The Henry Miller Memorial Library Blog

You can read it here.

It’s very nice of them, particularly this line,”what I love about this conference is the small writer-to-faculty ratio, which is 5 to 1 or less, with a guarantee you’ll work closely with at least three different faculty. ”

And it’s true. Unlike other conferences, where you sit and listen to panels and lectures – nothing wrong with that, of course – the Big Sur Writing Workshop is hands-on and intensive. If you don’t mind getting your hands a little dirty, then it will be very rewarding.

You may also notice some really nice comment on the Literary Rambles post, such as:

* “I’ve attended in the past and loved it. This is a great workshop. I can’t make it this year but I’ll try to put it on my list for next year. Thanks for the reminder!”

* “I’ve always wanted to attend this conference. Big Sur is so beautiful, and it’s a fantastic writing opportunity.”

We didn’t pay’em to write that!

Anyway, spots are filling up – deadline is February 20th – so you can still register here.

The project I am working on is a non-linear, non-academic, surrealistic ‘call and response’ to the archive I inherited from Emil and the ideas and principles it contains.

So much of the correspondence and Miller’s writing from the Paris letters refers to the ‘future’ and some very directly to the new millennia. From WikiLeaks, the Barry Manning trial, the Occupy Movement, the election rhetoric, Arab spring, I’m hearing voices make a collective call to take freedom of speech to a new level – one where listening is reinstated as an alternative to tyranny, where dialogue, conversation, negotiation may supplant war and suppression, delete and mute, as a means of holding power. ‘

Is this the destruction creation cycle Miller preached, the Oneness of the Vedas he shared with Emil? Given that I heard the word conversation at least 8 times in a 3-minute radio interview yesterday, all indications are that we are looking for ways to transmit and receive in a free world.

Check out Kathleen’s site here.

The Big Sur Writing Workshop is March 2-4, 2012 at the Embassy Suites in Seaside, CA.  You can register by going here.

One of the great things about it is the many success stories that have come from the workshop – authors meeting agents, and agents getting authors publishing deals.  So needless to say, we were tickled to find this in our in-box this morning from alumni Tamara Ireland Stone:
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I always love reading the success stories you compile, and I’ve been meaning to write to you to share mine.

I attended the Big Sur Writing Workshop in December 2010, where I had the opportunity to work with my agent, Caryn Wiseman. Three months later, my time travel romance, TIME BETWEEN US, sold at auction in a two book, six-figure deal to Lisa Yoskowitz of Disney-Hyperion. Since then, Caryn has closed deals nine countries, solid audio rights, and my story has been optioned for film. Suffice it to say, it’s been quite a year for this newbie author!

Personally, I had such an incredible weekend in Big Sur, and I can’t say enough about the value of the experience. The workshops were intense, but everyone was so incredibly supportive. I left that weekend on a cloud—feeling encouraged, inspired, and with a much stronger story thanks to the feedback I received from faculty and peers. I’m so excited to learn that both Caryn and Lisa will be on faculty at the March workshop.

The attendees are so incredibly lucky to have access to these two people—they will give kind feedback, brilliant advice, and demand the kind of greatness that creates a much better writer.

Thanks again for all you do, Magnus. We writers are so lucky to have you and the Henry Miller Library.”

Warm regards,
Tamara Ireland Stone

Every couple of months I would pull out the briefcase and re-read the materials and each time I saw more of the story that threaded it.

What I heard was the voice of Henry busting into his life, sparks of genius and opinionated blustering, made audible by the white- space, a one-man audience named Emil whose heart and mind were generous and deep enough to hold the millions of imagined ‘others’ that Miller was addressing, even in his unpublished days. ‘Dear Emil ‘and the pipeline was open. Emil was the perfect audience, the oracle whose attention helped a gob of spit become a voice.

When I heard that the Henry Miller Library had purchased the Emil Schnellock collection I was curious- what part of the story was I missing? And that’s how I came to be driving up the Coast highway in late October 2011 after 3 days on the UCLA campus in the Charles Young Library Special Collections room where I perused the Henry Miller Collection. My drive north through fog was a continuation of the séance taking place in my head after reading through decades of letters between the two old friends- exquisite corpses both.

In my own reflection on posterity now that I’m around the age of Henry when he became known as the sage of Big Sur, I know that what we hold holds us. As a multi-media artist, who turned 40 with Henry (through his books, essays, and letters to Emil published in 1988/New Directions, which I dragged all over Paris looking for my own voice in 1996) and Emil (through his mysterious absent-presence and personal struggles around responsibility and freedom, as well as the legacy that came to me due to the fact that of the 4 Schnellock siblings, none had children and I became heir) I was compelled to mine this archive and put it through the art crucible. So much of what they wrote was earmarked for posterity – and here we are, posterity.

The Big Sur Writing Workshop for YA fiction takes place March 2-4, 2012 in Seaside, CA.

The esteemed faculty is comprised of editors, authors, and agents. So let’s take a closer look at who, exactly, these mystery people are. Specifically, the editors who’ll be in attendance.

Julie Romeis, Executive Editor at Chronicle Books. Based in San Francisco, she is building their fiction list for middle grade and teen readers as well as publishing picture books and non-fiction. This follows six years at independent publisher Bloomsbury USA where she helped build its children’s list.

Lisa Yoskowitz is an editor at Disney-Hyperion, where she works on fiction for the full range of ages. Her current projects include a picture book =about a preschool rock band; an illustrated chapter book series about a group of middle school misfits; a middle grade action-adventure trilogy; and a time travel romance for teens. Lisa is looking to acquire fresh, exciting, and fabulously-voiced picture books and novels.

She 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.

Sharyn November is senior editor for Viking Children’s Books and the editorial director of Firebird Books. She is a two-time finalist for the World Fantasy Award for her editorial work, and Firebirds Rising: An Original Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy, which she edited for the imprint, was a finalist for Best Anthology. Her personal website is www.sharyn.org

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!