Anna Quindlen, Writing and Read(ing) to Grow

This is my first post after setting up my website and facebook information under the careful supervision of Laura Williams, a woman for all time.

Recently I went to the Longwharf Theater in New Haven for a Read to Grow event. Read to Grow is the brainchild of Roxanne Coady, owner of R.J. Julia bookstore in Madison. The mission of this organization is to "improve early literacy for all Connecticut children by providing books, by helping families share books with their babies starting at birth, by encouraging language development and by promoting an awareness of literacy services." Quite an undertaking.

Read to Grow has provided more than 100,000 children's books to CT. families. Please check out their website for more in depth information at http://www.readtogrow.org/. You should all know about their hard work.

Anna Quindlen, best selling author and columnist was interviewed by Roxanne at the smaller Longwharf stage which provided an intimate setting and kind of insider view between two literary stars, albeit from slightly different perspectives. Anna read from her newest novel, Every Last One and I wanted to pass into cyberspace two of her suggestions.

The first was the idea of not writing until the themes, form, and characters are developed and so real in your mind that you can't be pried away from your desk. Make use of that morning power walk, the hours in front of the telly with your (her) needlepoint, the endless errands, to sort out a plan, a modus operandi for what you're about to tackle.

I subscribe to the same manner of working and never sit down to write a poem until I have a pretty firm idea of what it's going to look like, sound like and feel like. All that time spent looking out of my office window waiting for a CT.blue bird to nest in the little house I put up a few months ago, or watching the huge carpenter bees body slam each other out of the way as they drill under the eaves to lay eggs somehow prepares me to open myself to my thoughts and helps to create the space I guess that my brain needs.

When Wallace Stevens worked at The Hartford Insurance Company he walked the few miles from his house each day in an iambic pentameter shuffle while he composed his magnificent words. I don't think that's an apochryphal story, but maybe. In any event, I like it and prefer to think of it as true.

Anna also shared with the audience the process she uses before sending her work to her editor and agent. She reads her work aloud. Sometimes this will take up to a week. When the ms is returned and she makes the agreed upon changes she reads the work again, aloud.

This is an incredibly useful piece of information in particular when dialogue is in play. You'd be amazed at the number of times the conversation taking place bears so little resemblance to actual conversation. In the memoir class I teach with Lary Bloom at Writing at the Mark Twain House in Hartford, we begin with dialogue exercises to bring the ear into play early on so the students get used to hearing their words as well as reading them. There is a big difference.