Books, Beer & Bluejazz

Saturday, November 19th    Noon to 4:00 PM

The Blue Note Grill  709 Washington St  Durham, NC 27701

Are you tired of the election? Are you ready for some fun? Would you like to get together to laugh and talk about something other than politics? If so, mark your calendars now! There is light at the end of the tunnel: 

Join us the afternoon of Saturday, November 19th for an unforgettable event sponsored by the Piedmont Laureate program as part of the Durham Art Walk Holiday Market. Books, Beer & Bluejazz will feature well known Durham-area authors reading from their work, bluegrass and jazz playing in between readings, local beers, and the downhome food of the renowned Blue Note Grill.

From noon until 2:00 PM, the Nash Street Ramblers will play their signature brand of blue grass, followed from 2:00 until 4:00 PM by the unforgettable North Carolina Jazz Ensemble — featuring six band directors, a 90-year old trombone player, and some of the state’s finest jazz musicians. Authors Michael Malone, Margaret Maron, 2016 Piedmont Laureate Katy Munger, Eryk Pruitt, Sarah Shaber, Cat Warren, and more will read from their work at intervals and take questions from the audience. Information on recommended books for the holidays will also be provided.

Admission is free and open to the public. The event is family friendly, though most suited to children age 10 and over. It’s going to be an epic Durham event that you won’t want to miss!

Let’s celebrate the arts and the start of the holiday season together.  See you at the Blue Note Grill on November 19th!

by Katy Munger, 2016 Piedmont Laureate

Sometime over the past two weeks, my staring contest with the unfinished books piling up on my computer’s hard drive ended. It started quietly enough. I woke up unexpectedly at 5:00 AM one morning, wide awake as a lemur, head swimming in ideas, and figured I may as well take a peek at the outline for one of those works-in-progress. Two hours later, a new outline had emerged, I felt blissfully balanced, and I was heading for the shower to start my day.

That morning was followed by a few evenings of grabbing a couple hours here and there… more mornings rising early to dip my toe into the plot that was emerging, only to get swept away in hours of concentration, and even a few glorious weekend afternoons sitting outside in the cool and working on my book.

The barriers to commitment fell away quietly with no resistance, stone by stone, toppled by the subtle but unstoppable force of my love for writing, which is surely written in the ladders of my DNA. It was an unexpected victory. I had lived with the uncertainty of what to do with myself as a writer for a while now, immersing myself in workshops, meeting other writers, giving myself the gift of talking and thinking about writing rather than forcing myself to sit down and actually write.

It was the best thing I could have ever done.

Somewhere along the way, in the midst of talking to, literally, hundreds of writers this year as Piedmont Laureate, I came to understand that there is a self-defeating dilemma inherent in the world of published writers: writers write because they want to be heard, because they have something to say, because they have a deep need to put their stamp on the world. Publishers, on the other hand, are looking for books that can ride the coattails of the bestsellers that have gone before them. They want writers to write as close as possible to everyone else, or at least to everyone else on the bestseller lists. So it’s all too easy to begin your writing career with a unique voice and something to say, only to find yourself pretending to be everyone else a few books down the road.

I think that was what bothered me the most about my evolving writing career: giving up the search to find myself and my voice along the way. I think that dilemma is what caused me to give it a rest. So I thank all of the writers I’ve met over the past nine months for bringing me to this realization and helping me to understand that I need to make a choice. You have helped me crystallize why I write and what I want to write. You have helped me cull out a plethora of ideas and settle on just the right one to give voice to my worldview. You have helped me, perhaps for the first time in 25 years of writing, to get my priorities straight.

Once I realized I wanted to write a book that had my voice in it, the plot came pouring forth. Once the plot came pouring forth, my imagination embraced it and drew me into it, causing me to wake up early in the morning to live in that space, inspiring me to carve out hours to spend with my new characters. I now live in two worlds, the real world and the world I am creating in my head. This is where I like to be. Straddling two worlds in that besotted, Twin Peaks slightly off-kilter way of writers who are heeding the siren call of their own imaginations.

