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It's one thing to read about censorship in a news article; it's another to become aware of the threat at a nearby library or school. For Banned Books Week this year, we reviewed hundreds of documented appeals to remove materials from a local public library, school library, or course curriculum. Below are 30 books that [...]

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My current novel-in-progress will fit a loosely defined literary genre of historical fiction.  That is, it will be fiction artistically grounded in a period of American history--an era in the mid-1870s--when an organized labor movement began its contest with the laissez-faire business interests of the period.  The story moves through the violent birth and tragic demise of the Molly Maguires, a secret society of Irish immigrant mine workers who struck back at the railroad magnots who owned the mines and the lives of the mineworkers.  The railroad owners, often called the 'robber-barons' in American history, also owned the justice system of Pennsylvania at the time, a state where the deep underground anthracite coal mines were fueling American industry.  After the robber barons crushed an early attempt by the miners to form a labor union, they embarked on a campaign to exterminate a continued, violent resistance of the Mollies to the desperate wages and deplorable working conditions in the mines.

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I belong to a small (but lovely!) writers group and we meet every couple of weeks. One of the things we try to do each meeting (aside from the business of presenting to one another our latest works of wonder) is a writing exercise. Some of them we do as part of the meeting, small bursts of creativity that get our writing brains in order, others we do before coming to the meeting and those we read out to one another.

One of the exercises introduced to us by one of our members, Jean Flitcroft , was the famous or infamous ‘Barn Exercise’ by John Gardner. It goes like this – ‘Describe a barn as seen by a man whose son has just been killed. Do not mention the son, the  war or death.

A difficult exercise and we all produced different results –  every one of them interesting. So we decided to try another of his exercises  and, on getting the full list, we opted for freedom of choice. I chose this one: Write, without irony, a character’s moving defence of himself (herself).

I thought I might reproduce it here – I enjoyed writing it (and I strayed from the intent somewhat) but for me the value of it was in the way it forced me into creating a character that up until that moment I had not known. And I liked her.

A light hearted woman

I used to be a light hearted woman, in the very proper sense of the words. It was not that I had no tribulations, it was that I scarcely noticed them for what they were. To others they may have appeared burdensome, even overwhelming, but to me they were just part of my life. Part of who I was and who I would become.

Until one day.

And I need to tell you about that one day because it was on that day that my world became something other. You could trace a straight, bold line from that day to right here, to me standing before you and telling this tale.

We were five in the family. First there was Jimmy, God rest his soul, a cross man but fair. Most of the time anyway. Then there was me, in order of appearance if you will, and Sarah’s my name. But you know that already. After me came the three boys, one after the other just like that, Conor, Cian and Calum. Calum came last and he was said to be a little soft but I never paid that too much attention. His father did, but then his father paid more attention to most things than I would. I won’t say too much more about that right now.

So there we were, the five of us. A family. Living as you do from day to day, month to month, years to year. Just like any other family. Through it all I did what I needed to do and most days I had a song in my heart. I think the three boys did too, they got that from me. Easy going, never a bother on them. It could have carried on like that forever, well, for as long as I lived, as I did not care for things to be any other way. Jimmy, you see, for all his faults, was a good worker. A good provider. We never wanted for much and we were not often cold or hungry.

I see you frowning, so I suppose I should explain. When I say all his faults I really mean one particular one. Because it was this fault that decided everything in the end.  When I was at school our English teacher used to talk about Shakespeare’s heroes who always had one, just one, fatal flaw. Jimmy did too. He thought more of himself than he really should have. That doesn’t sound like much I know, but it was. He thought he was cleverer than everyone and certainly cleverer than any of us. He didn’t like anything or anyone interfering with that thought. Most times that was alright; if he wanted to think that and it made him happy then, sure, I’d let him think that. After all he was easier to live with when he was happy.

Calum was the problem. Calum didn’t really understand about fatal flaws and things like that. How could he? He was a young lad and he had never found his lessons very easy. I hoped that Jimmy would understand that, after all he was the one who noticed Calum’s little problem. But he didn’t understand and one day, that day, it all went wrong.

You see, Calum laughed when Jimmy said something that you really could not describe as a very clever thing.  Out of respect for the dead I am not going to repeat it if you don’t mind? The point is that Calum laughed. At him. At his father. And he couldn’t stop. I am sure that has happened to you before, when the laughter gets a hold of you and won’t let you go. Well, maybe it hasn’t, but it happened to Calum.

At first Jimmy tried to pretend it wasn’t happening but when it carried on and on, only growing louder, I saw how cross he was getting. Crosser than any of us have ever seen him. He started walking across the room towards Calum and I could see what was going to happen. He had the same look on his face as he had the time he killed Ginny, the sheepdog, the exact same look. I couldn’t let him do it, that’s all, because Calum was my boy. My youngest. I couldn’t have it.

