Writing Wright

Review: Jacoby says Hiss case is ultimately about us and the U.S., not Hiss

2009-06-08T16:14:00.000-07:00

Alger Hiss and the Battle for History by Susan Jacoby

Susan Jacoby, a former Washington Post reporter and now a keen observer of the American intellect and intelligencia, has examined the strange case of Alger Hiss and the hold that his perjury conviction nearly 60 years ago has had on the minds of the political elite for generations.

This slim volume doesn't examine the case itself. (She takes at as a given that Hiss was both a Communist and guilty of perjury.) Rather, she looks at the debate that it has engendered, and the schools of thought that divided those who thought Hiss guilty from the beginning and those who thought he was framed.

The debate, she says, wasn't about Hiss so much as it was about the New Deal, the kind of government we have, and ultimately how we view America.

Jacoby is an excellent writer with a strong hold on her sources and her interpretations. For those interested in the topic, this book is well worth the time.

A journalist writing a novel

2009-06-08T10:49:00.000-07:00

What's the biggest different between writing journalism and writing fiction?

Since the publication of Kill the Quarterback, I have been asked that question more than once.

For an old line journalist like me (when I started in the business, they still used typewriters and pastepots), writing a novel had one big advantage:

You could make things up.

I suppose I had always wanted to do that but, like every other good journalist, I had suppressed the urge -- suppressed it to the point of never thinking about it. My mind was imbued with accuracy, verification, getting the facts, finding out what really happened, points of view, getting direct quotations right, getting paraphrasing even more right.

That's what make journalism hard work. That's what gives it value.

But in writing a novel, I didn't have to worry about that so much. I had to be more-or-less accurate within setting and time period, but I could make sources sound like they should sound. I could make the "facts" what they needed to be to fit the story. I could even twist things around a bit and make people act out of character if I wanted to.

The other side of that coin, however, is the dilemma of every novelist:

You have to make things up.

As a journalist, if you are good enough, you don't have to worry much about how the story will come out. Get enough facts, information, quotations, et al, and the story will speak for itself. It ends where it ends. You don't have to go beyond that.

But as a novelist, you have to make things turn out a certain way. You have to resolve the major conflicts and story lines. You have to make it all fit with no gaps that even unclever readers will discover and inevitably point out. The reader, having suspended disbelief and invested some time, needs to be reasonably satisfied.

That's what makes fiction work. That's what gives it value.

______

The novel is Kill the Quarterback. Don't be shy. Buy a copy for yourself and a dozen more for your friends (here at Amazon). It's not about football.

Leonardo and the 'fleeting quality of imagination'

2009-03-28T05:52:00.000-07:00

Procrastination is a sin.

That's what we're taught anyway. Putting things off, not getting things done -- those things mark you as a slacker, a nere-do-well, a skylarker (military), a goldbrick (also military), a bum. And around the part of the country where I live, you're just plain "sorry."

W. L. Pannapacker, an associate professor of English at Hope College, has a different take on the whole procrastination thing and lays it out in a perceptive essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education (published last month, but I'm just getting around to reading it).

According to the E-prof, the patron saint of us academic procrastinators is none other than Leonard da Vinci:

If Leonardo seemed endlessly distracted by his notebooks and experiments — instead of finishing the details of a painting he had already conceptualized — it was because he understood the fleeting quality of imagination: If you do not get an insight down on paper, and possibly develop it while your excitement lasts, then you are squandering the rarest and most unpredictable of your human capabilities, the very moments when one seems touched by the hand of God.

The fire of imagination and creativity doesn't respond to the tick of the time clock. It comes when it comes -- and sometimes leaves without a finished product.

Leonardo ended his life with about 20 finished paintings and lots of jobs un-done. Yet he left more than 500 pages of notes and drawings (that we know of), and they show us the essence of his genious and how his mind flitted to a subject, bore into it for as long as it interested him, and then flitted to another one.

Those are not the habits, as Pannapacker points out, that would get him tenure or promotion in a modern university. What we reward instead, he says, is completed mediocrity.

One could construct a strong argument against Pannapacker's thesis, but the idea is intriguing and attention should be paid.

American Lion by John Meacham: review

2009-03-20T16:27:00.000-07:00

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham

Politicos who believe the American presidency wields too much power can blame Andrew Jackson. American Lion, a biography by Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, argues that Jackson transformed the presidency from being subservient to Congress to an independent and vital factor in government by crisis and force of will. Jackson made himself the center of every controversy during his two terms and was the first to bypass Congress and to appeal directly to the people. Meacham's account enlivens and humanizes the guy we see on the front of the $20 bill.

25 random things about me

2009-02-07T18:20:00.000-08:00

Now that the 25-random-things rage on Facebook is about spent, it's about time I got in on it. Here's what I just posted.

1. I keep bees. That usually starts a conversation.

2. The TNJN.com kids make me look like a wizard and a genius every day. I am in awe of them. I wouldn't dare tell them that, however.

3. I love choral music. I'm also a big fan of baroque, bluegrass and fusion jazz.

4. If I am still in bed at 5 a.m., that means I have overslept.

5. My wonderful wife Sally and I discovered gardening after we moved to East Tennessee a few years ago. We have had great fun doing that together.

6. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, I prefer watercolor over pen and ink. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I prefer pen and ink over watercolor. On Sundays, I can't decide.

7. When I was in the first grade, my mother wrote a note to my teacher excusing me from class as lunch because it was the first day of the World Series. This was in 1954, and the Series was still played in the afternoon then. I came home and watched the game. That was the game when Willie Mays made The Catch. I don't remember seeing it.

8. The three best reasons for being in education are May, June and July.

9. In 2008, I lost 25 pounds, got my first novel published and grew potatoes. I'm glad I didn't have to choose.

10. I once interviewed Billy Graham at his home in Montreat, N.C. When the interview was over, he asked if I needed to go to the bathroom. I didn't, but I said I did. I figured that was the only chance I would ever get to see Billy Graham's bathroom.

11. I believe in the First Amendment. Not many people do.

12. About two and a half years ago, our cat, Squeaky, died. I still think about her a lot.

13. I am a connoisseur of sunrises (see #4).

14. I am a very lucky fellow. (See picture below. See also my Picasaweb albums. )

15. In 1970, I was one of the very last people in the U. S. to receive a draft notice. I spent four years on active duty in the Navy.

16. Writing for the Mass Media, one of the textbooks I have written, is now in its seventh edition. The book is 25 years old. That's older than most of my students.

17. I once met Bear Bryant. I have a story about that.

18. I have worked for newspapers in five different cities: Bristol, Knoxville, Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and Chicago. Technically, it's six cities. Does anybody know why?

19. I own two Miatas. One is red. The other is green. Long story.

20. My favorite joke is the one about the kid who gets his grade report at the end of the term and has all Fs, except for one D. He thinks about it and come to the conclusion that he has been concentrating too much in one subject.

21. I created a web site called JPROF.com and also do blogs called The Writing Wright and Honey Dot Comb. Sally came up with that last name, but she denies it.

22. I have one rule of civil behavior for all of my classes, large and small. It's a rule I impose on myself, not on my students. The rule is: If you're talking, I'll listen.

23. Football, basketball and hockey are minor, off-season sports invented to take up the space between the end of the World Series and Opening Day.

24. I grew up in Nashville. That's significant.

25. Writing is one of the most important things that we do.

This was a good exercise, and it was fun.

America reclaims its true story

2009-01-22T19:15:00.000-08:00

My friend Chuck Warnock (Confessions of a Small Church Pastor) says that Tuesday saw more than the inauguration of a new president.

America, he says, reclaimed its "true story."

I believe that we as a nation returned to our story on Tuesday. America’s story had been one of creation, not destruction. Our story had provided the hope of the American dream to immigrants who flooded onto our shores. Our American story had said that we do not start fights with other countries, that we will take the first blow, that we are never the aggressors. Our nation’s story had survived a war of independence, a fledgling government, a civil war that almost ripped us permanently apart, two world wars, a great depression, the immorality of slavery and the injustice of segregation. And yet we went on, we learned from our own mistakes, we gave the right to vote to women and minorities, we continued to believe that America stood for the best in our common humanity, that we were a global lighthouse to others who yearned to be free.

We had strayed. We had lost our way. We did things to ourselves and to others that we never should have done. It will take some time to fully restore ourselves.

But Tuesday was a start.

Read the entire article.

Photo by Tom Kai, taken on the Mall on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009

William Hazlitt on the lot of the writer

2009-01-22T05:22:00.000-08:00

William Hazlitt is a name we hear little of today, but in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, he was a well-known and well read journalist and essayist (when those people were really valued) in England.

Here is what he wrote on the lot of the writer:

An author wastes his time in painful study and obscure researches, to gain a little breath of popularity, meets with nothing but vexation and disappointment in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred; or when he thinks to grasp the luckless prize, finds it not worth the trouble -- the perfume of a minute, fleeting as a shadow, hollow as a sound. . . . He thinks that the attainment of acknowledged excellence will secure him the expression of those feelings in others, which the image and hope of it had excited in his own breast, but instead of that, he meets with nothing (or scarcely nothing) but squint-eyed suspicion, idiot wonder, and grinning scorn. -- It seems hardly worth while to have taken all the pains he has been at for this!

A new biography of Hazlitt, William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man by Duncan Wu, has been published recently, and it was reviewed by Michael Dirda in the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago.

The review is certainly worth reading, and so too, I suspect, is the book.

Writing Lincoln's first inaugural address

2009-01-05T15:33:00.000-08:00

Doris Kerns Goodwin, in her book Team of Rivals, tells an interesting story about the writing of the first inaugural address by Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln's second inaugural gets a great deal of attention from historians, but the circumstances of his 1861 speech made it one of the most important addresses ever given to that point in American history.

