Rhythm and Books

Best-Selling Author Elected to Land's Highest Office

Congratulations to best-selling author Barack Obama (The Audacity of Hope, Dreams from my Father), who was elected last night to the office of President of the United States by an enthusiastic majority.  This marks the first time a best-selling author has been elected president since John F. Kennedy, who penned the 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning Profiles in Courage.

We bandied about some names of popular authors to fill the various cabinet positions, which we're offering to President-Elect Obama as part of our national service:

Secretary of State - Thomas L. Friedman
Dept. of Agriculture - Michael Pollan
Dept. of Interior - Rick Bass
Dept. of Commerce - Paul Krugman, fresh off his Nobel honors for economics
Dept. of Justice - Scott Turow
Dept. of Defense - Annie Proulx
Dept. of Labor - Wendell Berry
Dept. of Education - Maya Angelou
Dept. of Energy - Al Gore
Dept. of Transportation - Tony Horwitz or newly naturalized man-of-the-road Richard Grant
Dept. of Health & Human Services - Mehmet C. Oz
Dept. of Treasury - Warren Buffett
Dept. of Homeland Security - we had originally thought Michael Crichton, until we learned today of his untimely passing.  Perhaps Stephen King would lend his warped imagination to this task.
Dept. of Veterans Affairs - Tim O'Brien (The Things They Carried)

The End of Books ... or Oprah?

Are we the only ones more than a little bummed that Oprah is writing off books in favor of Amazon's electronic reader Kindle?  Our dear Kelly called the other day in a huff while watching an episode of the book diva's show. She filed this report:

I am a fan of Oprah, however guilty it makes me feel. I have watched her for years as I pick up the house and juggle children.  Last week I turned on my television and was teased with the promise of one of Oprah's favorite things — usually something I might find intriguing if not a bit whimsical.  But then I was blindsided by a half-hour infomercial about the Amazon Kindle and how it's the best thing that has ever happened to literature.  By the end of her spiel — including a gleeful plug by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, who could barely get a word in during Oprah's jubilant tirade about his product — I was nearly convinced that not only was Kindle the only way to read a book, but that I would be saving the planet and helping my financial status by using it.  Oh, but wait.  I own a bookstore, an independent that my husband and I started from scratch, relocating our fledgling family to the Mississippi Delta, taking a huge chance on our future because we had seen how wonderful an asset a bookstore can be to a community after living in Oxford, Mississippi, with one of the best bookstores in the country, Square Books. 

Then I felt rage that Oprah could so blatantly disregard the wonderful independents across the United States that have been a safe-house for so many communities, a think tank for like-minded people and a starting ground for young readers, not to mention ardent supporters of her book club, even when certain writers were not.  As I stated earlier, our store is located in the Mississippi Delta, and a $400 electronic book is not economically approachable for most of our population, nor do I believe for one second that the impersonal feeling of a computer tablet can take the place of a crisp, new book being cracked open for a long, languid read.

I would like to believe that the independent bookstore is not an endangered species, but too often these days I hear of solid, wonderful, meaningful stores going under in this new economy, and I won't lie that it has me a bit scared.  If stores in vibrant communities can't support their independents, then what chance does my family have to keep our bookstore afloat in one that's still growing?

I can see why the Kindle is enticing.  It is a gadget.  I love gadgets, and for those who can afford it, I can see the use in having this while traveling, or hell, just for the fun of it.  But to disregard an industry that is about more than just the product, a book, is thoughtless and reckless, and to transfer the power to only one company (Amazon) is nothing short of insane.  Do we want Amazon to have the power to tell publishers what is more marketable and what they should be producing?  Would Oprah's book club choice for this month have even been published if they were in charge?  (How marketable is a story told from the perspective of a dog and a deaf boy?)  Oprah has a huge sway over millions of people, and with that power comes great responsibility.  On this occasion, she seems to have acted irresponsibly, in this bookseller's mind.

