Entry # 106 - WRITERS TALK - Cynthia Venables, Writer & Travel Lecturer - Part 2

Part Two

Cynthia Venables, Teacher, Writer, Lecturer Describes Her Travels & Writing

Background Notes:
Cynthia Venables has taught art and art history in Ontario, Canada for over 30 years, most recently for the Continuing Studies Programmes at the University of Toronto, Sir Wilfred Laurier University and Third Age Learning in Kitchener- Waterloo. Cynthia travels the world extensively,  researching and taking photographs to create art and cultural history lectures which enhance travel itinerary experiences for cruise lines, such as Princess Cruises. Her lectures and photographs awaken the eye and tickle the imagination. When she is not traveling the world by land or sea, Cynthia lives in beautiful Stratford, Ontario, Canada.

Jan:     Cynthia, thank you for taking time from your busy schedule for our interview. In Part One of our previous interview, we talked about how you got started writing and lecturing on cruise ships. Let’s talk a bit more about the lecture series that you write and present in the Scholarship@Sea program for Princess Cruise Lines, and the other land based travel groups you lead.

Your lectures present topics that explore the social, historical, cultural and artistic features that travelers are likely to see in the various ports.  How many lectures do you usually prepare for a cruise series? 

Cynthia:     I do three to four cruises a year. Cruises with three or more sea days usually have an enrichment lecturer, as well as a port lecturer. I do a lot of Trans Atlantic crossings where we spend as much as nine sea days and so I plan and prepare nine, fifty minute lectures. The Cruise Company lets me determine what I talk about. It doesn’t have to be related to the itinerary, that is my choice. I create all the topics and themes. 

Jan:     How much preparation time is typical for each lecture?

Cynthia:     This means that the lectures are different for every cruise. Many of the same people do Trans Atlantic crossings season after season, so I want to attract these people to the lectures as well as newcomers. I spend a lot of time in preparation. Maybe a week or two, 8 hours a day per lecture. This is my hobby and my passion. I would be reading history, art history and traveling anyway, so it really is a pleasure for me to create the lectures.

Jan:     Humorous anecdotes are among the features of your lectures about the art and history of countries? Humor is difficult to write and to present, what’s your secret to presenting humor to diverse audiences such as those found on cruise ships – who have such a range of age, experiences and cultural backgrounds?

Cynthia:     I don’t try to make my lectures funny. When I do the joke just flops. I do now have the confidence to say what I think, uncensored. This can be dangerous, but also funny. So much of history and art history is ironic, self-serving and just ready to be skewered. I also want the lectures to be sincere, as I am often moved by the art, and in particular, the history and the story behind it all.

Jan:     Your lectures have great titles.  I remember examples like:  “Murder, Mayhem and Painting in the Canadian Wilderness” or “Romance in Cool Climates: Romantic Landscape Painting” and “Leif the Lucky and His Sister: The Mystery of the Vikings.”   Tell us about the importance of your titles.  

 

Cynthia:     The titles are part of the fun. When I first started I was in University of Toronto mode, that is, I used dry, direct (academic) titles.  This is what the administration wanted. The lectures I hope were interesting, but the titles weren’t. When I began giving lectures for Princess Cruises on the ships, I sent in the similar titles. My boss at Princess had seen my lectures on video, and he knew what they were getting, but he was quite adamant that the dry titles wouldn’t fly. He called me with specific instructions. “Cynthia, remember you are on a cruise ship! Juice it up.” So titles like~ Medieval Egg Tempera Painting ~ became
~Egg Yokes and Ear Wax ~ The Fun and Frustration of Painting in the Middle Ages.    Now making up the title is part of the puzzle.

Jan:      I was particularly pleased to notice that your lectures examine the often-ignored role of women who had a major impact in history and in art.  Tell us about this aspect of your lectures; what led you to weave that strong thread into your lectures?

Cynthia:     Well, many of the people coming to the lectures are woman, and now there is so much history available about female painters and collectors that ‘her story’ provides great new topics. I am also attracted to the underdog. Woman making their way in the art world was -until recently - pretty treacherous territory. 

Additionally, some women making art in the Renaissance and Baroque times were very successful. But then their stories were suppressed in the Victorian Age as not being lady-like. And yes. This seems so odd, to me, since Queen Victoria herself had it all, power, influence, strong opinions and a large family. But then, she did have help.

Jan:      So what countries and ports hold the most fascination for you?  Which ports do you love?   
 

