Endicott Redux

What Remains in the Drawer...

We are so product oriented in writing that we generally only acknowledge the works that make it into print. Or, we have become so process oriented that a new term "process-porn" is used to describe the endless gabbing writers do about their peculiar writing habits. Yet we rarely want to examine the failures -- the works that never made it into print. These "spavined, half-cocked monstrosities" play an interesting role in an author's life -- returning now and again as challenges, re-invented as something entirely new, or cannibalized for their "good parts" (I can't count the number of authors who have counseled me over the years to "never throw anything away.")

The Independent has a fascinating article on the novels that for one reason or another never make it to publication; those pieces of work that haunt the author from the bottom of the drawer. The article quotes George Steiner: "'A book unwritten is more than a void. It accompanies the work one has done like an active shadow, both ironic and sorrowful. It is one of the lives we could have lived, one of the journeys we did not take.'" The article highlights ten authors who graciously reveal the various reasons certain novels they worked on (some gratefully) were never published. Amanda Craig writes humorously about her attempt as a young author to write a space opera based on Shakespeare's The Tempest: "'A mixture of magniloquent philosophy and stilted pornography, its climax involved a lot of intergalactic explosions and a hermaphroditic elopement. Really, I just needed to live longer, calm down and get out more.'"

These "confessions" are really interesting, and in some ways reassuring -- the creative imagination it seems finds powerful instruction from the failures as well as the successes.

*Authors pictured: top, Amanda Craig, Will Self; bottom, Jonathan Coe, Lynne Truss

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Approximately 600 years ago, a poet whose name has been lost to history wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. One of the eeriest stories in the Arthurian canon, the poem tells the story of a Christmas bargain struck between Sir Gawain and "a knight of such a kind -/ entirely emerald green."

The poem has been translated before, notably by J.R.R. Tolkien and W.S. Merwin. Simon Armitage's new translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from the Middle English is a masterpiece. Armitage maintains the driving pulse of the poem's alliterative and bob and wheel structure, while infusing it with the brightness of his own voice. His joy in the language of the poem is evident, and no other translation I've read has so closely captured the feeling of being told a story. Yet even with that joy and brightness, Armitage never allows the reader to forget the impending doom that hangs over the poem, like the long-anticipated blow from the Green Knight's axe.

His Sir Gawain belongs in the same company as Seamus Heaney's Beowulf or Sweeney Astray. And it is a poem that I will be pleased to offer, like Heaney's work, or the Avary-Gaiman Beowulf, as a response to "why read medieval literature?" The answer is because these are works that are not hundreds of years dead, but hundreds of years living. Because here there be dragons. And Grendels and Green Knights. And Stories.

The picture at the top of this post is one of the free poetry e-postcards you can send from this site. The art is by Brian Froud, and the poetry is "Green Men" by Bill Lewis. If you are interested in other versions of the Green Man, I highly recommend one of my favorite collections, The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, and illustrated by Charles Vess. Terri gives a terrific introduction to the Green Man as a mythic figure, and while I particularly love the stories and poem by Midori, Charles de Lint, and Neil Gaiman, every contribution is excellent.

So he winds through the wilds of the world once more,
Gawain on Gringolet, by the grace of God,
under a roof sometimes and sometimes roughing it,
and in valleys and vales had adventures and victories
but time is too tight to tell how they went.

Kids' Chalk Art Project

This spring the Kids' Chalk Art Project in Alameda California will attempt to produce the world's largest sidewalk chalk drawing. The group's mission is to "re-enchant the world through art" and the project seeks to raise awareness about the importance of art in the lives of children. At the end of April, children and adults will come together to create the single chalk drawing over a two-week period, "culminating with a multi-arts festival, open to the public, on the decommissioned Naval Air Base of Alameda Point on June 7, 2008."  They are also planning a satellite photo of the project and are attempting to beat the current Guinness World Record of 60,439.3 square feet (in 2006 in Belgium, made by 700 volunteers). You can check out lots of photos of the current and past Youth Art Chalk projects here.

There is a terrific article on the project at Edutopia and you can now follow the adventure at the Kids' Chalk Art Project Blog, hosted by artist and organizer, Mark Wagner. What a spectacular way for a community to come together and create something extraordinary. (And consider making a tax deductible donation -- after all, that's a lot of chalk!)

