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My first offshore rig job was on the Piper Alpha. I didn’t know it at the time but the Piper was one of the biggest, oldest, most profitable production platforms in the British sector of the North Sea. I emerged onto the helideck from my first chopper ride with the wide-eyed feeling you tried to hide on your first trip offshore. I had time to dump my duffel bag in the cabin they assigned me, get some pairs of coveralls, a bag of gloves. It wasn’t a normal crew change. I was replacing a guy who got hurt and medivacced off the night before. I started a twelve-hour shift with a crew of three other roustabouts and the crane driver, Kenny. I was bunking in with Kenny for an unknown reason. Normally, the four roustabouts, alternating twelve hour shifts, shared cabins with their opposite numbers. Mine was a bottom bunk in a room of crane drivers. Kenny was the boss of the crane drivers. I was replacing a guy on his crew, so we slept and worked at the same time. My first job, on my first shift as a roustabout, was dumping fifty-five gallon drums of radioactive shale into the sea. I watched the roughnecks shovel the shale into a drum on the drill floor. In addition to their usual coveralls, they wore outer suits which looked like rubber. It was supposed to be protection against the radioactivity in the rock that was coming out of the hole. Because of the work on the drill floor, the protective suits were shredded and torn, hanging off the roughnecks in strips. There was an engineer running up and down the catwalk with a crackling Geiger counter. Roughnecks, in the smoke room, joked about watching their appendages fall off. The smoke room provided breaks in the twelve hour shifts, scenes of laughter, boredom and rage. When you were new, they tested you. They tried to scare you, probe you, disturb you, wind you up. Then they sat back, chuckled at your reaction. The Scots were masters at this. It seemed to be a racially imbedded talent. All done in good humour, anything for a laugh. During one of those breaks, soaked in mud and oil from relieving the roughnecks, I listened to one the veterans talk. He looked around the steel room, at the walls. “You could put your fist through the legs of this old piece of shit. If there’s ever gonna be a disaster in the North Sea, it’ll be on this old piece of shit” I didn’t think much about it at the time. I laughed like everyone else. There were moments in the next years when I did think about it, though. His words came back to me on other rigs, as I was getting cozy in a bunk. Exhaustion, food, a hot shower, warm inside; outside, a gale blowing between the Shetlands and Norway. Nights like that, I remembered, had a shiver, as sleep descended. Was it just another trick to scare a green hand? The old guy who said it, didn’t laugh. By the time the crane brought the first drum down from the drill floor, I had been told what to do by the man I relieved. When the crane driver lowered the drum, I gave him a signal to stop at the right spot so I could tip it over the rail, while he held the weight. As I tipped the first few drums of shale over the side, I was thinking about the wisdom of dumping radioactive rocks into the North Sea. Who would believe me onshore, who would care? There was no point in complaining. This was the job I’d tried so hard to get. What choice did I have? Pack my bags and wait for the next flight on the helideck? So when the drums of radioactive shale descended from the sky, seawater pouring out of holes in the sides, I dumped the grey, flat pieces, hoping they wouldn’t poison anything. The Piper Alpha, like most platforms, had big cranes on opposite sides of the deck. The deck held all the pipe and equipment needed on the drill floor. Almost everything brought on board was moved by container. Supply ships filled the deck with steel containers which had to be stacked on top of each other, for lack of space. The roustabouts, one with a radio on the same the frequency as the crane driver, landed the containers and pipe. The crane driver moved back and forth between the cranes, depending upon the load, where he had to pick it up, where he had to land it. A night shift, on deck, in a North Sea gale, wasn’t a good time to discover that Kenny was near sighted. The remarks weren’t made by the other roustabouts, as I suspected, to try to scare me. In the black and white shadows of the big, swaying lights, in the horizontal rain, it was an unwelcome revelation. Kenny’s cranes lifted tons of steel from the decks of bobbing sea going tugs, up over the sides of the platform, across containers of different heights. They said that it was his perspective which was bad. On those stormy nights, when it was hard to see and he was tired, the best tactics were to find the spot the container was supposed to go, do your best to signal him, get out of the way. You always looked around for an escape route, in case he didn’t see you. Your greasy rain suit and slipping boots didn’t help when you were being chased across the container tops by steel boxes, in high winds. What could you do about a crane driver with bad eye sight? Everyone knew about it, but no one seemed to care. Kenny was Kenny. He was a fixture, no one had been killed or crushed yet. During my time offshore with Kenny and the boys I did little except eat, sleep and shower when we weren’t working. On occasion, I lay half asleep in my bunk, while Kenny did business with visitors from all parts of the rig. I had long ago given up trying to sort out the dialects of the British Isles. Many of the thousands of offshore workers were from Northern England and Scotland. The money to be made on the rigs, for fishermen who were risking much more, for no guaranteed income, drew the coastal Scots like flies. Since they were sailors to begin with, they knew about ropes, knots, shackles, hard graft in the rottenest weather. It was understood that they would prefer to fish rather than this, but their fishery was in trouble, they had families. The oil business, like the British army, was happy to recruit there, because they knew the value of the workers. The industrial cities of Britain all sent men to work offshore. There were men from the islands and from small farm villages. There were ex military men as well as merchant mariners driven off their decks by containers. When you mixed in some Aussies and Kiwis, you came close to Babylon when they all spoke fast, at once. Many of Kenny’s conversations took place while I was in the cabin but were unintelligible to me, though I heard them. The language was impossible to understand. Kenny, was a partner with another crane driver in a pornographic video scam. He got videos for the rig. Probably he was selling them to individuals, as well. I laid in my bunk, reading, when a conversation about videos took place. It was business talk with a group of guys, about a week after I arrived. By then, Kenny judged me to be safe to have around. He knew that I was only there till the end of the hitch, I’d probably never be back. On this old rig, the crews were pretty well set. The company had a seniority list they’d use if the injured man didn’t return. As they left the cabin, one guy told me to keep my mouth shut by zipping his lip. I nodded. He left with a smile. What was I going to say about it? I had enough problems surviving the twelve hour shifts. We were a hundred ninety kilometres northeast of Aberdeen in the North Sea. Like dumping the shale into the ocean, it seemed a necessary compromise. I did the job, kept my mouth shut, in return for good money and experience offshore. The first step in working offshore was to get experience. It was the first thing they asked when you applied for a job. When you had worked offshore once, you were ahead of the game. There were piles of applications for the jobs on each company’s desk. It was the classic catch - 22. The Piper had two theatres. There was a regular theatre, with comfortable movie type seating, where they showed contemporary movies. They even had a guy outside the theatre with a request sheet on a clipboard. If you wanted to request a movie, they’d try to get it. The other theatre, with the same interior, was strictly for porn. Kenny had a connection, through the supply ships, to Denmark, where they manufacture a lot of porn. He got every kind of porn. I tried the porn theatre one night. I didn’t like it. There were forty or fifty guys sitting together with their hands in the pockets of their accommodation coveralls, watching endless sex videos. Living for two weeks with three hundred men was bad enough. That just made it worse. I went to bed. Kenny and his boys were busy. To supplement the porn enterprise, they were stealing from the containers. Word was, there were cartons of cigarettes and booze stashed all over the rig. As the roustabouts and crane driver landed containers on the deck, they tried to place the ones for the galley as close to the accommodation as possible. There was even a small deck outside the back door of the galley where some containers could be landed. That was supposed to be the end of the roustabouts’ and crane drivers’ dealings with those containers. Certain sealed containers were locked by Customs and Excise. They were opened only by the galley boss, emptied into the galley by the stewards. There was no drinking allowed offshore but at Christmas each man was allowed one beer and a cigar. It varied from company to company, rig to rig. Who knew what the bosses got shipped in? Teetotallers became very popular around Christmas time, offshore. The Christmas I was there, Kenny’s gang, the other crane driver and some roustabouts, managed to land the special containers at night, break into them, steal the booze and cigarettes. They had a system of ripping off the containers, stashing the goods, blaming it on the cooks and stewards. I didn’t know anything about it at the time. It could have happened on a shift when I was working. There were jobs all over the rig to which Kenny could have assigned me to get me out of the way. There were no fire drills when I was there. No one knew if the evacuation procedures would work. The platform kept pumping oil, one hundred twenty thousand barrels a day, everybody made good money, the company was happy. The British government collected five hundred million pounds a year, in revenues, from the Piper Alpha. When my hitch ended on the Piper, I took the taxi from the heliport to the warm Aberdeen pubs to have a drink with the boys, say our goodbyes. I met one of them, a few years later, in Aberdeen. He had left the Piper, was working on another rig, like myself. He told me that the police had finally raided the platform, searched lockers and the rest of the rig from top to bottom, found all kinds of contraband including a working homebrew still. Some guys lost their jobs, some were charged. I assumed Kenny would have been fired. But, sometimes, guys like him never get caught. Even if he did get run off of the Piper, it might have saved his life. A few years later, I was in Ottawa, trying to deal with my mother’s Alzheimer’s. It was a major change after what I’d been doing for the past twenty years. I picked up the paper outside of the apartment we shared. The headline read, ‘153 missing in rig disaster’. Two hundred, twenty-seven men, including construction workers, were working the night shift or in their bunks. The ones inside the accommodation, near the centre of the platform, were killed immediately by the explosion and shaft of fire, which sucked up all the oxygen. The ones working their shift up on deck, were lucky. One survivor said, “It was a case of over the side or die there”. They jumped seventy metres into the heaving, black North Sea. Some were rescued. The emergency procedures didn’t work, nor did the lifeboats. As for the spark which ignited the leaking gas, a welder’s torch was suggested, but it could just as easily have been a guy having a smoke where he wasn’t supposed to. Some of the men I worked with were on the Piper, that night. There were stewards, cooks, office workers, even a few roustabouts, who were lifers on the platforms. They said goodbye to families and friends, went off to work for two weeks at a time, for their whole working lives. Two weeks off every month beat a nine to five. The money was good, there were no expenses at work except tobacco and toothpaste. Your bed was made, your laundry done, there was good food, all you could eat every day, prepared by professional chefs. Many guys got addicted to it. They couldn’t work any other way. The longer you did it, the harder it was to leave. Those crews packed their bags for that two week trip in the summer of 1988, said their goodbyes, never came back. The final count was 164 dead.

http://www.grokodile.com/dir/Canada/Ontario/?loc=Ottawa&s=4590

As first-responders are working to provide these families with electricity, water, and other critical resources, First Book—in partnership with our local volunteers and partners—is raising funds to restock school and home libraries. After distributing more than 5 million books in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we know new books can be valuable lifelines for those whose worlds have been turned upside down.