Lincoln's election had provoked widespread feelings through the South that session was the only option left for the slave-holding states. The voices advocating a separate nation thundered loudly and in states like Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina had overtaken any expression of moderation.

The president-elect had not spoken to the nation since his nomination because campaigning for the presidency after one received the nomination of a party was thought to be undignified. Consequently, Lincoln's words carried great import for the immediate future of the country. Different factions projected different attitudes onto the upcoming speech. Anti-slavery supporters expected Lincoln to stand up to the Southern firebrands. Moderates on all sides urged conciliation. Hard-line Southerners expected little from Lincoln that could change their minds, and many of them did not want to change their minds.

Still, the president had to try to hold the country together with this speech

He showed drafts of it to several people including William Seward, his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination and now his nominee for Secretary of State. Seward suggested changes throughout, but he was most disturbed at Lincoln's ending. Seward had counseled moderation, and Lincoln's draft, he thought, was far too harsh to give moderation any hope.

Instead, he suggested this ending:

I close. We are not we must not be aliens or enemies but fellow countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly, they must not, I am sure they will not be broken. The mystic chords which proceeding from so many battle fields and so many patriot graves pass through all the hearts and all the hearths in this broad continent of ours will yet again harmonize their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation.

Lincoln took those words and ideas and made them his own:

I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthsone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Lincoln's sharp thinking and succinct writing took Seward's good words and turned them into what Doris Kerns Goodwin calls "powerful poetry."

The words did not, unfortunately, prevent disunion and four years of bloody battles. But when that was done, they gave voice to the enduring sentiment of American unity.

Ratty, Mole, Toad and Badger make the century mark

2008-12-29T04:30:00.000-08:00

One of the most enjoyable books I read to my son when he was growing up was Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. We shouldn't let 2008 pass without noting that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the first publication of that classic.

Gary Kamiya, writing for Salon.com, is nearly rapturous in his praise of the book:

The pleasures of "The Wind in the Willows" are endless. Take the scene where Rat and Mole meet. Mole is shy. Rat rows across the river. Rat invites Mole to a picnic lunch. Afterward, Rat casually says, "Look here! I really think you had better come and stop with me for a little time." Mole accepts, moves into Rat's house, and as far as we know he is living there still. It's an evocation of friendship right out of a fairy tale, where the prince and the princess fall in love at first sight. But it's a fairy tale that Grahame makes real, capturing that moment when two people suddenly realize, without fanfare, that they'd rather spend time with each other than do anything else. . . .

And always, there is the glorious language. It is apples and oranges to compare Grahame and the two other masters of genre-blurring imaginative prose, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Grahame cannot rival Tolkien's epic grandeur, nor does he possess Lewis' double ability to create completely different imaginary worlds and weave vivid and intricate stories. But neither of those geniuses handle English the way he does.

Kamiya's long article about the book and its author is well worth reading. He discusses how Grahame came to write the book despite a life that was sorrowful and disappointing. Grahame created characters in his turn of the century animal kingdom that were comfortable and interesting.

Most of all they -- Rat, Mole, Toad and Badger -- were friends who, despite their idiosyncrasies and moods, all genuinely cared for one another.

Not a bad book for a child or an adult.

Lincoln at 200; Lincoln the writer

2008-12-14T06:35:00.000-08:00

Once Americans get through Christmas, they will be faced with two important dates that inter-weave themselves politically and historically: the inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States on Jan. 20 and the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln on Feb. 12.

For the moment, the Writing Wright will set Barack aside and deal with Abraham.

A good place to start our considerations of Lincoln is at the Reading Room of the New York Times, where a few short essays about the 16th president now reside. The essays are written by Ed Rothstein and Charles (Chip) McGrath, and they are drawing some interesting responses through the Times' moderated forum.

When I think of great presidents -- truly great -- I think of three: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Their greatness, to be fair to other presidents, is not defined by just personal characteristics but also by the times and crises they faced.

Of those three, only Lincoln produced any significant amount of important writing. In fact, a new biography, Lincoln: the Biography of a Writer by Fred Kaplan, has recently been published. I have not read the book yet, but getting a copy for Christmas or during post-Christmas shopping is not out of the question. So what's written here will be second-hand comments. At the Times, McGrath devotes one of his essays to Lincoln the writer, and Rothstein also deals with this aspect of Lincoln in "The Literal Powers of Words."

Not only did Lincoln write well, he actually wrote about writing. Rothstein writes:

But look at what Lincoln says in his Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions, delivered in Jacksonville, Ill., in 1859, the year before he was elected President. The lecture is not terribly gripping, but it builds to a climax when it comes to the invention of writing. Lincoln describes what a remarkable innovation writing was, and how much it has advanced the societies that have cultivated it.

So what did he say? Here is an exerpt:

Writing -- the art of communicating thoughts to the mind, through the eye -- is the great invention of the world. Great in the astonishing range of analysis and combination which necessarily underlies the most crude and general conception of it -- great, very great in enabling us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn, at all distances of time and of space; and great, not only in its direct benefits, but greatest help, to all other inventions.

Get ready for lots of Lincoln over the next couple of months.

______

The Writing Wright
Kill the Quarterback
A larger version of the pen and ink drawing of Abraham Lincoln (above) can be found at First Inning Artworks.

William Tecumseh Sherman: Marching through the American mind

2008-12-10T13:25:00.000-08:00

The Union Army, under the command of William Tecumseh Sherman, decamped from a devastated and burning Atlanta on November 16, 1864 and marched across the expanse of Georgia until it reached Savannah. The purpose, according to its commander, was to bring the horrors of war into the farms, fields, parlors and living rooms of the South in a way that would teach Southerners the futility of continuing the fight for their independence.

The march through Georgia took almost exactly a month. A week before Christmas, Sherman wired President Abraham Lincoln from Savannah, offering him the city as a "Christmas present."

Sherman succeeded far beyond anything that he had in mind at the beginning of his journey.

As Ed Caudill and Paul Ashdown (two of my good friends and colleagues at the University of Tennessee) write in their Sherman's March in Myth and Memory:

The myth of the March and the man gained momentum for the rest of his life. Old soldiers told tales and reminisced, while Sherman lectured and wrote his memoirs. By the time of his death in 1891, the March was a term that meant one march, embodied in one man in American history. Ironically, the "Old South" and "the March" had become intimately linked as thesis and antithesis -- agrarian and industrial, tradition and modernism, spiritual and material. . . .

The memory endured in the South and became a nationsl one, encapsulated in a few seconds from a film now three-quarters of a century old, Gone With the Wind: "And the wind swept through Georgia: Sherman!" in giant letters as the screen goes up in flames.

Caudill and Ashdown's book is the third of three than examine the myths that grew out of prominent Civil War figures. The two earlier books looked at John Singleton Mosby, the Gray Ghost, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Mosby's accomplishments during the war were relatively minor, but Mosby was literate and wise in the ways in which an image could be formed, and he also had the good fortune to live well into the 20th century. Forrest, more impressive in his military accomplishments than Mosby, was not so fortunate in any respect and is now a historical oddity that fires controversy even at the mention of his name.

Sherman is a towering figure of the war, a man who is mentioned along with Grant, Lincoln and Lee. He lived longer than Forrest and wrote his memoirs, but he never appeared to have much concern for his image -- at least, not as much as Mosby showed. Sherman seemed content to leave his image in the hands of others, especially journalists whom he professed to hate.

I talked with Paul Ashdown about the role journalists played in creating the myths of these men, and asked him if anything about the three-book study surprised him. (Click on the arrow below to being the audio: 3:34):

What happened on the march through Georgia is just one of the mysteries of myth that surround William Tecumseh Sherman. The book by Caudill and Ashdown reveals him to be a fascinating and complex character far beyond the hero or villain that emerged from the road across Georgia.

Each of the books in this series is a shrewd exploration of the way in which memory and myth work in the American culture. They are highly recommended.

See the previous Writing Wright reviews:

______

A larger version of the pen and ink drawing of Sherman (above) can be found at First Inning Artworks.

Saint or sinner: Nathan Bedford Forrest considered

2008-12-07T04:53:00.000-08:00

For nearly a century and a half, America has been vexed with the question of Nathan Bedford Forrest: Was he a saint or a sinner?

Forrest was a general in the Confederate Army, a leader in a band of rangers that harassed and often defeated the Union Army in western Tennessee, northern Alabama and southern Kentucky. He drove William Tecumseh Sherman to distraction and scared the bejesus out of Chicago when rumors were rife that he was heading north, just has Lee had done in Pennsylvania.

Well, he was certainly sinner. Before the Civil War, as a businessman in Memphis and West Tennessee, he bought and sold slaves, and the site where he did that is well known in Memphis. During the war, he was a fierce and innovative fighter. Some have credited him with originating "guerrilla warfare," which was then an anathema to the acceptable rules of war. Forrest was the Confederate commander during the infamous siege of Ft. Pillow, where a number of black Union soldiers were massacred. How much Forrest had to do with this horror is loudly debated among partisans.

Then there was the Ku Klux Klan. Did Forrest originate it? Was he even a member? Did he eventually regret it and disavow it? The evidence is conflicting, and again, the mists of history obscure a clear view of the truth.

But for some Forrest is a saint. He embodies the fighting spirit that spurred the South to repudiate an oppressive government. He was patriotic, loyal and courageous. His reputation grew after the war as did the South's redefinition of its struggles into the romance of the Lost Cause, and his defenders became legion.

