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Ross Raisin is the author of God s Own Country (UK title)/Out Backward. (Please note: This discussion deals at length with many of the Yorkshire terms that Mr. Raisin uses within his novel. Please consult this lexicon if you d like to know more.) Condition of Mr. Segundo: Abdicating to a helium-impaired fill-in host. Author: Ross Raisin Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Correspondent: There are a number of Yorkshire terms in which you take a verb meaning and you transfer it into a noun. And so everything is inverted. Even his communicative methods with the animals, as well as his particular idiosyncratic way of talking to the reader, which is presumably the only person he has to talk with aside from his parents and the like. And how this notion of inversion essentially announced itself. Was this more of a subconscious immersion in language on your part? Or a conscious decision to take a verb and transfer it to noun form and the like? Raisin: The whole thing with the language being in that peculiar idiomatic language didn t come about immediately. It came about as a result of thinking about character and wanting to think about a character who was very much inside their own strange little world. And one of the main ways you can achieve that is through language. And so I started experimenting with different ways of working with language. And that s how it turned into a first-person book. Actually, it was initially third-person. Okay, some of the language in it. Most of it is a real Yorkshire language. Sort of a different melange of different parts of Yorkshire, to be honest. And a lot of it is invented. It actually came more out of rhythm it began with rhythm more than actual lexicon. And so I got a real feel for this rhythm of the landscape, and the way that transposed into the voice. And then through the second draft, I suppose, I started inserting all these words. And a lot of them are verbs actually. Like glegging and blathering and all these kind of blunt Yorkshire, quite masculinized words that he peppers his language with. Correspondent: But gleg comes from the Scottish noun. Alert and quick to respond. Raisin: Is that right? Correspondent: That s at least what I discovered. And I m wondering where you transformed it into more of a verb. And also the difference between gleg and gawp as well. Because he gawps at some points and glegs at others. Raisin: Well, a gleg is more of a brief look. It s more of a glance, I suppose. And a gawp is a more of staring. But that s quite an interesting point actually. Because when you re writing the book, you become so observed with it. And I m convinced that these words that I ve researched, they re Yorkshire words. And I hold them very preciously. They re Yorkshire words. And then you tell them to somebody else, and they say, Oh yeah. We use that word.

Ethan Canin is most recently the author of America America. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Examining his miserable relationship with America. Author: Ethan Canin Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Canin: I wish I could act as if there was something more intentional. I m a little tired here. Correspondent: Oh, that s okay. Canin: Perhaps there was a little more intentionality on my part, but there really wasn t. But that was just one of those things. Correspondent: I hope this conversation is intentional. Or unintentional. Canin: Yeah, it will start to get intentional. Correspondent: Okay, let s go into greater ambiguities. This is quite a pasture that you have in this book. The protagonist, Corey Sifter, he writes repeatedly about operating on a reporter s instinct. Likewise, you have Liam Metarey and the Senator frequently invoking the ingenuity of the working man. Canin: Right. Correspondent: And yet, it seems to me that all parties both these two parties don t understand these ideologies that they inhabit, or that they endorse in some sense. And so it seems to me that this particular book is almost this interesting glimpse into ideology. I wanted to ask how much ideology was encroaching upon you during the act of writing or Canin: Could I go back? Just stop a sec. Correspondent: Oh yeah. Canin: Because that s too many ideas for me to hold at once. Correspondent: Oh sure. Canin: But the first thing you said was probably the thing that motivated me to write this book. And then when I get through that, I ll be able to grasp the other question. Correspondent: Sure. Canin: I think writing a book is asking a question. It s not answering a question. At least for me. And one of the questions that evolved as I wrote this was this history of public-minded, empathetic what are supposed to be called liberal-minded politicians. And my own term, that I ve been using during the past few days, is the politics of generosity. And there s a history of them. From Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Ted Kennedy. Great liberal public-minded people who are also unquestionably from the land of gentry. And the central question there was a reviewer in the Washington Post who said something very interesting, I thought. Which was that the book boils down to the narrator wondering whether he s been helped or used. And that s right. That s what it felt like to me. That s what I was writing about. A narrator wondering whether he s been helped or used. Whether these great public-minded political figures are, in fact, public-minded or self-serving. Or whether that even matters, as long as they re public-minded. And how far that public-mindedness goes. I m enough of a realist to think that everybody is self-interested. And we have to just use politicians who are at least generous in their interpretation of self-interest. Correspondent: Yeah. But there is this notion of ideology that all the characters seem to cling to. Particularly the antipodean ends that we re talking about. Of the working-class journalist-to-be vs. the Senator and this monied family in this particular town. And this makes me want to ask you about the idea of didacticism in fiction. It s almost as if you re skirting around that by exploring these questions in this particular book in a manner that leaves a sliver ask these broader questions without necessarily being didactic. And I m curious about the element of didacticism in this particular book. It s not overtly didactic. But the irony, such as Glen driving the Corvair and the like, certainly cause one to think that this is essentially a dialectic involving ideology in this particular book. And I want to ask you about this. Canin: I was reading last night at the Upper West Side. And somebody asked me if I could write a novel from the point of view of Karl Rove. Correspondent: (laughs) It would be interesting. Canin: (laughs) Well, I actually think I could. I don t think I could do anything. But I think I would be interested in doing that. You know, I don t know what succeeded and what didn t in this book. And I never will. But I do know that I certainly intended every character to be a mix. I certainly intended every character to be part good, part bad. From the heroes to the obvious villains. Those are the books that I like. I don t like movies with heroes and villains. I don t like books with heroes and villains, which is even worse. I think empathy is the thing. It takes four or five things to be a writer. Decent prose style. Correspondent: That s one. What are the other four? (laughs) I want a list here, man.

