Please note: The end of March 2022 marks the 16th anniversary of this blog, after which point, until further notice, I will be posting approximately two Mondays a month. The posts on Texas Books, the writing workshop, my own work, and a Q & A with another writer, will continue, each posting every other month and, as ever, when there is a fifth Monday in a given month, that’s for the newsletter.
How to make your writing more vivid? One technique is to bring in specific detail that appeals to the senses (smells, sounds, texture…). Another is to toss out imagery (as Zeus might hurl thunderbolts!). Yet another: to manipulate the scansion. One of my favorite techniques, although I rarely employ it myself, is what I like to call “wigged-out exaggeration.” When used sparingly, with taste, I find way-out exaggeration both vivid and funny. And I think most readers do, too. We know it’s too absurd to be true, and yet—we return the author’s wink—it is somehow “true.”
John Steinbeck (1902-1968), who is best known for his novels, The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden, was a master of this technique. It so happens that recently I reread Travels with Charley (1962), his memoir of a rambling journey across the United States in a custom camper with his poodle. I found Travels with Charley at once charming, expertly-crafted, lightweight, prophetic and peculiar— but I’m not here to serve you up a big fat deep-fried critical essay, but rather, a use-it-now technique for your own writing.
Herewith some examples from Travels with Charley of “wigged-out exaggeration” (page numbers refer to the 2000 Penguin Classic edition):
“Khaki cotton trousers, bought in an army surplus store, covered my shanks, while my upper regions rejoiced in a hunting coat with corduroy cuffs and collar and a game pocket in the rear big enough to smuggle an Indian princess into a Y.M.C.A.” (p.32)
“For George is an old gray cat who has accumulated a hatred of people and things so intense that even hidden upstairs he communicated his prayer that you will go away. If a bomb should fall and wipe out every living thing except Miss Brace, George would be happy.” (pp.40-41)
“The recipes, the herbs, the wine, the preparation that goes into a good venison dish would make an old shoe a gourmet’s delight.” (p.45)
“Charley and I stayed at the grandest auto court we could find that night, a place only the rich could afford, a pleasure dome of ivory and apes and peacocks and moreover with a restaurant, and room service.” (p.69)
“When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing.” (p.70)
“I cooked improbable dinners in my disposable aluminum pans, made coffee so rich and sturdy it would float a nail…” (p.84)
“No effort had been spared to make the cabins uncomfortable and ugly.” (p.130)
“I was so full of humble gratefulness, I could hardly speak. That happened on a Sunday in Oregon in the rain, and I hope that evil-looking service-station man may live a thousand years and people the earth with his offspring.” (p.142)
“All the food along the way tasted of soup, even the soup.” (p.208)
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I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.
BY C.M. MAYO — August 15, 2022 UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).
This Monday finds me in deep noodling, mainly on my Far West Texas book but also, Schritt für Schritt, my translation of Countess Paula Kollonitz’s memoir of her visit to Mexico in 1864.
Relatedly, herewith, from the archives (specifically, ye olde research blog Maximilian & Carlota ), are Henry R. Magruder’s woodcuts from his memoir of his visit some two years later: Sketches of the Last Year of the Mexican Empire. Magruder’s was one of the many memoirs that I read as part of my research into my novel based on the true story, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. Just as Kollonitz’s memoir has been bringing it all to mind so vividly, Magruder’s woodcuts provide a glimpse of the garden paradise that was once Mexico City— and so much more.
The illustrations are the author’s own woodcuts of five landscapes (Veracruz; Acasingo; Chapultepec; Tacubaya; Valley of Mexico;) and five portraits (Aguadors; Coal Bearers; Mexican; Ranchero; Tortilla Makers).
“In the course of the morning we entered the port of Vera Cruz, which town with its glittering Church-domes, dazzlingly white spires and many coloured houses, preseted from the distance the appearance of an eastern city. On nearer approach one is grievously disappointed. The scavaenger birds are protected and encouraged to frequent the place as they maintain the sanitary condition of the streets, they give a wierd appearance to the town and look like birds of ill omen, they fly all over Vera Cruz unmolested.”
“At eight in the evening we stopped at a village called “Acasingo” and heard that a diligence [stagecoach] had been plundered that morning, and if we persisted in continuing our journey that night, should certainly be attacked; what the crowd of Mexican standing around, and all talking at once, and not one of us understanding what was said, we foolishly allowed ourselves to be pursuaded by the rest of the travellers, to remain the night in the place, we alighted and before we had time to reconnoitre, the stage had driven off and we were forced to remain whether we would or not. On searching for an inn we were suprised to find that as Acasingo was not a regular halting place, such an establishment as an hotel did not exist; fortunately we found some people who offered us one large bedless room for our party; the apartment we had obtained must in former years have been very fine, the walls being still covered with traces of old frescoe paintings, it possessed a very fine balcony overlooking the “Plaza” or Square, which, although it may not even possess enough houses to surround it, every Mexican town contains. We found there were shutters, but no glass to the window, and were obliged to make up beds for the ladies on the chairs, the geltemen of the party sleeping on the floors…”
“From the entrance of the Church [Villa de Guadalupe] I had a view of the surrounding scenery which will never be obliterated from my mind, in one word it was gorgeous and magnificent. In the distance the fair Capital, its many spires and dome glittering in the midday sun, surrounded by the blue lakes, and the plains overgrown with the wierd looking Maguey plants; far away in the distance the beautiful snowy mountains, of which one never wearies, bounded one side of the valley, whilst on the other the park and grounds of the Emperor’s summer residence the famous Chapultepec stood in bold relief against the distant blue mountains…”
“The Paseo is about two miles in length— only the upper division of which is used by carriages the lower one being almost exclusively occupied by those on horseback. After leaving the crowded drive the road becomes pretty and is shady all the way, and the surrounding scenery most lovely, arriving at the end of the Paseo the rider finds a most romantic convent: “La Piedad,” the road here divides into two, branching off into different directions, one of which leads to Tacubaya and the other to San Angel a small village in the mountains.”
