A stimulating group meditation on the grungy yet joyous craft of wordsmithing.
Writers recount slogging through obscurity, low pay, addictions, and self-doubt on their way to fame and book deals in these scintillating interviews.
Author Small reprints portions of 31 conversations from his Write About Now podcast with novelists, journalists, critics, playwrights, screenwriters, cartoonists, and the odd rock star and fashion designer on their early careers. From this raucous variety, some themes emerge—juvenile literary yens, the influence of great teachers, lucky breaks (and the hard work that makes them possible), the disruptions of the internet (which crushed the well-paying print media that used to sustain professional writers but also let talented unknowns self-publish and find an audience), and the importance of taking risks, being pushy, and just going for it. Interviewees include Amy Morin, who cranked out internet content at $15 per piece until her article about bad mental habits went viral; Lori Majewski, who parlayed her teenage Duran Duran fanzine into a music-writing career; Andy Weir, who spent 25 years as a software engineer before posting his SF novel The Martian on Amazon (it eventually reached orbit as a Matt Damon movie); Sue Monk Kidd, who was 53 when she published her first novel—the mega-seller The Secret Life of Bees; and Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz, who recalls the band’s big break at CBGB’s: “I heard Johnny Ramone say…‘They can open for us because they suck. They’re gonna make us look good.’” The interviews are warm, free-flowing, and evocative, as when New York Times journalist Dan Barry recollects his Irish-born mother’s storytelling: “She would go to the ShopRite to buy a quart of milk, and then come home and spin this Homeric epic out of having bought a quart of milk….what the checkout clerk was doing; what kind of gum she was snapping; what kind of mother was the woman in front of her because she was buying Lucky Charms cereal, and we all know that’s not good cereal.” The result is an engrossing read and a reassuring prod to aspiring scribes.
A stimulating group meditation on the grungy yet joyous craft of wordsmithing.Pub Date: July 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781964377193
Page Count: 198
Publisher: Legacy Launch Pad Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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