Paul Ashdown and Ed Caudill (two colleagues at the University of Tennessee and both good friends) have entered this fray with a book-length study of the image of Forrest titled The Myth of Nathan Bedford Forrest. This is the second of three books they have produced that study the myths surrounding John Singleton Mosby, Forrest, and William Tecumseh Sherman. (I have previously reviewed their book on Mosby and will take a look at the Sherman book at a later date.)

I talked with Ashdown about the series and asked particularly about the two Confederates in their study. Ashdown began by explaining why he and Caudill began the series with Mosby and then moved to Forrest (Click on the arrow to hear the audio: 4:00):

Forrest died in 1877, 12 years after the war ended. He showed little interest in tending to his reputation both during the war and afterwards. Yet, as Ashdown and Caudill write:

. . . . To this day, a mention of Nathan Bedford Forrest will often provoke a response that notes little more than his miliary genius and role in founding the Klan. The more knowledgeable individuals may even site a few details, such as Brice's Cross Roads and Fot Pillow. But it remains a simple frame of racism, war and untotored genius that guides even recent recognition of and response to his name.

The book -- the whole series, in fact -- is must reading for those who not only want to know about the Civil War but also want to understand its effect on the American mind.

* * *

A larger version of the pen and ink drawing above can be found at First Inning Artworks.

The Writing Wright

Kill the Quarterback

Aristotle figured out the storytelling 2,300 years ago

2008-12-06T07:06:00.000-08:00

An article in the March issue of The Writer magazine lays out what Aristotle thought about storytelling about 2,300 years ago. The article, written by William Kowalski, points out that the Greeks didn't have the novel, but they did have theater. From that, Aristotle decided to outline what he thought made a compelling story:

All stories are made up of five elements: setting, character, plot, dialogue and thought (intentions/motivations).
Plot is everything.
Characters come second.
Keep the audience interested by making reversals.
Use discoveries to move the plot.
The perfect plot is simple, not complex.

Kowalski adds some excellent commentary to each of these points, including this one:

By the way, was it smooth sailing once our ancient student of writing achieved the goal of all literary hopefuls -- publication, or in the case of dramatists, production? Not quite. "Because there have been poets before him strong in the several species of tragedy, the critics now expect the (writer) to suprass each of his predecessors," Aristotle intones.

In other words, 25 centuries ago, authors were already awaiting their reviews with butterflies in their stomachs. Some things never change.

(The Writer magazine article is not available online.)

The man who didn't invent Christmas

2008-12-05T02:33:00.000-08:00

Charles Dickens had a lot to do with the image we have of the Christmas season -- Victorian England and all that -- but he didn't invent Christmas.

Several months ago I posted on an earlier blog an essay on book titles that make too much of a claim for their subjects. And I have re-posted it here on the Writing Wright. To have titles such as "The Man Who Invented Castro" (Herbert Matthews) or "The Man Who Invented Sex" (Harold Robbins) is idiotic.

Now we have The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits by Les Standiford.

But even the author seems to have the good sense to reject the title of his books. In a review of the book in the Washington Post, Jonathan Yardley has this paragraph in which he quotes the author:

Totally -- and correctly -- contradicting the title of The Man Who Invented Christmas, which probably is the invention of someone in his publisher's marketing department, Standiford says that "no individual can claim credit for the creation of Christmas, of course -- except, perhaps, the figure that the day is named for." No, Dickens did not "invent" Christmas. But he "played a major role in transforming a celebration dating back to pre-Christian times, revitalizing forgotten customs and introducing new ones that now define the holiday," including the turkey as the centerpiece of the day's feast. He gave us "a secular counterpoint to the story of the Nativity," and "complemented the glorification of the nativity of Christ with a specific set of practices derived from Christ's example: charity and compassion in the form of educational opportunity, humane working conditions, and a decent life for all. Just as vital as the celebration of the birth of a holy savior into a human family was the glorification and defense of the family unit itself."

Too bad that the "publisher's marketing department" has more influence over the title of the book than the author. It does neither the publisher nor the author credit.

The pen and ink drawing of Charles Dickens (above) can be seen in more detail at First Inning Artworks.

The Writing Wright

Kill the Quarterback

A Most Wanted Man: Surrender

2008-12-01T15:02:00.000-08:00

A Most Wanted Man by John le Carré

I gave up on this book after 100 pages. Nothing happened except for the author introducing some rather dull characters in a rather dull place.

Every time I picked the book up, I did so with the hope that this time, something important and exciting would happen. It never did. There seemed to be little at stake for any of these characters.

Maybe the problem is the times we live in. Certainly, there is much danger in the world. But the intelligence services of the West have been so discredited that they fail to be the sparks for fiction. Their enemies -- terrorists -- don't conjure up much that is interesting or terrifying on a global scale.

All in all, this book indicates that basing a book on the flimsy "war on terror" is probably not a good idea.

John le Carre is an author of stature, but this work does not add to that stature.

I am waiting for a really good espionage novel for this era. Maybe the new presidential administration can provoke one.

Writing Wright reviewed by 'Small Church Pastor'

2008-12-01T05:32:00.001-08:00

My old friend Chuck Warnock has written a very nice review of The Writing Wright for his popular blog Confessions of a Small Church Pastor.

Here's part of what Chuck says about the book:

The Writing Wright brims with quotes, anecdotes, excerpts, and illustrations about writers and writing. From Samuel Johnson to Ernest Hemingway to Mark Twain plus about fifty more writers, Stovall packs his compendium with the humorous and helpful for professional and aspiring writers. It’s the kind of book you will pick up again and again just to read it and smile because a writer you like said something interesting. Or funny. Or clever. Or outlandish. But never boring.

I'm honored.

Chuck is doing ground-breaking work in rethinking the role of the small church in the community. While others are trying to figure out how to make small churches into big churches, Chuck is beginning with the premise that growth is what the small church should be about. Instead, it should be able serving the community -- providing something that the community doesn't have from any other institution.

Chuck, who blogs for Outreach magazine, has gained a substantial following for his ideas and his writing. He's an active guy with a fertile mind, and I have had the privilege of knowing him and his wife Debbie since we were all in high school together in Nashville in the mid sixties.

Chuck and I are cooking up a couple of projects to collaborate on, and you will be hearing more about those soon.

Headlines and titles: the 'invention' conceit

2008-11-30T02:16:00.000-08:00

In our modern Scots-invented world of bloviation, headlines and titles can't stand the heat of a literalist's kitchen.
Note: This is a post that appeared on a previous blog in May. I'll be doing a follow-up soon.

Being a literalist when it comes to words and their usage (though not without a sense of humor, I hope), I tend to pay attention to headlines and titles and to parse them unmercifully.

That's why, when I got my copy of Sports Illustrated last week, I was taken aback by the headline on the cover. (Yes, I get a hard copy of Sports Illustrated. It apparently comes as part of the audio subscription I have with Major League Baseball. I didn't ask for it and wouldn't buy it otherwise. I even turn down the copy of the swimsuit issue, which probably disappoints the editors because they use their highest level of sports knowledge to produce this profound epic. But I digress.)

The headline on this week's issue of SI reads: The Best Game Ever. One of the subhead is "How John Unitas and Raymond Berry Invented the Modern NFL."

I'm no expert, but I know a little bit about the history of professional football in this country. I was alive in 1958 and remember listening to the Giants-Colts game on the radio in my room where I grew up in Nashville, Tenn. (It was on Sunday afternoon, and in my household at that time, we didn't watch television on Sunday.)

True, this was the first of an era of popularity of professional football that still has not run its course. And true, it was a great game with many great players. The stuff of legend, as they say. I don't quarrel with the assertion that it might have been the best game ever.

But really . . . to claim, as the subhead does, that a couple of players "invented" professional football is a bit over the top. It certainly doesn't qualify as being discrete or modest in the use of the language. In fact, it goes too far in the other direction by being splashy and overblow -- and by ultimately being wrong.

But this article, which concentrated far more on Raymond Berry than Johnny Unitas, is actually an excerpt from a forthcoming book, and it got me to thinking that this is not the first time that I have run into this "invention conceit." A quick search of Amazon reveals the following:

Frank Deford, The Old Ball Game: How John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and the New York Giants Created Modern Baseball
Arthur Herman, How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It
Arthur DePalma, The Man Who Invented Fidel: Castro, Cuba, and Herbert L. Matthews of The New York Times
Neal Gabler, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood
Andrew Wilson, Harold Robbins: The Man Who Invented Sex
Andrew Lycett, The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Daniel Stashower, The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder

The list could go on, and I'm sure you get the point.

These are probably all terrific books. I have read only one of these books: Frank Deford's book on John McGraw and Christy Mathewson. It was okay though in the end disappointing because Christy Mathewson died early and for some very wrong reasons. He was from all accounts a truly fine person and did not deserve his fate. (BSP alert: The watercolor of him at right can be found at First Inning Artworks.)

But nowhere in the book does Deford really make the case tht McGraw, Mathewson and the Giants invented modern baseball. How could he? It is a ludicrous argument to embark on in the first place.

By the same token, I'm pretty sure that the Scots did not invent the modern world. Don't get me wrong. I love Scotland. I lived their for several months once. At no time did I hear any Scot bragging about inventing the modern world. The Scots do brag about inventing golf. I'll give them that one.

Herbert Matthews, I'm confident, did not invent Fidel Castro. If he did, he has a lot to answer for. The Jews didn't invent Hollywood, Mary Rogers and Edgar Allen Poe didn't invent murder (that one goes to a guy named Cain) and Harold Robbins didn't invent sex. I know I'm on solid ground with that last one.

The only one I'm willing to concede is the last one: Arthur Conan Doyle probably did create Sherlock Holmes.

Because that's what authors do.

Updated May 4, 2008.