“The climate of the valley of Mexico may be likened to a perpetual spring, little rain falls except in the months of July, August and September, and then usually in the afternoon between two and five o’clock, exercise can always be taken in the mornings. Sometimes the showers or “Aguaseras” [sic] as they are called are so heavy, that in a few moments the streets are flooded and impassable unless on horseback or on the shoulders of the Indians who during the season make a business of vcarrying people.”
“The City of Mexico is supplied with water from the mountains by means of two grand aqueducts, which terminate in the town in large and very handsome fountains, whence the “Aguadors” [sic] fetch the water in their earthen vessels. These aqueducts are almost in ruins and greatly need repair for at intervals the water may be seen trickling through crevices.”
“These wretched indians are generally not overly clean, and if one comes into close contact with them, it is advisable on returning home to shake one’s coat.”
“The nearer we approached Puebla the more crowded grew the road, and I then for the first time observed the picturesque dress of the Mexican “Rauchiero” [sic] which is composed of yellow leather, elaborately embroidered with silver and gold; the seams of the trousers are decorated with a row of gold or silver buttons, the sleevs of the short and jaunty jacket being trimmed in the same style, over the shoulder hangs gracefully a “serape,” a kind of large scarf fenerally of white and red tho’ all colors may be seen, on the head an enormous “Sombrero” or hat with a large brim also enriched with silver and gold is worn; the Mexican men generally ride on horseback and have the most magnificent saddles, the pommels of which besides being high are of solid silver, exquisitely chased and engraved.”
“In the place of bread a cake called “Tortilla” is generally eaten, in reality it is the bread of the country, it is made of corn-meal mixed with water until it has the consistency of paste, which is pressed between the cook’s hands to flatten it and afterwards baked; it has little taste and is generally heavy.”
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I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.
BY C.M. MAYO — August 1, 2022 UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).
Through the rest of 2022, look for a post on Texas Books(apropos of my own book-in-progress on Far West Texas) on the first Monday of every other month. On the fourth Monday of every other month I post a Q & A with a fellow writer. This Monday, August 1st, it’s a two-fer: a Q & A with Judy Alter about her superb contribution to Texas history and, of particular interest to me, ranching history. The Most Land, the Best Cattle also happens to be a wild story, and a fun read.
“I think there are two kinds of readers for this book: those who know Texas history and the cattle industry and will appreciate it on one level, while there’s a host of people who will read on another level for sort of vicarious experience, wishing they were cattle barons, had that money and power and what seemed a glamorous life. The first kind of reader is also more likely to appreciate the very real contributions W. D. Waggoner made to Fort Worth and North Texas generally. I think his work sometimes get lost in the glitz.” — Judy Alter
From the catalog copy:
“In the 19th century, Daniel Waggoner and his son, W.T. (Tom), put together an empire in North Texas that became the largest ranch under one fence in the nation. The 520,000-plus acres or 800 square miles covers six counties and sits on a large oil field in the Red River Valley of North Texas. Over the years, the estate also owned five banks, three cottonseed oil mills, and a coal company.
“While the Waggoner men built the empire, their wives and daughters enjoyed the fruits of their labor. This dynasty’s love of the land was rivaled only by their love of money and celebrity, and the different family factions eventually clashed.
“Although Dan seems to have led a fairly low-profile life, W. T. moved to Fort Worth, became a bank director, built two office buildings, ran his cattle on the Big Pasture in Indian Territory (Oklahoma), hosted Teddy Roosevelt at a wolf hunt in the Big Pasture, and sent Quanah Parker to Washington, D.C., for Roosevelt’s inauguration. W. T. had three children including his daughter, Electra, the light of his life. W. T. built a mansion in Fort Worth for her—today the house, the last surviving cattle baron mansion on Fort Worth’s Silk Stocking Row, is open to the public for tours and events. Electra, an international celebrity and extravagant shopper (she once spent $10,000 in one day at Neiman Marcus), died at the age of forty-three.
“W.T.’s brother Guy had nine wives; his brother E. Paul, partier and horse breeder, was married to the same woman for fifty years and had one daughter, Electra II. Electra II was a both a celebrity and a talented sculptor, best known for a heroic-size statue of Will Rogers on his horse, Soapsuds, as well as busts of two presidents and various movie stars. She is said to once have been involved with Cary Grant. After marriage to an executive she settled in a mansion at the ranch and raised two daughters.
“This colorful history of one of Texas’s most influential ranching families demonstrates that it took strength and determination to survive in the ranching world… and the society it spawned.”
Judy Alter, author of The Most Land, the Best Cattle
C.M. MAYO: What inspired you to write The Most Land, the Best Cattle?
JUDY ALTER: I’d studied this family for years, drawn by the career of Electra II who with wealth, beauty, and sophistication, could have spent her days reading Silver Screen and eating bonbons but she developed her talent and carved out a career. Of course when you scratch beneath the surface there’s a much bigger story. But that’s where is started some thirty-plus years ago.
C.M. MAYO: Of course your book was published in 2021, the midst of the pandemic, but apart from that, what has most surprised you about its reception?
JUDY ALTER: I guess the people who read it. I was so pleased with Red Steagall’s endorsement and with the sales—my books are not generally bestsellers, but this one did better than usual. I think Texans are always interested in the ranch families and their stories. I have not heard from the one descendant still living who had a prominent part in the book and that’s a disappointment—he wrote a nice note saying he had it and he and his family looked forward to reading it, but then I heard no more.
