It’s been a long, long time since I last posted—I’ve been busy revising my new novel, working on essays, teaching classes, and raising the kids. What better day to start posting again than Julia Child’s hundredth birthday?

One of my favorite books that I’ve read in the last few years is Julia Child’s memoir My Life in France, co-written with her grand-nephew, Alex Prud’homme. It’s a beautiful book—it’s not just the story of Julia’s life; it tells the tale of an artistic apprenticeship. The book describes, with a sense of joy so palpable that the pages nearly shake with it, how Julia discovered her true calling late in life (she didn’t start cooking seriously until her late thirties), and how she spent a decade completing her book, despite setback after setback.

I equally loved As Always, Julia, a collection of the correspondence between Julia and her friend Avis DeVoto. DeVoto acted as a sort of literary agent for Julia, counseling her through her multiple rejections and encouraging her to never lose faith. If not for some good luck and a few random twists of fate, Mastering the Art of French Cooking never would’ve seen the light of day. Even Alfred Knopf himself was reluctant to publish it.

Here is one of my favorite quotes from My Life in France, about something Julia learned from one of her earliest teachers:

“Although [Chef Bugnard] must have made this dish several thousand times, he always took great pride and pleasure in his performance. He insisted that one pay attention, learn the correct technique, and that one enjoy one’s cooking—‘Yes, Madame Child, fun!’ he’d say. ‘Joy!’ It was a remarkable lesson. No dish, not even the humble scrambled egg, was too much trouble for him. ‘You never forget a beautiful thing that you have made,’ he said. ‘Even after you eat it, it stays with you—always.'”

Happy birthday, Julia.

There’s a beautiful quote from Junot Diaz in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine education issue:

“I do not remember her voice, but I do remember that every time I saw her, she called me to her desk and showed me with an almost conspiratorial glee a book she had picked out for me, a book I always read and often loved.

Every now and then you get lucky in your education and you make a teacher-friend; Mrs. Crowell was my first. By second grade she was allowing me to take out more books than the prescribed limit. By third grade I was granted admission to her librarian’s office. My love of books was born of hers. As a newcomer with almost no knowledge of the country in which I’d found myself, I was desperate to understand where the hell I was, who I was. I sought those answers in books. It was in Mrs. Crowell’s library that I found my first harbor, my first truly safe place in the United States. I still feel a happy pulse every time I see a library. I’m with Borges in imagining Paradise as ‘a kind of library.’ Where instead of angels there will be a corps of excellent librarians.”

The Kansas City Public Library, which I’d love to see someday

We got back from vacation in Vermont last week—we had an amazing time there, though we arrived home just a few days before the flood. We stayed near Waterbury, which I read at one point became flooded with 10 feet of water. . . I hope they’ll be able to recover soon. I love Vermont—it’s one of my favorite places in the world.

At the Waterbury reservoir

Now that we’re back I’m looking forward to teaching a YA fiction workshop at the Austin Bat Cave, our local nonprofit writing and tutoring center (similar to 826.) My workshop is aimed at adult writers, but a portion of the proceeds will go to supporting the Bat Cave’s free programming for kids. It starts September 13, and here’s a link to more information about the class. We have a great group of writers signed up—I’m really excited for it to start.

I had an amazing time teaching at the 826 Michigan conference—I loved my students, and it was great to meet Betsy Lerner. I’d read Betsy’s book The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers ten years ago, when it first came out and all my writer friends were passing it around. She’s even more wonderful in person. She’s now an agent, partnered with Henry Dunow and Jennifer Carlson. Her blog is a must-read.

One of the great things about the 826 centers is that they each have a store—the Pirate Store, the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store, the Bigfoot Research Institute, and the Robot Supply & Repair Store. I hope that the next 826 that opens will have a Fairy and Ogre store. . . my daughter would love this. (As would I. What’s not to love about wee forest folk brandishing light bulbs?)

Also: I got to go to Zingerman’s twice. I had a nice long talk with the fish guy, who gingerly sliced a gigantic hunk of sable and packed me a little to-go meal. I would like to marry him.