Civil War images: Authors explore the Mosby Myth

2008-11-27T04:33:00.000-08:00

What we think about John Singleton Mosby is a mixture of what he did on the battlefields of the Civil War and the myth-making that occurred during and after the war. In this post, author Ed Caudill talks about his book on this expert image-maker.

What is real, and what just exists in our mind's eye, about our past?

Those were the questions two journalism historians had when they took on John Singleton Mosby, the famous Gray Ghost of the Confederate Army. What they produced is an insightful and interesting book titled The Mosby Myth: A Confederate Hero in Life and Legend.

Paul Ashdown and Ed Caudill (two colleagues and good friends) were fascintated by the fact that Mosby, a minor character in the gigantic events that occurred in America between 1861 and 1865, should have such a large place in the consciousness of America. Mosby is said to be the most famous non-general to emerge from the smoke of the war.

Even before the war ended, Mosby and his "raiders" had gained an outsized reputation due not just to their courageous exploits but also because of Mosby's careful attention to his own image. Ulysses Grant once ordered that they be executed immediately if they were caught.

I spoke with Caudill about how he and Ashdown came to write this book and asked how they chose Mosby as their first subject. Click on the arrow below to begin the audio (6:30):

The book, which was published in 2002, became the first in a series of three that explore the myths and images that surround Civil War characters:

The Mosby Myth: A Confederate Hero in Life and Legend (2002) Amazon
The Myth of Nathan Bedord Forrest (2005) Amazon
Sherman's March in Myth and Memory (2008) Amazon

The authors explain how the myth of Mosby began in the days of battle and how it grew as the memory of the war faded and the images of the war emerged. Part of the Mosby magic was simply that he outlived most of his Civil War contempories, dying in 1916, and thus had many more opportunities to shape was generations thought about him.

The authors bring us into the present day with a look at the 1950s television series, The Gray Ghost, and the treatment of Mosby in modern novels and movies.

We will be exploring each of these book in subsequent post.

***

See a full size image of the pen and ink drawing of Mosby (above) at First Inning Artworks.

Learn more about The Writing Wright, the book, at the WritingWright.com.

Learn more about Kill the Quarterback, the mystery novel by Jim Stovall, at KilltheQuarterback.com.

A permanent Republican majority: RIP

2008-11-22T05:13:00.000-08:00

Recent memory holds the idea of the "permanent Republican majority." It had the Republicans crowing and the Democrats quaking.

Ron Brownstein gives us an idea of how far through political space we have traveled since then:

The consistent thread linking the 2006 and 2008 elections was the narrowing of the playing field for Republicans even as Democrats extended their reach into places once considered reliably "red." Consider the Electoral College maps available to John McCain and Barack Obama. By the presidential campaign's final days, McCain was seriously competing in only two states that went for John Kerry in 2004: Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. McCain ultimately was routed in both; indeed, Obama not only defended all 19 states (plus the District of Columbia) that Kerry won but held McCain to 42 percent or less in all but three of them.

Brownstein's analysis, in the National Journal, is excellent. He looks at the gains made by the Democrats in the last two elections.

In Congress, Republicans are also suffering through what amounts to a fatal contraction. Eighteen states might be considered the "true blue" states. These 18 (all of the Kerry 2004 states, except New Hampshire) have voted Democratic in each of the past five presidential elections. With this month's defeat of Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., Republicans now hold only four of those 18 states' 36 Senate seats. The number will shrink to three if Sen. Norm Coleman loses a recount to Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota.

Democrats, again, are moving in the opposite direction. Twenty-nine states voted for Bush both times. After 2004, Democrats held just 14 of the 58 Senate seats from those 29 states -- a testament to Bush's first-term success at energizing the conservative base. But with this week's Alaska victory, Democrats since 2004 have captured eight more red-state Senate seats, giving them at least 22 overall (with another pickup possible in the Georgia runoff). Democrats now hold at least 38 percent of the Senate seats in the past decade's red states, while Republicans hold just 11 percent of blue-state seats.

More evidence of what Browenstein is talking about come from Gallup:

The Republican Party's image has gone from bad to worse over the past month, as only 34% of Americans in a Nov. 13-16 Gallup Poll say they have a favorable view of the party, down from 40% in mid-October. The 61% now holding an unfavorable view of the GOP is the highest Gallup has recorded for that party since the measure was established in 1992.

But there is a lesson here for Democrats. Franklin Roosevelt had what Karl Rove and the Republicans dreamed of: a long-lasting Congressional majority. The Roosevelt coalition was an unholy alliance of Southern segregationists and northern liberals. That won't happen again.

Will Barack Obama be able to forge such a long-lasting coalition?

The odds are against. But then, in any given room on any given day in America, Obama is likely the smartest guy there.

The Writing Wright

Kill the Quarterback

Memo to self: Writing projects and beyond

2008-11-21T07:46:00.000-08:00

SELF-INDULGENCE ALERT: Warning the following is about what I have been up to lately. Not for the faint of heart.

Now that I've ushered one big writing project out the door, it's time to assess and indulge. A couple of things are done, but a couple of others need attention, and some things loom on the horizon.

Writing for the Mass Media. The seventh edition is finished. I put a disk with the supplements in the mail this morning, and soon it will be winging its way toward Boston to await the arrival of the print edition, which will come into existence next month. I never think these new editions are going to require much, and they always turn out to massive efforts.

This book has a lot of meaning for me, and it's hard to know where to start talking about it. Next year will be the 25th anniversary (officially) for the book, and I look upon it as the major scholarly achievement of my academic career. The book has been used in more than 450 colleges and schools in its lifetime. It has been adopted in countries around the world and used as a text in high schools across the U.S. The sixth edition alone was used in about 200 schools and colleges, so it continues to attract adherents.

I have been working on the seventh edition since last spring -- and thinking about it even before then. A new edition of a textbook is a tricky thing. You want to change it some -- add news stuff and the like -- but you don't want to upset the folks who are already using it. So the new ideas have to be carefully considered. Then there's the powerpoints (fortunately, I had a willing grad student do those) and the instructors manual and the web site, which I did myself. The web site isn't up officially, but I have parked it on JPROF.com, so anyone who is interested can take a look.

So, it's done. I'm happy. And I don't want to think about it any more.

After Wallace: The 1986 Campaign for Governor and Political Change in Alabama. This book, co-authored with my good friend Pat Cotter, also has a long history stretching back into the 1980s, and I won't go into that here. The book is on its way to being published by the University of Alabama Press. It is the last hooray for Pat and me and our involvement in politics in Alabama. I left the state in 2003, and Pat will be retiring from the University of Alabama at the end of the academic year and moving to South Carolina with his wonderful wife Barbara.

The book tells the story of the 1986 campaign for governor in Alabama. It was the first post-Wallace era election, the campaign from January through November is a rollicking tale, full of political knife-fights, humor and surprise. It was fun to be there and fun to write about it. The book is full of public opinion stuff, which is what Pat and I were doing at the time. That stuff will make the political scientists happy, but the story itself is the best thing about it.

We sent the manuscript to the UA Press more than a year ago, and the copy-edited pages showed up last week. The Press seems to have an extremely slow process, particularly in light of the speed with which things like this CAN be published these days. Still, Dan Ross, the director of the press, is a good guy and easy to work with. The book should be out sometime next year (maybe).

The Writing Wright. This little book was lots of fun to do and is our test case for viral marketing. Cyn Mobley, publisher and owner of Bushido Press/Greyhound Books, had wanted a small book from me, and I thought this one -- using stuff I had already written plus drawings that I had used elsewhere -- would fit the bill.

"You can order it for $10 from Amazon," I have been telling everyone. "It makes a great Christmas gift."

I'm not wrong about that.

I made pages for the book in Facebook and MySpace, and I even bought a bit of Facebook advertising to see how that works. Those were in addition to the web site I created for it on JPROF.com -- and I am using its title for this blog, too.

A second volume is in the works, possibly for next summer.

Kill the Quarterback. I have wanted to write a mystery novel for a very long time. The trouble was, I didn't know how. Cyn Mobley taught me. She taught me about the difference between story and plot. She taught about three-act structure. She formed a writing group and generously included me.

And, when I finished the book, she thought it worthy enough to publish, so she did it herself.

The book has just come out, and it has just gone up on Amazon. It, too, is a great bargain ($16) and would make a wonderful Christmas present for the entire family and extended family and friends.

The protagonist is Mitch Sawyer, a police reporter for a newspaper in Nashville, who has to cover the murder investigation of a star collegiate quarterback. Mitch is not above conducting his own investigations -- after all, he is a reporter -- and holding back what he has found from the police, even his good friend Detective Tommie Hampton. All that gets him into a lot of trouble, and then he has to figure a way out.

Like I said, a great Christmas present idea, and here's the Amazon link again in case you can't find it from two paragraphs ago . . .

That brings us up to date on the writing projects. What's next? Well, there the second Mitch Sawyer novel that I'm working on. And I am beginning to collect some material for a second volume of The Writing Wright.

Beyond that, I'm not sure.

Another textbook of mine, Journalism: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How, is selling well, and I suspect (fear) that the Allyn and Bacon folks will be around early next year to ask for a second edition of that. The book is 26 chapters long, and that would take a LONG time.

Cyn Mobley to host Internet radio call-in show on publishing

2008-11-20T07:31:00.000-08:00

Best-selling thriller novelist Cyn Mobley will host her first Internet radio call-in show on what it takes to get published on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008 at 7 p.m. EST at Talkshoe.com.

The link to the show is here: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/32978

The show is set up so you can just listen in or you can call via Skype or a special phone number: (724) 444-7444. Those who miss the live show can listen to the archived edition at the TalkShoe link listed above.

