Category: Q & A WITH ANOTHER WRITER

Q & A with Judy Alter About “The Most Land, the Best Cattle: The Waggoners of Texas”

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.

From the Archives: 
A Review of Pekka Hämäläinen’s The Comanche Empire

The Marfa Mondays Podcast is Back! No. 21: 
“Great Power in One: Miss Charles Emily Wilson”

Q & A: Carolina Castillo Crimm on De León: A Tejano Family History 

Q & A with Rachel Fulton Brown About The Dragon Common Room and “Aurora Bearialis”

BY C.M. MAYO — July 25, 2022 
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

This blog posts on Mondays. The fourth Monday of every other month I devote to a Q & A with a fellow writer.

“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.

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To find your copy of Aurora Bearialis, visit Dragon Common Room Books.

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

Q & A with Christina Thompson on Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia

From the Archives: A Review of Pekka Hämäläinen’s The Comanche Empire

Duende and the Importance of Questioning ELB

From the Archives: Q & A with Poets Alenier, Anhalt, Crooker, Hill, Hutchison, and Mackay

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

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Q & A with Diana Anhalt on Her Poetry Collection Walking Backward (June 24, 2019)

“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

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Q & A with Barbara Crooker on the Magic of VCCA, Reading, and Some Glad Morning (December 23, 2019)

“If I’ve made the audience laugh in some places and cry in others, then I feel I’ve done a good job.”
—Barbara Crooker

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Q & A with W. Nick Hill on Sleight Work and Mucho Más (March 25, 2019)

“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

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Q & A with Joseph Hutchison, Poet Laureate of Colorado, on The World As Is (April 22, 2019)

“I’ve always thought that the way poetry is taught often ruins it for young readers.”
—Joseph Hutchison

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Q & A with Mary Mackey on The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams, on Bearing Witness, and Women Writers’ Archives (November 18, 2018)

“I think it’s the duty of a poet to bear witness to her times, and that’s what I have done for over 40 years: bear witness.”
— Mary Mackay

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I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

From the Archives: “The Essential Francisco Sosa or, Picadou’s Mexico City”

Poet, Writer, and Teacher Pat Schneider (1934-2020)

Meteor, Influences, Ambiance

From the Archives: Q & A with Bruce Berger on “A Desert Harvest”

BY C.M. MAYO — March 28, 2022 
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

“When I write, I screen out where I am and focus on material and its expression. In Aspen I enjoy nearly complete silence, whereas in La Paz I sometimes spar with construction, loud music and dogs.”— Bruce Berger

This blog posts on Mondays. Fourth Mondays of the month I devote to a Q & A with a fellow writer.

The end of March 2022 marks the 16th anniversary of this blog, after which point, until further notice, I will be posting approximately twice 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.

It’s been a year since my dear amigo, Bruce Berger, passed from this realm unto his next adventures. Bruce’s friendship and his books both made my world larger, stranger, funnier, and more beautiful. No one else wrote so well about the desert, any desert, but especially the Baja Californian and the American deserts. I miss him more than I can say.

> Read his obituary in the Aspen Daily News

If you are not familiar with Bruce Berger’s work, or if you are and would like to sample more of it, might I suggest his 2019 anthology A Desert Harvest is the perfect place to start. Apropos of that publication, back in 2019, Bruce did a Q & A for this blog, which I repost this Monday. His website www.bruceberger.net is no longer live, however, you can access a snapshot on the wayback machine.

Bruce Berger

Very late in the game, albeit well more than a decade ago, I learned of Bruce Berger’s work when I happened upon Almost an Island: Travels in Baja California in a California bookshop. I would have liked to, but I purposely did not read it then because I was writing my own memoir of Baja California and– I still think this wise– I did not want to be influenced as I was writing. Of course, the moment my book, Miraculous Air, was finished, I devoured Almost an Island, and I loved it. I went on to read Berger’s shimmering essays on the American desert in The Telling Distance and There was a River, and his poetry, and his quirkiest of memoirs of Spain, The End of the Sherry.

But to go back to Baja California. Imagine my delight soon after publishing Miraculous Air, to receive, out of the bluest of Baja California blues, an inscribed copy of his Sierra, Sea, and Desert: El Vizcaíno, welcoming me to this pequeño mundo of those who write about this most glorious and remote of Mexican peninsulas. And we have been amigos ever since. We even read together in 2006 in the Ida Victoria Gallery in San José del Cabo. (Carambas,that was a while ago!)

Just a few of the many books by Bruce Berger in my library.

Bruce Berger’s latest work, Desert Harvest, is a long overdue celebration, a compilation of essays selected from his sublime desert trilogy, Almost an Island, The Telling Distance, and There Was a River. Published by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, Desert Harvest comes with blurbs galore from such as Terry Tempest Williams (“A Desert Harvest is a published patience, one I have been anticipating, having known and loved Bruce Berger’s voice. It is water in the desert”); Ted Conover (“a book that will stick to the reader like cholla… precious few are those who can write this well”); and Peter Mathiessen (“Fine, lucid essays”). Did I mention, Berger can be weirdly hilarious?

C.M. MAYO: What inspires you to write essays, as opposed to poetry?

BRUCE BERGER: I write poetry as well as prose, so there is no opposition, merely the choice of the moment.

C.M. MAYO:  Of all the essays in this collection, which is your personal favorite? And why?

BRUCE BERGER: The essay I was most keen to see published is “Arrows of Time,” the last piece in the collection, about accompanying quark physicist Murray Gell-Mann to a physics conference in Spain in 1991. At the time I was writing for the airline magazine American Way, they paid for my flight with Murray, I wrote a long piece for them, they repied in all humility that they didn’t understand much of it and were much smarter than their readers, and they ran only an extract about dining while sitting between Murray and Stephen Hawking. Because they published a piece of the essay, no other periodical could run the piece in its entirety, and for nearly three decades it remained in limbo. Even though it has nothing to do with deserts, the editors at FSG chose it as the book’s finale and I cheered.

C.M. MAYO: For a reader who knows nothing of the desert, if he or she were to read only one essay on this collection, which would you recommend, and why?

BRUCE BERGER: Because it has apeared on three posters and a letterpress broadside, I suppose that one would be “How to Look at a Desert Sunset.”

>Visit The Paris Review blog to read Bruce Berger’s “How to Look at a Desert Sunset,” excerpted from A Desert Harvest

C.M. MAYO: Can you talk about which writers have been the most important influences for you?

