Sybil Baker's Blog, page 11

Reading at Yale Bookstore for the Yale Writer's Conference

A great crowd last week at the Yale Bookstore reading with other resident faculty Sergio Troncoso and Nahid Rachlin. Sold out of Into This World after the reading!

A Conversation with Cathy Holton

I read Cathy Holton's first two novels (the Kudzu Debutantes) before I heard her speak at a Chattanooga Writers' Guild meeting years ago. I loved her stories and her humor and invited her to come to my novel writing class to speak to them about what it takes to be a writer (hint--lots of unpublished manuscripts in boxes under the bed). After that class we went to Lamars for a few drinks and a friendship formed.
Last week Cathy passed away after a long battle with cancer. She was a very private person, and did not publicize her illness. I will miss reading more of her novels and even more I will miss her friendship. Here is a link to a conversation with Cathy that I posted in this blog in February 2012.
It begins:
I first met Cathy Holton a few years ago after I’d read (and loved) her first novel Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes. Like me, she lives in Chattanooga Tennessee, and she was gracious enough to visit my novel writing class at the university and talk about writing.

Since then, we’ve bonded over of our love of bars with character (think seventies velvet wallpaper), family history (looks like lines on both our sides settled around Midway, Georgia, before the Revolution), Flannery O’Connor, and Southern Culture on the Skids. I met up with Cathy at T-Bones, a local bar, for half priced wine and barbeque tacos to chat about her fourth and most recent novel Summer In the South. Unfortunately, we got so wrapped up in talking about writing and the South, that by the time we’d remembered to order our tacos, the kitchen was closed! Thankfully, we had our wine, and stayed chatting until closing time. Here are a few excerpts from our talk.
You can read the rest here:
http://sybilbaker.blogspot.com/2012/0...
Here is Cathy's website--I urge you to pick up one of her books. After you read one, you'll be hooked.
http://www.cathyholton.com

Updates

There is much going on here, and I hope to update even more soon.

First, I just found out that my interview with Mike Miller at WUTC about Into This World will be rebroadcast tomorrow for their Round and About show. Check it out either online on or on your radio-88.1

I also recently found out ITW received an Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Award in the General Fiction category. Here is the review that goes with it:

http://www.theusreview.com/USRhoffer.html#genfic

In a few weeks I'll be in New Haven, returning as a workshop leader for the Yale Summer Writers' Conference. If it was anything like last year, I'm in for a treat. The faculty and students are talented and fun to hang out with.

http://summer.yale.edu/ywc

After that Rowan and I fly to Seoul, where we'll spend a week before flying to somewhere in SE Asia, locale still TBD. It's been more than 10 years since I've been to Thailand and even more since I was in Indonesia. It hardly seems that long ago. I'm curious to see what has changed and what has not in that time. Then we're on to the Hong Kong where I'll be part of the faculty for the low residency MFA summer session:

http://www.english.cityu.edu.hk/mfa/

And during that time I'll be working on revising Replay, the novel supported by a MakeWork Grant. When I get back in late July, I will be in full-on photo-taking mode--gathering photos that I might want to use in the novel.

A few other projects in the works, writing and non-writing related. More on those soon!

Where I Write

A lot of writers are interested in how and where other writers write. Maybe there's a secret pen or notebook that will help me write that perfect poem, story, or novel. If only I had a view of a beach, the mountains, Manhattan, then I'd write beautifully every day. We know it's not true, but we're still curious. At least I am. 
I'm a peripatetic writer--I love to travel, and, it seems, that I also love to travel around my house when I'm writing, depending on my mood or need. At The Next Best Book Blog, I'm excited to be part of their "Where Writers Write Series." Want to learn a bit about where I write? Have a peek:
http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/where-writers-write-sybil-baker.html

