Some readings and other literary happenings
The last few weeks have been very busy, both academically and literarily. Besides the always hectic conclusion of the academic year, several creative-writing-related things have been afoot as well. As such, I’ll only devote a few lines to each.
This past week, for example, readings for Men of Winter resumed with a very nice affair at Benedictine University at Springfield, in historic (and haunted) Brinkerhoff Home. A few folks who were counting on coming to the reading had to send last-minute regrets, but otherwise it was well attended as such things go, especially when scheduled after the regular school year has ended. The fine folks of Quiddity planned the reading, and I must say no one does a reading in finer fashion than Joanna Beth Tweedy and the Q staff. Unfortunately Joanna Beth had to be out of town, but associate editor Amy Sayre-Roberts stepped up to host the event, which I very much appreciated.
Then yesterday poet Lisa Higgs and I read at Jane Addams Book Shop in downtown Champaign, Illinois. Lisa read from her chapbook of sonnets, Lodestar, plus some really interesting new work. We were in the shop’s third-floor “Mystery Room,” reading while a noisy thunderstorm moved through the area — a thunderclap or two were serendipitously timed for dramatic effect. On the downside, the weather probably discouraged attendance somewhat, but we had a quaint and appreciative group. Lisa and I don’t have any other dual readings on our calendar at the moment, but we’ll both be participating in Chatham Public Library’s Local Authors Panel June 11, from 1 to 3 p.m. However, we may try to schedule another reading or two before summer’s end.
Speaking of authorial events, I’ve also signed up to be part of Authors Row in Peoria Heights, Illinois, June 25 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., sponsored by I Know You Like A Book bookstore. The event is part of Duryea Days.
On June 30, from 6 to 9 p.m., I’ll be participating in Poets and Painters in the H. D. Smith Gallery at Hoogland Center for the Arts in Springfield, Illinois. This is a very cool event in which local writers compose original poems based on works of art by local artists they’ve selected. (This event especially deserves more “ink” so I’ll be sure to blog about it further beforehand.)
Recently I also had the honor of showing around town and introducing writer Meagan Cass, who will be teaching creative writing at University of Illinois at Springfield starting this fall. With local commencements and so forth underway, it was an especially busy time, and unfortunately a lot of folks’ calendars were overflowing, but we did have a chance to have dinner with Anita Stienstra, president of Springfield Poets and Writers; and we stopped by the campus of Benedictine University for a nice chat with David Logan, prose editor of Quiddity (among many other duties); we also met with Ethan Lewis, our UIS English Department colleague, at Barnes & Noble for a cup of coffee and a delightful conversation. To say that the local creative community is excited about the energy and expertise that Meagan will be adding is a gross understatement. Read her terrific story “Girlhunt, Spring 1999,” recently published in Devil’s Lake, to get a sense of why we’re so looking forward to her arrival.
In terms of my own creative writing, I’ve completed a draft of my new novel, tentatively titled An Untimely Frost, and have started revising and editing the manuscript, which runs just over 400 pages. I hope to be completed with the revision process by July 1 or so. For my main read, I’ve been enjoying Tolstoy’s War and Peace (after this morning’s reading, I’m on about page 470, out of 1200 or so). My bedstand read, though, has been Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, which I’ve also been enjoying very much. Years ago I skimmed through the novel as I didn’t have time to read it carefully, but now I’m soaking in every word at a decidedly leisurely pace. And I’m always absorbing a few lines now and again out of the Good Book, by which of course I mean Conversations with William H. Gass — America’s greatest living writer.
Readings in Sherman and Galesburg
I wanted to do a quick post as it’s been awhile. Sundays were always my best blogging days, but in recent weeks Sundays have been among my busiest days, and today is no exception. On April 20 I had an enjoyable reading for Men of Winter at Sherman Public Library. I was joined by my friend and University of Illinois Springfield colleague Lisa Higgs, who read from her newly released chapbook Lodestar. We had a nice little crowd (though one always imagines it might be larger). Timing is always difficult. The Springfield-based Poets & Writers Literary Forum, of which I’m a proud member, had one event scheduled for April … also on the 20th, so that diverted some potential audience members; and the Cardinals were at home in St. Louis that night, which also siphoned off one or two folks. What can you do? Nevertheless, we were appreciative of those who did attend, and of Anita Walters, director of the library, and the library board for organizing the event.