And so, well you know what happened but I’ll tell you anyway, I picked up the glass vase that I had been given on the day we got married, my favourite vase because if you set it on a windowsill in the sun it caught every one of the rays, I picked it up and I hit Jimmy over the head with it. Just in time mind you. It was a heavy vase but all I meant to do was to stop him, I didn’t mean the other thing to happen. The vase broke, which was a pity, but so did Jimmy, God rest his soul. That got rid of my light heart I can tell you. From one minute to the next it was gone. Not so much because I miss Jimmy, I don’t think I do, but because that wasn’t a very nice thing for my boys to see and I think it probably silenced the song in their hearts as well. I don’t like to think that I was the cause of that.

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By Anwen Greenaway

The twenty-fifth of January is the annual celebration of the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Legend has it that in 1801 a group of men who had known Burns gathered together to mark the fifth anniversary of his death and celebrate his life and work. The event proved a great success, so they agreed to meet again the following January on the poet’s birthday, and thus the tradition of Burns Night Supper was born. Today the celebration still features a haggis and recitation or singing of Burns’s work, in a tradition reaching back to the very first Burns Night celebration.

As Scots the world-over prepare to celebrate Burns Night we are pleased to be able to present an extract from the new book Robert Burns’s Selected Poems and Songs. It presents all the selected songs and poems in their original version, with the original melody printed alongside the text for the songs. Our extract, A Red Red Rose, is one of Burns’s most famous songs, originally published in Volume V of The Scots Musical Museum (1796), and the text of the poem has been set by many composers over the years.

A Red Red Rose

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,
     That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
     That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
     So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
     Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my Dear,
     And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
O I will love thee still my dear,
     While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve!
     And fare thee weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
     Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!

There are numerous different versions of this famous and evocative song. Here at Oxford University Press one of our favourites is John Gardner’s setting of A Red Red Rose in his choral work, A Burns Sequence. Gardner composed a new melody instead of using the traditional melody Robert Burns chose, and it makes a beautiful song. Take a listen to The National Youth Choir of Scotland’s recording with soloist Ross Buddie.

[See post to listen to audio]
Audio courtesy of the National Youth Choir of Scotland

Enjoy your Burns Night celebrations!

Anwen Greenaway is a Promotion Manager in Sheet Music at Oxford University Press and she would like to thank from Judith Luna, Senior Commissioning Editor, and Jenni Crosskey, Production Editor, for their assistance with this blog post. Read her previous blog posts.

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The post A song for Burns Night 2013 appeared first on OUPblog.

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I find myself reading John Gardner these days—his thoughts about writing, his encouragements about teaching, a little of his work itself.  Last night, while waiting for an event to begin, I sat down with On Broken Glass, Susan Thornton's memoir about her tangled affair with John Gardner before, throughout, and after his marriage to the talented writer and teacher Liz Rosenberg—right up, indeed, to the day when a motorcycle accident took Gardner's life and foiled the plans for his wedding to Thornton.

Thornton, who had met Gardner at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, was an aspiring writer.  Transfixed by the white-haired man who seemed to know something about everything (perhaps even a lot about everything), she became his friend and then his lover, absorbing the sorts of inconstancy and intensity that might be expected of the idealizing mistress of a man who, in Thornton's words, "liked to set up close, incestuous love relationships where the women involved knew each other, were kept off balance, were expected to bow to his demands." Herself a drinker, she tolerated Gardner's excesses.  In love with a man who was not properly hers, she tolerated, or at least learned to live with, his many indiscretions.

On Broken Glass is not, by any stretch a lyrical memoir, nor one that aspires to universal proportions.  It is instead Thornton's story, studiously recalled.  Reading through, I wondered about many things—about the damage we do to one another, about why we allow so much damage to be done to ourselves.  But I also wondered about passages such as this one, wedged within the final pages: 

Gerry (Thornton's current husband) and I have worked hard to build a partnership.  Early in our marriage I idealized John, wished he had not died, yearned for his charisma, his charm, the sense that I had with him that anything was possible.  It has been very difficult for Gerry to live with a woman who yearned after a lost, perfect partner.  Until I became sober, I could not see the unmanageability of John's life, how his drinking damaged him, how it twisted his thinking and his relationships, how my drinking damaged me.  In our married life, Gerry and I have faced genuine hardship.... For a long time I lost hope.  I felt I would be unable to use the gift God had given me, the gift of expression in writing, that I would ultimately fail at what I had felt so strongly was my life's purpose.

Can writing be our life's purpose? I wondered.  Should it be?  Are we meant so judge the size of our own gifts? 

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Horns & Wrinkles
by Joseph Helgerson

middle grade

I have to say, I've had this book for a while. I picked it up. Put it down. Picked it up again. And then put it down.

