W.B. Belcher

My Tumblr home for occasional posts, pictures, and updates on #LDYWT

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Entropy

Entropy posted an interview I completed with Sandy Huntington, author of Maya, and professor at Hartwick College. Check out the interview, and check out the novel. 

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On tap at MASS MoCA - FreshGrass

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Blurb for Lay Down Your Weary Tune from James Scott.

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Blurb for Lay Down Your Weary Tune from Matthew Quick.

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Help Caffe Lena out. Support the campaign.

http://www.caffelena.org/campaignforcaffelena/

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Deal News

I'm thrilled to announce that I sold LAY DOWN YOUR WEARY TUNE to Other Press. I have to thank Christopher Rhodes, my agent, and Judith Gurewich, my editor/publisher, for believing in the book. Much more to come as we forge ahead.

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Pete Seeger (1919-2014) and Gesture(s) of Inclusion

Yesterday, after I woke up, took the dogs out, and watched the moon slip behind the trees on my side of the Hudson, I cracked open my computer only to find this notification from the NYT: “Pete Seeger, Singer and Champion of Folk Music, Dies at 94.”

Blurry-eyed, I opened up Twitter and typed “Oh no.” As I scanned my feed, sliding my thumb on the screen, I realized that I just couldn’t do it. Not at that moment. I couldn’t express the sadness I was feeling in 140 characters or a string of RTs. So, I abandoned my computer, sat in the coldest corner of my kitchen, and ate my oatmeal in relative silence.  

Now, believe it or not, I’ve thought about this situation a lot over the last few years. What if Pete Seeger died? I asked myself that question on a weekly (if not daily) basis. It’s not as strange as it seems. Those of you who visit this blog know that I’d written a novel that concerns itself with a folk icon not unlike Pete (well, in a few respects). In some ways, I believe I had imagined the work of carrying on after an icon like Pete passes, but still, I wasn’t prepared.

Before I left the house, out of force of habit, I checked my phone. Not surprisingly, my Twitter feed and Facebook wall (do they still call it a wall?) were overflowing with obituaries and remembrances, quotes and links to videos, images and sound clips. I thought about Caffe Lena, of course; I thought about Michael and George and Jocelyn; I thought about that slim blue book (How to Play the Five-String Banjo), which always sits to the side of my desk; I thought about my best friend, who had once, when we were teenagers, shown me a guitar signed by Pete (from Newport, I think); I thought about sharing videos of Pete with my kids. Through it all, I wondered how someone over 60 years older than me, someone I’d never talked to directly, had such an impact on me. That’s the big question, right? Or, more to the point, as I scrolled through the tweets, how did he have such a meaningful impact on so many?

No doubt it has become part of our collective mourning process to take to the social networks to post, tweet, and share, and there is a sense that these activities can be hollow and crass. I admit that in many instances, social networks feed on breaking news, which leads to a game of #RIP one-upmanship, but, as I drove to work while listening to WAMC (and Paul Brown’s piece on NPR), I began thinking about the “gesture of inclusion” Pete would make when performing. You know the one where he’d raise his open palm to prompt everyone to join in, to participate, to sing out, and everyone would. Whether four or eighty-four, they'd jump right in. The collective voice is powerful. In many ways, these expressions of grief on Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr are extensions of this gesture of inclusion. They’re a way for each of us who holds a little piece of Pete in them to join into a larger conversation. Together, they reveal just how many people were inspired by Pete, his music, and his world view. That is a beautiful thing.

To me, Pete is the North Star. Beyond the songs and stories, it was the way he lived, the way he loved, the way he engaged with the world that made me want to be a better person. In my humble opinion (although I know it’s an opinion shared by many), he was really the best of us, and he will be missed. 

Other links:

The New York Times' Obituary on Pete Seeger by Jon Pareles

WAMC's page on Pete

Poughkeepsie Journal - "Environment: Pete Seeger's impact felt throughout the valley" by Dan Shapley

Arlo Guthrie's Letter

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Mini-Review: Middle C

Well, a pared down version of this mini-review appears in Real Simple's latest issue. Here's the full 300 words.

Middle C by William H. Gass

Even now, nearly twenty years after the release of his award-winning novel The Tunnel, 88-year-old William H. Gass doesn’t shy away from the big issues. Middle C, his new novel, explores the nature of identity and the invention of the self. It’s a slow, ponderous book by design, and a book that forces the reader to reflect on the nature of identity, guilt, disappointment, and revision.

Middle C is Joseph Skizzen’s story. The novel begins in 1938 as Joseph’s father casts himself and his family as Jewish to flee Austria before the impending Nazi invasion. The family escapes to London, where the father once again crafts a new identity before disappearing altogether. (They suspect he’s traveled to North America without them.) Eventually, Joseph’s father-less family lands in Ohio, where Joseph grows up to become a somewhat accomplished pianist as well as a professor of music. Despite the plot, the novel is more concerned with Joseph’s inner conflict, his ever-shifting self, and his fantasy goal to create what he terms the Inhumanity Museum.

