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Bar Scott and Abigail Thomas. (photo by Dion Ogust)
“Napping is a crucial part of being a writer. A good nap is like an oasis. When sinking into a nap, I get my best ideas.” — Abigail Thomas
“I’m more of a walker. I walk four to five miles a day, and I bring pen and paper with me.” — Bar Scott
A writers festival tells us what to read and how to write. The fifth annual Woodstock Writers Festival, April 3-6, did both with a festive flair and was also tremendously entertaining. I didn’t make it to all the events, but here are highlights, including my favorite quotes.
The onstage conversation between local memoirist Abigail Thomas and her former student, Bar Scott, provided both laughs and poignant moments. Scott, a Woodstock musician who now lives in Colorado, read from The Present Giver, her book about the death of her three-year-old son from cancer. They discussed the importance of writing about life’s pain, with Thomas remarking, “The hardest stuff opens you.”
Thomas also gave practical advice: “As a thing is happening to you that you can’t believe is happening, take notes. There are so many details you’ll forget.” On the other hand, anything can become grist for the mill, she added: “Right now, I’m writing something I’m really interested in, but it’s profoundly shallow. I know it will quicken and will mean something. Anything you’re obsessed by — keep track.”
As a writer struggling with structure in my book manuscript, I was reassured by the fiction panelists, all of whom said they took at least seven years to write their latest book. Jenny Offill said when she was working on what became her novel Dept. of Speculation, she threw out her first two years of writing except for the few paragraphs she loved, and she started over. That’s pretty much what I’m ready to do, so it made me feel a lot better.
I took one of the all-day writing workshops, “How to Get Your Nonfiction Book Published,” which was packed with vital information on the world of literary agents and publishers. If all the workshop leaders are as professional and smart as agent Lynn Johnston, writers out there should consider attending a workshop next year.
James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, the post-apocalyptic novel World Made by Hand, and other works of fiction and nonfiction, managed to be funny while scaring the bejesus out of us with his analysis of what’s wrong with our civilization and why he believes its collapse is imminent. The main problem? “Our society has a Master Wish: Please, God, can we keep driving to Wal-Mart forever?”
Explaining why our financial systems are in trouble, Kunstler remarked, “We’re seeing the normalization of the belief that you can get something for nothing. Today all adults believe that — it used to be just seven-year-olds.” His recommendation for surviving the predicted crisis: “We have to downscale and localize the economic systems we depend on — agriculture, transportation, commerce.”
Saturday night’s keynote speaker, character actor Stephen Tobolowsky (Groundhog Day, Glee, Californication, etc.) declared, “I’ve written screenplays. That’s a horrible, horrible way to live.” Luckily, he enjoys writing stories, and he has two rules: “The stories are true, and the stories happened to me. True always trumps clever.”
Instead of reading aloud, he narrated “Conference Hour,” a piece from his 2012 collection The Dangerous Animals Club. The tale takes place during Tobolowky’s years as an acting student, but the stated moral of the story is a good one for writers: “Rejection is the doorway that takes you to who you really are.”
The biography panel wasn’t quite as gossipy as I’d hoped. We did hear from Johnny Carson’s lawyer and biographer, Henry Bushkin, about the phone call from Ronald Reagan to Carson on the day after the inauguration. The new President was apologizing for the serious gaffe of having seated Carson’s wife in the fifth row, while Frank Sinatra’s wife was in the second row.
We also received the arresting information than J. Michael Lennon, author of Norman Mailer: A Double Life, spent over three years reading 45,000 letters written by Mailer — a total of 25 million words. Now that’s writing!