C.M. MAYO: Which writers have been the most important influences for you in general— and also, specifically, when you were writing The Most Land, the Best Cattle?
JUDY ALTER: The late Texas novelist Elmer Kelton, who captured Texas history from before the Alamo through the early twenty-first century had more influence on me than anyone else. He was a good friend and mentor. Erin Turner who edited my first book with TwoDot taught me a great deal about crafting creative nonfiction. I suppose McMurtry’s early novels—Horseman, Pass By and Leaving Cheyenne—also were influential.
C.M. MAYO: I am genuinely surprised not to have come across much about the Waggoners and their stupendous ranch, and the celebrity Electras, before I read your book. Surely the Waggoner’s story, or rather stories about them, and the Electras, Electra I and Electra II, have been an influence on such novels as Giant (later made into the movie starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean), and TV shows such as Dallas. Might you say more in this wise?
JUDY ALTER: It is surprising that more wasn’t known about the Waggoners, because their twentieth century history is full of divorce and scandal and lawsuits. Yet in their own way, they were private. None of them left any memoirs, glimpses into their thoughts and feelings (except two impersonal, disorganized scrapbooks of Electra II—I was fortunate enough to study them years ago; now they are in the Red River Valley Museum with public access forbidden). There were occasionally features in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas Monthly, and other places.
I’m not sure what family Edna Ferber had in mind—in many ways, it could have been the Waggoners, or the King/Kleberg owners of the King Ranch (they generally kept a much lower profile than the Waggoners). I’ve never seen a reference to much research by Ferber. In the same way, parts of Dallas may have been inspired. W. T. Waggoner (second generation) was the patriarch for many years, and while crusty and taciturn and interesting, he was not flamboyant. That came with his daughter and his grandchildren.
C.M. MAYO: Electra II, Electra Waggoner Biggs has to be one of the most unusual artists in Texas history, which certainly has no shortage of characters! Do you think, or do you know of any evidence that she might have been inspired by the example of the sculptor Elisabeth Ney?
JUDY ALTER: No such luck. She took a sculpting class in NYC on a whim, discovered she had a talent for it, and began to work at it. In the afternoons. Evenings, she dined, danced, and partied; mornings, she slept. But she really did put a lot of hard work into the Will Rogers piece.
C.M. MAYO: What’s next for you as a writer?
JUDY ALTER: I’m working on a book about the life and work of Helen Corbitt, doyenne of food at Neiman Marcus in the fifties and sixties, cookbook author, etc. I want to place her against the background of what was happening with food in America. Tentative title: Tastemaker: Helen Corbitt, Neiman Marcus, and America’s Changing Foodways. But, like Electra’s sculpture, it’s slow going and hard work.
PROCESS-RELATED QUESTIONS
C.M. MAYO: As you were writing The Most Land, the Best Cattle, did you have in mind an ideal reader? If so, how might you describe that ideal reader?
JUDY ALTER: I think there are two kinds of readers for this book: those who know Texas history and the cattle industry and will appreciate it on one level, while there’s a host of people who will read on another level for sort of vicarious experience, wishing they were cattle barons, had that money and power and what seemed a glamorous life. The first kind of reader is also more likely to appreciate the very real contributions W. D. Waggoner made to Fort Worth and North Texas generally. I think his work sometimes gets lost in the glitz.
C.M. MAYO: What was the most challenging aspect of researching and writing this book?
JUDY ALTER: Fleshing out the story, because they left so little in the way of personal records. The editor encouraged me to use my storytelling skills and create scenes—I know purist historians frown on such. In fact, I cannot do that with the Corbitt book, and as a result it’s harder to catch her distinctive personality, red-haired Irish temper and all.
C.M. MAYO: Researching a book like this requires extraordinary organizational skills. Can you talk about your working library and how you keep track of the books you read / consulted for The Most Land, the Best Cattle?
JUDY ALTER: In recent years I’ve written more fiction than not, so the research skills I gathered in graduate school have grown rusty. I kept a pile of Waggoner-related books on one corner of a bookcase where they were handy, and I tried to keep a running bibliography as I went on my computer. Beyond that my notes are handwritten on legal pads, which is most inefficient but comes naturally to me. To find a specific note I sometimes had to page through an entire pad.
C.M. MAYO: And how do you keep track of articles, both on-line and on paper?
JUDY ALTER: I keep that running bibliography on my computer and labeled each legal pad page with the source—in my own handwriting which is increasing illegible, even to me, as I age.
C.M. MAYO: Any other tips to share / hard-earned lessons in organizing one’s research?
JUDY ALTER: I’ve often though of going back to the 3×5 note cards of grad school. It was a much more efficient way to organize. But after one or two tries, I found myself reaching for a legal pad. I just bought a new supply of twelve of them.
C.M. MAYO: On research files: What happens to them when you are finished with the book? How do you store them? Do you give them to an archive? (Do you have any related advice for other writers with books that required significant original research?)
JUDY ALTER: To my surprise, the Southwest Writers Collection, The Witliff Collecton, Texas State University-San Marcos, has kept my manuscripts, research materials, etc. for years. You can find my archive at Judy Alter : The Wittliff Collections (txst.edu) Since I now live in 600-square foot cottage, saving rought drafts, etc., would be impossible, and I’m grateful to the folks at San Marcos. As for advice, that’s a hard one: who knows whether or not your work will be of any worth. They tell me my efforts will help young writers see process. I hope. We are also increasingly losing a literary heritage because with computers, we simply rewrite rather than writing a complexly new manuscript each time as we did almost up into the eighties.
C.M. MAYO: How has the Digital Revolution affected your writing? Specifically, has it become more challenging to stay focused with the siren calls of email, texting, blogs, online newspapers and magazines, social media, and such? If so, do you have some tips and tricks you might be able to share?
