Interview with Barbie Angell

I'm happy to have discovered Barbie Angell's poetry through her regular posts on Robert Frost's Banjo, and now she's here to share this wonderful interview with us. Before we start, here's a bit of background on Barbie:

Bio
Barbie Angell is a writer, poet & artist whose life is constantly under renovation. She graduated Lincoln College with high honors and went on to study Creative Writing, Children's Literature and Poetry at Illinois State University and Heartland Community College. Her dream, since the early 90s, has been to acquire literary world domination. In her spare time she plays full-contact tiddlywinks, studies mime architecture & says humorously inappropriate things on Twitter. You can typically find her, dressed like a confused, fairy princess, in Asheville, NC....unless she's at home hiding under her desk.

Now onto the interview...

Interview with Nancy Cudis

Nancy Cudis has a passion for writing, reading, and promoting great books and stories (especially little-known gems) on her blog, Simple Clockwork. Anyone who loves to read and write about short stories should participate in The Short Story Initiative on her blog, which has attracted a community of enthusiastic readers. I'm fortunate to count Nancy as an online friend and fellow blogger, and am happy to introduce her here.

Bio
Nancy is an award-winning blogger, writer, part-time student, full-time community development worker, and a former news reporter. She blogs about short stories, Philippine literature, poetry, books, and personal experiences at her blog, Simple Clockwork. She lives in Cebu, Philippines where she can trek the mountains or drive to the beach or party at a club at any time she wants because of their proximity. She pursues her Masters in Media Studies at a local university. She is active at Cebu Bloggers Society Inc. and recently formed with Geezelle Tapangan of geemiz.com the Cebu Book Club.

On to the interview...

HK: Why did you decide to take up blogging? What has been most rewarding about it (and what's been the biggest challenge)?
NC: Restlessness. It started with being restless more than a year ago. I had left a three-year news reporting stint that required me to submit at least two news stories a day six days a week; then I suddenly found myself in a new five-days-a-week office job that expected me to do more editing and coordination than writing. At the same time, I have more free time to do what I want, which I used for reading and traveling. But writing is something I have always loved doing. One morning, I woke up, feeling frustrated and knowing that I just have to write again. So I started with a personal blog in January 2011. Ten months later, after stumbling upon a supportive community of book bloggers, Simple Clockwork transformed into a book blog, although I did not completely veer away from personal non-book related accounts worth sharing.

At first, I was reading and blogging without direction. I was stretching myself thinly by being everywhere, in any genre that captures my fancy, for any author who took an interest in my efforts. It took me some time to discover what I really wanted to do for my blog. Eventually, blogging for a purpose has become more important to me. Sometimes I feel like a literary activist or an advocate, believing highly in the books, stories, and authors I feature and hoping just as highly that readers and visitors alike will pick them up and include them in their reading menu and be inspired to live better. And you know what’s rewarding about all these? Those special moments when I wake up, open my email, and receive out-of-the-blue comments on old posts telling me how much my blog has inspired them or helped them a lot. Naturally, these incidents would fire up my drive to blog more.

HK: How do you choose which books you'll read? Do you have a reading plan, or are your choices more spontaneous?
NC: Because of my spontaneous experience with starting a blog, it is no surprise I spontaneously choose the books or short stories I read. But when I really like a book or a short story, I really rally for it, but still open to the fact that not all will fall for it. That is one beauty of the book blogging community; there is a lot of positive energy going on and at the same time, there are constructive criticisms, too. If I had experienced otherwise, I would have left the book blogging scene a long time ago.

Rather than a reading plan, I have an editorial calendar, which determines what I read and blog for the month. It is something I did as a news reporter and which is an old habit I could not shake off. Fortunately, it is working for me pretty well in blogging. I have a good mix of short stories, Philippine literature, mythology, comics, children’s books, classics, and romance--genres that particularly hold a special place in my heart.

HK: When you think of books or short stories that you've loved, what qualities make them memorable to you?
NC: Whether it’s a book or a short story, what makes it memorable for me is the ability of the writer to gracefully capture my attention and bring me to a screeching climax and a heart-wrenching resolution. For me, the plot of a story is only as good as how the writer delivers it.