The Monday Video

Our video to kick off the week this time is of the Canadian "folk fusion" band The Duhks playing "Greenfields of Glentown" at CBC Routes Montreal 2006.

The Sunday Poem

Our Sunday Poem today is a classic: "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" by Anne Sexton. It comes from her ground-breaking book of fairy tale poetry Transformations.

The art above is "The Golden Wood" from Ruth Sanderson's picture book retelling of the same fairy tale. "To me," says Ruth, "the image embodies the world of the fairy tale in all its magical richness, reflecting back to us the truth of our inner landscapes. It depicts a journey, a rite-of-passage into adulthood." Visit Ruth's newly-redesigned Golden Wood Studio site to see more of her gorgeous work. (Be sure to check out the Artist at Work section, where she shows the process behind creating a children's book.)

O.R. Melling wins Green Earth Book Award

JoMA would like to extend a hearty congratulations to O.R. Melling, whose novel The Light Bearer's Daughter recently won the Green Earth Book Award and was listed in the ALA Top Ten Youth Books for the Environment. (You can read my review of this novel and the whole Chronicles of Faerie trilogy here.)

Along with a money prize, the award also contributes money to an environmental agency of the author's choosing. O.R. selected Golden Eagle Reintroduction Project, a project to reintroduce the Golden Eagle, which was hunted to extinction in Ireland in the 19th century. About the project's success in Ireland, O.R. told me "The project -- bringing young eagles from Scotland to the cliffs of Donegal -- is now in its seventh year and had its first great success in December." Pretty cool. It also resonates with one of the novel's most important themes, articulated by the fairy wood mouse: "not all that is gone is gone forever." Below is a photograph of one of the new chicks. Beautiful!

The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde

This year is the 25th anniversary of Lewis Hyde's inspiring book The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property and Viking has reissued the classic under a new title: The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. I loved this book when I first read it years ago and think it still holds up very well. The production of art creates a unique set of relationships between the creator and the audience it's intended for -- a gift which must in some way be shared. Hyde looks at the concept of the gift in traditional societies, folk tales, myths, and modern market relationships between artist and audience. It's fascinating and thought provoking.

And to those who have worked (struggled financially) in the arts and felt like they were somehow "losers" because they hadn't acquired that elusive financial security, Hyde's work is really reassuring. It is the production of the work (a compulsion from the heart almost) -- the creation of the gift more than the promise of reward that matters. We do it, because we must. He has a wonderful quote from Sartre: "Nature had made me a man; Fate had made me a book."

With the reissue of this anniversary edition have come a new round of interviews and responses on the internet. Have a look at Scott Timberg's interview with Hyde in the Los Angeles Times, where Hyde explains the economics of the creative marketplace and the reasons he chose an analysis of traditional myths and folk tales as part of his methodology. James Hynes also reflects on The Gift here, and Jeffery MacIntyre offers an interesting review here.

Felix Lerouix: Fables De La Fontaine

Luckily for us, the good folks over at ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive continue to post gorgeous illustrations from rare books. This time they have posted the splendid illustrations from a French edition of Fables De La Fontaine, by artist Félix Lorioux. Lorioux, born in France in 1872, was originally a fashion designer until his love of children's literature compelled him to turn to illustrating classic books of fables and fairy tales for children.

Walt Disney was initially very impressed with Lorioux's work and signed him on to develop books for the French market based on Disney characters, such as Mickey Mouse and the Silly Symphonies. It's suggested that Lorioux created the image of a duck in a sailor suit that became the prototype for Donald Duck. In 1934, Disney revoked his contract with Lorioux, preferring to do the work in house as well as create a more "standardized" look for the Disney characters. More's the pity considering this sumptuous work.

You can view these beautiful illustrations in Part I and Part II, at the A-HAA as well as another Lorioux title, Le Buffon des Enfants which has some of the most whimiscal and detailed insect drawings. And please, if you like what you see, drop a comment in Part II of the Lorioux post here -- saying yes! yes! you would love to see Lorioux's 1920's illustrations of Perrault's Fairy Tales. I am hoping that with enough interest, they will add it to the rest of this fabulous online archive of art.

Sunday and Monday on Tuesday

With Midori and I both down with winter illnesses (*cough* *cough*), we owe you a belated Sunday Poem, and a Monday Video too. Both are from poet, fiction writer, and musician Joy Harjo.

