Carol Bergman

It’s not unusual for biographers to take ten years to research and write a book. They are patient and meticulous people who, in my experience, have smaller egos than the writers they are studying. Yet, the books they write often become seminal and long lasting, referred to, with thanks, by subsequent biographers, and glued to the shelves in every literary scholar’s library for as long as the shelves remain standing.

I’ve just finished reading Carol Sklenicka’s outstanding biography of Raymond Carver and went to hear her speak at a Barnes & Noble in New York on January 4th. She began the project ten years ago when she was teaching freshman composition at Marquette University. She liked Carver’s stories and searched for a biography of him, but there was none. And so she got to work. She interviewed everyone still alive who knew him, read all the archival material, and all the extant drafts of the stories and poems.

In a way, it is a miracle that Raymond Carver created a body of work that is so memorable and so important in the history of the American short story. He was very ill with alcohol for much of his writing life and, when he got sober in 1977, he kept himself medicated with marijuana. But he was also driven and disciplined, more so, of course, when he got sober and then met the poet, Tess Gallagher, who became his second wife. They were a productive writing couple to the end of Carver’s too-short life. She now controls his literary estate.

As for the biographer herself, she’s a very good writer. The book is a page turner and reads like a novel. All the sordid details—pernicious alcoholism, abandonment of Carver’s first wife and children in his will, the “usurpation” of Carver’s early stories by his Esquire editor, Gordon Lish—are in the book, as well as a clear analysis of the stories themselves. Was he a minimalist? A dirty realist? No, Sklenicka says, a better word would be “precisionist.”

The collected stories have now been re-issued on acid free paper in a Modern Library edition. I’ve bought it for my “physical” library. Many are the original worked versions of the stories before Gordon Lish appropriated them. I’m reading one a day and savoring their genius. Carol Sklenicka’s book is also by my side, in my Kindle.


http://www.amazon.com/Raymond-Carver-Writers-Carol-Sklenicka/dp/074326245X

 Read More 

As predicted, it was snowing in New York this morning, but it was not cold and the snow soon turned to slush. I took the subway to Times Square and walked east past the neon signs and the tourists towards Bryant Park, and around the corner onto Fifth Avenue. The demonstration on the steps of the New York Public Library was set to begin at 11 a.m. and I was a few minutes late. American PEN had already set up a small white, protective canopy, chairs, a microphone, and speakers. A small PEN audience, bundled in winter gear, listened attentively as Edward Albee, Dan Delillo, E.L. Doctorow, Jessica Hagedorn, and Honor Moore, among others, read excerpts from Liu Xiaobo’s poetry, the text of Charter 08: “We should end the practice of viewing words as crimes,” and the indictment by the court that sentenced Liu Xiaobo to eleven years in prison.

It was more like a vigil than a demonstration. We held signs with words from Charter 08. We held signs with the words: “Free Liu Xiaobo.” The press recorded the event--the speakers and the audience holding signs. When it was over, a mere thirty minutes later, a delegation walked to the Chinese Mission to hand in a letter.



 Read More 

I’m interrupting the Happy Holidays to write a blog entry about Liu Xiaobo, one of China’s most prominent writers and a past president and member of the Independent Chinese PEN center. After a show trial, he’s been sentenced to eleven years in prison for co-authoring Charter O8, a petition calling for political and human rights reforms in China, and for seven sentences in five articles he published on the internet that are critical of Chinese authorities.

He was sentenced on Christmas day. Maybe the powers-that-be in China thought that the Western World would not be watching. They were mistaken.

I’m trying to imagine what it must be like for a writer who has done nothing wrong—other than to write what is in his heart and mind—to be incarcerated in a Chinese prison. But I can’t imagine it, not really. It’s a bitterly cold day as I write but I’m warm, sitting at my desk, my computer humming. Access to the internet is instantaneous and unfettered. No one is trying to shut me down. No one is trying to shut this website down. I’m not a dissident, I’m a writer. In China, almost by definition, writers are dissidents.

It’s not a pretty picture.

A few years ago, a book I complied and edited, “Another Day in Paradise; International Humanitarian Workers Tell Their Stories,” was published in China. When my agent first told me the news, I thought it was good news. But then I got worried. What if the book is censored or gets someone into trouble and they end up in jail? I asked. My agent reassured me that this would not happen. How could she know for sure? When it was suggested that I might like to travel to China to publicize the book, I refused. In fact, I won’t set foot on Chinese soil until all writers and other dissidents are released from jail. The Chinese government needs to shape up. Their actions are unconscionable.