Happiness:

I met Josh Weil at the Sewanee Writer’s Conference last summer, when he was still finishing edits on his collection of novellas, The New Valley. The book was published by Grove this year, and when I read it, it took my breath away–the writing is stunning, and the final novella in the book is an absolute masterpiece. It’s rare when a writer is as wonderful in person as they are on the page, and when I finished the book I told him I had a feeling it was going to win something big. Sure enough, last month he received the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award. If you’re looking for a gift this holiday season, go buy his book. He’s the real thing.

He was kind enough to answer a few questions about novellas, his writing process, book publicity, and the value of writer’s conferences:

Why were you drawn to novellas? How does the process of writing them differ from short stories and novels?

I never intended to write novellas, at least not at first. The first one I ever wrote as “Ridge Weather”, which opens The New Valley. I was simply struck by an idea, an image, and sat down to write towards it and when I was done I had an 80 page story. But I found that that shape to a piece, what can be done in that length, just worked for me; it’s just the way my mind thinks about some stories. It just bends towards longer story arcs – novels included – more than short stories, but I like the focus and intensity of a short story, and so, for me the novella manages to bring both of those together. I suspect that my background in film and playwriting has something to do with that, too. There’s a fullness and yet a compactness to a play or a feature film that I think is analogous to what you find in a novella: you can get about the same amount done, tell similar kinds of stories. But, mainly, I think it’s the ability to sit with a character, to get to know him or her, to fall in love with the world of the story and linger with it a bit, that draws me to the form. To drive a story through with focus, and yet be able to feel the fullness of the world around it, is a pretty wonderful thing for me as a writer.

As far as the process of actually writing novellas goes, it is different from short stories and novels for me — though perhaps not as much as it should be! I wind up writing a kind of first draft in outline or summary form with pretty much everything, though with short stories that outline can be short enough it fits in my head, so I don’t necessarily map them out. And I end up writing around a moment, around an idea or image. With novellas and novels I’m writing towards and idea or an image. And what separates those two, is just how complex the story that will get me there needs to be. I’d also say that there are just so many more pitfalls in the writing of a novel, because there is just so much more space to make mistakes, that, for me, the process of working on a novel involves much more recalibrating and reworking and blowing up the tracks and building new ones and blowing them up a little further down the way.

I found the voice of the narrator of “Sarverville Remains” particularly striking and beautiful. Did the voice come pouring out, or did you struggle at all to make it sound authentic?

I don’t know what it says about me that the voice in Sarverville Remains – Geoffrey Sarver’s voice – was the part of that novella that came to me first, and most naturally. I like to think it says this: first person, once the voice arrives, often so dictates the manner in which the story will be told that it makes the telling of it less complicated. Not that the choices aren’t complex ones – I think Sarverville is probably the most complex, plot-wise, of the three – but that there are simply fewer choices. The narrator’s nature makes a lot of them for me. So, once I hear that voice, and once I’m essentially embodying that character, the problem with consistency is less the character’s point of view than the minute details of dialect – when Geoffrey would say ‘writ’ versus ‘wrote’, for instance.

For that, I did a lot of research. I’d go to a diner called The Bread Basket or a local bar in a town in the valley and sit there and write down what people would say and how they’d say it. I remember hearing a man who had the tick “As they say”, which I gave Geoffrey. And there were some loggers I met, these burly bearded guys, who used “what” for “that” – something that’s common in the oldest hill communities here. But, more than anything, it was just the collected bits from occasional small conversations with neighbors: a slightly slow man who hunts squirrel on the mountain, an 86 year old man who I visit now and again to sit in his kitchen and chat over a quart-jar of moonshine – that kind of thing. After talking with them, I’d go home and scrawl out what I could remember on my pocket notebooks.

What is your writing and revision process like?