To my great shock, the late, great Thomas M. Disch committed suicide on July 4, 2008. This was his last face-to-face interview before his death, conducted on June 25, 2008 at his apartment. For more on Disch, start here. His most recent book was The Word of God. Condition of the Show: In memoriam. Author: Thomas M. Disch Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Correspondent: I wanted to also ask you about A.J. Budrys, who I know you I saw your LiveJournal where there were many caustic remarks directed his way. But I should point out that when I received this galley well before June 9th, when he died, you referred to him as the late Algis Budrys. Disch: (laughs) Yes! Correspondent: I m wondering if you had some inside dope or if this is another example of your divine powers. Disch: I guess so. I mean, I never know what my divine powers are going to do often, until they ve done it. And this is certainly a case where I had picked the right horse without even knowing. Correspondent: Well, I mean, why did you type the late so early on? I mean Disch: (laughs) Well, for one thing, I didn t know. Correspondent: You didn t know he was alive? Disch: Yeah. I sort of figured it was likely that he was dead. And wishing it to be the case, I just wrote it that way. Correspondent: Or he was dead to you in other words? Disch: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if I had my druthers, there he is. Photo credit: Flickr

HowToThinkSideways.comThis clip comes from the Month One movie for the How To Think Sideways writing course. The full movie introduces the student to the four primary areas of creating and using ideas on a deadline that professional and prospective professional novelists must address in order to remain competetive in the field.

Andre Dubus III is most recently the author of The Garden of Last Days. Condition of the Show: Plagued by decaying verdure and intrusive catering managers. Author: Andre Dubus III Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Correspondent: I had to remark on the beverage motif throughout this book. We open this book with, of course, April having a plastic coffee cup with her legs. And then two hundred, three hundred pages in, we see the cop with the #1 GRANDDAD mug. And then we also have Virginia heating a cold cup of coffee in the microwave. So Dubus: Ho ho! This is brilliant, man. (laughs) Correspondent: But the concern for coffee in this is rather extraordinary! Because coffee is almost this life force of good versus the drinking one sees from the antagonists in this book. All the antagonists tend to drink. Or they resist drink in order to be good. And so Dubus: Oh, this is fascinating. Correspondent: So there s a certain coffee-alcohol axis I had to ask you about. Dubus: Well, God, it just sounds like a weekend in my life. Correspondent: (laughs) Dubus: Drink Friday night, drink coffee on Saturday morning. Fascinating. Wow. I hadn t even known that. Listen, I do believe that we live in our bodies. Even those of us who live very ethereally from the chin up. And I truly believe that these central details shape us and guide us. You know, I had this experience a few years ago where my wife and I had a little spat over money the first thing in the morning. My coffee was cold, gone cold during the fight. I get in the car. It hardly starts up. And I m worried about money and can I fix this clutch. I drive off. A guy cuts me off in his truck. And I m telling you. If that car could go fast, I d go down the road, rip him off the truck, and beat on him. The next day, my wife and I were fine. We weren t having a spat. My coffee was delicious. It was the perfect cup of dark French roast. Black. That I like. And it was just the right temperature. I had a little cup, driving cup. And it wasn t spilling. The car started up. I pull out into the word and another guy cuts me off. And this time, Ed, I said, Go in peace, my brother. You should be careful. You might hurt someone or yourself. I had all this good will. And it had to do with my coffee being good. (laughs) Correspondent: But I m wondering how this Dubus: This stuff isn t unimportant? Correspondent: It s important. But I m curious. You have to be aware since there is so much coffee in this book that you re repeating this symbol over and over again. So readers like me say, Well, coffee. Might be a symbol. Or as we re suggesting here, it may not be a symbol at all. It may just be some aspect of the world you re drawing from that just happens to repeat itself. Dubus: But, Ed, man, I really believe that the reader tends to know more than the writer. At least, certainly in my case.

Pulitzer Prize winning author, Michael Cunningham, talks with James Michael Tyler about his daring new novel, SPECIMEN DAYS, his first since THE HOURS.

Christian Bauman is most recently the author of In Hoboken. Condition of the Show: Contending with contentious Midtown diners. Author: Christian Bauman Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Correspondent: You have this particular rock n roll novel dwelling upon Hoboken, as well as Mona Smith, who is this Erica Jong-like figure, who is the mother of Thatcher. But I wanted to ask you about this. Because it s very fascinating to me. I have the belief that if you write a rock n roll novel, there needs to be some additional element. Some additional hook. Because if you dwell too much on rock n roll music, well, it s going to possibly be something of a circlejerk. So I wanted to ask you. Was this a consideration in setting this book in Hoboken? The Hoboken aspect came first? What happened here? Bauman: Yeah, I think the Hoboken aspect came first. Well, first of all, I should point out that everyone keeps calling it a rock n roll novel. It is actually a folk novel. So we should just be clear here. There s a lot more Woody Guthrie here than anything else. But it s a good point. You know, the whole thing I wanted to do, in as far as I wanted to anything and it didn t just happen the way it happened I was trying very hard this time to do two things. One was to write about a place. A very specific place to the point where the place became one of the characters in the book. And of those places where I ve either lived or been alive in my life, Hoboken was one of them that stood out as a good place to go. And the other one was that I really wanted to try and write an ensemble novel to the best of my ability. And I kind of failed in that aspect.

