Poe Celebrations

Edgar Allan Poe, who died 200 years ago this month, is being celebrated all across the region in October. From a reenactment of his funeral to a show, Edgar Allan Poe: A Baltimore Icon, at the Baltimore Museum of Art, there's no better time to pick up one of his works and learn about the great writer. Some highlights:

The BMA show features 80 prints, drawings, and illustrated books that explore Poe's legacy. It runs through January.

I haven't been out to VOLT yet, but the restaurant, which is headed by Top Chef contestant Bryan Voltaggio, will be hosting an Edgar Allan Poe dinner on October 29. There are two menus: Poe's Birth, with dishes representing his childhood in Boston and Poe's Death with signature Baltimore dishes. Full menus will be available on the restaurant's web site later this month.

The VOLT menus are in conjunction with Joshua Kane's performance of Tales of Terror: An Evening of Horror and Hilarity, a one-man tribute to the author, at the Weinberg Center for the Arts in Frederick. The town is also hosting dozens of other events related to Poe.

Book Festival Coverage

Click on over to my literary blog, Attic Salt, to read some interviews with authors participating in the National Book Festival.

As a reminder, the festival is Saturday, from 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. on the National Mall. Last year I updated my Twitter page from the festival, but I haven't decided if I will this year.

Since the schedule is up online, I need to start deciding who to see and whose signings I want to try to go to. Click over here for all the info the Library of Congress has posted about the event.

My New Project

Dear readers,

I'm ready to unveil my new project (which is going to take time and energy away from this site, I'm sorry to say): Attic Salt: A Literary Blog. While I still enjoy sharing my adventures around D.C., I wanted somewhere to write about the books I read and look at other aspects of reading culture - bookstores, author interviews, libraries, and why I think books are more important than ever. I spent a lot of time this summer thinking about where my interests and writing future were headed, and there just wasn't space to work on that here. So while you will still be able to find arts, food and culture coverage here, I hope you'll mosey over to my new site and talk about books, send in poems and contribute thoughts on what you're reading.

xoxo,
Ms. C

Frank Bruni & Maureen Dowd at Politics and Prose

I'm writing this on my calendar right now: New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni will converse with Maureen Dowd at Politics and Prose on September 29 at 7 p.m. Bruni's new memoir Born Round, details his relationship with food and his eating disorders. I haven't read it yet, but by all accounts, it's a really good read.

Stories from the Folger Vaults

This new event series from the Folger Shakespeare Library sounds unbelievably cool. Their new after-hours series, "Stories from the Folger Vaults," includes talks with staff experts on topics ranging from the latest Shakespeare portrait controversy to 16th-century love spells. They're also extending the viewing hours of their summer exhibition, The Curatorial Eye: Discoveries from the Folger Vaults, which is a collection of items selected by Folger staffers.

Oh, and the lectures are free and include a dessert reception. Who's game?

The lecture line-up:

"Is this Shakespeare?"
July 15, 6-8 p.m.

Take a behind-the-scenes look at the Janssen portrait, which was recently linked to the latest Shakespeare portrait controversy. Erin Blake, curator of art and special collections at the Folger Shakespeare Library, discusses why she believes the painting is not Shakespeare. The event also includes opportunities to talk with The Curatorial Eye exhibition staff about their favorite items.

"Conservation Lab: Preserving History"
July 29, 6-8 p.m.

Rare and fragile documents require expert treatment to safeguard them for present and future generations. Staff from the Folger's conservation lab has developed pioneering techniques for repairing and maintaining historic materials, and the lab is a leading center for research and training. See examples of the lab's work and talk with conservators about one of the Folger's most fascinating departments.

"Practical Magic"
August 12, 6-8 p.m.

Learn the secrets of black and white magic in the age of Shakespeare from a 16th–century book of spells. Generations of users consulted this rare manuscript to learn how to catch thieves, find love, or cure sickness. Heather Wolfe, curator of manuscripts at the Folger, shares stories from her work with this remarkable document.

Creating Characters: An Illustrative Evening, A Discussion with Mary GrandPre

The new Harry Potter movie comes out next week, but before you go see it, revisit the books with a talk by illustrator Mary GrandPre. She’ll be at the Corcoran Gallery of Art Monday night to talk about her career (she’s done more than just Harry). We chatted earlier this week about how she got into illustration, her favorite character to draw, and why she never met J.K. Rowling until after the third book was completed.

How did you get into illustration?

About 25 years ago I was trying to figure out how to make a living and make art at the same time. I went to school at Minneapolis College of Art and Design where I really learned about illustration. I started freelancing while waiting tables after college and little by little I started building up a portfolio of editorial work and ad work and books, and then I got into children’s books. I had been doing illustrations for about 15 years before Harry came along and so I had a few children’s books out there by the time that David Saylor called me about doing the first book.