Cynthia:     I like to go anywhere. I am adventurous and I love being on the ship. I’d love to go anywhere in the Pacific. But I do think some places are best discovered by boat, like the Norwegian fjords. In 2011 I did three cruises up and down the fjords going as far north as North Cape, Murmansk, Spitzbergen, and Greenland. Recently at the end of Trans Atlantic crossings, I have spent a lot of time going to family-related places in Wales and France, discovering Viking/Norman stories and a Norman village that is named Venables.

Jan:     And where do you long to linger?
 

Cynthia:     I just returned from a tour. This fall I led a small group to Normandy and Paris. In the last few years I have created a tour to Sicily, Art and Garden Tours to Tuscany. And I’ve loved developing and leading a new Easy Walking Tour to Capri and the Amalfi Coast that focuses on art and regional history. I am always ready to go to Italy. I don’t need to go anywhere else really. As I am also learning the language, it makes it fun for me. Then of course, there is all that amazing art, architecture, food, landscape and those wild and wonderful Italians. Italy suits my nature. It is the place other than Canada where I feel at home.

In the fall of 2013, I am hosting a small group tour to Venice, The Veneto and the North Italian Lakes.

Jan:      What’s next in your travels?  Where are you headed for the fall and winter itineraries? 

Cynthia:     In a few days I am off to England with my daughter. We board a ship in Southampton and go down to Spain, the Canary Islands, Madeira and then back to Southampton. She flies home and I stay on going over to Normandy, north of Spain, then the Azores, Bermuda and finally back to Ft. Lauderdale.  Then I’ll be home in time to shovel the snow in my driveway.

Jan:     And where do you hope to go that you want to explore more or that you’ve only begun to explore?

Cynthia:     I would love to do some traveling in the Caribbean, the Pacific Coast, Polynesia, New Zealand, and actually I am happy to explore anywhere the wind may send me.

Jan:      What do you love about your work?

Cynthia:     How could you love not doing this? I am going to wonderful places, traveling with great people, meeting new people and new places. I

Jan:     And finally, what advice can you offer travelers who love to travel and who love art?

Cynthia:     I am following - with no great difficulty - the quote that is said to be by Confucius: “ Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”

Jan:     Thank you for sharing your journey with us.  Princess Cruises is lucky to have you aboard. Happy travels to you.  I hope you are thinking of writing a memoir about your adventures.  Readers are reminded that they can read part 1 of Cynthia's interview - Entry #104 - posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2012.

You can contact Cynthia at cynthiavenables@hotmail.com
and www.blowestravel.com/

Cynthia

Cynthia Venables
87  Front St.,
Stratford, ON
N5A 4G8

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Jan Bowman’s work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, Broadkill Review, Trajectory, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes, and others. She won the 2011 Roanoke Review Prize for Fiction. Her stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories and a story was a finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories and currently shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. She has nonfiction work pending publication in Spring 2013 Issues of Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at:

Website – www.janbowmanwriter.com

Blogsite – http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com

 

Entry # 105 - "On the Heart's Affections"

Photo Credit - Alex Dunn - Naples, FL October Sky

 "I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of imagination."  --- John  Keats.

"How can we describe the beauty of this life? It fills us until we think our hearts will burst with the joy of sight, sound, and touch -whether of the human hand or of sun & sea spray driven by a breeze. "--- Jan Bowman

I think of these things today as I write. 


William of Occam (yes - that Occam) was reported to have said,
                 "No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary."

Having said this, I want to mention a book that I think is interesting and really valuable to any writer.  I recommend the purchase of Schott's Original Miscellany by Ben Schott. First printing in 2002 by Bloomsbury.   What is it?  Well it is 158 pages of packed curiosities. It has been described as an encyclopedia, a dictionary, an almanac, an anthology, a lexicon, a treasury, a commonplace, an amphigouri, a vade-mecum and more.  In fact - Schott's efforts lay claim to "unconsidered trifles."  Its purpose is "to gather the flotsam and jetsam of the conversational tide.  It claims to be essential.  And (perhaps) it is possible to live one's life without it, but it seems a curious and brave thing to attempt."     

REMEMBER - "If you find a book you love, don't hoard the discovery. Reading is not a contest." ---  from The Soul of Creative Writing by Richard Goodman.

YOU'RE INVITED - email:  janbowmanwriter@gmail.com

Send me your thoughts about what you've read and want to share and I'll plan to post it on the first Tuesday of each month.  Here's what you do:
============================
Write a couple of paragraphs, if you would like to talk about a book.  Don't worry about being particularly academic.  This is not intended to be a formal review, unless you really long to write one, and in any case - write what you wish from your own impressions and reactions. 