“The fear that the human race might not survive has been replaced by the fear that it will endure.” This phase is at the center of Joseph’s goal (and his struggle). Throughout the novel, the reader watches as Joseph bends the sentence to sharpen its meaning and explores variations. Joseph’s revision process provides insight into his identity-building as well as his disappointment in mankind. In the end, Middle C is a novel rich with language and infused with philosophy, but one best served with two fingers of whiskey.

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Real Simple Quick Review #2

The Real Simple book review panel continues. Another mini-review I wrote is up on their website - this time I responded to the new translation of Jose Saramago's Raised from the Ground (translation by Margaret Jull Costa).

If interested, here's the link to the quick review.  The original 270 word review is below.

Raised from the Ground

By Jose Saramago

Jose Saramago died two and a half years ago, but his work endures in its original Portuguese as well as in a wave of new translations. Thirty-two years after it was released in Portugal, Margaret Jull Costa offers the first English translation of Raised from the Ground (Levantado do Chão).

When awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, the selection committee applauded Saramago’s insight, inventiveness, and wealth of imagination as well as the compassion that bleeds through his prose. The author’s body of work was praised for its keen use of parable and irony, especially when writing about power politics. Raised from the Ground is a great example of Saramago’s distinct voice and style.

The novel itself is a sweeping family narrative that spans three-quarters of a century and three generations of the Mau Tempo family. It is rooted in the harsh and expansive landscape of southern Portugal. With the turmoil of the 20th Century as its backdrop, this measured, political novel explores the lives and hardships of the rural worker, the stirrings of revolution, and the uprising of the peasants. Each generation of the Mau Tempos is just a cog in the great machine of the 20th Century.

Drawing on oral tradition, Saramago’s narrative voice dominates. The reader is enveloped by the narrator’s storytelling and his compassion for the plight of the rural worker. At times, Raised from the Ground is slow and laborious, but the struggles of each generation of the Mau Tempo family, positioned against the backdrop of war and revolution, paint a fascinating (and seemingly very personal) portrait of 20th Century Portugal and its people.

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Junot Diaz in Albany

Newly-minted MacArthur genius, Junot Diaz, is visiting Albany as part of the New York State Writers Institute's fall schedule. Well known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, as well as his masterful story collection Drown, Diaz is out with a new collection titled This is How You Lose Her. As always, there will be a 4:15 Seminar in Assembly Hall. The reading will also be held in Assembly Hall at 8:00. Let's see if the room can hold him (and the crowd). For more info and some great links to recent Diaz news and interviews, check out the Writers Institute blog.

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Real Simple's Book Review Panel - Care of Wooden Floors

A couple months ago, on a lark, I became a member of Real Simple magazine's book review panel. Why not? Granted,  I wasn't sure my style and approach fit with Real Simple or its needs, but I thought it would be fun. Anyway, they sent me Will Wiles' Care of Wooden Floors and asked for 300 words, which I dutifully supplied. As was expected, the review - alongside six others - was edited down into a bite-size piece for their website. You can read the mini-review here or by going to Real Simple's website and clicking on the "Work & Life" section. It was a fun little task. Take it for what it's worth.  The book is due out in early October. You can check it out at  IndieBound, talk to your local bookseller, or do your thing online/in the cloud.

For those of you interested, here's the review in full:

Will Wiles’ debut novel Care of Wooden Floors is a portrait of a layabout in crisis. The unnamed narrator travels to a dreary eastern European city to housesit for his best friend Oskar, an accomplished composer and renowned perfectionist. Oskar’s directives regarding the priceless oak floors, the prized piano, and the cats are written in a “prickly, pointy, fussy hand” and deposited throughout the flat. But the instructions are no match for the narrator’s bad luck and poor decision-making. Predictably, under the burden of Oskar’s expectations, the simple task of keeping house goes awry, the plot devolves into farce, and the narrator’s sanity unravels.

Wiles is the deputy editor of Icon, a magazine dedicated to architecture and design. This experience bleeds through the pages of his debut. Great detail is paid to objects and rooms, shapes and styles as well as their inherent or acquired meaning. He effectively positions the apartment as an extension of Oskar’s obsessive personality, but each setting—from the flat to an industrial canal to a strip club—is rendered with the same devotion, and at times, this attention to detail feels overwrought and disconnected from the narrator’s point of view.

Care of Wooden Floors is a well-structured novel, which succeeds in exposing the fissures and flaws in its main characters and exploiting them. In the opening moment, the narrator muses “with all this beauty and isolation there is also an obligation—you must return, you must descend, back to the imperfect.” The narrator proves that perfection is a fool’s game, but perhaps we are all fools, trapped by absurd expectations, spilling wine all over expensive oak floors. Let’s hope we are better prepared for the cleanup than Wiles’ hapless narrator.

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Levon Helm, 1940 - 2012

Levon Helm died yesterday. A few days after announcing to his fans that he was in the final stages of his battle with cancer, he died surrounded by family, friends, and bandmates in New York.

In the time between the announcement on his website and his passing, there was an absolute outpouring of prayers and remembrances. Rightly so. On The Politics Blog, Charlie Pierce wrote a wonderful post, “Whip to Grave: Levon Helm, the Real Voice of America,” which placed Helm, The Band, and Music from Big Pink in their broader cultural context. At the same time, Albany’s Times Union posted an article about Levon’s meaningful connection to Woodstock and Ulster County. Levon was cherished as both an icon and a neighbor, and he will be sorely missed.

