Poetry collections are some of the most beautiful books in my library. They have gorgeous cover designs, seductive embossments, such carefully chosen fonts, wonderfully fibrous paper that sets off the white space, cut with such crisp edges. A lot of this, I think, is because so many of these books come from independent presses and reflect the care that these presses put into each detail of their books.
…
It’s shallow, I know, to love poetry for its packaging, to covet books as objects, but I can’t help it if I do. It’s only the beginning of the story, of course, but it’s an important part, and it’s fortunate that so many poets and publishers think seem to feel the same.
Honestly, e-books will never hold a candle.
Author Archives: Theryn
AB Article
I was not intending on writing an Absolute Blank article this month, but somehow 😉 I ended up pulling together a last-minute substitute. Fortunately, my brilliant (((plan))) involved coming up with some questions and compiling the responses. Here ’tis: “What Do We Look For In Submissions? Q&A with the Toasted Cheese Editors.”
The world through books
I have always filtered the world through books, and I still do to a large extent. Writing is just an extension of that.
Real Life
[I]n real life, being an aspiring writer is very unsexy.
Obstacles to international comprehension
What are the consequences [of globalization] for literature? From the moment an author perceives his ultimate audience as international rather than national, the nature of his writing is bound to change. In particular one notes a tendency to remove obstacles to international comprehension. …
More importantly the language is kept simple. Kazuo Ishiguro has spoken of the importance of avoiding word play and allusion to make things easy for the translator. Scandinavian writers I know tell me they avoid character names that would be difficult for an English reader.
Writers and Authors
[originally posted at Toasted Cheese]
I just saw that Stephenie Meyer has a new book coming out. It turns out to be a Twilight-tie-in book. And that’s when this occurred to me…
No doubt you’ve heard writers say something like “I write because I have to” or “even if I never get published (again), I wouldn’t stop writing.” IOW, writing, being a writer, is part of who they are, it’s something they have always done, and will always continue to do because they enjoy (or get something from) the process of writing as much as the finished product (and its associated rewards).
OTOH, you have people like Meyer, who had not written anything prior to the Twilight series. I’m highly doubtful that she’ll produce anything of note that’s not Twilight-related (although she may try). Part of this is being typecast, of course; nothing she does (JK Rowling has the same problem) is going to be able to match that first hit.
Of course, both Meyer and Rowling have enough money that they never have to write another word again, if they don’t want to. But if they’re writers at their core, we would have no doubt that they would continue writing regardless of the fact they’re now filthy rich or that readers aren’t interested in anything that isn’t Twilight/Harry Potter.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that maybe this good/bad writing argument we’ve been having is not really about good or bad writing. Maybe it’s about writers vs. authors. Everyone expects a stack of JD Salinger manuscripts to show up sooner or later because everyone thinks of Salinger as a writer. He could stop publishing, but no one believes that he could stop writing. OTOH, if you read Dan Brown’s Wikipedia entry, it’s pretty clear that while he’s an author, he’s not a writer per se. He just kept trying different things until one of them worked out for him—and it happened to be writing novels. It could just as easily have been music or acting or something else.
Is this making sense to anyone besides me?
Creatures set down here bewildered
Why are we reading, if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage and the hope of meaningfulness, and press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power? What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and which reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered? Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love? We still and always want waking. If we are reading for these things, why would anyone read books with advertising slogans and brand names in them? Why would anyone write such books?
Something to Say
There are people in this strange little world of ours who have romantic notions about being a writer, and that, to them, is much more important than actually writing. This is the order in which people like that think. “How do I get a book deal” comes before “How do I become someone who has something to say?” Writing is an act of ego, but your ego should not be the only part of your personality involved.
Unless it is good in the abstract sense
It is surprising to me to see how many people separate the objective from the abstract. Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or a tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or a tree. It is lines and colors put together so that they say something. For me that is the very basis of painting. The abstraction is often the most definite form for the intangible thing in myself that I can only clarify in paint.
—Georgia O’Keeffe
in Georgia O’Keeffe (1976)
Rituals and Repetition
What resonated with me was rituals and repetition…So many of the things that I learned as a dishwasher you do as a cook. The idea of being efficient, being organized, the rituals of being a cook, the repetition…and of course the more you do something, the better you become. That’s why I became a good cook, because I enjoy the repetition, I wasn’t always trying to seek something new…You tend to always want to do something new in the kitchen, but there really isn’t anything new.
The Remainder Table 