JUDY ALTER: Social media has definitely made it harder to focus. My technique is to read emails and Facebook first thing in the morning. Since I am a daily blogger (http://judys-stew.blogspot.com and http://gourmetonahotplate.blogspot.com ) and am also vocal about social and political issues, such early morning review can take the better part of a morning, and since I am addicted to an afternoon nap (that’s what retirement and age do for you), there is sometimes precious little writing done on some days, especially Mondays.
C.M. MAYO: For those looking to publish, what would be your most hard-earned piece of advice?
JUDY ALTER: That old word: persevere. And don’t be impatient. For most of us, success, if any, comes in slow drops and dribbles. But I would also advise joining writers’ groups. For many years I was active in Western Writers of America, inc. (editing the newsletter, chairing committees, serving on the board, and finally serving as president). Now, in my mystery-writing days, I find great support in the Guppies online chapter of Sisters in Crime.
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Excerpt from Judy Alter’s The Most Land, the Best Cattle (the conclusion of the section on Electra II), reprinted by permission of the author:
[Electra Waggoner Biggs] was a woman of complexity. The wealth of her family—from the empire built largely by her great-grandfather and grandfather—enabled her to live and party on equal terms with East Coast celebrities, always surrounded by a cadre of admiring men. But, unlike her aunt, she did not content herself with that life; she spent time and effort developing her artistic skills and thereby bringing a certain stability to a family reputation that had been marked by flamboyance. In a family known for an astounding record of divorces, after one brief failed marriage she married for life in what was apparently a happy union. And she returned to make her life at the family ranch, as a wife and mother, the source of all good that had been given her. She once disparagingly claimed that there was no water on the land and the oil was played out, but she stayed there. She did not abandon society, traveling often to see friends and bringing celebrities to party at Santa Rosa. But the ranch seems to have been her anchor, and she was destined to be the one to preserve and continue the family heritage.
Yet when she tangled with Bucky Wharton over the future of the land, Electra was the one who wanted to sell and distribute the assets, although there is no record of the influences upon her by the early 1990s. Speculation is always dangerous, but without Johnny to guide her, she may have been influenced by those managing the ranch, including Gene Willingham. And during that period, there were no trustees of the estate, from whom she might have sought advice. It may be too that her health declined either mentally or physically, in her last years, coloring her judgment. If so, that is a well-kept family secret.
When Electra Waggoner Biggs died at the age of eighty-nine, Bucky Wharton, W.T.’s great-grandson, was the sole Waggoner descendent left on the ranch—except for Helen Willingham, who continued to live there. And Bucky’s story is an entirely different chapter.
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Learn more Judy Alter and The Most Land, the Best Cattle at her website.
I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.
“Think fencing salle meets monastic scriptorium meets electric choir.” — Rachel Fulton Brown
Rachel Fulton Brown
A product of the on-the-edges cultural renaissance burbling up out of covid times, Aurora Bearialis is one of the most beautiful, original and charming books I have ever encountered. It is, by the way, a Christian children’s book modeled on medieval romance, brought into the world by a group of poets who meet online (group chat on Telegram), and by historian Rachel Fulton Brown. Visit her University of Chicago academic homepage; her “not-so-academic” blog; and her Dragon Common Room Books.
Aurora Bearialis by The Dragon Common Room, Illustrated by Handdrawnbear, edited by Rachel Fulton Brown
C.M. MAYO: What is the Dragon Common Room, and what inspired you to write Aurora Bearialis?
RACHEL FULTON BROWN: The Dragon Common Room (DCR) is an online “digital classroom” which I started in May 2020 as a place for training in the art of Christian minstrelsy. Think fencing salle meets monastic scriptorium meets electric choir. In practical terms, DCR is a group chat on the social media platform Telegram, its members drawn from around the internet by their interest in Christianity, poetry, and imaginative mischief making. The core group of poets have been working together now for over two years, honing our ability to write in iambic pentameter.
Aurora Bearialis is our second book. Our first book, Centrism Games, is a biting satire on the modern lack of virtue in the pursuit of Fame. Having delved into the hypocrisies and horrors of our adult world in this first poem, we wanted to write something more hopeful for children, modeled on the grail quests and chivalric adventures of medieval romance. We wanted to give children something challenging but fun that would invite them into the world of Christian symbolism. We chose animals as our main characters to give the story a more “fairy tale” quality, but with grounding in our primary reality.
Perhaps the best description of Aurora Bearialisis “Dante for children”: a medieval-style comedy working on multiple levels—historical, allegorical, moral, and mystical—with bears, penguins, and an albatross, who go in search of the Light.
C.M. MAYO: How did you find Handrawnbear? Because, Wow!
RACHEL FULTON BROWN: Handdrawnbear found us! She had been working for several years making drawings and animations at unBearables Media (https://unbearablesmedia.com/hand-drawn-bear/). I was in touch with one of their other creators and asked if there were anyone interested in doing illustrations for our new bear poem. Being a “bear,” she jumped at the chance! She has written on her own blog about how working with us has inspired her to write more Christian poetry (https://handdrawnbear.com/blogs/handdrawn-journal/the-once-mute-bear-finds-her-voice).
I notice that in her version of the story, I found her. This is a taste of what it was like working on Aurora Bearialis: it often felt as if the poem were writing itself or that we were discovering it along with the penguins and bears. To this day, I have only a vague memory of who wrote what or even whether the words or pictures came first. More often than not, we would be writing, and Handdrawnbear would show us her sketches, and we would suddenly realize what came next thanks to her drawings. And yet, she remembers the process as finding the visuals to fit the words. Both are true!
