Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Here’s what we’ll be cooking/eating tomorrow, if all goes as planned~~

Spiced Nuts
Crudités & Green Goddess Spinach Dip
Pimento Cheese
The Classic Martini
The Robert Burns*

Breast of Turkey & Roulade**
Cornbread Stuffing
Classic Cranberry Sauce
Mashed Potatoes & Gravy
Gratineed Mustard Creamed Onions
Maple-Pecan Sweet Potatoes***
Brussels Sprouts Cockaigne****
Wine

Pumpkin Pie
Gingerbread
Coffee & Tea


*Yes, how literary. Steve is in charge of cocktail and wine selection. Here’s some background, and a recipe, though our recipe calls for Drambuie instead of absinthe.

**Prepped by the fabulous Butcher’s Block shop in Alexandria, NOT by me! Gravy, too, in a hopeful attempt to create a stress-free kitchen for a change, though the turkey directions are a little on the vague side, stressing me out already (i.e. “cook for 1.5 to 3 hours”).

***With marshmallows this year, at Steve’s request. Last time we did the marshmallows, they caught on fire…oops!

****From The Joy of Cooking; “cockaigne” is the name they give to their most special recipes…I think I’m remembering it was the name of their family house or something? This is one of the few recipes that make brussel sprouts taste good.

More on Hollywood in the Thirties

Poet John Guzlowski emailed these reading suggestions as follow-up to my post about Fitzgerald in Hollywood:

“Several years ago there was a great book on Writers and Hollywood by Tom Dardis: Some Time in the Sun: The Hollywood Years of F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Nathanael West, Aldous Huxley and James Agee.

“Dardis is wonderful, smart and interesting. He also wrote a great book on drinking and American writers in the 20th cent called The Thirsty Muse. If you haven't read it, do yourself a favor.

“By the way have you read, Fitzgerald's stories about being a writer?* They are collected in his Pat Hobby Stories. They are very good.

“I was crazy about Fitzgerald for a long time and read much about him. Budd Schulberg (who wrote "On the Water Front") worked with Fitzgerald and wrote a very good novel about going on an assignment with him to write a script about a winter carnival at Dartmouth! It's called The Disenchanted. A sad, sad novel.”


*Yes, I love The Pat Hobby Stories, which are on my “favorite books bookshelf.” From the back of my old Scribner’s paperback: “…Fitzgerald was able to satirize not only the vulgar, hallucinatory climate of Hollywood in the late thirties but also his own bitter captivity inside it.” I just reread the first story, where down-on-his-luck Pat thinks he has a way out, only to discover he's more down on his luck and expendable than he had imagined.

From the end of "Pat Hobby's Christmas Wish," the big boss says,

"Like someone should have cracked down on you, Pat. But you were an amusing guy in those days, and besides we were all too busy."

Pat sniffed suddenly.

"I've been cracked down on," he said. "Plenty."

"But too late," said Gooddorf...

Lee Gutkind to Lead Master Workshop at Writer's Center

This is a great opportunity to learn from a true master:

The Writer's Center is pleased to announce that one of the leading figures of creative nonfiction, Lee Gutkind, will lead a master workshop this winter at The Writer's Center.

STYLE AND SUBSTANCE: THE CREATIVE NONFICTION TRIPLE CHALLENGE
7 - 9:30 p.m. Monday, Feb 8, Tuesday, Feb. 9, Thursday, Feb. 11, and Friday, Feb. 12
Fee: $300 for members; $350 for nonmembers

Whether you are writing memoir or writing about science, business, or history, the writer, to be successful, must find a way to communicate interesting and vital information along with his or her ideas and feelings--through scene or narrative.

Those are the first two challenges in creative nonfiction: Style or story blended with substance or fact. And then there's focus/theme--the awesome final challenge: What does all of this information plus narrative mean to the reader, to the writer, and to the world? What do we want our readers to think or do after they read our essay or our book?

These are the three challenges facing the nonfiction writer today--often the vital prerequisites of publication and communication.

In this workshop, Lee Gutkind, founder and editor of the landmark magazine Creative Nonfiction, will lead you through the creative nonfiction writing process from beginning to end. He will demonstrate the writer's pitfalls and the ways in which the writer might fulfill the creative nonfiction triple challenge.

In the first class, Gutkind will discuss and demonstrate the classic structure of creative nonfiction--how style and substance come together. In the second class, Gutkind will be joined by his colleague, Dan Sarewitz, a columnist for the journal Nature, and co-director of Arizona State University's Consortium for Science Policy & Outcomes. Sarewitz and Gutkind will focus on perhaps the most difficult of the three challenges: finding meaning in your work. For the third and fourth sessions students will be asked to write a short narrative that combines style, substance, and meaning--and share their work with the class.

