Newsletter Archive September 2022

Author Showcase: Glen Jeffries

We asked our authors questions about reading, craft and collaboration. Each month we will highlight some of their responses and suggestions. For September, we are showcasing Glen Jeffries, as his piece “From the Cuckoo” is narrated by a bird (given our name, this seems an appropriate start). Mr. Jeffries lives in London and works for The Nature Conservancy.

On voice:

For this particular piece—where the narrator is a cuckoo—the idea came to me while I sat watching a garden bird in a park. It struck me that my watching this little bird—it was a robin, if I recall—was so egocentric, so stuck on me as the center of the universe. I watched it fly around, bathe in a water trough, eat scraps from the floor and I felt protective of its vulnerability as a tiny ball of fluff. And then I realized that this all felt quite condescending; that robin certainly didn’t look at me in the same way. As long as I wasn’t a threat I was invisible. This made me think I could write a story from the perspective of a bird that had the same kind of humanized thinking that I do—basically a role reversal. A bird with sympathy and an interest in the non-autotelic activity. With that, I then imagined how I would look on these two people in the story eagerly searching for me if I could just fly away forever or reveal myself to them any time I wanted. I wanted to avoid the twee (“this bird is so kind”) and the ridiculous (“this bird is an avian Einstein”) and I checked each sentence for breaking those parameters. I think I got it just about right.

Are there any books on craft or writing exercises you recommend?

Stephen King’s On Writing is a fearless and honest detailing of what it takes to be a writer – there’s a simple anecdote in there about where he places his desk in his office that I find incredibly comforting to return to when I’m struggling with my writing (I won’t say any more about that vignette in the hope that you’ll go read the book). John McPhee’s Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process is also brilliant – his structural diagrams reveal the grand architecture of how he plans his writing are so lifting to me because they reveal exactly why the aircraft flies. I’ve recently read A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders. The book has alternating chapters—a classic Russian short story printed in full followed by an analysis of what makes it great—and it’s such a non-scholarly but powerful insight into the craft of short story writing. (It’s also a teaser of the MFA course he teaches at Syracuse and Saunders now has a Substack called Story Club that further continues his approachable and masterful imparting of wisdom about storycraft.)

Favorite independent bookstore?

In the U.S., it’s Tempest Book Shop in Waitsfield, Vermont.  In the UK (where I live right now) London Review Bookshop.

Mr. Jeffries responds to more of our questions here.

To read more of his work, visit his website. (Gabrielle highly recommends his musing on dog ears in books and nature essays How to Spot a Hidden Whale (Smithsonian Magazine) and “Blight or Blessing? How the Wolverine Embodies Arctic Diversity” (The New Humanitarian).

Book Review

Charles Baxter, Wonderlands: Essays on the Life of Literature, Graywolf Press, 2022.

In one of two interludes in a new book on writing and literature, Charles Baxter bemoans the idea of offering wisdom to writers. When he finally gets down to distilling some of his advice, it is possibly one of the best things (of many good things) in this foray into fiction writing. It could be a starting point for any creative writing course. Not only does Baxter manage to single out the characteristics of a true writer's personality, which has to do with an echo of all the characters we've observed in our day-to-day lives living inside us, but he also speaks honestly of a journey in his writing career. It is a well-known story of rejection that very well could have ended with abandoning his vocation. And it is a resounding reminder that all you write is not lost. Many of your ideas will continue to serve you in time. The best thing that I can say about this new book, published in July by Graywolf Press, is that it made me feel less alone as an artist. 

Many readers will also find pleasure in the first chapter about requests, where Baxter shows just how ubiquitous this element is in narrative, particularly in Shakespeare, where King Lear asks his daughters to tell him how much they love their father before he divvies up his kingdom, where the ghost of Hamlet's father makes a series of requests - from leaving his mother out of any vengeance to remembering him - and where Lady MacBeth urges her husband to murder. If you’re a writer, the discussion will inspire you to sit down and imagine all the tales that you could tell based on a request. The title chapter "Wonderlands" is also worth the price of admission, as Baxter continues a theme that he started in his other book Burning Down the House. Some stories involve a character going through a momentous narrative door where, on the other side, the world is a strange place filled with a haunting liveliness, where emotions may be reflected in objects, and if a child is sad the text will not say he is sad, it will have a car run over his bicycle. 

To read Baxter is to read new ways of thinking about how narrative works, how it pulses forth with urgencies that aren't based on our conventional notions of conflict and setting and character. In the upcoming months, I will no doubt read it again.

Support independent bookstores!

Did you know you can support your favorite independent bookstore from afar? Shop at www.bookshop.org (US) and www.uk.bookshop.org (UK). September 18th - 24th is Banned Books Week. Consider supporting an indie store by ordering a banned book.

This month’s featured independent bookstore is Ablalabix Books in Crystal Lake, IL. Abalabix is newly opened and woman owned! Browse and purchase books at Abalabix Bookshop.org

If you are near by, here are some upcoming Abalabix events:

September 24th is Johnny Appleseed Day in Downtown Crystal Lake, IL.

October 9th is their 1-year anniversary, and on October 12th they have an author visit with Patricia Crissafulli, The Secrets of Ohnita Harbor, at 5 pm.

Support or purchase hard copies

We care about the environment and birds (can’t you tell?). Therefore, we will donate 5% of net income to Sierra Club and National Audubon Society.