One of our faithful blog readers says, “Once again I have awakened to disappointment in your refusal to change your blog. So, in my efforts to move your blogging career along, I call your attention to the Calendar Section of todays LA Times and the article on Bi Polarism. Since Bi Polarism seems to be the common connective between artists, musicians and writers you might like to poll your readers who are mostly writers to see how many of them have Bi Polar disorder or if they don’t have it would like to have it in order to further their careers. I think this would be a noble public service on your part. No thanks is necessary.”

I think this is the story J. is talking about.

So, to please J., I must ask you …. what do you think?

I’ve talked about NewPages.com before but it’s been a while, and who looks at archived blog posts, anyway? It’s hard enough keeping current on new blog posts.

Newpages.com is a clearing house of sorts for print and online magazines and journals. Check it out if you’re researching publications.

And talk about a first line that’ll grab your attention. Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, offers one up right here.

…to the quiet of the library. It doesn’t look like much here, and mostly you can’t hear the quiet–the blizzard of quiet–which is what I love most.

I also like sitting where I can look out into a patch of wild.

Where do you write, and do you love it there?

A long time ago Andrea Schulz, my editor at Harcourt, suggested I post chapters or sections that didn’t make it into Pen on Fire. I’ve been meaning to. So let this be the premiere entry!

……….

The kitchen clock, with the watercolor painting of a blue-eyed sun and his full dark lips, ticks loudly. The green wicker chair on which I sit creaks as I shift my position. Clean dinner dishes crowd the red dish drainer.

The retro high chair with chrome arms and legs and duct-taped vinyl is pulled close to our small round kitchen table. Brian and I painted it with acrylics and lacquer. Its sides go down. And hanging from a white cabinet knob is a vintage red fabric heart that my student Robin gave me for Christmas that first year she took my class. January 1998.

Does the past exist if you neglect to record it?

A year later I wrote this:

It is nine o’clock on a balmy June night. Travis, almost four, took a late nap and is still sleeping. Knowing him, he will wake at midnight, kick up his heels, and be ready to party.

The front door is open, and Leao, our Portuguese water dog who has webbed feet but hates going in the water, lies on the carpet midway between the open door and me. The houses in this beach town sit so close to one another I occasionally hear the shake and shimmy of a neighbor’s washing machine.

Strains of jazz from somebody’s stereo drift across the fence along with the rumble of voices, and the computer I work on which is usually rather quiet now sounds loud. Someone’s phone rings, a car whishes by, and someone else parks and slams the car door. I’m sitting in a direct line with the front door, and it’s dark out, getting late, so I get up and ease it shut.

Before I do, I look outside. Across the street, the Rampalski’s porch light is on, and in the corner house Jordan’s room throbs and changes colors from the TV.

When I sit back down, the refrigerator motor kicks in. The noise distracts me but Brian likes it. For him, a quiet fridge when he returns from a gig in the wee small hours of the night makes for a too-quiet house. For me, the fridge, plus the hum of the laptop, makes the room a prime source of noise pollution.

On a day last week when my nerves felt particularly jangled, Travis was yelling, and I said, “You’re creating some real noise pollution, honey.” In his low key style, Brian said he wasn’t sure, but I may have just committed verbal abuse.

Of course the past exists if you don’t record it. But its details drift away. You strain to remember.

Writing down the details can evoke a scene more than a photograph can. And I’ve been a photographer for a lot of my life!

Set the timer (an exercise)

Record a scene with words (instead of, or in addition to, taking a picture). Note the details–what it sounds like, smells like, looks like. Include snippets of dialogue.

…all over again, with the library. I tried renting an office in town but so far they’re so expensive, and not quite right. So the last two days went to the library to work on Starletta (I’m deeply enmeshed in the refining stage, which is difficult, and also a gas). Yesterday I arrived at the library early enough to nab a study room, but today I was too late. So I found a quiet corner and loved the ceiling, with it’s white painted exposed pipes and hoses, and how the wall at the opposite end of the structure was farther away than the farthest area in our cottage (ha! easily!) or a Starbucks or anywhere else I could work about now. So quiet, too. I strained to listen and heard little. Love it love it love it.

Just came in….deadline is soon….

