This month, news from Marie de Prémonville,
Wendell Steavenson , Frances Gendlin,Dr. Monique Wells,Michael Schuermann, Janet Skeslien Charles, IVY
Writers, David Barnes, Harriet Lye, Geoffrey Gilbert, Jeffrey Greene, Geneva
Writers Conference, Paris Writers Workshop and Shakespeare and Co’s Literary
Festival !
28 writers from Paris attended the Geneva Writers Conference. A
grand thank you to Susan Tibergian and the Geneva Writers Group for the
excellent welcome and fine workshops.
As time permits I am adding more Paris writers to the
Directory. New additions include: Faith Mclellan, Debra Mervant, Anca
Metiu, Leslye Morgan Schneier, Rachel Nisbit, Kjersti Overland, Beth Peoc'h, Anna
Pook, Melissa Prideaux, Sara Rahman, Paula Read, Dorothy Renn, Deidre Roberts, Sara Rose-Carswell, Mary Scheurer, Pamela
Shandel, , Sue Souchard, Lisa Storm Olsen, Slavko Tcholak, Trendell Thompson,
Shizue Tomoda,Emma Vandore, Vivienne.
Vermes, Mayanne Wright, and Juliet Young (If you
would like me to add a website or blog for you, please contact me.)
Marie de Prémonville : Les Matins Courts. This first novel has already been nominated for several prizes. Marie has brilliantly translated many books into French (including by Stephen King and myself). We wish her every success in her debut as novelist!
Wendell Steavenson, The Weight of a
Mustard SeedThis book tells the story of Iraq from the inside out, giving a portrait
of the Iraqis behind the headlines ‘a masterly and elegantly told story that
weaves together the Iraqi past and present.’ – The New York Times. Steavenson
is the author
of the acclaimed Stories I Stole (shortlisted for the Guardian First Book
Award) and has worked for Time and written for a variety of publications,
including the Telegraph, Granta, The New Yorker and Prospect. See an interview
in The New Yorker
Michael SchuermannParis Movie Walks,10 February 19h30 Evenings with an Author:
Journalist Michael Schuermann presents his book, ‘Paris Movie Walks,’ and
discusses the role of Paris as a film location throughout the decades. AT: The
American Library in Paris, 10, rue du Général Camou, 75007 Paris RER Alma Marceau or M° Ecole
Militaire.
Frances Gendlin Paris, Moi and the Gang This witty fictionalized memoir romps through the streets of the most beautiful city in the world weaving personal adventure and Franco-American history to reveal a Paris that most tourists never see on their own.
9 February 19h30 Dr. Monique Wells discusses
‘Black Paris and the Myth of a Colorblind France’ and presents an overview of
200 years of African-American history in Paris. AT: The American Library in Paris, 10, rue du Général Camou, 75007 Paris RER Alma Marceau or M° Ecole
Militaire.http://www.americanlibraryinparis.org/
15 February 7pm- Janet Skeslien Charles, Moonlight in Odessa (fiction) chosen by Publishers Weekly as
one of their top ten debut novels this autumn. Her book will also be read on
‘Book at Bedtime’ on Radio 4 – the first reading starts on 15th February.
‘Charles paints a tender, bittersweet portrait of Ukraine and Odessa. … A lively, entertaining debut…’ –Kirkus
Review AT: Shakespeare & Co., 37rue de la Bûcherie, Paris 5ème. M° St Michel.http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/
19 February - Harriet Lye, Geoffrey
Gilbert, Jeffrey Greene for “Her Royal Majesty” (online magazine launch) Join
us for readings and festivities for the release party of the seventh issue of
Her Royal Majesty (ww.herroyalmajesty.ca), an independent
literary magazine founded in Halifax and now based in Paris. AT: Shakespeare
& Co., 37rue de la Bûcherie, Paris 5ème. M° St Michel.http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/
23 Feb at 19h30 : IVY Writers Paris
bilingual reading with PASCAL POYET & Guest American author tbc this week
(so check back). Poyet’s BIOS online athttp://www.cipmarseille.com/auteur_fiche.php?id=1060or soon up with full details at the
Ivy blog:http://ivywritersparis.blogspot.com/(full
details up soon !) At: The Next, downstairs, 17 rue Tiquetonne 75002. M°
Etienne Marcel / RER Les Halles.