Return of Junior Ray

John Pritchard's first book, Junior Ray, was the little novel that could.  A small-press title told from the perspective of an ornery, racist sheriff in the Mississippi Delta, the novel lured readers past its rampant "cussin'," proud political incorrectness, and backwater dialect to present a hilarious and thoughtful character study.  Most readers had never encountered anything quite like it, and so the author, taking delight in the book's reception as well as the prospect of spending more time with his character, brought Junior Ray Loveblood back for The Yazoo Blues.  The semi-retired anti-hero is a now a casino security guard, a vantage from which he can report on the colorful surroundings and reminisce about the people and strange experiences he has known, all with profane glee.  The result is a surprisingly profound and unlikely view of the post-civil rights South.

In stark contrast to his rogue character, Mr. Pritchard is convivial and enlightened, an upbeat personality who still embodies the Delta eccentricities of his roots.  On the eve of his reading at Turnrow, we had a chance to lure him out from behind his chief character and ask him a few questions about his writing.

Turnrow Book Co.:  Congratulations on the acclaim for this new book, The Yazoo Blues, but I'm terribly interested in any bad reviews.  Especially people who have been offended by Junior Ray and presume you are using this character to speak your mind.  How does a character like Junior Ray get through in this politically correct age? 

John Pritchard:  We haven't gotten any bad reviews that I know of — Publishers Weekly gave raves for both books and a "starred" rave review for the second, The Yazoo Blues.  

 

I do speak my mind through him but not all the time.  Some of the time I speak other people's minds through the voice of Junior Ray, and I expect they recognize this. 

 

If only I could stir up more outrage!  I am sure there is plenty to go around, but Delta folks tend to mute their feelings.  Junior Ray does not mute his.  Anyway, the odd thing is that I do get more positive comments than negative ones.  And I can only imagine it is because a lot of people have an incredible sense of the ridiculous and, indeed, laugh now at the same things they laughed at in the days of Aristophanes and Petronius — and certainly in those of Boccaccio and Chaucer.  In short there is something deep in the human make-up that loves the ribald, delights in the bawdy, and is always up for a satire on the Human Condition.  Otherwise, I admit, I'd be baffled.

 

TBC:  Does Junior Ray come from a stockpile of nasty people you knew growing up in the Delta, or is he an exaggeration?  Is he irredeemable?  What does he believe in? 

 

Pritchard:  Junior Ray isn't really nasty at all.  He is rough, boorish, and uncouth in every respect, and he is an out-and-out fool.  But he is the fool in us all.  And we all think "our" fool is laughable if not in fact acceptable.  A person would have to be pretty pruney not to grow fond of Junior Ray.

 

Junior Ray is — and isn't — an exaggeration.  Almost everybody has known someone at least sort of like him.  Indeed, he has a good bit of universality to his characterhood.  Junior Ray is not redeemable, but in some ways he can become gentler, in the way, for instance, that the New Testament is gentler than the Old Testament.  His beliefs are simple.  If another person always comes through and does what he says he will do, Junior Ray respects that individual and likes him.  It becomes axiomatic that when people like Junior Ray, he likes them.  Remember, Junior Ray feels the class difference that separated him and his from others in his time and place who were socio-economically better off.  The first book, Junior Ray, has a lot of that in it.

 

TBC:  Tell us a bit about the Civil War skirmish here at Greenwood that consumes much of Junior Ray's imagination in this book. 

 

Pritchard:  As Mr. Brainsong put it: There was "the whole mighty pageantry of it all."  Most people in the Delta have heard of the Yazoo Pass Expedition, but only a few understand the magnitude of that failed riverine maneuver.  The idea was [for the Union Army] to come down the Yazoo system and get in "behind" Vicksburg in order to try to bring that stand-off to an end.

 

There were, in the late winter and early spring of 1863, around six-thousand (6,000) "blue-coated" Northern soldiers and sailors assembled on Moon Lake, waiting to enter the Yazoo Pass.   That armed flotilla consisted of at least twenty-two vessels of war:  Two ironclads, six tinclads, two steam rams, twelve light transports and a couple of coal barges.  Some of those gun-ships were two-hundred feet in length and fifty-feet wide and carried a wide range of lethality — cannons, big and little, both smooth bore and rifled, and mortars.  What a sight it must have been in a flooded land where there was so much water at the time that there was hardly any shoreline along the Pass, the Coldwater, and the Tallahatchie.  The water was high that year anyhow, but when the North blew the levee, in the first part of February, across from Helena, and elsewhere down the line, the Mississippi River poured like Niagara into the Delta, and that is how all those gunboats and troop transports were able to chug their way from Moon Lake to Fort Pemberton, just outside present-day Greenwood, where they were "stopped dead in their watery tracks," mostly by a single 6.4 inch rifled Whitworth Cannon that the Confederates were able to obtain while the North had been occupied clearing the Pass. 