=============================

Then send an email to me. I will collect these, edit a bit, if necessary, before posting your comments on the first Tuesday of the month under the title: READERS TALK.       Send to:  janbowmanwriter@gmail.com

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Jan Bowman’s work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, Broadkill Review, Trajectory, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes, and others. She won the 2011 Roanoke Review Prize for Fiction. Her stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories and a story was a finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories and currently shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. She has nonfiction work pending publication in Spring 2013 Issues of Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at:

Website – www.janbowmanwriter.com

Blogsite – http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com

Entry # 104 - WRITERS TALK - Cynthia Venables, Travel Writer & Lecturer - Part 1

Cynthia Venables,  Describes Her Travels & Writing

Background Notes:
Cynthia Venables is a Canadian Teacher, Writer, Travel Lecturer who has taught art and art history in Ontario, Canada for over 30 years, most recently for the Continuing Studies Programmes at the University of Toronto, Sir Wilfred Laurier University and Third Age Learning in Kitchener-Waterloo. Cynthia travels the world extensively,  researching and taking photographs, to create art and cultural history lectures which enhance travel itinerary experiences for cruise lines, such as Princess Cruises. Her lectures and photographs awaken the eye and tickle the imagination. When she is not traveling the world by land or sea, Cynthia lives in beautiful Stratford, Ontario, Canada.

Jan:     Cynthia, thank you for taking time from your busy schedule for our interview. Your lecture series that you write and present in the Scholarship@Sea program for Princess Cruise Lines are among the most interesting lectures I’ve ever experienced, and certainly the best I’ve encountered in my own travels.  What led you to explore this career option? 

Cynthia:     Thanks Jan! I have spent a lifetime reading, experiencing, talking and teaching art and art history, something I’ve always found intriguing. I have been very lucky. I was the department head of an art and art history department at two secondary schools in the province of Ontario for thirty years at a time when we had a five-year-programme. On looking back, this was ~lucky~ Grade Thirteen. Unique and enriched courses were offered and there was enough money to make it an elite public education. There were really very few private schools. There was no need. As teachers we had the time to concentrate on developing an interest in our subject, which was a wonderful experience. Many of my students went on to art and art history careers. 

When I retired (to what I call - freedom 54) I had two very nice part-time job offers. One was with a travel agency creating and leading art history related tours to Europe. The other was creating and teaching art history interest courses for the Continuing Studies Department at the University of Toronto. These courses were for adults, six weeks in length with NO marking or evaluation.  After reading endless exams and essays for so many years, I couldn’t bring myself to get the red pen out yet again. And with this job I didn’t have to. Wonderful!

Over the next five years I created and taught art history courses every fall and winter in snowy Toronto, and then I led groups to Europe in the spring and summer. As it turned out, I love teaching adults. They are like my best adolescent students, smart, engaged, and always interesting, but now I had a class full of them. I was in heaven. I began to get offers for teaching adults nearer to where I live in Stratford Ontario, first at the University Women’s Club, and then at classes affiliated with two universities in Waterloo Ontario. 

Many of my students became interested in the art tours I offered and joined me in Europe. But this was all on dry land. 

Jan:     So how did you learn about writing and giving lectures on cruise ships? 

Cynthia:     In 2008 my dear Dad, who loves cruising treated my daughter and me to a cruise extravaganza. We accompanied my parents from New York to Rome on one cruise ship, then we got off and flew to London Heathrow, then we jumped in a taxi.  (Although my parents didn’t jump, they are a bit too old). 

Next we boarded the Queen Mary in Southampton and sailed back to New York City. As a first time cruiser I was worried I would hate it.  After all this involved two Trans-Atlantic crossings back-to-back. But I thought, ‘Oh well, Dad was paying for it so I would be a saint and indulge him.’ After a day out to sea, headed in the general direction of Bermuda, my daughter (now thirty) and I looked at each other and mouthed simultaneously, "We love this!  Quelle surprise!" Once we realized this was heaven, we tried to do it all.

One day after having a busy morning of touring the kitchen, line dancing and then lunch I decided I could fit in a lecture just before high tea. I sat down in the large theatre, the lights went out and I began to hear about the terrible machinations of the Medici Family. Half-way through, it occurred to me this was exactly what I was doing in my lectures on dry land, but this lecture was being given in a much more appealing environment. The people who came to the lectures were the same as those who signed up for Adult Education at the University of Toronto. 

In fact, I met a few who recognized me from having taken courses in Toronto. What were they doing so far away from home? They were travelling, learning and having fun, of course. I mentioned the idea of lecturing on ships to my father, who didn’t stop pestering me until I applied, by snail mail. Three months passed. Then the phone rang, an American number, click-click, perhaps - a robbo call? I was about to hang up when a voice from a great distance speaks,   “Hello, I am Robert Smolkin from Princess Cruises. I got your package.”  Then the adventure began.