Yesterday I was at Stone Alley Books & Collectibles in Galesburg, Illinois, my (and Carl Sandburg’s) hometown. It turned into more of a book-signing and not so much a reading, and crowd control wasn’t an issue, let’s say — but, on the plus side, my novel and I got a little exposure, achieved some potentially useful networking, and I got to hang out with my parents for a few hours.
There aren’t any readings planned in the next few weeks, which is just as well as I’ll have my hands full bringing my academic lives to closure, but on May 26 I’ll be reading at Benedictine University at Springfield and am very much looking forward to that event. Joanna Beth Tweedy and the fine folks of Quiddity international literary journal & public-radio program (for which I’m a proud reader) always do a splendid job of hosting a reading. Speaking of which, I’ve been enjoying the newest edition of Q, especially the CD of interviews with Scottish writers and other literary types.
Then May 28, Lisa Higgs and I are joining forces again for a reading at Jane Addams Books Shop in Champaign, Illinois — also a terrific independent bookstore. I’m hoping to get a few other events scheduled for the summer, and a few are in the works, but I don’t have any firm dates yet.
On the creative writing front, I’ve finished a complete draft of my novel in progress, which I’ve tentatively titled An Untimely Frost (I know, I know … Men of Winter … Frost, etc., etc. — luckily Weeping with an Ancient God is scheduled to come out next spring, thus breaking up the whole titles involving winter thing). An Untimely Frost is loosely based on Washington Irving’s supposed courtship of Mary Shelley. Before getting into the revising/editing too heavily, I’m in the process of re-reading the collection of Irving’s letters that I used to develop the novel’s “voice,” plus some other Irving pieces. I’ll probably spend a few weeks reading and note-taking; then in June roll up my sleeves on the revising/editing, hoping to have a finished draft my midsummer — that’s the plan anyway.
Meanwhile, I’m getting antsy to work on something totally new. Ideally I’d like to knock out a few short stories that I could try to have published in journals, and my noodle is brimming with ideas, but they all seem to be novel-length; and I’m beginning to wonder if I can even write a short story. I definitely want to write these other novels that I have in mind, but I didn’t necessarily want to launch into another two-, three-, four-year project immediately. First things first, though … fully finishing An Untimely Frost.
I continue to read and enjoy War and Peace (though I did take a teeny Tolstoy break and read Charles Portis’s True Grit a couple of weekends ago — and it was great fun!). Now onto my busy Sunday. . . .
Pathfinding: a blog devoted to helping new writers find outlets for their work
Bradbury’s theory and more readings in the works
When people have asked me what my dissertation is about, I’ve managed to boil the 240 pages or so of pretty dense academic text to something like, It’s about the psychic origins of creativity. Recently I was perusing Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation by Tim Hamilton, a graphic novel, and Bradbury’s introduction really spoke to me as it aligns with my own ideas of creativity, especially literary creativity. Bradbury, who was one of the authors whose work turned me into a voracious reader as a teenager, begins by discussing some early incidents, stories, and ideas for stories; then writes, “All of these stories were forgotten when I first wrote Fahrenheit 451. But they were still there, somewhere, percolating in my subconscious” (vii). He goes on, “What you have before you now is a further rejuvenation of a book that was once a short novel that was once a short story that was once a walk around the block, a rising up in a graveyard, and a final fall of the House of Usher.”
Speaking specifically about his creative composition process, Bradbury writes,
My subconscious is more complicated than I ever imagined. I’ve learned over the years to let it run rampant and offer me its ideas as they come, giving them no preference and no special treatment. When the time is right, somehow they coalesce and erupt from my subconscious and spill onto the page.
Though phrased differently, Bradbury’s description is very similar to my own notions about how a work of fiction, especially, is birthed by its author (or at least by authors like me). There is no finite way to write fiction, and some authors, I know, plan their narratives like blueprints for a building and follow their outlines with an architect’s eye for exactness. Others, like me, approach the process more organically. My own sense is that my subconscious (a term that suggests a layering a consciousness that folks in psychology and various neurosciences are finding inaccurate and unhelpful, but we’ll go with it for now) is working ahead of me (of my conscious mind), laying the groundwork for the narrative and ushering it toward conflicts and resolutions that only it comprehends. My job as writer, then, is to trust its path and pick up the pieces of its trail that it leaves for me according to its own imagistic sensibilities. So rather than resist its beckoning when it may seem illogical to my conscious thought, I must trust my subconscious’s ability to keep to a worthwhile (let’s even use the word “meaningful”) narrative path.