Fiona Maazel is the author of Last, Last Chance. Condition of the Show: Considering the niceties of superplagues. Author: Fiona Maazel Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Correspondent: If one looks at more lower brow choices, like Stephen King s The Stand or The Andromeda Strain, or any number of superplague television series, like The Survivors and things like that, one tends to find a narrative that begins with the decimation of humanity. Yours is not that particular book. Again, going back to this question of inversions, I m wondering if you made a particular choice. You had to have known about The Stand. Maazel: Sure, it s true. But I didn t think it was an inversion. I thought it was credible actually. I did a lot of research about plague and also about the CDC and bioterrorism. And just how unlikely the scenario I proposed is. It s extraordinarily likely. This isn t an alternate reality kind of novel. It didn t seem likely that someone would unleash a plague and actually wipe out all of humanity. That s just not credible. I wanted to come up with a credible scenario. So I guess from the perspective of someone writing fiction or reading fiction, one might expect something like a terrific slate wiper to come along, as we ve seen in so many of these movies and books. But I actually wanted something that seemed really realistic. That only 3,000 people would die and the fact that they put a stop to it. For instance, when we had this little anthrax outbreak or even bird flu, people are dying, but they re still containing it. I was more interested in the anxiety, the terror, the foreboding of what could happen. Might this thing wipe out a hundred million Americans or a hundred million people? That was more interesting to me than watching this disease tramp across the country and actually kill off half the United States.

Ed Park is most recently the author of Personal Days. Condition of the Show: Plagued by brutal downsizing. Author: Ed Park Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Park: It s such a pleasure to talk to someone who s also named Ed. Correspondent: Yes, I know. I mean, it s a hell of a first name. There needs to be a Society of Eds set up in the five boroughs. Park: It s pretty rare. Correspondent: I know. I wanted to ask you a commonplace question and then get to the nitty-gritty of this book. I know that you wrote a good chunk of this book while you were working at the Voice. But the sense I got was that you didn t write all of it at the Voice. So I m curious as to how much of this was written in a Voice-less setting, so to speak. Park: Well, if you mean by at the Voice, while I was still employed by them, that s true. Most of it was written before I left the Voice. I was let go at, basically, Labor Day. Right before Labor Day Weekend of 06. But by that time, I did actually have a draft. There were many changes that I knew were necessary. I wrote it though. In terms of physical space, I could never even write my articles at the Voice. Just in the Voice office. I was hired as an editor. Basically editing, sending emails, on the phone, stuff like that. So it wasn t really a place where, ironically enough, I could get a lot of writing done. So all the writing took place in my apartment. I was living on 89th Street. A lot of it was the same as I d done for my previous fictional projects, where I would just try to write in the morning before coming into work. What was a little bit different about this book was that, as things got more tense at the Voice, as things really looked like they were going in a bad way, I took some vacation days, personal days, and would really treat the book as my job in a way.

Novelist Stephen King tries to defend his comment that illiterate students can join the Army

In episode 2 of Jesus People, a Christian romance novelist (Stephnie Weir of Mad TV) inspires the gang to come up with a great name for their new band. Shared by : independent comedy network On: Sunday, April 20, 2008 Views: 10Tags: Dance Romance People Independent Kate Inspires Novelist weir iCN Greeny peloto Guando New name jesus comedy pop mad band Crew artist mocumentary christian network office Gang Episode Great

Author: Crenel84 Added: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:19:37 -0800 Duration: 47Episode 15 of a vidcast about one author's efforts to complete, and hopefully publish, a novel started for the NaNoWriMo contest in 2006. In this episode, Stuart gives himself a weekly deadline...

Mark Sarvas is the author of Harry, Revised. Condition of Show: Concerned with revision. Author: Mark Sarvas Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Correspondent: Anna is actually a palindrome. Is that intentional? Sarvas: No. And the thing that really troubled me with Anna was that I was, I think, a year and a half into writing this book when John Banville s novel, The Sea, came out. And in The Sea, the main character Max is mourning the death of his wife Anna. And I thought, Oh my God. Everybody s going to think that this is my Banville homage. And this was really not. I was looking for a simple and an elegant name. And Anna floated into my mind. That was a more instinctive choice than anything else. Correspondent: And yet there s inarguably an elegant variation in this. I have to ask you about a dancing St. Elmo s fire of the groin. Sarvas: Okay, you Correspondent: This was really all you had to say was that it was an erection. Sarvas: Well, see, you mentioned that. You sent me a text message, and Correspondent: I asked five people about this and they said, What the fuck? (laughs) Sarvas: But, and look. First of all, this is a book of nearly 300 pages. Not every single metaphor s going to sail. There will be those that don t. Correspondent: Well, it s definitely memorable. That s for sure. Sarvas: But to my mind, I was not describing an erection. I didn t intend to. And the fact that you thought that that was what I meant argues that I didn t do my job well. Because what I was really hoping to describe. And this is perhaps not the stuff of a normal Segundo podcast and I hope my wife isn t listening to this . Correspondent: (laughs) Sarvas: is that weird sort of tingling, pre-erotic moment that announces the onset of an erection. Where you re beginning to feel that surge, that electricity in that way. But you haven t actually flown the flag up the pole yet. And that s what I meant. If I wanted to say erection or boner or some other, I would have said that. Correspondent: But the fact that it s ambiguous is very interesting. Because then it leaves I mean, this could be discussed endlessly in book clubs across the country. Sarvas: And I think it s actually better that way. Correspondent: It s the phrase that definitely I can t get out of my mind and makes me look at you in a sort of cockeyed way.

