The Henry Miller Memorial Library Blog

You may recall, last week we let you know that Brandy Rivers was added to the faculty for our Big Sur Writing Workshop for young adult fiction writers, which’ll take place March 2-4 in Seaside, CA.

She’s a literary manager and producer who runs the book-to-tv/film department at Magnet Management. If you’ve seen her name around the web recently, it was probably in connection to Myra McEntire’s HOURGLASS, which she recently sold to Fox on behalf of Holly Root at Waxman Literary Agency.

We’d like to call your attention this particularly cool interview with her in the blog Literary Rambles. In it, Brandy guides us through the confusing and exciting world of children’s publishing, licensing, and the process of turning a book into a movie.

Really cool stuff, and extremely applicable, as many Big Sur Workshop alumni have secured publishing deals from coming to our workshops and rubbing shoulders with agents like Brandy. Excerpt:

How does a book-to-film/tv deal come about? Walk us through a deal.

Book to film/tv deals can come about in a million different ways. Sometimes a studio head, network exec, or big star will fall in love with a piece of material they come across in their day to day lives and make a preemptive offer. Other times, an intern will be combing through the slush pile and find something amazing that works its way up the development chain until it turns into a deal….continued here.

Really fascinating stuff. See you in March – registration is still open!

Across the next couple of weeks, we’ll be running some guest blogs courtesy of Kathleen McCloud, a New Mexico based visual artist. Here’s the first installment!

When my Aunt Dorothy Schnellock-Greene died in 1995 I inherited her brother Emil’s desk, and personal memorabilia from his years as literary executor for his lifelong friend, Henry Miller.

Included were Emil’s personal copies of books gifted to him by Henry and a black briefcase filled with typescripts annotated by Henry and copies of early reviews of “Tropic of Cancer,” pamphlets, personal correspondence between Emil and British writer Claude Houghton as well as essays on the “Tropic of Cancer” (censored and banned at the time) written by Emil’s students at Mary Washington College (at the time an all girls school, now University of Mary Washington).

The original letters, and ephemera sent to Emil for safekeeping during the Paris years were turned over to Henry in 1938 at Caresse Crosby’s Hampton Manor house in Virginia while Henry was visiting there – many eventually made it to UCLA Special Collections.

The rich get richer, as they say, but not in the Mitt Romney stashing his cash in the Cayman Islands kind of way.

Rather, we’re talking about the Big Sur Writing Workshop for young adult fiction writers, which’ll take place March 2-4 in Seaside, CA, and the fact that our already-awesome faculty is now getting awesomer with the addition of Brandy Rivers.

She’s a literary manager and producer who runs the book-to-tv/film department at Magnet Management. If you’ve seen her name around the web recently, it was probably in connection to Myra McEntire’s HOURGLASS, which she recently sold to Fox on behalf of Holly Root at Waxman Literary Agency.

You can read up more about her below; in the meantime, go here to read up on the workshop and register. We’re still accepting registrations. Oh, and the Facebook thingie here too.

Bask in the bountifulness that is the Big Sur Writing Workshop! It’s a far more certain thing than expecting Mitt to release his tax returns.

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Brandy Rivers is currently a literary manager/producer working in both film and television at Magnet Management. In that capacity, she is responsible for representing authors, screenwriters, and directors as well as developing underlying material including novels, articles, blogs, video games and life rights for production.

Among her many clients, she currently represents: television writer Chris McKenna (Co-Executive Producer on NBC’s COMMUNITY), television writer Jeff Davis (showrunner for the MTV television series TEEN WOLF, and creator of CRIMINAL MINDS), screen and television writer Craig Titley (CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN, PERCY JACKSON AND THE LIGHTNING THIEF, and NBC television series THE CAPE), author Robyn Harding (CHRONICLES OF A MIDLIFE CRISIS published by Berkley Trade and in TV development with ABC Studios), author and television writer Angela Nissel (Co-Executive producer on NBC and then ABC’s SCRUBS, as well as, Fox’s TIL DEATH, her book THE BROKE DIARIES is in development at Lionsgate with Oprah producing, and a MIXED is in television development at HBO with Halle Barry attached), and author Myra McEntire (HOURGLASS published by Egmont and in feature film development at Fox).

Our March workshop in Seaside, CA (March 2-4) is still taking registrations! If you’re an aspiring young adult fiction writer, this is the place for you. Read more about it and register here and Like it on Facebook here.

It will sell out, so let any remotely interested friends know.

At the least, it will be an incredible opportunity to meet like-minded writers in a gorgeous environment. Specifically, we got this great testimonial from a veteran from early December’s workshop.

And then there’s the news from last week where we announced that Lisa Yoskowitz, Disney-Hyperion, joined the faculty.

Which brings me to my next point. Let’s be honest with ourselves for a sec. We, as artists, don’t write, paint, or draw and then stuff it in a truck in the ceiling waiting for someone to discover it 100 years later. We ain’t Emily Dickinson or whatever.