8, 15 and 22 Feb from 8:30pm to LATE: SpokenWord Share your work on
any theme or work on the theme of the night! See their blog and Join SpokenWord
Paris’ meetup group via their blog at :http://spokenwordparis.blogspot.com/to receive emails with each week’s
theme! An exciting, dynamic venue. You can read in French, too!!!Topic tonight: MIRROR. AT: Cabaret
Populaire/Culture Rapide, 103 rue Julien Lacroix Metro Belleville/Pyrénées
75020 Paris
The Other Writers' Group! David Barnes'
drop in writers' workshop (just turn up!) every Saturday 5pm till 7pm. Bring 8 copies of your prose or
poetry for instant feedback and discussion. Length should be up to about 3
pages (prose) or 2 poems. Suggested donation 5 euros. Upstairs in the library
at Shakespeare & Company, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005http://www.meetup.com/The-Other-Writers-Group/
Interesting book promotion idea :
"set up a lending library allowing anyone
to receive a free review copy on the condition they forward it within a week to
the next reader, at their own expense." -- STEPHEN ELLIOTT in the NYT
To submit your news to Paris Writers News check out our guidelines.
If you like this site, you can spread the word by linking to it on your sidebar!
Writers! Here are two interesting ideas on how to promote your books from Stephen Elliot in a thoughful NYT essay entitled THE DIY BOOKTOUR.
For review copies, Elliot suggests setting up your own lending library:
Before my book came out, I had set up a
lending library allowing anyone to receive a free review copy on the condition
they forward it within a week to the next reader, at their own expense.
And for that long haul booktour that your publisher won't pay for, he experimented with literary couch surfing:
I asked if people
wanted to hold an event in their homes. They had to promise 20 attendees. I
would sleep on their couch. My publisher would pay for some of the airfare, and
I would fund the rest by selling the books myself.
Elliot sold 1100 books at 73 events. And while it can be stressfull staying in someone's home and meeting their friends, he concludes:
I thought to myself that they weren’t a standard literary audience: they were better.
Join us to celebrate the launch of Heather Hartley’s brilliant new book of poetry, Knock Knock, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. ‘Heather Hartley writes the kind of poetry many of us are starved for, a poetry without borders, passionate about what we savor the most on our tongues—languages, foods, lovers.’ This event will also feature music, wine and general festivities.
Could France be right about regulating powerful American internet companies?
In a stunning show of muscle, Amazon removed all of MacMillan's books from its store.
A major US publisher, MacMillan wanted to set the price of its books at around 15 dollars, 50% more than Amazon's standard Kindle price of 9.99 dollars.
Amazon responded by pulling all of MacMillan's books from the world's largest electronic bookstore.
How will this play out? Will Apple's new IPAD reader change the game ?
Who has the right to set book prices? The publisher? The distributor? The market? The state? How will this affect authors? It's a whole new world...
This well-known Paris literary review is now gathering material for Issue 12! We seek both poetry and prose, and are open to more innovative forms such as flash fiction and prose poems. Standalone excerpts from longer works of fiction are also considered. For more detailed submission guidelines, refer to our web page a twww.wice-paris.org (click on the Free Events button on the WICE Home Page).Please feel free to send any queries and submissions directly to upstairsatduroc@yahoo.fr Barbara Beck, editor Upstairs at Duroc
Looking for accurate information? Our staff carefully sifts through piles of claims, statements, and announcements to compile resources with real value to writers.
Where can you publish your work? What are magazines looking for? How do you reach them? Find answers in our database of literary magazines. And get practical advice from their editors.
Connect your poems, stories, essays, and reviews to the right audiences by researching hundreds of literary magazines in our database. Here, you'll find editorial policies, submission guidelines, contact information—everything you need to direct your work to the publications most amenable to your vision.
Richard Pevear, Colin Mahar, Joe Ross, Ann Mah, Berna Huebner, Philippe Jourde, Christopher Vanier, Constance Borde, Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, Lorraine Liscio, Margo Berdeshevsky, Jérome Mauche, Jennifer K Dick, Richard Toovey, Bonny Finberg, Larissa Volokhonsky, Diane Johnson and more.