"I'll be talking about publishing options, everything from traditional to POD (print on demand) to what's next," Mobley said.

"And you can ask questions or type questions and be as much of a part of it as you want."

Mobley is the author of numerous techno-thrillers such as The Last Casualty and Rites of War. She is also author of the Greyhound Chronicles, which include Greyhound Laughing and Greyhound Singing.

In addition to her own writing, Mobley is president of Bushido Press/Greyhound Books. She has written extensively on novel writing and publishing in the digital age.

The broadcast on Thursday is something new for her. "It's my first time doing it, so we'll see how it goes!"

Commenting on Dana Milbank's 'Team of Losers'

2008-11-20T05:01:00.000-08:00

Dana Milbank, one of the Washington Post's top political reporters, had an item in his blog Rough Sketch on Wednesday saying the Republicans in Congress had awarded the failure of their leaders by retaining them in their leadership jobs.

Interesting post, to which I commented:

The Republicans are acting like any great American corporation. Your product deteriorates. Your customers leave. Your stock prices plummet. Your credit dries up. Bankruptcy lawyers circle the skies.

How to react?

Give all the executives a big bonus.

And except for the executive bonus part, it sounds like the newspaper industry,

Ayers: No regrets for stand against Vietnam war

2008-11-18T17:17:00.000-08:00

William Ayers, head of the 1960s radical antiwar group Weather Underground who became a major issue in the presidential election campaign, told a radio interviewer Tuesday that he had "no regrets for taking a stand" against the war in Vietnam.

Ayers appeared on Fresh Air with Terri Gross, a National Public Radio show, and talked with her about his life, his radicalism in the 1960s, and the acquaintance he had with Barack Obama that became such an issue with Republican John McCain.

McCain repeatedly denounced Obama for his association with Ayers, a fellow professor at the University of Chicago. McCain's runningmate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists." None of those charges had much effect on the outcome of the election, and polls repeatedly showed that most Americans were not concerned about William Ayers.

Ayers refused to answer any of the charges from McCain during the campaign, but he told Gross that was the Republican candidates said about him was "profoundly dishonest."

At the end of the 40-minute interview, Gross said that many people were waiting for Ayers to say that he was sorry for what he and his fellow Weather Underground cohorts did in the 1960s -- they conducted several property destroying missions including placing a small bomb at the Pentagon -- and that he regretted his actions.

He refused to do so.

"The culture of apology does not appeal to me," he said.

While there were some actions he regretted, he said, his opposition to the war was the right thing to do.

The United States in the sixties had "waged a war against a civilian population."

"My feeling is that we did not do enough to oppose it," he said.

Ayers said he thought it would be a good exercise for everyone of that era to stand up and say, "This is what we did." By that standard, the actions of the Weather Underground in trying to stop the killing would compare well to those who were executing the war.

"Looking backward, I don't see anybody who did the right thing."

Ayers said no civilian or government official was ever hurt by any of their actions, despite reporters that a policeman in San Francisco had been killed by a member of the Weather Underground.

A Federal case against for violent actions against U.S. property was dismissed in the early 1970s.

Ayers also denied that he had any close relationship with Barack Obama. He held a fund-raising event in his home for Obama when he ran for state senate, and he served is some civic organizations with him, but he was just one of "thousands of people" who knew Obama in his Chicago days.

Ayers is the author of several books including a memoir of the sixties called Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist.

Non-profit news: the new journalism

2008-11-18T05:04:00.001-08:00

The New York Times has an article this morning on non-profit journalism -- an idea that has been around for a while. In fact, the Christian Science Monitor had a similar article, spotlighting the VoiceofSanDiego as the Times article did, back in February.

There are also articles in the Columbia Journalism Review, American Journalism Review, and elsewhere.

The basic idea is that a foundation or wealthy, public spirited individual puts up the money to fund journalistic efforts of one type or another. Sometimes, as the Times article points out, these efforts are locally based as in San Diego, Minnesota, Chicago and St. Louis.

Sometimes they are national, such as ProPublica or the Center for Investigative Reporting.

These organizations are most likely to use the web for the publishing and distribution of their products.

There are legitimate independence issues that can be raised about these efforts. What are the motivations of those who put up the money? Do they try to influence the journalism that is being produced?

But the fact that these questions can be raised do not make these efforts or organizations unworthy. Far from it. They can offer a valuable service to the public in an age when traditional media are abandoning their journalistic roles. They can offer outlets and employment, even if it is only temporary, to budding young journalists who understand the web and social networking far more intuitively some older folk.

In fact, ultimately the strength and staying power of these non-profit organizations will be in the people they hire rather than the journalism they produce. That's an idea that I want to develop in a later post.

The Brass Verdict brings back Mickey Haller

2008-11-16T05:09:00.000-08:00

The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly

Lincoln Lawyer Mickey Haller returns in Michael Connelly's last mystery/thriller. And this time, Connelly teams him up (sort of) with Harry Bosch, the author's long-running detective character.

Haller is not your paragon of virtue, but he is clever and interesting.

Haller is returning from a year off, much of it spent in recovery from drug abuse. He's not really ready to restart his law practice, but he gets tossed into the deep end when an attorney-friend gets whacked and Mickey inherits his practice.

This attorney has a franchise case. He's defending the head of a movie studio who is accused of murdering his wife and her lover.

The characters are good and the plot is interesting, but Connelly could use an editor. This a 300-page book spread out over 400 pages. It doesn't carry the tension of The Lincoln Lawyer, and that was disappointing.

The book ends of Haller saying he's getting out of the lawyer game. I hope not. He's too good of a character to let go. A writer of Connelly's quality can still have a lot of fund with him.

View all my reviews.

Barack Obama, president-elect

2008-11-04T19:23:00.000-08:00

Congratulations, Barack Obama.

President-elect.

Truly remarkable. Truly.

And congratulations to Senator John McCain for your unquestioned patriotism and courage and your service to your country.

The audacity of hope for Barack Obama, the writer

2008-11-01T02:32:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama wrote his own book -- no ghostwriters or co-authors. He did the literary heavy-lifting himself.

It was with plenty of audacity and no small amount of hope that Barack Obama sat down in the early 1990s to write his life story.

He had just turned 30 in 1991 and could reasonably assume that much was ahead of him -- an assumption that would be true, of course -- but he also knew that his life to that point had been like no one else's whom he knew:

The son of a white mother from Kansas and an African father from Kenya;
Raised in Indonesia, Africa and Hawaii;
Intellectually brilliant, confirmed by the fact that he was editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Obama's defining experience to that point had been his relationship with his father, with him he had lost touch early in life and then re-established contact. Shortly after that, however, his father died, and Obama traveled to Kenya to find out more about the man. There, many of the images he had of his father are shattered. He finds that his father had slid from being a brilliant and respected academic to a drunk and an object of pity.

The small amount of fame that Obama achieved as being the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review netted him a call from a literary agent, a book proposal and a publisher. His first idea was to write about race relations, but that didn't suit him and where he was, according to an article about the book by Janny Scott published this week by the New York Times.

That journey of discovery through the images he had of his father is what he decided he had to tackle. What he produced was Dreams From My Father (Amazon).

He did so with confidence and flair -- even audacity -- using composite characters, invented dialogue, out-of-sequence events and a variety of literary techniques. He has since come under some criticism for his account. Inquiring journalists and political opposition researchers say things didn't happen the way he said they happened.

But there is one fact that no one disputes. Obama wrote his own book.

He struggled with sentences, phrasing and structure. He edited, rewrote and rethought.

The words are his and his alone. He didn't pay a ghostwriter or take on some partner to do the literary heavy-lifting. The writing is his creation. In this age of spin and carefully calibrated public pronouncements, getting an unobstructed look into the mind of a prominent political figure does not happen very often.

Obama wrote his own story. In my book, that counts for a lot.

Links:

Janny Scott, The Story of Obama, Written by Obama, The New York Times, May 18, 2008
Paul Watkins, A Promise of Redemption, New York Times, August 6, 1995 -- a review of Dreams From My Father

Christian Science Monitor book page: interesting stuff

2008-10-31T04:30:00.000-07:00

A good book review in the mainstream media (MSM) is getting harder to find.

Not many of the MSM have retained strong book pages or coverage. The New York Times, of course, is the exception, as it has always been. There is not only the Sunday Book Review, which I have read for many years, but through the week there is full coverage of the book industry, author news, etc.

There is also the Paper Cuts group blog of the New York Times.

The Washington Post is another place where you can get good reviews, but the utter neglect with which the Post treats the design and presentation of the book review section borders on criminal. The folks at the post could do much, much better in presenting their excellent reviews.

The Christian Science Monitor is another of those MSM organizations that has not abandoned the book completely. Check out the CMS's book page and the Chapter and Verse blog, written by Marjorie Kehe. Lots of interesting stuff -- news, reviews, reader comments -- in this cozy little corner of the web.

Supreme Courtship: funny, light read

2008-10-31T04:14:00.000-07:00

Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Just finished Christopher Buckley's Supreme Courtship. Very funny in places and a bit silly in others. Still, an enjoyable read and always a dig at the powers that be.

Pepper Cartwright is a very popular TV judge who is nominated for a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy by a very unpopular president. And that's where the fun begins.

Easy to read, but pretty predictable.

View all my reviews.

Elmore Leonard: Rules for writing

2008-10-27T06:23:00.000-07:00

Lots of people seem to want rules for writing -- as if that makes the process easier. (It doesn't.)