BRUCE BERGER: As I was just starting to write about place, I was reading Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet and, especially, his three books on Mediterranean islands. His way of capturing the essence of a location enthralled me. When I was on the last known river trip through Glen Canyon before the closing of the gates at the dam that created Lake Powell, I committed myself to writing about the experience as if I were Lawrence Durrell. No one has ever compared my writing to his, but I consider that an element in finding my literary voice.

C.M. MAYO: Which writers are you reading now?

BRUCE BERGER: I have just bought two books on Latin America: Silver, Sword and Stone, by Marie Arana, and On the Plain of Snakes by Paul Theroux.

C.M. MAYO: You divide your time between two such beautiful places, Aspen, Colorado and La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. How does that annual migration affect what and how you write?

BRUCE BERGER: When I write, I screen out where I am and focus on material and its expression. In Aspen I enjoy nearly complete silence, wheras in La Paz I sometimes spar with construction, loud music and dogs.

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?

BRUCE BERGER: I write the same way I did when I began, which is on a yellow legal pad in longhand with a Ticonderoga hardness of 3 pencil, which I transcribe to my laptop, then print for corrections. While I keep up with email and google for info, I don’t participate in social media or text. For the record, I identify as a retro analoggerhead Luddite retard from the Silent Generation.

C.M. MAYO: What is the most important piece of advice you would offer to another writer who is just starting out? And, if you could travel back in time, to your own thirty year-old self?

BRUCE BERGER: My advice to a beginning writer would be to read the best of the authors, contemporary and historical, of the genre you plan to write in, and internalize as much as possible. It worked for centuries before workshops, MFAs and the digital revolution, and still works today. In that regard, a half century later I am still my thirty year-old self.


“My advice to a beginning writer would be to read the best of the authors, contemporary and historical, of the genre you plan to write in, and internalize as much as possible. It worked for centuries before workshops, MFAs and the digital revolution, and still works today.”

C.M. MAYO: What’s next for you?

BRUCE BERGER: My literary representative is working on an archive project for a university still to be selected.

> Visit Bruce Berger’s website at https://bruceberger.net .
UPDATE: 2022: You can access a snapshot of his website on the wayback machine.

My writing assistant presents Bruce Berger’s latest, A Desert Harvest: New and Selected Essays.
C.M. Mayo, Bruce Berger, and Jaime Tolbert of Baja Books & Maps
Galeria de Ida Victoria, San Jose del Cabo, February 2006
Photo: (c) Alice J. Mansell
(scroll down to view photo of El Tule, Los Cabos, also by Alice J. Mansell)
El Tule, Los Cabos
Photo: (c) Copyright Alice J. Mansell

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

Q & A with Álvaro Santana-Acuña on Writing Ascent to Glory: How One Hundred Years of SolitudeWas Written and Became a Global Classic

Q & A: Joseph Hutchison, Poet Laureate of Colorado, on The World As Is

Edna Ferber’s Giant 
& A Selection of Related Books, 
Plus Two Related Videos On (Yes) the Nuremberg Trials

Q & A with Michael Hogan About “Guns, Grit and Glory: How the US and Mexico Came Together to Defeat the Last Empire in the Americas”

BY C.M. MAYO — February 28, 2022 
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

This blog posts on Mondays. Fourth Mondays of the month I devote to a Q & A with a fellow writer.

“I knew that there were many people on both sides [of the US-Mexico border] who were capable of a more nuanced understanding and wanted a better relationship between our countries. Those were my ideal readers. “—Michael Hogan

Michael Hogan, author of Guns, Grit and Glory
Guns, Grit and Glory by Michael Hogan

Michael Hogan has been publishing some of the most fascinating and important works on US-Mexico history that we have. I don’t say that lightly; for my historical novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, I spent nearly a decade, in some of the very same archives, researching this period that he writes about in Guns, Grit and Glory: the French Intervention in Mexico, which allowed for Mexico’s Second Empire under Maximilian von Habsburg. This period overlaps, and in no way coincidentally, with the period of the US Civil War. Because governments and school boards have their political agendas, and of course time for teaching history to children and teenagers is limited, “the narrative” of such episodes that they learn is, by its nature, biased and severely truncated. Sometimes it just gets skipped altogether. So it sometimes happens that some episodes and actors and factors that are hugely important come to light decades, even a century or more later. But this light shines only if and when someone has had the burning curiosity, determination, skill, and perseverance, to dig out the evidence and then recraft a new narrative.

Michael Hogan is an American author of twenty-five books including the critically acclaimed The Irish Soldiers of Mexico and Abraham Lincoln and Mexico. He holds a PhD in Latin American Studies and is Emeritus Humanities Chair at the American School Foundation of Guadalajara. He lives in Mexico.

C.M. MAYO: What inspired you to write Guns, Grit and Glory?

MICHAEL HOGAN: In 2017 I wrote Abraham Lincoln and Mexico, a book that fully revealed for the first time, Lincoln’s support of Benito Juárez when the Mexican president and his Republican forces were driven from the capital by the invading French Army. They were forced to fight an unequal war with poorly clothed, sometimes barefoot, and poorly armed retreating soldiers. I discovered that besides moral support, Lincoln also allowed Mexican agents to raise funds in the US to help feed those troops and provide medicines. But many questions remained. How did Juárez avoid capture by the combined French forces? How did he acquire uniforms and boots, grooved cannons, and other sophisticated weapons for his men? How did his soldiers develop the expertise and training to use them effectively? How did a small retreating army overcome what was the most powerful military force in the world? 

Most of these questions plagued me when I finished that book, although I had some clues. One was an article written by the late historian Robert Ryal Miller about the American Legion of Honor, a group of US volunteers who joined the Mexicans in their fight. In fact, members of this group rescued Juárez when he was in mortal danger of being captured and killed.by French forces in Zacatecas. Another was the discovery that, at the end of the Civil War, African American soldiers from the US Colored Troops joined the Mexican Army after being mustered out of the Union Army at the end of the Civil War. By 1866, there were over 3,000 US volunteers helping the Juárez forces, several were former officers and non-coms, others were sharpshooters and cannoneers. All were tested combat veterans. That story had not really been told, nor the tremendous amount of funding provided by the sale of Mexican bonds (worthless if the war was lost) which Mexican Consul Matias Romero was able to sell, thereby raising in excess of 15 million dollars.

C.M. MAYO: As you were writing, did you have in mind an ideal reader? If so, how might you describe the ideal reader for Guns, Grit and Glory?

