Salvage Heart

For the first time since 1999, I don't have a job to go to this morning.

Or, I have a job, and at 6 a.m., I'm there.

It's the beauty of self-employment and the luxury of a home office, and today they are mine.

Last day at the day job was this past Friday. A nice send-off: gifts, bowling (they let me win with a 168, including my first turkey), and so forth. Lots of people grabbing my sleeve whispering where you are going is there room for me?

I'm going nowhere, and no, there's only room for one in this back office.

Here we go. The launch of a career writing. Or, "writing career" as our high school guidance counselors clarify, shaking their heads.

So what better time than now to show off our latest fashions:
A review of Sherman Alexie's new young adult novel: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, in the September 9, 2007 Oregonian;
A feature on the Portland Fruit Tree Project, in the September 6, 2007 Oregonian (also featuring my own photography, which is what you get with last-minute articles);
An update on the commercial condo market in Portland (please, control yourself) for the August 31, 2007 Portland Business Journal.

Lots more in the pipeline. But, will it be enough to keep shoes on Baby? And his older sister? And their older brother? And the two little ones' mother? And me? And, Abraham Lincoln shoe-boiling fables aside, what about groceries, and health care, and all those other bills?

Labels: Business Journal, career, journalism, Oregonian, Portland, reviews, Sherman Alexie, writing

"You can't know who you are if you don't know where you are." --Wendell Berry

Fishing around online, looking to see when Wendell Berry might next push West, when I found a citation of his work by Timothy Egan, journalist-turned bookist whose The Worst Hard Time account of the Dust Bowl won last year's National Book Award.

Turns out Egan is the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's July writer in residence, which entitles him to absolution from word counts.

Egan's ode to Seattle, the once and future emerald city, is at 2,500 words a little baggy for newsprint (that's what, over 70 column inches?) but worthwhile.

Timothy Egan on Seattle

Egan is the 7th of 12 writers in the P-I's series. His piece veers from timeless to topic, with a jab at a certain Mariner 6'10" tall.

"I like the fact that a few boo-birds have started to infiltrate the censorious nest of Safeco Field, especially when a first baseman is getting paid something like $14 million a year to hit -- what? -- barely .200."

Also of note: four short video interviews with Egan, in which he explains why he got into journalism--to write books, of course!

"I didn't want to go to the Iowa Writers School [sic] and get in to the navel-gazing school of minimalist fiction where you write about what other navel gazing graduate students are thinking about. And--I know I'm putting down a huge part of contemporary fiction....I was really influenced by Tom Wolfe's essay some time ago, 'Stalking the 10,000-footed beast' [sic] (Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast, which ran in the November 1989 Harper's)...where he said 'The problem with most American writers now is that they don't mix it up with the public.' Dickens, Hemingway, Tolstoy, Dorothy Parker, Joan Didion--you name any terrific writer, and you find those people are reporters at their core."

Let's see...I got in to journalism because, well, did I? We'll see, won't we.

With both feet, beginning September 10. The thumping sound is my heart racing, and the creditors already beating a path to the front door.

Labels: journalism, newspapers, Seattle authors, Timothy Egan, Wendell Berry, writing

I reviewed Miranda July's collection of short stories in today's Oregonian. Liked it.

Advance copy actually came in three (slim) volumes, one pink, one yellow, one orange, and bound with a thick yellow rubber band. Or "gumband" as I understand they say up Pittsburgh-way.



These stories won't be for everyone. In fact, a decent litmus test might be whether or not you like the site July put together for the book.

She's in Portland on Friday, May 18. The event is a benefit for PICA.

Labels: authors, fiction, Miranda July, Oregonian, Portland, review, short stories, writing

I thought that, with only 100 proposals in and a few days to go, I might sneak my To TOP SECRET submission for Continuum's 33 1/3 series in, without too much competition. Me...and everyone else.

The rule, of course, no writing about these folks. Final tally was well over 400, with maybe half that many viable candidates. A complete list of what those in the know would write about for a $3,000 advance can be found here.

Stay tuned. We hear in March. And if my To TOP SECRET idea gets selected, look for plenty more activity where none was prior.

Labels: 33 1/3, books, music, writing