Re: Call for Submissions.
Deadline for Entries: January 31, 2008

Dear Colleagues,

Nominations are now being accepted for the third William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. This award, given by Stanford University Libraries in partnership with the William Saroyan Foundation, recognizes newly published works of fiction and non-fiction with a $12,500 award for the winner in each category. The prize is designed to encourage new or emerging writers and honor the Saroyan literary legacy of originality, vitality and stylistic innovation. While normally biennial, this third round of the award is on a triennial schedule, having been timed to coincide with the Saroyan Centennial celebrations taking place in 2008. For entry forms and more information on the prize, including entry forms and rules, visit the Saroyan website for prize info..

Entries must be received on or before January 31, 2008.
(Scroll down for a press release on the prize.)

Best regards,
Sam Petersen, for Stanford University Libraries

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
**Ms. Sam Petersen, Sam Petersen Associates:
(650) 854-5575, sampetersenpr@aol.com

William Saroyan International Prize for Writing to be Awarded in 2008
Award coincides with Saroyan Centennial celebrations

Stanford University Libraries, in partnership with the William Saroyan Foundation, announced today the launch of the third William Saroyan International Prize for Writing (Saroyan Prize). Intended to encourage new or emerging writers and honor the Saroyan literary legacy of originality, vitality and stylistic innovation, the Saroyan Prize recognizes newly published works of both fiction and non-fiction. A prize of $12,500 will be awarded in each of these categories, and the prize winners will be recognized publicly during Stanford’s Saroyan Centennial celebrations on September 5, 2008.

Literary fiction, including novels, short story collections, and drama, will be eligible for consideration for the Saroyan Fiction Prize. Literary non-fiction of any length is eligible for consideration for the Saroyan Non-fiction Prize, most particularly writing in the Saroyan tradition: memoirs, portraits and excursions into neighborhood and community. Entries in either category are limited to English language publications that are available for individual purchase by the general public. Entries must be received on or before January 31, 2008. Official entry forms and rules are available at http://saroyanprize.stanford.edu .

“The Saroyan Prize is an integral part of the library’s ongoing and active involvement with the Saroyan archive, but it also provides a wonderful opportunity for Stanford students and alumni, as well as literati everywhere, to interact actively with the emerging literary figures of our time.” said Michael A. Keller, Stanford University Librarian. “Such interaction is a distinguishing feature of a Stanford education. We are particularly pleased to be offering the prize during this centennial celebration of Saroyan’s birth, when so much attention is being given to Saroyan’s life and work.”

“The Saroyan Foundation is pleased to be involved in fulfilling Saroyan’s dream of establishing a writing prize to encourage and perpetuate the art he so loved,” said Haig Mardikian, President of the William Saroyan Foundation. “Saroyan not only had a great passion for writing, he was also an accomplished visual abstract artist; so it is particularly fitting that this award is being granted during the Saroyan Centennial celebrations where we are commemorating many of Saroyan’s artistic achievements.”

The first William Saroyan International Prize for Writing was awarded in 2003 to Jonathan Safran Foer for his novel Everything is Illuminated (Houghton Mifflin, 2002). The second Saroyan Prize, awarded in 2005, was the first to be offered for both fiction and non-fiction. The fiction prize was awarded to George Hagen for his novel The Laments (Random House, 2004); the non-fiction prize went to Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman for The King of California (Public Affairs, 2005).

William Saroyan, an American writer and playwright, is a Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winner best known for his short stories about humorous experiences of immigrant families and children in California. Much of Saroyan’s other work is clearly autobiographical, although similar in style and technique to fiction. Saroyan was the fourth child of Armenian immigrants. He battled his way through poverty and rose to literary prominence in the early 1930s when national magazines began publishing his short stories, such as The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze, My Name Is Aram, Inhale & Exhale, Three Times Three, and Peace, It’s Wonderful. Saroyan soon moved on to writing plays for Broadway and screenplays for Hollywood, including: My Heart’s in the Highlands, The Time of Your Life, The Beautiful People, and The Human Comedy.

The William Saroyan Foundation was officially founded by the author on December 30, 1966. Since then, distinguished professors, business executives and high-ranking government officials have accepted appointments to the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Commencing in 1990, the Trustees set a goal of bringing together into one single archive his entire literary estate. A decision was finally made by the Trustees to offer Stanford University the assembled Saroyan Literary Collection with provisions that would safeguard in perpetuity one of the rare treasure troves in American literature, carrying on the legacy of Fresno, California’s own native son, William Saroyan.

Stanford University Libraries & Academic Information Resources supports the teaching, learning and research mandates of the University through delivery of bibliographic and other information resources and services to faculty, students and staff. It is tackling the challenges of the digital age while continuing the development, preservation and conservation of its extensive print, media and manuscript collections.

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