Authors Electric

  In Part 1, we survived the history of feuds and rivalries among writers, the literary minefield of conflicting egos and ambitions. Is it possible, we wondered, for even the strongest alliance to avoid ending in flames. Young Leverett Butts approached Richard Monaco, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, as a fan of the older author's Parsival series and entered into a creative relationship and partnership that lasted for over a decade. Today LB answers questions about the power of becoming both student and teacher. And the importance of choosing the right mentor. 1 .  First Models: All writers start with a model in mind—someone whose work deeply resonates with them. Many even attempt to emulate that writer before finding their own vision and voice. Who was your first model? When I first seriously started writing, I was greatly inspired by John Irving and Robert Penn Warren. A lot of my earlier attempts at "literary" fiction draw deeply from those two writers. As I began to write mo...

As many of you know, my great friend and mentor, Richard Monaco, passed away on June 13, 2017. It has been almost two years now, and I still miss him. I miss our weekly phone calls where we would discuss the finer points of writing, critique each others work (he'd do more of that because I rarely saw anything worth changing in his), talk about good shows to watch on Netflix, or just bitch about the Braves and the Yankees. Me and Richard the night I first met him in person in NYC I loved that man like he was a second father, and in many ways, he was. Nobody took as much interest in developing my writing as he did, and he was just as happy for both my writing and personal achievements as any parent. He was always interested in everything about my life and family. He was always genuinely interested in my wife's job and her graduate school experiences, my son's schooling, and my dog. He never shied away from offering parenting advice: "Stay out of their way unless t...

Parsival by Richard Monaco When I was a teenager, as many of you know, I discovered on the shelves of an Atlanta used bookstore the book that would figuratively chart the course of my life: Richard Monaco’s Parsival or a Knight’s Tale . The story is not new. I have told it time and again both here and elsewhere. But I am a Southerner and one thing we Southerners excel at is telling the same story over and over with little or no diminishing of interest. So you’ve heard this story before but not in this way. I had skipped school that day and gone to Oxford II Books. I often did this. I wouldn’t skip school and hang out at bowling alleys, movie houses, or amusement parks; I would go to bookstores or libraries and read all day. My teachers knew about it. My dad knew about it. It wouldn’t go unpunished, mind you: My father would scratch out an embarrassing note (“Please excuse Lev from school yesterday,” he would write, “he woke up with exploding diarrhea and stomach cramps. I fel...

I have met a lot of writers. Like real, published-by-big-houses, award-winning, best-selling novelists. Writers you know, writers that your kids have tests on, and writers that your kids read to avoid studying for tests on the writers your kids have tests on. Writers with Wikipedia pages I once had dinner with Joseph Heller because I told him at a signing that I was writing my Master's thesis on his work. I had to explain to Kurt Vonnegut at the same dinner that no, it wasn't because  Slaughterhouse-Five wasn't good enough for me. I didn't have a camera, so this picture of them with their wives (from an entirely unrelated event) will have to suffice. I used to play D&D with a World Fantasy and Bram Stoker Award winner. I correspond regularly with another Bram Stoker Award winner. I've eaten several lunches with T.E.D. Klein . I used to work with the guy who wrote the Wishbone books . I am also good friends with both Kelley Wilde and our own Reb MacR...

KI have never been a fan of the  People of Walmart  internet meme. It seems to me that much of it simply stuck-up jacktards making fun of poor people by taking snapshots of them at their most vulnerable: shopping at  America's #1 haven of low-priced, cheaply produced crap (Seriously, who isn't going to look like a sideshow freak when trying to shop with small children in tow?). It's a way for idiots to feel superior by laughing at other people just trying to get in, buy some batteries, groceries, and ammo, and get out. The message is clear: We are so much better than poor, uneducated people. Clearly the only people who shop at Wal-mart are these freaks and the rest of us taking pictures of them. That or "No matter how bad your life is, at least you're not middle-aged guy buying crappy films in a fat ballerina costume bad." Over the last couple of weeks, I have come across several internet articles showcasing what is rapidly becoming the publishing wor...

There are so many faces of the Buddha that it's more than a bit silly when somebody gets in your face about one: the beaming, Christ-like pacifist. And when critics condemn works of art that are false to the face they prefer...things grow worse. For the Buddha has so many faces. Second only to the PPS (Perfectly Passive Saint) is the PPA (Playful Party Animal). There are also images of the Angry Buddha, reminding us that Christ himself flew into a rage at one temple: Even the Buddha acknowledged the humanity of anger: And it should be obvious that not all Buddhists are Perfectly Passive, as this image attests: And these: Recently, though, I was taken to task for a short but graphic passage in my first piece of flash fiction. My antihero had learned just enough martial arts to deal with a thug on the street--ultimately learning that he knew a lot more than he thought. The short-short was character-driven, with an inevitable path to the end. Yet a dear ...