Allow me to quote the master further:
Each character in Fahrenheit 451 has his or her moment of truth; I stayed quietly in the background and let them declaim and never interrupted…. I say all this to inform any teachers or students reading this book that what I did was name a metaphor and let myself run free, allowing my subconscious to surface with all kinds of wild ideas. (viii)
Bradbury’s sage advice to student writers:
[I]f some teacher suggests to his or her students that they conceive metaphors and write essays or stories about them, the young writers should take care not to intellectualize or be self-conscious or overanalyze their metaphors; they should let the metaphors race as fast and furious and freely as possible so that what is stirred up are all the hidden truths at the bottom of the writer’s mind.
All the hidden truths at the bottom of the mind: Amen.
Some odds and ends …
I’ve added another for-sure reading for Men of Winter, this one at Stone Alley Books & Collectibles in Galesburg, Illinois (Carl Sandburg’s and my hometown). It will be Saturday, April 30, from 1 to 3 p.m. Stone Alley is a very cool little shop featuring used and rare books, in addition to comic books and coffee — a terrific place to while away a couple of hours. I have several other readings in the works, but no other newly added locked-in dates at present. My University of Illinois, Springfield colleague Lisa Higgs and I are working on some dual readings, in addition to our April 20 reading at Sherman (Illinois) Public Library. Lisa will be reading from Lodestar, her collection of sonnets recently released by Finishing Line Press.
I continue to work and make progress on the Authoress, the novel I’m currently writing. My main book I’m reading right now is Tolstoy’s War and Peace. It took about 120 pages for me to get into it, but now, on about page 220, I’m really enjoying it. For one thing, I think it took awhile for me to synthesize all the different characters and their situations; once my old brain managed that, reading the narrative became much more pleasurable. I also read Andrew Ervin’s beautifully written novella 14 Bagatelles, part of his novella collection Extraordinary Renditions, from Coffee House Press.
Other notable titles I’ve enjoyed of late include Hint Fiction, edited by Robert Swartwood and published by Norton. By definition, hint fiction is “a story of 25 words or fewer that suggests a larger, more complex story.” This anthology is the repository of many, many intriguing little gems. Another is Terrance Hayes’s Lighthead, winner of the 2010 National Book Award in poetry and published by Penguin.
Pathfinding: a blog devoted to helping new writers find outlets for their work
Readings for Men of Winter scheduled, and some new titles
I’ve been actively trying to schedule some readings for Men of Winter, and I have two local dates set: One will be Wednesday, April 20, at Sherman Public Library, my “home away from home.” I’ll be reading along with my University of Illinois at Springfield colleague Lisa Higgs, whose collection of sonnets, Lodestar, has recently been released by Finishing Line Press. Lisa and I are working on setting up additional dual dates, but my other scheduled reading will be solo at Benedictine University at Springfield Thursday, May 26. The dates are listed on my Readings page at tedmorrissey.com. I read the first chapter of Men of Winter in Louisville last month, at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900; and I plan to read the first chapter at Sherman Public Library. However, I’ll do a different selection at BUS in May.
Not to dissuade any readers from coming to the Sherman Library event, but there is a video available of my reading chapter 1 at both Vimeo and YouTube (a slightly abridged version).
On the writing front, I was interviewed by The Fourth River, which (if I understand correctly) will run online this summer some time. The interviewer, Beth Gilstrap, talked with me about both Men of Winter and Weeping with an Ancient God, my novella that is slated for publication, along with a collection of short stories, next spring by Punkin House. Beth was a capable interviewer, asking intelligent and interesting questions (I only hope I responded in kind).
Meanwhile, I continue to work on the Authoress, the project name for my novel in progress. I’ve really been enjoying the writing process. I recently reached a climactic section that I’ve been working toward for 200 pages or thereabouts, and as such I’ve started getting up earlier just to leave myself a little extra time in the morning to write; if I get up at about 5:15, I can carve out 40 to 45 minutes to write, Monday through Friday. Generally, then, three or four evenings a week I can type up my handwritten pages produced in the mornings. It’s hardly a lightning-fast process, but with about two years’ work on the manuscript, I’m at the 375-page mark.