The poem is "A Map to the Next World," a deeply mythic piece which draws on the sacred stories of Harjo's Muskogee Creek heritage.

The video is of Harjo reading her work as part of An Evening with Native American Women Writers in Berkeley back in 1997.

Joy was born in Oklahoma, earned an MFA at the University of Iowa, and has taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Arizona State University, the University of Colorado, and the University of New Mexico. She currently lives in Hawaii. She has published many collections (How We Became Human, A Map to the Next World, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, etc.), won numerous awards, and performs with the band Poetic Justice. Visit Joy's website & blog for a list of her books, her CDs, and the films she is in. She also has a MySpace page where you can hear some of her music.

"I agree with Gide," Joy says, "that most of what is created is beyond us, is from that source of utter creation, the Creator, or God. We are technicians here on Earth, but also co-creators. I'm still amazed. And I still say, after writing poetry for all this time, and now music, that ultimately humans have a small hand in it. We serve it. We have to put ourselves in the way of it, and get out of the way of ourselves. And we have to hone our craft so that the form in which we hold our poems, our songs in attracts the best."

Dreaming Methods: Writing Infused with New Media

I am always attracted to experimental flash animation in combination with fiction. I think it is one of the most interesting new art forms -- allowing for a richly textured and interactive experiment with fiction. Dreaming Methods is a website that offers quite a few of these experiments -- combining art, flash animation, and narrative together in complex and adventurous ways. There are many ongoing projects -- so it's a terrific site to come back and visit regularly to see what's new. You will need flash and a fast connection to view and participate fully in these projects. And do subscribe (it's free) as it will give you access to more projects and an interesting look at resource materials associated with each project.

One of the projects I found really amazing was the The Sketch Book of Annie Sykes, a fascinating collage of text, imagery, sound (which is best turned up), and video. "Turning" each page presents a kind of "living" journal.

I also find this work really interesting because I think it is perfectly tuned to mythic fiction and art despite its technical demands. It creates a version of oral story telling, allows for a mythic interpretation of the tale through art, music, and flash animation, and also allows the audience to connect to the tale though interactive play. I am looking forward myself to having an opportunity to do a project in flash. For another great example of this new frontier in mythic arts, have a look at the recent work of Connie Toebe and Lisa Stock (Through The Cobweb Forest). And for poetry, have a look a Born Magazine. 

Tori Amos/RAINN Benefit Calendar

Each year twelve artists are invited to donate art to a calendar for fans of singer Tori Amos, with all proceeds donated to RAINN (the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network). This year's calendar contains art by me, Tom Canty, Gary Lippincott, Virginia Lee, and others. (Virginia's stunning piece is pictured above.) The calendar is currently on sale for $12.50 and can be purchased on the RAINN website. I haven't actually seen it yet -- they don't seem to have gotten around to sending copies to the artists -- but it's all for a very good cause.   

January Issue of Serendipity

The monthly magical realist journal Serendipity is now available on line. (Wow... I got to hand it to them putting out an issue a month.) Once again there is quite a  nice collection of tales that hover between fantasy (such as, "Magpie Sisters" by Craig Laurence Gidney and "Here There Be Monsters" by Lynn Bartels) and the more retrospective tales of magical realism ( such as "All That Remains is You" by Steven Savile). There is also a classic tale from Lady Charlotte Guest, "The Story of Lludd and Llevelys," and do check out the competition question for this month -- first prize is a copy of Gratia Placenti (an anthology of dark fantasy tales) published by British publisher Apex Publications.

The Prophet

    

There's an interesting article by Joan Acocella on the New Yorker website about the Lebanese-American writer & artist Kahlil Gibran, who is the third best-selling poet of all time, following Shakespeare and Lao-tzu. Although it's deeply unfashionable to admit it, I was a fan of Gibran's The Prophet during my adolescence (probably the best time to read it), and despite the book's obvious flaws (as clearly outlined by Acocella) some of its lovelier passages stick with me to this day. Calling Gibran the Paulo Coelho of the 1920s, Acocella examines the author's complicated life, the on-going impact of his seminal book, and the life of Mary Haskell, the little-known woman who played a crucial part in both.