HK: What themes/topics/ideas are you most interested in exploring when you write your own fiction?
NC: I have long been writing short stories, several in high school and college and some just recently. I’m now attempting to write a novel. My eyebrows are always knotted together getting the story going. But all these stories have a common denominator--the dynamics of human relationships.

I’m perennially amazed at how people interact with each other, online or offline, and how we change a lot over time without us consciously aware of it. I think we are interconnected by an invisible thread and how we interact with each other will determine how long or how short that thread will become. I’m equally interested in how people think and how their thinking impels their actions. I’m a reflective person, perhaps a little introverted. So human relationships and human thinking are some things I would like to explore in my future fiction.

HK: If you could choose any three authors, dead or alive, to meet with you to discuss literature and give you feedback on your writing, who would they be and why?
NC: American writer O. Henry, English crime writer Ruth Rendell, and Filipino writer Amador Daguio.

As I have often written in my blog posts, reading O. Henry’s works is like having a glass of wine with him on the balcony and watching the world unfold before our eyes. His works reflect his laidback and relaxed personality yet he delivered many powerful and witty short stories. I would like to be with him on that balcony, not just observing the people on the streets but also talking about my writing.

On the other hand, Ruth Rendell is fantastic. She wrote some of the most mind-boggling works I have come across with. Reading her stories is like riding a train wherein I have to grip something because any time the train’s speed will escalate faster and faster...then stop. Oh, I would not want to ride with her on that train to discuss literature; perhaps after I get off the train, so I could ask her properly how she does it--write admirably gripping stories (and she makes them look so easy to write!).

Amador Daguio would make a great person to walk or trek the mountains with. Reading his works, I could imagine him pointing out huts of native tribes and we would be exchanging clever stories about them, or having a picnic with him and trading over-the-top stories to answer our incredulous “what if” questions. I would like to ask him how to vibrantly capture Filipino stories on paper in a series of short stories. I think that would be really neat.

HK: What are your current writing projects, and what do you hope to work on in the future?
NC: My blog in itself is a writing project. I hope for each blog post to be relevant. I have a lot of plans for my blog, including partnerships with groups that advocate reading and literacy. My hope is that more parents will appreciate the value of encouraging reading to their children at an early stage. While I iron out the details, I will continue The Short Story Initiative, which encourages bloggers and readers to share the short stories they have read. I also work with Mel U of The Reading Life for our joint venture wherein we share our thoughts on Filipino short stories. Every now and then, I try to pick up my pen (yes, I sometimes still use pens) to write a short story. I hope to make a collection of them in the future.

As this is the last question, let me take this opportunity to thank you, Hila! You sure ask really good and thought-provoking, if not tough, questions, and I thoroughly enjoyed answering them!

Thanks, Nancy, for participating!

Worth Watching: Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

Title: Theodora Goes Wild
Director: Richard Boleslawski
Language: English
Rating: Unrated

Theodora Lynn (Irene Dunne) lives with her two respectable aunts in the small New England town of Lynnfield where she plays the organ at church and teaches Sunday school. No one would suspect that she writes under the pseudonym of Caroline Adams, the author of a racy best-selling novel that causes an uproar in Lynnfield when the town newspaper prints installments of it.


Theodora feels conflicted about having to hide her literary career. During a visit to her publisher in New York City, she considers giving up on writing and sticking only to her quiet life in Lynnfield. But then she runs into Michael Grant (Melvyn Douglas), the illustrator of her book's cover. He finds out where she lives, follows her home, and tries to badger her into revealing herself and living a freer, more open life. As it turns out, Michael is a hypocrite about living openly and honestly, and in the second half of the movie Theodora turns the tables on him, making him live up to his own advice.


The romance didn't do much for me. Michael was mostly obnoxious, blackmailing Theodora and acting on wrong-headed assumptions; the shtick where he whistles and whistles and keeps Theodora and her aunts awake also went on for too long. I disliked him for much the same reason that I found Clark Gable's character unattractive in It Happened One Night - he bullies, he blusters, he's too puffed up. You don't know what his intentions are, especially when you find out what he's hiding. Does he follow Theodora home to have some fun at her expense? Does he want to set a kindred spirit free? (Yes to both?)

