Box of gratitudes no. 1: art kindred

Here we are on Christmas Eve Day--a good time to say thanks. I'm starting with a few of my art kindred.

• To Yolanda Sharpe (artist and singer based in Oneonta but frequently in Cooperstown), and Ashley Cooper (artist and classicist around the corner) for going on their own wondrous paths with resolution, and for being part of my everyday life in the arts.
• To Clive Hicks-Jenkins, for the deep pleasure of collaboration across the Atlantic, especially this year for his marvelous work in making beautiful The Foliate Head and Thaliad.
• To novelists Peg Leon and Alice Lichtenstein and sometimes Ginnah Howard for the Occasional Lunch Club Frolic that reminds me that I'm not alone as a novelist in the wilds between the upper Adirondacks and the Catskills. (Let's have lunch!)
• To Paul Digby for doing exactly what he wants in the realm of composing (and various other arts and crafts that catch his fancy), and for the fact that making videos for my poems is one of the things he wants.
• To Mary Boxley Bullington (Mary, bad thing! Update that blog...) for making a painting inspired by The Book of the Red King, for introducing me to the work of potter Steve Mitchell, and for visits in Roanoke. (If you want to see more of her work, visit facebook.)

The House of Words (no. 4): Persistence (Peggy Leon)

4. Persistence

Here’s Peggy Leon on persistence. Peg just published her second novel, A Theory of All Things, with a fine small house, The Permanent Press. I bought mine after her reading at The Green Toad in Oneonta, but you can get yours almost anywhere--and look for her first book, Mother Country, as well.

"Five wildly creative siblings are drawn back into each other’s orbit during a crisis. Along the way, Leon lets each character take turns telling the story and stitches together their collisions via e-mails, texts and telephone conversations, maintaining a healthy balance between tart humor and touching drama. Quirky, funny and eminently readable." —Kirkus

Hear that? Eminently readable. From the famously grumpy reviewers at Kirkus.
And now, Peggy Leon on that curious quality, persistence . . .

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Peggy Leon's first novel
from Permanent Press.

Persistence is always admirable in oneself and annoying in those around us. For me as a writer, it's the nagging inner voice, the "are we there yet, are we there yet" that keeps me barreling down the interstate to the end of a writing project, no matter how doomed the trip seems along the way. I am much more willing to listen to the inner voice than I am to the two voices piping from the back seat on the long drive to spring break in warmer climes. Persistence keeps me sending out manuscripts, shrugging at rejections, and sending out a few more. In the endless job of trying to be published, I hear my mom's voice, circa my teenage years, Sunday afternoons: Did you pick up your room? Yes. Did you empty the dishwasher like I asked? Yes. What about the plants? Watered. The living room needs to be dusted. *Pause* Okay, I'm on it. There's always one more task, one more place to send some writing out to . . . and then after that, there's still another.

I'm not sure I could be a writer without a higher than average level of persistence; it's the only way to balance the impressive amounts of procrastination that I seem to also possess. Every time I sit down at the computer, an interior battle rages, angel (persistence) on one shoulder, devil (procrastination) standing on the other, just like a 1950's cartoon. The moment my fingers hit the keys, procrastination whispers in my ear, the siren song of laundry to be folded, of kitchen drawers that suddenly need to be sorted by function or material, of grouting begging to be mined and refilled. Gentle persistence soothes, "A line or two. You'll see. You'll feel so much better. Laundry? You hate laundry . . ." Then, procrastination rears its little, horned head, "What about the kitchen drawers? Plastic is mixing promiscuously with metal! It's an assault on decency!" Who will win the field today?

There are so many voices in my head, it's a miracle I ever accomplish anything. But, wait. Here's another little voice, Marly's... "Remember you promised to write a couple of paragraphs on persistence for my blog." It's the third reminder. That woman is persistent.

Corey Mesler & more

Corey Mesler is one of the writers I consulted on my upcoming posts on writing and publishing--I asked him about the small press world from the point of views of writer and bookseller. You'll see him again later. But now he has a new interview up at Flutter. He is both poet and novelist, and Flutter asked him to put on his poetry hat. Here are a couple of bites from the pie:

10. What is your ultimate goal as a poet? Are there any specific awards or prizes you strive for?

Oh, I don’t know. I feel like I have been so lucky already. My goal as a writer, years ago, was to have one book in print, one ISBN that I could call my own. So, to have, as my loving wife calls it, a body of work, well, it’s just too sweet. Of course, I would love to have a novel published by FS&G, or Dalkey Archive, or McSweeney’s, or Dzanc, but, what writer wouldn’t? But, realistically, I am not going to land at Knopf. I am very happy with every single publishing credit I have ever received, with every press who has ever published me. I am a small press author and that is, I believe, a fine thing to be. I have received many Pushcart nominations, and, I suppose, just once appearing in that formidable year-end tome would be grand. Oh, and an Oscar. Someday I want an Oscar.

