First, thanks to everyone who commented or emailed concerning yesterday's entry on being serious. I'm still thinking about it and plan to post more on the subject in a day or two. What I want is to do something with all this concern - take action. I'm feeling a bit like illustrator Eric Brooks who was quoted in his Robert's Snow feature at Bildungsroman yesterday:
I found out about Robert's Snow by accident in 2004 and immediately sent Grace and email asking if I could participate. I've never met her, but the idea of helping an important cause by making art was just too perfect to pass up. It was also such an inspiration to see someone ACT on behalf of a loved one in such a profound, innovative, and communal way... The same holds true for this third installment, and I would be happy to paint snowflake every year for the rest of my life.
I can't paint though, so now it's all about what I can do (or do more of) and how I'm going to go about doing it. More on that later.
Right now I point you in the direction of The Smithsonian's special issue on America's young innovators. What has so blown me away about this issue is the many different careers that people have - the sheer diversity of what you can do with your life. I would put this in the hands of every high school student in America if I could just so they could see some of the possibilities out there. I had no clue what I could do when I left school, other than in the vague "study management, be a manager, study history, be a teacher" kind of way. These folks go way beyond the expected and it's just plain interesting reading.
If you know a young person who wants to be a writer, do point them in the direction of Dave Bidini's For Those About to Write.... I just finished reading it and can best compare it to Stephen King's wonderful On Writing (which is must reading for all teen writers as well). Bidini does a good job of showing his own path to authorship and also highlights interesting tidbits about famous writers (did you know Jeanette Winterson's parents were religious conservative and burned all her books as a child?) while also defining all those professional writing type words like "agent" and "advance", etc. I'm going to put together a feature on titles for curious kids for the December issue (if Jessa is up for it - no promises) and would certainly include this one in the mix.
Some of you may recall my fascination with Mary Shelley, well her older half sister Fanny seems to finally be getting her due in a new title from Counterpoint, Death and the Maidens: Fanny Wollstonecraft and the Shelley Circle. Fanny committed suicide after a difficult childhood in the very complicated Wollstonecraft household (she was the child of Mary Wollstonecraft and a lover; she never knew her father. Mary got married and to William Godwin and had daughter Mary and then died due to childbirth. William then remarried another woman who was a widow with a child of her own and they promptly had a son. Can you imagine where Fanny's place was in that household?) My Booklist editor Donna Seaman likes what author Janet Todd has done with the book:
Determined to finally do right by a wronged young woman of promise once part of one of the world's most romanticized literary circles, Todd carefully documents poet Shelley's wildly indulgent and destructive relationships and Fanny's thwarted efforts to be part of his and Mary's world. Writing with admirable restraint (Miseries accumulated"), Todd finally brings Fanny into the light.
Lesley M. M. Blume, author of the delightful Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters thinks the Gossips Girls are killing American culture through premature aging and dullness more than anything else:
Gossip Girl represents nothing less than the soft death of youth culture and rebellion and self-determinism. The forgettable Nate and the lumpen Blair have assassinated the joyous, restless example set by James Dean and Natalie Wood decades ago in films like Rebel Without a Cause and West Side Story. Yes, Jimmy and Natalie also had angst -- heaps of it -- but theirs was a youthful angst. They had fear, but they had hope too, and fighting spirit against the rituals that gradually deaden adults.
She makes some great points and reminds me yet again why I love my James Dean still, after all these years.
More deep thoughts tomorrow, along with a heckuva a lot more Alaska writing. (No worries though - I'm keeping that all to myself!)