C.M. MAYO: As you were writing and editing and assembling Aurora Bearialis, did you have in mind an ideal reader? If so, might you say more about that ideal reader?
RACHEL FULTON BROWN: Our ideal reader is a child aged 8-12, with younger and older siblings or friends. We had long discussions over the vocabulary for our poem. We wanted it to be challenging enough to send readers (or listeners) to the dictionary, but whimsical enough to make them laugh. The poem alternates high mysticism with physical comedy, so, for example, after Abner the albatross tells our hero, the polar bear Ulfilas, about the melting stars in the Southern sky, he has to taunt the bear to get off his butt and swim for it, whereupon the polar bear bites the albatross in the butt, claiming a feather.
We were also concerned to write a story for children with a strong moral, as well as a story that would point them to the beauties of the Christian liturgy. The characters in the story needed to grow in understanding over the course of their adventure and to face real threats to their courage. At the same time, we wanted the reader to feel caught up in the story, striving with the bears to answer the riddles that the penguins set. Conversely, we wanted the pictures to set puzzles that the text could not express, much as medieval manuscripts—or comic books—rely on both image and word. Thanks to Handdrawnbear’s experience with animation, it is possible to “read” the story simply by looking at the pictures, while the text points the reader to “Easter eggs” in the pictures only whales (or children dancing before the Ark) can find.
C.M. MAYO: What was the most challenging aspect of publishing this book?
RACHEL FULTON BROWN: Technically, the hardest part of publishing this book was the graphic design, for which we got help from one of Handdrawnbear’s friends, but the biggest challenge overall has been learning to work as a team. Telegram as a platform works amazingly well as a place for dynamic conversation. There, we are able not only to write, but also to share images, voice messages, and links, making it easy to compile references for both drawings and text. The difficulty comes as it does in any creative work with keeping to task while allowing inspiration to strike.
My solution: work and pray like medieval monks! The “drakes” meet as a group every weekday at 6pm CST, starting and (ideally) stopping after exactly an hour. My experience as a writer and teacher has obviously been helpful, but the drakes have given me energy and companionship that I have never experienced as an academic historian working primarily on single-author articles and monographs. It has been a challenge for me articulating my own creative process to a group—setting goals, writing outlines, keeping to the daily practice—but it has also been a joy being able to suggest an idea to the group and watch it blossom and fruit in ways I could never have envisioned on my own.
C.M. MAYO: What has most surprised you about its reception? (And what has been its reception among your academic colleagues?)
RACHEL FULTON BROWN: It has surprised me most being swarmed by the children at St. John Cantius Church when I did a reading for them one Sunday after Mass! (I think they liked it, especially the part where the Griffin grabs the Panda as he is eating the offerings on the altar.) I have also done presentations on the book for a conference on Christian literature, which we recorded as a lecture at Cantius for the parents (https://youtu.be/5AmMrBXFgUM), and I have presented on it to the Catholic Society at Hillsdale College.
When I talk about the book with my academic colleagues, they are, of course, dazzled by the pictures, but I can see them getting thoughtful about what it means to recover medieval Christian storytelling in a digital mode.
In the Dragon Common Room, we are using a digital medium (Telegram) to write metered poetry that reads like medieval exegesis of Scripture, on multiple levels simulatenously, with pictures and words working together to recover a multisensory awareness of metaphysical truth. Is academia with its visual focus on print ready for acoustically resonant Dantean poetry? The children at Cantius are!
C.M. MAYO: Which writers have been the most important influences for you as a creative writer, and also, specifically, when you were writing Aurora Bearialis?
RACHEL FULTON BROWN: I have been teaching a course at the University of Chicago on J.R.R. Tolkien for almost twenty years now, the final project for which is an invitation to “sub-create” within Tolkien’s legendarium in an artistic medium of the students’ choice. There is definitely something of Tolkien’s hobbits in our band of bears setting off on a quest that brings them to a mountain of fire, but there are doubtless layers that even I am not entirely conscious of, much as Tolkien described his own writing process.
We originally described the story as “The Hobbit (with bears) meets The Wizard of Oz (with penguins) meets Parzifal (with a griffin) meets The Voyage of St. Brendan (with the Leviathan), with a dash of Terry Pratchett’s Thud. Probably. Depending on what happens in the Ice City with the penguins. With gemstones inspired by Marbode of Rennes. I’m thinking there is something of The Silmarillion in the story soup as well. And probably some Pilgrim’s Progress.” I will be interested to hear what other influences readers discern, but one of my newer poets has for reasons unexplained started reading James Joyce, which I think is a clue.
C.M. MAYO: What’s next for you—and the Dragon Common Room?
RACHEL FULTON BROWN: Our next poem Draco Alchemicus is even more ambitious, with a new artist and a new stanza form. Think Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene meets Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, with pirates and insights from Marshall McLuhan on how “the medium is the message” and “the electric light is pure information.” We are launching a crowdfund this summer to help promote our work, but you can get a preview of the illustrations and opening stanzas on our website (https://www.dragoncommonroom.com).
Our new artist Zé Nuno Fraga is an experienced comic artist from Portugal, who specializes in truly terrifying Christian meditations, not to mention having an ethereal way with light. Our team has both shrunk and grown, as the poetry has gotten more demanding and we have expanded our technical range. We spent six months researching, brainstorming, and practicing Spenserian stanzas before starting to write this poem.
The best thing about the poetry for me is the way it gives shape to my academic reading and writing. I find myself researching things I would never have thought to consider in depth—pirates and the spice trade and alchemy and modern economics, not to mention media studies and horse racing—while becoming attentive to things I encounter both in real life and online as at once symbols and story.