Nicholson Baker is most recently the author of Human Smoke. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Deceased. Author: Nicholson Baker Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Baker: What I always find is that the stuff that was kept indiscriminately is often more interesting than the stuff that was deliberately kept. You know, the stuff that was in the pocket of somebody when I don t know, when some terrible thing happened. The shopping list that you find on the sidewalk. I mean, there are many, many shopping lists right now in people s lives. Millions of them. And I m not going to worry that they re all being thrown out. I don t think that people should be saving all their shopping lists. I just think that it s sometimes beautiful to have one and think about the order of things on it. And that anytime you have those odd things in a place like Wikipedia, if you have strange, sometimes misshapen entries that people have written about something that they want an ancestor that they re proud of or themselves that there s something really fascinating about what it was that moved people to want to go on record for that thing. [NOTE: For related discussion pertaining to Human Smoke, visit the Human Smoke entries on Filthy Habits.]

Richard Price is most recently the author of Lush Life. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Caught in a crime scene. Author: Richard Price Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Correspondent: Another thing I had read is that you don t like to write. At least you do like to write. But then you also don t like to write. Price: I like to be finished. If I could take a pill that would knock me out and put me in a coma for two years, but when I woke up, there would be a completed manuscript that I would like, I ll give you the two years. Correspondent: (laughs) Price: Yeah, I don t like writing. I mean, this is kind of like abstract. But I find writing agony. Basically, you just sit there by yourself and rearrange twenty-six letters of the alphabet for decades on end. I mean, there s no physicality to what you re doing. There s no hand-eye coordination. There s no social element. Correspondent: Well, there is hand-eye coordination now. Price: What? Typing?

Tune in to the brand new Poet-On! Podcast Show with Kenneth Bowens as he talks and listens to sexy-poet, Ebony Farashuu read from her collection, Butterfly Kisses: Poetry for the Many Faces of Love Ebony Farashuu is an award winning poet and author. Butterfly Kisses was published in October 2002 and won Honorable Mention in [...]

Jennifer Weiner is most recently the author of Certain Girls. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Avoiding literary desegregation. Author: Jennifer Weiner Subjects Discussed: [list forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Correspondent: There are also these larger thematics, I think, in your work. In both of these books, you have a pregnancy happening while you re having to let go of someone. In the first case, it s the boyfriend. And in the second case, it s the daughter. And this to me is intriguing. Likewise, there s the poetry that is frequently throughout your books. And so I m saying that there s some stuff in here that I m wondering why not push this further? It s almost innately a part of a Jennifer Weiner book. Weiner: And no one notices it. It s interesting. Correspondent: I do. Weiner: Well, thank you. You are rare. You re a rare reader. Because for most people, it s like, Yeah! Shoe shopping! And I love shoe shopping. There s nothing wrong with it. But I always like it when people get those little coded things that sneak in there. Because I was a closet Trekkie. Correspondent: Yeah. Weiner: We can talk about that. Correspondent: Yeah, well, we can talk about that! Weiner: I m in a support group. Correspondent: I mean, let s say that you were to write a chick lit book. Or rather a novel. Let s just do away with this really ridiculous term. Because, quite frankly, if we were to apply David Copperfield to the same standards, it would be a chick lit book because it ends up happy. Weiner: Yes. Correspondent: So let s just go ahead and do away with that. And let s just talk about you, hypothetically, writing about a closet Trekkie who finds love or something. Or even Jezebel Bright. Weiner: Uh huh. Well, it could happen. I mean, I never really know what my next book s going to be until it just kind of comes. So there s two things I m playing with now. One is fiction. One is nonfiction. And the fiction one has really dark, dark, dark stuff going on. And I m not really sure how the whole science fiction part of the puzzle fits into it. But I don t know if it s going to be Jezebel Bright or if Jezebel Bright becomes the book within that book almost. The way it kind of did a little bit with Certain Girls and Lyla Dare and the Stargirls stuff. I don t know. We ll see. I ll have to wait for my muse to get in touch. I ll check my BlackBerry. (For our previous conversation with Jennifer Weiner, go here.)

Lydia Millet is most recently the author of How the Dead Dream. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Battling upholders of decency. Author: Lydia Millet Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Millet: Humor for me has to be a part of everything that I write. I mean, I m not saying that it s always successful or anything like that. But it has to be part of it for me. Partly because the lexicon I was just talking about is a very earnest one. And I get so sick of earnestness. On the other hand, I really don t have much time for the sort of cynicism that completely decries earnestness. So I want to forge a middle ground between those two. That s why I end up having these very cartoonish characters. Even in this book, which is sort of a serious book. But there are all these cartoon-like peripheral characters. And I can never seem to give those up. You know, the Fultons. Correspondent: Well, they stand in juxtaposition against earnestness. I mean, what s so wrong with earnestness though? How would you define earnestness? Millet: That s a really good question. I guess it s a humorlessness that is purpose-driven. That talks only about you know, that s a really good question. Because there s earnestness and then there s irony. And there s always these twin poles. And I want to live in a world that contains both of them really. And so my books and certainly this one try to do that. I think that you can have irony without being cynical. And I think you can have earnestness without being repulsive. Or without being off-putting. There s a way to talk seriously about things and not be devoid of laughter, I hope. Correspondent: I think what you re objecting to is not so much earnestness. Because empathy and hope and doing something, that s a very earnest Millet: Position. Correspondent: Yeah. And I don t see anything necessarily wrong with that. But I think what you re Millet: It just has to be interesting. That s all. (To listen to our previous conversation with Lydia Millet, go here.)