MICHAEL HOGAN: I wrote it during the period when there was quite a bit of tension between the US and Mexico. I thought it might be a valuable contribution to show that there was a time when the US and Mexico came together to fight for a common cause. My ideal reader was someone who was open to have a new (but researched-based) understanding of US-Mexican relations. For this reason, there is also a Spanish edition. My thirty-plus years in Mexico had convinced me that there were misgivings and misunderstandings of the US-Mexican relationship on both sides of the border. Many Mexicans still resented the invasion of 1846 and loss of their northern territories. Many people on the US side were too willing to blame Mexico for the current migrant crisis on the border. Yet I knew that there were many people on both sides who were capable of a more nuanced understanding and wanted a better relationship between our countries. Those were my ideal readers.  

C.M. MAYO: Researching a book like this requires extraordinary organizational skills. Can you talk a little bit about your working library and how you keep track of the books you read / consulted? And how do you keep track of articles, both on-line and on paper? And what were some of the things you did for this book that worked especially well for you? 

MICHAEL HOGAN: I was lucky that I was teaching history at an institution that gave me free access to several academic subscription services which I could download and print. I am also fortunate in that my wife, Lucinda Mayo, and I have accumulated a large personal library over the years of over 5,000 titles in both English and Spanish. So, for many sources, I kept track the traditional way, with markers and notes, and separate file folders for each theme, battle, or personage. Since the COVID crisis had not yet struck I was also able to access archives in Chihuahua, where Juarez had his headquarters, and the archives of the Banco de Mexico in the capital, where Romero’s papers were stored. He had been the treasury secretary and head of the bank under Porfirio Díaz.

C.M. MAYO: What was the biggest surprise that you came across in your research?

MICHAEL HOGAN: There were several. The first was that many of the details I found were not in the Archivo de la Nación but rather in the Banco de Mexico. I think perhaps a decision was made to keep them there so that Porfirio Díaz could claim his great victories were without any significant help from the gringos.

Another surprising discovery was that trustworthy French eyewitnesses claimed they observed over 10,000 Americans at the Battle of Querétaro whereas Professor Miller only credited 300 or so in the American Legion, and Romero said there were only 3,000 Americans total, which included the African American soldiers.

However, it was unlikely that the French were wrong; besides theirs was a primary source. So, secondary sources, a Mexican consul who was not present and a US professor writing a century later, must have been mistaken. How to resolve the dilemma?

Quite by accident, I discovered purchase invoices for several thousand Union uniforms in the Mexican military archives. There was the answer. The thousands of bluecoats that the French saw on the hills of Queretaro were mostly Mexicans in surplus US Army uniforms! 

C.M. MAYO: What was the most challenging aspect of writing this book?

MICHAEL HOGAN: So much of what was occurring doing those years was clandestine. The US could not openly aid the Mexicans because to do so would alienate the French who might then join up with the Confederacy. Besides the French were historic allies who helped the US gain its independence. On the Mexican side, Romero representing Juárez, would have to offer foreign investors in those high-risk Mexican bonds either parcels of land, or mining concessions, or other significant incentives if the government were to default. This fact needed to be kept secret lest Juárez be accused by his own people of signing away large swaths of Mexican territory and the patrimony of the next generation. In fact, there were defaults, and by the end of the next decade over 20 percent of Mexican territory was owned by foreigners.

C.M. MAYO: What has most surprised you about its reception?

MICHAEL HOGAN: On the positive side, I was both surprised and delighted by the critical acclaim especially from academics whose work I highly regard such as William Beazley at the University of Arizona, John Mason Hart at the University of Houston, Don Doyle at the University of South Carolina, Brigadier General (Ret.) Clever Chávez Marín, editor of Estudios Militares Mexicanos, and others. Sadly, although the book received quite a bit of positive critical acclaim, the book’s release in March of 2020 at the beginning of the COVID pandemic ensured that all my in-person events were canceled. Three major events (which in the past had garnered audiences of several hundreds) in Chicago (Union League), Lake Chapala (Open Circle), and a historical society in Texas were all postponed or canceled. Two were rescheduled for the fall, and then canceled again because of COVID resurgence. I am hopeful that the first in-person event scheduled for this spring will take finally take place, and also that this interview and on-line reviews will encourage new readers.

C.M. MAYO: For readers who are just getting to know Mexico, what would be your top three book recommendations?

MICHAEL HOGAN:
1. The Course of Mexican History by Michael Meyer and William Sherman. A highly readable text which tells the history of Mexico from pre-Columbian times to the present. With a rich bibliography for those who wish to delve deeper.

2. Mexico: Biography of Power by Enrique Krauze. A compelling history about the evolution of power politics in Mexico from the origins of the nation-state after the War of Independence to the present day.

3. The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz. Insights into the Mexican character, origins of the macho culture, and the evolution of post-colonial bureaucratic elements in government. A controversial exposé by a Nobel Prize recipient of his own people and their character.

Visit Michael Hogan’s website at http://www.drmichaelhogan.com/books/the-irish-soldiers-of-mexico.php

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

From the Archives: My Review of Heribert von Feilitzsch’s 
In Plain Sight: Felix A. Sommerfeld, Spymaster in Mexico, 1908-1914

How Wide is Your Overton Window? Plus from the Archives: 
“On Writing About Mexico: Secrets and Surprises”

Q & A with Jan Cleere on Military Wives in Arizona Territory: A History of Women Who Shaped the Frontier

Q & A with Thaddeus Rutkowski on “Tricks of Light”

BY C.M. MAYO — January 24, 2022 
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

This blog posts on Mondays. Fourth Mondays of the month I devote to a Q & A with a fellow writer.

“I’d rather read in person than on Zoom. In person, the audience can (usually) see the whole body, not just the face, of the reader, and I like to think that larger picture is part of my delivery. “— Thaddeus Rutkowski

Thaddeus Rutkowski reading “Right and Wong”

It was in an AWP Conference Book Fair some years ago that Thaddeus Rutkowski first popped up on my writerly radar. Then, at the 2019 AWP, I attended the Gival Press authors reading. Wow! Rutkowski reads his poetry like no one else. No surprise to later learn (check out his bio on his website) that he is a one-time winner of the Nuyorican Poets Café Friday slam, the Poetry Versus Comedy slam at the Bowery Poetry Club, and the Syracuse poetry slam.  He lives in Manhattan but travels afar to read. If you ever have a chance to attend one of Rutkowski’s readings, or can catch one on Zoom, throw your schedule to the buffalos!

Rutkowski’s latest publication is a collection of poetry, Tricks of Light (Great Weather for Media, 2020), and apropos of that:

C.M. MAYO: What inspired you to write Tricks of Light? Can you talk about its genesis?