Your help will ensure that children in need will have new books — stories at bedtime, the chance to be transported to another world, and the opportunity to return to normalcy.

Every $2.50 you contribute will provide a new book to a child affected by the storm.

Your impact will also be DOUBLED as each gift of $2.50 will be matched by an additional book from First Book’s publishing partners.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Desert Baths

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends November 10, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Every scene must end in disaster. Really? EVERY scene?
OK. Most scenes.

I only say that every scene must end in disaster because if I give writers wriggle room, they run with it. So, yes, let’s work on the premise that every scene must end in disaster. What disaster? How do you choose?

Progressions. In general, your disasters need to be some sort of progression from bad to worse to absolute worst. Look at your story to find the natural progressions and then try to exaggerate a bit. For example, if a ballerina wants to try out for a dance part, what would be the absolute worst? Showing up drunk, out of shape and sloppily dressed–looking and acting like a bum.

Is that too extreme? Probably. So, back off the Worst scenario to find something reasonable: an injured Achilles tendon; just recovering from emergency appendectomy; a secret habit of drinking; grieving from a family death or tragedy. I like to plan the worst possible then back off from that for about mid-story and back off from that for the story opening. Working backward from Worst seems to ensure for me that I actually GO to the Worst and don’t try to avoid it.

Multiple Disasters. Also think about the subplots and how each of their narrative arcs can add to the overall disasters. By the time you slot into your story plan the Bad/Worse/Worst for the main plot and for a couple subplots, then you’re on your way to every scene ending in disaster. Then, you’ll just have to find ways to create disasters for the extra needed scenes of your story.

Ambiguous Disasters

One tool in your toolbox should be the ambiguous disaster. This is when the character appears to win, but in the end, s/he doesn’t. In this scene from Good Will Hunting, Will, Chuckie and their gang go into a Harvard bar (warning: PG-13 for language). Chuckie tries to pick up a couple girls and a Harvard guy steps in to humiliate him. Will steps in, though, to humiliate the Harvard guy. On the surface, Will’s intelligence wins out; but in the end, the Harvard guy wins simply because society recognizes a Harvard degree over native intelligence. It’s a great example of an ambiguous disaster: Will wins on one level but utterly fails on another. It demonstrates (Show-Don’t-Tell) exactly what Will faces in the rest of the story: society’s expectations about intelligence and the role of a college education in getting jobs.

If you can’t see this video, click here.

So, while you must end each scene in a disaster, you can let your character have some level of success–just don’t let it go too far, too early. Remember the mantra: Bad, Worse, Worst.

May Contain Spoilers

From Amazon:

Review:

When it comes to manga lately, I feel like I’ve been living under a rock.  I received this review copy, and wasn’t familiar with the title at all.  I love the cover, though, with the main protagonist standing defiantly, yet a bit battered, and staring boldly ahead.  The cover is very simple and eye-catching, and I immediately sat down to read the book.  Keiko Suenobu is also the author of LIFE, which was being released by  Tokyopop before they shuttered their offices.  I haven’t read any of that series, but after reading Limit, I am tempted to track it down.

Limit is a Lord of the Flies type story.  After their school trip goes horribly wrong and their bus crashes, Kanno and four of her classmates are stranded in the middle of the woods with only their wits to aid in their survival.  With their teachers and classmates dead, the five girls must juggle their fear and panic with their feelings for each other.  This is a diverse group of personalities, from the bullied Morishige, who has the only weapon and is brimming over with hate and resentment, to Kanno, who was part of the popular clique who made Morishige’s life hell at school.  Sakura, the ringleader of the clique, is dead in the bus, and Haru, one of the survivors, isn’t dealing with her best friend’s death very well.  This is a powder  keg of emotions just ready to blow, and only Kamiya realizes that it’s going to take more than luck to survive until they are rescued.  She immediately attempts to use diplomacy and get everyone to work together to ensure their survival, but she’s not having much luck.  There is a lot of resentment and so much ill-will to overcome, that things look bleak for our intrepid cast.

Limit focuses on the complex relationships the girls have formed over the years.  Angry Morishige is delighting in her sudden ascent to the top of the food chain; she’s got the weapon, and she hates everyone enough that she won’t hesitate to use it.  She casts everyone else in the pyramid beneath her, leaving Kanno and Haru to battle it out for the bottom rung of the ladder.  With the weapon, Morishige also controls the meager food supply the girls have foraged from the wreckage of the bus.  After being a bottom-feeder for so long, she is ecstatic to feel some kind of empowerment over the girls who constantly picked on her and made each school day so horrible. 

I thought that this was a great introduction to the series.  I reached the end and wanted more.  The relationship dynamics bubble with emotion and kept me engaged in the book from the first page.  Kanno isn’t an extremely likable character because she always takes the path of least resistance.  She’s a sheep to Sakura’s domineering personality, and once Sakura meets an untimely end, Kanno realizes how meaningless her other relationships truly are.  Avoiding confrontation, kissing up to Sakura, and trying to hold a middle ground so she wasn’t bullied didn’t endear her to her classmates, she is learning the hard way.

I love Keiko Suenobu’s expressive artwork.  I never had to guess how her characters felt as they were maneuvered from one panel to the next.  Emotions are deftly rendered here, and the visuals are as compelling as the prose.  This is a great start to a series that will appeal to fans of conflict driven stories.  I don’t know how the girls are going to reconcile their feelings for each other and still survive all alone in the wilderness, with no food and only a cave for shelter.  I am looking forward to the next volume!

Grade:   B

Review copy provided by publisher

by Paul B. Janeczko   Candlewick 2004   A circus tent. A catastrophic fire. The voices of those who were there, victim and witness, their stories in verse.   On the afternoon of July 6, 1944 a fire broke out at the Ringling Brother's Circus while in performance in Hartford, Connecticut. The tent canvas had been waterproofed with paraffin and gasoline, a combination that turned the entire

Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History Denise Guss and William Lutz

On October 8, 1871, Peshtigo, WI burned down. A combination of drought, wide spread and intense forest fires, and a storm system that most likely spawned an F5 tornado combined to create a firestorm that the armed forces would study in WWII to plan the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo.

There was a tornado of fire, 1000 feet high and 5 miles wide. Sand was turned to glass. A billion tress in Wisconsin's virgin forest were gone--a forest so thick and dense you couldn't walk through it in a straight line, with trees 180 feet tall and so thick two people couldn't hold hands around them. Embers and shrapnel from exploding trees set fire to boats docked 7 miles offshore. The peat bogs smoked for a year afterwards.

Peshtigo had 2000 known residents. 1800 died. Many others outside of Peshtigo, on both sides of the Bay of Greeny Bay died for an estimated death count of 2500. It's hard to say-- no one knew how many people were in the area. Lumberjacks and railway crews mean a transient population. Immigrants arrived on a regular basis, including a boatload the day before. Plus, the fire burned so hot that all that was left of many of the dead was a pile of ashes that then blew away in the storm.

It's the deadliest fire in US history and one of the deadliest natural disasters. (Galveston's the worst, Johnstown or Peshtigo are second and third. Using the numbers that Gess and Lutz put forth, Pestigo was more deadly than the Johnstown Flood.)

Despite all this, have you ever heard of it?

I'm guessing you haven't, and I know why--it took place on the same night as the Great Chicago Fire. We learned about it in school, mainly because we were closer to Peshtigo (about 50 miles north of Green Bay) than Chicago. Even in school though, it was taught alongside Chicago, more of a "by the way, the same night Peshtigo burned down and did a lot more damage and killed a lot more people." I always thought it was coincidence that both fires happened at the same night.

No. Fires had been raging in the upper midwest for months. A prairie fire that swept from the Dakotas, across Minnesota, hit the Wisconsin woods where it met with fires already burning. Coupled with a severe weather pattern on the 8th and large portions of the upper midwest burned on October 8th. Not just in Chicago and NE Wisconsin, but large chunks of Michigan, too.

And when morning dawned, help was hard to come by. The telegraph lines had burned and when they could get their pleas to Green Bay, Milwaukee, Madison, they had already dispatched any supplies they had on hand to Chicago.

This is an excellent social history of Peshtigo before, during, and after the fire. It focuses mainly on the people and the town. It briefly mentions the Michigan fires, but doesn't really talk about them. It does talk about the Chicago fire. I could have used a little more "big picture" to see how much burned that night.

My only other complaint is the way they use "Green Bay" is confusing. Green Bay refers to two things--

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By Sharon Zukin

The world’s biggest cities often spawn disaster scenarios—those end-of-the-world, escape-from-New-York exaggerations of urban dystopia.  Once limited to printed texts and paintings, visions of urban apocalypse have become ever more accessible in newspaper photographs, movies and video games.  They form a collective urban imaginary, shaping the dark side of local identity and civic pride.

New York is especially attractive as a site of imagined disaster.  Maybe it’s payback for the city’s hubris and chutzpah, or perhaps there’s something in the American character that yearns for and fears creative destruction.  If there is a general hunger for destruction stories, it is fed by the knowledge that the cities we build are vulnerable.  The terrorists’ attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 brought this point home to Americans, renewing dormant anxiety about nuclear war and environmental disaster.

But what if the city’s built environment suffers from slow erosion rather than a single cataclysm like Hurricane Katrina?  Can we visualize the slow creep of problems as well as we imagine the sudden onset of disaster and summon the will to change course?

“Rising Currents,” a recent exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, pitted five teams of architects, engineers and urban designers against a gradual but dramatic rise in sea level resulting from global climate change.  The challenge: to retrofit the city’s waterfront to survive and prosper after a new Flood.

Cities have a troubled history with water.  From building walls around wells in ancient deserts to colonizing rivers for the expansion of trade, human settlements have worn down maritime nature with a steady ooze of cement.  Building dams in the West of the United States,  India and China, crowding cities near the Danube River in Eastern Europe, throwing landfill into Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor as well as into New York Bay: all of these have reduced water resources to serve human needs.

Global cities, those capitals of capital, are the biggest offenders.  As one of the architectural teams engaged in the MoMA exhibition points out, two piers built for oil depots on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River are each two miles long—as long as the Twin Towers of the old World Trade Center were high.

What’s most impressive about a rising water level is the sense that nature is taking back from the human world.  And what’s most impressive about the architectural projects in “Rising Currents” is the sensibility that human survival depends on adaptation rather than pacification.