It feels good to be home and to be writing again. If you’re in the same boat I was in earlier this year, here’s my advice to you: once you remember why you write, what you write will follow.

by Katy Munger, 2016 Piedmont Laureate

I am such a nice person. No, really. Ask anyone who knows me. I’m maniacally cheerful (still love you for that one, Andy), relentlessly optimistic, incapable of holding a grudge, hopelessly forgiving of other people’s bad behavior, and pretty much swimming in natural endorphins. My former husband nicknamed me “Skip” because my prevailing mood, according to him, could best be described as, “Let’s hold hands and skip!”

Of course, as any mystery reader knows: looks can be deceiving.

You see, while I walk on the sunny side of the street in real life, it’s only because I have found a way to channel my less worthy impulses into my books. Like all mystery writers (at least the ones who admit it) I can afford to reserve my revenge for the page, where I channel my need to exact fictional karma into motivation to sit down and write. Think of it as a writer’s character-driven catalytic converter.

This is not out of any personal need for revenge, mind you. Like Fern in Charlotte’s Web, I was born with a keen sense of injustice in the world. Or rather, it probably developed soon after I was born due to the fact that I had five siblings. When you are one of six kids, believe me, the injustice of someone else getting a bigger piece of pie than you or hogging the best seat in the car all the way from Virginia to Maine starts to seem pretty damn important. I still have the scars from scratch marks on my arm to prove it. This hyper sense of fairness followed me into adulthood. I try to treat other people with kindness and respect, but there is nothing I like less than people who break the rules and take advantage of other people’s good intentions for their personal gain. So I notice when other people behave badly — and I make it my  job to even the score, if only a little.

By now, it’s second nature to me. When I run across someone who deserves a literary slap upside of the head, I catalog their appearance and personal habits, then preserve them in my brain until I need a character deserving of either murder or incarceration. They go into my mental Rolodex under “V” (which stands for either victim or villain) and are forgotten until I need them for a plot. It’s my own personal waiting list of unlikeable characters, populated by people who have committed my least favorite transgressions. For example, I can’t stand rude people and I don’t trust liars — but I absolutely loathe mean people… control freaks and phonies… not to mention self-entitled twits and self-righteous bullies … and, most of all, narcissists. I’ve written entire books about making sure narcissists get what’s coming to them and I’m still not done examining the fascinating question of why some people feel so entitled to suck the life out of others.

My fictional hit list has served me well. It gives my characters life and my plots more juice. Most of all, it keeps me writing. And it’s probably a big reason why people keep reading my mysteries. Bullies often get away with intimidating people in real life. People who cheat and stomp on the rights of others can keep on stomping for decades. And narcissists rarely get what’s coming to them in real life. But in the pages of a mystery, especially my mysteries, karmic justice is always served. It feels good when the cheater gets caught. It’s satisfying when a bully has his power taken away. And who doesn’t delight when a spoiled, self-entitled jerk is finally thwarted for good? Call it the world the way it should be. A world where the golden rule is more of a double-edged sword, where people get what they deserve instead of getting away with murder.

Is this fair play? You bet. People who can’t play nice in this world deserve my literary wrath, at the very least. Is it emotionally healthy? Probably. It’s certainly healthier than keeping it bottled up inside. Most of all, though, it’s fun—so long as you remember that literary revenge is a dish best written cold. You don’t want to hold on to your anger, you want to transform it into the forces of good.

By the way, I take requests. So feel free to tell me about someone who deserves a little literary payback in the Comments section below and I’ll see what I can do. Because, you know: I am such a nice person.

Whenever I give workshops, I often talk about how the growth of television and motion pictures has affected the medium of the written word. Like it or not, the popularity of more visual mediums has changed both the way authors write and the way that reader’s perceive that writing. While I often caution writers about the bad habits that come with thinking primarily visually when writing (see The 10 Worst Habits of Today’s Writers), it may be more useful to some of you to provide a positive example of a popular author who is successfully avoiding the pitfalls of visual writing while still taking advantage of some of the expectations and habits that television and movies have ingrained in today’s readers: JK Rowling. Although, in this case, I am not talking about her famed Harry Potter series. If you are a writer and you want to take a look at what a well-written novel for modern audiences can achieve, pick up Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy.

