Come on baby, lit my fire

Today's literary links:

Here's a review of Pat Walsh's 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published, and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might. Slushpile has links to interviews with the author.

I'm really enjoying a book by Dashka Slater, who was in my workshop group at Squaw. Her novel The Wishing Box is set mainly in Oakland in 1989 (and you know what happened then) among three generations of women. Some very nice writing there.

When an Italian author whom nobody knows anyway uses a pseudonym for her novel, does anyone care? The review says it "adds to the mystery." The bigger mystery, for 95 percent of authors, is "who the heck are they anyway and what difference does it make?" Present company excepted, there are very few books I finish reading where my reaction is, "Man, better write that author's name down -- I want to see what else they wrote."

On the other hand, it's possible to get confused. The only other writers conference I went to before Squaw was the Napa Valley Writers Conference. One of the best-known writers there was Mary Gaitskill, who was and is known for her edgy, sometimes sexually-charged work. On the last day of the conference -- the last hour -- Gaitskill and others appeared on a panel, at the end of which there was a Q and A. We were reaching the end of the last hour of the conference and the moderator said, "Okay, last question," and pointed to a woman in the audience.

The woman stood up and began a long, rambling question with a false premise: that Gaitskill had written the edgy, sexually charged memoir The Kiss. While the woman's mistaken notion that Gaistkill was the book's author was almost immediately apparent to the audience, the questioner was on a roll and didn't let anyone get a word in edgewise, until finally, after more than a minute, her question finally reached its end.

There was a short, uncomfortable pause. Then Gaitskill said the only thing she could say: "I didn't write 'The Kiss.'"

Another short, uncomfortable pause, after which the moderator said, "Well. That's the end of our conference. Thank you all for being on our panel today..." and began the conference's closing comments. Deinfitely one of those "Want to get away?" moments for the hapless questioner.

Pat Walsh, Dashka Slater, Mary Gaitskill