how hard it was after he died; within
two months, two other people close to her passed away. “When enough people are subtracted from your
life,” she said, “you think you’ll never again have any fun.” From the way she made us laugh and pause,
she has rediscovered fun. That gives me
hope—which is what her book is about.
Literary and
political pundit Lance Mannion, who has popular and brilliant blogs,
interviewed me about the writing life and my book, The Middle-Aged Man and
the Sea. You can read his two-part
story at http://lancemannion.typepad.com/lance_mannion/2006/06/harry_pot
ter_ki.html.
If you’ve ever
toyed with the idea of publishing something, be it a memoir, a how-to-book on
swimming to Catalina, or a novel about dentistry (I may as well stay with a
theme), I have something for you. It’s
a new article about bypassing the usual agent-publisher route and going with
print-on-demand (POD). All is not
roses, though, so if you want to see the hurdles, read my article at http://girlondemand.blogspot.com/.
Thanks for the great feedback on my first newsletter. A number of people enjoyed reading my former student Sandra’s blog. She wrote me from Estonia on a trip to spread her father’s ashes, and she’s created a blog of her trip at http://svinee.blogspot.com/. The photography and writing is astounding. What more can a writer do? Here’s a sample from her blog:
“A significant portion of this trip is the doling out of my father's ashes
across the Estonian countryside. Born in the capital Tallinn, he had a running
argument with my mother, from the island Hiiumaa (pronounced Hee-u-ma), which
was the superior location. The mighty Tallinn was populated with cosmopolitan
city dwellers, Hiiumaa, according to Dad, was full of poor peasant stock (and
Mom agrees, partly, though she'd call them 'hearty'). Well, he's gone and
doesn't have much say anymore, so his ashes are headed to Hiiumaa. A fact that
I think is partly funny, because Dad was always gracious enough to let Mom have
her way, for the most part, and partly selfish on Mom's part, that she's not
returning him to his home.”
Between
Sandra, Lance Mannion, and the anonymous Podgirl, I see why great blogs are
followed. I can also see that it takes
time. I doubt I’ll ever blog because I
want to spend my energy finishing my novel-in-progress, Falling Down Mt.
Washington, but I do enjoy reading blogs now.
For Those
Looking To Publish A Short Work
The following
looks to be positive if you’re looking for a place to publish something short,
especially if you’ve never been published.
Realize that most of anything you submit—most of what I submit and what
others submit—will be rejected because the odds are just that way. There are always more submissions than
space. A new venture, however, has
better odds than more established journals.
Once you have one thing published, it’s easier to get more. I just received this:
Dear Friends and Writers,
My friend Emily and I are starting a
literary zine called "Loom," and we are looking for submissions
for the first issue. The zine will mostly concentrate on fiction, poetry,
creative non-fiction, and possibly other types of non-fiction, but we are
also open to more visually-based creations, such as drawings or comics or
graphic shorts (if that is a term) or whatever else you think might be
interesting and can be reproduced easily with black ink. But again, the emphasis
is on writing. We are not looking for reviews right now.
We don't have many guidelines, but
there are a few:
The deadline for submissions is August
1st, 2006.
Please email submissions to loomzine@yahoo.com. They can either
be attachments or pasted into the body of the email.
There are no length restrictions, but
it would probably be better not to send anything too long. I would define
"long" as anything over 10 pages double spaced 12 pt font, and
"too long" as anything 15 pages or over. And as for the other
extreme, something too short, I would define that as fewer than 10 or
so words. Even haikus have more words than that.
We will also be accepting haikus
consisting of 10 or fewer words.
This is going to be a small run and
will be put together by hand and distributed until we have no more. Email any
little question you might have to one of us or to loomzine@yahoo.com.
Thanks for reading. Happy writing to
you, and feel free to pass this along to your friends who might be interested.
--Emily and Sarah on behalf of Loom