Jan:     What background did you bring to writing and preparing your lecture materials?

Cynthia:     I had a great formal art history and history education at McMaster University. I have taught many, many course, created many, many lectures on a range of art history topics, so this gives me confidence to speak with a bit of authority. I love reading history and art history, so as I move in a new direction, I like doing the research and putting the information forward in an understandable way. It is a challenge not unlike a picture puzzle.

Jan:      You combine wonderful visuals, carefully researched topics, and humor to connect with your audiences. You do a lot of your own photographs that you use in your presentations and I must say, they are excellent.    How do you prepare your materials for a given cruise?  What materials are essential to a successful lecture?

 

Cynthia:     Creating art history lectures is my addiction. This addiction has been fed by the little silver box sitting on my lap, my computer. Usually, I don’t like gadgets and I wasn’t a fan of all the new technology. I was forced to give up my slide projector and thousands of slides before I started lecturing on the ships. After upgrading from a seven-year old Acer to a Macbook, I find that making the lectures, has become much more like an obsession, more like a hobby, than work. I now have a MacAir as well with Keynote, Iphoto and Apperture Apps, all of which makes it almost very stress free.

Since I had to go digital in 2008 (I have two very nice new cameras: a Nikon D60 and a Panasonic snapandshot), I have taken 80,000 photos, yet another addiction. 

I try to weave my own photos into the lectures as often as I can.  Also there are great art history websites for good quality images. I try to let the pictures tell a lot of the story with a little bit of text and then my comments. I try not to repeat the text that is already on the screen. The Keynote App (like Power Point) allows me to have notes on my screen, but I seldom use them as I have a good memory that usually is triggered by the image. I like the lecture to move quickly, and I try to have the image change almost every minute or two. Keeps the audience from falling asleep. 
 

Cynthia Venables' - Favorite Quote -

         "Wheresoever you go, 

go with all your heart."

- -Confucius -

See Part Two of Our Interview with Cynthia Venables 

Next Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - after 4:30 PM EST

for more information about her travels contact 

Please contact Cynthia Venables  519- 2720577 cynthiavenables@hotmail.com for more information and Jane Blowes for information and booking at Blowes Travel and Cruise Centres Inc., 28 Wellington Street, Stratford,Ontario N5A 2L2
TICO REGISTRATION # 1890474
Phone: 519-271-5710 Toll Free: 1-800-461-8500 Email: jane@blowestravel.com

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Jan Bowman’s work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, Broadkill Review, Trajectory, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes, and others. She won the 2011 Roanoke Review Prize for Fiction. Her stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories and a story was a finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories and currently shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. She has nonfiction work pending publication in Spring 2013 Issues of Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at:

Website – www.janbowmanwriter.com

Blogsite – http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com

Entry # 103 - "Thoughts on Autumn"

 October 19, 2012

Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,

as if orchards were dying high in space.

Each leaf falls as if it were motioning, "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling

away from all the other stars in the loneliness.

Photo Credits - Jan Bowman - Oct. 18, 2012

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.

And look at the other one...It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone whose hands

infinitely calm, hold up all this falling.

Rainer Maria Rilke, (1875-1926)

---Translated by Robert Bly

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."

----proverb in Sierra Magazine - November/December 2012  from Last Words page.

Photo Credit - Jan Bowman - Oct. 18, 2012

 And a few final words from T. S. Eliot's "Burnt Norton" in Four Quartets:

"Words strain,

Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, 

Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,

Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,

Will not stay still."
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Jan Bowman’s work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, Broadkill Review, Trajectory, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes, and others. She won the 2011 Roanoke Review Prize for Fiction. Her stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories and a story was a finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories and currently shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. She has nonfiction work pending publication in Spring 2013 Issues of Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at:

Website – www.janbowmanwriter.com

Blogsite – http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com

Entry # 102 -WRITERS TALK - Pinckney Benedict - Part 2 with noted Author, Publisher, MFA Professor

Part 2 Interview with PinckneyBenedict

Background Notes:

"Pinckney Benedict grew up on his family’s dairy farm in rural West Virginia. He has published a novel and three collections of short fiction, the most recent of which is Miracle Boy and Other Stories. His work has been published in, among other magazines and anthologies, Esquire, Zoetrope: All-Story, the O. Henry Award series, the Pushcart Prize series, the Best New Stories from the South series, The Ecco Anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction, and The Oxford Book of American Short Stories.  He has received grants and awards from, among others, the West Virginia Arts Council, the Illinois Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Benedict is a professor in the MFA program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and in the low-residency MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina. He will be on the faculty of the Tinker Mountain Writers’ Workshop at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, June 9-14, 2013." 

