Some Annotated Reading

Because I am concentrating on short-form writing, I need to be looking for places that publish the same. The reading involved is time consuming, and I sometimes feel I should just sit down and do nothing but read for a month or two. 

Instead, what I've been reading this week includes:

In the Bird Cage: Finding Out What Funny Is by Steve Martin, New Yorker, October 22, 2007. This is an excerpt from Martin's book Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life Very readable. The lesson learned? Martin dated some interesting women when he was young.

The Kid Is Alright: In Defense of Picky Eating by Irina Dumitrescu, Serious Eats Serious Eats publishes personal essays about food. I write personal essays about eating. Also, we have two generations of picky eaters in our family. Serious, serious picky eaters. The lesson learned after poking around Serious Eats? A lot of their essayists are award winning food writers. I must make of that what I will. 

The House With Feet: The Dire Importance of Ruth Stone's Bequest by Bianca Stone in Vida: Women in the Literary Arts. This piece has nothing to do with my market research and everything to do with the fact that I'm developing an obsession with Ruth Stone, just as I have one with Shirley Jackson. It appears that I have not mentioned here that I received The Essential Ruth Stone for Christmas last year and read it this spring.

Pretty Bad Middle Grade Novel--I wouldn't finish this, but I'm skimming now because I bought the thing. I will have more to say about this after I finish. 

Medium--I try to do some reading on Medium each week, sometimes to check out publications I might submit to, sometimes to try to support other writers. I'm hesitant to post Medium links, because it appears that my readers can't read a few piece per month there anymore. But, just in case, this was a pretty good poem.

Time Management Tuesday: It's That Time Of Year When We Talk About Temporal Landmarks And Lent

 Ah, temporal landmarks. Those events, dates in the calendar, that mark a change in our day-to-day lives. We often feel we can get a fresh start when we reach a temporal landmark. We often plan to get a fresh start when a temporal landmark is approaching. That can be school vacations for those people whose lives, because of work or family, revolve around the school year. It can be the beginning of a new calendar year. For writers it can be November, which has become National Novel Writing Month.

For people who observe Lent, one way or another, that can function as a 40-day temporal landmark. A beaut, because you get your fresh start on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, and you can wrap it up on Good Friday, the end day.

The bottom line is no matter what your spiritual tradition, if it includes temporal landmarks, you can use them to help with planning new beginnings for any kind of project you want to jump start.

And What Are You Doing For Lent This Year, Gail?

Well, since you asked, I do have a Lenten/temporal landmark project this year. It doesn't involve giving something up, the traditional Lenten activity for my ancestors followed. Presumably. Instead, I am doing something extra.

Turns out, I've done this kind of thing before. In 2016, I read some nonfiction during Lent. This year, I'm reading poetry.

I'm not reading random poetry but Ruth Stone's The Essential Ruth Stone, edited by Bianca Stone. I will spare you the details about why I asked for this book for Christmas. Instead, I will say that while I periodically make an attempt at reading poetry, it's not something I naturally gravitate towards. So, though I'd had this book since Christmas, I hadn't touched it.

For Lent, then, I am reading a poem a day from The Essential Ruth Stone. But reading is not enough. I'm studying these things and keeping a record of my thoughts. I'm interacting with this book for Lent. Maybe...interacting with Ruth Stone?

This book looks to have far more than 40 poems, so I don't know what will happen when Easter arrives, and I haven't finished. But I have a Lenten experience going until then. 

I Have A Childlit Connection For You

I've met Ruth's daughter, Phoebe Stone, the author of a number of children's books, including The Romeo and Juliet Code.

Ruth Stone, Poet

Last night, while reading some Vermont newspapers my cousin had sent down here to another family member, I learned that Ruth Stone died in November. I have yet to read any of her work, but I'm still a bit obsessed with writers who had Vermont connections during the time I was growing up there. (I've done more than a dozen posts here about Shirley Jackson.) Ruth had a big one. For many years she lived in a town that was part of our union school system and one of her daughters was in my eighth grade math class. I don't remember her after that point, probably because, as I learned later, Ruth moved around teaching at colleges.

Her personal story is compelling. She was widowed in her forties and raised three children by herself. She published her first book of poetry in 1959, the year her husband died, but her next one didn't come out until 1971. Her major success didn't come until she was in her 80s and 90s. She won the National Book Award in 2002 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2009.

She stayed the course, both with her work and with her family. I am impressed.

Ruth Stone's daughter, Phoebe, is the author of The Romeo and Juliet Code, published last year.

I Knew Her Sister!

Okay, I've been hearing a lot recently about a book called The Romeo and Juliet Code. Lots of people have been hearing about it, right? But I've just been skimming things, liked the idea of the book being about a girl relocated to the U.S. during World War II, thought I'd read it if I got the chance.

Well, just now on Facebook I saw a message on my wall from the New England Independent Booksellers Association in which it was promoting the book saying it was "by Phoebe Stone (Middlebury, VT)"

Boing!

I grew up about 30 minutes from Middlebury. It was the cool place for us to go in high school. It was also the town I had in mind when creating East Branbury, Vermont for Saving the Planet & Stuff.

But, more importantly, I know the Stone name because Phoebe's sister, Abigail, was in my eighth grade math class! With Mrs. Welton!

Now, I would have forgotten all this because we weren't close, and I don't recall Abigail other than that math class. But years later, I learned that her mother, Ruth, is a well-known poet and that others in the family were also writers. In fact, I believe Abigail has published some books, too.

My limited connection with the family came about when they lived in Goshen, Vermont. We went to a union high school that included seven towns. Goshen and Sudbury were two of the tiniest and not near one another. The Gauthiers were a Franco-American farm family (farm is a little too grand a word--subsistence farm would be more accurate), and I knew nothing about the literary Stones, didn't know they were literary, would probably not have known what that meant then if I had. I had no idea what the family had been through with the loss of their father (which would happen in my family when I was a senior in high school). Abigail liked to wear hats, if I recall. That's it.

But I'm just so blown away that two such dramatically different people from nearby locations are so many years later working in the same field. Totally independent of one another. Totally unaware of one another.

Okay, in my carbon-based world, if I told this story to the people I know someone would be sure to say, "Get over it, Gail. It happens all the time." Which is why I am telling this story here.

Oh, and I wrote to my friend Pam about this.

UPDATE: Pam says it was ninth grade math, not eighth grade, and that seems correct.

Elsewhere On The 'Net

We used to read Paul Jennings' short stories here at chez nous. The Sydney Morning Herald has an article on him and his most recent book, The Next. Notice that it's recommended for readers 15+. I like that. That's a group I think gets lost in the book marketing stampede.

Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat, Pray, Love fame, gave a talk on creativity back in November. My main interest is the part on views of creativity at different periods in history and the Ruth Stone story. Have I ever mentioned that my friend Pam says one of Ruth Stone's daughters was in our eighth grade math class? (I do remember her, but only from that one class.) Ruth Stone lives in one of the six or seven towns that sent kids to our union high school, so it's possible. None of us knew who Ruth Stone was then, though.

And Happy Kid! received a lovely review from a middle school library blog.