I was thinking about what I'd order for dinner, at first. I love Thai food, and never get enough. But I was also thinking about what small gift I could bring to the author/editor who'd suggested we meet for a meal while he happened to be in the area.
He is a delightful man, a True Literary Believer with no time for cynicism or discouragement. He's a fulltime loving husband and father—but that doesn't stop his work on a memoir in progress, nor his operating an online magazine for authors, which often includes his conducting a series of podcast interviews. Moreover, he writes a daily blog about his own reflections on the writing process. All his work appears devoted to helping bring attention to writers and writing.
I wanted to offer this admirable fellow my "best marble," the treasure of treasures among all the books I know—to show him essentially who I am; to show him what my writer's heart—and all the products that issue from it—is made of.
A heart-book.
Certainly, I wanted to show off. I wanted to impress. But finally, more: I wanted my friend to hold in his hands the spark that dwells at the core of my artist's life, that colors and drives everything I try to do and stand for. The atomic seed.
The heart-book contains our spiritual and artistic DNA. It's two parents in one, progenitor of soul and personality, voice and vision. A finite concentrate, inside a series of humdrum-looking pages upon which words are printed.
I thought hard about it as I dressed, and decided that the book-of-all-books would (for me, for a million reasons) have to be the late, beloved William Maxwell's slender novel, So Long, See You Tomorrow.
I phoned my local bookstore, and asked them to set aside a copy.
And once I'd collected the revered little volume and begun my hour-long drive to the restaurant, a slow, internal joy began to break.
It occurred to me that most readers (and especially writers) must each have a heart-book they guard forever—likely without even knowing it, or stopping to think about it. Each of us, I reason, carries deep within the book that functions like a kernel of plutonium, powering the elaborate machinery of our works and thoughts and inmost beings.
I decided that people should be allowed to name a heart-book for the life of childhood, too.
"You hear a big bang in childhood," noted my dear friend, author and teacher Thaisa Frank (no relation). And that certainly applies, as well, to the big bang of early reading, when we are so raw and undefended that stories explode like supernovas in our hearts and minds and eyes, creating galaxies that twinkle and spin within ever after. Mine would be a three-way tie, perhaps (and I know that's cheating), for Charlotte's Web, Little Women, and maybe To Kill a Mockingbird (depending where in childhood you place yourself).
And the marvelous fruit of this reasoning? It leads quickly to one voluptuous, shamelessly personal question to ask of friends and family (besides how spicy you like your curry).
What's your heart-book? Read More
He is a delightful man, a True Literary Believer with no time for cynicism or discouragement. He's a fulltime loving husband and father—but that doesn't stop his work on a memoir in progress, nor his operating an online magazine for authors, which often includes his conducting a series of podcast interviews. Moreover, he writes a daily blog about his own reflections on the writing process. All his work appears devoted to helping bring attention to writers and writing.
I wanted to offer this admirable fellow my "best marble," the treasure of treasures among all the books I know—to show him essentially who I am; to show him what my writer's heart—and all the products that issue from it—is made of.
A heart-book.
Certainly, I wanted to show off. I wanted to impress. But finally, more: I wanted my friend to hold in his hands the spark that dwells at the core of my artist's life, that colors and drives everything I try to do and stand for. The atomic seed.
The heart-book contains our spiritual and artistic DNA. It's two parents in one, progenitor of soul and personality, voice and vision. A finite concentrate, inside a series of humdrum-looking pages upon which words are printed.
I thought hard about it as I dressed, and decided that the book-of-all-books would (for me, for a million reasons) have to be the late, beloved William Maxwell's slender novel, So Long, See You Tomorrow.
I phoned my local bookstore, and asked them to set aside a copy.
And once I'd collected the revered little volume and begun my hour-long drive to the restaurant, a slow, internal joy began to break.
It occurred to me that most readers (and especially writers) must each have a heart-book they guard forever—likely without even knowing it, or stopping to think about it. Each of us, I reason, carries deep within the book that functions like a kernel of plutonium, powering the elaborate machinery of our works and thoughts and inmost beings.
I decided that people should be allowed to name a heart-book for the life of childhood, too.
"You hear a big bang in childhood," noted my dear friend, author and teacher Thaisa Frank (no relation). And that certainly applies, as well, to the big bang of early reading, when we are so raw and undefended that stories explode like supernovas in our hearts and minds and eyes, creating galaxies that twinkle and spin within ever after. Mine would be a three-way tie, perhaps (and I know that's cheating), for Charlotte's Web, Little Women, and maybe To Kill a Mockingbird (depending where in childhood you place yourself).
And the marvelous fruit of this reasoning? It leads quickly to one voluptuous, shamelessly personal question to ask of friends and family (besides how spicy you like your curry).
What's your heart-book? Read More