Having finished and truly enjoyed Anna Karenina, I dove right into War and Peace a couple of weeks ago. It’s taken me a little longer to develop an affinity for the text than it did for Anna Karenina, which happened from the first page, but I’m about 130 pages into War and Peace and am beginning to feel connected to the characters and the storyline. I think two features delayed my emotional attachment to the novel: one, Tolstoy introduces a plethora of characters in the opening chapters, and it was difficult for me to keep them all straight; also, he uses a lot of French in these same chapters, which is footnoted, but I found it cumbersome to keep glancing down to the bottom of the page, then back to my place in the text — as often Tolstoy has his characters speaking French, but the exposition between bits of dialogue is of course in English (Russian), or the characters shift back and forth between French and English/Russian, sometimes within the same sentence; so one must keeping jumping back and forth between the text of the novel and the translators’ footnotes. There is some French in Anna Karenina, of course, but it’s not so extensive, and not ladled on so thickly in the opening pages when one is trying to get one’s bearings. The French has slowed to a trickle in the last few chapters I’ve read of War and Peace, and that has helped me to embrace the novel more … affectionately.
I’ve decided that one of the things I should do with this blog is highlight some recent works of fiction and poetry that are available. One of my favorite pastimes when on campus at UIS is to go to Brookens Library and browse through the newly arrived books, many from small-press and university publishers. One book of poetry that I’ve found very engaging is Seven Poets, Four Days, One Book, which is the product of a group experiment in poetic composition. Another notable title is Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing: Stories, by Lydia Peelle. I’d also like to recommend two books from Coffee House Press: Extraordinary Renditions, a collection of three novellas, by Andrew Ervin; and Horse, Flower, Bird, an odd but engaging collection of very brief, fairy-tale-esque stories, by Kate Bernheimer (art byRikki Ducornet).
Pathfinding: a blog devoted to helping new writers find outlets for their work
Writer Meagan Cass in town, and some War and Peace
This past week I was delighted to be among a group who took writer Meagan Cass to dinner at Bella Milano in Springfield, Illinois. The table arrangement did not facilitate my being able to talk much writerly shop with Meagan, but she was warm and witty, all the things a young visiting writer is supposed to be, and we all stayed long after the meal was concluded to continue to talk, in fact about three hours all together — so clearly no one was in a rush to leave her company. Earlier in the day, at a presentation I was unable to attend, she spoke of contemporary narrative’s forebears, like myth and fairytale, and how they can inspire and inform technique today. I was able to touch upon her topic at dinner, and she mentioned that her story “The Candy House of Roscoe, New York” (published in Carve Magazine) makes use of fairytale tropes in particular. I brought up her “Candy House” story as I had read it earlier in the day and enjoyed it very much. One of Meagan’s stories that I enjoyed even more is “My Highest Recommendation” (published in Minnetonka Review). The story is funny and touching and intriguing — all the things a great short story ought to be, which is no doubt why it won the journal’s 2007 Editor’s Prize.
Meagan has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and a PhD from University of Louisville Lafayette, and she lives in California, where one of her interests, apparently, is the LA Feminist Book Club.
I finished reading Anna Karenina last weekend, and even though my life runneth over with great books I’m eager to read I had to run out and purchase War and Peace, as I’m still very much in a Tolstoy kind of mood. Our local Barnes & Noble had several versions available, and I took several minutes to look them over before deciding which I preferred. I’d read the Constance Garnett translation of Anna Karenina and obviously liked it a lot, and her version of War and Peace was available in a couple of different editions; but ultimately I decided on the newer Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation, published by Vintage Classics. So far I feel I chose wisely. I like the liveliness of the translation itself, and I appreciate many of the edition’s special features, like a list of principal characters, including their various nicknames and their relationships to one another — my only complaint is the book’s weight: holy cow, it’s softback, but it must weigh twelve pounds; it’s like holding a bowling ball while you read. I feel like I should wear steel-toed shoes while lugging it around just in case it slips from my grip.