Yes, Gibran was another one of those writers with an uncredited mentor/editor/re-writer* who helped him hone his ideas and shape his prose...and, as was often the case in centuries past, that invisible mentor/collaborator was a woman. After publishing some early works in Arabic, writes Acocella, "Gibran made a serious decision: he was going to begin writing in English. To do this, he needed [Mary] Haskell’s help, and she rushed to give it. When they were apart, he sent her his manuscripts, and she sent back corrections. When they were together...he dictated his work to her. She wrote in her diary that if, during that process, 'we come to a part that I question, we stop then and there.' Who resolved the question? We don’t know. She said that 'he always gave every idea, and I simply found the phrases sometimes.' But finding the phrases is a large part of writing. For Gibran’s first English-language publication, a brief poem, Haskell sent him seven pages of proposed corrections....Until he died, she edited all his English-language books. With the third of these, The Prophet, he hit pay dirt." **

It's a fascinating story, and makes me want to read Robin Waterfield's Gibran biography, published in 1998. It also reminds me of a quote by Anais Nin that influenced me in my twenties even more than Gibran's The Prophet did in my teens:

"For too many centuries women have been being muses to artists. I wanted to be the muse, I wanted to be the wife of the the artist, but I was really trying to avoid the final issue -- that I had to do the job myself."

* The role of a mentor/editor in a writer's work can be a complicated and controversial one. For more on this, read "Rough Crossing: The Cutting of Raymond Carver" (also on the New Yorker website) about the working relationship between Carver and Knopf editor Gordon Lish.

** I don't mean to imply that there's anything wrong per se with this kind of aid and collaboration, even when it's as extensive as Haskell's contributions to Gibran's books. Indeed, I know many writers and artists today -- myself among them -- who are in relationships with other creative artists and who thrive on daily engagement with each other's work. What's notable here is that Haskell worked in the shadows, kept at a firm remove from Gibran's public life and literary persona.

Zune Arts

Zune Arts is a terrific website that features collaborations between musicians and artists in short animated films. There are many wonderful little films here -- and a host of talented musicians and artists to get to know. Below is "Swap Meet," a collaboration between againstallodds studio, founded by Derek Picken and Josh Thorne, and the L.A. band, Deadly Syndrome. (thanks to Laura Sweet of If it's Hip, It's Here)

Dance of the Mermaids

Following Mary Barnard's ondine poem yesterday, our Monday Video to kick off the week is "Mermaid," a dream-like montage featuring the underwater dance photography of Oceanides and music from Aine Minogue's The Twilight Realm.

And speaking of mermaids, there's some lovely "Little Mermaid" art by Tigana here, including "Her Garden," pictured on the right.

In the JoMA archives, you'll find 2 good articles, "A Million Little Mermaids" by Virginia Borges and "The Mermaid" by Heinz Insu Fenkl, as well as two fine poems, "The Mermaid Sets the Story Straight" by Debra Cash and "Undine" by Jane Yolen.
   

The Sunday Poem

Our Sunday Poem today, "Ondine" by Mary Barnard, is drawn from legends about German water spirits. Ondine (or undine) lore has inspired a great many works of art over the years --from a famous German story by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (an influence on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid") to an opera by E.T.A. Hoffman, a prelude for piano by Claude Debussey, and a ballet by Hans Werner Henz.

Mary Barnard (1909-2001) was born in Vancouver, Washington and received a bachelor's degree from Reed College. She is the author of A Few Poems, The Mythmakers, Three Fables, and Time and the White Tigress, among other works.

The art above in "Undine" by Arthur Rackham.

Galdrbok: The Daughters of Elvin

Over the last four days I've been playing almost nonstop the fabulous new CD Galdrbok, Medieval Songs of Love & Enchantment, from Daughters of Elvin, a terrific English medieval music and theatre troupe (and favorites of Endicott.) The music is wonderfully rich and complicated, twisting together the sweetness of a hammered dulcimer and pipes with the frenzied bee-buzz of medieval bagpipes and the drone of a hurdy gurdy (to name only a few of the instruments they play). Added to that are the lush, ethereal vocals of Jennie Cassidy and Sophia Brumfitt. A heady brew indeed, the musical equivalent of an excellent and potent mulled wine, rich in spices and color.