There are good ideas here.  The keywords are conservation, production and conversion:  creating a transportation network of ferry boats rather than cars and buses, developing oyster beds off the Brooklyn shore, reshaping fuel depots to use less land.  But how can a city government—one whose modest plans for renovating parkland are constantly plagued by cost overruns and delays—undertake these projects?

Privatization is not the answer.  Only a state can coordinate long-term efforts to rebuild for urban survival.  The recent rescue of the Chilean miners from their underground prison suggests to some people that a non-governmental mobilization of global resources can be successful against great odds.  In that case, though, individuals, industries and governments united around one clear goal.  To rebuild the waterfront, many conflicts of interest would h

Scene Quiz: From a Harvard Bar to Your Scenes

Yesterday, we talked about what you’d find if you dissected a good scene. Today, we’ll apply this information by studying a scene from the classic movie, Good Will Hunting. (Warning: Adult language) Then, you can apply it to your own scenes.

Watch this four minute scene and identify the following:

1. What happens in the beginning phase?
2. What happens in the middle phase?
3. What is the turning point or focal point of the story?
4. How does the scene end? In a disaster (tragedy), in success, or somewhere in between? At the end, what has changed for each character?
5. What is the setting for this scene? Why is this an appropriate scene for the action that happens?
6. What is the underlying emotions of this scene, the pulse, as Sandra Scofield calls it?
7. List at least 3 reasons why this is a necessary scene for this story.
8. What else do you notice about scenes by studying this film clip?

Repeat this analysis for each of the scenes in your novel.
If you want confirmation of your answers, or want to discuss the analysis, please leave a comment.

I was following the Louisville Free Public Library disaster/flooding yesterday via Greg Schwartz’s tweeting and twitpics but I was travelling home. Today, there’s been time for more recapping and reflection from the online community including this very good and succinct post from Rachel Walden: How You Can Help the Louisville Free Public Library Recover from Disaster. Upshot: don’t send books, consider contributing to the LSW fundraising drive. Send Greg and the other employees your best wishes

Almost every day, somewhere in the world, there are people who visit the threshold between life and death unexpectedly - and survive.

Whether it is a plane crash or an avalanche, if you believe the anecdotal evidence, the experience seems to create a need to live for today. All the unnecessary flotsam and jetsam that is a part of our lives, and at times seems almost the most important part, is suddenly irrelevant. We realise that in these moments of extreme danger they contribute nothing to our ability to survive.


As a writer you could look at this in various ways.

At the most basic level these events in themselves can create a gripping opening or a thrilling climax.

When editing we need to be brutal and give no quarter when redrafting our words; to cut away all the excess and trivia, polishing each piece like a skilled craftsman who cuts away at a diamond to reveal the perfect stone and then polishes it to glistening perfection.

In the plot we need some of the flotsam and jetsam of life to create problems for our characters and to add texture to the lives they lead. It can help to reveal the characters' values and their relationships.

Also, something that might seem trivial in a critical situation can have value in different circumstances. The pursuit of wealth may seem trivial if your life is at risk, but without the means to put food on the table we cannot continue to live a normal life.

Despite the reality check that a disaster creates we all need the minutiae of our daily lives to continue in some fashion.

All these aspects of disaster can feed the writer within us.



Don't forget - it's still not too late to enter the great book giveaway competition and sign the guestbook.

Disaster strikes as this four-legged, googly-eyed fiend wreaks havoc on the Mile High City skyline. Not sure which ocean he crawled out of, but regardless, it woulda been a long walk... maybe he hitchhiked... Oh, yeah... no thumbs.

This was a promo/bookmark I did a few years back, and a tribute to the coolest stop-motion animator of all time.

Free Bonus: Feel free to print this out, and make a your very own "BarryHausen Attacks" bookmark! Destined to be a collector's item some day... amongst junk collectors that is.

My Blog

© 2008 Barry/Right-Hemisphere Laboratory

Haitian novelist and memoirist extraordinaire Edwidge Danticat was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award for her most recent book Brother, I'm Dying; you can read an interview about her book and the nomination here. A few weeks before the awards, however, Danticat was gracious enough to talk a bit about her childhood in Brooklyn. Though Danticat no longer lives here, the borough's literary culture is a little bit richer for having her.

Brooklyn Lit Life
Edwidge Danticat

Describe your particular literary project, and your role in it.
It’s a book called Brother, I’m Dying, a family memoir.

Why Brooklyn? What made you decide to live/work here, in both practical and emotional terms?
My father moved here when I was 2 and my mother when I was 4. They left me in Haiti with my aunt and uncle while getting settled here. With immigration red tape it took us 8 years to be reunited in Brooklyn when I was twelve years old.

Is there a Brooklyn sensibility or character? How would you describe it? How does it differ from the character of New York City as a whole?
Brooklyn is like a microcosm in the world. So many people from Brooklyn come from somewhere else, even somewhere else in the United States. Brooklynites are feisty and strong and proud. I meet people all the time from all over the world who have some type of connection to Brooklyn and they are always very proud of it.

What about your particular neighborhood? Does it have its own unique character? This can include the kinds of people you tend to find there, particular characters or places that epitomize the neighborhood, etc.
I grew up in East Flatbush which was a very Caribbean neighborhood. You could/can find spices and foods there that you can find in Port-au-Prince, or Kingston. That made it feel even more like home, in spite of the cold winters. Also the labor day Caribbean festival is unmatched in its scale in the States. It’s a wonderful carnival that we all participated in from my community and others.

Is there a Brooklyn literary sensibility? Which writers or works most emblematize Brooklyn for you? Which older writers set the tone? Which contemporary writers are you reading with interest?
Paul Auster has it. Sapphire, Gloria Naylor Paule Marshall, Jacqueline Woodson, Jonathan Safran Sofer [sic], Jonathan Lethem of course are all emblematic Brooklyn writers. But we have wonderful writers too who even though they’re not writing about Brooklyn yet are now part of the fabric, writers like Jhumpa Lahiri and other more recent Brooklynites.

Why do you think Brooklyn has such a dense population of writers? Is there something particularly literary about Brooklyn? Where and how do people read here?
Brooklyn lacks the craziness of having to be all business all the time publishing wise, plus it offers a community. I think that’s very appealing to writers.

What events, series, readings, happenings, places, stores, publications, movements, etc. seem to you currently interesting or important in the Brooklyn literary world?
The Brooklyn public libraries have some great liteary events. The Brooklyn book festival is fabulous. I’ve never seen that many people at a book event in Brooklyn. BAM is a great treasure, our own Lincoln Center with edge. There are also a slew of smaller event within the different ethnic communities that are very exciting.

Imagine the ideal Brooklyn bookstore or literary venue, a place you'd like to read on your own or participate in literary community. What would it be like? What would it avoid?
Nkiru Books when it existed was great. It was a great independent that brought wonderful writers like that. More small independent bookstores would be great.

This might sound silly, but maybe not all Brooklynites live in Brooklyn. I know Sarah Weinman, subject of today's interview, from the blogging world -- she's a member emeritus of the Litblog Co-Op -- but over the past year we've had coffee at Gorilla and run into each other at various Brooklyn and Manhattan events, and had great discussions about the possibilities for literature (and bookstores) in the borough. As a crime fiction critic, I feel she's got a great sense of place and atmosphere, and I'm proud to include her in the Brooklyn Lit Life project under her moniker of choice: "Sarah Weinman, faux-Brooklynite."

Brooklyn Lit Life Interview
Sarah Weinman

Describe your particular literary project, and your role in it.

I'm a freelance writer and wear a number of hats. I co-edit GalleyCat, mediabistro.com's publishing industry news blog; I write monthly crime fiction columns for the LA Times Book Review and the Baltimore Sun; I contribute to a number of other publications including the Philadelphia Inquirer, Poets & Writers and Time Out New York; and I blog about crime and mystery fiction at my own site, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.

Why Brooklyn? What made you decide to live/work here, in both practical and emotional terms?

Here I must confess I am a Manhattanite, living in close proximity to Columbia, but I'm a frequent visitor to Brooklyn and wish I spent more time hanging out in Prospect Park on an almost daily basis.

Is there a Brooklyn sensibility or character? How would you describe it? How does it differ from the character of New York City as a whole?

Like most of New York, Brooklyn seems to be composed of a number of disparate neighborhoods. Park Slope is totally different from Boerum Hill which is totally different from Canarsie which is totally different from Williamsburg. It's easier to raise a family and live - at least by NY standards - relatively modestly. Generally Brooklyn is more bullshit-free than Manhattan, but when there's bullshit, it's at epic proportions.

What about your particular neighborhood? Does it have its own unique character? This can include the kinds of people you tend to find there, particular characters or places that epitomize the neighborhood, etc.

I spend most of my time in Prospect Lefferts Gardens if I'm out in Brooklyn and the more time I spend there the more I love it. Reminds me of my own neighborhood, Manhattan Valley, for its ethnic diversity, neighborhood vibe and complete lack of Starbucks, Bank of America or Duane Reade.

What do you think of the direction Brooklyn, or at least your neighborhood, is going? What does the future look like in terms of economics, demographics, culture, and other changes?

From what I can see of PLG, it's gentrifying but at a slower pace than the rest of the borough. That's because of housing constraints, and there are things I wish were present - okay, a sushi restaurant, sue me - but once the Big Three step in, we're in trouble.

Is there a Brooklyn literary sensibility? Which writers or works most emblematize Brooklyn for you? Which older writers set the tone? Which contemporary writers are you reading with interest?

The funny thing is, even though there are so many Brooklyn-based writers, I'm not sure what the sensibility is. More family oriented, not necessarily. More urban? Maybe. I guess Paula Fox and Jonathan Lethem best encapsulate Brooklyn, with lots in between.

Why do you think Brooklyn has such a dense population of writers? Is there something particularly literary about Brooklyn? Where and how do people read here?

I would guess it's because a) it's cheaper than Manhattan, though who knows for how long b) it feels more like a neighborhood c) where several writers are, more will follow.

What events, series, readings, happenings, places, stores, publications, movements, etc. seem to you currently interesting or important in the Brooklyn literary world? What do you think would make Brooklyn better as a literary place? What does the borough still need? What are the opportunities and challenges it faces?

Well the Book Festival is a good start. A bookstore like what you imagine would be fantastic. Maybe just an increased sense of community and goodwill.

Imagine the ideal Brooklyn bookstore or literary venue, a place you'd like to read on your own or participate in literary community. What would it be like? What would it avoid?