 

Knowing even just some of that, one can look at Moon Lake today, and, when the light is right, have no trouble at all seeing ... "the whole mighty pageantry of it all."

 

Incidentally, the Union Commander of the Yazoo Pass Expedition was a fine officer, named Watson Smith.  He was, however, suffering from the last stages of tertiary syphilis and was quite looney.  He eventually had to be shipped back to Helena and on to his home in New Jersey, where he died not long after he arrived.  In any case, as awful as the whole environment was and as terrible as it must have been for all those men at arms to be lost and sick and shot at in that hellish hardwood swamp, Lieutenant Commander Smith's incapacity was merely a drop in the debacle.

 

TBC:  Have you always been a writer?  What other work have you enjoyed in your life? 

 

Pritchard:  I have always been a writer, even when I wasn't one.  And I mean by that the time before I knew the alphabet.  However, I have done a variety of stuff that includes being a copyboy and, later, a news clerk at the New York Times, teaching college English, advertising and corporate communications copywriting, writing lyrics on Music Row in Nashville — indeed, as one of a hundred other writers in the stable at Tree International, the largest country music publishing house in the world, now, I think, Sony EMI Tree.  After I came back to Memphis, I worked a short time as a jingle writer.  But, in addition to those things I worked once as a deckhand on a Swedish merchant ship and went to Venezuela; I dug postholes for the Mississippi Power and Light Company, hung sprinkler pipe in a cotton-compress warehouse, worked as an office boy in a law office — sold camel-saddle footstools, trained two days as a cemetery lot salesman, sold Fuller Brush products door to door, and was once Assistant Area Supervisor for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East at Plough, Inc.'s, International section, back in the late '60s.  I lasted about a year, never knew what I was doing, still don't, and got sacked.

 

TBC:  What's a John Pritchard reading like?  Should we recommend that folks leave the kids at home?

 

Pritchard:  It's like all readings only much, much better.  As for the profanity, I look at the audience, make an estimate of the terrain, and usually leave out the cuss words or change them into something benign.  That is not a prostitution of the art — it is in fact the most useful approach because when people hear the profanity they stop paying attention for a moment and miss the message. 

 

Readers are not jarred by Junior Ray's cussing when they read silently to themselves because, for one thing, the profanity is spelled phonetically instead of correctly, so the eye just lets it wash by as what it is meant to be, which is simply the rhythmic and super-salty ingredient in Junior Ray's speech pattern.

 

John Pritchard will sign and read at Turnrow Book Co. on Thursday, October 30, beginning at 5:30 p.m.  We can reserve signed copies of both Junior Ray and The Yazoo Blues.

First Round of Drinkways

The foodies came to town this week as part of John T. Edge's Southern Foodways Symposium, an annual conference on Southern food and culture sponsored by the Southern Foodways Alliance and held at the University of Mississippi this weekend.  An advocate for Delta food traditions, John T. is a friend and frequent visitor to Greenwood, and his organization kicks off their conference here every year with an event they call the Delta Divertissement.  Surely, this year's was among the best Divertissements, as the focus was "Southern drinkways."  Everything from water and buttermilk to soft drinks and whiskey will be discussed over the weekend, but it seemed the emphasis was on liquor at this early stage of the symposium.

The fun started Wednesday afternoon at the Viking Training Center, where Brooklyn drink master David Wondrich ("A living iPod of drink lore and recipes," says the New York Times) delivered a short history of the cocktail with recipes and anecdotes from his lively book Imbibe!: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to "Professor" Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar (signed copies here).  Wondrich is himself a refreshing mix of dependable neighborhood bartender, booze geek and mad scientist, and we'd pour just about any of his splendid recipes down the hatch. 

Accompanying Mr. Wondrich was One Ring Zero, a terrific band from Brooklyn, who had arranged a ragtime tune to which they sang the mixologist's mint julep recipe.  As he prepared a grand punchbowl finale, One Ring Zero serenaded with their unique blend of prog rock and Eastern European swing — or, as it was described by The Forward, "gypsy-klezmer circus-flea-cartoon-music you mainly hear in your dreams."