Describe your process for illustrating a book.

For a picture book, I get the manuscript then just start breaking it down into 32 pages or 48 pages, whatever the count is that the publisher wants to work with. I start doing character development and think about the style and color palate and all that stuff that makes a book have its own personality. Then I start sketching it out and go through an approval process with the art directors and work on characters more and make changes here and there.

How about for the Harry Potter books?

I get the manuscript delivered to me by hand and I need to put it in a safe. I can’t talk to anyone about what I’m doing or what I’m reading. I take a couple weeks to read it and highlight descriptions. The books are so packed full of visual descriptions that I need to mark different things with different color highlighters. I have my own system down when searching for what a character or a cover idea might be. Then I call David Saylor at Scholastic and talk about concepts, cover ideas and chapter spots. After that I go to the drawing board and do some sketches and send those to David and Arthur Levine and those are also passed to J.K Rowling at that point.

The Potter books are quite rushed and the whole process takes two to two and a half months. Everything is put on the backburner — holidays, personal life, everything — when Harry comes to town.


Your illustrations seem to glow, and you use color so wonderfully. What materials do you work with?

Oh, thank you! I work with pastels and sometimes I combine them with acrylic paint underneath. And I work on paper.

What's your favorite character that you've drawn?

In Potter, I’d say Sirius or Hagrid. They’re opposite in who they are and their demeanor, but they have so much personality. Harry’s also a fun one. For other books, I like doing animals and folk tale things.

How closely do you work with the author?

There’s always a disconnect, and the publisher is the bridge between us. I think they like to keep us separate as the author has her own vision and the illustrator has her own vision, and I think its just easier for everyone to have the publisher or art director or editor be the contact person.

I did meet J.K. Rowling after the third book had come out and she was touring the U.S. I met her in Chicago and we had dinner with a big group of people. She was really nice about the work that I was doing and she said that the way I drew Harry was much like the way she saw him.

Is there a dream book that you would want to illustrate?

I would like to do a book that’s more adult or for all ages, maybe not so much a story but more a collection of paintings and images. Right now I’m doing some personal work, and a series of angels.

What are you working on next?

I’m working on three books right now, for three different publishers, but I can’t give any more details on those yet.

Mary GrandPre is speaking at the Corcoran Gallery of Art on July 13 at 7 p.m. It costs $15 for members and $20 for the public. For more information, visit www.corcoran.org.

National Book Festival Lineup

I've been to the National Book Festival twice. The first time I went late, with friends and didn't see anyone talk. Last year I prepared — I got down to the mall early, went alone, made a plan and saw a bunch of readings, including Kay Ryan, Jon Scieszka and Salman Rushdie. So this September 26, I will take a similar tack, because the lineup is excellent.Highlights:

- Kate DiCamillo (I love everything she's written, from The Tale of Desperaux to The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.)
- Junot Diaz (I read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao recently. So good.)
- Assorted historian idols: Simon Schama & Annette Gordon-Reed
- Julia Alvarez (who I met once, but this was before I read and loved In the Time of the Butterflies.)
- And Jon Scieszka and Kay Ryan are back again. She is delightful, and he is so funny he made me in tears at his reading.

Go here for a full listing of authors.

Beach Buddies

Sunday's Washington Post asked authors what literary character they would like to go to the beach with. There are some wonderful answers, including Arthur Phillips (who I am reading right now) on Captain Ahab — I am a terrible beach-o-phobe, tiptoeing into the surf clenched with certainty that I will soon be ray-stung or jelly-scorched. How reassuring then, if I must go to the beach, to be protected by an unwavering maniac, ready to kill anything that swims too close to me. — and Philippa Gregory on Jake Barnes — Jake is tremendously laid back and cool with an inner sorrow… He is a virtuoso drinker, so I anticipate some chilled white to start and a strong red for the later evening.

My choice would be Dick and Nicole Diver, of Tender is the Night, from the very beginning of the book, before their lives fell apart.

Nearest her, on the other side, a young woman lay under a roof of umbrellas making out a list of things from a book open on the sand. Her bathing suit was pulled off her shoulders and her back, a ruddy, orange brown, set off by a string of creamy pearls, shone in the sun. Her face was hard and lovely and pitiful. Her eyes met Rosemary’s but did not see her. Beyond her was a fine man in a jockey cap and red-striped tights; then the woman Rosemary had seen on the raft, and who looked back at her, seeing her; then a man with a long face and a golden, leonine head, with blue tights and no hat, talking very seriously to an unmistakably Latin young man in black tights, both of them picking at little pieces of seaweed in the sand. She thought they were mostly Americans, but something made them unlike the Americans she had known of late.