Those of you who visit this blog know that my novel draws its inspiration from folk music icons like Levon Helm, Bob Dylan, Dave van Ronk, and their contemporaries. While researching the book, I spent a lot of time reading profiles, memoirs, and interviews of these musicians, and on more than a few occasions, I was struck by the love and affection people had for Levon Helm. He seemed to be truly himself. And this authenticity endeared him to many. There are too many articles and posts to list, but check out Michael Eck’s piece from the Times Union as well as the Rolling Stone article and NPR's Fresh Air interview from 2007.

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Lauren Groff at NYSWI

Lauren Groff's new book Arcadia is getting a lot of much-deserved attention these days. Including a review by Janet Maslin in The New York Times,  a review by Ron Charles in The Washington Post, a Must Read pick at The Daily Beast, and interviews with some of my favorites like Largehearted Boy and Brad Listi's Other People.  (The list goes on, but you get the picture.)

Groff, who originally hails from Leatherstocking Country, will be in Albany today as part of the New York State Writers Institute's Visiting Writers Series.  As usual, the Seminar will begin at 4:15 and the reading will start at 8:00.  Both events will take place in Assembly Hall at the University at Albany.

For more information on her books as well as links to cool stuff, visit www.laurengroff.com.

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March, March, March

Well, it's March 9th, and there's a lot going on in Capital Region. I thought I’d take a moment to highlight some upcoming events and activities. March and April are always busy months, but it seems that the early spring/non-existent winter has a lot of people wandering around like zombies, soaking in the sunlight, looking for brainy events to attend. Here are a several happenings on the literary side.

Mini-Conference: Write Here! ~ Saturday, March 10th at The Arts Center (Troy)

The Arts Center of the Capital Region and the Hudson Valley Writers Guild have joined forces to present a “mini conference for and about writers and writing in and around the Capital Region.” This daylong event includes workshops and panel discussions. It should be fun. Here's the link for more information or to register.  I'll be there - so please say hi or pass me a knowing head-nod.

Reading: Margot Livesey and Jo Page ~ Tuesday, March 20th at 7:30 in the Albany Public Library (Albany).

Note: This event is part of the New York State Writers Institute’s Visiting Writers Series. The Writers Institute will also offer a 4:15 seminar in Assembly Hall, Campus Center at the University at Albany.

Confession: I love Margot Livesey. I've heard her read a couple times (Inkberry and NYSWI's Summer Institute at Skidmore), and I was blown away.  Eva Moves the Furniture and The House on Fortune Street are both extraordinary novels (some of my favorites). Her new novel, The Flight of Gemma Hardy, is a retelling of Jane Eyre. I highly recommend fitting this event into your life.

Some of you may know Jo Page as the writer of "Reckonings," a column in Metroland, but she's also published fiction and nonfiction in various literary journals (Quarterly West, The South Carolina Review) and  taught writing workshops at the University at Virginia, Hudson Valley Community College, the New York State Writers Institute.  Another confession: I was a member of her NYSWI short fiction and creative non fiction workshop. She is wonderful, and I'm very excited that she'll be reading with Margot Livesey.

Curiosity Forum: Memoirama with Marion Roach Smith ~ Sunday, March 25th from 2-5 at Hubbard Hall (Cambridge, NY).

Marion Roach Smith is the author of The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text of Writing & Life, a commentator on NPR’s "All Things Considered," and a teacher. See her full bio here. Her website is full of useful information for writers.  This afternoon workshop springs from her popular Writing What You Know workshops at The Arts Center.  It's a great kick in the pants for anyone interesting in writing memoir (or any genre for that matter).

Note: Curiosity Forum events are a collaboration between Battenkill Books, Hubbard Hall, and Leslie Parke Studios. They offer some amazing events in Southern Washington County. Check them out here or follow them through the website or their twitter account (@curiosityforum).

Reading: Lauren Groff ~ Tuesday, March 27th at 8:00 in Assembly Hall, Campus Center at the University at Albany.

Note: This event is part of the New York State Writers Institute’s Visiting Writers Series. The Writers Institute also offers a 4:15 seminar in Assembly Hall, Campus Center at the University at Albany.

Lauren Groff is the author of The Monsters of Templeton and Delicate Edible Birds. Her new book Arcadia is due out this month. From her website: "In the fields and forests of western New York State in the late 1960s, several dozen idealists set out to live off the land, founding what becomes a famous commune centered on the grounds of a decaying mansion called Arcadia House. Arcadia follows this lyrical, rollicking, tragic, and exquisite utopian dream from its hopeful start through its heyday and beyond." I can't wait to read this book.

Reading/Presentation: Rachel Maddow ~ Sunday, March 31st at 1:00 at Manchester Elementary School (Manchester, VT).

This event is presented by Northshire Books, but, due to the anticipated audience size, it was relocated to Manchester Elementary School. It’s Rachel Maddow. Enough said. See this link for more details.

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