The foodies (and drinkies) staggered down the street to Turnrow for an official welcome and a hilarious history lesson on the deep drinking traditions of the Delta by native wits Julia Reed and her father, longtime Mississippi political figure Clarke Reed.  Martha Foose unveiled catfish cracklins — thinly sliced catfish, deep-friend and served in brown lunch sacks, which should be a staple at all Mississippi recreational events — and we mixed her famous mailbox cocktails, featured in her runaway bestseller Screen Doors and Sweet Tea.  That, with the leftover Wondrich punch, put the crowd in a bubbly mood, and the already hilarious Reeds were that much funnier.

Next the glassy-eyed symposium-goers moved to Greenwood's hot new restaurant, Delta Bistro.  This is the latest essential stop on any visit to Greenwood.  Our friend and head chef Taylor Bowen Ricketts serves creative twists on Southern favorites in a beautifully refurbished cotton warehouse, complete with huge skylights that once served to light the cotton-sorting tables.  Taylor had prepared a feast, including an amazing brine-soaked porkchop, collard green and artichoke soufflé, black-eyed pea cakes, a fine crab bisque (already renowned around town), and homemade s'mores to send us all into the night.

Back at the bookstore — where they came bearing ever more s'mores, whiskey and moonshine — the evening's finale was a performance by One Ring Zero.  The group is led by Michael Hearst and Joshua Camp, who first made music together while working at the Hohner Musical Instruments warehouse near Richmond, Virginia.  Their job was to clean and repair harmonicas, accordions, claviolas and all manner of strange instruments, which they used to develop some haunting sounds and playful compositions.

The Southern Foodways affair was a natural fit for the band, who are currently producing an album of songs based on recipes by famous chefs (hence the mint julep song).  This follows the success of their album As Smart as We Are, in which all the lyrics were written by various authors like Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster, Dave Eggers, Rick Moody, and Denis Johnson.  They even penned a tune around a polite rejection email from Michael Chabon, which they performed at Turnrow, alongside a slew of tunes that showcased their whimsical intelligence and fondness for Eastern European music.  It was the first time (and hopefully not the last) that a theremin solo (see photo) was performed at the bookstore, and the band's rousing closer, "sweaty Lebanese nightclub swing," had the audience clapping, dancing and cheering.

So cheers to the food scholars, professionals and casual enthusiasts for giving us all an excuse to step out and perform some field research on our native drinkways.  It was a beautiful education.

Just Awards

 Friday Afternoon Research, Vol. II

The National Book Award nominations were announced this week.  It is an interesting list, especially the fiction category.  Among the nominees was Marilynne Robinson, mentioned here last week for her novel Home (valuable signed first editions here), which we're currently reading and enjoying very much.  Also, Aleksandar Hemon, the Sarajevo native whose work we've admired for years, earned a mention for his novel, The Lazarus Project, and perhaps most interesting of all, Peter Matthiessen (pictured) was nominated for his novel Shadow Country. 

We felt somewhat vindicated, we must admit, having put off reading Mr. Matthiessen's Mr. Watson trilogy for years, to see that the author has condensed and rewritten his saga to fit in one 800-plus page novel, which is now being heralded a great American novel, a magnum opus that is as ambitious as Moby-Dick.  Now, we fear, there is no hope for our reading the original three-book story, but we hope to hustle away to some cabin and consume Shadow Country, perhaps before it wins the National Book Award.  In the meantime, view this clip of Charlie Rose interviewing the esteemed Mr. Matthiessen, if you can stand Rose's enthusiastic interruptions.  It's nearly an hour-long, but the first 6-8 minutes are most concerned with the real-life Mr. Watson and the re-envisioning of this trilogy.

As we eagerly await the results of this nation's grand literary contest, we have felt compelled to wring our hands over the recent Nobel Prizes, especially the much-ballyhooed snubbing of America's powerhouse writers.  Is it just us, or has our nation's recent political and economic vulnerabilities elicited a new wave of criticism from the rest of the world?  Now they're going after our culture. 

And don't expect us to suggest that perhaps we as a nation have been asking for it.  The Blame America First coalition is much despised by the rabble.  Where are the sensible to reside?

