Here’s another example: I recently checked out Roxana Robinson’s “Asking for Love” from the library by mistake (I rarely read short stories). It was the last thing on my shelf so I plowed into it. The stories are exquisite!

So now I’m reading “This is My Daughter” and it’s drudgery. Is it just me?

One of our conversations concerned the sad state of publishing today. Of course, we’ve been having that conversation for 20 years but it really does seem scarier today. In the end, we comforted ourselves with the belief that there will always be a demand for good stories. We just don’t know what form they will take.

Today I came across an interesting article on the subject that some of you will enjoy http://blog.writersdigest.com/norules/CommentView,guid,82BA6A7F-D0C1-4059-B93E-179ECFE34E60.aspx#dbf2c140-285d-44ab-8118-2fd68fc7d0b7. Apparently we can experiment all we like.

Refreshing!

Last Saturday, while we were up on the bluff we saw a big white round something beside the river. I thought it must be some sort of equipment for preventing erosion.

As we descended and got closer, we began to hear odd sounds. At exactly the same moment we both said, “Tuba?”

Yep, that’s what it was. Somebody was playing a tuba by the river at sunup. What could be more Memphis than that?

This one http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2010/07/buckle-up.html really is about the market for books. It’s comforting (sorta) and is written by someone I respect. Honest.

So do we just stand by while traditional publishers go under? Is there anything we can do?

To my surprise I find that I don’t have a knee-jerk aversion to ebooks and I know that some of you have Kindles, iPads and other devices. In my heavy travel days I expect that I would have, too. Yet I’m still passionate about reading “real” books.

Where do you come out? As usual, David Brooks has an unusual perspective http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/opinion/09brooks.html?th&emc=th.

Several days later I woke up thinkingt about the Mississippi State Soverignty Commission. Yes, dear reader, there was such a thing and it was quite as nasty as the name implies. It comprised the top officers of the state, from the governor on down, and was wholly dedicated to preserving the “soverignty” of the state–in other words, preventing the federal government from enforcing Brown vs. Board of Education.

Anyone who knows anything about the history of the Magnolia State is probably not surprised to hear this. What surprised me was its emergence from my subconscious. I was totally unaware of it during the period when it existed (1956-1977) and somewhere between disconcerted and outraged when I learned about it via NPR in 2001 when the records were finally open to the public. I remember thinking, “I’ll have to look into that someday.”

I suppose that day has come. It strikes me that the research for this book may be quite a journey. I’m looking forward to it!

My mother sent me a copy of Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree” for Easter. I forgot how special it was and thought I should mention it. Since then, I’ve given it to one person and had several talks about favorite children’s books with my friends. I even read one of my friend’s favorites, “Miss Rumphius,” which she brought with her to graduate school. Any others that I am forgetting? These may be good gift ideas as well. Lord knows how many toys kids get these days! Why not a book? I must say, they’re also pretty nice for grown-ups. Take care!

Stephanie

The distinbction has to do with voice, he explains. “A ’story writer’ may well create an eccentric, idiosyncratic voice (a high modernist voice, perhaps), possibly with its own distinct singular syntax and grammar, and consider that creation to be in itself an act of art.

“A ‘writing storyteller’ can hardly surmount the fact that he or she is writing, but seeks nonetheless a voice that is at once singular and shared in much the way a storyteller’s voice (and story) may be singular and yet shared with storylisteners. To hope that readers will become, to a degree, storylisteners, is to seek the kind of communal relationship found, for example, between preachers and congregations, musicians and audiences in certain performance venues, and between storytellers and storylisteners.

“The writing storyteller approximates the performative aesthetic of the ‘folk’ event, I believe, in an effort not to be removed or alienated from certain readerships by the act of writing.”

That rings so true to me! It both explains why I respond so viscerally to certain books and characters (think Sabine and Ruth again) and authenticates the kind of writer I want to be. No more agonizing about why I can’t be more “original” or avant gard. I’m going to settle happily for being a writing storyteller.

Which do you prefer?

about D. Brooks: I know he is supposed to be a conservative, but he more often sounds to me like a “moderate Democrat”. I guess that shows how far to the right some positions seem to me. I wish everyone could see clearly through “Progressive Lenses”.

Thanks to kind fate and very good directions from Linda and Bob, I arrived at SFO without harm to self or others. I also was armed with an ironclad determination to do whatever it took to get my eyesight corrected. That led to cataract surgery and a lot of decisions about what kind of lens to have inserted, when to do the second eye, etc. It seems there’s no perfect solution or, if there is, I haven’t found it.

After having one eye corrected, I waited eagerly for my new glasses to arrive. Already I could see more clearly than I had in years. With the new spectacles I would be as sharp-eyed as a kid again, I reasoned.
The day finally arrived, the technician finally quit fiddling and I put on my glasses, waiting for the world to spring into focus. It did not.

What gives? I closed my left eye and could see perfectly with my right. I closed the right eye. Same deal. Each eye worked perfectly on its own but they definitely weren’t cooperating with one another.

It’s gotten better since then but I still see better one eye at a time. Maybe there’s a lesson in this. I’m definitely grateful that I can see so much better and I’m wondering if the disjointedness will help me see the angles we often overlook when we’re focused on the straight and narrow. Flannery O’Connor’s biographer said she looked at the world as if there was a film of acetate over it, slightly skewed. (I’m paraphrasing.) I would certainly be willing to sacrifice an eye for a grain of her genius!