The CD features a collection of medieval songs on love and enchantment from a variety of European countries. The opening song, "Ondas Do Mar de Vigo" (Sea Waves of Vigo), is a beautiful, melancholy 13th century song from Spain that conveys the longing of a woman waiting by the sea for her lover to return, while in "Mandad 'El Comigo" (My love's coming home), an ebullient bagpipe paired with a brisk drum evokes the joy of the woman as she sees him returning at last. In the French song, "Voulez Vous Que Je Vous Chant" (Would you like me to sing to you?), the hammered dulcimer accompanies a gentle, lilting song that recalls the meeting between a French knight and the Queen of the Fairies.

One of my favorite pieces, however, is the title song, "Galdrbok, book of sung spells, composed by Steve Tyle and Katy Marchant of Daughters of Elvin. The liner notes describe the inspiration for this rollicking piece: "Steve Tyle and Katy Marchant wrote this piece whilst honeymooning in a Pyrenean mountain retreat removed from civilization with no electricity, with wolves howling in the distance and bears roaming through the mist swathed landscape." Every time it comes on, I always crank the volume and just stop whatever I am doing to enjoy it.

Do visit Daughters of Elvin's myspace page to hear cuts from the new CD, view their touring schedule and really cool slide shows of this remarkable troupe, and best of all, purchase the CD on the site.

A Samba About the Infinite

Here's a beautiful, beautiful video of two of the best Brazilian singers out there, Marisa Monte and Paulinho de Viola singing "Para ver as meninas." 

One For Sorrow Wins Crawford Award

Just found out that Christopher Barzak has won this year's William L. Crawford Award for his terrific novel One For Sorrow. Yay, Chris!!  Stop by Christopher's blog to read more about the award itself and to congratulate him on this well-deserved honor. You can read my review along with many others of the novel here. And if you haven't read it yet, put it on your list of things to read in 2008.

Here's a bit from the cover copy:

"Part thriller, part ghost tale, part love story, One for Sorrow is a novel as timeless as Catcher in the Rye and as hauntingly lyrical as The Lovely Bones. Christopher Barzak’s stunning debut tells of a teenaged boy’s coming-of-age that begins with a shocking murder and ends with a reason to hope." 

Forget about the house...bite on this!

Remember those gingerbread houses that sat on the dining room table until slowly, gum drop by gum drop, wall by wall, over -- oh, a month -- you ate the whole thing? Well, here's a new challenge for those architectural taste buds. As part of a family project, Dave (of Miss(ed) Manners) built a gingerbread and candy replica of Minas Tirith during the Battle of Pelennor Fields from the novel, The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Stop by the blog and check out all the amazing photos of this incredible project -- all of it faithfully, and with inventive use of candy, reproduced. (via the delectable Ms. Bond)

Winter Fruit: New Issue of Goblin Fruit Poetry

Goblin Fruit has just posted their new Winter Issue and it is a poetry-packed issue. There are twenty-two delectable poems from new and established poets of mythic and fairy tale poetry. Here is a sample of the many wonderful offerings you can read: Maureen McQuerry depicts a sensual meeting with a Selkie (in "Selkie"); Sonya Taffe combines folklore and the senses in her piquant "Cherries in Winter"; "Step (and Turn)" by J. C. Runolfson is a dark history of famous fairy tale women and their shoes; "Kitsune" by Joshua Gage is a sleek, shimmering glimpse of the fox wife, while in "Sedna" C. S. E. Cooney sings the epic tale of the Inuit goddess of the ocean.

Once again, I heartily congratulate Goblin Fruit on another terrific issue (poems marked with a little dot have audio!) and wish them a productive and creative New Year. (Artwork is by Oliver Hunter.)

Persian Carpet

Persian Carpet is a film made up of fifteen short films by acclaimed Iranian directors, each of whom explores the history and art of this famous textile. The films vary widely in how they treat the subject; some are documentary, some are quite poetic.

My favorite segment was "The 3-D Carpet" by Rakhshan Bani Etemad, which tells the story of an enormous three-dimensional carpet representing Isfahan's Naghsg-e-Jahan mosque. The carpet is amazing -- 6.2 meters high and 6 meters wide, with a crown of 3.7 m, made up of 83 colors and more than 33 million knots, but lives wrapped up in a closet instead of being displayed where the world could enjoy it.