On the writing front, I continue to work on my novel in progress, the Authoress, and I continue to like what’s happening on the page. I’ve still yet to set up a reading in association with the release of Men of Winter. I spoke to the owner of a coffeehouse in Galesburg, Illinois (Carl Sandburg’s and my hometown), and he sounded very enthusiastic about hosting a reading. In fact, I got off the phone thinking it was a done deal and it was just a matter of finding a date. He wanted me to email him further information, which I did immediately … it’s been going on two weeks and he hasn’t responded. Who knows? On a happier note, my publisher, Punkin House, has found a major distributor for its books, and I’m looking forward to finding out more details. In a couple of weeks I’ll be at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900, where I will, among other things, read the first chapter of Men of Winter.
Also, an editor has expressed an interest in interviewing me with regards to my novella Weeping with an Ancient God, an excerpt of which was published in The Final Draft last fall under the title “Melvill in the Marquesas” (since archived at this blog); the interview is supposed to take place later this month or beginning of March, but we’ll have to see what happens there. I’m hoping to bring out the novella along with a collection of previously published stories later this year.
Men of Winter (purchase print paperback edition)
Pathfinding: a blog devoted to helping new writers find outlets for their work (my Punkin House author’s blog)
Getting Men of Winter out in the world, and more Tolstoy
I haven’t been writing this blog with regularity of late, largely because it’s that part of the calendar that is most irregular, especially for us academic types — with one semester’s ending and another’s beginning, and that whole holiday season thrown in to boot. But 2011 has settled into place, and my schedule is normalizing as well. Technically Men of Winter was released in November 2010, but it was very late and with all the academic and holiday hubbub, it was almost like it hadn’t been released at all. I was hoping to enter the novel into some contests, like for first novels or just fiction of 2010, but I was surprised to discover that just about all of those sorts of contests had mid to late December submission deadlines; and I had difficulty getting a significant batch from my publisher, Punkin House, (in fact it was only this past week that a shipment of fifty arrived), so I missed the deadlines, as even first novels have to be submitted in the year of their publication. C’est la vie.
I spent some time over break trying to arrange some readings/book signings, and I can’t say that’s going especially well. I’ve contacted about fifteen bookstores and coffeehouses (known for their readings) in Chicago, Peoria, and Galesburg, and only one has responded, at all, and that was in the negative (they no longer host such things because they’ve decided their establishment wasn’t well suited to them). I need to step up my efforts, and now that we’re getting settled into 2011 I will. Men of Winter has been listed on Amazon, but sold via Punkin House as an independent seller. Punkin House is working on an agreement with a book distributor, and once that happens it should become easier to place books in corporate bookstores, like Barnes & Noble and Borders, and on Amazon proper. The publisher had been trying to sell exclusively through its website, but that’s just too difficult in today’s web-based, corporate-controlled world.
Quite frankly, as I’ve written here before, my three-job lifestyle does not lend itself to vigorous promotion of my book. I’m not really at economic or professional liberty to be gallivanting around North America pitching my novel. It’s also tricky to be a small-town English teacher and also a writer of serious literature, as there certainly are elements in the community that would disapprove, at times, of my subject matter or even my language. It puts one in the awkward position of needing to fly both on and off the radar — I definitely want people being aware of and reading my writing, but I don’t need a mob with pitchforks and torches marching up my driveway, metaphorically speaking of course (I’m pretty sure). That is precisely why tenure was established: academics and others who work in the arena of the human intellect (I just like the way that sounds — not even sure what it means) need to be able to explore and express ideas without fear of losing their jobs because somebody with a little clout takes offense. Of course, if education “reformers,” including those in Illinois, get their way, tenure will be abolished. That would be a pleasant day.
I have been invited to read the first chapter of Men of Winter at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900 next month at the University of Louisville. I’ve attended that conference, maybe, seven of the last eight years, and enjoy it very much. Normally I’ve presented an academic paper in addition to reading a creative piece, but I didn’t submit an academic abstract this time (though my brain runneth over with ideas for scholarly pursuits) because I knew I’d have to stop working on my novel in progress, the Authoress, for a month or longer to research and write a proper paper — and I don’t want to distract myself from my creative writing, which, by the way, is going along well. I just completed a draft of chapter 21 and am at work on the twenty-second chapter, with the manuscript now in excess of 350 pages (not that bulk in itself matters, but this is by far the most complex work I’ve done). I’ve contacted a couple of independent bookstores in Louisville in hopes of scheduling a reading while I’m in town for the conference, but, shockingly, I’ve heard from neither.