I don't understand why Theodora falls in love with him, except because the plot told her to. I do like that she doesn't let him get too full of himself. For instance at one point when they're picking blackberries he lies back in lordly fashion and tells her to drop some berries into his mouth, to which she replies, "Well who's going to chew them for you?"

This is really Irene Dunne's show, and she's the main reason I like Theodora Goes Wild. She's convincing both as a mousy small-town girl and as a society lady who seems to flout all the rules. Neither role reflects the full truth about Theodora; at heart she's a good-natured person with ordinary passions, but nobody wants to believe it. As long as it doesn't touch them people love a good scandal, the more outrageous the better.


With a mix of genuineness and dishonesty, and with lots of humor, Theodora navigates the separate social spheres of Lynnfield and New York City and thumbs her nose at the narrow-minded conventions found in both places. She doesn't let fame turn her head. She stays grounded and has fun, putting on expensive furs and some unusual hats that resemble modern art sculptures and that only Irene Dunne could get away with wearing without looking ridiculous.

There are some good supporting characters in this film: Theodora's stern aunts (played by Elisabeth Risdon and Margaret McWade), who may be more loving than they first appear; her sly adorable uncle (Robert Greig); and Lynnfield's moral arbiter and head gossip, Rebecca Perry (Spring Byington), who regards the very things she disapproves of with wide-eyed relish. But ultimately it's Dunne carrying the film, and she does well with the material and is a pleasure to watch.

*All images link back to their sources (DVDtalk and Wikimedia).

Ten questions

Over at the bookworm blog there are ten questions posed to any reader who wants to answer them.

1. What's your favorite book to film adaptation?
These days, the 1995 version of Persuasion with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds, adapted from the Jane Austen novel. (In my thinking here, I'm not including movies that have overshadowed the books they're based on.)

2. What's the last book you read?
Bird by Bird by Ann Lamott. I recommend it, especially if you're struggling, stuck or starting out in writing (come to think of it, when do writers not struggle?). Or read it if you want to laugh; it's both funny and painful. In fact there are many good lessons in it even for people who aren't writers.

3. Describe yourself using just one word.
Wondering.

4. Juice or Soda?
Juice.

5. Do you have any pets?
Not recently. I used to have pet frogs, newts, and fish as a kid. But some people dear to me have just brought a puppy into their home, so I expect I'll be seeing her often and she'll be sort of like a pet to me too. Except I'm not the one paper-training her right now, thankfully.

6. Who is your hero?
At the moment it's Marie Curie: brilliant scientist, innovator, humanitarian, and teacher, and also a wife and mother. She broke ground in many ways, both for humanity as a whole and for women. She was the first scientist to win two Nobel prizes in different disciplines.

7. Give me some blogging advice.
Off the top of my head I can't think of any suggestions; I like your blog as it is. Maybe for people in general - have fun with your blog, instead of seeing it as a ball-and-chain that's dragging you down. If it is, rethink things and change it, or give yourself a break from blogging. It shouldn't bring you misery.

8. When was the last time you laughed out loud?
This morning.

9. If you could travel to any place in the world, where would it be?
I'd like to travel around the US for a few months, do a cross-country trip.

10. If you could meet any author, dead or living, who would it be?
What would you ask them?
George Eliot. I'd want to discuss her books with her, mostly Middlemarch, and hear her thoughts on them.

Edit: Just changed the blog title to reflect the fact that there are ten questions, and that I can in fact count.

Blog-world appreciation

This is an exciting find:

At Crystal Calliope, another version of a week in seven words (and some kind words about my blog - thanks!). I especially like her characterization of "words" and her reflection on "unrest".

Also a few weeks ago I received a "Sunshine Award" from a writer whose blog, Platypuss-in-Boots, I recommend you all visit. There's nothing quite like it - it's imaginative, thought-provoking, funny, and full of wonder (and wonderful writing).

Spotlight on Pancake

Over at the bookworm blog there's an "author fun facts" post, encouraging bloggers to share some interesting facts about an author they've come across. It's a great idea and will hopefully introduce people to authors they haven't heard about.

This week I checked out the collection of short stories by Breece D'J Pancake (unfortunately I forgot the book at a friend's place, and I'll have to wait for a break in the wild sleet and snowstorm to head out and retrieve it). I found out about Pancake through the Omnivoracious blog's wonderful post, "The Books of the States", which recommended good books and authors from each state in the US. I also read about Pancake in this NPR piece.