Infuriatingly, the way into a story – whether a short story, novella, or novel – varies for me every time, no matter how many tricks I try to get my head in the right place: a writing mug, a writing shirt, earplugs, an inalterable morning routine. But the fact that the struggle is at the start – and then crumbles away – is pretty consistent. So I view it like this: It’s as if there’s a brick wall in front of me, and in that brick wall is one loose brick. And I stand there, hitting my head against each and every brick, looking for it (admittedly, it’d be easier if I could use a hammer, or even my fist, but it doesn’t work that way). Sometimes I never find it. And I have to give up and come back another time, perhaps another year, to try again. Sometimes I find the brick on the first smack of the forehead. But, almost always, when I do hit the right one, the brick falls out and the wall around it crumbles and I can step through and start walking. And, at that point, I want to be able to walk onward, without stopping, till I’m done. If real life intrudes and makes me walk away from the path I’m on, I get upset. I get downright ornery. Because when I come back, I the woods might have regrown over the path and I’ll lose it and come up against another wall and have to go through the entire process again. But if I can keep writing, keep walking, then I can usually bang through an entire first draft fairly quickly. That’s the part of writing that I love most: when I can feel the world being formed, the characters doing things I hadn’t known they would do, saying things to each other that make me guffaw or suck in a breath. Then there’s the rewriting. Honestly? If I’ve truly knocked out the right brick and found the right path through then the rewriting is pretty minimal. And that’s usually my best work. Some things that are dear to me, though – some stories I’ve written; even a novel – required a lot of rewriting. Years of it, in some cases. And I think I manage to get them to a place where they’re good. But they always lack a little something: maybe the magic dust that falls on them from that tumbling magic brick. I don’t know. But I do know that, for me (and I stress for me), the novel, or story, or novella, is not made in the rewrite, as it is for some writers. For me it’s either there – the guts of it are there, the heart of it, the true and inimitable stuff – in the first draft, or it’s not going to be there.

Do you do your best work at the cabin in VA, at colonies, or in NYC–or is there no difference?

Oh, without question I do my best work at the cabin. But it’s not so much the cabin, as just being isolated and in my own head and free of distractions. Colonies are OK for that – in fact, the one that I’ve done worked pretty well for me – but I think it’s hard to have a writing space for just a couple weeks and then have to uproot and go somewhere else. NYC is terrible for me, as far as writing: I can’t think of anywhere in the world where there are more distractions, from friends to street noise. But I’ve just moved to Baltimore, and actually have my own apartment for one whole year, and I’m determined to break my reliance on remote isolation for writing: that’s not a very sustainable way to go through life.

You arranged your own tour–what have you learned about promoting a first book? Do you have any advice for new (or seasoned) writers about promoting their books?

Well, I was lucky to be working with a terrific publicity team at Grove – so they did a lot of the lifting in arranging the tour, and most of the work in gaining exposure. But I was involved in all parts of it. And it was a fairly extensive tour (still is: I’m reading in Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and Tennessee in the coming couple months), so I did learn a lot. Advice? Arrange a reading with a literary journal or some other organization, if possible: Narrative was kind enough to host me at City Lights in San Francisco and the turnout was terrific, the crowd receptive, the whole experience grand. I did a similar event with American Short Fiction in September. I’d also say definitely do some of the smaller towns a little more off the typical reading track. My favorite part of the book tour was Mississippi: Square Books, Turnrow, and Lemuria – across the state and down through the Delta. The turnout wasn’t huge, but the booksellers were some of the most wonderful hosts I’ve come across, and the community there was so eager and receptive and insightful, and the way they hand sell your book afterwards is priceless. You don’t get that in a lot of big city places. Finally, I’d say if you have any personal connection – or even just an in of any sort, or an excuse to claim one – invite local press to your readings yourself. Even if your publicist is on it. A personal note from the author – just a few, polite sentences – can’t hurt, I think. And might help. It’s something I didn’t do, and I think I lost out on some opportunities because of it. From now on, each time I read at a book store I’m planning on asking the bookseller who I should contact in local media, and write a note myself.

What are your favorite novellas of all time?

The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway would have to be up there. As would Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck. Also Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. And I consider Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx a novella, so I’d put that up there on that mantle, too. Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor. Carson McCuller’s The Ballad of the Sad Café. Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison. Enchanted Night by Stephen Millhauser. I’m sure I’m leaving out a bunch. And they’ll sneak up on me later, while I’ve got my back turned, brushing my teeth, perhaps, and whap me in the back of the head. Great: now you’ve set me up for a bruised forehead, toothpaste on my nose, and nightmares of an army of slim books marching on me en mass with their spines cracking and their corners curled in fury and the air filled with a wrathy rustling of their pages.