Also lovely were "The Carpet and the Angel" by Darius Mehrjui, about a young woman who has lost her family in the 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran, and "The Little Prince" by Nourodin Zarrin Kelk, which adds a magic carpet to the story of the boy and his beloved rose.

Learn more about Persian carpets here. And go here to see more amazing views of the 3-D carpet.

Forest Rogers: The Unicorn

Here's a quick notice that the auction for Forest Roger's newest creation, The Unicorn, will end tomorrow. Stop by the ebay auction for more information on this exquisite piece. And do stop by Forest's blog to see the last piece she auctioned -- a gorgeous pregnant woodland faerie. Her work is so delicate and beautiful, and she gets so much texture and life into the clay. I almost expect the creatures to start speaking.

Scribing and the Internet

There is a funny (and wonderfully melodramatic) article by Virginia Heffernan in the NYT (1/06/08) about using Scrivener -- the new word processing program that apparently interfaces far better with the needs of the writer than the prim-let-me-correct-that-whether-you-want-it-or-not Word from Microsoft. I know a few authors have jumped on it -- and I am considering it myself. Anyone out there working with it? Is it really as author-friendly as it sounds? The New Year is always such a good time for shaking things up!

Update: Oh...just discovered this is a MAC program..sigh...although I did find a suggestion for something called Page Four for Window users? Anyone familiar with it?

The Reading Cure

   

In his article "The Reading Cure" (published in The Guardian), Blake Morrison reports on an interesting movement in the UK to use literature for healing illnesses both pyschological and physical in nature. In other words, the medical profession has caught up to what most of us readers have known all along: Stories are powerful; and fiction can change us, body and soul.

An excerpt from Morrison's article: " 'One sheds one's sicknesses in books,' DH Lawrence once wrote, and the people I met on Merseyside agree with him that books - good books, anyway - are a form of therapy. 'Prose not Prozac' is the prescription. Literature not lithium. A talking cure in the presence of Keats, Dickens or Shakespeare rather than a physician or psychiatrist.

"Bibliotherapy, as it's called, is a fast-growing profession. A recent survey suggests that 'over half of English library authorities are operating some form of bibliotherapy intervention, based on the books-on-prescription model.' That's to say, an increasing number of people are being referred by their GPs to the local library, where they'll find shelves or 'reading pharmacies' set aside for literature deemed relevant to their condition."

You can read Morrison's full article here. And for more on the relationship between stories and healing, try these pieces from the JoMA archives: "Story Telling and Healing" by Heinz Insu Fenkl, "Healing the Wounded Wild" by Kim Antieau, and my article "The Dark of the Woods."

Paula Rego Retrospective

The National Museum of Women in the Arts is having a spectacular retrospective of the Portuguese painter Paula Rego that will run from February 1 to May 25th. If you have any reason to head to Washington D. C. don't miss this show. Rego's work is so powerful -- all of her remarkable earthy female figures evoke mythic strength, whether it is a matronly, full figured dog-woman (such as "Grooming" below), a poignant, youthful Mary in "Pieta" (bottom image), or even as above in "Looking Out," which depicts a woman caught in a moment of mysterious reflection, one bare foot planted on the ground, the other ready to step up and out.

Here is a description of the show from the museum: " Paula Rego is one of the leading figurative artists working today, producing richly imaginative art rooted in memories, fantasy, literature, art history, and direct observation. A native of Portugal who lives in London, Rego uses her art to explore the precariousness of human emotions and the complexity of life’s experiences. Although her work is acclaimed around the globe and is represented in leading contemporary art collections, NMWA is the first U.S. museum to present a retrospective of her work. Featuring more than 100 works—including paintings, pastels, prints, and drawings—the exhibition provides an in-depth study of Rego’s 50-year-plus career."

You can see more of her work at the Saatchi Gallery as well as this terrific site from the University of Cambridge's Spanish and Portuguese department.

Isabel Allende: Tales of Passion

The TED website has recently posted this terrific talk by novelist Isabel Allende (author of The House of Spirits, etc.) on writing, passion, and feminism. Truly inspiring.

For more on Allende's books and social justice work, visit the author's website and the Isabel Allende Foundation site.

In the "Better Late Than Never" department....