This is a master workshop. To apply, you must submit 5 hard copy pages of a creative nonfiction piece (it can be an excerpt from a longer work). Please do not register for this workshop before you are admitted. Submission deadline for this workshop is January 4. Check the website for details.

To learn more about Lee Gutkind, please visit him at http://www.leegutkind.com/

Stephen Elliott: How to Write about Your Family

DC writer Paula Whyman organized an amazing event on Friday, hosting Stephen Elliott at a packed reading at Teaism. Stephen, who is on a wild, self-organized, nationwide tour of reading in people’s houses and at venues beyond the typical bookstore, read from his new book, The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir of Moods, Masochism, and Murder. He told us he was reading different parts of the book at each event (a nice trick, considering he will have been on the road for more than three months when the tour winds up). He’ll be touring until December 18, and if you have the chance to see him read, I call this a "must see."

If you’ve ever read his work, you know that it is incredibly intense and dark and honest: reading his autobiographical novel Happy Baby was a memorably wrenching experience (one of the most powerful books I've read, though I recommend it cautiously...it's that brutal). So I had to ask his advice on something that often comes up in my classes (okay, and in my own life, too), worrying about the reaction of family/friends when they read certain stories.

He gave a great answer, which I’ll paraphrase, since I was too mesmerized to think of taking notes:

First, don’t even worry about anyone’s reactions until the piece is going to be published. This is simply the wisest comment on the whole subject—obviously, the story can change in progress or not get written or be written but live only in a file drawer. He also noted that you shouldn’t imagine that the person you don’t want to read the piece won’t find it…they always, always do.

Disguise characters so that it’s not obvious who you’re writing about.

Then, he suggested that you let the pertinent person/people read it before the work is being published, rather than after publication. Inevitably, people will react in one way or another, but he said that people will not want to be the one who “stops” a book/story from being published. I hadn’t thought about it that way, but sure: who will come out and demand that you rip up that contract?

Writers need to own the story and own their actions. As he said, “I’m a writer, and this is what I do.” We write stories, and sometimes they’re not pretty and sometimes they involve people we know.

Finally, he noted that if you’re going to go into this sort of territory, you need to go in all the way. You can’t create art by going only halfway. That is, if you’re going to write the story about your father, write the truth of that whole story: don’t hold back.

Great, great advice…I plan to steal this all next time the subject comes up in one of my classes.

And here’s my fun fact about Stephen Elliott: this artsy writer exploring with bare honesty the dark, wrenching, difficult corners of his life, has a fantasy football team. !!! My mouth literally dropped open when I heard this, and I was even more charmed and mesmerized than I had been before (even though his quarterback is the annoying Tony Romo, from DC’s archrival Dallas Cowboys).

You can read more about the event and see some photos at Paula Whyman’s blog.

Stephen Elliott's essay "Why I Write."

C.M. Mayo's "Spellbinding, Heartbreaking Tale"

Congratulations to C.M. Mayo, friend and guest blogger, whose new novel The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire was named to Library Journal’s list of “best books of 2009.” Catherine was in my writing group for many years, so I know how hard she worked on this lovely book and how much she deserves this honor!

From Library Journal:

“Once upon a time, there was a little half-American boy who briefly became heir to the Mexican throne—until his distraught parents sued the doomed Emperor Maximilian for his return. As in the best historical fiction, Mayo's sparkling first novel transforms a forgotten historical footnote into a spellbinding, heartbreaking tale filled with drama and fascinating characters.”

Guest in Progress: Katharine Davis

It’s one of the trickiest questions writers have to face: When is it done? (This is also a tricky question with regard to Thanksgiving turkeys, but I digress…) Here, my dear friend and former writing group member Katharine (Kitty) Davis wrestles with the ramifications of saying "the end."

(Also check out her previous posts for this blog, “Betwixt and Between,” about filling time between projects; and this New Yorker-style “Letter from Maine.” And here’s her yummy recipe for fish chowder, inspired by her second novel, East Hope…perfect for these dark winter evenings.)

Letting Go of Your Novel
Katharine Davis


Writing a novel is a long journey. From the simple physical endurance of turning out all those pages to the emotional ups and downs of the creative act—it’s an enormous endeavor, consuming one’s life for years at a time.

Writers often talk about the difficulty of getting started. How do you find the voice, where to begin, which point of view, the time frame, the setting? There are thousands of questions to consider, big and small.