Finally, last week, I made myself read it. I don't know why I hesitated, but after reading John Gardner (yes, I am haunted by Mr. Gardner), Horns & Wrinkles was the perfect antidote. Funny. Insanely creative. Set up north where I grew up, so it felt like slipping into a comfy old chair that had been hidden away and forgotten. Gloriously complete.

Horns & Wrinkles is the story of a girl, Claire, whose cousin, Duke, has a spell put on him for being such a pain-in-the-you-know-what bully. Every time he bullies, he turns a little more into a rhino. Until all is really lost, and he becomes one, only he doesn't mind. And Claire, who hates all of his bullying, finds herself repeatedly trying to save his happily lost soul, help the river trolls find their fathers, turn her grandfather, aunt and uncle (and their dog) back into humans (they've been turned to stone), and hoping all the while that she's not actually a river troll disguised as a human herself.

See?

Imagination cubed.

I couldn't have come up with this in a million years, and now I totally want to get to know Joseph Helgerson. His style in Horns & Wrinkles is a combination of irreverent Mark Twain, folklorish Mississippi-river, and Helgerson hilarity. I grinned. I chuckled. I even laughed. And I kept wondering, "what in the world will he come up with next," and try as I might, Helgerson kept surprising me. Amazingly refreshing.

For more fun reads, pop over to our fearless leaders website, Barrie Summy, and dive into the delicacies listed there. So many good books. So little time!

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John Gardner is one of the kings of writing about writing. He had a lot to say. He also wrote several very good novels. Two of my favorites are told by monsters, one is Freddy’s Book and the other is Grendal. You’ve got to love a story from a monster’s POV. They are certainly underrepresented in fiction.

“Good writers may ‘tell’ almost anything in fiction except the characters’ feelings. One may tell the reader that the character went to a private school…or one may tell the reader that the character hates spaghetti; but with rare exceptions the characters’ feelings must be demonstrated: fear, love, excitement, doubt, embarrassment, despair become real only when they take the form of events—action (or gesture), dialogue, or physical reaction to setting. Detail is the lifeblood of fiction” John Gardner.

Thank you Mr. Gardner.

Notice he says “good writers may tell”—you still have to find a way to make your telling interesting.
Notice “rare exceptions” because sometimes you will break even John Gardner’s rules. This may happen more frequently when writing humorous scenes and you describe feelings for a laugh. But these and other exceptions only prove the Rule of John.

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In "Show and Tell," the Louis Menand/New Yorker essay on creative writing programs (June 8/15, 2009), these words arise:

Personality is a job requirement for the workshop teacher, and it doesn't matter what sort. Teachers are the books that students read most closely, and this is especially true in the case of teachers who are living models for exactly what the student aspires one day to be—a published writer.

John Gardner, Menand says, "was a flamboyant and intensely personal teacher. His preferred pedagogical venue was the cocktail party, where he would station himself in the kitchen, near the ice trays, and consume vodka by the bottle while holding forth to the gathered disciples." Donald Barthelme, for his part, "assigned students to buy a bottle of wine and stay up all night drinking it while producing an imitation of John Ashberry's 'Three Poems'." And then there was Gordon Lish, who "had students read their stories aloud to the group, and would order them to stop as soon as he disliked what he was hearing. Many students never got past the first sentence."

I'll be teaching the advanced nonfiction workshop at the University of Pennsylvania in the fall, and so Menand's essay gave me pause. I hadn't, for example, planned on having my students empty out the nearest liquor store. I also thought that I might give my students more leash than the first few words. But more than that, I plan to teach, along with the writing, so much essential reading, for it is only by reading that writers—aspiring or not—gain footholds against language and idea. I'll be encouraging students to read not me, but the books that I believe will matter most in their long-long evolution.

My course description for the few who bravely enter in:

“Maybe the best we can do is leave ourselves unprotected…” the poet-novelist Forrest Gander has written. “To approach each other and the world with as much vulnerability as we can possibly sustain.” In this advanced nonfiction workshop, we will seek, and leverage, exposure. We’ll be reading writers contemplating writing—Natalia Ginzburg, Larry Woiwode, Vivian Gornick, Terrence des Pres, Annie Dillard. We’ll be reading writers writing their own lives—Gretel Ehrlich, Anthony Doerr, Stanley Kunitz, Brooks Hansen, Jean-Dominique Bauby—as well as writers writing the lives of others—Frederick Busch on Terrence des Pres, for example, Patricia Hampl on her parents, Michael Ondaatje on the utterly cinematic characters of his childhood. The point will be to get close to the bone of things. Students should each be prepared to craft and to workshop six new short pieces of analysis, memoir, and literary reportage.

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