Marshall Klimasewiski is most recently the author of Tyrants. This conversation was conducted in front of an audience at McNally Robinson on February 28, 2008. Many thanks to Jessica Stockton Bagnulo for arranging this! Condition of Mr. Segundo: At loggerheads with his master. Author: Marshall Kimasewiski Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Correspondent: But all of your characters in many of these stories, they live rudderless existences. In fact, there s one thing I wanted to ask you about, as a balding man myself, they tend to have thinning hair. Audience: (laughs) Correspondent: And so I have to ask you. In fact, there s a lot of hair motifs throughout this. You describe the rustles of Stalin s moustache. You at one point have a piano player whose grey-bearded head pops out of nowhere. So there s this sense of hair as a motif of wisdom and possibly folly. And in fact, there s a character who seems vaguely reminiscent of you who has red hair, who I must ask you about, who forms the basis of two stories. So what s with the hair? How s your hair doing these days? Audience: (laughs) Klimasewiski: I must admit this is news to me. I hadn t realized I was writing so much about hair. Although recently, the last story in the collection, Aeronauts, is also about a polar expedition a little bit earlier. It s set in the 1890s. And if I could have published that story in any way possible, I would have published it with some photos from the expedition. And recently, last week, I did a reading in St. Louis, where I live. It s a story with multiple voices. It s kind of a collage narrative. And with the help of a couple of friends reading different parts, we put it together. But we also used a slideshow of some of these photos. And that was the first time that I was realizing that absolutely everybody in the slideshow had a great deal of hair on their faces and very little on their head. Correspondent: Aha! The truth comes out. (To listen to our previous conversation with Marshall Klimasewiski, go here.)