A friend asked me recently about what the digital environment of social media and streaming means, as compared with the printed novel or electric film. I said, “You just said it. It’s streaming”—and then my newest poet started posting in our Telegram chat the opening pages of Finnegans Wake—“riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay.” The opening scene of Draco Alchemicus is set in a casino by the bay where our newlywed couple is betting on the horses.
I’m thinking we’re going to need a bigger ark for the coming flood.
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EXCERPT from Aurora Bearialis:
From Act III: The City 12 The Mayor of the Penguins ruffed his neck and asked, “How come these strangers to our town?” The guards replied, “We found them on their deck. They climbed the Wall of Ice from base to crown!” The Mayor turned with just a trace of geck: “Do you denounce the seals as vicious clowns?” “We seek the Light the albatross once spied.” The Mayor squawked: “But how is that one pied?!”
13 “We rescued him from seals who called him fat. They tortured him with fish he could not eat!” “Why do you seek the Light?” the Mayor asked. “To gaze upon its rhyme, celestial sweet.” “The Light is not for unclean eyes of brats, but only those whom riddles can’t defeat.” Ulfilas grinned, his eyes narrowed to slits. “No wizards nor their riddles match our wits!”
14 “You seek the Light, but it has come to you upon the water where light meets the sky. Tell me: can earth rejoice as angels do? Can some birds swim like fish, or great fish fly? The crystal door to heaven surrounds you. The starry glass of Time is flowing by!” His riddle fell to them as magic dice, their destiny set down upon the ice.
15 The bears began to ruminate his words, but crunches interrupted their deep thoughts. “What tasty treats, such convivial birds!” said Yuan with his mouth full. “Hits the spot!” The Mayor and his courtiers gasped, perturbed. The Magellanics cried, “What hast thou wrought?” “How dare he!” “Seize him!” came great shouts of woe. “We welcomed you as friends, but you are foe!”
16 The penguins gaped in horror as the bear crawled up the altar, munching as he said, “Who made these canapés? They’re yummy fare!” The Mayor shook with anger, his wings spread, but Panda did not even feel his stare so hungry was his soul for their sea bread. When—lo!—a beast with frightening, flaming jaws swooped down and seized San Yuan in its claws!
—By permission of the editor, Rachel Fulton Brown.
BY C.M. MAYO — July 11, 2022 UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).
Second Mondays of every other month I devote to my writing workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing. Welcome! > For the archive of workshop posts click here.
Please note: The end of March 2022 marks the 16th anniversary of this blog, after which point, until further notice, I will be posting approximately two Mondays a month. The posts on Texas Books, the writing workshop, my own work, and a Q & A with another writer, will continue, each posting every other month and, as ever, when there is a fifth Monday in a given month, that’s for the newsletter.
“I say literary memoir-writing is not navel gazing, or conceit, or prostitution, but an offering of truth in a world gone hazy about it. I say we all have a right to our own stories, our own versions of the truth, and the more versions we have the richer we are.”
Ted Conover’sImmersion: A Writer’s Guide to Going Deep is an invaluable guide for any writer who wants to go undercover (and don’t we all, at least a little bit, sometimes?) Conover is the author of several works of unsettlingly original anthropological literary reporting / memoirs of immersion, among them, Coyotes,Whiteout, and Newjack.
“A writer came up to me recently after I gave a talk and asked, ‘When you do these immersions, can you be yourself?’
“Yes, I said. Yes, because who can you be besides yourself?”
— Ted Conover, Immersion
“The best immersive researchers are probably those attentive to social cues, people who are reasonably social and reasonably self-aware. My operating philosophy is that many people are frightened of strangers, so the first thing you want to be is nonthreatening. You want to try to fit in. If you are young and have body piercings and tattoos and hope to sit in on a meeting of your great aunt’s chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, consider leaving studs and hoops at home and covering some of your skin.” — Ted Conover, Immersion
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I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.
BY C.M. MAYO — June 20, 2022 UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).
Because of some recent whatnot & etc. this finds me flailingly behind with my email. Slowly but surely I am catching up; however you will never find me complaining about email when among the missives are such beautiful gifts as this, from American poet Hiram Larew:
BY C.M. MAYO — June 6, 2022 UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).
This blog posts on Mondays. In 2022 first Mondays of the month are for Texas Books, posts in which I share with you some of the more unusual and interesting books in the Texas Bibliothek, that is, my working library. > For the archive of all Texas-related posts click here. P.S. Listen in any time to the related Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project.
The end of March 2022 marks the 16th anniversary of this blog, after which point, until further notice, I will be posting approximately two Mondays a month. The posts on Texas Books, the writing workshop, my own work, and a Q & A with another writer, will continue, each posting every other month and, as ever, when there is a fifth Monday in a given month, a newsletter.
OUR LOST BORDER Edited by Sarah Cortez and Sergio Troncoso Arte Público Press, Houston, Texas Trade paperback $19.95, March 30, 2013 ISBN: 978-1-55885-752-0
Review by C.M. Mayo originally published in Literal, 2013
Lurid television, newspaper stories, and cliché-ridden movies about Mexico abound in English; rare is any writing that plumbs to meaningful depths or attempts to explore its complexities. And so, out of a concatenation of ignorance, presumption and prejudice, those North Americans who read only English have been deprived of the stories that would help them see the Spanish-speaking peoples and cultures right next door, and even within the United States itself, and the tragedies daily unfolding because of or, at the very least kindled by, the voracious North American appetite for drugs. For this reason, Our Lost Border: Essays on Life Amid the Narco-Violence, a treasure trove of one dozen personal essays, deserves to be celebrated, read, and discussed in every community in North America.
Not a book about Mexico or narcotrafficking per se, Our Lost Border is meant, in the words of its editors, Chicano writers Sarah Cortez and Sergio Troncoso, “to bear witness,” to share what it has been like to live and travel in this region of Mexico’s many regions, and what has been lost.