2. What is your writing process?

After years of late night, sad bastard, flesh-lonely, darkly scrivened verse in imitation of whomever I was currently reading, after years of zero discipline, I finally, after marrying my current wife who, among other things, centered me, became an early morning writer. I get up before anyone else, make the coffee for my wife and daughter, and then go to my room. I am normally in front of the keyboard by 6 a.m., every day of the week. Discipline came late to me but, at least, it did come.

* * *

And now I must go write some more and also whisk about the downstairs, attempting to make house-drudging light, before I dash off. Good week for lunch: had a lovely one with painters Yolanda Sharpe and Ashley Cooper and now am going out with novelists Peggy Leon and Alice Lichtenstein. Happy (slightly belated) birthday, Peg! Her new novel from Permanent Press is here.

Books, Graduation, and More

BOOKLIFENOW

That woman is blathering about writing again:

http://www.booklifenow.com/2010/06/where-the-stories-start-music-2/

*

The other day I had lunch with Jeremy Jones, who runs the Booklife website and "Shared Worlds" at Wofford. What fun!

HAPPY

GRADUATION

FUNNY HATS: Rebecca with her friend and classmate Kim, daughter of novelist Peg Leon (who has a new book!)

I have survived graduation, despite the downpour halfway through, and my beautiful Rebecca is the possessor of a Regents diploma with Honors and Advanced Designation (I know, I know, you already read it on Facebook, and if you are a writer, maybe even expressed your comical dismay at the breeding of more writers!), a Clark scholarship, and the Janet Kerr Scholarship for "love of the language, the ability to enjoy great literature, a thirst for knowledge that cannot be quenched, and an attitude that shows a desire to learn and to expand personal horizons."

UPDATERY

Despite prom, baccalaureate, company, graduation, and more, I have been cranking my way through Hollins M. F. A. stories and only have three more to go...

ON THE FENIMORE MUSEUM STAIRS, ABOVE THE LAWN AND GLIMMERGLASS:

Just a few of many beloved friends--Molly, Emily, Evan, Pat, Vigi, Kim, Amy, Bugga, Tiffany, Hannah P, Connor. I also have pictures taken After the Downpour!

New books by friends, 3: Alice Lichtenstein's "Lost"

Alice Lichtenstein and Peg Leon and I are Oneonta-and-Cooperstown area writers who are fond of eating lunch. Together. So this is not by any means a review. Instead, it is a celebration of Alice's new novel. (Soon I'll do the same for Peg's new novel. Party confetti is floating about the lake and village these days.)

5 Notable Things about Lost

1. There's a lot about the work people do in Lost: what makes it meaningful or not, what goes on in laboratories or fieldwork, what goes on in the village world of firefighters and rescue workers and social workers and police. I notice this strain in the book because it's somewhat unusual, and I like it. Often in what is called "the literary novel," nobody seems to do any work, or else it is all happening at stage left. Here the work people do informs and expresses character.

2. A related element is Alice's use of class divisions and the way that terrible events can break the barriers between people and make them learn about others who had seemed from another world only hours before. (The people involved at the beginning are: an almost-mute boy who is seen only as an arsonist and a danger at school and on his grandparents' farm; an architect who has been transformed from what he was into an Alzheimer's patient; a scientist who is attempting to navigate her new life as caretaker of the husband who has permanently mislaid his reason; and a Vietnam vet who is losing family and a good deal of his mobility while attempting to make meaning through work that involves search-and-rescue of those who are physically or metaphorically lost. The strands of story bind Corey the unwanted and "lost" child to Susan Hunsinger, whose loss is clear and painful right from the start, and to Jeff, who is losing himself, bit by bit, and who suffers a major loss near the beginning of the book. Family is in tatters in each of the three parts of this novel, and family must be remade and bound together from unexpected materials after the characters pass through fire and ice. Whether that is possible is one of the questions the novel asks.)

3. This writer is very clear in her mind on what a novel is and what prose is, and her writing is as clean and sharp as the right tool used for the right job. Here's Susan in her lab with a student and a red-spotted newt: "Then she set to work, showing Jennifer how to slice a tiny trapdoor at the top of the skull, first scraping back and forth to score the bone, next finding the natural sutures to separate the places. 'Then it flops back like this.' Using the forcepts, Susan carefully lifted the bone, skin intact, up and back as though it were hinged. 'And here's the treasure.' Susan peered through the scope as the image of the salamander's brain, a white translucent globe, flooded the computer screen hooked up beside it. 'I think of it as a pearl.'"

4. She cares about craft and shapeliness, and that sort of meticulousness and concern for form shows. This book is the right length, trimmed of all fat and gracefully weaving threads of the past into the fabric of the present.

5. One thing that I consider a profoundly religious idea--the taking of the worst possible events and making of them the means of redemption and resurrection--underpins the story. This pattern strengthens and deepens the entire book. Was that a conscious design? Surely not. Instead, it was a writer plugging into one of the great mythic patterns of story. ,,Was

Books, deadlines, & truffles

Deadlines and minor panics have been sprouting up for several months, but now at least the current round of college applications is done--much more to do there, but at least we hit the eleventh hour with submissions on Friday. Make that the eleven fifty-ninth minute. And The Throne of Psyche has gone to Mercer University Press. I made the deadline of Friday; then my mother (wonderful persnicketiness!) found some glitches, and so I tinkered some more and turned it in again last night. I guess that's called not quite making the deadline. I got a reward anyway: last night my husband flew home from Houston with a giant purple box of Vosges (haut chocolat, indeed!) truffles, and I discovered that an announcement of chocolate brings the very speediest responses to facebook status lines . . .