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Pinckney, last week I posted part one of our WRITERS TALK interview - Entry # 100 - on Tuesday, October 9, 2012,  in which we talked about your new publishing company, Gallows Tree Press; this week, let’s talk about your writing, in particular, the most recent of which is Miracle Boy and Other Stories. 

Jan:     You've talked about how much writers need good mentors. Let's talk about your experiences; what was it like working with Joyce Carol Oates at Princeton?  What does a great mentor bring to the growth of a writer? 

Pinckney:     Joyce was everything I could have wanted from a teacher. She is the embodiment of what she teaches: she’s superbly literate and utterly committed to the life of the word. She works phenomenally hard, is wildly productive, fantastically successful, and yet uncompromising in what she asks of herself and her students. Having the opportunity to work with her was the greatest piece of good luck I’ve had in a very fortunate life.

Jan:     You are mentor to a number of talented writers yourself. What are some characteristics of a great mentor? 

Pinckney:     My own teaching is simply a pale imitation of hers, with some of my own theories tossed in for good measure. I try to give students – in the creative writing program here at Southern Illinois University, at the low-residency MFA program at Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina, and in briefer residencies like that at the Tinker Mountain Writers’ Workshop – exactly what I would want in a reader, an editor, a teacher: someone who takes their work absolutely seriously, and who approaches them as colleagues rather than as customers or supplicants. I try as hard as I can only to tell them the truth, even when the truth is hard for them to hear.

Jan:     I had the good fortune to take your class this summer at Tinker Mountain and I was struck by the joyfulness with which you approach your teaching and in talking about writing.  It’s truly a pleasure to see how much you love your work. You’re almost childlike in your joy, so when I read an interview in Appalachian Heritage (Vol. 38, No. 1, Winter 2012) in which George Brosi calls you a ‘gleeful writer,’ And I thought, “Yes. What a great description! Pinckney is a gleeful writer.”  So what do you love and why about writing? 

Pinckney:     What’s not to love? I spend the greater part of any given day thinking about attractive and charismatic people who entertain and delight me, and imagining what gifts I can give them – what magical powers, what implements of destruction – and what sorts of magnificent trouble I can give them to undergo. I get to imagine profound acts of moral courage, of cowardice and heroism, of devotion and betrayal. I get to mythologize all day long.

Jan:      Do you think many 'self described' serious writers take themselves too seriously? I've met a number who seem so self-absorbed and gloomy.

Writers who are glum – and there are many – crack me up. I’ll enter a room of happy, healthy grad students who are laughing and flirting and sharing funny stories, and we’ll take up their stories, and suddenly it’s all death and gloom, motionlessness and despair and anti-human sentiment, as though good art only came from torment. These talented, privileged and manifestly untormented people imagine that they have to manufacture tormented personas so that their work will be serious and good! It’s funny to me, that contrast. My own life has its suffering, of course, but it’s mostly quite joyous and fulfilling, and my work – I sincerely hope – reflects that pleasure in the world, and in life. Life and art are often difficult, dark, and scary – but unless there is contrast, unless there is also light and joy and pleasure in at least equal measure, then we can have no sense of the depth of the darkness or what it might mean or how it might end.

Jan:      I think Miracle Boy and Other Stories (2010) was one of the best collections that I read last year, although it’s been described as dark and devastating.  I think it deserved more mainstream recognition. What is your favorite story in this collection? 

My favorite story in the book? Literally favorite is the title story, “Miracle Boy.” It’s the best-made, so to speak, of the stories, the most technically accomplished and finished of them, the one that I look at and think, yes, that’s a story that might possibly last. Emotional favorite is “Zog-19,” because it’s a lark, the story of an alien who finds himself trapped in the body of a West Virginia dairy farmer. It’s a love story, the only one I’ve ever written. [My] Favorite today is “Mercy,” because it has just shown up in the new edition of The Oxford Book of American Short Stories, alongside the fiction of folks like Washington Irving, Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor, Ray Carver, David Foster Wallace… Any story that manages that for you, you’ve got to love.

Jan:     You’re a brave writer, as I believe great writers should be.You never ‘avert your eyes,’ nor do you let the reader get off the hook with a light reading.  Tell about the source and power that drove your writing in this collection of stories. 

Pinckney:     Thank you for the kind words, Jan. I’m pleased and flattered that you liked the book, and your praise – that I’m brave and so on – is all that I could wish for. The sources? I suppose the people I know, many of whom seem to me remarkably brave and kind and gentle in the face of a world that is generally none of those things. I love the human spirit and want to see it represented fairly and truthfully, without melodrama or silly posturing.