If you’ve ever thought about writing novels, you might want to think about envying Sara Zarr’s career. Her first, best-selling, young adult title, Story of a Girl, was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Awards. Book two, just released this month, is Sweethearts. It has earned glowing reviews and -- even better -- excellent sales. I interviewed Sara a couple months ago, the morning after the 2007 National Book Awards. She was a delightful guest, even in the face of disappointment, and I made her promise to come back when Sweethearts was released.SARA ZARR AUDIO! Click to open separate window ALSO AVAILABLE AS A PODCAST ON iTUNES. Subscribe to Mr. Media's RSS Feed. BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: Happy Valentine’s Day. How are you spending Valentine’s Day? SARA ZARR: I am spending Valentine’s Day unpacking from my little Sweethearts tour, and then I’m gonna help a friend move, and then I’m gonna watch “Project Runway,” which was recorded last night. So if anyone calls in and gives it away, I’m going to have to hang up. So that’s my romantic day. ANDELMAN: That’s it, huh? No plans? ZARR: Valentine’s Day doesn’t figure hugely in my life or my marriage. What I think about Valentine’s Day is that it’s a good excuse if you have a crush to let someone know. And so when I first met my husband, I did send him a little Valentine’s card to kind of let him know that I was thinking about him, and then, 17 years later, here we are. ANDELMAN: And he’s still waiting for another card? ZARR: Probably, yes. ANDELMAN: Let’s talk books. How different is it publishing the second novel compared to being the first-time author? ZARR: It’s really different. Well, the writing process was a lot different because Story of a Girl was out while I was kind of finishing the last few drafts of Sweethearts, and Story of a Girl was doing well, and it was hard not to feel the pressure of feeling like there’s something at stake now, whereas before, there wasn’t. And the nice thing is with the second book, now I kind of understand what to expect in terms of what the publisher does, of what I do. Because when you get into publishing and publish your first book, there’s no sort of guide for new authors telling you how everything works and what to expect practically and emotionally and all of those things. Now that I’ve been through it once, I’m a lot more relaxed this time and just enjoying it a bit more and not obsessively reading every single thing that every single person says about the book. That’s probably healthy. ANDELMAN: Sara, I have to ask you because, as you know, we share an agent. Are you telling me that Michael Bourret, our extraordinary agent, did not give you a copy of “Book Publishing for Dummies”? ZARR: He did not, and if he has one somewhere in his office, I’m going to find out about it, and he’s going to pay. ANDELMAN: I don’t know whether to feel bad for you that he didn’t give it to you or feel bad for me that he did give it to me, and he didn’t feel you needed it. I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m going to have to think about that. ZARR: Try not to take that for “Dummies” thing personally. ANDELMAN: One of the other things we talked about last time around was the possibility of the sophomore jinx. I think you were a little nervous about it then. I imagine you’re feeling a little better about it now. ZARR: I was very nervous although, at the time we talked, the editorial process was finished. It was completely out of my hands so there was nothing I could do about it anyway. But I have to admit that it was a relief to see the first couple reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus and get positive reviews. After that, I just kind of breathed out and figured well, some people will like it better, some people won’t like it as much as a different book, and I’ll get some new readers, and that’s great. I’m very relaxed and, of course, having that nice National Book Award finalist sticker on my first book is kind of good for the self-esteem, if ever I’m feeling a little low. ANDELMAN: We spoke the morning after the National Book Awards. You didn’t win. My favorite story about that was that you had your speech that you had practiced and got down to the right amount of time. It had never occurred to you to practice your reaction if you did not win, which I thought was wonderful. ZARR: Right, the game face. ANDELMAN: But I’m thinking, since then, and I don’t know if you’ll agree with me, but as a first-time author, maybe they did you a favor by not naming you the winner because it just seems to me that anything you would do after that would be so hard to live up to having that tag, “National Book Award Winner,” that it would be tougher. “National Book Award Finalist” gets to follow you around just the same, and you don’t have to produce the greatest novel on the face of the earth to live up to that the rest of your life. ZARR: I think you have a point. Definitely being a finalist was absolutely the best thing that could happen for my career, but at the same time, it’s just an award. I have kind of mixed feelings about awards. Of course, if you get them, you think they’re great, and they mean a lot, and if you don’t get them, you’re like, “Ah, it’s just an award.” Now I have that experience behind me, and I like having the sticker on my book, but I also think writing is still hard. Every book feels like I’m doing it for the first time. I want to do a lot of different things. And I know that when I read award-winning books, I don’t always like them so it’s just the opinion of that particular group of judges for that year, and it’s great for one’s career, but it’s not any kind of final verdict on your ability as a writer or your value as a person. ANDELMAN: That’s true. I remember -- it’s been about 20 years -- but there was a period of time when I was doing a lot of magazine work, a lot of investigative stuff. Much to my surprise, this magazine had entered my work into a competition, and I actually won awards. I think I won like five awards, which was amazing, because I’d never in my life won anything for anything, and so I was excited. And my editor at the time just decided to bring me back down to earth, and he said, “Hey, listen ‘Pro’” -- that’s what he called me, Pro – “Listen Pro, awards are like assholes, everybody’s got one, get over it.” I was just like, “Ooooo-kay.” From then on, I never cared again. ZARR: Somehow, I’m glad I don’t have someone like that in my life, but yeah, that’s true. ANDELMAN: Boy, sometimes we romanticize in the crusty old bastards in the business. ZARR: Yes. ANDELMAN: Sometimes we could really live without them, I have to say. Story of a Girl, which was a wonderful book, one I really liked that a lot… ZARR: Thank you. ANDELMAN: …and you had the luxury there of keeping that book in the oven a long time. Wasn’t that a couple years to gestation? ZARR: Yes, it was a few years. ANDELMAN: And then this one, my sense is that you popped this one out, and I don’t mean that in a deprecating way, but you kind of popped this one out, I’m thinking, in about a year, right? ZARR: Yes. During the time I was writing Story of a Girl, there was a lot of waiting. There would be periods of four to six months of waiting to hear back from editors and agents, and so it wasn’t like I was literally working on it every day for three years. Now that I’m writing full-time, Sweethearts just happened in a more compressed amount of time, but there was no waiting. I was working on it pretty much all the time. The waiting time is good. It helps you get distance from the work, and you don’t really have that luxury when you’re writing under contract to just sort of let it marinate and stew and then go on with the rest of your life while you’re waiting for magic things to happen in your subconscious. It’s definitely different and faster, and we’ll see if I can keep up that pace with future books. I’m not sure about that. ANDELMAN: I know you have a contract for the third book. Where are you in the process on that? ZARR: I hope my editor isn’t listening. ANDELMAN: No, it’s just me and you. ZARR: Just me and you. ANDELMAN: It’s just me and you, yes. ZARR: Page-wise, I’m probably like a fourth of the way through the book, but it feels really rough to me, and I have to turn it in in December. I’ve got a little while, but this year already feels like it’s going by fast so I definitely need to get cracking now that the Sweethearts promotional stuff is dying down. ANDELMAN: Certainly, the book’s not written yet. You don’t want to give it away, but tell me a little bit about the process for you on working on the book at this point. You’ve gotten past that first book and the elongated period of time, and now you’re doing this professionally. This is how you’re making a living. So as you approach it, tell me about a typical day. Are you a first-thing-in-the-morning person? How do you approach actually doing the work of the writing now? ZARR: I have tried a lot of different things in hopes that I hit upon something that is the magic key to making work easy and enjoyable all the time. And what I’m discovering is that there is no such thing, and so I don’t get up at the crack of dawn and start writing. One of the benefits of the self-employed lifestyle is having your own schedule, and so I like to ease into the day and sort of see my husband off to work and have my coffee, and then, ideally, before lunch, it’d be good to get