The end of 2007 was a blur to me, caught up as I was in a major house & office move. Which is why I'm only now slowly starting to catch up with all I missed during the last couple of months -- including this fabulous Christmas image from photographer Stu Jenks, titled Caffeinated Elves. (Click on the image to see a larger version.) If you haven't visited Stu's blog recently, check out his other new pictures and the stories that go with them. This one comes with a Christmas haiku:

Caffeinated Elves
Make Magical Desert Gifts
Of Twigs, Ribs and Light.

The Sunday Poem

 

Our Sunday Poem today is "Dragging Canoe Vanishes from the Bear Pit into the Endless Clucking of the Gods," an astonishingly powerful piece by Brian Barker, from the current issue of storySouth.

“Some of this poem’s imagery," says Barker, "originates from my childhood memories of visiting the bear pits in Cherokee, North Carolina—homemade attractions created as a source of tourist income by members of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation. These pits were essentially holding areas where captured ‘problem’ black bears that ventured down out of the mountains to raid dumpsters were placed for viewing."

Barker is the author of The Animal Gospels (which I highly recommend), winner of the Tupelo Press Editors’ Prize. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Poetry, Agni, Quarterly West, American Book Review, The Writer’s Chronicle, The Indiana Review, Blackbird, Sou’wester and River Styx, among other journals. He is an Assistant Professor and Director of Creative Writing at Murray State University in Kentucky.

The art above is part of the 2005 Bears Project in Cherokee, North Carolina. Visit the town's website to learn more.

How to Survive Writing...

For those of you working hard to finish old writing projects, or just beginning new ones, I thought you might all enjoy some encouragement from comic book author Grady Klein in his wonderful short comic "How to Survive Writing a Graphic Novel." The humor and wisdom of the piece are transferable skills to almost any creative endeavor. You can see the whole piece here, on First Second Books. (Via PW: The Beat.)

Read it on the web

I take my hat off to all the online journals who manage to put out an issue between December and January. So let me invite you to stop by these industrious sites and spend a little time reading the wide range of literary offerings.

Serendipity's new issue has five original short stories that range from a Japanese fox story, a contemporary Indian "Romeo and Juliet,"  and a terrifying take on the fate of Circe's pigs. There is also a thought provoking article by Yasmin Huda on Magical Realism and the cinema.

Clarkesworld currently has an absolutely gorgeous story, The River Boy, by new father Tim Pratt. Don't miss it. There is also a fascinating interview with Daniel Abraham by Tobias Bucknell, a twisted surreal tale by Brian Ames, and a critical article on the work of Vernor Vinge by Shaun Farrell. The cover art is by Ray Toh.

Farrago's Wainscot continues to offer high octane experimental fiction. My favorite of the bunch this issue is "Mr. Water Bones and His Wife" by Paul Jessup -- a dark comedy depicting the outrageous lengths a man will undertake to become immortal. Joselle Vanderhooft offers three poems on the life of Bluebeard, and Krystal Hart has a terrific interview with Scottish author, Duncan McLean.

And the ever wonderful Words Without Borders starts the new year off with a bang by offering a collection of international stories that mine the literary potential of the seven deadly sins. Too many wonderful stories to mention here -- but all the pieces are quite short and pack a punch, so stop by and sample a few.

Dali

   

I recently discovered a film made in 1986 about Salvador Dali, and am quite captivated by it. I'm used to learning about artists through other people's interpretations of their work. This film, though, has lots of interviews with Dali himself, as well as footage of him painting and narrated readings from his writing. There's an odd earnestness about him as he explains what he thinks he's contributed to art...

"To art, nothing, absolutely nothing. Because as I've always said I'm a very bad painter. Because I'm too intelligent to be a good painter. To be a good painter you've got to be a bit stupid. With the exception of Velazquez who is a genius..."

...and a troubling belief in what he considers to be Surrealist acts, as he proudly tells of having kicked a blind man because "for me there's nothing worse than those blind men who walk like this down the street." (He mockingly imitates using a cane.)

The film traces Dali's life from his beginning to paint through to his living, old and extremely feeble, as a recluse. Along the way I learned much that I didn't know, like that Dali was formally expelled from the Surrealist movement in 1934 (after an actual trial) because of his "deviant political views," and that he had a studio assistant, Isidoro Bea, who painted the backgrounds of Dali's large religious paintings. And that neither he nor his agents kept track of his work, leading to questions about the authenticity of a number of pictures (let alone the sheets of paper that have his signature on them but are blank). Plus, there's nothing quite like this commercial, where Dali explains the workings of Alka-Seltzer.