The Next Big Thing: Questions and answers about my Work in Progres

Some of you may already know about the The Next Big Thing. The idea is to interview yourself about your current or next book, mention the person who tagged you, and tag up to five more friends. I’m grateful to Garry Powell author of the wonderful Stoning The Devil for tagging me. His blog post which is at  http://garrycraigpowell.com/wordpress/?p=398  is already up. What is your working title of your book (or story)?The working title of my work in progress is Replay, although I don’t know if that will be the “real” title once it’s done.Where did the idea come from for the book?My last novel Into This World, was about sisters and family secrets. I don’t have any sisters, so maybe that’s why I’m fascinated by them, and wanted to write about them more. I knew I wanted to write about sisters and set the novel in Chattanooga (where I live), but after I read Chekhov’s play Three Sisters, I was inspired to use that structure as the framework.What genre does your book fall under?Literary fiction.Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?I honestly don’t know, I don’t think about those things. Is that something a lot of writers do? I do remember some readers suggesting actors for my first novel, The Life Plan, which, as a comic and very straightforward plot-driven novel, would lend itself more to a commercial film I guess. I can’t even remember who they suggested for that novel, and that’s been the last I’ve thought of it regarding my books. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?Three sisters, haunted by their parents’ deaths, must come to terms with what they’ve given up to pursue their dreams, which ultimately disappoint them.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?I hope that someone will publish the book (I don’t plan on self-publishing). I will probably try to get an agent this time (I didn’t try very hard in the past). Right now I’m just focusing on writing a good novel.How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?I started seriously working on this novel right before Into This World was published in May 2012. I’ve worked on it off and on this year, taking time off to write some short stories. I plan on completing the first draft by the end of April and have a second draft completed by the end of summer.What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?That’s a great question, and one I’m unprepared to answer. Besides Three Sisters (which is a play), Jane Austen’s Persuasion has also influenced the plot. I’m integrating photography and music into the work, and WG Sebald has been a big inspiration for how I’d like to use photography in this book.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?Besides the literary inspirations mentioned above, Chattanooga was an inspiration. My other work almost deals exclusively with the allure and alienation of living abroad (especially in Asia). In Into This World, I did research to accurately write about South Korea during the late 1970s. I’m fascinated by Chattanooga’s history as a way to write about the legacy of the South. The Trail of Tears started at Chattanooga, a lot of Civil War battles were fought here, and we had the first Coca-Cola bottling plant. I also love this city, and want to share it with others.What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?The novel will take place from 1999, an age of comparative American innocence, and will end in 2011, when tornados devastated the area. More importantly, I received a MakeWork arts grant, which has enabled me to pursue the multi-media aspects of the novel by learning photography and researching the local Americana music scene. I believe the novel would work well as a hypertext and I’m hoping the print edition will include a CD of local Americana music as well as photography, old and new.The readers I have tagged who will be blogging next week areChad Prevost at http://chadprevost.com
Victoria Barrett at http://theprettybird.wordpress.com
Adnan Mahmutovic at http://undermidnightsun.wordpress.com

Travel and Writing Talk Tuesday Jan 29 UC Raccoon Mt. Room

For those in Chattanooga, I'll be giving a talk on how travel influenced my writing and the research process for Into This World. I'll also talk about my current project and the MakeWork grant that is enabling to research incorporating photography and music in the novel.

Here's the press release:

http://blog.lib.utc.edu/lines/2013/01...

Join us Tuesday, January 29, 6:30-7:30 p.m. in the Raccoon Mountain Room of the UTC University Center for a lecture by author Sybil Baker. Baker is a UC Foundation Assistant Professor in the UTC Department of English and author of three books of fiction with The Life Plan (2009), Talismans(2010), and Into This World (2012) as well as all kinds of other fiction and non-fiction. Baker will speak about research for her latest book and offer her perspective on living abroad and writing about other cultures. Copies of her work will be available for purchase following the lecture. This event is free, open to the public, and refreshments will be provided. We hope to see you there!

Thanks to Winder Binder & The Pulse

2013 is starting off pretty well. I've been learning more about photography and clarifying how I want to use it in the novel. WG Sebald uses photographs in his work in such complicated and effective ways & I hope to bring at least a small part of that to my novel. The weather has not been great for picture taking, but I plan to start at it when things clear up.

