"BIG THING" Blog Entry for Denise Low Is Literary Essays Book

MariJo Moore invited me to join a blog chain 2013 & THE NEXT BIG THING - a series of interviews with authors about what they’ve been working on. I understand it has been going since October! Here is the link to her blog: http://marijomoore.blogspot.com/   Here is my own latest book, not yet a year old: Natural Theologies: Essays about Literature of the New Middle West (ISBN 978-1-935218-22-7. 185 pages, $20.00)  http://www.thebackwaterspress.org/our-authors/denise-low/    I hope to promote it in 2013.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Middle West and Great Plains writers continue a “frontier” legacy with topics of nature, weather, the relationships among Native and European settler writers, urban-rural dialectic, and community life.
What genre does your book fall under?
Non-Fiction, critical essays.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
This is like some studies of ethnic literatures, but this is the first book that considers literature of this region.
Who is the publisher?
The Backwaters Press in Omaha, published by Greg Kozmicki. He has done so much as an independent literary publisher.  He is an unsung hero, and a fine poet himself. Working with Kozmicki and his copy editor were a gorocess.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I realized other regions of the country celebrate their literature, but in the plains and prairies, writers do not have the same recognition.
What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?
I have been grateful for some wonderful reviews from the Kansas City Star, the Manhattan Mercury, and others. A reviewer for  American Indian Library wrote: “This is the first book of critical essays about contemporary Midwestern writers. Denise Low, of Delaware and Cherokee heritage, foregrounds Native writers, including Louise Erdrich, Heid Erdrich, Diane Glancy, Joseph Marshall III, and Adrian C. Louis. The four sections of Natural Theologies are about history, settlements in the Plains, Midwestern people and their character, and nature. The author considers not only the legacy of “frontier,” but also the enduring narratives of settler/Native interactions.”
Where did the idea come from for the book?
As a young writer, I learned that writing is a dialogue with books. I began reviewing books after my M.A. in literature as a way to expand my writing practice. This book includes expanded essays on books that have influenced me.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I really don’t think this book will be made into a movie, but I really think N. Scott Momaday is very cinematic. I’d like to see a movie about his writings. He has influenced many Native and Southwest/plains writers, especially because of his insistence that the oral tradition as a valid literary genre.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I had some ideas and a few drafts, but I spent one summer drafting this, working intensively every day, and then another year editing it.
And to keep 2013 THE NEXT BIG THING going, here is another wonderful writer, Lisa Hase,  and her next big thing: http://zingarapoet.net/author/zingarapoet/ 

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Ted Kooser Admonishes Against Anecdotes in Road Trip

Road Trip: Conversations with Writers, edited by Shelly Clark and Marjorie Salser, is a an collection of interviews with distinguished Nebraska writers, including Ted Kooser. The book is worth reading for insights into writing well. Especially, this comment by Ted Kooser sticks with me:

One of the things that troubles me concerns anecdotes. We have always had anecdotes as part of our social intercourse, and it seems to me that the only refuge for the anecdote in literature has come to be the poem. I mean, you can use anecdotes in fiction but they are just an incremental part of it. The only place that an anecdote is legitimate is as a poem today, and as a result we have tens of thousands of poems that are merely anecdotes.

 I go to probably 50 poetry readings a year, and I can attest to the fact that many poems are simply personal stories—about scraping ice in winter, watching birds, overhearing conversations, road trip sights, confrontation with the neighbor’s dog or cat—that do not go beyond the moment with heightened language or other tugs on the strings of poetry’s lyre. Kooser goes on: “Simply to take an anecdote of how you helped your mother wash the car and to cut it up in lines and put it on a page is not enough for anybody” (229). Kooser articulates for me the new kind of poetry cliché. The poem's topic itself becomes a cliche, just a like a commonly used phrase--"Flatter than a pancake." This kind of poem begins implicitly, “Isn’t it interesting how I noticed __________?” This can be ended with a clincher, like a joke. Like a joke, it does not translate well to the page. Try reading a joke book, and then watch John Stewart suppress giggles as he delivers a line. Performance adds the sparkle to the words. A good lyric poem is rich and can be read and reread, with new light reflecting when seen from different angles (of time).

 I appreciate Kooser’s comments on two-dimensional storytelling. I apologize to the world for all the poems of this ilk I have written myself (about scraping ice in winter, birds, cats, etc.). I pledge to do better.

 I highly recommend this terrific book of good sense and wit, Road Trip, available online and through indie The Backwaters Press, publisher Greg Kosmicki (www.thebackwaterspress.org ). Other authors in the book are: Jonis Agee, William Kloefkorn, Don Welch, Hilda Raz, Charles Fort, Barbara Schmitz, Ron Block, Eamonn Wall, Twyla Hansen, J.V. Brummels, and Brent Spencer. Each interview includes a picture of the author and representative selections from their work.

Excerpt from Natural Theologies introduction: defining the West

This book of critical essays about contemporary literature of the American grasslands region begins with an essay that defines the region, and then introduces settler and Indigenous writers with themes of frontier, settlement, people, and nature.
"The landmass known as the West or Middle West or Grasslands or Great and Lesser Plains is an area first conceived by European Americans as a frontier zone. Subsequent histories and American Indian perspectives complicate representations of this region, as contemporary and recent 20^th century writers rework themes of history, settlement, personal identity, and theology. Despite the complexities, these writers return to a fundamental truth unaltered by any human constructions: the natural world persists as the defining characteristic of the region."