After a while she realized that the man in the jockey cap was giving a quiet little performance for this group; he moved gravely about with a rake, ostensibly removing gravel and meanwhile developing some esoteric burlesque held in suspension by his grave face. Its faintest ramification had become hilarious, until whatever he said released a burst of laughter. Even those who, like herself, were too far away to hear, sent out antennæ of attention until the only person on the beach not caught up in it was the young woman with the string of pearls. Perhaps from modesty of possession she responded to each salvo of amusement by bending closer over her list.

Upcoming Readings

Politics and Prose is hosting two very cool readings next week.

First up is Richard Wolffe on Monday, June 15 at 7 p.m. Wolffe, a political analyst on MSNBC and sometime food writer, will speak on his new book, Renegade, about President Obama.

Then on Saturday, June 20 at 6 p.m., Carlos Ruiz Zafón will read from The Angel's Game. Zafón is the author of The Shadow of the Wind, one of my very favorite books (and one that has been clamoring for re-read since I picked up a used copy in Georgetown). His new book is set in Barcelona, and follow a writer who undertakes a project at the behest of a reclusive French editor.

Infinite Summer

I'm trying to recruit friends to participate in Infinite Summer — reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest between June and September. The friends of mine who have read it have raved about it, and it sounds like a lot of fun to read such a massive tome with people all over the world.

You can visit the web site to share your thoughts and read what others have to say (or not), and follow Infinite Summer on Twitter. I think they're also on Facebook, but since I no longer have an account there, who knows. The official dates are June 21 to September 22 (the period of summer), but according to Twitter, some people have already started.

I still have to finish three books (The Historian, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, and The Gastronomical Me) before I can start this one, but as you only need to read 75 pages a week to keep on schedule, it doesn't sound like it will be too hard to read other things at the same time.

Poet Laureate Reads Thursday

Poet Laureate Kay Ryan, who was probably one of my favorite interviews ever, will be reading at the Library on Congress on Thursday at 6:45 p.m. in the Coolidge, on the ground level of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the Library’s Poetry and Literature Center, the reading is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are needed.

I saw Ryan read at the National Book Festival last year, and she's engaging and her poetry is wonderful.

Politics and Prose May Readings

Politics and Prose just sent me their May author calendar and it is excellent. A number of authors who are on my to-read list, or who I have recently gotten really into, are coming to town. Below, highlights.

April 30, 7 p.m. — Arthur Phillips, The Song is You, I so want to read this book, which is getting great reviews.

May 4, 7 p.m. — Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture

May 7, 7 p.m. — Ruth Reichl, Not Becoming My Mother, I recently read two wholly entertaining books by the Gourmet editor.

May 15, 7 p.m. — Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food*

May 16, 6 p.m. — David O. Stewart, Impeached, about Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial

May 18, 7 p.m. — Colm Tóibín, Brooklyn

May 21, 7 p.m. — David Lopate, Notes on Sontag

* At the Round House Theater in Bethesda

Also this looks fun:
The annual P&P trip to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater will take place on Saturday, June 20. The day trip costs $105, which covers the bus ride through scenic Western Maryland and the Laurel Highlands, and a tour of the house. We leave at 8 a.m. and return at about 8 p.m. For more information or to register, call Cat Dawson at 202-364-1919 or email cdawson@politics-prose.com.

Blake Bailey tonight at Politics and Prose

If you aren't going to see James Turrell speak at 7 p.m. tonight at the Hirshhorn, or are of a more literary slant, head to Politics and Prose at 7 p.m. to see John Cheever biographer Blake Bailey read from the just-published, much-lauded work.

The book is over 700 pages, and what I read in preparation for my sit-down earlier this week with Bailey was riveting.

Go here for answers to the questions I posed to Bailey.

William Christenberry: Working from Memory

William Christenberry, one of my favorite artists, will be speaking about his book, William Christenberry: Working from Memory at Politics and Prose on February 2 at 7 p.m.

I think Christenberry is fantastic, in part because of my love of photographs of old, Southern buildings. His was the first exhibit I went to at the Smithsonian American Art Museum when I first moved to Washington, and I've since seen his work at other venues around town, like the Phillips Collection and Hemphill Fine Arts.

Edgar Allan Poe is coming to D.C.?

I get a weekly email, BookTour, about authors coming to town, which I signed up for after missing Bill Bryson one too many times to be a self-respecting fan. The latest author to grace the area with his presence? Edgar Allan Poe. I have a screen grab below (which you can read better by clicking on the image), but apparently Poe is coming to Brunswick, Md. on January 16.


A click over to Book Crossing, the book store's web site, shows that it is a Poe workshop in honor of his bicentennial, but BookTour, hilariously, doesn't pick up on that.

