Joseph Campbell: “Get thee to an incubatorium.”

10 Jan

Campbell

“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.”

~ JOSEPH CAMPBELL

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January 9th birthday: Jimmy Page

10 Jan

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“My vocation is in composition — building up harmonies using the guitar, orchestrating the guitar like an army, a guitar army.”
~ Jimmy Page, b. 9 January 1944

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BookTalk Nation

9 Jan

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Booktalk Nation returns from its holiday hiatus with a full slate of nationwide dial-in events. This week, former CNN anchor Kitty Pilgrim discusses her latest thriller and Carolyn Mackler and Jay Asher talk about collaborating on their acclaimed YA novel, The Future of Us. Next week, Lois Lowry will discuss the concluding book in her Newbery winning series that began with The Giver, and Emma Straub will talk about her widely praised debut novel about Hollywood’s golden age.

Later this month, Pulitzer Prize winners Richard Russo and Robert K. Massie will be discussing their latest books, and PEN/Robert Bingham Prize winner Vanessa Veselka will talk about her debut novel, Zazen.
 
Here’s this month’s Booktalk Nation events (all start 7:00 Eastern/4:00 Pacific):
 
Wed, Jan 9: Kitty Pilgrim talks with journalist Peter Tedeschi about The Stolen Chalice.
 
Thurs, Jan 10: Carolyn Mackler and Jay Asher discuss their collaboration on The Future of Us with Karen Holt.
 
Mon, Jan 14: Author Lauren Groff interviews Emma Straub about her debut novel, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures.
 
Tues, Jan 15: Newbery Medal winner Lois Lowry talks about her latest novel, Son, with fellow children’s author Tanya Lee Stone.
 
Tues, Jan 22: PEN/Robert Bingham Prize winner Vanessa Veselka discusses her novel, Zazen, with Pauls Toutonghi.
 
Thurs, Jan 24: Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Richard Russo discusses his most personal book, Elsewhere: A Memoir, with author Nick Taylor.
 
Tues, Jan 29: Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. Massie talks about his latest biography, Catherine the Great, Portrait of a Woman with biographer David Michaelis.
 
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About Booktalk Nation
 
Booktalk Nation’s nationwide phone-in events are intended to supplement book tours and other efforts promoting new books. Booktalknation.com provides an e-commerce platform in conjunction with its events, allowing readers to order books that authors will personally sign at host bookstores. Proceeds from these sales are divided between the host store and any affiliate brick-and-mortar bookstores that bring book buyers to the site. For the next few months, Booktalk Nation will be hosting up to three events per week. The number of events are expected to increase as more bookstores sign on as hosts.
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January 8th birthday: David Bowie

8 Jan

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“I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human.”

~ David Bowie, b. 8 January 1947

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Saul Bellow: “Writing isn’t an occult operation.”

8 Jan

FILE PHOTO: Author Saul Bellow Dies At 89

“Every writer’s assumption is that he is as other human beings are, and that they are more or less as he is. There’s a principle of psychic unity. Writing wasn’t meant to be an occult operation; it wasn’t meant to be an esoteric secret.”

~ SAUL BELLOW

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Fran Lebowitz: “When I’m not writing I feel like a criminal.”

7 Jan

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“Not writing is more of a psychological problem than a writing problem. All the time I’m not writing I feel like a criminal. … It’s horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. Especially when it goes on for years. It’s much more relaxing actually to work.”

~ FRAN LEBOWITZ

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January 6th birthday: Khalil Gibran

6 Jan

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“Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.”

~ Khalil Gibran, b. 6 Jan 1883

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Dominick Dunne: “Finish your first draft.”

6 Jan

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“The best advice on writing was given to me by my first editor, Michael Korda, of Simon and Schuster, while writing my first book. “Finish your first draft and then we’ll talk,” he said. It took me a long time to realize how good the advice was. Even if you write it wrong, write and finish your first draft. Only then, when you have a flawed whole, do you know what you have to fix.”

~ DOMINICK DUNNE

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Booknote: The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene

5 Jan

the power and the gloryOver the years, I’ve read all of Graham Greene’s books. His writing is impeccable, and his characters are often trapped in some backwater of life, whether literal or figurative, in which faith struggles against despair.

This novel centers on a “whisky priest”, hunted and hounded by Marxist “Red Shirts” in the service of an anti-clerical Mexican government that in certain states has driven the Catholic Church into hiding. This sounds like SF, but actually happened in the mid-1930s.

As do many Greene characters, the nameless priest carries a heavy load of guilt. In his case, it’s the illegitimate child he fathered during the years when priests were de-celibatized and made to act like real men. Now he’s escaped into the jungle, running from the Red Shirts and administering baptisms, confessions and last rites to faithful peasants.

It’s a bit of an allegory, with the priest as Christ, a peasant Judas and a Marxist lieutenant as Pilate. The novel moves as slowly as an anaconda on a heavily humid day, but the language is deft and the story is as old and rich as the Bible.

~ Alan, Toronto, 5 Jan 2013

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F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Confine yourself to simple words.”

5 Jan

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“Upon mature consideration I advise you to go no farther with your vocabulary. If you have a lot of words they’ll become like some muscle you’ve developed that you’re compelled to use, and you must use this one in expressing yourself or in criticizing others. It’s hard to say who’ll punish you the most for this, the dumb people who don’t know what you’re talking about or the learned ones who do. But wallop you they will and you’ll be forced to confine yourself to pen and paper.

Then you’ll be a writer and may God have mercy on your soul.

No! A thousand times no! Far, far better confine yourself to a few simple expressions in life, the ones that served billions upon countless billions of our forefathers and still serve admirably all but a tiny handful of those at present clinging to the earth’s crust…

So forget all that has hitherto attracted you in our complicated system of grunts and go back to those fundamental ones that have stood the test of time.”

~ F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, in a letter to Andrew Turnbull

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