I have no idea how to get rid of Gerald Stern and his new book in the Upper Left.
Richard Bank in the lobby of the Upper Moreland Library. He'd sent out an email asking for an opportunity to talk about and sell his new book - Feig - so I booked him for our library.
"Anyone in there?" I asked about the Community Room.
"The room is dark," he said.
That means no one was in there and it was 6 pm on the dot.
Well, he did get a rousing reception from the three people - Doug, Eiko and myself - who heard him speak. Read more about Richard here. I originally met him when my friend Beatriz and I took a writing class from him at Temple University in Fort Washington.
"By a real publisher?" I asked her.
"Sort of," she said, referring to Tate Publishing, a Christian press. According to Wikipedia, it's a vanity press. Read this fascinating story about them and why they fired 25 employees in 2012.
CEO, a young Mr Tate, was on Fox News last year bashing Obamacare.
Toni didn't stay for the program but she did buy a copy of Feig, as did I, as well as the library. Toni knows how to write, said Richard, b/c she worked as a journalist. Her memoir is very well written, he said, and he helped her when she signed the contract with Tate.
He told us that Toni's book was too short, so she doubled the size. This is how a writing coach can help a person.
He suggested to the three of us - Eiko, me and Doug - to consider self-publishing, tho he did add, "Most self-published books are junk."
Japanese-American Eiko Burkle has a writing following in her native Japan. Here in the US, she's published a number of newspaper stories and showed Doug and me afterward in our hour-long Willow Writers' Group.
Here's Doug, a science-fiction/fantasy writer who was published here.
He asked us to guess how many years he worked on Feig.
Doug said, "Just this side of forever."
I guessed, "Five."
What dyou think, Dear Reader?
He rewrote the book THREE TIMES. Jacob Feig is a Holocaust survivor, as were Richard's grandparents, who, by good fortune, survived the Czechoslovakian "show camp" Theresienstadt in the city of Terezin.
Read about how Hitler deceived the Danish Red Cross to believe that Jews were treated well.
Half my family are Hungarian Jews and may have perished there.
Richard is working on a book about Theresienstadt. He's already wrin 9 out of the 12 chapters.
It took ten years to write Feig. It's the story of Jacob Feig, a Holocaust survivor, on trial for murder. It has a surprise ending, he said.
"You never know where your ideas are going to come from," said Richard, who worked as a Philadelphia attorney for 40 years, including his start in the DA's office. The attorney character David Gold is based on Richard's knowledge of the legal system.
The idea for the character Jacob Feig was based on a man he met 20 years ago. Rich was a book reviewer for the Jewish Exponent and reviewed a book about Holocaust survivors. The man contacted Rich, telling him he was also a survivor and had written a book about it. Would he take a look at it?
Rich shared his ms. with a couple of editors who were not interested in it.
The last time Rich had contact with the man was 10 yrs ago, after the man's wife had died.
What Richard Bank did for the three writers who heard him was to INSPIRE US about the importance of getting rejected over and over again - you need a thick skin - many people give up, he said - and then eventually you may succeed.
Richard sent his Feig ms. to dozens and dozens of agents, always getting rejections. When he received an acceptance letter from PS Books, a division of Philadelphia Stories, over six months had passed since he submitted his ms.
He had forgotten all about it!
Black n white cover photo. On the left is an empty room of a concentration camp. Who does Rich ask to read his work?
No one, was his surprising answer.
You must have a strong ego, I said.
Or maybe not, he said. Maybe I'm afraid they'll say something bad about it.
I said that I can't share my work with Scott, my BF, b/c he usually doesn't like my stuff. So tempting, tho.
Ernest Hemingway never let anyone read his work, except for me. I came up with the title A Moveable Feast.
You wish, Girl!!!
Rich said he had his family read Feig, but in a controlled situation. They were vacationing at The Shore and he watched them as they were reading the book, getting a look at their facial expressions.
Everyone liked it.
Well, I said, you're a terrific writer.
Terrific I don't know about, he said. I'm a decent writer.
What is Richard Bank currently reading?
What I Can't Bear Losing by Gerald Stern, first poet laureate from New Jersey. Stern used to live in Lambertville, NJ, across from New Hope. It's a series of little essays.
He's also reading a book by Russian emigrant Gary Shteyngart. We were kicked out of the room at 7 pm b/c a huge group from International Village were holding a meeting. Is it these condominiums?
After we bid Richard adieu, the three of us met in the glass cage within the library.
Here's architect Philip Johnson's Glass House in Connecticut.
Eiko shared her wonderful articles with us. She could hear me laughing as I read about the difference between work places in Japan and in the US.
I told her that a relative of my ex-husband had a profound effect in the industrialization of Japan.
Read about his 14 points for a successful biz.
My friend Yin Liu has just returned from visiting her family outside Beijing.
Here's Yin and her husband Patrick Cox.
Industrialization has made the air quality so bad, she said, people often wear masks. She found the city so crowded she was afraid to drive. She was relieved to get home.
Back to our Writing Table at the library, Doug asked us a question about his new short story about parallel universes. Sounds fascinating! Yes, he's read everything by Isaac Asimov.
We suggested he use the omniscient voice instead of first person to solve his dilemma.
I presented my short story And Mushrooms for Dessert. I've been thinking of writing this for a couple of months and began it two nites ago. I just sat at my upstairs desk and refused to budge until I knew what I was doing.
It's about a married man who tries to kill his diabetic wife.
Called Erich tonite, at the Willow Grove Pharmacy, to ask him the name of the device you use to prick your finger. It's a lancing device he told me.
Then I took a nap this afternoon while watching Miami Vice (1984) on Netflix - quite awful! - very violent - and after I woke up, I went upstairs to finish the story.
Eiko and Doug gave me great feedback, so I'll finish the story in a day or two.
But.... help? What shall I write about next.
"Creative nonfiction," said Richard Bank, "is using the same techniques as in fiction." So it reads like a novel.
Actually, I am working on another story, "His Wild Garden" which ain't half bad.
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