And in other Dali news... while I was writing this post, Midori told me of Disney's plans to release a six-minute Dali cartoon. Evidently, according to this NPR article, in 1946 Walt Disney and Dali planned a cartoon called Destino. But the plug was pulled after it was concluded that the cartoon probably wouldn't make any money. And now Walt Disney's nephew (who heads the animation division) has revived the cartoon. Here's the description:

"Destino is a six-minute film set to a Spanish song, devoid of dialogue and without a clear story line. It follows a dark-eyed ballerina on a journey among strange objects through a desert landscape in a dreamlike atmosphere."

Look for it at festivals around the world before Oscar-nomination time, or on DVD next year (along with a documentary that tells the inside story). Or go here for a preview.

Kitchen Magic

I've enjoyed many books by Joanne Harris (Blackberry Wine and Coastliners spring immediately to mind), but it's her most famous novel, Chocolat, that truly stole my heart (as did the magical film that was based on it, directed by Lasse Hallström, starring Juliette Binoche, Dame Judi Dench, and the devastatingly sexy Johnny Depp). When I heard Harris had written a sequel to Chocolat, I didn't know whether to be excited or dismayed. Sequels are so often disappointing. Thus I am very pleased to report that The Lollipop Shoes is a wonderful read, every bit as good as Chocolat. And, importantly, The Lollipop Shoes is not a mere replay of the earlier novel; Harris has rich new territory to explore here, and she does so with wit and skill.

The new novel picks up the life of Vianne Rocher five years after the close of Chocolat. Harris's flamboyant heroine is now a subdued single mother of two, living in (indeed, hiding in) the Monmartre district of Paris. As before, Vianne runs a chocolaterie...but this time it's merely a shop, nothing more. She's turned her back on her kitchen magic, striving for the safety of a "normal" life ...until another witch, cloaked in glamours and dark spells, starts prying into her secrets.

"If Chocolat was milk chocolate," says Harris, "then Lollipop Shoes is seventy percent. There’s still quite a lot of humour there, but it’s quite black humour – closer in tone to Gentlemen and Players than to its predecessor.

"Chocolat was never really about chocolate -- it was about people and how they respond to concepts like pleasure, temptation, guilt and love. The chocolate was a means to an end, representing tolerance and forgiveness – as opposed to the ideal of self-denial expressed by Reynaud, the misguided priest who believes pleasure to be a fatal weakness that must be purged for the soul’s good. In Lollipop Shoes, chocolate still represents these things, but it’s also now tied in with the concept of memory and self-expression – a bit like the recipe book in Five Quarters of the Orange, which is also briefly revisited in this story."

Regarding her decision to write a sequel, Harris says: "The relationship between writer and characters is often quite a troubled one. At times it’s a kind of benign possession, with certain individuals conspiring to take over control of the plot from their hapless creator and take it wherever they want to go. In fact I wrote a story about this (it’s in Jigs & Reels), called Last Train to Dogtown, in which an author accidentally ends up in a village populated entirely by characters he has written out – Which is my way of saying that you can never be entirely sure if someone you thought was gone from your life may not suddenly return out of the blue, expecting you to drop everything you’re doing and give them your undivided attention for the next twelve months…Some stories do that. Lollipop Shoes is one of them."

The book isn't out in the U.S. yet, but you can order an English copy from Amazon.co.uk. For more information on the novel, visit Joanne Harris's website.

Rousalka: Slavic Folktales

It' s sort of a Rusalki morning for me, for in addition to mentioning Kitka's performance of The Rusalka Cycle (below), I also want to alert our readers to a gorgeous new book of Slavic folktales, Rousalka, Et Autre Fées du Mille et Unième Lac (Rousalka and the Fairies of 1001 Lakes), due out in France sometime soon. (Sorry, no publication date available yet.) The collection is a joint project between author Damien Vaillant and illustrator Agata Kawa, whose work is just absolutely wonderful -- a mixture of 19th century craft-style illustrations with a dash of Kay Nielsen, Rackham, and William Morris. Do have a look at her beautiful MySpace page, Portfolio, and website to see more of her art.

The Return of The Rusalka Cycle: Kitka