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: In 2018, I started writing poems for a new book. I’d published my first book of poems, Border Crossings, in 2017. 

Jane Ormerod of the small press Great Weather for Media heard me read from Border Crossings and asked if I had another book like it. I didn’t, but I thought I could write one. I told Jane I would work on it, and I kept in touch with her about the project. 

I began with pieces about the sights and sounds from my daily routine in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. But I needed some pieces to fill the beginning of the book, which goes back to my childhood. After about a year, I completed a new manuscript and sent it to Jane. She was very patient in waiting for it.

C.M. MAYO: If a reader were to read one poem in this collection, which one would you suggest, and why?

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: I’d pick the one the editors of Great Weather—Jane, Thomas Fucaloro, David Lawton, and Mary Schlecta—chose to promote the book, “Farmers and Dove.” I wrote this poem while sitting on the front steps of my mother’s house in central Pennsylvania. Across the road, a couple of farmers were harvesting corn. At the same time, a mourning dove was calling. The scene reminded me of my childhood in this same village; it also reminded me of my brother, who had recently passed. But the reference to my brother isn’t spelled out; I refer only to “what’s lost.”

The publisher made a handout of this poem to give away with any book purchase—mainly at book or poetry festivals. 

C.M. MAYO: Which of these poems is your personal favorite? Why?

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: What comes to mind are the poems that are family snapshots. A number of the poems are snapshots of my current family: my wife and daughter. So all of those would be favorites. 

While I was working on this book, our daughter was living with us. She is now in college in Ohio.

C.M. MAYO: As you were writing, did you have in mind an ideal reader?

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: This doesn’t answer your question, but as I was/am writing, I have in mind an obligation to the reader. That is to be clear as I can be, so that the meaning that is taken is what I intended. This is not to say that everything is spelled out, but that the tone is clear, whether it is ironic, humorous, observational, etc. Ideally, I will be able to connect with the reader cleanly and directly.

C.M. MAYO: Which poets have been the most important influences for you? And for Tricks of Light in particular?

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: When I was younger, I read books of poetry by Richard Brautigan and Raymond Carver. I never heard Brautigan read live, but I understand he was a great reader. I heard Carver read prose, not poetry—I believe he is better known for prose.

Also when I was younger, I would photocopy W.S. Merwin’s poems from the New Yorker—the trade magazine where I worked had a subscription. I probably still have those photocopies. I also saw Merwin read aloud once, at the New School in Manhattan.

I have enjoyed hearing a number of poets read live: Paul Beatty, Russell Edson, Reg E. Gaines, Tess Gallagher, Thom Gunn, Joy Harjo, Charles Simic, James Tate. But perhaps the most compelling was Patti Smith—I’m talking about her spoken-word performances, not her singing, though I’ve also heard her with her band. When she spoke, you paid attention, and there was the feeling that, true or not, she had some wisdom to pass along.

C.M. MAYO: Which poets and writers are you reading now? 

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: For myself, I’m reading only Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She opens up the world from the point of view of an African Black woman who travels the United States. The view is as complete as it needs to be; it is expansive. It is sort of the opposite of my own Minimal approach.

C.M. MAYO: How has the Digital Revolution affected your writing? Specifically, has it become more challenging to call down the Muse 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? 

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: I understand the internet is distracting—for me as much as for anyone. But I also see the upside. Research has become easier; I can look up facts, people, concepts more quickly than before. Also, it allows people to connect with one another—an effect that is both good and bad. Good in the sense that one has more connections. Bad in that much information is misunderstood and misused.

Good or bad, the digital universe is part of life. I can’t imagine (anymore) the times without it. 

C.M. MAYO: Have you done readings on Zoom? (How has it been to read poetry on Zoom? Do you see the future all Zoom-y?)

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: I’ve done a number of readings on Zoom. The launch of Tricks of Light was on Zoom in 2021, and it went well. It allowed people from all over to “be there.” We haven’t had an in-person launch for this book, and at this point I doubt we will. 

That said, I’d rather read in person than on Zoom. In person, the audience can (usually) see the whole body, not just the face, of the reader, and I like to think that larger picture is part of my delivery. I saw on the TV news yesterday that the stock value of Zoom is going down. This could be a sign.

C.M. MAYO: For those looking to publish a book of poetry, what would be your most hard-earned piece of advice?

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: My advice, other than to take as much care as possible with the writing itself, is to be aware of and connected to the poetry world. Go to readings, take workshops, read in open mics, keep in touch with like-minded people. Your writing might be strong enough to find its place without these other factors, but if you’re like me, you’ll need all the help and support you can get.

C.M. MAYO: What’s next for you as a writer / poet?

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: I think my next book will be a collection of flash fictions, but hopefully it will be something more than a collection. I’ve been gathering short prose pieces and arranging them in what I hope will be a linked sequence. It’s what I’ve done with my earlier books Roughhouse, Tetched, Haywire, and Guess and Check. My book Violent Outbursts was different; it was a collection of unlinked short prose pieces, most of them begun as exercises with my workshop students.

 My next project probably won’t be a book of poetry, because I’m mainly a fiction writer. Still, I write poems, and I save them, so maybe they will be collected in another book. 

By Thaddeus Rtkowski
From Tricks of Light

FARMERS AND DOVE

When sunlight hits the higher points
and the lower places remain in shadow,
two farmers harvest corn together.
One drives a pickup truck,
while the other follows alongside,
stripping ears off stalks
and tossing them into the truck bed.

On a telephone wire above the farmers, 
a mourning dove coos for what’s lost,
for some unspecified thing that’s missing
The calls aren’t sad for the dove,
only for those who are listening.
For those of us who know what’s missing, 
the sounds of the bird remind us of what’s lost.


EMPTY NEST

I have a feeling that something is missing,
because our child is no longer living with us.
I was focused on her, and on her only,
and now I’m not focused on her
unless she contacts me,
and she doesn’t contact me often.

I could contact her, 
but I would need a good reason.
She and I aren’t in the habit of waving
at each other over distance, in cyberspace
just for the sake of waving.

I can see this emptiness as freedom,
a space in which to do what I like.
I don’t need to fill the space
with someone else to take care of,
someone like a pet: a dog or a cat.
I don’t need a pet to feed
and/or walk on a regular basis.
I don’t need to worry about a pet’s survival
when I go away from home for a while.
A pet wouldn’t make me happier,
though I would make a pet happier.