Flippant answer: no hipsters, just genuine love of books. Real answer: Well, a sense of the genuine is important, because what should be primary in everything is the love of books. I like the idea of an airy space, where people can meet and have book clubs and discussions and there's a sense of comfort and easygoing nature. Grassroots, built from the ground up, that sort of thing.

I have to admit I've never met BOMB editor Nicole Steinberg in person -- our connection was forged via an email chain, friend to associate to colleague etc. And I'm thrilled to admit I've never been to half of the Brooklyn literary venues she describes -- because that means there's so much more still to discover! Her responses to the Brooklyn Lit Life questions renew my optimism for the borough all over again (I love her thoughts on neighbors and neighborhoods), and inspire me to widen my own circle of literary experiences here (if only in hopes of running into her). Read on, and get out there!

Brooklyn Lit Life Interview:
Nicole Steinberg

Describe your particular literary project, and your role in it.

I’m the Associate Editor at BOMB magazine, a not-for-profit arts and culture magazine in its 26th year of publication. BOMB used to be located in Soho, but moved to Fort Greene in 2004 and is now a very visible publication in the Brooklyn literary scene. My position bridges both the editorial and marketing departments, so I get to contribute to the magazine’s content while taking part in events and public programming, much of which occurs in Brooklyn.

I also host and curate a reading series called Earshot, which takes place twice a month at The Lucky Cat in Williamsburg. The series is dedicated to the presence of emerging writers in the New York City area, and each event features three local MFA students as well as two featured writers, from all genres.

Why Brooklyn? What made you decide to live/work here, in both practical and emotional terms?

Earshot used to take place on the Lower East Side, but I really like hosting it in Brooklyn now. A lot of literary-minded people are here, and the series attracts a wonderful audience that didn’t necessarily attend before. The neighborhood has an extremely hospitable atmosphere that, I feel, encourages literary growth.

Oh, and I actually live in Queens! How subversive is that?!

Is there a Brooklyn sensibility or character? How would you describe it? How does it differ from the character of New York City as a whole?

It’s a really welcoming borough. The residents seem a bit more…worldly, in a more practical way than typical Manhattanites. And there’s something about Brooklyn that inspires literary folks. Maybe it’s the brownstones or the parks, or the way many of its neighborhoods feel wholesome yet rough-edged at the same time. Even the less popular and/or ritzy areas evoke a sense of nostalgia. I’d say the Brooklyn sensibility is a lot more laidback than Manhattan, and a lot less severe. There’s less of a black and white aura there, and more places for a person to fit in.

What about your particular neighborhood? Does it have its own unique character? This can include the kinds of people you tend to find there, particular characters or places that epitomize the neighborhood, etc.

I hold the Earshot readings in Williamsburg, which is pretty much full of hipsters, all of them really young.. I remember the first time I had an event there, it was an evening in January and the sky was dark by 6 PM, and I thought I was going to get killed walking beneath the BQE. Now I’m really accustomed to the neighborhood and marvel at how trendy it is. On my walk from the subway to the bar, I pass gourmet groceries, galleries, vintage boutiques, etc. Oh, and Luna Lounge, of course. I just hosted the first event of the 2007/08 season last week, after a two month summer hiatus, and couldn’t believe how many places had closed during the interim, and how many places were open. I saw a restaurant that had closed, and on the same block, an apartment building that was finally done with construction. It’s amazing how fast things can change there, how rapidly the neighborhood is growing, even after the initial boom. And unlike other parts of Brooklyn, I can almost always get a cab there.

As for Fort Greene, it’s also become really trendy in the past few years. It’s really neighborhoody, which is nice in terms of morale; there’s something great to be said for going to work in an area where you can actually enjoy taking a stroll during an afternoon break, or have a leisurely outdoor lunch, as opposed to bumping into a thousand people while walking down just one city block. There are quite a few gorgeous tree-lined blocks with wall-to-wall brownstones. Most of my colleagues walk to work from home and I’m always ever so jealous.

What do you think of the direction Brooklyn, or at least your neighborhood, is going? What does the future look like in terms of economics, demographics, culture, and other changes?

More babies. Lots and lots of babies. And restaurants that only open for business four months out of the year.

Why do you think Brooklyn has such a dense population of writers? Is there something particularly literary about Brooklyn? Where and how do people read here?

Didn’t most of the National Book Award winners last year come from Brooklyn? I might be wrong about that, but gosh, there are a lot of amazing contemporary writers there: Matthea Harvey, John Haskell, Mónica de la Torre…. Not to mention all of my writerly friends who can’t afford Manhattan (and don’t want to live there, even they did). A lot of Earshot readers live in Brooklyn, too. Like I said, it’s an inspiring environment. And it hasn’t yet gotten completely saturated in terms of real estate, so writers can still (sometimes) afford to live there. And since it’s more conducive to neighborhoods, it’s also conducive to neighbors, and writers/readers will find each other and start joint projects, reading groups, etc. Everyone is genuinely interested in what everyone else is doing. And there are more opportunities for people to build small bookstores, cafes, bars and venues that actually flourish, thanks to the word-of-mouth that keeps them going. As someone who once feared for her life walking down Metropolitan Avenue, I can definitely attest to the fact that the dearth of awesome, talented people located in Brooklyn makes the trek out there a lot more appealing than it used to be.

What events, series, readings, happenings, places, stores, publications, movements, etc. seem to you currently interesting or important in the Brooklyn literary world?

Earshot! And, let’s see… an excellent reading series venue is Williamsburg’s Stain Bar, as well as 440 Gallery and the Perch Café in Park Slope. Lots of small presses live in Brooklyn as well, including Akashic Books, Archipelago Books, and, once upon a time, Soft Skull. BookCourt is probably my favorite Brooklyn bookstore. Hmm. Thinking about it makes me realize that a lot of the Brooklyn literary scene is centered on Park Slope. I’d love to see an awesome reading series in, say, Bensonhurst. But then it might be tough to get people out there—almost as tough as it is getting people out to Queens.

Also, one of my favorite annual events is the Brooklyn Book Festival. I missed it this year, sadly, as I was out of town. But I just love seeing all those literary geeks in one place, selling their wares and ideas. They’re truly my people.

Imagine the ideal Brooklyn bookstore or literary venue, a place you'd like to read on your own or participate in literary community. What would it be like? What would it avoid?

I think one of the reasons Earshot does so well is because it’s held at an amazing venue: The Lucky Cat, on Grand Street between Roebling and Driggs. It’s a bar/restaurant that’s very atmospheric but also cozy and comforting. People feel really at home when they enter, and that’s an invaluable aspect to any literary venue, since it puts the readers and audience at ease. Also, they give the reading series curator free beer, and that ain’t nothing to sneeze at.

My ideal Brooklyn bookstore would have lots and lots of literary magazines and journals, a huge poetry section, a huge graphic novels section, and would reach out to the community by hosting lots of events, workshops and excellent readings, not just by Brooklyn writers (although that would be wonderful), but also writers from other boroughs. As much as I applaud the Brooklyn lit scene’s tendency to cheer itself on (“We love Brooklyn! Yay, Brooklyn!”), I feel it’s important not to be too exclusive. Or maybe that’s just the Queens Girl in me, demanding satisfaction.

Richard Grayson is the real thing: born and raised in Brooklyn, he's equally at home in the old neighborhood and the hipster revival. His name may be new to you, but he's been writing fiction and nonfiction since the 1970s, and he often writes about current literary events in New York on his MySpace blog. I'm grateful that he followed up on our earlier email correspondence by writing about his memories of the bookstores of Brooklyn; his knowledge of the borough, and his love for it, is deep and wide.

Brooklyn Lit Life Interview
Richard Grayson

Describe your particular literary project, and your role in it.

I’ve been writing stories since the early 1970s. They’ve been collected, rather haphazardly, into various books, but I never intended to write any books. My first three books, published in the late 1970s and early 1980s, were all the result of publishers contacting me, taking all the stories I sent them, and working them into collections. Later books were published pretty much the same way. I also write memoir and other nonfiction, from humor pieces to op-ed opinion pieces, and in 2004 McSweeney’s published my diary as a Florida congressional candidate on its website and I turned that into a book.

Why Brooklyn? What made you decide to live/work here, in both practical and emotional terms?

I was born here, in Brownsville, in 1951 and grew up in East Flatbush, Gravesend and then mostly in a neighborhood known variously as Flatlands, Old Mill Basin and Kings Plaza (after the mall opened a few blocks away in 1970). Most of the kids I went to public schools and Brooklyn College with couldn’t wait to escape the borough for someplace nicer. I loved growing up here, in a place half urban, half suburban. Our house had a swimming pool, I started driving as soon as I could, yet – unlike most of the kids in my neighborhood – I adored going into “the city,” as we called it. But the future of the borough looked pretty grim in the 1970s, and by the 1980s I was living in Florida and spending most summers on the Upper West Side.

I’ve lived most of my life in Florida and other Sun Belt states and came back here last year. However, I did have brief sublets in the intervening years in Sheepshead Bay, Park Slope and Williamsburg and visited often, so I never really lost touch with Brooklyn.

Brooklyn’s my hometown. I think it’s greatly instructive to return to your hometown when you’re over 55.

Is there a Brooklyn sensibility or character? How would you describe it? How does it differ from the character of New York City as a whole?

I think it’s a kind of feistiness, perhaps engendered by a sense of inferiority to Manhattan. Everyone in the US and maybe the world had heard of Brooklyn. I grew up on all those World War II movies where there always seemed to be a Brooklyn guy in the platoon, with his funny accent and street-smart ways. Obviously that’s morphed a lot in the past half-century, but I think a version of it remains.

There’s also the sense of diversity that I grew up with, although neighborhoods were always quite distinct. I always enjoyed that and liked to travel on buses around Brooklyn outside my own neighborhood, which was very Italian and Jewish. As a kid, I was so nerdy that I liked to collect bus transfers from the different lines. Since I’ve been back, I’ve been continuing to ride the buses. A whole lot of non-brownstone Brooklyn exists that many newer and younger residents reading this probably rarely see.

I love living in Williamsburg, but when I was growing up and even in college, I felt sorry for people who had to live in what I thought was a run-down, decaying neighborhood. Some of my friends who did grow up around here don’t have such good memories and don’t enjoy coming back.

What about your particular neighborhood? Does it have its own unique character? This can include the kinds of people you tend to find there, particular characters or places that epitomize the neighborhood, etc.

I’m in Williamsburg now, pretty much at the center of things, with a short walk to everything the neighborhood has to offer. It’s exhilarating to live here. I like the energy, but to an old-time Brooklynite, a lot of what’s going on is pretty amusing.