Still, these rules make for interesting reading and are sometimes good reminders. They are the habits that writers should develop. Elmore Leonard works in the genre of fiction, but his rules are worth noting for any type of writing:

1. Never open with weather.

2. Avoid prologues.

3. Never use a verb other than said to carry a dialogue.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb 'said'.

5. Keep your exclamation marks under control.

6. Never use the word 'suddenly'.

7. Use regional dialects and patois sparingly.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

9. Ditto, places and things.

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

These come from a site called Everything2, which is where a lot of the links above will take you, and there is a short explanation for each if you need explanations or examples.

Leonard likes dialogue to tell his stories and tends to think that everything else is extraneous. Not a bad approach.

The power of the narrative and the McCain campaign

2008-10-25T07:17:00.000-07:00

The narrative and the central idea of a McCain presidency has not emerged during the campaign.

The presidential campaign of John McCain comes under the scrutiny of the New York Times Sunday Magazine this week in a long and revealing article by Robert Draper. The author uses the motif of the "shifting narrative" to explain some of the reasons why McCain's campaign has never been able to take and hold the edge against that of Barak Obama.

The central thesis of the article: A political campaign needs a "narrative" that allows it develop an image of the candidate.

. . . The selling of a presidential “narrative” the reigning buzz word of this election cycle has taken on outsize significance in an age in which a rush of visuals and catch words can cripple public images overnight. Mitt Romney, it is said, lost because he could not get his story straight. Hillary Clinton found her I’m-a-fighter leitmotif too late to save her candidacy. By contrast, the narrative of Barack Obama has seemed to converge harmonically with the shifting demographics and surging discontent of the electorate. It may well be, as his detractors suggest, that Obama is among the least-experienced presidential nominees in our nation’s history. But to voters starved for change, the 47-year-old biracial first-term Democratic senator clearly qualifies. That, in any event, is his story, and he has stuck to it.
John McCain’s biography has been the stuff of legend for nearly a decade. And yet Schmidt (McCain’s chief campaign strategist) and his fellow strategists have had difficulty explaining how America will be better off for electing (as opposed to simply admiring) a stubborn patriot. In seeking to do so, the McCain campaign has changed its narrative over and over. Sometimes with McCain’s initial resistance but always with his eventual approval, Schmidt has proffered a candidate who is variously a fighter, a conciliator, an experienced leader and a shake-’em-up rebel. “The trick is that all of these are McCain,” Matt McDonald, a senior adviser, told me. But in constantly alternating among story lines in order to respond to changing events and to gain traction with voters, the “true character” of a once-crisply-defined political figure has become increasingly murky.

Draper, author of Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush, identifies five narratives that the campaign has tried out:

The Heroic Fighter vs. the Quitters
Country-First Deal Maker vs. Nonpartisan Pretender
Leader vs. Celebrity
Team of Mavericks vs. Old-Style Washington
John McCain vs. John McCain

The idea of the story is a powerful one for understanding a person or event. How that person got to where he or she is or what will happen when that person assumes power is important for a political campaign to establish. The campaign of George W. Bush was able to effectively obscure his historical narrative (how he got to where he is) with the idea of what would happen when he he was elected (he would be better than Gore or Kerry).

McCain has an interesting, if not compelling, historical narrative. His years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam cannot be matched by any presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy.

Yet, as this article points out, he distained using it because at some point during his public life, he grew tired of it. He had repeated the story again and again, and he just didn't want to revisit it again.

His political operatives realized this and persuaded him to begin using it again during the general election campaign. The problem was that he didn't do it effectively -- probably because he didn't really want to do it. It became an appendage onto every speech and even every paragraph -- but not really an integral part of what he was saying.

That left him with the narrative of what would happen when he was elected.

And there is a problem there, too, but one that the New York Times article doesn't really address. That problem is the lack of a central idea about a McCain presidency. It goes back to the old question:

"Why do you want to be president?"

McCain has not provided a simple, clear answer to that question.

A coaching clinic by the Bear

2008-10-22T19:07:00.000-07:00

The day was gray and the field muddy when the Vols and the Tide met in Neyland Stadium in 1966. Despite the conditions, the players on both sides played like champions and produced one of the greatest meetings of the Alabama-Tennessee rivalry.

As one of 56,000 rain-soaked fans in Neyland Stadium, I peered out from under my umbrella on that awful October day in 1966, I was unable to fully understand what I was seeing.

It was an exciting football, certainly. But it was more than that.

And, being unable to see into the future, I did not know how that game and the university the visiting team represented would connect with my life.

In 1966 I was a freshman journalism major at the University of Tennessee. I had been on campus for a little more than a month, and I was just getting started as a staff writer for the UT Daily Beacon. Like just about everyone else on campus, I was a diehard Tennessee football fan. That year, the team had generated a lot of excitement among Vol fans.

Nationally ranked, the Vols were strong at every position, and the prospects for an exceptional season and a major bowl invitation flew high. The season started well with the Vols beating Auburn and Rice, but the Vols then stumbled against Georgia Tech in Atlanta, losing 6-3. As good as Tennessee was, however, Alabama was better. Led on the field by quarterback Kenny Stabler and wide receiver Ray Perkins, the Crimson Tide had won a national championship in 1965, and they were on course to repeat as they came to Knoxville that day.

Bear Bryant

Alabama also had Bear Bryant. Bryant had been at Alabama for less than a decade, but his national championship count was already at three (1961, 1964 and 1965), and he would win three more (1973, 1978 and 1979) before he was done. He would compile a record and reputation unmatched in the history of college football.

In 1966, we knew he was good. We didn't know just how good. On that rainy, muddy day, he gave us a glimpse.

At game time, the field had been softened by hard rains. The rain continued not hard but steadily throughout the game. We stayed under our umbrellas for the entire game, even when they weren't doing us much good. Tennessee got a couple of breaks early in the game and led 10-0 at the half.

That did not give us much confidence, however. This was Alabama, and that was Bear Bryant down on the sidelines. The two teams slugged it out during the third and fourth quarters, and the field became a mud pit with the yard markers slowly disappearing.

Finally, in the fourth quarter, the Alabama offense asserted itself, and Stabler led a drive that gave the Tide a touchdown. It was then when Bear Bryant gave his team a chance to win. Bryant wanted to win. He hated ties.

Knowing that his defense would probably stop Tennessee on its next possession, Bryant told Stabler to go for a two-point conversion rather than settling for a sure-bet extra point. Stabler zipped the ball into the waiting hands of Wayne Cook in the end zone, making the score 10-8.

A sinking feeling

I remember clearly sinking into the thought that Tennessee could -- and very likely would -- lose this football game. With about four minutes left, Alabama kicked off and its defense did what Bryant had planned. It stopped Tennessee on three plays, and again Stabler led the Tide down the field to the Tennessee one-yard line.

There, Alabama’s placekicker made an easy shot that put the Tide ahead 11-10 with about a minute to play. Tennessee wasn't finished, however. Quarterback Dewey Warren put together a surprising drive that took the Vols down to the two-yard line with 16 seconds.

The team and the crowd prepared for the easy field goal that would put Tennessee back on top.

Bryant, however, was doing something else. As he would do many times in his career, he reached deep into his bench and told one of his players to be the game's final star. Donny Johnson was a lineman who, in practice, showed an ability to break through the offense and get his hand on place kicks. Bryant told him that now was the time to do it for real.

Empowered by Bear's confidence, Johnson rushed with the furor of a man possessed. He didn't get his hand on the ball, but his rush forced the Tennessee kicker off line, and instead of going through the center of the uprights, the ball went high over the right side. Tennessee fans who saw the kick from the end zone thought that it was good, but it was, at best, questionable. The officials waved it off.

Alabama took the ball, ran out the clock and continued on its march to what it hope would be a third straight national champion. The Tennessee game, as it turned out, was the closest it came to a defeat that year.

Tennessee’s season ended well for Vol fans, but it was still something of a disappointment. The Vols lost another regular season game to Mississippi but ended the campaign with a solid victory over a good Syracuse team in the Gator Bowl.

Whatever disappointment Tennessee fans felt, however, paled in the face of the disappointment and frustration experienced by Crimson Tide partisans in early 1967. Despite its undefeated record and 34-7 victory over Nebraska in the Sugar Bowl, the AP and UPI national champions were awarded to Notre Dame, a team that had tied Michigan State during the regular season.

How that happened has long been a subject of controversy in Alabama and is the focus of a recently published book, The Missing Ring: How Bear Bryant and the 1966 Alabama Crimson Tide Were Denied College Football’s Most Elusive Prize, (Amazon link) by Keith Dunnavant.

• • •

Twelve years after that game, I found myself in Tuscaloosa as part of the faculty of the Department of Journalism at the University of Alabama. I was a newly-minted Ph.D., and the position at Alabama was my only job offer. I was glad to have it. Even though there was a good bit of orange in my blood, the University of Alabama turned out to be a wonderful place to teach and have a career.

I stayed there for 25 years, during which time I met Bear Bryant briefly and got to sit in on one of his halftime sessions during the 1980 Auburn game. Football, like it is in Tennessee, is a big part of the Alabama culture, and reminders of that are everywhere.

At one hamburger joint where I ate regularly during the years I was there, a large picture of Bryant being carried off the field by his players hung on the wall. The background of the picture was Neyland Stadium, and it wasn’t long before I realized that the photo was taken after the 1966 game.

My wife Sally and I left Tuscaloosa in 2003 and moved to Emory, Va., where I taught for three years at Emory and Henry College.

Then, as Bryant would say, “mother called.”

The School of Journalism and Electronic Media offered me a position on its faculty. Forty years after I had stepped on campus as a freshman journalism major, I returned as a journalism faculty member with lots of memories. One of those memories that remains clearest was that rainy, muddy day in October when Bear Bryant gave us his coaching clinic on winning football games.