Rather than get mad, perhaps we, each serious reader, should take the pulse of world literature instead.  Here's a good starting point — the French.

Finally, they take their literary prizes seriously in the Commonwealth of Nations, where the annual Man Booker Prize receives intense scrutiny, speculation and cash betting.  This year's prize was recently awarded to The White Tiger, a first novel by India native Aravind Adiga (left).  The book has been hailed as the great novel of modern-day India, illustrating the drastic shifts in wealth since the nation has enjoyed an economic upswing in recent years.  Check out the Man Booker coverage at the Telegraph's site, where you'll learn all about Adiga, modern India, and the hoopla surrounding the prize.

Precious Cargo

Get a load of this crafty announcement for our book signing with Clyde Ford this Saturday at 5:30 p.m.

Serena

For years we've monitored the state of lumberjack fiction.  In this genre, hard-scrabble settings lend themselves to epic drama and rough-hewn characters.  We all remember Tim Gautreaux's The Clearing, for instance, about a family-owned timber company in the fetid Louisiana swamps, and we've remarked loudly and often about the genius of David Adams Richard's The Friends of Meager Fortune, an unforgettable novel which also depicts a logging family, though this one situated in the frozen north of Canada. 

There's a nice mix of toil and climate in Serena, the eagerly awaited new novel from South Carolina writer Ron Rash.  And while the setting is the wild Carolinas of the Great Depression, the setting can't match the dynamic characters of this powerful drama, a marvelous addition to the timber canon.

The book contains what may be the best opening we've seen all year:

When Pemberton returned to the North Carolina mountains after three months in Boston settling his father's estate, among those waiting on the train platform was a young woman pregnant with Pemberton's child.  She was accompanied by her father, who carried beneath his shabby frock coat a bowie knife sharpened with great attentiveness earlier that morning so it would plunge as deep as possible into Pemberton's heart.

Pemberton is an ambitious young lumber baron who has arrived home with a new wife, the Serena of the title, a courageous and conniving woman whose mettle, resourcefulness and raging ambition makes Pemberton seem like an underachiever by comparison.

The confrontation on the train platform sets the tone for a rash of violence and retribution which the Pembertons employ as they sheer the Carolina forests in their unbridled quest for attainment and power.  Standing in their way will be government officials aiming to annex land for the national parks, squirrelly business partners, two-timing employees, righteous lawmen and anyone else fool enough to contradict their dominance.

And rest assured, the lady and her unborn child waiting at the station will play a pivotal role in the rise and fall of the Pembertons in an Appalachian tragedy that echoes Macbeth.  Even the lumberjack chorus, a team of backwoods philosophers and a mad preacher, reminds one of the three witches who prophesy doom for the tragic hero.

This story of unfettered ambition is especially meaningful in light of the current Wall Street fiascoes, where corporate greed becomes a kind of professional virtue, and personal wealth of the few trumps the well-being of everyone else.  It's a timeless malady, as much a part of our country's history as patriotism and honor.

But this is not a political book — just our impressions in a politically volatile time.  It's an impeccably crafted saga with rich characters and suspense.  And while our readings of late have been plagued by questionable endings, kudos to Ron Rash for the harrowing conclusion, which strikes the perfect tragic note and will surely live on in memory.

It's been our observation that Rash, along with William Gay, is a favorite among fans of contemporary Southern literature, both at Turnrow and far afield.  His novels and stories are alternately imbued with the poetic heft of the great regional classics while as thrilling and shocking as any contemporary work.  We're proud to host him at Turnrow on Friday, November 8.  Be here for the reading or pre-order your signed copy.

Friday Afternoon Research, Vol. I

It's Friday afternoon and you're spent for the week. Look busy by following these links to catch up on your lit news.

French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio won the Nobel Prize for literature this week.  American readers know little of his work, and according to the Swedish Academy, Americans know very little about world literature at all, which may be why they're snubbing some of our greatest literary talents.  (U.S. favorites are Philip Roth, Don DeLillo and Joyce Carol Oates, though we're rooting for Cormac McCarthy and Bob Dylan.)  Read more about the current stink at the Washington Post, then visit the Nobel website for a bio-bibilography or a short critique of Le Clézio's ouevre.  Perhaps you'd prefer this informative and somewhat contrarian summation from the streets of Europe.  If you're really curious about the man, then read this lengthy interview from his homeland.

