Dear Booklover: P J O'Rourke said, "Creative writing teachers
should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the
words 'Write what you know' is confined to a labour camp ...The
blind guy with the funny little harp who composed The Iliad, how
much combat do you think he saw?" Like ORourke, William Faulkner
had his own take on the Other Commandment for writers, the one that
goes, "Thou shalt not quit thy day job." Faulkner, who won the 1949
Nobel Prize for Literature, had, twenty-five years before, worked
at the post office in his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi. Mister
Faulkner was known to say, "One of the saddest things is that the
only thing a man can do for eight hours, is work. You can't eat
eight hours a day, nor drink for eight hours a day, nor make love
for eight hours." He must have been determined to give something
else (writing, we may assume, perhaps a glass of whisky on the
side) a whirl when he tendered his resignation to the postmaster.
"I reckon I'll be at the beck and call of folks with money all my
life", he said, "but thank God I won't ever again have to be at the
beck and call of every son of a bitch who's got two cents to buy a
stamp." The authors in this book have tried their hands at some of
the same jobs you have held, or still keep. They've worked on the
railroad, busted rocks with a sledgehammer, fought fires, wiped
tables, soldiered and carpentered and spied, delivered pizzas,
lacquered boat paddles, counted heads for the church, sold
underwear, and, yes, delivered the mail. Theyve driven garbage
trucks. And, like William Faulkner, they have quit those day jobs.
And like Faulkner they write. They tell good tales. If you wonder
what work preceded their efforts to produce a great pile of books,
if you would like to know how they made the transition to, as
William Gay said, "clocking in at the culture factory", then this
is the book you have been waiting for. -- Sonny Brewer, Editor,
Fairhope, Alabama. List of Contributors: Barb Johnson; Brad Watson;
Cassandra King; Clay Risen; Connie May Fowler; Daniel Wallace;
George Singleton; Howard Bahr; Janis Owens; John Grisham; Joshilyn
Jackson; Larry Brown; Matthew Teague; Michelle Richmond; Pat
Conroy; Rick Bragg; Silas House; Steve Yarbrough.; Suzanne Hudson;
Tim Gautreaux; Tom Franklin; William Gay; Winston Groom.
General
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