Is it the perfect modern novel? No, and its mixed reviews make that clear. I myself kept reading, with some bemusement, as she slid inadvertently into a true omniscient viewpoint in one chapter and then had to scramble to find a graceful way out, given she was juggling dozens of characters. But it is a great book for other writers to read, with an eye out for recognizing how authors need to communicate to readers whose storytelling preferences have been shaped by more visual media. Rowling has taken popular story expectations (a plot full of surprises, somewhat iconic characters, and a hero’s myth structure) and she has met them all. But at the same time, Rowling also uses the written medium and her own narrative voice to provide depth that more visual mediums lack, especially when it comes to the characters. She has then, rather fearlessly —given the world’s expectations for her at the time she wrote The Casual Vacancy — overlaid the story with her own personal style and values, creating a book that most definitely has her in it. Instead of imitating other writers or attempting to imitate television or movies, she has created a book that only she could have written and one that is deeply moving in many respects as a result.

The story itself is relatively simple.The equivalent of an American city councilman dies, pitching a small English village into chaos, primarily due to differing opinions on whether a nearby low income housing project should remain part of the village or be forced on the metropolitan area that built it in the first place. Whoever takes the dead man’s place on the local council will likely sway that decision. As various village inhabitants cope with the sudden death of their well-liked neighbor, more than a few begin to view the  vacant seat as a way to fulfill noble and not-so-noble dreams of their own.

The book tracks how a single death can change the undercurrents of a small town, including how people view themselves and how they treat others. The political plot takes a backseat to very real and evocative portraits of people that I suspect every home town includes: the power hungry local businessman who overestimates his importance and joins his wife in kowtowing to minor royalty… the aging sexpot a bit at sea as her sense of self starts to fade with her appeal… unhappy marriage partners… sturdy, overlooked wives who hold the lives of everyone they love together… terrifying domestic abusers… lonely, career-driven women confronted with a dismal dating field… drug-addicted citizens of the welfare state who may or may not mean well, but who always slide back into poverty’s quagmire… and a handful of very unlikely and ultimately very brave teenage heroes.

In fact, it is Rowling’s ability to paint vivid portraits of the town’s teenagers that connect this book the most to her prior Harry Potter work. You meet the smartass class clown, whose wit and sharp tongue make him more of a bully than his more brutish classmates. You meet the less attractive daughter of high achieving parents whose perfect older sister and unfortunate appearance make her the victim of that bullying, as well as her family’s own disappointments. You meet a loyal son doing his best to avoid triggering the vicious temper of a violent father and who tries to find escape in the ecstasy of possible love. And you meet a tough-as-nails teenage girl whom the deceased nearly rescued from a legacy of poverty and who still clings to the moments of high self-esteem his kindness gave her. Rowling makes all of these characters real in a way no script could ever hope to, and especially shows the relationships between children and their parents in heartbreaking detail. This is an author with endless empathy, a very long memory, and remarkable powers of observation.

These relatable characters form the book’s core and stand out as its greatest strength. As she takes turns delving into their lives, including their innermost thoughts, she reveals nuances to their personalities that make them vividly real to the reader and evoke personal memories. Who among us has not suffered the panic of being pinned in the judgment of others? Or known the man who could never quite make a decision about his life, thus dooming him to drift along, unsatisfied and envious of those who have made clear-cut choices? Rowling manages to make them all real, yet still leaves room for the reader to fill in the blanks. She tells us enough but not too much. She conveys a world of regret and longing by describing a single gesture or unuttered phrase, and by choosing those moments carefully: they are moments we can all remember.

Her effectiveness as an author goes well beyond this character-based approach to telling her narrative. Her technical skills as a writer are evident. She achieves a beautiful balance between description, action, and emotional development, and, without being obvious, she has a very strong viewpoint of her own at the core of the story. J.K. Rowling is, as always, fascinated by how being born to a specific station shapes a person’s destiny. In this book, the author definitely has something to say on the subject and she lets the characters she has so vividly created deliver her message for her with extremely powerful results. No one is all good; no one is all bad. That unexpected choice alone forces the reader to stop and confront their own prejudices. It is a very modern plot, but it is never overtold. It shows how a novel can break new ground and speak to audiences that may bring unrealistic expectations about both what a book can do and how problems are solved in the real world.

All of which means, even if you are wary of reading a non-Harry Potter book of Rowling’s, if you are a writer searching for the answer to key questions like, “How can I put myself in my book?” “How do I achieve that balance between showing and telling?” then I would recommend that you check out The Casual Vacancy. Reading it for yourself can tell you more about Rowling’s mastery of modern narrative techniques than I ever could.