Then, there is the problem of sticking to it, finding the time to write, getting blocked. Oh, the agony of finally understanding a character in the thirteenth chapter and having to re-write the previous 200 pages. How painful it is to discover you’ve gone off on a tangent, another 60 pages. You love every word, but you have to take them all out.

Eventually, you do the tedious revisions. Sentence by sentence, word by word, the work of getting the prose just right. Some days it’s nothing but a pleasure to revise, working on the rhythm, having the perfect metaphor seem to land in your lap. You might experience the thrill of coming up with that one word that changes everything. But, the countless hours spent on dialogue that clunks along like the rattle in your car that the mechanic can’t fix, or the flashback that’s brought your narrative drive to a halt--these trials are part of the process too.

Yet to me, one of the hardest parts of writing a novel is letting it go. You type ‘the end’ in all caps. You send it out. You want to celebrate, drink champagne, eat an enormous chocolate cupcake and tell all your friends, “I did it. I’m done. It’s the best ever. Yay!” And then, wham. What have I written? I didn’t get deeply enough into that character’s head. Did I tell enough about the mother? Oh God. That part’s too sappy. I should have made it better. These thoughts come at 3 AM, thanks to the champagne, the cupcake, or both. At that moment, the initial thrill of finding the story, and the enthusiasm of bringing it to the page is like some prehistoric event.

The next day, I feel somewhat better. There’s that scene where . . . and, remember when . . . , and the ending that can still make me cry. I find a paragraph I truly love. When did I write that? The next few weeks bring a combination of highs and lows.

Letting go of a novel is like sending children off to college. They’ve spent the last few years of high school driving you crazy, but also bringing you joy and delight. You experience the relief of getting them out from under your roof, to deep sadness. You miss them. You want your child to have his own life, to succeed. But it’s no longer up to you. Your baby if gone. Still, you’ve created something with love and hard work. Hopefully, the sense of pride and satisfaction will be long lasting.

This morning I pressed “send” and heard that final electronic click. I sent my novel, A SLENDER THREAD to my editor. The champagne is in the fridge. I plan to go to Magnolia Bakery this afternoon. Best cupcakes in New York.


About: Katharine Davis began writing fiction in 1999. Capturing Paris (St. Martin’s Press, 2006) was her first novel. Recommended in Real Simple Spring Travel 2007, the novel was also included in the New York Times' suggestions for fiction set in Paris. Her second novel, East Hope, was published by New American Library in 2009. She is an Associate Editor at The Potomac Review. She can be reached at www.katharinedavis.com. (Be sure to check out her fabulous Maine and Paris travel tips!)

Fitzgerald in Hollywood

It wasn’t until I opened my November 16, 2009, issue of The New Yorker on the plane to Austin that I saw this article about F. Scott Fitzgerald and his struggles in Hollywood. It was an excellent piece—written by Arthur Krystal, who’s working on a book on the topic—and it’s well worth searching out a print copy of the magazine. (The web site offers only an abstract.)

Krystal had access to Fitzgerald’s papers from a forgotten corner of the M-G-M archives, and it seems that our friend Scott really, really, REALLY wanted to come up with a great movie. And so why didn’t he succeed? Not hard to figure out, acutally, based on Krystal's research.

Krystal writes that while examining the papers,

“…I discovered just how hard he had worked at his craft. Fitzgerald approached each assignment with an intensity that must have puzzled his superiors. Given a script to revise, he would break it down, backstory it, advise the producers of its potential, and then start to add layers. ‘A Yank at Oxford’ couldn’t be just an innocent romance’ it had to prove the connection between language and mores. ‘Madame Curie’ couldn’t be just the story of a woman overcoming the odds; it had to reveal the intricacies of a marriage between equals. Naturally, he became emotionally invested in the work, making it difficult to cede control, and, like the British colonel in ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai,’ he forgot that what he was building didn’t belong to him, and, consequently, felt dismayed at its destruction.”

Here’s a brief bit from one of Fitztgerald's screenplays, “Cosmopolitan,” based on his short story “Babylon Revisited”:

Krystal notes: “Now follows a much longer, prosy summation of Marion Petrie’s character and attitudes, all of which could be expressed in a few lines of dialogue instead of lengthy paragraphs:

“[Fitzgerald wrote:] His wife Marion…is an extremely pretty American woman of thirty-two who must have hoped for a better match. She is now in a state of great emotion—barely controlled. She is agitated almost to the breaking point by the news of her sister’s suicide, which reached her last night in Paris. Always before this she has felt a certain secret jealously of her sister, who has great wealth and luxury.”

Sounds like a pureborn novelist to me.