Why do you think publishers are reluctant to publish novellas?

They’re reluctant, I think, because a lot of readers don’t know what novellas are, and so publishers are afraid they’ll be scared off by something different. Which means publishers would have to educate people, to a certain extent, as well as just try to raise awareness about the book. But I think that’s pretty short-sighted. Sure, readers might be hesitant to pay hardcover prices for a 100 page book, but, with the emergence of paper back originals as a legitimate alternative, that’s not really a problem. There’s no reason that I can see that a paperback original rough-cut, beautifully produced 100 page couldn’t be sold for ten bucks – and blow the competition ($26 hardcovers or $15 paperback original novels) out of the water. Especially in these downturn times. So, in the end, it’s just a conservatism in the industry, and a lack of daring and original thinking. For instance, the best place to sell novellas might not be in a bookstore, or might be by subscription – who knows? The literary magazine One Story is an interesting model. They do a double-thick issue (essentially a novella) once a year. What if there was a publisher who produced beautifully novellas six times a year and every two months you got one – and you paid a total of sixty bucks for that? Or what if they were sold in airports, or train stations, where they’d be ideal for the length of a traveler’s journey? Once someone takes the risk with those kinds of ideas, I think it could take off. I certainly hope it might. And I’d love to hear publishers’ ideas about why that couldn’t be done, if it couldn’t. I’d just love to see that conversation happening.

This summer, you attended both Sewanee and Bread Loaf as a fellow–what do you think is the value of these conferences?

They’ve both been hugely important to me. I went to Bread Loaf as a scholar a couple years ago and it was life changing. That’s not an exaggeration. I met people who are still some of my closest friends and most valued readers, and was exposed to so much new writing – poetry, which I never read, and always wish I did; and non-fiction; and plays- and lectures; and, of course, amazing, amazing fiction – and I received a jolt of energy and purpose about my writing that I haven’t experienced anywhere since – except for Bread Loaf and Sewanee this past summer when I returned as a fellow to each. People often think of conferences as places where they will improve their writing through workshop and, though that’s important, for me the actual stories I workshopped were the least important part of the experience. The lectures – especially at Bread Loaf – are eye opening, and the camaraderie that forms is uplifting, and the sense of energy and enthusiasm about doing this crazy thing we all love – writing – that is packed away for the coming year is just invaluable.

Here’s a photo from when Josh came through Austin on his book tour–here we are at the Trailer Park Eatery in South Austin with Dalia Azim, an incredible local author. (I highly recommend Torchy’s Tacos, and the deep fried chocolate chip cookies…)

I finally have a title for my new novel: Mad, Mad Love. The first draft is mostly finished, though I’m still revising it. This is probably my tenth title for the book…none of the previous working titles I had seemed quite right. It comes from a Mary Oliver poem which is included in the book. I’ve been reading lots of Mary Oliver lately…here is another one of hers that I love:

WORK, SOMETIMES

I was sad all day, and why not. There I was, books piled
on both sides of the table, paper stacked up, words
falling off my tongue.

The robins had been a long time singing, and now it
was beginning to rain.

What are we sure of? Happiness isn’t a town on a map,
or an early arrival, or a job well done, but good work
ongoing. Which is not likely to be the trifling around
with a poem.

Then it began raining hard, and the flowers in the yard
were full of lively fragrance.

You have had days like this, no doubt. And wasn’t it
wonderful, finally, to leave the room? Ah, what a
moment!

As for myself, I swung the door open. And there was
the wordless, singing world. And I ran for my life.

–Mary Oliver
*****************************************************
Though I haven’t had time to post much here the last few months (book deadline, essay deadlines, growing human being in stomach, etc.), Colleen Mondor at Chasing Ray asked me to be part of her “What A Girl Wants” series, so I’ve been contributing posts to that. A few links:

Recommended Holiday Reads

Vampires: Why? (Including my theory about the appeal of Twilight)

On Mean Girls

On What is YA

On Girl Detectives

On Books We Love

I haven’t posted for a while—I’ve been working hard on this new novel, and three essays under contract. And also—I’m pregnant! Due at the end of December. (This explains my dwindling postings…I guess there are some women who are able to grow babies in their stomachs, take care of toddlers, write books and essays and also find time to steadily update their blogs and websites…but, alas, I don’t think I’m one of them.)