On the reading front, I’m still tackling Anna Karenina and enjoying it a lot. No doubt the snowy, frigid weather of the last few weeks has enhanced my enjoyment of Tolstoy’s novel even more. I was marveling at a scene I read this morning because of its being so applicable to today, even though it was written in the 1870s, in Russia. At a dinner party, a guest is envious of the “American way of doing business,” which in essence means an expedited, informal way, minus a lot of bureaucratic oversight — exactly the unregulated style of business that led to our economic near collapse two years ago — and the sort of style Republicans would have us return to in earnest now that Wall Street tycoons are back on their feet, thanks to taxpayers.
Also at the dinner party, which is in section 6, chapter 22, they discuss the latest innovations in agricultural technology, specifically a new threshing machine, and how Levin, a wealthy yet hands-on landowner, is opposed to these sorts of innovations as they will, in the long run, be detrimental to farming and, more profoundly, socioeconomics in Russia. Basically he asks, If we replace the peasant class with machinery, what will the peasant class do? This is precisely where the United States is at in the twenty-first century in that our emphasis on computer technology has made obsolete many manual-labor and even skilled-labor sorts of jobs, like in manufacturing, for example, and educators, therefore, are charged with the task of making certain every student is college bound and ready for a high-tech-related job (the thrust really of the Bush administration’s “No Child Left Behind” initiative). It all sounds quite lovely, except for the minor detail that not every student is geared to do that high-tech sort of work. Just as I will never be able to dunk a basketball, some students will never be able to write well or to work calculus (just as I cannot work calculus). But the sorts of decent jobs that these good young people could count on a generation ago are no longer available — they’ve gone overseas or have disappeared altogether.
In short, Tolstoy’s broad insights, from the economic workings of society to the romantic workings of the human heart, are quite remarkable, even a century and a half later.
Pathfinding: a blog devoted to helping new writers find outlets for their work
Looking back, and a bit of True Grit
On the one hand, I claim not to put a lot of stock in the significance of certain dates for their own sake, but the last day of the calendar year seems to encourage reflection. From a writing standpoint in particular, it’s definitely been a good one. I placed the odd and off-color story “Unnatural Deeds” with Leaf Garden, issue #8. Frankly, it took several months to find a publisher for that one, but I’m proud of it in the sense, especially, that the story is a testament to honesty — life as it really is, and not a sanitized version of it. It raised a few eyebrows, that I know of. I also placed the story “Walkin’ the Dog” in the debut issue of Spilling Ink Review. In that story I’d experimented with narrative that rests more heavily than usual (for me) on repetition of specific images, especially the color orange. It hasn’t come out yet, but Pisgah Review took my story “The Composure of Death”; it should be out this winter or spring. I realize now all three stories have in common that I borrowed their titles from other literary sources: Macbeth (5.1), “Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles”; the title of Walter Mosley’s conceptual novel Walkin’ the Dog; and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “[T]he corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap, though the countenance retained the composure of death.”
The biggest stroke of luck of course was finding a publisher, finally, for my novel Men of Winter, which the new small press Punkin House picked up in the spring and released at the end of November. Thus 2011 will be in large part about promoting the novel. I also hope to release Weeping with an Ancient God, a novella and story collection, tentatively taken by Punkin House. The first chapter of Weeping, titled “Melvill in the Marquesas,” was published in September in The Final Draft. (I meant to provide a link to the story, which was published online, but the link has become inactive again — a bit disconcerting, as I’ve been hoping it would be floating around in the ether promoting in its way the coming novella release.) I thought I would have difficulty placing the novella excerpt — it is a bit unusual, in essence a fictionalized biography of Herman Melville’s experience among cannibals in 1842, during the whaling adventure that led to his eventually writing Moby Dick — but The Final Draft picked it up pretty quickly, and even though I withdrew it promptly from other journals’ consideration, I received three other offers of publication, and two rejections with long notes of praise (highly unusual, from my experience). So maybe the novella itself will generate some reading interest.