World Series begins tonight

2008-10-22T04:31:00.000-07:00

The World Series begins tonight. Let's hope for the best.

The World Series:

two vaunted teams with rich baseball histories,
a couple of well-known and wiley managers,
big stars on both sides set to make each inning a drama-filled delight,
a bit of controversy or personal animus thrown in just to spice things up.

Well, maybe next year.

The Tampa Bay Rays host the Philadelphia Phillies in the first game of the World Series tonight in what could very well be an excellent seven-game set of baseball dramas.

That's the hope.

The Phillies have Ryan Howard, a young slugger who hasn't done much yet in the postseason. They also boast of several other better-than-average players who have had good years.

The Rays have David Price, a huge left-handed pitcher on the mound tonight, to match fastballs and wits with these guys. The Rays have a pretty good manager and a team of young potentials who put together an amazing year after a truly awful year in 2007.

But the Tampa Bay Rays and the Philadelphia Phillies?

Neither team has a history worthy of baseball's last act of the year.

The Tampa Bay Rays were once known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. But that was a long time ago -- like, last year. So much for tradition.

The Philadelphia Phillies have been around for quite a while, but who knew? For a good part of their history, they were the second team in Philadelphia, always second fiddle to Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics. The Phillies have never shown up much in post-season play, and you don't need one hand full of fingers to count their World Series appearances, much less championships.

I was in Philadelphia several years ago when the Phillies were playing in the old Veterans Stadium. It wasn't a great trip. It included an encounter with an usher who thought he was Idi Amin and who looked like he would eat me if I didn't follow his unreasonable commands.

The game was less than compelling so I wandered around the interior of the stadium and came upon a plaque that named the All-Time Phillies team, or something of that nature.

This should be good, I told myself, and it was.

Mike Schmidt, of course, was listed as the third baseman, and Robin Roberts headed the Phillies pitching history. Both legit stars, Hall of Famers.

But at shortstop, there was Larry Bowa. Larry Bowa? The Phillies have been around for a century or so, and the best they could do at that position was Larry Bowa? To me, that spoke volumes about the Phillies.

But, I should stop my unfair riffs against the Phillies and enjoy the games, right? Right.

So who will win? (Now starts the riff against sports journalists.)

I think one of the silliest things in sports journalism is for writers to make predictions. They don't know what's going to happen. Neither do I. Neither do the players.

That, as they say, is why they play the games.

Complete sentences vs. fragments

2008-10-10T17:56:00.000-07:00

A little coherence and evidence of intellectual activity from the presidential candidates -- is that too much to ask?

David Ignatius, columnist for the Washington Post, noted the following about this week's presidential debate in Nashville:

Is it “presidential” to speak in clear sentences that have a beginning, a middle and an end? If so, we heard a very presidential Barack Obama in tonight’s debate -- a man who was fluid and precise in explaining his policies and in critiquing those of his opponent.

John McCain, in contrast, seemed stiff and uncomfortable, explaining himself in sentence fragments and jokes and gests that didn’t quite register. He looked awkward whether he was standing or sitting, and his speech was that of a man who wants to chide his opponent and assert his own fitness for office -- but can’t explain himself or his policies in clear language that forms complete sentences and paragraphs -- or even complete thoughts.
Or am I being elitist, in arguing that case for coherence?

I, for one, don't think it's elitist. Well, maybe it is. So what's wrong with that. Some of us still value coherence and think it's a sign of intellect.

And speaking of intellect, see also David Brooks' column in the New York Times today.

And, while we're talking English, watch Kitty Burns Florey (Slate) try to diagram Sarah Palin's sentences -- and fail.

A century too soon for Cubs fans

2008-10-06T16:09:00.000-07:00

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Now that fans of the Chicago Cubs have been put out of their impending misery (you didn't really think the Cubs were going to the Series, did you?), they can retire for the winter with this book and wish they had been born about 100 years earlier.

When the Cubs really did go to the World Series.

And they did so at end of one of the most exciting pennant races baseball has ever seen. It was a three-way battle between the Cubs (Tinker to Evers to Chance), the Giants of John McGraw and Christy Mathewson, and the Pirate of Honus Wagner.

Cait Murphy tells this story with a lot of gusto and a style that sometimes gets in the way of the drama. Still, the research she has done is solid and extensive. I liked this book at the end much better than at the beginning and would recommend it to any fan of baseball history.

Writing the Amazon-ready review

2008-10-02T05:18:00.000-07:00

Rule No. 1 in writing an Amazon review: Be honest. Rule No. 2: Keep it short.

Lunch conversation with my good friend Cyn Mobley the other day turned toward our writing group and the things the group could do to help each other promote our books. She asked me to come up with a list of things each of us should do.

One of the things on the list was writing a review for Amazon.com.

Aaron Shepard, in his book Aiming at Amazon, notes that reviews on a book’s Amazon page “have emerged as one of the most powerful influences on book sales.” Shepard also points out that many authors, publishers and friends have tried to game the Amazon system by writing reviews under false names or asking friends who have never read the book to do so.

He urges authors not to engage in that kind of dishonesty.

So do I. Writing, to me, is a semi-sacred act. It should not be violated.

With that in mind, here are some basic rules for writing the Amazon-ready review:

Rule No. 1. Be honest. If you don’t like the book or a part of the book and you feel strongly enough about it, say so. Negative, or less than complimentary, observations about a book – even if it’s written by a friend – will help the reader as long as they are thoughtful, appropriate and proportional.
Rule No. 2. Keep it short. Short sentences, short paragraphs, short review. Learn to write so that you say what you have to say and get out. The model outlined below may help.
Rule No. 3. Stay on message. The review is about the book and maybe a little bit about the author. It’s not about you or your Aunt Matilda.

So, what should a review for Amazon look like?

Think in terms of five modular paragraphs (they don’t have to be tied together) and 400 to 500 words max. Less is better.

Paragraph 1: An introduction to the book, its genre and what it’s really about. Note anything that might be unusual about the book – theme, setting, plot, character, or whatever. Some overall evaluative word, phrase or statement is appropriate.

Paragraphs 2 and 3: Plot. Summarize the challenges the protagonist faces without giving away the ending (particularly if it’s a mystery). Make this as straightforward as possible. Your reader will thank you for it.

Paragraph 4: Evaluation. Here you can comment on the plot, the characters, the writing, the descriptions, the setting, the pacing – anything about the book that impressed you, positively or negatively. But don’t try to comment on everything. My rule of thumb is two. Just comment on two of the above list.

Paragraph 5: Recommendation. Should the reader buy the book? Highly recommend, recommend with reservations, don’t recommend. Now evaluate this paragraph. Given what you have already written in earlier paragraphs, do you really need this one?

Once you have posted your review on Amazon, spread the love. Look for another place to post it.

Alabama vs. Georgia: The '62 game had an important legal impact

2008-09-27T05:08:00.000-07:00

Part of the origin of the "public figure" in libel law began with the 1962 Alabama-Georgia football game and the legendary coach Paul "Bear" Bryant.

The game between Alabama and Georgia tonight on ESPN calls to mind a game between the same two teams 46 years ago that had an important impact -- not on college football but on the shape of libel law in the United States.

The teams were coached by Paul "Bear" Bryant (Alabama) and Wally Butts (Georgia). A Saturday Evening Post story about an alleged collaboration between them led to a libel suit that eventually became part of the U.S. Supreme Court's formulation of the idea of the "public figure."

Here's the story (adapted from my Journalism: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How, published by Allyn and Bacon):

When the Supreme Court decided the New York Times v. Sullivan case in 1964, it gave extra protection to the media against libel suits by public officials. The court was seeking to encourage vigorous debate and discussion on issues of the day. But vigorous debate often involves more than public officials. Three years after the Sullivan decision, the court expanded the actual malice standard of proof to include “public figures.”

It took two major college football coaches and a retired Army general to make this happen. In the fall of 1962, Alabama’s football team shellacked Georgia, 35-0. The next year, the Saturday Evening Post published an article about how the head coaches, Paul “Bear” Bryant of Alabama and Wally Butts of Georgia, colluded to fix the game. The article, “The Story of a College Football Fix,” alleged that Butts had called Bryant during the week before the game and outlined what Georgia had planned the offensive and defensive plays the Bulldogs planned to run during the game. Butts sued the Post and won a $3 million judgment, which was reduced to $460,000 by an appeals court.

In a separate incident earlier in 1962, the Associated Press reported that retired Army Gen. Edwin Walker had encouraged people to riot when the first black student attempted to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Walker sued the AP in Texas and won a judgment of $800,000.

Both cases came to the Supreme Court at the same time, and as it occasionally does, the court combined the cases into one decision.

The court ruled that even though none was the plaintiffs in either of the cases held public office, they were “public figures”; that is, they were people involved in important issues of interest to the public. Therefore, if they were going to sue for libel, they had to prove actual malice, just as public officials had to prove it.

The Supreme Court did not define precisely who a “public figure” is, and courts have been struggling with the concept ever since. In 2003, for example, a U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled that a former Navy lieutenant was a “limited purpose” public figure.

Cary Lohrenz was one of the first women trained to fly combat aircraft for the U.S. Navy in the early 1990s. In 1996 she sued the Center for Military Readiness, the Washington Times and the San Diego Union for alleging that she was an substandard pilot. The appeals court said that her position as one of the first women to fly combat aircraft made her a public figure and that she had to prove actual malice.

You can read the full decisions in these cases on the web at the following addresses: Curtis v. Butts ; Lohrenz v. Donnelly .

___________

The Writing Wright (Amazon)

JPROF.com

The Writing Wright: now available on Amazon

2008-09-27T02:00:00.000-07:00

Tom Clancy, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain and Satchel Paige -- they were all writers (of sorts). And they have all made it into this first volume of The Writing Wright.

