I've just returned from spending the day at the Utah Book Festival at the City Library downtown. I thought I'd write the insights that struck me as I sat in several lectures, workshops, and discussion groups today among a throng of other booklovers.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "A Woman and a Cow" Lecture delivered Thursday on campus at the University of Utah:
Ms. Ulrich is a Pulitzer prize-winning professor of history at Harvard. She is also an amazing LDS woman and a feminist in the most complimentary sense of the word. She said that she enjoys the detective work of being a historian. (I could relate to that - I enjoy detective work, too...maybe I should dabble in history...still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.)
Karen Chamberlain, "Solitude and Community on a Utah Desert Ranch":
Author of the memoir 'Desert of the Heart' and a poet and screenwriter as well, Ms. Chamberlain struck me as a very sincere wordsmith. The book is about the largely solitary time she spent at the Horsethief Ranch in Southeastern Utah, a homestead built in 1928 that is 20 miles from the nearest building. She lived alone and worked the ranch because it gave her an opportunity to write and to experience life as a pioneer without telehone, technology, crowds of people, or even electricity. She said that she had enjoyed solitude even as a child, and solitude on the ranch became her teacher. She differentiated solitude from loneliness, which she said is a void, a yearning to be somewhere else or with someone else. She said that before going to the ranch her identity was tied up in what she did, but at the ranch she discovered that her core identity was much deeper and simpler.
Carol Lynn Pearson, Panel "Mormon Writing: Promised Land or No Man's Land?":
I first read Carol Lynn Pearson in the 1980s when Goodbye, I Love You was published, a memoir about caring for her gay husband as he died from AIDS. It was a powerful, beautiful book that made me proud of my faith. She's recently come out with a follow up book called No More Goodbyes, a book that tells the stories of LDS young men who commit suicide because they are homosexuals. She sees herself as a bridge between the LDS and the non-LDS, and she feels called to this work of impacting the lives and arousing the consciences of LDS people.
Christopher Kimball Bigelow, Panel "Mormon Writing: Promised Land or No Man's Land?":
This author uses humor as a bridge between the LDS and the non-LDS. He said that good literature of any genre portrays what it's like to be a human being. Mormon lit misses the mark when it is agenda-driven.
Emma Lou Thayne, Panel "Mormon Writing: Promised Land or No Man's Land?":
Ms. Thayne is an 83-year-old poet and the author of several hymns. She is a real treasure! Everyone knows who she is and she seems to know everyone else connected to words in the state. She said that good writing is all about sifting, sifting, sifting until you are left with the essentials only. Good writing is always a product of what is thought, felt, and believed. She facilitated the discussion and interjected periodically with very insightful comments and observations. What a delight to see her in action!
Book Club Panel:
I decided to go to this panel discussion because for some time now I've considered forming my own book club. The one I've been attending for several years now (and thoroughly enjoy as a women's discussion group) rarely selects quality books to read. I'd like a more serious book club for booklovers. Maybe we just need to modify the one we have and make it into what it could be...
Jane Hamilton, "Literary Confessions: The Worst Thing I Ever Did":
I can't say enough good things about this session! She was FANTASTIC! Ms. Hamilton is the writer of several bestsellers, including two Oprah Winfrey selections: The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World. I have never read any of her books, but I bought two tonight and will soon get started. She was hilariously funny and obviously brilliant...As a writer she said she starts with character, voice, trouble, and a setting and usually knows the last line of the book before she begins. She says she wrote initially out of rage because she had no time or space to write, no babysitter, and no money. Her first book was rejected about 30 times.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History":
The historian (see above) spoke about what history is: 1) what happened, 2) based upon surviving sources, 3) reconstructed by later generations who have some interest in it. She has explored how history was made by women, common, ordinary women for the most part, women who talked back or misbehaved, nudging world events along. She recounted another historian's observation that if women's libbers had been burning girdles instead of bras everyone would have been on board. (Huge laughter and applause!)
Now my head is aching from hanging on so many words. My face is tired from smiling. I have laundry to do, as always. They really should come up with a 4-letter word for laundry. As the great equalizer it deserves one.
