How to use this Page

The publication party for The Queen of the Night, the magnificent second novel by my dear friend Alexander Chee, is tomorrow night at McNally Jackson. I was stunned and so happy when he asked me to discuss the book with him there.

Alex and I became friends before I read his first book. An instant easy understanding was possible between us that might have been impossible if I’d encountered Edinburgh — which is wonderful and true and utterly its own thing — before I knew him. Over the years he has become a kind of muse for me, as well as an advisor, though I don’t think I ever put it to myself quite that until I just typed the words just now.

He says he sees our conversation tomorrow night as an extension of the many we’ve had over the years. Most of those happened in private, obviously, but I’ve written about a few of them before: On creating the feeling you want the reader to feel; After the affair (on Jean Rhys and Ford Madox Ford); and Some company for slow writers.

The Queen of the Night tour schedule is here. You can follow along with the excitement at his Twitter feed.

At Slate, Ariel Bogle recaps a discussion I had last week with AJ Jacobs, Wilhelmina Rhodes-Kelly, and Chris Whitten on how technology is affecting the family tree. I talked a little bit about what drew me to research my ancestry in the first place.

Although technology is changing the way we discover our personal histories, the reasons why people may begin to investigate in the first place have stayed the same. Curiosity, of course, but also a sense of history. Maud Newton told the audience how her interest in her family tree was sparked by the improbable stories her mother told about their predecessors. But the importance of ancestry cut very close for Newton. “I myself was basically a eugenics project,” she said. “My parents married because they thought they would have smart children together, not because they loved each other.” Her father was particularly obsessed with the idea of purity of blood, she added. “Someone suggested to me that there might be something [my father] was hiding, and then I got really interested.”

We had lots of fun; I don’t think any of us were ready for the panel to end when it did, and how often can you say that? The audio is below Bogle’s summary, if you’d like to listen.

In related reading: at Tin House, my series of brief but wide-ranging interviews with authors about ancestry is ongoing. Guests so far are Laila Lalami, Celeste Ng, Saeed Jones, and Christopher Beha. And at The Begats, I’ve written in the last few months about Alexander Chee’s jokbo (gorgeous books recording his family history back to the Joseon Dynasty, which began in 1392), ancestor worship in the Old Testament, and some disappointing (but not too surprising) discoveries about my self-given namesake, Maude Newton Simmons, among other things.

The stark and stunning image above is a grave map — taken from Alex’s jokbo — for one of his ancestors.

For Tin House’s site, I write about finding solace for the slow pace of my own novel in the writing of Donna Tartt and my friend Alexander Chee.

“Do you think writers have to feel what they want the reader to feel when they’re writing?” I asked my friend Alex Chee in email this weekend, after reading a new story of his that powerfully evokes the kind of moony, depressive, sickeningly self-reflective state I’ve been in. “Because the end of this novel is completely kicking my ass. I hate what I’m learning about myself as I write it, but the dissociated part of me is fascinated that I’m learning so much about myself by writing something that is not literally about me at all.”

He replied:

I think we do. In true first person, definitely. God knows it was why writing Edinburgh was hell. When someone asked me if I wanted to work on a screenplay for it I thought ‘Not for anything in the world.’ But also, for writers, there’s a book that makes you as you make it. And in the writing of it, you learn to master both yourself and the book in a way you never have to again.

What comes to mind is advice Annie Dillard gave us, to think of yourself as going down in an old-fashioned diving bell [see above], a thread of air connecting you back to yourself. And when you must, to return to the surface. To treat an engagement with that work like deep sea diving. She meant for essays, memoir, but I found it applies to first person autobiographical fiction, too.

I guess one reason Alex and I are so fascinated by Jean Rhys is that she struggled with the same problems. But see Toni Morrison’s stern warning about writing from anything but the cold, cold brain.

Debate and discussion — but not attacks — are welcome in the comments below.

Hi all!

I came across a few posts/articles over the last couple of weeks that I thought were SO INSPIRING, that I just had to share them with you, my writer friends.


1) From the Writers First Aid blog author Kristi Holl asks,"How Does Your Talent Grow?" Choose an attribute (one per week, she says) and watch your talent grow in the coming months! Love her list, don't you?


2) Novelist Alexander Chee, a graduate of my alma mater, wrote this inspiring essay for The Morning News, recounting his studies with Annie Dillard. After I read this, I could have kicked myself for not having signed up for her class (especially being an English major)! Ah, well . . . I am grateful still that he took the time to write of his experience in her class. I especially like the part where she told his class, "If you're doing your job, the reader feels what you felt. You don't have to tell the reader how to feel. No one likes to be told how to feel about something." And that's just one of the nuggets of writing wisdom she shared with the class . . . imagine a whole semester's worth! Like I said, I could kick myself . . .

3) Lastly I just wanted to share (and many of you have probably seen this already), posts from two newly agented writers on a timeline of their writing journey thus far:

From Shelli at Market My Words: What a difference a Year makes

and

From Caroline Starr Rose at Caroline by line: My agent: Michelle Humphrey of Sterling Lord Literistic

ALSO--I'm going back a few months here--just thought about the writing journey of Tess Hilmo, one of my first blogging friends, and wanted to include it here as well. It's wonderfully inspiring! (Tess is repped by Steven Chudney of The Chudney Agency.)

I so love reading about a writer's journey . . . it gives me so much hope to think that if they can do it, I can, too!


So here's to all of us on the writing journey . . . be INSPIRED!


Happy Thanksgiving! :)