Snaking from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, the 2,000 mile-long U.S,-Mexico border is more than a fence or river or line on a map of arid wastelands; it is the home of a third culture or, rather, conglomeration of unique and hybrid cultures that are, in the words of the editors, “a living experience, at once both vital and energizing, sometimes full of thorny contradictions, sometimes replete with grace-filled opportunities.”
In “A World Between Two Worlds,” Troncoso asks, “what if in your lifetime you witness a culture and a way of life that has been lost?” And with finesse of the accomplished novelist that he is, Troncoso shows us how it was in his childhood, crossing easily from El Paso to Ciudad Juárez: family suppers at Ciros Taquería near the cathedral; visits to his godmother, Doña Romita, who had a stall in the mercado and who gave him an onyx chess set; getting his hair cut by “Nati” at Los Hermanos Mesa… Then, suddenly, came the carjackings, kidnappings, shootings, extorsions. For Troncoso, as for so many others fronterizos, the loss can be measured not only in numbers— homicides, restaurants closed, houses abandoned— but also in the painful pinching off of opportunities to segue from one culture and language with such ease, as when he was a child, for that had opened up his sense of possibility, creativity, and clear-sightedness, allowed him develop a practical fluidity, what he calls a “border mentality”— not to judge people, not to accept the presumptions of the hinterlands, whether of the U.S. or Mexico, but “to find out for yourself what would work and what would not.”
For many years along the border, and in some parts of the interior, drug violence was a long-festering problem. It began to veer out of control in the mid-1990s; by the mid-2000s it had become acute, metastasising beyond the drug trade itself into kidnapping, extorsion and other crimes. Short on money and training— in part a result of a series of fiscal crises beginning in the early 1970s— the Mexican police had proven ineffective, easily outgunned or bribed. Shortly after he took office in late 2006, President Felipe Calderón unleashed the armed forces in an all-out war against the cartels and that was when the violence along the border erupted as the narco gangs fought pitched battles not only against the army, marines, and federal and local police, but also and especially, and in grotesquely gory incidents, each other. Some of the worst fighting concentrated in the border state of Tamaulipas in its major city, Tampico, which is a several hours’ drive south of the border with Texas, but a major port for cocaine transhipments.
In the opening essay, “The Widest of Borders,” Mexican writer Liliana V. Blum provides a Who’s Who of the narco-gangs, from the Gulf Cartel, which got its start with liquor smuggling during Prohibition, to its off-shoot, the Zetas, which formed around a nucleus of Mexican Army special forces deserters in 1999, then joined the Beltrán Leyva Brothers, blood enemies of the Sinaloa Cartel. Fine a writer as she is, Blum’s experiences, which included having to drive her car through the sticky blood of a mass murder scene on the way home from her daughter’s school, make discouraging reading.
In “Selling Tita’s House,” Texas writer Mari Cristina Cigarroa recounts her family’s visits and Christmases to her grandparents’ elegant and beloved mansion in Nuevo Laredo. But then, with soldiers in fatigues patrolling the streets, Nuevo Laredo seemed “more like an occupied city during a war.” Chillingly, she writes, “I awoke to the reality that cartels controlled Nuevo Laredo the day I could no longer visit the family’s ranch on the outskirts of the city.”
The strongest and most shocking essay is journalist Diego Osorno’s “The Battle for Ciudad Mier,” about a town shattered in the war between the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel for Tampaulipas.
I have hope for Mexico for, as as an American citizen who has lived in Mexico’s capital and traveled and written about its astonishingly varied history, literature, and varied regions for over two decades, I know its greatness, its achievements, its resilience, and creativity. But in his foreword, Rolando Hinojosa-Smith rightly chides, “The United States needs to wake up.”
I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.
The end of March 2022 marks the 16th anniversary of this blog, after which point, until further notice, I will be posting approximately two Mondays a month. The posts on Texas Books, the writing workshop, my own work, and a Q & A with another writer, will continue, each posting every other month and, as ever, when there is a fifth Monday in a given month, that’s for the newsletter.
Look for the Marfa Mondays podcasts to resume this summer. By Jove & by Jimmy Dean, this will happen.
WORKSHOPNEWS
No news, other than that I am continuing to post for my workshop students every other second Monday throughout this year, 2022. You can find the archive of workshop posts, plus “‘Giant Golden Buddha’ & 364 More Free 5 Minute Writing Exercises” here.
CYBERFLANERIE
From one of my favorite poets, the sublimely talented Joe Hutchison: “I’ve started a little monthly poetry journal focused on poets associated with the Mountain West, called Bristlecone. (First two issues here and here.)
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From my fellow translators, editors of Résonance: “We are thrilled to announce the publication of volume 4 of the open-access Franco-American online literary journal Résonance. With this issue, we’ve migrated the entire journal to a new website: www.resonance-journal.org. Volume 4 features a groundbreaking interview with the accomplished and influential poet Bill Tremblay that’s full of retrospective reflections. The interview is complemented by a generous selection of Tremblay’s new poems. The intriguing work of the Louisianian artist Chase Julien graces this issue, and his responses to the interview questions posed by our Arts Editor Erica Vermette provide insight into his sources of inspiration and his creative process. We invite you to explore the outstanding fiction, reviews, and poems we’ve gathered by such award-winning authors as Leslie Choquette, Ron Currie, Dorianne Laux, and Jeri Theriault. Please help us spread the word about our unique journal. We are now open for submissions to volume 5.”
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Mexican writer Araceli Ardón on Mari Benedetti in 7 minutes, and Isabelle Allende in 7 minutes:
This is my “hats off” to poets hat. It moonlights as my “armchair baseball expert” hat.
