The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) noted a few days ago that "for years, the news coming out of book review sections has not been good: everywhere, we hear, pages are being cut, budgets are being reduced. But in the past few months the situation has taken a turn for the worse."
Part of that "turn for the worse" includes the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's recent staff restructuring that (unless we change management's minds) will eliminate the paper's strong book review editor Teresa Weaver.
So far, the AJC is claiming that we aren't going to lose our book review pages altogether. Perhaps not, but relying on wire service copy and other canned reviews from non-resident freelancers is pretty much like letting out-of-town strangers bring up one's children.
With the elimination of this position, we're not only losing a strong editor who championed literary fiction and promising newcomers, but the all-important local/regional arts voice a that a solid paper must provide.
Local and regional authors are often lost in the megaBIGBOOK mentality of much of the public and most of the media; without an editor with an awareness of the strong writers within a state or region, more voices are likely to be silenced.
Whether you live in Atlanta or north Georgia or whether you simply believe major newspapers should cover the arts with a local slant, you can add your name to the on-line petition. I added my name (#3085) 30 minutes ago.
It's free, it's painless, and no salesman will call. If you want to tell the AJC to keep its eye on the books, sign here. For more information about the NBCC's campaign to save book reviews, look at this blog.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Simply trying to figure it out
"The world is not what it seems and you are not as you may think you are." --Fred Alan Wolf in Dr. Quantum's Little Book of Big Ideas.
We have heard from sages for years that the temporal world is an illusion.
I tend to think our thoughts create the world we see as well as ourselves and everything that "happens to us." Our certainty about what we desire plays a roll, too, as do our emotions.
Saying or writing such things is easy and when others of like mind hear them or read them, they nod with agreement.
Yet...
If the world is not what it seems and if we are not as we consciously think we are, then how do we deliberately and consciously see it as it is? More importantly, how do we deliberately and consciously see ourselves as we are?
Some say, in more eloquent words, that all of us are here---living these lives--simply to figure it out, "it" being, well, everything.
Writing has always provided me with a means through which I interpret what I believe to be true about myself and the world. I may be telling the story of various characters in a novel, satirizing one form of nonsene or another, or writing a grant application for a museum, but it's simultaneously an inner journey of self discovery.
Other folks connect to the great mysteries through quiet walks in the woods, through repetitive jobs, travel, sports, music, and a thousand other vehicles.
Different strokes for different folks, yet the journey is fairly much the same in terms of intent.
It is, as Joseph Campbell said, the journey of a lifetime.
We have heard from sages for years that the temporal world is an illusion.
I tend to think our thoughts create the world we see as well as ourselves and everything that "happens to us." Our certainty about what we desire plays a roll, too, as do our emotions.
Saying or writing such things is easy and when others of like mind hear them or read them, they nod with agreement.
Yet...
If the world is not what it seems and if we are not as we consciously think we are, then how do we deliberately and consciously see it as it is? More importantly, how do we deliberately and consciously see ourselves as we are?
Some say, in more eloquent words, that all of us are here---living these lives--simply to figure it out, "it" being, well, everything.
Writing has always provided me with a means through which I interpret what I believe to be true about myself and the world. I may be telling the story of various characters in a novel, satirizing one form of nonsene or another, or writing a grant application for a museum, but it's simultaneously an inner journey of self discovery.
Other folks connect to the great mysteries through quiet walks in the woods, through repetitive jobs, travel, sports, music, and a thousand other vehicles.
Different strokes for different folks, yet the journey is fairly much the same in terms of intent.
It is, as Joseph Campbell said, the journey of a lifetime.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Stepping out of the way
The gurus orbiting The Secret and similar books remind us that it's counterproductive to fret about how the universe operates when responding to us when we're meditating, praying, utilizing various positive thinking techniques and otherwise creating reality with deliberate and conscious intent.
Look with emotion and expectation to the result you're contemplating, they say, without concern about the mechanics of the outcome.
When we, as writers, approach our works in progress with passion, we're often tempted to "force the story" (or poem or essay) rather than stepping out of the way and allowing the words to flow. As André Gide once wrote, "Art is a collaboration between God and the artist and the less the artist does, the better."
Far be it from me to suggest we are channeling God, angels, or such entities as Esther Hicks' Abraham or Jane Roberts' Seth. There is no need, for we are channeling ourselves.
As long as we're chattering inside our heads, the work in progress will have great difficulty unfolding onto the page. How can it? We're not listening and allowing it to happen. There is no need to tightly control the creative process nor fret about how it works.
Look with emotion and expectation to the result you're contemplating, they say, without concern about the mechanics of the outcome.
When we, as writers, approach our works in progress with passion, we're often tempted to "force the story" (or poem or essay) rather than stepping out of the way and allowing the words to flow. As André Gide once wrote, "Art is a collaboration between God and the artist and the less the artist does, the better."
Far be it from me to suggest we are channeling God, angels, or such entities as Esther Hicks' Abraham or Jane Roberts' Seth. There is no need, for we are channeling ourselves.
As long as we're chattering inside our heads, the work in progress will have great difficulty unfolding onto the page. How can it? We're not listening and allowing it to happen. There is no need to tightly control the creative process nor fret about how it works.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Rainy Day People
I just finished reading and reviewing Rainy Day People by Susan C. Haley and Robert J. Delany, and recommend it highly to readers who like strong characters with beliefs so strong they're likely to chase everyone else away. My review is posted on my web site.
How often we're governed by our past! How many people to you know who refuse to truly live in the here and now because they were hurt one way or another years ago? In Rainy Day People, we meet Ben and Amber, the sort of folks I would enjoy having as neighbors. They love each other now in the autumn of their lives as though destiny would have it no other way. Yet they're pushing each other away because--so it seems to them--it's safer to construct walls around themselves to keep from experiencing new hurt, disappointment, abandonment, and loss.
What a paradox. The walls we create to keep ourselves from re-experiencing loss ensure that we'll always be living a life focused on loss. We're afraid to open up and take risks because we don't want to be abandoned again, so we live on in a safe cocoon of abandonment.
I tend to explore such themes in my own writing, so I'm always interested to see how other writers have handled them. Haley and Delany have handled them well in Rainy Day People.
How often we're governed by our past! How many people to you know who refuse to truly live in the here and now because they were hurt one way or another years ago? In Rainy Day People, we meet Ben and Amber, the sort of folks I would enjoy having as neighbors. They love each other now in the autumn of their lives as though destiny would have it no other way. Yet they're pushing each other away because--so it seems to them--it's safer to construct walls around themselves to keep from experiencing new hurt, disappointment, abandonment, and loss.
What a paradox. The walls we create to keep ourselves from re-experiencing loss ensure that we'll always be living a life focused on loss. We're afraid to open up and take risks because we don't want to be abandoned again, so we live on in a safe cocoon of abandonment.
I tend to explore such themes in my own writing, so I'm always interested to see how other writers have handled them. Haley and Delany have handled them well in Rainy Day People.
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