Heather Sellers in her book "Page by Page" talks about the reservoir of ideas, impressions, information, bits of dialogue and other fragments the writer carries around in his or her head, as a "compost heap." She makes the point that even when writers are not working, they are are adding to the "compost heap." I have no idea how the information and impressions from this book are going to be important later on, or if I will indeed ever draw upon them and use them in my own writing, but I sure loved the book. It's one of those books you read even when you are supposed to be doing other things, the kind of book you can't wait to get back to, the kind of book you stay up late to finish.
The book is "The Age of Shiva by Manil Suri.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Book Description and Author Short Biographical Paragraph
In these stories about a small Southern cotton mill town, its history and the histories of the people who live there, Christina Jacqueline Johns conjures into being a little world of interconnected lives, intergenerational stories and complicated family relationships. William Faulkner once wrote that in the South the past is not dead, it isn’t even the past. In Love Stories for Wilkes Ferry you will find the kind of storytelling about the past that used to be done on front porches while people smelled honeysuckle and watched lightening bugs. It’s the kind of storytelling that if your Mama knew you were doing it, she would want to kill you.
Dr. Johns holds a Ph.D. in Criminology from the Faculty of Law of the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland. Her plays have been produced at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She has also worked as a freelance journalist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Southline, and the Times Educational Supplement of Scotland. Dr. Johns taught criminology at the University of Edinburgh, George Washington University, and the University of Alaska. Her three books about criminology ( Power, Ideology and the War on Drugs: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure; State Crime, the Media, and the Invasion of Panama; and The Origins of Violence in Mexican Society) were published by Praeger. Her stories and commentaries have been broadcast on the Tallahassee affiliate of National Public Radio. She lives with her husband and five cats in coastal Georgia and is a storyteller, writer and performer.
Dr. Johns holds a Ph.D. in Criminology from the Faculty of Law of the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland. Her plays have been produced at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She has also worked as a freelance journalist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Southline, and the Times Educational Supplement of Scotland. Dr. Johns taught criminology at the University of Edinburgh, George Washington University, and the University of Alaska. Her three books about criminology ( Power, Ideology and the War on Drugs: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure; State Crime, the Media, and the Invasion of Panama; and The Origins of Violence in Mexican Society) were published by Praeger. Her stories and commentaries have been broadcast on the Tallahassee affiliate of National Public Radio. She lives with her husband and five cats in coastal Georgia and is a storyteller, writer and performer.
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