Visit Thaddeus Rutkowski at www.thaddeusrutkowski.com

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

Q & A with Joanna Hershon on Her New Novel St. Ivo

Q & A with Biographer David O. Stewart on the Stunning Fact of George Washington

Notes on Tom Lea and His Epic Masterpiece 
of a Western, The Wonderful Country

Q & A: Some Hard-Earned Advice on Publishing from Poets, Novelists and Historians

BY C.M. MAYO — December 27, 2021
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

“Don’t be too impatient and don’t try to publish work that isn’t ready.”
—Christina Thompson

This blog posts on Mondays. Fourth Mondays of the month I devote to a Q & A with a fellow writer.

This fourth Monday of the month I’m dedicating this last Q & A of 2021 to some of the answers I have received to a question many of you, dear writerly readers—and workshop students— might find especially interesting.

C.M. MAYO: For those looking to publish, what would be your most hard-earned piece of advice?

From the Q & A with Biographer David O. Stewart, June 28, 2021:

DAVID O. STEWART: Nobody asked you to write that book.  You’re doing it for you.  If you can’t get it published, accept that they’re all a bunch of morons and move on.

From the Q & A with Essayist Susan J. Tweit, April 26, 2021:

SUSAN J. TWEIT: In the writing stage, be honest. When you get to a scene or place or event you want to skip over, stop and ask yourself, what am I afraid of? And then go there. Find the universal threads in your personal story—memoir works when it reaches beyond the personal into the territory that anyone can learn from. And when looking for an agent or publisher, be perseverant. Memoir is a crowded field these days, and yours has to be the best it can possibly be to stand out, and it also has to be so compelling that an editor or agent simply cannot put it down. 

From the Q & A with Historian Jan Cleere, March 22, 2021:

JAN CLEERE: Do your research before querying publishers and agents. You will save so much time if you know whether the publisher or agent you are querying accepts the type of book you are writing. There are several good websites that list publishers and/or agents and describe what they are looking for.

From the Q & A with Poet Karren Alenier, September 27, 2021:

KARREN ALENIER: If a publisher says s/he likes part of your manuscript, ask immediately if you can send a revision. Don’t delay by feeling sorry for yourself or thinking someone else might like the whole thing. Take your openings when they present.

From the Q & A with Novelist Solveig Eggerz, February 22, 2021:

SOLVEIG EGGERZ: Don’t waste years seeking an agent, a large publisher, a small publisher, or anything. Instead invest time and money in getting your work read and vetted 1) by your favorite writers group and 2) by an excellent developmental editor or mentor. Once you feel confident that you’ve written a good book, do what feels right regarding publishing.

From the Q & A with Novelist Kathleen Alcalá, May 24, 2021:

KATHLEEN ALCALÁ: Before submitting anything, research the market. If looking to publish in a magazine, purchase half a dozen or so that seem to be likely venues for your work. Look at them carefully and see if you fit in. This is a good place to start, rather than submitting book length manuscripts to publishers, because book editors read these magazines, too. It also gives you a chance to learn how to work with an editor, to receive suggestions and shape the best possible piece for the magazine. 

From the Q & A with Historian Christina Thompson, January 25, 2021

CHRISTINA THOMPSON: Don’t be too impatient and don’t try to publish work that isn’t ready. Also, I do recommend having some readers for your work-in-progress: a writing group or a class can really help you identify weaknesses in your writing that you might not be able to identify on your own. 

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My own hard-earned advice about publishing? Chances are, you’ll make some mistakes, some minor, others appalling, so why not lessen the number and the pain by learning from the mistakes of others?

My favorite answer is David O. Stewart’s: “Nobody asked you to write that book.  You’re doing it for you. If you can’t get it published, accept that they’re all a bunch of morons and move on.” I would add to that, don’t overlook the option of self-publishing. But again, and with self-publishing especially, it helps to learn from the mistakes of others. (On my writing workshop page, scroll down aways and you will find a batch of posts on publishing.)

May 2022 be a year filled with health, happiness, prosperity, and inspiration for you and yours. And if you’re looking to publish, may your path be blessed!

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

Q & A with Lynne Sharon Schwartz About Crossing Borders

This Writer’s PFWP and NTDN Lists: 
Two Tools for Resilience and Focus

Edna Ferber’s Giant 
& A Selection of Related Books, 
Plus Two Related Videos On (Yes) the Nuremberg Trials

Newsletter & Cyberflanerie: Mexico Edition

BY C.M. MAYO — November 29, 2021
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

This finds me working away on my Far West Texas book which, unavoidably, concerns Mexico. Meanwhile, it’s time for the fifth-Monday-of-the-month newsletter and cyberflanerie, Mexico edition.

Delightful Mexico-related items have been landing in my mailboxes— both email and snailmail! First of all, the pioneering consciousness explorer and interviewer Jeffrey Mishlove has won the Bigelow Prize of USD $500,000—you read that right, half a million dollars— for his essay, “Beyond the Brain: The Survival of Human Consciousness After Permanent Bodily Death.” The news relevant to Yours Truly and Mexico is that, in this essay, Mishlove mentions my work about Francisco I. Madero, the leader of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, who also happened to be a Spiritist medium. A few years ago in Las Vegas, I was also greatly honored when Mishlove interviewed me at length for his show, New Thinking Allowed.

You can read Mishlove’s award-winning essay “Beyond the Brain” in its mind-blowing entirety for free, and read more about the impressive panel of judges, and the also impressive runners-up for the Bigelow prize at this link.

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Another delightful item to land in my mailbox in this drizzly-gray season was the pristine copy of Lloyd Kahn’s 1999 newspaper, El Correcaminos, Vol. 1. No. 1, Los Cabos, Baja California Sur. In the photo below, my writing assistant, Uli Quetzalpugtl, lends his presence to the wonderfulness! Gracias, Lloyd!

I’ve been a big fan of Lloyd Khan’s many endeavors (including this one) for some years now. Among other things, Kahn is the editor-in-chief of Shelter Publications. Check out his website and blog.

For me, reading this first 1999 issue of El Correcaminos was like stepping into a very personal time machine, for that was the year that, having concluded several years of intensively traveling and interviewing in and researching about that Mexican peninsula, I started polishing my draft of the manuscript that would appear as Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico (University of Utah Press, 2002).

Here’s a photo of El Correcaminos’ page of recommended books— ah ha! Anne Zwinger’s A Desert Country Near the Sea, Graham Mackintosh’s Into a Desert Place; Walt Peterson’s The Baja Adventure Book: These are some of the books I’d kept on my desk, and even carried with me on my travels. I’m smiling as I write this. How books can be like old friends! And sometimes their authors can become friends, too! (Hola, dear Graham!)