The Writing Wright is now available on Amazon.

If you are fascinated by writers and writing, The Writing Wright offers a box of chocolates you can’t refuse. The book sprinkled quotations and stories from many writers along with my own insight, instruction and commentary. Here you’ll find:

• Mark Twain’s critique of the writing for James Fenimore Cooper

• Ernest Hemingway’s attitude toward punctuation

• How expensive a misspelling can be

• Down-to-earth instruction on the glue of writing

• When Tom Clancy learned about submarines

• What Satchel Paige said about braggin’

• What H.L. Mencken thought about being a reporter

And much more.

The book contains many of my own illustrations. My hope for The Writing Wright is that it will draw you in and teach you something about writing – lessons you can learn over and over.

The price is $10.

The Writing Wright's fan page on Facebook

2008-09-25T04:59:00.000-07:00

Just created a fan page for The Writing Wright on Facebook.

Doing it once wasn't too hard. I'm sure when I do it again, it will be even simpler.

I loaded a few of the drawings that are in the book into the first photo album, and I'm going to take some screen shots of a few of the pages and put them in another album. I also wrote on the Wall and started a discussion thread.

Before long, I'll figure out how to invite folks to become a fan. Probably won't do that until ordering info comes through from Amazon.

Meanwhile, you can head over that way and see what's up.

Connelly scores big with The Lincoln Lawyer

2008-09-23T15:33:00.000-07:00

The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the best books that I have read in the past few years. From the very first page, the reader can identify with Mickey, the protagonist, and what he has to go through to maintain his ambulance-chasing law practice and make a living.

Connelly has constructed a taut thriller where the tension and the stakes are constantly going up. Mickey is a clever lawyer but sometimes too clever. His Golden Goose client turns out to be more than he had in mind.

Connelly shows that he is the master of the thriller with this book. He will do his fans (which includes me) a great favor if he writes another one with this character and with the same gripping style.

View all my reviews.

Child fails to live up to his own high standards

2008-09-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child

I was disappointed with this book -- not up to the usual Lee Child/Jack Reacher standards. Reacher and his pals seem to wander around the landscape without much of a clue as to what is happening to them or what has happened to their dead friends -- or why. Maybe this one is weak because Reacher is working with a team rather than by himself or with just one other person. Anyway, the title is great.

View other reviews at GoodReads.

Palin, her emails, her hacker: No secrets`

2008-09-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

The theft of Sarah Palin's "private" emails from her Yahoo account this week flared into a potentially fascinating but short-lived story of the presidential campaign. Apparently, there is little within the emails that gives us new insight into the Republican vice presidential candidate.

What is far more interesting -- and instructive -- are the stories underneath this non-story. There are three:

Hacking with ease. It took virtually no technical expertise for the hacker to get into Palin's email account. The security question used to prevent unauthorized entry could easily be answered through a Google search or by just looking at a standard biography. Just about anyone with rudimentary knowledge of email systems could have done it. (See "Palin Email "Hack" Was Hardly a Hack at All" at Gizmodo.)
Secret government. Why was Sarah Palin using a private email account instead of the one provided for her by the state government of Alaska? She was doing so as a work-around to Alaska's Open Records Act. According to the Seattle Times, "Palin routinely uses a private Yahoo e-mail account to conduct state business. Others in the governor's office sometimes use personal e-mail accounts, too." To those of us who believe the public's business should be conducted in public, the attitude of the governor and her administration is troubling. But, given the permeable nature of "private" email accounts, this scheme comes up somewhat short of brilliant.
Tracking the hack. If Palin doesn't have any protection from intrusions, then neither does the hacker. Attention is being focused on a University of Tennessee student who is the son of a Democratic legislator. (UT is where I teach, but no, I don't know him.) Even though he made some efforts to conceal his identity, he was tracked through a number of clues he left about himself and information that appeared in his high school yearbook. (For more details, see the Knoxville News Sentinel's "Kernell mum on allegations son hacked into Palin’s e-mail."

The Big Lesson here: The web is no place to hide. What happens on the web doesn't stay on the web.

When we put information, thoughts, ideas, pictures or whatever on the web, we lose control of it. And sometimes it comes back to haunt us.

Destroy the Palin emails? It ain't gonna happen

2008-09-18T04:47:00.000-07:00

I pretty much agree with Steve Outing's take on the Sarah Palin email theft thing. First, it shouldn't have happened. Digging into someone else's email is the wrong thing to do.

But what gets Steve is the McCain campaign's reaction to it. Rick Davis, a McCain spokesperson has asked that anyone who has these emails should destroy them.

Steve says, "Get real."

Perhaps they still use typewriters over at McCain campaign HQ. Davis must be thinking we still live back in the day when the news media could be persuaded to squelch something like this. If the media decided to hold back (because, after all, this was an illegal act committed by someone, and old media probably wouldn’t touch a story that’s so ethically and legally challenged), then the public wouldn’t see the e-mails.

Sorry, Mr. Davis, but we don’t live in that era anymore.

Steve wisely advises the McCain advisers to deal with what the emails say -- and the fact that Palin was using her Yahoo account to conduct public business.

The toothpaste isn't going back into the tube.

The kind of fight I like -- over a man of letters

2008-09-07T15:48:00.000-07:00

A tussle over the legacy -- and the body -- of Edgar Allen Poe pits Philadelphia against Baltimore.

This is the kind of fight I like. I'm pulling for Bal'mer.

According to an article in the New York Times this weekend, two scholars have gotten into a clash over which city -- Philadelphia or Baltimore -- has the most claim to the legacy of Edgar Allen Poe.

Baltimore is the city most associated today with Poe. He died there in 1849. How he died is, for some, an open question. Some say it was alcoholism, some say other diseases, some even say murder. He had lost his wife about two years before that while they were living in New York City.

Poe lay in an unmarked grave in Baltimore for two decades, but then th city embraced him and today he is honored as a native son.

But Philadelphia has more claim on Poe than Baltimore, according to a Edward Pettit, a Poe scholar. It was in the City of Brotherly Love that Poe wrote some of his most famous works. Pettit argues that the city's rampant violence and crime served as a natural inspiration to Poe's marcabre outlook and his detective fiction. Poe is widely acknowledged as having invented the modern detective genre. Pettit wants Poe's body moved to Philly.

Not so fast, says Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House in Baltimore. Poe is too much a part of the city's lore and character to be moved now. Besides, Philadelphia is a little late in claiming Poe since the city has ignored him for 160 years.

Of course, there is always Richmond, where Poe grew up and to where he had planned to return eventually. Poe always considered himself a Virginian. But Richmond (wisely?) has not asked for the return of the body.

In all this, I stand with Baltimore, which is a far more interesting place than Philadelphia. Baltimore is a dank, working class town with no Mainline pretentions but lots of interesting character and architecture. It's the city where Edgar Allen Poe should be from, even if he isn't.

A literary flame who died too soon

2008-09-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

Those who die too young provoke particular sadness.

Earlier this summer, we noted the 100th anniversary of the day American letters lost one of its brightest and briefest flames -- Stephen Crane.

Crane's one novel was the Red Badge of Courage, which contained descriptions of the confusion and terror of a Civil War battle so real that veterans of the conflict said Crane got it exactly right. Crane had never been in a battle when he wrote the book. He had been born six years after the war ended.

Crane did see action after the book was published and after he had achieved fame because of it. He took on the role of celebrity reporter for Joseph Pulitzer and the New York World when they were trying by any means to one-up their rival William Randolph Hearst and the New York Herald in covering the Spanish-American War in 1898. The World sent Crane to Cuba, and while he was there, the editors demanded "hair-raising dispatches (and) bombastic scoops on heroism," he said.

The young writer did see action and described it well, even helping fellow reporter Edward Marshall to safety when he had been shot. Crane recorded the last dispatch from the dying Marshall and filed it before he filed his own, which eventually landed him in some hot water with his editors, who accused him of disloyalty when he returned to America.

Crane quit the World and moved to England and continued to write fiction. He had come under heavy criticism from proper Victorians because of his choice of a mate -- a former brothel keeper from Miami who helped him run up massive debts while in Europe. Crane faced a tougher foe than critics or bill collectors, however. He contracted tuberculosis and spent his last months in a desperate attempt to find relief.

That attempt failed, and on June 5, 1900, he died. He was 28 years old.

__________

(Much of the informtion here about Crane's journalism comes from Denis Bryant, Pulitzer: A Life, John Wiley, 2001.)

H.L. Mencken on being a newspaper reporter

2008-09-03T09:11:00.000-07:00

With the changes in the news business, will succeeding generations experience what H.L. Mencken did as a newspaper reporter at the turn of the previous century?

In all of the events of H.L. Mencken's eventful life, nothing matched his days as a young newspaper reporter (circa 1899):

My adventures in that character (a newspaper reporter) . . . had their moments – in fact, they were made up, subjectively, of one continuous, unrelenting, almost delirious moment – and when I revive them now it is mainly to remind myself and inform historians that a newspaper reporter, in those remote days, had a grand and gaudy time of it, and no call to envy any man. . . . I believed then and believe today, that it was the maddest, gladdest, damndest existence ever enjoyed by mortal youth.

H.L. Mencken was a newspaper and magazine editor, critic of American letters, and chief curmudgeon of the first half of the 20th century. His sharp wit was always at war with pomposity and hypocrisy and earned him the title, “Sage of Baltimore.”

His experience as a newspaper reporter predated mine by about 60 years, but the feeling was the same. I, too, had a "grand and gaudy time of it, and no call to envy any man."

The passage quoted here is from his memoir Newspaper Days.