The acclaim for Marilynne Robinson's new novel, Home, continues to pour in.  We haven't read a bad review yet.  Here's a nice review, again from the Washington Post, and a short feature/review/excerpt from NPR.  There's a longer, more intimate profile on Robinson from the British magazine Intelligent Life, and a long, thoughtful glowing review at the New Yorker.  As luck would have it, we have a few signed first editions of Home, which further solidifies Robinson's reputation as one of America's best writers.  Maybe she'll snag the Nobel, and then you'll be sorry if you didn't get the signed edition.

Speaking of Marilynne Robinson, did you know her novel Gilead was one of Barack Obama's favorite books?  According to his Facebook page, his other favorites include Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, Moby-Dick, Shakespeare's Tragedies, Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch, Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Bible, and Lincoln's Collected Writings.  On the John McCain Facebook page, we learned that his favorite book is For Whom the Bell Tolls, and then we enjoyed a game of Pork Invaders.  Have a nice afternoon.

Special Rider

Just received over the fax:

Sirs:
In addition to our earlier communique regarding special riders for Mr. Jim Dees's appearance at your venue on 10-10-08, i.e. Advil, fresh fruit and clean syringes, et al., please add the following:

- Sewer sweep completed no later than 0-600.
- All sales of diet tonic water suspended.
- Crowd searched for tassled loafers — wearer immediately Tasered after event.
- All current (and former) Rebelettes (cutfoff year: 1938) required close body search (handled personally by author)
- PA system must have volume reaching "11."
- Agent Nick Hewlett (aka "Wheels") on hand three (3) hours before event to taste-test author's gin, catfish, and anything else that might reasonably be assumed to come into contact with the author's mouth. (Note: This is a broader category than one might think.)
- 5 PM - 7PM Alluvian Hotel remains under Code Green Alert: (Hold the lime).

That is it and that is all. Be Vigilant and Be Safe Gentlemen, the Enemy never Sleeps!

Yrs.,
Col. Horace T. Whiplash,
Dir. of Author Security, Jefferson Press

P.S. Burn after reading.

Tough Love for True-Hearted Writers, Or What to Make With a Rat Skull, a Grappling Hook, a Raccoon Penis and a Pack of Picayunes

At least one of us is always yammering on about the old days when they were enrolled in Barry Hannah's writing class at the University of Mississippi, never failing to mention how they once got back a short story submission with a note that simply read:  "Nice writing, but why do I care about these people?"

Ouch.  What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?  And this former Hannah student admits that it was one of the best pieces of writing advice the master ever delivered.  Tough love is essential when learning the writer's trade.  The path to successful publication, most writers will tell you, is paved with rejection, disappointment and abject humiliation, and at the end, most often, is a general lack of recognition and a measly paycheck.

For beginning writers who are cool with that, we highly recommend Pep Talks, Warnings & Screeds, a collaboration between two of our favorite writers, George Singleton (above left, signing a book for our German friend Olaf) and Daniel Wallace (below left, outside the store).  Singleton (Work Shirts for Madmen) is probably a dream teacher for the creative writing students at the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, where he's taught for years.  He invents strange analogies and funny aphorisms for his students to help them avoid the common pitfalls of writing.  They suggested he collect them in a book, and thus we have this useful writing guide, which entertain and advises more than instructs. 

For instance, Singleton likens good storytelling to poking a fire ant hill with a stick and explains why its useful to have a glass eye at your writing desk.  One golden piece of advice: "Next time, pee at the Texaco," or in other words, don't be lulled by comfort.  Stepping out of your routine will often lead to exciting discoveries and storytelling breakthroughs.  And for the writer ready to publish, Singleton points you through the sticky business of publishing with amusing tricks and detours.  It may sound silly, but this is extremely practical advice from a writer who will admit that he's made nearly every mistake there is to make in writing and publishing.

Fellow author Daniel Wallace (Big Fish, Mister Sebastian and the Negro Magician), a comedian in his own right, illustrated the text, and his jagged style is the perfect compliment to Singleton's edgy text.  (You can see some of Daniel's illustrations at his blog.)