We want people to read our stuff, and hey, if by coming to the Big Sur Writing Workshop you can also secure a publishing deal, well hey, that’s great. In fact, it’s a fairly common occurrence. The workshop is co-sponsored by the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, and their army of publishers and editors will be in attendance, providing helpful feedback and yes, looking for new talent.

We actually have a fantastic track record of putting writers in touch with publishers. Read more about these “success stories” here, but we included a few below. And go register!

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* Congratuations to Kim Culbertson, Big Sur Writing Workshop alumni, her YA novel Songs for a Teenage Nomad was recently picked up by Daniel Ehrenhaft, the senior editor at Sourcebooks, to be reissued in hardback under their new young adult imprint FIRE for fall of 2010. The imprint will also publish her second YA novel Traveling Instructions for the spring of 2011.

* Jennifer Laughran from ABLA (and workshop faculty member) recently sold the middle grade mystery THE WIG IN THE WINDOW, by Kristin Kittscher, who attended Big Sur in 2010, to HarperCollins (to be edited by former Big Sur faculty editor Rosemary Brosnan!)”

* The adult fiction workshop in March: Congratulations to Rebecca Wolf, attendee from 2005 on her sale of Rockabye to editor Brooke Warner at Avalon Books, sold by agent, Laura Rennert.

The past few weeks, people walk in and say, “Are you having a show tonight?” And we look out the front door, at the glistening sun, and say, “no, we don’t have shows in the winter because of the weather. Too cold and rainy.”

The dichotomy is stark.

Well, we’re putting aside those rules tonight as the Bee Eaters perform indoors here at the Library. They’re a brilliant trio, featuring 6-time Grant National fiddle Champions Tristian and Tashina Clarridge, and are being joined by hammer dulcimer wizard Simon Chrisman.

They played here last night and it was awesome. Not your typical “bluegrass.” If I’m not mistaken, they covered the Beatles’ “You Won’t See Me.”

But don’t take our word for it:

“…chamber music’s finely calibrated arrangements with bluegrass’s playful virtuosity and pop music’s melodic resourcefulness,” sayeth the Boston Globe.

“Doors” at 6:30. A $20 suggested donation. See you there!

Hey. Last week we published a blog from our pal Stephanie V. Augello, a photographer and author in the Big Apple. You may recall, it was a photo-essay on Henry Miller’s childhood haunts in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Below you will find part 2, in which Stephanie, in the spirit of Miller the artist, interviews an aspiring migrant musician working in a local bar (that bar would be Trash Bar; ironically enough, I got kicked out of that place three times in one night in 2009. Dangerous place.)

The parallels with Miller’s life, and the archetype of the struggling artist which he helped to embody (“I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive”) are striking, and we hope you enjoy it. And thanks again, Stephanie!

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Working as a music photographer and writer up and down the Eastern Seaboard has given me the opportunity to become acquainted with many bartenders and band members. I do not, however, only shove a camera their faces.

I actually talk to them, and most of the time, instantly consider them friends. Below is one such recent exchange, conducted at the Trash Bar in Williamsburg, located only a few blocks from Miller’s childhood home.

Me: So, what do you do when you’re not bartending?

Bartender: I’m here for acting. I do band stuff too. Well, I’m taking a break. I needed money. I want to do it again. Being in a band.
Me: You from New York?

Bartender: North Carolina.

Me: I lived in Asheville for a bit. I’m from here though. Random question. Do you know anything about Henry Miller?

Bartender: Well, yes and no. I’ve read Tropic of Cancer, but aside from that, I don’t know much.

Me: You know more than a lot of people. He grew up down the block. Right on Driggs.

Bartender: Huh. I had no idea.

Me: Yeah, he was a lot like us. Well, he…umm….tell me, if you had the chance…if you could do it all again…would you have chosen the artist’s life if you’d known it would be this hard?

Bartender: (pauses) Yes.

When given the opportunity, I will gladly pat the arm of a relocated sound guy from Kansas and say, “Streets ain’t paved with gold, buddy,”; and then empathically watch as his youth smiles a smile of hope, denial and premature disillusionment, that only the New York concrete can create. Everyone wants to leave where they’re from; and sometimes, that “where you’re from” is where everyone wants to be.

It’s true.

Our impressive childrens and young adult fiction workshop faculty has just gotten better.

Lisa is most interested in short-texted, character-driven picture books that speak to children and wink at adults; humorous or action/adventure boy-oriented chapter books and middle grade; all genres of girl-oriented chapter books and middle grade; and all genres of literary YA, from historical to contemporary, angst-ridden to snarky!!!

The workshop is March 2-4 in Seaside, CA (near Monterey.) There is still room, so go here and register, or call us at 831-667-2574!

