I too have been misled by the Romantic concept of writing. As a youth I saw too many movies of the great Artist, and the writer was always some tragic and very interesting chap with a fine goatee, blazing eyes, and inner truths springing to his tongue continually. What a way to be, I thought, ah. But it isn’t so. The best writers that I know talk very little, I mean those who are doing the good writing. In fact, there is nothing duller than a good writer. In a crowd or even with another person, he is always busy (subconsciously) recording every goddamned thing. He is not interested in speechmaking or being the Life of the Party. He is greedy; he saves his juices for the typewriter. You can talk away inspiration, you can destroy god-given genius with your mouth. Energy will only spread so far. I too am greedy. One must be. The only juices that can be given up, the only time that can simply be given away is the time for Love. Love gives strength; it breaks down inbred hatred and prejudices. It makes the writing more full. But all other things must be saved for the work.

A writer must keep performing, hitting the high mark, or he is down on skid row. And there’s no way back up. For after some years of writing, the soul, the person, the creature becomes useless to operate in any other capacity. He is unemployable. He is a bird in a land of cats. I’d never advise anybody to become a writer, only if writing is the only thing which keeps you from going insane.”

- Charles Bukowski -

For a PDF of the article, click the following: “Books Are Not Dead. They’re Not Even Dying.”

Or to read the article on the PW website, click here.

Colorado Convention Center:

MPP poetry editor Michael D. Edwards talking with writer Brad McLelland:

The reading we hosted with some publishing friends:

Poetry editor Michael D. Edwards:

Author Jonathan Montgomery:

Author Nancy Stohlman:

Author Travis Cebula:

See you next year at the AWP Conference in DC!

- Betsy Lerner -

First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.

And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I’m kidding.

For instance, join the National Guard or the Marines and teach democracy. I’m kidding.

We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags if you have them. That always seems to scare them away. I’m kidding.

If you want to hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

- Kurt Vonnegut -

“I only want to say that at this time it is tough for the writer who wants to put it down as it is, or was. The 90s have far more strictures than the 50s ever had. We’ve gone back, not so much in how we think but in what we can say. Each Age has borne its own contritions but the end of the 20th century is a particularly sad one. We’ve lost our guts, our gamble, our heart. Listen, believe me, when we say it and say it true, the women will love it, the blacks, the browns, the yellows, the greens, the reds and the purples will love it, and the homosexuals and the lesbians and all the in between will love it. Let’s not crap ourselves, we are different but we are one. We bring death to each other and death brings it to us. Did you ever see that flattened cat on the freeway as you drove by at 70 mph? That’s us, baby. And I scream to the skies that there should be no way, no word, no limit. Just a roll of the dice, the tilting of the dark white light and the ability to laugh, a few times, at what has trapped us like this.”

- Charles Bukowski -

- Stephen King -