More Mexico news from Denver, Colorado: My amiga Pat Dubrava reads her translation of “The Magic Alphabet,” a short story by Mexican writer Agustín Cadena for Jill!

Dubrava and I both translate Cadena— he’s vastly under-appreciated in English, and we’re aiming to change that.

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Mexican librarian and essayist Juan Manuel Herrera writes in Reforma about Mexico City’s esteemed rare book dealer, owner of the Librería Antigua Madero, Enrique Fuentes Castilla (March 30, 1940- March 8, 2021). I so admired and adored Don Enrique; I never considered my time in Mexico City well-spent without a visit to his Librería Madero. His passing is the passing of an era.

(Don Enrique was very helpful to me, and I wrote about him and Librería Madero a little bit in my long essay about the Mexican literary landscape, “Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla.”)

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Another big part of the wonderfulness of Mexico City is its Centro de Estudios de Historia de México (CEHM) in the southern neighborhood of Chimalistac. Its director, historian Dr. Manuel Ramos Medina, reads a letter from the Empress Carlota to Señora Dolores de Almonte—this being one from the vast cornucopia of treasures in the CEHM’s archives. For those of you who speak Spanish and have an interest in Mexican history, check out the website for information of the innumerable free online lectures they offer.

My amigo Mexican writer Eduardo Zaráte has a fine new book of short stories: Cuentan las gentes (será cierto o no).

His wife, my amiga Araceli Ardón, a writer I have long admired and some of whose fiction I have translated, is offering a free series of outstandingly good lectures on Mexican literature and on her Ardón method of creative writing— in Spanish. Highly recommended.

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How did I miss this fascinating 2014 article by Margaret Randall about Hassan Fathy??!! I came across Randall’s work back when I started editing the now-defunct Tameme literary magazine, and Fathy’s work, when I interviewed Simone Swan on the US-Mexico border in Presidio, Texas.

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POSTS AT MADAM MAYO BLOG
SINCE THE LAST NEWSLETTER


TEXAS BOOKS
= First Monday of the Month=

They Beat Their Horses with Rocks
(And Other Means of Energizing Transport in the Permian Basin of 1858)
November 1, 2021 

Into the Guadalupe Mountains: Some Favorites from the Texas Bibliothek 
(Plus a Couple of Extra-Crunchy Videos)
October 4, 2021

From the Archives: My Review of Edward H. Miller’s 
Nut Country: Right-Wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy
September 6, 2021
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WRITING WORKSHOP POSTS
= Second Monday of the Month =

Verbszzzzz… or Verbs!
November 8, 2021

Itty Bitty But Bold! From the Archives: “Revision: 
Take a Chainsaw to Those Little Darlings, 
Prune, Do No Harm, Be an Archaeologist, 
Move the Furniture Onto the Front Lawn, Flip the Gender”
October 11, 2021

Fearless Fabian / Plus From the Archives: 
“The Vivid Dreamer” Writing Workshop from
the Guadalupe Mountains National Park
September 13, 2021 
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MISC & C.M. MAYO NEWS
= Third Monday of the Month =

How Wide is Your Overton Window?
Plus from the Archives: 
“On Writing About Mexico: Secrets and Surprises”
November 15, 2021

“Julius Knows” in Catamaran
October 18, 2021

Neil Postman’s 1997 Lecture
“The Surrender of Culture to Technology”
September 20, 2021
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Q & A WITH OTHER WRITERS
= Fourth Monday of the month =

Q & A with Philosopher Richard Polt on The Typewriter Revolution
November 22, 2021 

How Are Some of the Most Accomplished Writers and Poets 
Coping with the Digital Revolution? / 
Plus: My Own Logbook and Stopwatch for Madam Mayo Blog
October 25, 2021

Q & A with Poet Karren Alenier on her New Book “How We Hold On,” 
the WordWorks, Paul Bowles & More
September 27, 2021

OTHER NEWS

Look for the Marfa Mondays podcasts to resume in early 2022.

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Wingsuit Video of the Season: Mexican Wingsuit Camp.

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

Ignacio Solares’ “The Orders” in Gargoyle Magazine #72

Q & A with Christina Thompson on Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia

Translation on the Menu, Plus from the Archives: 
“Café San Martín”– Reading Mexican Poet Agustín Cadena 
at the Café Passé in Tucson, Arizona

Q & A with Philosopher Richard Polt on “The Typewriter Revolution”

BY C.M. MAYO — November 22, 2021
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

“[A]fter I started collecting typewriters in 1994, I rediscovered the pleasure of using them once in a while. My desire to use them more often led me to start “typecasting” in 2010—writing posts on a typewriter, then scanning and uploading them to a blog. It was a great decision. It connected me to the typosphere (typewriter bloggers around the world), and opened my eyes to the many uses these machines have today.”— Richard Polt

This blog posts on Mondays. Fourth Mondays of the month I devote to a Q & A with a fellow writer.

So, dear writerly readers, it is a delight and an honor to present you this month’s Q & A with none other than Richard Polt.

From The Typewriter Revolution’s catalog copy:

“Why a typewriter now? How do you find a good typewriter? How do you take care of it? The Typewriter Revolution has the answers.

“What do thousands of writers, makers, kids, poets, artists, steampunks, and hipsters have in common?  They love typewriters—the magical, mechanical contraptions that are enjoying a surprising second life in the 21st century. The Typewriter Revolution documents the movement and provides practical advice on how to choose a typewriter, use it, and care for it—from National Novel Writing Month to letter-writing socials, from type-ins to customized typewriters.”

This is all a little more serious than it might appear, however. Richard Polt is a professor of Philosophy at Xavier University and the author of several works about the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, most recently, Time and Trauma: Thinking Through Heidegger in the Thirties. Heidegger is perhaps best known for his essay, “The Question Concerning Technology,” which first appeared in print in 1954.

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Richard Polt, author of The Typewriter Revolution

C.M. MAYO: What prompted you to start using a typewriter?

RICHARD POLT: I took a typing class in school when I was 11 years old, in 1976, and my father soon found a 1937 Remington Noiseless no. 7 for me at a yard sale. I used that Remington for school, college, and grad school until I got a Mac in 1988. Then there was a period of several years when I didn’t even consider using a typewriter again. But after I started collecting typewriters in 1994, I rediscovered the pleasure of using them once in a while. My desire to use them more often led me to start “typecasting” in 2010—writing posts on a typewriter, then scanning and uploading them to a blog. It was a great decision. It connected me to the typosphere (typewriter bloggers around the world), and opened my eyes to the many uses these machines have today.