I live in a house that belongs to friends I’ve known since forever, on a block I’ve come to for many years, and the older residents are the ones I relate to well – though I go to a lot of the readings and concerts and performances and art galleries and McCarren pool events where I see mostly younger people – I hate to use the term hipsters, but what are you going to do?

But I also feel comfortable all over Brooklyn because I know these neighborhoods well. Last week I was one of very few white people at an Anita Baker concert at Wingate Field in a neighborhood I grew up in. My great-grandparents owned a house a few blocks away, and innumerable other relatives were nearby. I feel I belong in Bensonhurst or Gowanus or the Heights or Canarsie or Kensington because I have personal history in all those places.

I was on my old block – East 56th Street between Avenue O and Fillmore – a few days ago, and the neighborhood seems even more idyllic than it used to be, a great place to grow up even if the subway was a 20-minute bus ride away. There was a moving van in front of the house next to door to ours, and I heard the family out front with their stuff speaking Creole. So I asked a teenage boy looking bored off to the side, “Sak pasé, are you moving in or out?” Out, he said, to Florida – where they can get a house twice as big for half the money. Just like my family when they moved to Florida in 1979. My parents had lived in Brooklyn all their lives.

What do you think of the direction Brooklyn, or at least your neighborhood, is going? What does the future look like in terms of economics, demographics, culture, and other changes?

Thirty years ago, when I was in my twenties, the long-range prediction was that Brooklyn would go the way of Buffalo, Detroit, and St. Louis. There were contrary voices that proved more prescient but the predominant mood was gloom over the decay and a nostalgia for the gloried past of the Dodgers, street stickball, eggcreams, etc.

I try to deal with the changes I’ve seen in some of my stories in And to Think That He Kissed Him on Lorimer Street, such as the title story which alternates between 2005 and the 1970s, or in quasi-memoirs like “The Lost Movie Theaters of Southeastern Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach,” that deal with some of the things that are gone (I’m writing something now about the old Norwegian neighborhood in Bay Ridge that’s mostly disappeared), and in current-day pieces like “Diary of a Brooklyn Cyclones Hot Dog.”

I always thought Brooklyn was a cool place, and I think it will continue to be a cool place. On the other hand, I’ve lived in other parts of the country, and Brooklyn is far from being the only cool place.

I suspect that a good portion of the future literature and art of Brooklyn won’t come from where you’d expect but from non-brownstone Brooklyn, with its immigrants from all over the world. The diversity is breathtaking when I ride the bus down Coney Island Avenue or Third Avenue or Church Avenue.

Two kinds of immigration that saved Brooklyn: the obvious one I just mentioned –fostered after House Judiciary Committee Chairman Emanuel Celler, who represented Brooklyn in Congress for fifty years, got the landmark 1965 immigration bill passed – and the migration of the artistic and professional classes into neighborhoods that started becoming trendy as early as the late 1970s right in the midst of the general decay.

Is there a Brooklyn literary sensibility? Which writers or works most emblematize Brooklyn for you? Which older writers set the tone? Which contemporary writers are you reading with interest?

Growing up, I loved books about other kids in Brooklyn: first and foremost, Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and then Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep, Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, Brownstones, Irving Shulman’s The Amboy Dukes and later Chaim Potok’s The Chosen and Jay Neugeboren’s An Orphan’s Tale.

Other great older Brooklyn books are Daniel Fuchs’ Williamsburg Trilogy, Wallace Markfield’s hilarious To an Early Grave (later turned into the film Bye Bye Braverman), Aflfred Kazin’s A Walker in the City, Michael Stephens’ Brooklyn Book of the Dead, Jack Pulaski’s The St. Veronica Gig Stories (a terrific Williamsburg book), Hubert Selby Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn, Pietro di Donato’s Christ in Concrete and Bernard Malamud’s The Assistant.

Fiction writers whose works emblemize Brooklyn for me also include Irwin Shaw, Norman Mailer, Woody Allen (whose photo I used to pass every day changing classes at Midwood), Gilbert Sorrentino, James Purdy, Paula Fox, Pete Hamill, Gloria Naylor, Jonathan Baumbach, Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, Jane Schwartz, Thomas Glynn, Jacqueline Woodson, Pietro di Donato, Thomas Boyle, Edwidge Danticat, and Robert Greenfield.

In poetry, Marianne Moore and later Harvey Shapiro, Robert Hershon and Martin Espada. In drama, Arthur Miller, whose mother used to play cards with my great-grandmother, as well as Donald Margulies.

The best recent Brooklyn writing for me has come from Jonathan Lethem and Paul Auster. Touré told me about a novel he’s working on that sounds wonderful.

Why do you think Brooklyn has such a dense population of writers? Is there something particularly literary about Brooklyn? Where and how do people read here?

I got an incredible literary education at J.H.S. 284 in East Flatbush, at Midwood High School, and then at Brooklyn College, where I studied with writers who themselves had grown up in Brooklyn. Despite coming from a working class background where the only college graduates I knew were my teachers and my doctors, since I was very little I assumed living in Brooklyn meant I could become a writer.

In my story “Branch Libraries of Southeastern Brooklyn,” I explore my love for the libraries here. But there were also numerous places to buy books in Brooklyn in the old days, when all bookstores were independent bookstores. The one I liked best was a tiny store, The Book Worm, on Flatbush Avenue off Church, a couple of stores down from the Dutch Reformed Church and across from Erasmus Hall High School and the Astor Theatre, which played foreign and “art” movies. I’d go into The Book Worm with a twenty-dollar bill that my father or grandfather had given me and buy loads of Bantam and Signet paperbacks for a quarter or 35 cents each – later they got more expensive, of course, but still relatively cheap. I can recall buying The Crying of Lot 49 there, and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and Franny and Zooey and Manhattan Transfer.

But it seemed every neighborhood at least the next best thing: the stationery stores, family-owned drug stores and little holes-in-the-wall that sold cheap mass market paperbacks, including the “classics” lines with everything from Greek drama and Shakespeare to Mark Twain and James Joyce, along with the latest bestsellers (and yes, I read a lot of wonderful crap, too).

There was the My Friends Bookstore that also had used comics on Clarendon Road east of Flatbush Avenue and a store whose name I can’t remember on Kings Highway around East 18th Street owned by two young lesbians who introduced me to writers like Rita Mae Brown and Colette and Jean Rhys. Not far away, just off Kings Highway on Coney Island Avenue, there was a little used bookstore run by the mother of a Brooklyn College classmate that had some odd and interesting volumes. And Sandy Tischoff’s Mostly Books on Cortelyou Road was like a country store gossip exchange for Flatbush that lasted until the 1990s.

Earlier, first-class book departments existed in the department stores like Macy’s on Flatbush Avenue and at E.J. Korvette and Abraham & Straus on Fulton Street, where I worked in my uncle’s slacks store in my early teens, and where I’d spend my money during lunch hours. There were also a couple of musty Fourth Avenue-style used bookstores one block south of Fulton on Livingston Street and another one on Montague Street in the Heights and on Utica Avenue near Carroll Street in Crown Heights that also had comics (I remember buying the first issue of Green Lantern there). A candy store every few blocks on Avenue N and many other avenues sold the comic books I was crazy about.

The Barrons and Barchas bookstores on Hillel Place sold not only college textbooks but also some great literary books when trade paperbacks started becoming the norm.
And there were the really good Community Bookstores in Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope, where a few stores down on Seventh Avenue there was also the Second Story Bookstore whose yellow steps said something like “Don’t be lazy, books are waiting for you upstairs.”

But by the time I started Brooklyn College in 1969 and taught at LIU downtown in 1975, most of the venues that sold good books had closed. In 1970 when Kings Plaza opened, Waldenbooks – the big shopping mall chain -- had a store there. It wasn’t great, but it was three blocks from my house, and they did take a lot of copies of my first book of mostly Brooklyn stories, With Hitler in New York, when it came out in 1979.

However, by then I pretty much went to Manhattan for books: Eighth Street, Gotham, Shakespeare & Company, Soho Books, Doubleday, B. Dalton, Books & Company, St. Marks, Coliseum and the rest, including a bunch of literary bookstores whose names I’ve forgotten and which are long gone.

I’m glad to see we have some new and wonderful bookstores in Brooklyn again.

What events, series, readings, happenings, places, stores, publications, movements, etc. seem to you currently interesting or important in the Brooklyn literary world?

I’m no expert on today’s scene, but I’d say the Brooklyn Book Fair, Fort Greene Summer Literary Festival, and the many reading series at a number of venues around the borough, in bars and bookstores and other places, such as at the Stain Bar, Unnameable Books and the Old Stone House. Also there are excellent literary events at the public library, at Brooklyn College (where the MFA program is now one of the best in the country), and at less-heralded venues like Medgar Evers College. 826NYC in the Slope is doing amazing things for kids. There are great organizations and publications located in Brooklyn. The borough president’s office has been very helpful, and I don’t say that just because I’ve known Marty Markowitz since his graduate student government days at BC in the early 1970s.

I reviewed Kate Christensen's most recent novel The Great Man very briefly back in June, though not nearly enough to get across my enthusiasm for her witty, compassionate, sly, suspenseful story, with some jabs at the art world and the patriarchy to boot. I've also loved all her previous novels -- In the Drink, Jeremy Thrane, and The Epicure's Lament -- and I was thrilled to host her at a book party at McNally Robinson in mid-August. She graciously agreed to be a part of the Brooklyn Lit Life series, and her answers seem much like one of The Great Man's heroines, Teddy St. Cloud: basking in the uniquely vibrant isolation that's on offer in the borough of Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Lit Life
Kate Christensen

Why Brooklyn? What made you decide to live/work here, in both practical and emotional terms?

Brooklyn is the best place to live in the world, at least in terms of the places I’ve seen and visited and lived. I’ve lived in Greenpoint for almost 5 years, and before that I lived in Williamsburg – I moved to North Brooklyn in 1990 and except for a 3-year stint in the East Village, I have lived here ever since. North Brooklyn has low rooftops and big skies, cozy public hangouts, an undeveloped (until recently) waterfront, and a sense of scruffy, do-it-yourself, gritty, boho glamour. Of course that’s changing now, commercializing and verticalizing, but maybe, I hope, not as drastically as it appears on the surface. There’s plenty of neighborhood left here.


Is there a Brooklyn sensibility or character? How would you describe it? How does it differ from the character of New York City as a whole?