Also, lately I’ve been overtaken by the weird nesting instinct that always sets in during pregnancy, this primal urge to clean and organize everything, or, as my friend Elizabeth explains it, to fluff up the leaves in the cave. (That explains why the Container Store is always packed with pregnant women. They should provide a shuttle service straight from the OB’s office.)

More soon!

The September 4th deadline to opt-out of the Google Book settlement is rapidly approaching, and most of my writer friends seem completely confused about what to do. Of course it’s mystifying: there are contradictory opinions everywhere. The Author’s Guild, which aims to represent the best interest of authors, promotes opting in without question (they brought the lawsuit and negotiated the deal); other organizations are rapidly coming out against it. What’s problematic is that all authors are automatically included in the settlement unless you specifically opt-out on the settlement website.

What also frightens me is that so many authors seem to know nothing about it and are not being advised by their agents what to do.

I’ve decided to opt-out. I’m represented by William Morris Endeavor, which is advising its clients to opt-out, and after reading about the settlement I’m even more convinced of its problematic long-reaching implications. Most problematic—even terrifying—of all is what Kenneth Crews, director of the Columbia University Copyright Advisory Office, had to say during a panel discussing the settlement in July, as reported by Publisher’s Weekly:

The discussion then took another potentially interesting twist, as Columbia University copyright expert Kenneth Crews attempted to re-frame the deal as a “revolution in publishing.” Crews suggested the deal could dramatically change the way books are accessed, bought, read, distributed and used. “If we are about to re-cast publishing, do we want to do so under these terms?” he asked. Petre, seizing the moment to rally for the deal said the quick answer was “yes,”—only to be interrupted by Drummond [Google’s Senior VP of Corporate Development] who said the answer was no—that is, no to Crews’ entire premise that the deal represented a revolution for books and publishing.

Let me reprint Crews’s question: “If we are about to re-cast publishing, do we want to do so under these terms?”

The precedent that this settlement will create is incredibly important to all writers, readers, librarians, publishers, and everyone who cares about the world of books. We owe it to ourselves to educate ourselves about it, and what it means for the future of books.

Pamela Samuelson, UC Berkeley Law Professor, critiqued the settlement in the Huffington Post: “Sorry, Kindle. The Google Book Search settlement will be, if approved, the most significant book industry development in the modern era. Exploiting an opportunity made possible by lawsuits brought by a small number of plaintiffs on one narrow issue, Google has negotiated a settlement agreement designed to give it a compulsory license to all books in copyright throughout the world forever. This settlement will transform the future of the book industry and of public access to the cultural heritage of mankind embodied in books.”

For more information about these issues, here are some links:

The Google Book Settlement

For authors, how to opt-out

If you choose to opt out, you can still make your books available through the Google Books Partner Program

Columbia University Copyright Advisory Office’s opinion

National Writers Union advises opting out

ASJA advises opting out

AAR undecided on the issue

Author’s Guild settlement advice

Two more interesting quotes:

From another Publisher’s Weekly article:
“Say what you will of the Google Book Search settlement, one thing it is not is the path of least resistance. The solution to what began in 2005 as a simple copyright question is now a complex blueprint for an entirely new digital book business, a $125 million legal puzzle that involves a dizzying array of moving parts: thousands of authors, millions of titles and editions, libraries, public interest issues, murky copyright law, orphan works and even the creation of a new, central rights-granting authority in the U.S., the Book Rights Registry. One notable thing the settlement doesn’t do, however, is address the original claim in the suits—whether Google’s scanning of library books to create an online index is legal.”

William Morris Endeavor lawyer Eric Zohn’s opinion, quoted in the NY Times:
“Now they’ve got this license to sell your books at a pre-negotiated one-time royalty that you’re stuck with unless a court changes the settlement,” Eric Zohn, an attorney in business affairs at William Morris, said in an interview. “It’s like a legislative change. Under copyright law, you don’t have anything without express written consent from the copyright holder. Now the court is saying Google is free to sell your book unless you expressly tell them not to.”