Soon I hope to do some more posts on friends-with-new-books since a bumper crop has come along lately. I have a rather daunting stack, but it's not the best of times in Book Land, and one must do one's little bit to help. Yesterday I had lunch at Alex and Ika's with two local writers who just received excellent reviews in the not-defunct-after-all Kirkus: Peg Leon of Cooperstown, whose second book, A Theory of All Things, is forthcoming from Permanent Press; Alice Lichtenstein of Oneonta, who also has a second book appearing, Lost, from Scribner's. Both books have March pub dates and sound like fine reads. I'll get to them.

Meanwhile, I have decided that I don't quite like the first third of my third--perhaps my last, as I have written one for each of my children--novel for children. So I shall be getting back to that soon. The rest of the book has great swing and momentum, but the first third seems a bit mired in molasses. The pacing is a tad off, and the introduction of the various characters comes too slowly.

From a review of the anthology Enemy of the Good (U.K.: P. S. Publishing) in Tangent:

“The Red King Sleeps” by Marly Youmans weaves a vivid fantasy dreamscape of romance, death, decay, and the dangerous power of the mind to create worlds. This story is not long, but Youmans makes every word count. The imagery she presents is as beautiful as it is eerie. It is not surprising that she mentions that this story was “written in the seizure of a dream.” This story will seize anyone with a taste for the dark and surreal. --Maggie Jamison

That's the Tenniel Red King sleeping at the top of the post, of course. I was given the Alice books when I was five and read and reread them endlessly. My Red King doesn't look much like this one. He doesn't even look like a Mervyn Peake illustration--and I adore Peake's Alice illustrations (and what wonders he did with Bleak House and other books!)

And now since I appear to be truffleable, or worthy of being truffled, I will go have a very small bite to eat . . . If you were here, I would share. Alas. As it befalls, I am alone with a large number of helpless truffles. First I shall recite "The Walrus and the Carpenter," waving my handkerchief as I do. Then: a nibble or two. Good cheer!

Peg Leon, the Frolic, & Steve Cieslawski solo show

THOSE DARN 8:00 CLASSES

Tuesday morning I had the fun of going to R's class with Peg Leon to talk about growing up as a writer-to-be and answering questions. Peg has a first novel, Mother Country, that I read in manuscript some years ago. I hope she has many more to come! Half the class had been at R's birthday party last weekend, so it was a comfortable setting with lots of well-known faces. Several of the girls in the class have written a great deal--R with short stories, A with a novel ms. Afterward Peg and I went to the Stagecoach for a hot drink and yacked about kids and publishing.

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THE FAMOUS R-BASH
The annual frolic of games (we must have the beloved Game of Murder!) and mayhem went off well, as usual. For the first time, I notice a decided tone of maturity. There was a good deal of nostalgia, looking backward to prior R-birthday parties and the funny things that happened and the games that were played. Traditions violated and traditions carried on were noted. When one is a sophomore in high school, one has at last reached a pinnacle of reflection with the past glittering to one side and the future gleaming cloudily on the other. As always, people arrived in costume and changed clothes nonstop well into the next day, so the dress-up box saw some mighty action. I keep finding outrageous clothes strewn in odd corners. Meanwhile B added in the new element of games from his Theatre Arts class. The amount of lusty singing increased a great deal. Some of the guests have been in chorus together for five years now, and their voices are getting bigger and more fluent. The birthday extravaganza never fails to be touching and give me hope for the future. "O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beautious mankind is! O brave new world: That has such people in'it!"


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CIESLAWSKI SOLO SHOW

Steve Cieslawski (artist for the hardcover jacket of The Curse of the Raven Mocker) sent me the catalogue for his third solo show in New York. You can read his essay and catch thumbnail glimpses of his pictures (as well as some by his wife, Gina Freschet) on the web here: William Bennett Gallery. Steve uses "a variation of the technique of the 17th century Dutch Master, Johannes Vermeer. Each painting is done with many glazes of different colors. The effect is one of light traveling through perhaps 20 layers of glazed pigment and bouncing back through layers to form an inner light source. Every inch of the canvas is meticulously painted so that each day, with the changing light, the viewer will invariably see something new and different." Steve's visionary portraits of the psyche and her world remind me of Wallace Stevens:

[CREDIT: Steve Cieslawski,
"The Garden"

William Bennett Gallery
October 20-
November 18

A collection of new paintings and illustrations completed in the past two years.

Opening Reception:
Saturday, October 20th
6pm - 9pm
RSVP for the Exhibition Opening tojmassaro@williambennettgallery.com
or at 212-965-8707]

Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.
--from "The Idea of Order at Key West."

So take a look at another vision of the "blessed rage for order" and linger by the "fragrant portals, dimly-starred." If you are in the city and have a chance, go see the show!