started and then maybe wrap up at three or four. Sometimes that’s just a lot of staring into space and procrastinating, and sometimes it’s three or four hours of actual writing. It just really depends on where I am with the book. Sometimes it’ll really go pretty quickly in the beginning, and then you hit the middle. And you know how it’s going to end, but meanwhile, you have to fill up 150 pages with stuff. Not just “stuff,” but my writer friends and I joke about how we’ll have sections of drafts where we write, “stuff happens here.” We don’t know what, but it’s to remind us that something has to happen in the middle. ANDELMAN: That’s the way I’ve always read it happens. I’ve always heard that that was the plan usually, that “something” goes in the middle… ZARR: Something happens, yes. It’s a good sort of rule of thumb for fiction: “Something happens.” ANDELMAN: Have you found that there’s a particular room that you like to work in, any kind of music, or do you shut off the phone? Really take us inside the process for you. ZARR: I have a little work area in my house that I share with my husband, and then I also rent an office away from home because offices are fairly cheap where I live in Salt Lake City. It’s nice to have a place that’s just mine that I can go to and get out of the house is the main thing because sometimes you can realize you haven’t gone anywhere for three days, and that’s not a good way to live. Sometimes I’ll work at home and just kind of sit at my computer. I used to work with music a lot, but I’m finding with this book I’m working on now that silence is working better for me. I don’t turn off the phone, but I don’t answer the phone, but that’s nothing new. I never answered the phone before. I just let the machine get it. And I try and keep myself off the Internet for like an hour at a time so that I can get a consistent thought process going. I don’t work in my pajamas, generally. I’m one of those people that I don’t really feel like the day has started until I shower and dress and put shoes on so I’m not lounging around in my pajamas and robe like some writers do. I don’t know if you’re expecting me to tell you something really exciting about my lifestyle. That’s pretty much it - sitting at a computer. ANDELMAN: Sara, now I’m concerned that you’ve secretly got me on video, and you know I’m sitting here in my robe and underwear conducting these interviews. I thought the green light was supposed to come on if the video was on. I’m trying to get a handle on that. I don’t do fiction, but I work on a lot of books, and it seems to go through periods where it swings. Right now, I like to get everybody out of the house. I like to get started early, crank up whatever I’ve got in iTunes lately, usually something ‘70s or ‘80s-related because I’m an old man, and I block everything out. You mentioned the Internet, and I wondered about that. It is one of the most fascinating things in our lives, and it is the biggest time-killer around. I’m curious if that is a problem for you at all. You do wind up devoting too much of your workday to it, and before you know it, you’re into the next day. ZARR: It is a problem, and the problem with it is just what you’re describing, that it is work. As you know, you have to promote yourself, and if you want people to come back to your website, you have to have dynamic content that’s changing, hopefully daily or at least a few times a week, and then there are emails to deal with. You feel like you’re working, and you are working, but that work never actually ends, and so you have to end it and just say, “I’m stopping this now for a few hours.” It’s definitely a challenge. It’s something that will be the number one thing that keeps me from being as productive on the creative front as I want to be. It’s a positive for my career because a lot of the success that I’ve had has come from word-of-mouth and people who have followed my blog, and I feel like they know me and want to support me and then tell their friends. And that’s really good, and it’s been a positive for me, but at the same time, there does come the moment where you have to say, “Okay, I’m done with this now,” and I have to write. And that’s definitely difficult because writing, as you know, is hard, and for some of us, writing blog posts or answering fan mail or dealing with publisher stuff is easy, and so what are you gonna do? You’re going to take the path of least resistance, which is the business side of it, at least for my type of personality. The creative work is the part that’s hard and scary, and so, of course, I don’t want to do it so I delay that as long as possible. So it’s a good thing I have deadlines. ANDELMAN: Is there a caller with a question for Sara? MICHAEL BOURRET: Yes, there is a question for Sara. ZARR: Oh, hi, Michael. BOURRET: Why isn’t she working now? ZARR: I’m busy doing publicity! BOURRET: Oh, so that’s that “other” kind of work you were talking about. ZARR: Exactly. BOURRET: Very good. ZARR: And, hopefully, we can stretch this out all day. ANDELMAN: We have a limit because I’ve got book work to do, too, Sara. Folks, this is Michael Bourret with Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. He represents Sara and this other loser, me. BOURRET: It’s true. ANDELMAN: Michael, do you have any stories you can tell us about Sara? You want to take us back in time a little bit to maybe when her work first crossed your desk? BOURRET: Yes, she was a wee lass before she’d written anything of substance. No, Sara’s an amazing success story, obviously, of her own and for her own reasons, but for me, as a writer who did come in through slush with a very attention-catching query letter that referenced Freaky Friday. Whether or not I had liked the original or the Lindsay Lohan version better. If anyone actually cares, I think they are both very different, different films, but they both have their merits. ZARR: Okay. BOURRET: It’s important. But anyway, then she sent me her material, which was really great, and it was immediate from the first few pages and obvious that Sara’s a terrific writer. And in reading the novel, it was 90 percent there and really didn’t need much work because she’d been working on it for so long and really honing her craft and doing all of her homework and obviously approaching the right agent, which is so important. ZARR: So modest. BOURRET: I know. Well, the right agent isn’t necessarily some sort of number one agent on the list. It’s about getting the right fit. Obviously, I think it’s been a good fit. Click Here to Keep Reading! © 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Samantha Hunt is most recently the author of The Invention of Everything Else. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Pining for chambermaids. Author: Samantha Hunt Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming.] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Correspondent: I also wanted to ask you about the rivalry with Edison. Hunt: Yeah. Correspondent: For AC power. I m wondering. Tesla himself says that he doesn t much care. He s not jealous. He s not envious in any particular way. And I m certain that that probably came from Tesla. But I m also wondering if this was a way for you to inure your own possible judgment. Because surely, if you re reading twenty forty books on Tesla, you re probably going to be rooting for him in some sense against the evil Edison. Hunt: Sure. Correspondent: And so I m wondering what you did to keep your own subjective judgments at bay in relation to the Westinghouse-Tesla-Edison contretemps. Hunt: It s tempting to not completely skewer them, of course. Because they ve been so Correspondent: It s the easy thing to do. Hunt: Yeah. Well, they ve been on a pedestal for so very, very long. And I was taught both of them in school. But I was never taught Tesla. But then, you know, ultimately, they had a lot of the same fever that Tesla had. And I admire that. And I think at the end, I try to really come down sympathetically on Edison. Because I do feel that, after he was gone I mean, there s a lot to miss there too. Even though he was really such a great marketer, and maybe not such a great inventor, and really stole a lot of people s ideas. Correspondent: And worked inventors to death too. Hunt: Worked inventors to death. Drove them crazy. I still miss his type around here. And so I have Tesla missing him just a little bit at the end. And it s more just a sadness for a past time, I guess. During the 1880s and the 1890s, oh, how exciting to be in New York! And to be like, Okay! Let s wire the whole city for electricity! And I don t know. I had a lot of nostalgia for that time, I think. And so even Edison at the end of the book, I had to kind of force myself to come to terms with him. And to feel some sort of admiration and respect for him. Correspondent: So it seems that there are two types you miss. One is the kind of independent inventor along the lines of Tesla. And the other is the kind of corporate, we re going to go ahead and completely dominate. Hunt: You know what it is? It s kind of how people hang up old Coca-Cola ads in their house. And they re like, Oh! Look at those beautiful old Coca-Cola ads! Correspondent: Which is disturbing on some level! Hunt: It s totally disturbing! And yet, it evokes some sort of nostalgia. I guess that s how I feel about Edison. He s kind of like one of those old Coca-Cola ads. Correspondent: It s the safer nostalgia then. Hunt: Yeah.