Thursday is New Year’s Eve Day and American PEN is celebrating by organizing a vigil for Liu Xiaobo somewhere in midtown Manhattan. Snow is forecast but it makes no difference. I'll be there.

For more information about Liu Xiaobo:

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/December2009/24/c5709.html

 Read More 

It's the end of the year and the one year "anniversary" of this blog. I'm in the midst of editing my murder mystery, "Say Nothing," which I hope to have finished before the new term begins in early February. It's hard work but also enjoyable. I went through the manuscript top to bottom last week and now have started another round of close, line by line editing. Working from my editor's notes and suggestions, I am trying to complete one chapter a day, at least. I'm elaborating description, trying to make some structural changes, and correcting grammatical and punctuation errors. Much to my surprise, many of my sentences in the first drafts were fragments. I think this is because I was trying to write very colloquial dialogue, closer to clipped, telegraphic speech. Or, maybe, I had the noir novels in mind, those tough characters who mumble tough, telegraphic sentences. But I am also certain that I am unconsciously influenced by the sound-byte literary culture we live in. I don't text but I do email a lot. I wish I had time for long, discursive, narrative emails all the time, but I don't. And the speed and dexterity of the email medium is corrosive. I have known this for a long time and talk about it to my workshop all the time. But I didn't think fragmentary communication had affected me at all. I was wrong. It has. And I've got a lot of work to do on the novel to make it sing rather than lurch along. Wish me bon chance and have a good holiday.  Read More 

My cousin, Peggy Weis, had an art opening last Friday night at the Fairfield Arts Center. I’d watched her collect objects as we walked on the dirt road in Martha’s Vineyard last spring and some of these objects had been transformed into a “Road Kill” series and a “Portals” series. I asked her what she was collecting and she said, “fragments.” I wanted to help so she told me what to look for but I didn’t see what she saw so that was a useless exercise for both of us. But we kept on walking and talking about the creative process. Visual artists—their work and their statements about their work—always inspire me. Here’s Peggy’s (eloquent) statement about this show which is called “Back and Forth” :

“The art in this show reflects the movement Back and Forth of my ideas in concrete form—from one medium to another. From that, my creative process begins, deciding what format the work should take, be it work on paper, mixed media or sculpture. I am a walker and I frequently pick up objects while, at the same time, noticing the patterns of the cracks on the sidewalk or road. I have also experienced the deaths of friends and family members during the last few years and thoughts of life’s paths and portals to another realm started to preoccupy my work.”

Like writers, artists don’t sell a lot of work these days but that doesn’t mean they stop working. Peggy works all the time as do the two artists I talked to at the show who had stopped by to see the art but haven’t had a show in a very long time. Is this discouraging? Yes and no. Once back in the studio, they both agreed, the joy of creating new work and working the work takes over. Where the next meal is coming from is another matter; artists become easily lost in their process and find it difficult to surface into “reality.” Others, more commercially minded and self-promoting—Andy Warhol was quoted more than once that evening—find a way to make money from their art. Peggy, who has had numerous job jobs over the years, now has a patron—her husband—which makes her more fortunate than most, but doesn’t diminish her hard work or achievement.

The opening lasted for two hours and held a crowd. There were chocolate-dipped strawberries on the table, dips, crudities. Wine and sparkling water in blue bottles was served in the obligatory plastic cups. There were corporate sponsors in suits, the curator of the show, friends and family, board members of the Fairfield Arts Center. After a while, I wanted to pay attention to the art—a joint show with Roxanne Faber Savage—so I took one of the guide sheets and walked around slowly. A thirteen-year-old visiting from Cincinnati came with me. I tried to talk to her about the work but she was texting six friends back home all the time and had no language left for conversation with me much less description of what was in front of her. I thought this a terrible shame and also worrying. If we are never alone with our thoughts how can we experience art?