Something that’s often lost in the world of artistic criticism is the provocative power of hyperbole.

There’s nothing more cowardly than saying, “in what may perhaps be the best book of the 1980s…”

It’s like, c’mon, just come out and say it. Man up! Take a stand! You can always change your mind. You’re free; existentialism taught us that.

So, that being said, “Sometimes a Great Notion” is *the* great American novel. The greatest American novel. Ever. At least of the ones I’ve read. (Order it here, from our store!)

It has everything a novel should have: a measured, compelling pace, staggering language, and subtle emotional complexity.

It’s uniquely American in its exploration of the kinds of themes your entry-level Boomer Literature professor talked about: city versus country, young versus old, East versus West, and good ol’ fashioned tormented Faulknerian family dynamics.

Most importantly, it deals with the most important theme of them all: freedom, and the role of the individual in society, his responsibilities to himself and others (like family), and the tensions that arise when such responsibilities collide.

Stunning stuff.

You may remember we’ve been soliciting stuff for our upcoming souvenir book (which, by the way, is gonna rule.)

Well, as you can imagine, throughout the whole harassment-process, we’ve received tons of amazing stuff from fans from all over the US. We published one recently, and today we’d like to publish another – the first of a two-part series, in fact. So let me just set it up real quick.

If we’re to believe the quantum physicists, time does not exist. That said, it’s always nice to healthily explore the past – the tapestry of our lives – for illuminating context about all sorts of things. Things like Henry Miller, for example.

And when you talk about Henry, you never truly understand the totality of the man without understanding where he came from: Brooklyn, NY. The “Brooklyn” in him never left him, and forever influenced his art. He will always be that rambling Brooklyn dude chewing your ear off at the corner bar (If this element of his life interests you, check out this book, which we carry on our online store.)

So we’d like to present to you this fantastic photo-essay submission by our pal Stephanie V. Augello, a photographer from, you guessed, it Brooklyn, NYC. Check out her portfolio here and her blog here.

Stephanie went to Miller’s childhood home in Brooklyn, took photos, immersed herself in the ‘hood, and created a very wonderful two-part photo-essay on what she found. The first installment is below. Enjoy!

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This is for Danny Arana…because he’s wonderful.

“New York is cold, glittering, malign…There is a sort of atomic frenzy to the activity going on; the more furious the pace, the more diminished the spirit…Nobody knows what it’s all about. Nobody directs the energy. Stupendous. Bizarre. Baffling. A tremendous reactive urge, but absolutely uncoordinated.”
-Henry Miller

In the area surrounding what was once considered the 14th Ward of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, we’re all a derivation of some ethnic corner of these (still) ethnic streets. Aside from Henry Miller’s German 662 Driggs Avenue home location, and the Italian plots on McGuinness Boulevard that my family once called home, the Latin element sings its’ song.

The purportedly “hip” New York locale is not as it was in the early 20th Century. I imagine that, while Miller was growing up at the corner of Driggs and Metropolitan, strains of Ragtime seeped through the cracked windows of brownstones. Here, in our earlyish 21st Century, beats of merengue muffle through the neon sighs of shops with Corona signs, and the obvious Reggaeton bounces out of car windows.

While working for a telegraph company in New York, Henry Miller supposedly stated that someone should write O. Henry “rags-to-riches” stories about the workers. Many of those mused about laborers had most likely crossed into our country via New York Harbor. When the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in 1886, only 5 years before Miller’s birth, it was inscribed with Emma Lazarus’ words “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”

The definition of “tired” and “poor” has since evolved to include this land’s own wanderers. Your bartender. Your cocktail waitress. He is also a musician. She is also an artist. Much like their international ancestors, some drive forced this place upon them. They serve up their solitude here, and internally clamor for their starring role in an O. Henry tale….

(to be continued!)

The end of the year brings with it a lot of things. New Years resolutions (no more trans fats!), NFL playoffs, and the eerie, discomforting solitude that only winter can provide.

It also means you only have a few more days to donate to the non-profit Henry Miller Library and deduct your donation on your 2011 taxes.

Thanks to your continuous and incredible support, 2011 was the greatest year yet.

Highlights included your generous support in helping us build our new stage, countless incredible live performances including Philip Glass, the Fleet Foxes, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the sixth annual Big Sur International Short Film Screening Series, which received over 800 films from 35 countries (!)

We realize these are trying times and ask you to contribute only what you can afford. Any amount, from $1 up, helps.

You can make your donation at henrymiller.org or directly here. Your support will help us to make much-needed improvements to our facilities as well as continue to bring world-class music, art, and movies to Big Sur.

So thanks again from the family of Henry Miller Library staff, volunteers, and Board of Directors. We can’t do it without you!

(Clockwise from the top left, the above pic captures the Fleet Foxes show, the HMML staff and volunteer army, the Chili Peppers, and the Big Big Big Sur Fashion Show…)