I was also invited to contribute to Glimmer Train Press’ Writers Ask series, a well-respected how-to publication, and thus my piece “Researching the Rhythms of Voice” will appear this winter or spring. I wrote about the process I’ve gone through to write my current project, whose working title is the Authoress, as its first-person protagonist is modeled after the nineteenth-century American writer Washington Irving. In particular I’ve been reading an obscure collection of Irving’s letters in order to get the feel of his more informal prose style. I’ve written about 340 manuscript pages of the Authoress, and hope to finish within a year or so. One other writing development was my establishing a new blog via my publisher, Punkin House. I decided what the world may need is a blog devoted to helping new(er) writers find outlets for their work, thus Pathfinding.
The Authoress has taken up all my writing energy, so I haven’t written any shorter pieces, nor any scholarly papers — both of which I miss, but it’s important to devote the necessary time and mental processing to the new novel. I’m not short on ideas: I have several writing projects, both small and large, creative and scholarly, in mind.
Finally, I don’t normally write about cinema, especially contemporary American cinema, but the other day I saw the Coen Brothers’ newest offering, True Grit, and I found it quite mesmerizing and wonderful. The acting is superb (and why wouldn’t it be, given the cast?), but beyond that the cinematic style is quite engaging, epic and even biblical in its scope. I know there have been some naysayers who don’t like the idea of remaking the 1969 John Wayne classic, directed by Henry Hathaway — and I love that True Grit, too — but the Coen Brothers have remained truer, apparently, to Charles Portis’s 1968 novel, and have given us a film that is darker and, well, grittier, than the original film, great as it is.
On the reading front, I continue to make my way through Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and am enjoying it very much. Winter break is nearly over, and it will be back to the three-job grind, but I’ve managed to make a lot of progress on the Authoress.
Thornhill, Hitchcock and more
I had the treat of attending an acoustic performance of the local band Thornhill last evening at the Walnut Street Winery in Rochester, Illinois. In a word, they were terrific. They performed for over three hours, and I was there to enjoy every note. The band — consisting of sisters Tina and Lynna Thornhill (lead vocals, rhythm guitar; bass, vocals), Joel Zulauf (lead guitar, vocals), Patty Kniss (percussion), and Terri Patterson (backing harmonies) — did a variety of covers, from classics by artists like Carole King, Heart, the Carpenters, and Neil Young (to name a few), new artists, like Neko Case, plus several cuts from their debut CD, Center of Town. They also performed an a cappella version of “O Holy Night,” and had other local musicians join them on stage for inspired renditions of Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee” and KT Tunstall’s “Big Black Horse and the Cherry Tree.” In addition to Thornhill’s excellent musicianship, their rapport with the audience, which included long-time Thornhill devotees and newcomers like me, was easy-going, lighthearted and often laugh-out-loud funny. Throw into the mix the winery’s unique and intimate setting, and all in all it was a memorable evening to be sure.
Music-lovers in central Illinois should keep an eye out for Thornhill appearances, and check the band’s dates page on its website.
While I’m posting, I want to give a nod to Dr. Tena Helton’s graduate English class at the University of Illinois at Springfield for their impressive project presentations based on the films of Alfred Hitchcock. The students used a variety of technology/media applications to explore various aspects of such Hitchcock classics as Rear Window and Psycho.
As I’ve discussed recently, my novel Men of Winter has now been released in three formats: print paperback, Kindle, and ebook. Over winter break I’ll be starting to organize readings and other promotional projects. The Comments page of my website has been … light on traffic since I started it, but hopefully now that people are reading Men of Winter some folks will use the Comments page to initiate a dialogue about the novel and, really, anything related to writing, publishing, etc. It would be great to have an interactive readership.
I’m a little more than a third through Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and still enjoying it very much, and I continue to work on the Authoress, my novel in progress, feeling that I’m nearly finished with a draft of chapter 20. It has been a busy week, with final exams, writing portfolios, and research papers to grade — plus my home laptop was out of commission for a few days due to a nasty virus — so my reading and writing suffered a bit; but I hope to more than make up for the lost time over break.
Men of Winter fully released, and a little Kerouac
Men of Winter is fully released, meaning that all three versions — paperback, ebook, and Kindle — are available from Punkin House Press at punkinbooks.com. I haven’t seen the finished paperbacks yet, but I trust they’re on their way. As I discussed in a previous post, Punkin House Press is experimenting with different approaches to green publishing, described on PHP’s blog page. The fact that Men of Winter is available in Kindle is important, I think, as it encourages a wider readership. I saw a video blog in which the blogger was from Australia and she was saying that she’s become a much more voracious reader of new fiction thanks to ereading, as Kindle versions of books are much cheaper “downunder” than even paperback releases. In short, she simply couldn’t afford to buy a lot of print books. My Punkin House blog, Pathfinding, is on Blogger, which lets you see where people are who’ve looked at your post, and while I haven’t had a lot of traffic, period, yet, I have had people checking in from places like Russia, Croatia, Singapore, Italy, and of course the UK and Canada. So if folks abroad are going to buy Men of Winter, it’s more likely they’ll buy the Kindle or ebook versions.