I talked to Peggy’s patron—her husband—for a while and we both said how happy we were that Peggy now has an opportunity to “do” her art full-time and is receiving well-deserved recognition from other artists. Artists have always supported one another with encouragement, suggestions, and attendance at openings. With or without financial aid, with or without sales, that’s the nature of real patronage: support, encouragement, suggestions, and admiration.  Read More 

Some years ago, an art appraiser friend gave me a cuneiform tablet for my birthday. What a gift! It’s a round stone, about four-inches in diameter and two inches thick, irregular in shape, and light-reddish brown in color. The inscription on it is not literature but calculation; it's a market transaction.

At first, I didn’t want to touch the stone much less hold it. I considered it precious and kept it in the straw box in which it had been delivered to me from the ancient Middle East. It had been a long, arduous journey. This clay tablet, wet when written on with a stylus, had survived countless upheavals. I think of this, and more, when I touch this stone. I wish Iraq peace and prosperity in the coming years.

When I told my friend I was afraid to handle the stone, he insisted that I take it out of the box. It needed to breathe, to live. And so I did. Its presence in my writing room is a reminder that written communication is universal and has been for millennium.

The expression, “It’s not written in stone,” originates in the discovery of these tablets. It implies that our ancestors in antiquity considered the stone tablets permanent records. But that was most likely not the case; they were ephemera to be stored or tossed away once the transaction was complete. And though all of it is important to us now as artifact, at the time the clay tablets were not precious; they were tools.

There will be more tomorrow and the day after that, into the future, beyond our lifetimes, beyond the wars we are fighting in the cradle of civilization where all artifacts are endangered. I suppose there is some solace in this, at least: The museum in Baghdad is open again, its collection partially restored and on view, most of it stored safely outside the country.

 Read More 

At least three of my students this term have exceptionally difficult stories to tell and although my workshops and tutorials at NYU are not meant to be memoir exclusively, these writers are working on memoirs. Because of the urgency they feel, it’s difficult to move them into other forms of nonfiction writing such as reportage. So I let them be and encourage their efforts. Good memoir writing encapsulates all that is best in nonfiction writing today anyway—a strong sense of place, character development, dramatic tension, an open, direct narrative persona, lush description, and more.

When difficult personal stories surface in a workshop or a tutorial—the recent death of a loved one, incest, other traumas—I always ask the author if s/he has support outside the workshop or tutorial setting. Writing may be therapeutic but it is not therapy; student writers often confuse the two. More importantly, unless the writer develops insight, the writing will remain shallow and elliptical. When important information is with-held—either consciously or unconsciously—the reader feels that something is missing. That’s not easy to critique and may even feel manipulative though it isn’t; it’s self-censorship. One student this term admitted she was still protecting a perpetrator, that he was still alive and she was in touch with him. This being the case, how can the writing fly?

A rule I apply in my own memoir writing is this: If I can’t tell all of the story, I put the story away. There are other stories to write now. We can always return to what hurts when he have more skill, more understanding, and more courage.

 Read More 

I went for a very long walk with my husband in the warm sunshine yesterday. We started out near our home on the upper west side, meandered down to the river, and kept going for another three miles or so until we came to the Intrepid which was surrounded by armed soldiers and chock-a-block with tourists. Not exactly a peaceful setting. We walked away from the hullabaloo, the soldiers, the guns, and the memories of two awful shootings this past week. I’m working on a new project with combat veterans, Wednesday is Veteran’s Day, I’m thinking about the vets I know a lot, reading a lot about Iraq and Afghanistan, and I needed a rest. Hard to achieve sometimes but necessary to get the work done without collapsing. This is especially true when the subject of the project is emotionally charged. We have to keep going. We have to be strong. So, long walks are very important, literally and metaphorically. Walking is restorative even when the plantings on the trail dwindle and the scenery becomes industrial. At that point, I let my mind drift onto the Hudson and/or begin another conversation with my walking companion. We pretend to be tourists. Where to eat before hitting the Highline? We found a tucked-away local dive on Ninth Avenue—everything homemade, the Latina owner serving us personally, scrumptious cupcakes for dessert, a Sunday treat.

I always have ideas when I am moving and carry a notebook with me. When I was a runner and didn’t carry a notebook I’d bend down and scoop ash off the track and write on my arms. And when I am swimming, I try to hold the ideas in my head until I’m out of the shower and into the locker room. It doesn’t always work but my mind is so clear after exercise that all the important ideas return, albeit in slightly different form. But sometimes I don’t want to think about what I’m working on; I want to relax—completely. And though I had my notebook with me and at the ready yesterday, I didn’t write anything down except the word “apples” on my shopping list.