And speaking of Poe, there are lots of amazing-sounding events for his birthday (24 hour birthday parties in Richmond and debates between Philadelphia and Baltimore for who deserves to claim him [“Philadelphia can keep its broken bell and its cheese steak, but Poe’s body isn’t going anywhere,”]) but I can't find a thing for D.C.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Of the many great Christmas presents I received (thanks Mom, Dad and Tim!), one was Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a book I had been hearing of for some time.

The story of a concierge and a 12-year-old who are closet intellectuals living in the same Paris apartment building, who are joined by a new like-minded resident, a wealthy Japanese man, is — dare I say — elegant. I recognize that it is in translation, but the writing is still beautiful in English. Take this passage, in which Renee and Kakuro are out to sushi:

I am lost in contemplation of the masterpiece. The visual beauty of it is enough to take your breath away. I squeeze a little chunk of white and gray flesh between my clumsy chopsticks (that's plaice, elucidates Kakuro obligingly) and, determined to find ecstasy, raise it to my mouth.

Why do we go in search of eternity in the ether of invisible essences? This little whitish chunk is a far more tangible morsel thereof.

For someone who has been in a literary rut for much of the past six months (absenting In Cold Blood, Brideshead Revisited and Here is New York), I'm happy to end 2008 with a wonderful read, and should anyone in the area want to borrow it, by all means, ask. And good news — Barbery's other novel, Une Gourmandise, comes out in English in 2009. Bonne Année!

Walt Whitman Book Talk — January 4

Mark your calendars — On January 4, the Washington Friends of Whitman are hosting a book talk by Michael Robertson, author of Worshipping Walt: The Whitman Disciples. The event is from 4-6 p.m. at a member's house. Join Cyber Walt for more information and to RSVP, or tag along with me.

There will be refreshments, including champagne, of which it turns out that Whitman is a huge aficionado.

So reports Horace Traubel, author of Walt Whitman in Camden, a nine-volume biography of Whitman's final four years:

W. laughed when we referred to the dinner, "I can't forget about the champagne, Horace, the iced champagne: how straight it went to the heart of the matter—to my need—setting up the whole night! To know what I know about the condition in which I went downstairs—then to know how the champagne lifted me! It is the explication of much! A year ago or so I tried to write some lines about champagne, but they did not satisfy me. I like things that possess more than a surface meaning, and somehow I stuck on this—could not throw out the suggestion I was after. But it will come, someday—by and by—perhaps."

Conversations with Authors: Calvin Tomkins

On Sunday, November 23, at 2 p.m. in the East Building Auditorium, Calvin Tomkins, author and staff writer of The New Yorker, converses with Harry Cooper, curator of modern and contemporary art, National Gallery of Art.

A book signing of Lives of the Artists follows.

Tomkins is also the author of Living Well is the Best Revenge, which is about Gerald and Sara Murphy.

I'm planning to go, so message if you want to come with me.

Massachusetts State Book

Massachusetts is about to name Moby-Dick as its "epic novel".

Sure, I think Ethan Frome might be a better option, but I LOVE Moby-Dick.

Excerpt:

Some questioned whether, in a literature-rich state like Massachusetts, there were better novels.

A legislator from Salem suggested that Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" or "The House of the Seven Gables" might be a better choice.

"I am appalled!" said Representative Cory Atkins, who contends her district in Concord has "more authors per square mile than any other."

"What about Louisa May Alcott? What about Hawthorne? How am I going to face my constituents?" she said.

A compromise was agreed upon.

"Moby-Dick" will be the state's "epic novel" instead of the "official book," leaving a loophole for other novels to be recognized.

State lawmakers, after all, have found room to honor five different rocks: an official rock (Roxbury Puddingstone), historical rock (Plymouth Rock), explorer rock (Dighton Rock), building rock (granite), and a glacial rock (Rolling Rock).

Book Festival Recap

After last year's Book Festival, when I didn't arrive until 2 p.m. and had no plan, I decided that with this year's festival, on Saturday, I would get there early and be better organized.

I got there at about 10:45 and made a plan: The Frommers, Kay Ryan, Salman Rushdie, break for Ryan and Rushdie signings, Walter Isaacson and Jon Sciezska. And my camera cord is MIA, so no pictures for now.

And aside from the signings — the line in the sales tent was massive and the signing lines were ridiculous — I hit everything I wanted to.

The Frommers — a father and daughter — told stories and travel tidbits, Kay Ryan was amusing and read old and new work, Salman Rushdie made comments about Bush's tenure in office (which I found delightfully ironic, given that Laura Bush runs the festival), Walter Isaacson talked about his new book on Albert Einstein, and Jon Sciezska basically did a stand-up comedy routine that had all the adults in tears.

For a break I lunched at the Mitsitam Cafe in the National Museum of the American Indian, and though it seemed like half the festival attendees had the same idea, had a great lunch. I had heard lots of rumblings about this place, and it definitely lived up to the hype.