A Brooklyn sensibility… I don’t know – there are so many different neighborhoods here, so many different kinds of people – Brooklyn has a sense of community I didn’t find in Manhattan. Greenpoint is neighborhoody – but not in a small-town way, in a big-city, multicultural, mind-your-own-business way. Manhattan feels crowded and claustrophobic and touristy by comparison. I haven’t lived in any of the other boroughs, so I couldn’t compare it to Queens or the Bronx. There’s also an expectation that of course we’re all different races, religions, and ethnicities – a profound sense of tolerance for our own. Bu tin terms of the changes being wrought right now, there is also fierce, emotional, loud, organized resistance to incursions from corporate takeover of small businesses – opposition to the high-rises going up everywhere – but we can’t stop it.


What about your particular neighborhood? Does it have its own unique character? This can include the kinds of people you tend to find there, particular characters or places that epitomize the neighborhood, etc.

Greenpoint used to be a rough and tumble place, an immigrant waterfront community. Now it’s gentrifying, of course, because what isn’t, but it’s still got grit and edge – it used to be predominantly Irish and Italian, but now it’s become a Polish enclave. Many of the shop signs up on Manhattan Avenue are in Polish, a lot of the store clerks speak Polish. Polish food abounds up at the Associated, my local grocery store. But they also stock Matzoh and refrito. Over towards the Newtown Creek, it’s still very old-school, very rough. But the closer you get to McCarren Park, the more hipsters driving Priuses you see.


What do you think of the direction Brooklyn, or at least your neighborhood, is going? What does the future look like in terms of economics, demographics, culture, and other changes?

More corporate high-rise condos, less affordable housing, and everything that implies. It sucks. People in the neighborhood have fought hard and long and vocally against it, but it’s unstoppable, or so it seems.


Is there a Brooklyn literary sensibility? Which writers or works most emblematize Brooklyn for you? Which older writers set the tone? Which contemporary writers are you reading with interest?

I always think of Henry Miller as the quintessential Brooklyn writer -- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as the quintessential Brooklyn novel. I read everything Jonathan Lethem writes. I loved Jami Attenberg’s forthcoming The Kept Man, which captures something essential about Williamsburg. I don’t think there’s a literary “sensibility” here per se at all –every Brooklyn writer I have read is a singular bird. I would say there’s an enormous concentration of talent and even brilliance here, though.


Why do you think Brooklyn has such a dense population of writers? Is there something particularly literary about Brooklyn? Where and how do people read here?

I don’t go to readings in Brooklyn. I once read at Millie’s in Ft Greene – years and years ago – it was my first public reading. But I haven’t read here since. I think writers love to live here because it’s New York City, but you can hear yourself think; you can walk the streets anonymously, lost in your thoughts, but you can also see the sky and have a sense of being enclosed in a neighborhood. It’s the best place in the world to live if you’re a writer, I think.


What events, series, readings, happenings, places, stores, publications, movements, etc. seem to you currently interesting or important in the Brooklyn literary world?

None – I am totally disconnected from whatever literary scene there may be here.


What do you think would make Brooklyn better as a literary place? What does the borough still need? What are the opportunities and challenges it faces?

We need a great bookstore right here in Greenpoint with a café, a bookstore with a neighborhoody feel where people can hang out and sit in armchairs, drink a cup of tea, attend low-key readings.


Imagine the ideal Brooklyn bookstore or literary venue, a place you'd like to read on your own or participate in literary community. What would it be like? What would it avoid?

It would have an inviting atmosphere – good music – tea and coffee – dog-friendly. Great books, old and new, major publishers and small presses – but chosen with a sense of real quality, a knowledge of what’s worthwhile, what’s important, and what’s just plain entertaining page-turning fun.


Note: After she submitted her interview, we had a great email exchange about Word Books, a six-months-old bookstore on Franklin Avenue in Greenpoint, which Kate promises to visit.

As I've been casting about trying to get a sense of the Brooklyn character, turns out the creators of a new book from Brooklyn art publisher powerHouse Books beat me to it. Photographer Seth Kushner and writer Anthony LaSala are the brains behind The Brooklynites, a gorgeous book of photographs, interviews and essays (coming out in October) on the diverse denizens of the best borough. The accompanying photography exhibition will be up at the powerHouse Arena (an amazing combination of "gallery, boutique, book store, performance, and events space" in the DUMBO neighborhood) from September 6 to September 30. Seth and Anthony kindly agreed to a joint email interview for Brooklyn Lit Life, in which they talked about the surprises and rewards of their project and their love for the place they grew up.

Describe your particular literary project, and your role in it.
Why Brooklyn? What made you decide to live/work here, in both practical and emotional terms?

Anthony: I had wanted to work on a long-term project about something I love for a while. Growing up in Brooklyn and living here my whole life (with the exception of four years spent away at college), I have always wanted to explore the borough through writing and photography. I have known Seth since high school (we both went to Abraham Lincoln High School on Ocean Parkway) and when I approached him with the idea, I knew we could really create something special. The design was to capture the words and faces of the people of Brooklyn within the varying neighborhoods of the borough.

Seth: Yeah, it really started with Anthony. I also had been looking for a long-term project to work on for a while, but couldn’t find anything to hold my attention for long enough. So, when Anthony mentioned Brooklyn, I thought, “That’s it.” Of course, I didn’t think it was going to go on for this long. It’s been over three years.

Anthony: We went around to some of our favorite spots in Brooklyn and began meeting people on the street. I would interview them about their experiences living and working in Brooklyn and Seth would photograph them on the spot.

Seth: We devised a system that would allow us to work fast. Anthony had a series of questions that he would ask each time, tailoring them a bit for each individual of course, which would lead them to give him a good quote about their experiences of living in Brooklyn. I would then do the shoot with only a Hasselblad, usually no tripod, and a hand-held flash on a long cord, so it would mimic a more complicated lighting set-up. Anthony always holds the flash and I tell him where to point it. Aside from being the writer on the project, he’s also the human light stand. Anyway, all this serves to help us to work quickly, with a minimum of equipment.

Anthony: Eventually we started making appointments with various people. We were trying to meet with every type of person in every neighborhood of the borough. This led to us meeting some famous people from here – Spike Lee, Steve Buscemi, Rosie Perez, Paul Auster, Jonathan Lethem, John Turturro, Fischerspooner, etc…. We also covered every major institution in Brooklyn – The Aquarium, B.A.M., Brooklyn College, The Prospect Park Zoo, The Botanic Gardens, Peter Luger’s, Greenwood Cemetery, The Brooklyn Museum, etc


Is there a Brooklyn sensibility or character? How would you describe it? How does it differ from the character of New York City as a whole?

Anthony: There is definitely a Brooklyn sensibilty. That is what we tried to convey with our project. It’s this unique mix of bravado, frankness and sincerity that you really don’t find anywhere else. I felt it was very important to convey the true emotions and stories of each and every subject. With some people it was easy to pull out their feelings about Brooklyn and their tales. With others it was a little tougher. But I think we did a good job of portraying each of our subjects.

Seth: We also did our best to try to cover every type of person, every nationality, every walk of life, in an attempt to show how incredibly diverse Brooklyn really is.

It’s very interesting to us to see what a particular subject is willing to reveal. Some of the most special moments came when we would approach strangers on the street and we wouldn’t know what they were going to say and then they would surprise us by basically spouting poetry. One such time we were in Bed Stuy and an older black gentleman in a suit danced up on us and said, “You know you wanna take my picture.” He was right, because I did. After the shoot, Anthony went into interview mode and asked his name, which was Billy T. Williams, and his age, to which he responded- ““I'm older than cold water and sweeter than salt.”


What about your particular neighborhood? Does it have its own unique character? This can include the kinds of people you tend to find there, particular characters or places that epitomize the neighborhood, etc.

We did begin the project in our own neighborhood, Bay Ridge. We were very interested in capturing it’s unique character, so one of our first subjects, was Dominick, the barber. For years we always passed by this old time barber shop on Third Avenue and thought how great it would be to photograph. Not only was the shop just classic looking, with old barber chairs, bird cages and an old cash register, but the barber always struck us as a great looking Bay Ridge character. He’s an older Italian gentleman, always dressed in doctor’s scrubs and always with a charming smile. So when we conceived of the project, we thought of him immediately.



What do you think of the direction Brooklyn, or at least your neighborhood, is going? What does the future look like in terms of economics, demographics, culture, and other changes?

Anthony: It’s inevitable to not see the huge transformations going on around Brooklyn. From Red Hook to East New York to Canarsie, the whole place is shifting with new immigrants coming in and huge buildings going up in months. It’s amazing. At the same time I think we both gravitated towards a lot of the places and people that have lingered here through all the metamorphosis’ that have taken place through the years. But it’s all exciting – the changes and the things that remain. It all makes this place special.


Is there a Brooklyn literary sensibility? Which writers or works most emblematize Brooklyn for you? Which older writers set the tone? Which contemporary writers are you reading with interest?

Seth: We actually got to met and work with many of our favorite writers - Jonathan Lethem, Rick Moody, Jonathan Ames, Jonathan Safran Foer Paula Fox and Paul Auster – they all appear in the book. Auster in particular was a “must-have” for us since the beginning. The only problem; he kept turning us down. He was simply too busy, he said, the first three times we contacted him.

Anthony: I even tried tracking him down at a book signing – he said no to the project, but did sign my book

Seth: With the project almost completed, we decided to take one more shot, sending him a letter where we basically pleaded with him by telling him the project “would never be complete without him.”

Anthony: He finally agreed to participate.

Seth: We were nervous entering his Park Slope brownstone on the day of the shoot, because of all the build-up. We didn’t have to be, it turned out, because Auster was gracious and charming. He said our endeavor was a “worthy project.”

Anthony: Meeting him and his wife, author Siri Hustvedt, in their overwhelming beautiful Park Slope home was a highlight for Seth and I. The photograph of him seated in his parlor reveals the architectural beauty inside one of Brooklyn’s famed brownstones as well as the intense eyes behind one of America’s most revered writers.


Why do you think Brooklyn has such a dense population of writers? Is there something particularly literary about Brooklyn? Where and how do people read here?

Anthony: Brooklyn is such an inspiration every single day. Just walking around the block can be stirring. There is always something going on to spur your imagination and your emotions. It’s the perfect place for writers.


What events, series, readings, happenings, places, stores, publications, movements, etc. seem to you currently interesting or important in the Brooklyn literary world?