C.M. MAYO: What sorts of things do you use your typewriter to type? 

RICHARD POLT: Brainstorms, fiction, poetry, letters, comments on students’ papers, blog posts.

C.M. MAYO: Which model is your go-to typewriter?

RICHARD POLT: I still love my first typewriter, the Remington Noiseless no. 7; it’s next to my laptop right now. I also really enjoy my Continental portable and my Olympia SG1. I enjoy cycling through other models as well, such as my Voss De Luxe, Torpedo 18, and Olivetti Lexikon 80.

C.M. MAYO: Which, in your opinion, is the number one slam-dunk most bodacious typewriter ever manufactured?

RICHARD POLT: I am always looking for “the perfect typewriter” and also simultaneously hoping I won’t find it, so that the exciting search can go on. But the Olympia SG1 comes close to perfect for a standard—it’s smooth and snappy, accurate, strong, and full of features. An interesting candidate for the perfect portable (though it’s still pretty big and heavy) is the Erika 20, a super-sophisticated East German machine that’s nearly impossible to find in QWERTY. And if you want an electric, the IBM Selectric can’t be beat.

C.M. MAYO: After your book, The Typewriter Revolution, was published, what surprised you the most about readers’ responses?

RICHARD POLT: The delightful response that I didn’t see coming was a dance based on my Typewriter Manifesto. The awful response that I didn’t see coming was a reader review that described the book as obscene (huh?).

C.M. MAYO: What prompted you to start Loose Dog Press?

RICHARD POLT: The idea began after I read a couple of short stories in the typosphere about the typewriter insurgency fighting the powers of computerdom, or people using typewriters in an apocalyptic scenario. I thought it would be fun to challenge people to write more stories along these lines—and to publish the typewritten texts. This project evolved into the anthologies Paradigm Shifts and Escapements, which I edited with novelist Frederic S. Durbin and English professor Andrew V. McFeaters. I didn’t think a mainstream publisher would be interested in this admittedly very specialized niche, so why not start my own publishing house?

Loose Dog Press (a pun on the name for a part in a typewriter’s escapement mechanism) is dedicated to promoting typewriting in the 21st century. The books are printed on demand, sold at cost, and available only on paper. There is more information at https://loosedogpress.blogspot.com.

C.M. MAYO: What gratified you, what frustrated you, and what surprised you about Loose Dog’s first books?

RICHARD POLT: We’ve been gratified and surprised by the amount of interest and the number of strong submissions that have come our way from around the planet. The Cold Hard Type series, which now includes four volumes, has successfully inspired people to take their typewriters down from the shelf and use their imagination both with them and about them. Honestly, although it’s been plenty of work to select contributions and use Photoshop to correct errors in typescripts, there have been almost no frustrations. My co-editors are insightful and friendly, and Linda M. Au has been a great help in producing the layout for each volume.

C.M. MAYO: If you could offer a word, or maybe a couple of sentences, of advice for anyone who is thinking of starting a press, what would you tell them?

RICHARD POLT: Do it! We are in a golden age of publishing, in the sense that you need no capital at all to begin publishing books. You just need some technical know-how to create a PDF which can then be printed on demand. Of course, it also helps to have literary and aesthetic taste. Appearances count.

C.M. MAYO: But back to typewriters: A thought experiment. Martin Heidegger, popping in from the afterlife, has offered to type his blurb for The Typewriter Revolution. What does he say?

RICHARD POLT: “What do you mean, type a blurb? I refuse to use a Schreibmaschine! The writing machine is destroying the essence of writing, which is hand-writing! … What’s that? You can’t read my handwriting? All right, I will have my assistant type it up. … OK, OK, I see the irony already. You don’t have to rub it in! Well, at least writing machines are not as devastating as thinking machines. So I’ll give Herr Polt’s scribbles some grudging credit for denouncing the cybernetic worldview.”

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

From the Typosphere: “Right” and “Wrong”

“The Typewriter Manifesto” by Richard Polt, 
Plus Cyberflanerie on Technology

Q & A with Álvaro Santana-Acuña on Writing 
Ascent to Glory: How One Hundred Years of Solitude 
Was Written and Became a Global Classic

How Are Some of the Most Accomplished Writers and Poets Coping with the Digital Revolution? / Plus: My Own Logbook and Stopwatch for “Madam Mayo” Blog

BY C.M. MAYO — October 24, 2021
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

This blog posts on Mondays. Fourth Mondays of the month I devote to a Q & A with a fellow writer. On occasion, as on this Monday, I look back over a compilation of responses to a specific question.

About a year ago I took a brief look back at how some of the most accomplished writers and poets (Katherine Dunn, Joanne Herschon, Barbara Crooker, Nancy Peacock, Bruce Berger, Sergio Troncoso, Eric Barnes, Joseph Hutshison, Mary Mackey, ) have been coping with the digital revolution. I’d say the responses were as unique as fingerprints. Time for an update.

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? 

Down with social media!

LYNNE SHARON SCHWARTZ: “I avoid social media as much as possible—I think it is destroying critical thinking, as well as print journalism. A lot of it is simply garbage. I do like email, though I miss getting personal letters in the mail.”
—From Q & A with Lynne Sharon Schwartz About Crossing Borders, Madam Mayo blog, August 23, 2021

MATTHEW PENNOCK: “I am not particularly prolific. I do not write every day, and I’m often distracted by all the shows I can stream, and podcasts I can listen to. Social media has never really appealed to me, so I am okay there, but other than that, someone needs to give me some tips about how to get a little more done.”
—From Q & A with Poet Matthew Pennock on The Miracle Machine
Madam Mayo blog, November 23, 2020

ALVARO SANTANA-ACUÑA: “While I am writing, I minimize interruptions, including turning off my cellphone and notifications. I only turn it back on when I am having a break. In general, I try to use social media as little as possible. What I do is to log in, scroll down a few posts, and, if I have to post something, I do it and then log off. The truth is that, when we are on social media, we easily loose ownership of our time, which we put for free at the disposal of these companies. We become their workers. I prefer to use my time for other things.”
—From Q & A with Álvaro Santana-Acuña on Writing Ascent to Glory: How One Hundred Years of Solitude Was Written and Became a Global Classic, Madam Mayo blog, December 28, 2020

It depends…

CHRISTINA THOMPSON: “I think this depends on what stage one is at in the writing process. When you’re actually writing a book, all this stuff is a distraction and you have to be very careful not to waste too much time on it. But once your book is published, it becomes a lifeline to your readership, and the more you participate the better. So, I think it’s really a matter of making all these opportunities work for and not against you, and that takes a certain amount of discipline.”
—From Q & A with Christina Thompson on Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia, Madam Mayo blog, January 25, 2021

Balance

JAN CLEERE: “While digital sources have made a writer’s job more efficient when it comes to finding pertinent sources, it has also taken away that spontaneous delight of uncovering a long lost letter or hidden journal that has not yet been digitized. I try to focus on the business of writing separate from the hours I spend actually writing. Not always possible but I have found by trying to compartmentalize the creative from the business end of writing, I am more productive. The trick is to balance these activities so that by the end of the day, you feel you have put out all the fires as well as progressed with your writing.”
—From Q & A with Jan Cleere on Military Wives in Arizona Territory: A History of Women Who Shaped the Frontier, March 22, 2021

No problemo!