This is the perfect gift for any aspiring writer, or anyone who is fascinated by the craft of writing and building stories.  These are two of the most entertaining gentlemen you'll meet in the business, and they were generous enough to sit down and give us their own off-the-cuff writerly advice, as follows....

Turnrow Book Co.: What's the most colorful piece of writing advice you've ever received, and from whom?

George Singleton: Comedy is serious.  Lee Zacharias, in a workshop.  That's not exactly colorful, but it's the best advice I've had, more than likely. 

Daniel Wallace:  Colorful?  I don't know.  Probably from my dad.  He advised me to write more like James Clavell.

TBC:  Aspiring writers are often concerned with the habits and conditions employed by other, more successful writers.  So, in the interest of serving that need, how is your writing station set up?  What do you see right there in front of you this

Singleton:  This is going to be ugly.  I'm a pack rat.  Within arm's reach on this desk is some kind of native American chopping tool, a tiny voodoo coffin from New Orleans, two jugs of Ronsonol lighter fluid, the mouthpiece from a tuba, three snakeskins, three bird skulls, one rat skull, a blowfish, a micrometer, a Case knife, seven rubber change purses, a dictionary, three ashtrays, some dice from Circus Circus, a dollar chip from the Golden Nugget, a grappling hook, a royalty check for two bucks which I can't figure out seeing as if I sold just one book the check should be $2.39, a Duncan yo-yo, a pin that reads "Live well, laugh often, and never vote republican," a lit smoker's candle, a pack of Picayune cigarettes, Gumby, some binoculars, a variety of carved snakes, rats, rabbits, etcetera bought in San Francisco, the penis bone of a raccoon (I'm not lying here), a compass, four pair of broken eyeglasses, a tiki carved from lava with Coco Joe on the bottom, this computer...

Wallace:  I write in a tiny room in my house, where the folks who lived here before us had a crib, with a baby in it I presume.  I write on a computer everyday from 8:30 to 1, except for those days I don't.  I used to write more.  I think I'm getting a little tired of myself.

TBC:  The advent of the internet has opened up a world of distractions to writers.  Is this a dangerous diversion and how do you cope with it?

Singleton:  I'll get back to you on that.  I'm in the middle of a game of Scrabble.... Seriously, I tend to play Free Cell or Solitaire more often than I would like to admit.  But I'm pretty good at staying focused.  The worst thing is looking something up for a story — say the price of indigo in 1790 — then deciding it's absolutely necessary to know how Rit Dye is made, or whatever.

TBC:  What is the worst trend you see in contemporary literature?

Wallace:  How much of it there is.

Singleton:  Hell, if I knew what the trends were in the first place maybe I'd be getting published more often.  I'm not a big supporter of Fan Fiction.  I think that sometimes "telling the story" gets lost on useless experimentation (like I might've done in the novel Novel, for that matter).

TBC:  Daniel, many people may not realize you're an artist as well as a writer.  Do you draw or write more?

Wallace:  I write more because writing takes longer and is much harder.  I hope to reverse this however over time and within thirty to forty years intend to make a living doodling on napkins.

TBC:  George, casual readers may not know that you're an amazingly prolific writer.  How many stories do you turn out per month?

Singleton:  Two.  It's been that way forever.  I average right at 26 stories a year, and have done so for twenty years.  So that's something like 5 million stories, if my math's right.  I've published 120 or thereabouts.  I wouldn't make it out of the minor leagues with that batting average.

TBC:  What are you working on now?

Wallace:  A novel.  Sigh.

Singleton:  I'm still writing stories about this guy named Stet Looper who's working on a low-residency master's degree in Southern Culture Studies at a made up satellite campus called Ole Miss-Taylor.  I think my next book might be Stories/Linked stories/Novella.  I've written 38 and 21 have come out, or are about to appear.  Gee, maybe that book's getting a little long.

TBC:  Since this is a blog, do you care to share any trenchant political insights about this election season?

Singleton:  Ha ha ha ha ha.  You ain't tricking this dog a second time.  For all of you who've spent some time in jail— and you know who you are — don't let anyone tell you that you can't vote, or that you'll get arrested at the polling place, and so on.  So please vote.  It might be a slack turnout in South Carolina seeing as we have no gasoline at the pumps, and haven't for ten days.  What's up with that?  I have to go now.  I have to truckjack a tanker.