Jan:     What do you think aspiring writers need to know if they want to write with some measure of personal success?  What advice helped you?   

Pinckney:      Aspiring writers should write only work that they themselves would love to read, are in fact dying to read, but that doesn’t exist yet. Don’t write books or stories for other people (you can’t know what other people actually want) and don’t rewrite books or stories that you’ve loved (they already exist and so the need for them is nonexistent). Work you write for others will likely have an audience of zero. If you write work that excites you, then you’re guaranteed to have an enthusiastic audience of at least one. And, no matter how odd you are, there are others who share your obsessions, your dreams, your fantasies, and your terrors. The challenge is to find them, to find your proper readers. but that’s another blog post.

Jan:      What advice did you decide to ignore because you thought it was 'Total BS.'

Pinckney:     Total BS: A writer at Iowa, when I was a graduate student in the MFA program there, told me that I’d be a good writer if I’d just give up “the backwoods stuff.” By which he meant my West Virginia inheritance, the material of childhood, my boyhood and young manhood. The people and language and landscape with which I grew up. Every central concern of my work and my life.  

It was an important moment for me, because it showed me that, just because you’re smart and talented and famous and wealthy and well-decorated with awards and honors and encomia doesn’t mean that you always give good advice. I’ve felt free of the lure and influence of the famous and well-respected since that moment.

Websites:     Amazon author’s page:

http://www.amazon.com/Pinckney-Benedict/e/B000APB8RO/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1347398999&sr=1-2-ent

Facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/PigHelmet?sk=wall

 
TMWW’s Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tinker-Mountain-Writers-Workshop/207327389334581

Gallowstree Press’ page

http://gallowstreepress.com/

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Jan Bowman’s work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, Broadkill Review, Trajectory, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes, and others. She won the 2011 Roanoke Review Prize for Fiction. Her stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories and a story was a finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories and currently shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. She has nonfiction work pending publication in Spring 2013 Issues of Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at:

Website – www.janbowmanwriter.com

Blogsite – http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com

Entry # 101 "Map Quests for Stories"

Photo Credit: Alex Dunn - October 2012

In my craft readings I’ve returned to an old favorite, Nancy Willard’s The Left-Handed Story: Writing and the Writer’s Life.  I first became acquainted with Willard’s work when I read her lovely novels – Things Invisible to See (1984) and Sister Water (1993).  She offers wise advice to writers.

In the context of working on revisions, I am considering her words. Willard says that there are two kinds of journeys that we all make.  “The first is the journey that you can map. Your destination is clear, the map will show you the shortest way to get from here to there.”  Sometimes after a trusted reader lays a finger on a problem in a story under revision, the writer sees what needs to happen next to the text. Perhaps a contradiction must be resolved or a character’s motives more carefully developed. The map routes are easier to follow – at least for me. I can see the route needed to improve the work and arrive at my destination.

But a more challenging journey is the one that requires an act of faith, that requires rich imaginings that move beyond the text on the page, and sends the writer on a quest driven by instinct. Sometimes those journeys take years of travel time.

Willard says that “…the second kind of journey is the kind of journey where you go from instinct. Not even a compass [or Garmin or MapQuest] will help you.”  

And she goes on to say that  “…The journeys that writers make - are like both kinds.  Sometimes you need the map.  When you’re revising your work, it’s helpful to know where you’re going and how you plan to get there.  But when you’re writing a first draft…[and even later drafts] ah, that’s a different story.”   

Photo Credit: Jan Bowman - September 2012

 When revising subsequent drafts, it is necessary to keep the second kind of journey as part of the process, too.

Willard’s observations are particularly helpful to me because writers do have a calling to live “on the interface of two worlds,” the one that gives us the reality of maps and concise directions to improve work and the other one of dreams, if our stories are to get to their destination.  

Photo Credit:  Alex Dunn - September 2012

Writers struggle to find a balance and not everyone understands just what writers are saying about their life when they say, “I’m a writer.”  

Most people don’t know how much reflection time is required. Some journeys require light years of travel time.

Jan Bowman’s work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, Broadkill Review, Trajectory, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes, and others. She won the 2011 Roanoke Review Prize for Fiction. Her stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories and a story was a finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories and currently shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. She has nonfiction work pending publication in Spring 2013 Issues of Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at:

Website – www.janbowmanwriter.com

Blogsite – http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com

Entry # 100 - WRITERS TALK - Pinckney Benedict, author, professor, publisher (Part 1)

Background Notes:

"Pinckney Benedict grew up on his family’s dairy farm in rural West Virginia. He has published a novel and three collections of short fiction, the most recent of which is Miracle Boy and Other Stories. 