SOLVEIG EGGERZ: “Actually I love writing on the computer. I am not one to long for life in a cabin on a mountaintop where I write on a yellow pad free of technology. I don’t like to be surprised by “emergencies” days after they occur. I resolve the issue of disturbances by keeping my phone next to me, so I can glance at a message without shutting down my story. Maybe I am exaggerating my equanimity!”
—From Q & A with Solveig Eggerz on Sigga of Reykjavik, February 22, 2021

KARREN ALENIER: “I’m used to being interrupted. I grew up in house of six children. I was eldest. The point is when I am working, I am able to ignore the lure of online wonders like YouTube, blogs and newspapers. However, I like to work in silence and know that listening to radio, TV, or music is too distracting. Yes, my smart phone is an interrupter. Still I don’t turn that off because someone important to me might reach out and need me. Some of my friends get annoyed that I don’t read their Facebook pages except occasionally. The best way for me to get something done is to put it on my list of things to do. I take great pleasure in ticking off those items.”
—From Q & A with Karren Alenier on her New Book How We Hold On, the Word Works, Paul Bowles & More, Madam Mayo blog, September 27, 2021

DAVID O. STEWART: “For a lot of years, I was a trial and appellate lawyer with a dozen or more active cases at a time.  I used to describe my work as a life of interruptions.  Clients called.  Colleagues dropped by (remember offices?).  Opposing lawyers called.  Dumb firm meetings.  Interviewing job applicants.  I was constantly dropping one subject to pick up another.  I tried to be in my office by seven a.m. to get some uninterrupted time.  So these days, working at home by myself, I actually get antsy if I don’t have a few interruptions.  I’m used to working for a stretch, taking a few minutes off to do something stupid (see social media) or annoying (see call health insurer), and then getting back to work.  It’s normal.”
—From Q & A with Biographer David O. Stewart on the Stunning Fact of George Washington, Madam Mayo blog, June 28, 2021

Go into another world…

SUSAN J. TWEIT: “When I am writing, I am in another world. I turn off notifications on my phone and computer, so that I’m not distracted by the bing of email coming in or the ding of texts or news alerts. My daily routine is pretty simple: I post a haiku and photo on social media every morning (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram), and answer any comments on my posts. After half an hour on social media—I set a timer—I read the news online. When I’ve finished with the news—which is research time for me, as news stories, especially those about science, are raw material for my writing—I write until the well runs dry. And then, usually at two or three in the afternoon, I allow myself to go back to social media, answer other comments, check the news. Then I close my laptop and go outside into the real world and walk for a mile or two on the trails around my neighborhood to clear my head. Getting outside into the “near-wild” of the greenbelt trails in my high-desert neighborhood keeps me sane in turbulent times, and refills my creative well. Nature is my medicine, inspiration, and my solace.”
—From Q & A with Susan J. Tweit on Her Memoir, Bless the Birds: Living with Love in a Time of Dying, April 26, 2021

KATHLEEN ALCALA: “All of this is terrible. I am so easily distracted. I will start laundry, open a file, take notes by hand, and forget what I had planned to do that day. For me, the best strategy is still the writing residency, away from home, where I don’t have any excuses and fewer distractions. This is especially needed when I am trying to organize large blocks of writing, such as the chapters in a novel.”
—From Q & A with Kathleen Alcalá on Spirits of the Ordinary, Madam Mayo blog, May 24, 2021

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My Own Logbook and Stopwatch
for Work on Madam Mayo Blog

The ever-increasing and OMG-so-many siren calls to the Internet—as a writer, it’s something I’ve been struggling with and pondering on for the past many years. I’ve had some continuing frustrations, but also some successes, and I’ve blogged about the latter (see my writing workshop archive). Tips & Tricks for Coping with Digital Distractions, that’s a book I’m not going to write because I’m already writing another book, with two others contemplated after that, in addition to hosting this blog. Enough already!

But I will offer a word on my strategy for fitting Madam Mayo blog into my week. This blog has been ongoing since 2006, and since 2019, on a regular schedule of posting on Mondays. Although for years I resisted establishing a regular schedule, to my surprise, it has made the blog far easier to manage.

One of the biggest challenges to the sort of blogging I do is that because there’s no editor, no paying subscribers, it’s easy to have the whole show just ooze on out into who-knows-what-who-knows-when.

If you enjoy writing, watch out, blogging can take over your writing life!

Blogging then, for me, is what behavior modification expert B.J. Fogg, in his book Tiny Habits, terms a “downhill habit,” that is, a habit “that is easy to maintain but difficult to stop.” (Of course, on the other hand, for many people, blogging is, as per B.J. Fogg, an “uphill habit,” that is, one that requires ongoing attention to maintain but is easy to stop.)

Starting in January of 2021, I have been attending to the tiny habit of logging the time I spend on Madam Mayo blog, aiming for about two hours per week, never more than an hour a day, and also aiming for putting my attention on it (including dispatching any related emails) only on Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays. When I sit down to work on Madam Mayo blog, I open a digital stopwatch app. When I’m done, I note the date and time spent in the logbook. Was it as scheduled, and within the time limit? If so, I give the entry a check mark and do the B.J. Fogg prescribed “celebration.” Yes, it’s kind of nerdy, but I have been finding this system, or rather, set of tiny habits, balancing, energizing, efficient and, hey, just fun.

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

A Visit to El Paso’s “The Equestrian”

Fearless Fabian / 
Plus From the Archives: 
“The Vivid Dreamer” Writing Workshop 
from the Guadalupe Mountains National Park

This Writer’s PFWP and NTDN Lists: 
Two Tools for Resilience and Focus