Last Wednesday, the Poetry Collective at the University of Illinois at Springfield hosted a screening of the documentary What Happened to Kerouac? (1986), which I enjoyed very much (even though it was pretty late after teaching all day, and night). For a time I was a Kerouac fanatic, beginning with my reading of On the Road (1957) when I was in my mid thirties. I went on to read several, though not all, of Kerouac’s books. Probably, after On the Road, my next favorite is Tristessa (1960). The film uses footage from The Steve Allen Show in 1959 when Kerouac read from On the Road to Allen’s jazz accompaniment on the piano; in a word, it’s moving. The clip is available on YouTube, of course:
For Kerouac fans, or students of American literature, especially mid-twentieth-century, the film is well worth seeing, as it has extensive interview clips and rare footage from other Beat Generation notables like Allen Ginsburg, Gregory Corso, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Beat scholar and biographer Ann Charters.
On the reading front, I continue to read and enjoy Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina — it’s a wintry morning here, and ideal for a cup of coffee and Tolstoy (though I’m in a springtime section of the novel — drats the timing). On the one hand, I enjoy Tolstoy’s description of the simple and happy peasants, who get such great joy from working the land; but I know that for the peasants themselves, toiling away on the land chiefly for the benefit of the owner was hard, hard work and probably joyful less often than Tolstoy’s book would lead one to believe. Nevertheless, the complexity of the novel, in terms of the diverse range of issues Tolstoy works into the narrative, is astounding.
I continue to work on my novel in progress, the Authoress, and will perhaps have a little surge of additional progress over winter break.
Print edition available Tuesday, PHP’s greenness, and more Tolstoy
The ebook of Men of Winter has been available since last week, but Punkin House says the print edition will be available Tuesday. A Kindle version should be available soon. Punkin House took a big step forward this past week, too, in its goal to become a greener publisher. For one thing, the paperback edition is printed on 30% recycled paper stock, and, I must say, it looks very good. Beyond that, however, they’ve launched a unique publishing model called the ROGO Program (for Recycle One Get One). In a nutshell, when you purchase a Punkin House book, you can return it and receive 20% off your next purchase — in an effort to get more authors read, bookshelves less cluttered, and fewer trees killed. They have other innovative green initiatives that are explained in more detail at their Punkin Green Commitment page — please take a look. It’s serendipitous that a house that’s committed to green publishing has taken on me and my work, as I’ve been committed to greener practices myself for years. You go, Punkin House.
I’ve been working away on my novel in progress, and am enjoying the process very much. On the one hand, it’s moving in the basic narrative direction I’ve had in mind for some time, but it still surprises me on a regular basis. In fact, the chapter I’m working on right now (20) is in itself a surprise; originally I’d planned the protagonist’s next move after chapter 19 to be further along the temporal sequence, but instead I’m inserting an entirely new scene that occurred to me as a good idea as I was finishing a draft of chapter 19. What I had planned for chapter 20 will now be chapter 21 (as it stands currently), so the new addition isn’t altering the basic narrative trajectory, but I believe it will enrich the final chapters of the book.
On the reading front, I’m still making my way through Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and the more I read of it, the more I enjoy it. Even though really big novels are out of vogue — notable exceptions of late being Adam Levin’s The Instructions (McSweeney’s), and Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) — there’s something to be said for delving that deeply into characters’ lives, and living with them for as long as it takes to make one’s way through the narrative. There are many short novels and novellas that I love, but a shorter work is a different reading experience than a long work. A key work in my dissertation was William H. Gass’s The Tunnel, also a big, wonderful book. Wow, I just discovered that Dalkey Archive Press has published a casebook for the The Tunnel, edited by H. L. Hix — okay, so now I know what to ask Santa for.
Pathfinding (my Punkin House author’s blog)
12 Winters Blog 
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