In other news, my novel was the best-selling book at our local bookstore for 2012. There are so many folks in Chattanooga who are working hard to support a local writing scene--I mentioned them in my last post. But for this, a special thanks to David Smotherman at Winder Binder Gallery and Bookstore for opening his doors to all local writers and to Rich Bailey, who has been covering the arts here for The Pulse and helping to increase the visibility of Chattanooga's thriving arts scene. Here's the article on the local bestseller list:

http://www.chattanoogapulse.com/artic...

And finally, for those who might be interested in hearing me read the opening to Into This World, The Next Best Book blog featured me for its audio series. You can listen to the reading here:

http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.c...

Reading and Writing in 2012: A Year in Review

A Year in Writing and Reading
On this first day of 2013, I hope we’ll all remember and support the presses, journals, websites, reading series, and events that contribute to such a lively literary culture here in the US and beyond. Even as (or because?) the publishing world continues to change, I believe that we are in a golden age of literature in all its forms. So many wonderful pieces to read--so little time!
I’d like to thank so many people for supporting my work and literature in general in 2012. I hope 2013 will be another great year for all of us.
Engine Books: www.enginebooks.org
Make Work Chattanooga: http://makework.is
Prime Number: http://www.primenumbermagazine.com
Storm Cellar: http://stormcellarquarterly.com
Drunken Boat:  http://www.drunkenboat.com
Numero Cinq: http://numerocinqmagazine.com
The Nervous Breakdown: http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com
The Collagist: http://www.dzancbooks.org/thecollagist/
Necessary Fiction: http://necessaryfiction.com
Catching Days: http://catchingdays.cynthianewberrymartin.com
Glorified Love Letters: http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com
Chapter 16: http://www.chapter16.org
The Ampersand Review:  http://ampersandreview.com/home/
Small Press Reviews: http://smallpressreviews.wordpress.com 
Winder Binder Gallery Bookstore: http://winderbinder.wordpress.com
Salon Series in the Suburbs with Dini Karasik: http://dkwritings.wordpress.com
Fusebox Art and Word Series with Aubrey Lenahan (on Facebook)
American Writers’ Festival (Singapore):  http://smu.edu.sg/events/2012/10/23/american-writers-festival-2012
City University of Hong Kong MFA:  http://www.english.cityu.edu.hk/mfa/
Yale Writers’ Conference:  http://summer.yale.edu/ywc
Meacham Writers’ Workshop: http://www.meachamwriters.org/index.htm
The Pulse: http://www.chattanoogapulse.com
WUTC: www.wutc.org
Radio Hong Kong Morning Brew:

Salon Series in the Suburbs

Had a lovely time a the Salon Series in the Suburbs on Dec. 9 hosted by the fabulous Dini Karasik. I met Dini at the Yale Writers' Conference last May and it was great to see her again and meet her smart and talented friends. She lives in Kensington, Maryland, in a friendly neighborhood--many of her neighbors showed up!

Dini wrote about the afternoon on her blog including my advice on submitting for publication and writers conferences. Here's the beginning:


Sybil Baker reminds me of someone. Scout Finch comes to mind. Paper Moon’s Addie. Or that iconic little girl with pigtails and scraped knees, wearing a ruffled dress, standing up to a bully, defending someone’s honor, maybe even her own.There’s nothing childlike about Sybil.  It’s more that she exudes a certain self-assuredness, the kind some people seem to be born with.  The kind that enables archetypes like Scout and Addie to assert themselves, defy convention, question authority.
You can  read the rest of the piece here.

http://dkwritings.wordpress.com/2012/...

Mainx24 photos

Here are some of my "best" photos from Main 24 on Saturday. Bob Boyer helped crop them, but otherwise they are untouched. I used a wide angle lens, which was fun, but also challenging when I wanted to get closer shots. The last shot Rowan took, but I included it because it showed one of the bands we saw, and it was a good shot.
Main lesson? I need to get closer to my subjects--which is hard because I don't want to bother them. We're taking off to DC in a few days and I'll take some photos of our trip playing with the different lenses. 
We had a great time at this event. This is our 4th year going to it, and every year it gets better, with more to do. It didn't hurt that it was in the low 70s for most of the day, making it easy for us to stay out--from about 1 to 9pm!