Charles Baxter is most recently the author of The Soul Thief. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Vengeful towards literary ransackers. Author: Charles Baxter Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Baxter: I don t mean to interrupt your question, but I think it is very much a process of the last thirty years. It s been the time the last three decades when it s been most noticeable. That cities have become museums of what it was they once made. And that s not true for Los Angeles. But it is true for Minneapolis. If you go down to where I live, you go down to the Mississippi River, you ll see grain mills that once were there. You will see the Mill City Museum. What you will see is a simulacrum another pretentious word of what was once there and isn t there anymore. Correspondent: By the way, you can throw as many pretentious words here as you like. It doesn t matter. Baxter: Okay, thanks. Correspondent: No judgment here. (laughs) Baxter: I appreciate it.

Steve Erickson is most recently the author of Zeroville. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Confused by floating point integers. Author: Steve Erickson Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Correspondent: I wanted to ask you about approaching this particular book with less fantastical or abstract elements than your previous books. I m wondering if it was a way for you to live up to Godard s maxim that cinema is essentially truth 24 frames per second. Erickson: Well, I think that, in the case of this book, because it is a book about the movies, and because I wanted the book to reflect my enthusiasm for the movies, and to reflect to some extent the obsession of the main character for the movies, I wanted to follow the narrative laws of the movies. So I kept it in the present tense. This is a pretty linear book compared to my other books. And it cuts from short scene to short scene, and it never gets too internalized. Things are told in the externals of dialogue and action. So because of all of that, I think it had the effect of grounding the book in a way that the other books may not have felt as grounded. And also, it was fixed in a very particular period of time, which is to say the 1970s in Los Angeles, when a lot of things about movies were changing.

Toby Barlow is the author of Sharp Teeth. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Distrusting of certain types of poetry. Author: Toby Barlow Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming] EXCERPT FROM SHOW: Barlow: I knew I wasn t writing poetry. So I was not looking at in that style or strict formal style. But I did want I did create breaks most of the time. There were a lot of line breaks in it. But most of the time, I was creating breaks when I wanted the ear to kind of catch twice. So the phrase had its own meaning. And I wanted to break up that phrase, and break the way that you were going to hear it or see it. So there would be a kind of constant tumbling over process as you went through the book. Because again, I think that that added a lot of drive to the piece. Even lines that felt cliched. If you break them in the right way, they re suddenly not cliche anymore. They re suddenly a little there s just a bump in the road where you didn t expect it. And I just wanted to keep people guessing and thinking and moving through it.

A new group of writers put down their pens. Shared by : orenbrimer On: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 Views: 5969Tags: Down New put Group union Writer novel Strike Writers pens Novelist WGA

David provides some hints of what is in store in his new book with Boris Gindin, Mutiny!: The true events that inspired The Hunt For Red October. Visit David's site at: http://www.david-hagberg.com

In this installment of UltraCreatives, J.C. chats with novelist and podcaster Mur Lafferty. A brilliant storyteller and essayist, Mur has released her writing into the podosphere since 2004. Thanks to her veteran status in the community, she has a has a unique perspective on podcasting s roots, the state of podcasting today, and where it s going. J.C. and Mur talk about that, her first memories as a writer, what allured her to podcasting, and more. Of particular interest are her thoughts on her Heaven series of audio novellas, and the conclusion of her hit podiobook, Playing for Keeps. The interview is about 90 minutes long, but Mur s conversation and anecdotes are stellar, and well worth the listen. Find Mur s work here: Playing for Keeps podiobook Heaven audio novellas MurLafferty.com If all goes accord