Seth: I really enjoyed the Brooklyn Book Fest at Borough Hall last year. Anthony and I went for the day and heard some great readings. I think the organizers did a very nice job of bringing Brooklyn’s literary community together and creating an event/forum for everyone, including the readers to be involved. We’re going to be doing a signing there this year and we’re very excited to be a part of it.

Brooklyn Lit Life is a series of interviews with authors, publishers, retailers, bloggers, readers, and others involved in the literary life of my favorite borough. Questions are designed to spark conversation from a variety of perspectives on what characterizes Brooklyn and its neighborhoods as a cultural and literary place. If you'd like to take part or you know a great candidate for the series, email me: booknerdnyc at earthlink dot net.

Brooklyn Lit Life #2: Peter Melman
Peter Melman is a long-time Brooklynite and first-time novelist: his story of a Jewish Civil War soldier, Landsman, was published by Counterpoint in June 2007. I met him at a charming dinner for Counterpoint authors and later hosted his reading at McNally Robinson, and was delighted to learn that he once worked at BookCourt, one of the borough's premier indie bookstores. His cheeky answers to my interview questions reveal a true Brooklyn spirit.

Describe your particular literary project, and your role in it.

Well, I tend to think of Landsman as an epic tale of love, brutality, and one man’s quest for morality in an otherwise indifferent world, framed against the unique backdrop of the Jewish Confederacy and the raunchy underbelly of Civil War-time New Orleans. And as a Jewish kid born in New York but raised in Louisiana, with an undergraduate degree in history and a doctorate in English-Creative Writing, with a bent toward crafting some fairly voluptuous prose, which lends itself well to period pieces, I knew at once I was the writer for this job. And there you have it. Utterly unrehearsed, too.

Why Brooklyn? What made you decide to live/work here, in both practical and emotional terms?

I initially chose Brooklyn because that’s where my wife, then girlfriend, was living at the time we decided to shack up together. My apartment in Manhattan was a rat-trap, literally; hers in Cobble Hill, delightful. It was a no-brainer. That she welcomed me into her life at all is proof-positive of just how fortunate I am.

Is there a Brooklyn sensibility or character? How would you describe it? How does it differ from the character of New York City as a whole?

I think Brooklyn’s so enormous – geographically, demographically, culturally – that any attempt to quantify the borough as a whole is a bit of a fool’s errand. Flatbush differs from Brooklyn Heights, Midwood from Bed-Stuy, and on and on. But what I’ve noticed it does have, collectively, is this: whereas it once possessed an immigrant population’s inferiority complex, an attempt to prove itself worthy of neighboring the more glamorized Manhattan across the river, it now actually seems proud of being the Other, a population distinct from that indigenous to that same glamorized Manhattan.

What about your particular neighborhood? Does it have its own unique character? This can include the kinds of people you tend to find there, particular characters or places that epitomize the neighborhood, etc.

My neighborhood of Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens, once predominately immigrant Italian, is being as gentrified as anywhere else in the borough. It’s lovely, to be sure, but you see more folks like me and my wife running around the area these days than those who were actually born here. Now I’d be a hypocrite if I said my presence wasn’t part of the regrettable push toward ethnic sanitization. Today, we’ve got beautiful brownstones, boutique bars, quaint restaurants, and a marginally slower pace than you might find in Manhattan. It’s also become a veritable Romper Room, only the mommies and daddies all seem to have tattoos, angular eyewear, and degrees from any number of small, northeastern, liberal arts colleges. I can be so glib because I’m among them, trust me.

What do you think of the direction Brooklyn, or at least your neighborhood, is going? What does the future look like in terms of economics, demographics, culture, and other changes?

See above. Only, I envision it getting pricier, less ethnically diverse, and even fuller of toddlers in Metallikid t-shirts.

Is there a Brooklyn literary sensibility? Which writers or works most emblematize Brooklyn for you? Which older writers set the tone? Which contemporary writers are you reading with interest?

Henry and Arthur Miller wrote in the Heights, as did Thomas Wolfe and Truman Capote. Whitman set the first pages of Leaves of Grass on a borrowed printing press on Cranberry Street. Hubert Selby, Jr. was a Brooklynite. Mailer still is. So there’s certainly been an ethos of the sexualized rebel established out this way. Does it still exist? Not as far I can tell. Today you have an understandably younger feel, something more urban and smart, and yet at the same time it’s a bit more angsty in nature than truly rebellious. Of course, I’m generalizing, I know it. Then again, you asked me to.

Why do you think Brooklyn has such a dense population of writers? Is there something particularly literary about Brooklyn? Where and how do people read here?

Brooklyn gained a literary population in the early to mid 20th century because it was simply cheaper than Manhattan. Capote rented a basement on Willow Street, where he wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood, for $90 a month. Today, that same home (not just the basement, to be fair) is renting for $40,000 a month. Times, as they say, have changed. So while there’s a slower pace to Brooklyn, which for me is helpful in getting the work done, I wouldn’t say that modern Brooklyn is particularly helpful for writing. That there are many of us, most who are fairly young, is nice in establishing a sense of community, sure. Then again, most of the writers I’ve met, myself included, aren’t particularly communal when it comes to their work.

What events, series, readings, happenings, places, stores, publications, movements, etc. seem to you currently interesting or important in the Brooklyn literary world?

Housing BEA’s booksellers in the Brooklyn Marriott this year was a terrific idea. I was privileged to lead a group of 25 of them on a walking tour of literary Brooklyn Heights, which, in my research, forced me to be more attuned to the bookish history of the place. Acquiring that knowledge alone made leading the tour worthwhile. Also, founding the Brooklyn Book Fair was a stroke of genius, and BookCourt, an establishment where I once worked but was eventually and deservedly fired, is a fine, fine independent bookstore.

Imagine the ideal Brooklyn bookstore or literary venue, a place you'd like to read on your own or participate in literary community. What would it be like?

Easy. It’d be precisely like McNally-Robinson in Soho, only it’d be located . . . well, you know where. And above the door would be the first line to Capote’s short story, “A House on the Heights,” which celebrates the beauty of the borough, as well as a kind of pride at being the Other I mentioned earlier: “I live in Brooklyn,” he begins. “By choice.”

Today marks the first installment in an ongoing series I'm calling Brooklyn Lit Life: interviews with authors, publishers, retailers, bloggers, readers, and others involved in the literary life of my favorite borough. Questions are designed to spark conversation from a variety of perspectives on what characterizes Brooklyn and its neighborhoods as a cultural and literary place. If you'd like to take part or you know a great candidate for the series, email me: booknerdnyc at earthlink dot net.

Brooklyn Life Life #1: Johnny Temple

Johnny Temple is in some ways the face of Brooklyn literary life. He is the co-founder and publisher of independent press Akashic Books, and the chair of the Brooklyn Literary Council, which organizes the Brooklyn Book Festival. He is also the organizer for the Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival, and I've seen him selling books from a booth at the Atlantic Antic. And that's all when he's not touring with his band, Girls Against Boys. The following is an edited transcript of a phone interview with Johnny on July 27.

Why Brooklyn? What made you decide to live/work here, in both practical and emotional terms?

When I move to New York in 1990 from Washington D.C. where I was born and raised, I had a friend who lived in Fort Greene and had room open. I moved in with him and immediately took to the neighborhood. It was almost a bizarre coincidence, because the cultural life of Fort Greene syncs up so perfectly with my own interests -- literary, musical, cultural, everything. One of my favorite writers is Richard Wright – he was the first African American author to have a bestseller. That book [Native Son] had a major impact on me when I first read it in college, and got me into African American and literature and literature of the African Diaspora. Then I moved to Fort Greene and found out Wright had written parts of Native Son while sitting on benches in Fort Greene Park. I subsequently found out that Whitman and Steinbeck had also lived in the neighborhood. That opened the door to understanding and researching the literary history of Fort Greene and the borough in general. And I still live on the same street, though not in the same building.

Is there a Brooklyn sensibility or character? How would you describe it? How does it differ from the character of New York City as a whole?

Brooklyn is such an incredibly diverse place – as are Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx – though Brooklyn and Queens are probably the most racially, religiously, economically diverse boroughs. So as a result it's a little bit hard to generalize about a Brooklyn spirit or character. Though diversity is part of that character – perhaps its defining characteristic.

One of the things about literature coming out of Brooklyn – for example, in Brooklyn Noir [published by Akashic Books], which is the best anthology of Brooklyn literature out there – I say that as the publisher, but no one has ever disagreed with it… one of the things that characterizes it is a sort of rugged, working class aesthetic. That's not to imply that everyone in Brooklyn is working class – in fact it's rapidly gentrifying. But one of the things that draws people to the place is its everyman spirit, that working class aesthetic. Not that Jonathan Safran Foer is a working class hero (and I don't know Jonathan Safran Foer), but I bet that the rough edges of the borough is what attracted him and writers like him to the borough.

What about your particular neighborhood? Does it have its own unique character? This can include the kinds of people you tend to find there, particular characters or places that epitomize the neighborhood, etc.

Fort Greene is a wellspring of African American and Caribbean culture. The face of the neighborhood is certainly changing as gentrification happens. However, Fort Greene is the place where people like Spike Lee emerged from. In the neighborhood the streets are alive with sense that this is a culturally cutting edge location, partly with regards to black culture. It's no coincidence that you hear Fort Greene name checked in hip hop songs, that it shows up in Spike Lee movies… There's a well established history and legacy of African American culture here, and great writers like Nelson George, Colson Whitehead, Toure live in the neighborhood; these are some of our best black writers, or I should say some of our best writers, period. And there are also newer immigrants like Jhumpa Lahiri and Jennifer Egan who live here now.

What do you think of the direction Brooklyn, or at least your neighborhood, is going? What does the future look like in terms of economics, demographics, culture, and other changes?

I'm not an expert on urban development, so can't really predict where it's headed. When I moved into Fort Greene in 1990 there were crack dealers on the corner, but there was the sense that the neighborhood was on cusp of change. And when I spoke to folks who had lived here since the 70s, they said it had felt like it was on the cusp since the 1980s, though it didn't really start to happen until the mid-90s. The neighborhood has changed; you see more young white hipsters and there are lot more white homeowners. At the same time, it is still a majority black neighborhood, and in addition to white people moving in there are also new black homeowners. The gentrification process is happening, demographics are changing, but I wouldn't make the leap to say the cultural essence is being destroyed. There are still a lot of extremely creative people firmly rooted in the place, as well as families of all races and ethnicities.