Some facts about Breece D'J Pancake:

- He died in 1979, a couple of months before his 27th birthday. Suicide, most people say (a handful think it was an accident).

- He was born in West Virginia, and his stories are rooted in his home state.

- He published 6 stories in his lifetime, which were compiled posthumously with 6 unpublished stories into one volume: The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake.

- According to wikipedia, the 'D' stands for Dexter, the 'J' for John, and that D'J was a misprint of the initials D.J. in The Atlantic (the wikipedia article also mentions his conversion to Catholicism)

- He's an acclaimed writer who's been compared to Hemingway (including in a non-literary sense; in addition to the way both authors died, they also both loved and spent a lot of time outdoors). Pancake's skill, craft, substance, and clarity, however, are considered uniquely his own.

- From his biographer:

"He'd stay up real late at night, maybe four or six hours later, he'd wake in the wee hours of the morning and maybe write some more. His work ethic was incredible. His fiction is very tight and very well-phrased. And that comes from writing over and over and over again. And some of these stories, he wrote maybe twenty times, maybe ten handwritten drafts, then typewritten drafts..."

Writers trying to go for the jugular

Here's an article about writers heaping anger, loathing, disdain and envy on other writers. Cruelly witty or crudely cruel attacks on another writer's work, character, and appearance.

Charles Lamb wrote of Shelley: “His voice was the most obnoxious squeak I ever was tormented with," and James Dickey, poet and novelist, said of an iconic New England poet: “If it were thought that anything I wrote were influenced by Robert Frost, I would take that particular work of mine, shred it, and flush it down the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes. … a more sententious holding-forth old bore, who expected every hero-worshipping adenoidal twerp of a student-poet to hang on his every word, I never saw."

(Dickey's overdoing it... I think if you're to write an insult it has to be short, to the point, and maybe not seem like an insult at all at first... leading to a kind of double-take, followed by surprised indignation and affront - is that what he said about me?)

It's also funny to me that authors whose works may contain such depth and nobility can also behave like snotty kids to one another in real life.

And writers insulting one another reminds me of the Shakespeare Insult Kit:

Thou pribbling knotty-pated flax-wench!

Happy Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe

Maybe Poe did manage a cheerful birthday or two in his time, who knows.




Why a painting by Monsieur Cézanne? It's his birthday too (Bon Anniversaire, Paul Cézanne); he was born 20 years after Poe.

So I quickly picked out a Poe-ish sort of Cézanne painting. One that might evoke the lost Lenore:

Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore —
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore —
Nameless here for evermore.

The Edgar Allan Poe society of Baltimore presents his works here. Poems, prose, his groundbreaking work in detective fiction ("The Murders in the Rue Morgue").

Sherlock Holmes, Dorian Gray, and a dinner at the Langham

Wilde left with a commission to write his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which appeared in Lippincott’s June 1890 issue. And Conan Doyle agreed to produce a second novel starring his ace detective; The Sign of Four would cement his reputation. Indeed, critics have speculated that the encounter with Wilde, an exponent of a literary movement known as the Decadents, led Conan Doyle to deepen and darken Sherlock Holmes’ character: in The Sign of Four’s opening scene, Holmes is revealed to be addicted to a “seven-percent solution” of cocaine.

Excellent article on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, his writing, his characters, his London. And the article touches on Doyle's meeting with Oscar Wilde in 1889, at a literary dinner with an editor. I like reading about moments like these - creative, imaginative people who make an impression on each other and, if only in a subconscious or inadvertent way, influence each other's work (though here the critics don't speculate as to how Doyle might have influenced Wilde - maybe he didn't). Are the critics right? Would Holmes have been a different character, had Doyle never encountered Wilde?

Regardless, "For both writers, the evening would prove a turning point" - securing commissions for major works in their careers. I wonder who else was at that dinner, which other writers (whom we likely haven't heard about today) and what happened with their careers and writing.

Another interesting point to the article is how Doyle wanted as time went by to rid himself of Holmes - but never could. That's an interesting disconnect, between the demands of the fans and the needs of the author.