This fourth Monday of the odd-month, herewith, a bouquet of poets who have been so generous as to do a Q & A for this blog. My admiration, my thanks, and my hat off to all! May they inspire you to read more of their poetry— and perhaps also write some poems yourself.
Q & A with Karren Alenier on her New Book How We Hold On, the WordWorks, Paul Bowles & More (September 27, 2021)
“I have had numerous successful readings on Zoom… I like the platform and I have been making opportunities for other poets through Zoom. Yes, of course, there is a future in online readings. You get a bigger more geographically diverse audience. It’s exhilarating.” — Karren Alenier
“After Mauricio and I left Mexico and the home where we had lived for many years, I’d wake up in the middle of the night to go to the kitchen or the bathroom only to discover my feet walking in the direction they would have taken in my Mexican home, not here in Atlanta. The title’s suggestion of walking and residing in the past was what I was aiming for.” — Diana Anhalt
“I don’t know how it is for others who teach about literature, but for me, after a time, when you’ve dealt with so many accomplished, brilliant writers and poets, it wasn’t so much that I was influenced by anyone in particular. It was more that I admired specific characteristics, or that the history of genres of writing became clearer because of the way Vallejo, for instance, who did have a serious part to play in what I wanted to do with poetry, the way he broke down previous measures of value to challenge language itself served as a path. Similarly with parts of Neruda, whose Odes touched a thread with simple language anybody could understand, like that of the ancient Chinese in English though because their poems were formally complex and were sung.” — W. Nick Hill
Please note: The end of March 2022 marks the 16th anniversary of this blog, after which point, until further notice, I will be posting approximately two Mondays a month. The posts on Texas Books, the writing workshop, my own work, and a Q & A with another writer, will continue, each posting every other month and, as ever, when there is a fifth Monday in a given month, that’s for the newsletter.
To me thoughts are things. They have shapes, colors, and movement, and they can morph, and even emit sounds and flavors in unique and sometimes quite fascinating ways. This is perhaps strange to say, but it is not original on my part. Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater wrote about this in a little illustrated book, now over a century old, entitled Thought-forms. When I saw the illustrations of various thoughts as Besant and Leadbeater had perceived them on the astral plane, I recognized them instantly. Perhaps you will, too.
A helpful thought. (Screenshot from the archive.org edition of Besant and Leadbeater’s Thought-forms.)Radiating affection. (Screenshot from the archive.org edition of Besant and Leadbeater’s Thought-forms)Music by Mendelssohn (Screenshot from the archive.org edition of Besant and Leadbeater’s Thought-forms)
For me, as a literary artist (I write poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction), creativity is all about thoughts, corralling, arranging, refining them. And when thoughts appear in my mind that I would describe as shapeless, colorless, silent, still— or moving only in tight, repetitive fashion— the writing has about as much life as a robotic owl in quicksand. On the other hand, when my thoughts have a more fluid, dance-like quality, and shapes and colors that arrange themselves into some form of beauty, the writing is so much easier and fun. (Beauty, by the way, is not necessarily all sweetness, light, rainbows & Kumbaya; there can be intense beauty— and artistic power— in what the poet Federico García Lorca termed duende.)
How to nurture more beautiful and interesting thoughts in service of creative writing? A few reflections:
Firstly, music helps, for thoughts tend to entrain to and emerge from music. In my personal experience, there is no music more nurturing for creativity than Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in D Minor.
Do yourself a favor, grab an hour and twenty minutes, and just listen:
Secondly, when it comes to what I read, I find it helpful, on occasion, to give my ego a metaphorical cookie break. My ego sees Yours Truly as the sort of highly cultured and discerning person who reads Willa Cather novels. Well, after having read My Ántonia, O Pioneers! The Professor’s House, Death Comes for the Archbishop, and most recently, Shadows on the Rock, I pronounce Willa Cather one of the greatest literary artists who ever lived! Reading Cather’s novels has been a wondrous and luxurious experience, and invaluable inspiration for me as a writer. For my ego, a pat on the head and a chocolate cookie!
But hey now, how about that kooky Californian, P. K. Dick? Nobody I hang out with reads Dick. Sci-fi from the 60s?! my ego would have sneered, had it not been off nibbling its cookie. Just as soon as I finished Cather’s exquisite novel of old Quebec, Shadows on the Rock, I grabbed a copy of Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and, zowie! quadruple-charged my batteries.
One of the greatest of all American novels. Best consumed with a large box of hot tamale candies.
(And now I see Mr. Dick sprawled barefoot on the cabbage-roses sofa in Miss Cather’s New York living room, scribbling something mega-duende about a robotic owl in quicksand. “Edith,” she trills, “did you let this person in?”)
Thirdly, I find it useful to rethink the concept of “vacation.” Do I want a status-enhancing signaling opportunity with trophy-photos? Or do I actually want a change of scene / rest / adventure that recharges my creativity? These are not necessarily, nor even probably, same thing. In my experience, the vacations that best nurture my creativity tend to illicit confusion, even disdain, in other people. (Which is so interesting!)
Fourthly, I take long, meditative daily walks, leaving the smartphone at home. When I don’t take walks, I find that thoughts slow and take on a greyish tinge.
Fifthly, laughter, not the fake social stuff, but any genuine confetti burst of it, dislodges creative bottlenecks. There are many different types of humor, but people who lack a sense of one altogether or, infinitely worse, who straight-jacket the God-given one they do have, can be dangerous to themselves and others, including children, helpless elders, and pets.
This is easy to evaluate: check their Twitter. If they lack a Twitter, I assign them a flashing turquoise brownie point on the jumbotron in my mind, and in such case, this meme makes for an excellent litmus test:
More anon.
I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.