His work has been published in, among other magazines and anthologies, Esquire, Zoetrope: All-Story, the O. Henry Award series, the Pushcart Prize series, the Best New Stories from the South series, The Ecco Anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction, and The Oxford Book of American Short Stories. He has received grants and awards from, among others, the West Virginia Arts Council, the Illinois Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Benedict is a professor in the MFA program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, IL and in the low-residency MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina. He will be on the faculty of the Tinker Mountain Writers’ Workshop at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, June 9-14, 2013."

Websites:

Amazon author’s page

http://www.amazon.com/Pinckney-Benedict/e/B000APB8RO/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1347398999&sr=1-2-ent

Facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/PigHelmet?sk=wall

TMWW’s Facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tinker-Mountain-Writers-Workshop/207327389334581

Gallowstree Press’ page

http://gallowstreepress.com/

Jan:     Pinckney, I am honored to have your interview as the 100th blog entry on my website that I began June 2011.  I appreciate your time for this interview; you are busy, but always the gentleman. You have so much experience dealing with the publishing world, and the peculiar problems on the publishing end for writers.  I would like to present two sets of questions. This week let’s talk about your new publishing company, Gallows Tree Press; then next week, let’s talk about your writing.

       

Recently you and your wife Laura Benedict, who is also an established writer, have begun Gallows Tree Press.  Tell me about it. What is the mission and what kinds of work do you hope to publish? 

Pinckney:     At the moment, we’re just starting out. We’ve got three of my wife’s titles – got the rights to two of them back from Ballantine at great trouble and expense, and a new one. We will also probably begin to bring out my backlist as it becomes available, and new work by both of us. We’re also interested in starting a new annual anthology of horror fiction that we have tentatively titled Lightless Cities. When that’s established, we’d like to start publishing literary-quality crime and horror fiction, novels, since that’s what primarily interests us.   

Jan:     What mistakes do writers often make when submitting manuscripts or proposals?  What would you urge writers to attend to before sending you work?     

Pinckney:     Well, they’ll need to wait until we’re ready to start accepting work first! But here are some tips from the time I spent, with Laura, as editor of the Surreal South anthology series, which has had three volumes: read the submission guidelines very carefully. If it’s a prose fiction publication you’re submitting to, don’t send poetry or creative nonfiction on the off-chance that the editors will like it enough to change the nature of the book or magazine for you. They won’t. You’re not that good. Nobody’s that good. If it’s a horror publisher, make sure you’re sending them horror. 

If the anthology has the word “surreal” in the title, make sure the work you send is in fact surreal. It’s actually pretty simple: Pay good attention to what the editors say they want, because they’re not kidding, and you’re trying to sell them something. Don’t let your own enthusiasm for your work, which is understandable, overwhelm your good sense.

Jan:     What’s your take on the health of print publishing and marketing methods for books, in light of technological shifts and the economy? And how do you see technology changing your own version of the publishing world?

Pinckney:     Technology is what’s making my little part of the publishing world possible. From my desk in my humble little home out in the hinterlands of southern Illinois, I can cause to be produced a book that is every bit the equal, in the quality of its prose as well as its presentation qualities (binding, design, cover, paper, etc.), of something that might be produced by, say, Simon and Schuster. It might even be superior. It will be cheaper, and I will not need a warehouse in which to keep my stock. It’s like the music world, where the CDs or the MP3s of your favorite local band are indistinguishable in their production values from the product produced by Sony. That’s a very good thing. Of course, it’s having some short-term effects that are upsetting to folks who have been long in the industry, but every revolution starts with blood and fire and heads rolling before you get to the good stuff. It always seems sad to the monopolists when monopolies are broken.

Jan:     What do you believe should be the focus for smart publishing houses to succeed?  And where do you see publishing powerhouses dropping the ball?

Pinckney:     Find writers whom you yourself would love to read, and publish the hell out of them. Don’t ever publish work you think somebody else might like, unless you yourself like it so much you can hardly bear the joy of it. Don’t try to publish too many titles. Don’t take a scattershot approach, where you publish a bunch of titles, knowing that many of them will fail (and that you will abandon those that don’t immediately rocket to the top), counting on one or two blockbusters to make up for all the “failed” books for which you deferred your responsibility. That’s the model of the current film business, which is languishing both in the quality of its product and in its bottom line, and it’s a model that’s destroying contemporary publishing. They’re pushing product, and much of it is bad, and much that is good gets neglected in the rush. They need to stop a minute and collect themselves. get their heads clear. They’re all in a rush to nowhere.