The one real gentrification curveball is the Atlantic Yards project. If that arena goes up, along with the 15 skyscrapers or whatever that accompany it, that will certainly affect the neighborhood. But I can't say how. Some people say it will destroy the neighborhood, but I don't think so. It will change it, but who knows for better or worse. Urban development needs to be monitored, and citizens' groups need to have their voices heard. But at the same time I think that change is not inherently bad. Cities do evolve. I have mixed feelings about the changes underway, and I'm not as anti-Atlantic Yards as some of my close friends.

Is there a Brooklyn literary sensibility? Which writers or works most emblematize Brooklyn for you? Which older writers set the tone? Which contemporary writers are you reading with interest?

One writer that I feel I have to mention is Jonathan Lethem. Fortress of Solitude is the best novel addressing urban gentrification that I've ever read. Like I was saying, it's that rugged aesthetic – the book is very rugged and raw, and it's also a masterpiece. There's Walt Whitman in the mid 19th century, who was also crucial to the founding of Fort Greene Park – he argued in the Brooklyn Eagle for more public community space, which led directly to the development of the park. You can look at the path from his work, to Richard Wright writing here in the 1930s, and fast forward to Colson Whitehead in the present.

Why do you think Brooklyn has such a dense population of writers? Is there something particularly literary about Brooklyn?

For one thing, many writers can't afford to live in Manhattan. Most writers can't earn a living being writers, so they have to have day jobs. And if you're working a day job and trying to find time to write around it, you're probably not pulling in enough to live in Manhattan. But then why not Queens or Staten island? I think the answer is that New York is one of the cultural capitals of the world, and Brooklyn is as close as you can get to the center of that while still being somewhat affordable.

What events, series, readings, happenings, places, stores, publications, movements, etc. seem to you currently interesting or important in the Brooklyn literary world?

There's so much exciting stuff going on. One exciting new literary journal is A Public Space. In June, Book Expo America, the biggest annual book trade conference, was held in New York [and partly in Brooklyn]. A Public Space created a great Brooklyn-centric fanzine with groundbreaking Brooklyn authors. The challenge of any literary endeavor is to create something that didn't exist before. [Editor] Brigid [Hughes] was previously with the Paris Review, and while I haven't talked to her about this extensively, it seems that her goal was not replicating Paris Review, but creating a whole new entity.

There are other great publications like Tin House, and Harp and Altar, an online poetry magazine based in Brooklyn. There's so much bubbling up. And so many young Brooklyn publishing companies like Ig, along with Soft Skull and Akashic. It's exciting for me and [publisher] Richard Nash at Soft Skull, because seven or eight years ago we were the young upstarts. I think we still have a fresh creative energy, but there are also a lot of new literary entities in Brooklyn now.

What do you think would make Brooklyn better as a literary place? What does the borough still need? What are the opportunities and challenges it faces?

I think the main challenge – and this cuts to one of main goals of the Brooklyn Book Festival – is for people to recognize and embrace Brooklyn as the literary capital of New York City. Though so many people in the literary world live in Brooklyn, the big public literary events are so often still in Manhattan. I have no problem with Manhattan, but you'll go to a literary event in Manhattan with 50 people, and 40 of them are from Brooklyn. Why not save the subway fare and the time, and promote public events in Brooklyn? Certainly there are some, and it's changed from 2 or 3 years ago. The goal of the Brooklyn Book Festival is to connect the dots so everyone can see each other. Borough Hall hosts Literary Mingles, which I believe you've been to, so that people can see each other in public and realize they all live within three miles of each other.

What's lacking in Brooklyn is a thriving network of public events. I feel strongly that public events are crucial to the survival of literature. In the publishing industry you hear people talking about literature being on the decline, and how people don't read any more. To sit and complain – that energy would be better spent on trying to harvest new audiences for literature. And what better place than Brooklyn, with all these different and diverse groups? The publishing industry should be working to cultivate those readers.

Imagine the ideal Brooklyn bookstore or literary venue, a place you'd like to read on your own or participate in literary community. What would it be like? What would it avoid?

Are you familiar with a restaurant in Fort Greene called Habana Outpost? It's a Cuban restaurant with large patio. On weekends they have vendors, who make clothes or books or whatever, and these artisans show up and sell their goods in the patio where delicious food is being served. To me, if there was a bookstore/café entity somewhere centrally located, like Fort Greene, that was very public spirited, that invited people not only to attend and host events, but to set up their own corner to interact directly with public in a comfortable, creatively stimulating environment – that would be ideal.

Brooklyn could use a few more really great bookstores. There are some great ones, but we could use a few more. I have seen some open and close in Fort Greene, but the neighborhood needs something to water the literary garden that is here.

I think the thing to avoid is a literary snobbishness that you sometimes see in the New York publishing world – again, tying back to this issue of making literature more accessible. A great, public-spirited Brooklyn bookstore would steer clear of anything smacking of snooty New York snobbishness. Literature needs to be yanked down from the ivory tower. I don't think people need to be super well educated to appreciate a good book, a good novel. Obviously they need to be able to read and think critically, but I think a lot more people do that than the publishing industry recognizes. Multiculturalism is important to the future of publishing, not just for spirit of equality it embodies, but because publishing needs the energy, a new spirit, new approaches.

It's always risky to put your dreams out where people can see them. Some of the responses I've had, in comments and emails, to my posts about my "ideal Brooklyn bookstore" have caused me to rethink – or at least think through – a few of my assumptions. One of those, of course, is that adjective "Brooklyn." What do I mean by that, people want to know? It's a big place, after all – how could a bookstore possibly reflect all or any of what is meant by Brooklyn?

First of all, I had to remind myself of what I already know, and have already said, in places like the Litminds interview I did a few weeks back. Brooklyn – like New York as a whole – is a city of neighborhoods, and each of them has its own distinct character. Those neighborhoods encompass an almost unfathomable range – from the Russian store signs in Bensonhurst, to the painfully hip bars of Williamsburg, to the posh baby strollers of Park Slope, to the West Indian restaurants of Crown Heights, to the urban farms of East New York, with a thousand variations in between.

No one store could hope to serve the borough in its entirety. And any bookstore worth its salt, in any town or borough, will evolve into a place that reflects its very specific environment. I don't know yet where I'll find the right space for my bookstore. A Fort Greene store should evolve based on the proximity of Fort Greene Park, the history of Walt Whitman and Richard Wright and Spike Lee. A store in South Park Slope should serve younger families, Spanish speakers, riders of the F train. There are probably as many "Brooklyn bookstores" as there are Brooklyn addresses. Like BookCourt, Vox Pop, Word, and other great Brooklyn bookstores, it will be vital for my store to become a part of its neighborhood, and that identity will have to evolve as I get to know my street and my customers.

But I do also feel that there is a broader Brooklyn sensibility – something endemic to the borough that appeals to me deeply. It shows up in the old Dutch motto " Een Draght Mackt Maght": "In Unity There Is Strength". It's in the borough's nicknames "Land of Homes and Churches," or "America's Hometown". More so than Manhattan, it seems like a place to put down roots, to find and make communities, to invest in the land and the people where you live. Maybe it's something about the architecture – brownstones vs. skyscrapers, for the most part – but it seems like a city on a more human scale, where relationships are the fabric of daily life rather than something to make time for between workdays, where your efforts will be judged not by a dispassionate media but by those who live next door to you. It seems like a place where there's a little more margin for error and craziness, as long as you act in good faith. It's the adopted home of creative eccentrics like Walt Whitman and Marianne Moore. I think the abundance of writers, creators, designers, musicians and others coming out of Brooklyn reflects that: an urban environment that's a little off to the side, with room to grow. In his epigraph for the forthcoming photo/essay book The Brooklynites, quintessential Brooklyn writer Jonathan Lethem offers this definition:

“Brooklyn is the conscience of New York. While Manhattan tears everything down and changes everything, Brooklyn does a similar thing, but fails miserably at it. It is a crazy quilt of a place. A mongrel place of sorts. It mixes old and modern in a haphazard way. It represents a tiny microcosm of the world—a functional utopia.”

Brooklynites, both natives and those who moved here from elsewhere, are often incredibly passionate about where they live. It shows up in their willingness to engage with local issues like the Atlantic Yards project. It shows up in fierce, joyfully irrational neighborhood loyalties – how do you think Neighborhoodies got so successful? But it shows up sometimes in a sort of shamed defensiveness about the changes happening in the borough – about the fact that Brooklyn's cultural vitality can sometimes mean development that pushes out those without money to spend. Just look at the Brooklynian boards sometime for a sampling of the names those tech-savvy Brooklynites are calling each other: yuppie, gentrifier, scared white liberal. In a place with so much diversity, where the breath of fresh creative juices often means the potential for commercial exploitation, tensions are bound to exist, along with some jockeying for authenticity. It can be a challenge to navigate that. Call me naïve, but I think generally not being jerks to each other is a good place to start. Good, strong communities are more likely to grow from welcoming everyone and allowing them to try to learn from each other than from trying to weed out the inauthentic.

It's a big ambition, but I want my bookstore to be a place where that can happen. I want to straddle some of the fault lines in Brooklyn culture and be one of the places where community gets made. I want to serve and grow with the neighborhood where I live and work, and I want to be a destination for readers throughout the city who are drawn to this creative vibe. I want to reflect the borough's traditions, but I also want to make something new. I can't know exactly what that will be until I know where it is, and there are a lot of steps between here and there. But here is where I want to start.

(And life is a funny thing. I may not even live in Brooklyn five years from now. If the ALP, say, got a job in Boston, I'd choose the man I love over the town I love. And I'd learn to fall in love with another town, with its own deep-rooted identity and sprouting creations.)

But I feel like I've still got a lot to learn about Brooklyn. Honestly, I haven't been here all that long, and as Thomas Wolfe famously implied, it could take more than a lifetime to get to know the place. So I've started a new project to gather some of the thoughts and impressions of other book people in Brooklyn, and find out what's happening in the literary and cultural life of the borough. I'm calling it Brooklyn Lit Life – a series of interviews with authors, publishers, retailers, critics, readers, bloggers, and other literary folks based in Brooklyn, with some big open-ended questions about Brooklyn literary culture. I'll be running their responses on Fridays for the next weeks, months, or however long it lasts. It should be some interesting content for anyone interested, and it's also a sneaky form of bookstore research. Mostly, I'm just nerdily eager to hear what these smart, interesting folks have to say about their borough and their neighborhood. There are probably a million answers to the question "Why Brooklyn?" You've heard some of mine – I'm looking forward to hearing some of yours.