There were so many people walking the Highline that we couldn’t stop moving. It’s a transformed railroad track, not exactly a parkland, narrow, with interesting plantings on either side of the pathway. There are very few places to sit or lounge, and more views of the cluttered city skyline than the river. All told, we found it disappointing. But it wasn’t the whole day, it was only a part of the day, so it didn’t matter. We headed home on the subway and got back to our computers.  Read More 

I am an indigenous New Yorker and have been a Yankee fan and an athlete all my life. I played softball, basketball, volleyball, I swam, skied and ice skated—all in the days when girls sport was separate and unequal—less money and encouragement given to teams in high school and college, pre-Title IX days. I wrote an essay about this for an anthology called “Whatever It Takes; Women on Women’s Sport,” published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1999. We had a reading when the book was launched and it was thrilling to meet other athletes who had become writers from all over the country.

I was probably the only girl in elementary school who snuck a transistor radio and headset into class to listen to the World Series. It was played during the days back then. I was never caught and managed to keep my grades up enough to satisfy my parents. So whenever the World Series comes around and the Yankees are in it, I’m engaged. I’m watching those players and slugging the ball into the outfield in my imagination, running flat out around the bases, stealing bases.

Last night, the fourth game in the series was very exciting. Two men on base 2 x, Johnny Damon stealing two bases, heart stopping. The words, “bases loaded” came to mind as a metaphor for a piece of writing that’s loaded and ready to fly to home plate. This doesn’t happen without a lot of thoughtful revision. Revision is not the play-offs and it’s not the World Series; it’s spring training. The sketch-books are warm-up, keeping the muscles supple. Revision is more grueling.

Indeed, writer and athletes have a lot in common: discipline (practice, meeting deadlines,) a desire to win (get published), team-mates (the workshop), a coach (the writing instructor), sports-wo-man ship (accepting critique, offering critique), and so on.

Game 5 tonight, a chance for the Yankees to wrap it up.
 Read More 

My friend Sue Bernstein who owns Bernstein Artists, an arts management company, invited me to see a show called “Two Men Talking” at the Barrow Street Theater. Though I am an indigenous New Yorker and have lived here many years since returning from a sojourn in Europe, I had never been to this theater. New York –all five boroughs—is a treasure trove of unexpected pleasures, a mecca of talent and innovation.

When she is not traveling, Sue is out in the city most nights keeping an eye on her clients or evaluating new ones. The two men –Paul Browde and Murray Nossel--are new clients. They are both originally from Johannesburg, South Africa and grew up under the apartheid regime. They are both Jewish and they are both gay. It was easy to be white and Jewish in apartheid South Africa, not so easy to be gay. Both men eventually emigrated to the United States. Paul is a psychiatrist and Murray, a trained psychotherapist, is now a documentary filmmaker. They have a theatrical background also—actor and playwright respectively.

They had been in the same class in grade school but did not run in the same crowd or like each other very much. Then, one day in 1974, a teacher broke the class up into pairs,they were paired off together, and told to tell each other a story. Murray complained that he had no story to tell so Paul encouraged him. “Everyone has a story, Murray," Paul said. So Murray told a story and then Paul told a story. When they left school and then South Africa, they did not see each other again for a very long time. Years later, they ran into each other in New York, the mecca.

Now it was Murray’s turn to prompt Paul into conversation. He’d written a play and as he talked to Paul realized they both had interesting stories to tell, that the stories were bursting out of them, and that they should make a play together by telling their stories. So that’s what they did. The play is a result of their collaboration. Much of it is improvised as they perform depending on the stories they want to tell that particular evening. They sing acapella in African languages, in Afrikaans, and in Hebrew. The narrative meanders back and forth in time, is often very funny, sometimes painful, always endearing. They’ve also started a narrative story workshop—real life storytelling —which they take all over the world.

In a Q&A after the show, I asked Murray and Paul whether the African oral story-telling tradition—passed on to them through their African nannies—and the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission had influenced them. People were invited to the Commission to tell their stories of horror and redemption; it was modeled on tribal traditions of justice. Murray smiled and said, “I would not be here today without it. We began this collaboration just after apartheid fell and the Commission began its work. The play is our own personal reckoning."

For more information about the workshops and a schedule of upcoming performances:
http://www.bernsarts.com/twomen/twomen.html  Read More