Jan:     What would be your idea of a great new kind of writer or an idea for an exciting novel that you would like your publishing company to introduce to readers?

Pinckney:     I’ve just read a novella (a form that I predict will have a renascence because of electronic and small-volume publishing) by a recent grad student of mine. It’s set in (as the author puts it) “a lonesome and barbarous failed state” that has reverted to Iron Age methods and morals. The young protagonist sets out across the barren tundra to find and kill the man who has destroyed his peaceful life and family. The prose is elegantly simple, and the book’s violence is relentless, remorseless, and utterly convincing. It’s a terrifying book that begs you to turn the next page, even though you feel you might not be able to bear what’s coming. It’s committed to another press, and we’re not yet set up at Gallowstree to take it on – but that’s the kind of book I want to publish. When we’re ready to go, we’ll ask this guy what his new project is.

Jan:     Will you consider publishing work from writers who don’t yet have an agent?  And can you talk a bit about how an agent helps the process and how they sometimes can hinder the process?

Pinckney:     We won’t deal with agents. We will deal only with writers who own the rights to the work they want us to consider and who will represent that work themselves. That’s how we ran the Surreal South series and that’s how we’ll run Gallowstree. Agents greatly complicate the process of getting art into the hands of people who might appreciate it. Perhaps they make sense when there are great sums of money involved, lengthy contracts and vast and complicated distribution deals, and when there might be a video game or a cartoon series based on a book – but that’s unlikely to be the case for anything we will publish.

Jan:     You said that you grew up loving a comic book series called ‘Weird War’ and that the visual, dynamic world found in comic books continues to influence your work. The Press 53 Spring 2012 Anthology includes one of your new comic stories. Do you plan to publish any comic book styled works at Gallows Tree?  

Pinckney:     We’ll work first with conventional prose fiction, until we understand the business and its mechanisms better. But Laura and I have spoken about the prospect of our publishing my graphic fictions with Gallowstree. Once we’ve done that, then we’ll be better situated to imagine taking on the graphic fiction of others.

Jan:     Curious readers want to know more about the connections between Orgo, the hillbilly king, to the Romans and to Julius Caesar. Where did you get the idea for Orgo?

Pinckney:     Orgo is indeed a very Roman character, isn’t he? Unafraid of the brutal necessities of rule and of empire.  I am fascinated by the notion of kingship; as an American, I find it anathema, but it’s also somehow in our human DNA, the impulse to look to a king, a supreme leader whom we imagine to be somehow superior to ourselves, even though he’s probably completely nuts. And once the phrase “the hillbilly king” floated into my imagination, I knew I had to write about him. He’ll probably come back,  [yes] will Orgo, in some other future incarnation.

Jan:     I must say those are some amazing, but very dark drawings. I did find myself cringing a bit.  But it is fascinating work. It grabs the reader and won't let go.

Pinckney:     “Cringing a bit” is fine by me – is in fact my intention – so long as the cringe doesn’t keep you from turning the page. Then I’ve gone too far, or you’re not willing to go far enough. I want my work, all of it, to exist on that fine threshold between being unable to stop going forward and wishing with all your heart that you didn’t have to. That, for me, is where good narrative art dwells.

Jan:     Given your past experiences working with movies, any chance Orgo will appear at a local theatre at some point in the future?

Pinckney:     I’d love to see an “Orgo” movie but have no idea how such a thing might come about. I’ve written film, a bit (Four Days is now on Netflix streaming), and recently the film version of my short story “Miracle Boy” premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It was shot not far from where I grew up in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, on a shoestring budget, and it looks very beautiful. But that’s the extent of my film involvement these days.

Pinckney Benedict a writer and professor of creative writing at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL and in the low-residency MFA program at Queens University in Charlotte, NC.

Stay Tuned - next week part two of our interview with Pinckney Benedict will focus on his novel and short story collections.

Websites:

Amazon author’s page

http://www.amazon.com/Pinckney-Benedict/e/B000APB8RO/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1347398999&sr=1-2-ent

Facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/PigHelmet?sk=wall

TMWW’s Facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tinker-Mountain-Writers-Workshop/207327389334581

Gallowstree Press’ page

http://gallowstreepress.com/

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Jan Bowman’s work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, Broadkill Review, Trajectory, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes, and others. She won the 2011 Roanoke Review Prize for Fiction. Her stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories and a story was a finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories and currently shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. She has nonfiction work pending publication in Spring 2013 Issues of Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at:

Website – www.janbowmanwriter.com

Blogsite – http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com