Flash: Heather Hartley at Shakespeare and Co !Join us to celebrate the launch of Heather Hartley’s brilliant new book of poetry, Knock Knock, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. ‘Heather Hartley writes the kind of poetry many of us are starved for, a poetry without borders, passionate about what we savor the most on our tongues—languages, foods, lovers.’ This event will also feature music, wine and general festivities. FEB 1
Many wonderful activities this month. Here is a small selection. For a complete listing, see Jen Dick's excellent list.
12 Jan at 7pm : AuthorNam Lewill present The Boat and will be introduced by Charles D'Ambrosio. VV
13 January 19h30 Evenings with an Author:Suzy Gershman, of the ‘Born to Shop’ travel book series, offers shopping tips and discusses her memoir, ‘C’est la Vie.’The American Library in Paris
20 January 2010 19h30 at The American Library in Paris – Paris. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, award-winning translators of War and Peace and Anna Karenina discuss the translation process and their newest work on Doctor Zhivago.
24th.January at Carrs : Philippe Jourde : "Blanche, Clichy, Pigalle" (en français) MOVING PARTS
Coming up : 14th.February : Nina Karacosta : four sketches on "Relationships" (inEnglish) 7th.March : Gwyneth Hughes : "See How They Run" (in English) 21st.March : Alexis Niki : "Momma's Office Boy" (screenplay in English)
14 Jan at 7pm: Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier will present their new translation of Simone de Beauvoir's classic, The Second Sex. at Village Voice
21 Jan at 7pm: Lorraine Liscio will present her book Paris and Her Remarkable Women. VV
25 Jan at 7 pm – Poet, novelist and actress Margo Berdeshevsky at Shakespeare and Co !!
26 January 19h30 : IVY Writers Celebrates 5 years of bilingual readings
with Joe Ross, Colin Mahar & Guest French author
28 Jan 7 PM. UPSTAIRS AT DUROC, the Paris-based literary journal launches Issue 11.. Come hear exciting new work by four of our contributors: Jérome Mauche, Jennifer K. Dick, Richard Touvey and Bonny Finberg. Berkley Books
28 Jan at 7pm: Diane Johnson will discuss the work of author Leonard
Michaels.
WORKSHOPS
If you are organizing or looking for a writing group, you can leave your comment here.
By Jove! The discovery is nothing short of astounding! These Americans! Why they're not just crazy gun maniacs--they're, they're...
FRIENDLY, HOSPITABLE and POLITE!
From the pen of distiguished British author, Geoff Dyer, flows, not vicious witticisms and spite but praise. Praise so unexpected and smoothly written that the New York Times published it online and in print.
An except from Mr. Dyer to cheer your New Year:
Like many Europeans, I always feel good about myself in America; I feel appreciated, liked. It took a while to realize that this had nothing to do with me. It was about the people who made me feel this way: it was about charm. Yes, this is the bright secret of life in the United States: Americans are not just friendly and polite — they are also charming.
CHARMING!
Why, that's four things! What, I think, is this man after? (He's a writer. Writers can be sneaky.)
And then I remember my own trip to Arizona, just two weeks ago. I took my daughter to the Department of Motor Vehicles and the formidable-looking fonctionnaire woman behind the gigantic counter handed us a form to fill out. We messed it up, and, trembling, returned to ask for another.
"Eve," she said to my daughter, "That's a pretty name."
We nodded mutely.
"You know," she said, "There's a song with 'Eve' in it."
And before we could say "It's not our fault!" (c'est pas de ma faute) she burst into song.
"Eeeevee!" she warbled, "Eeeevee."
We stood, feeling remarkably French, amazed.
"You have a good day now," she winked.
"Maman," my daughter whispered to me as we left, 15 minutes later desired learner's permit in hand, "no official in France would sing to me like that!"
And I thought: how wonderful, this small and seemingly silly kindness to put a nervous girl at ease.
So yes, Mr. Dyer, I agree. Americans are friendly, hospitable, polite AND charming. Thank you for reminding us of this happy and easily forgotten truth.
about her remarkable film IREMEMBER BETTER WHEN I PAINT,which documents how art helped her mother in the struggle to live with Alzheimer's.
LZ : Berna Huebner, millions of families struggle every day to care for loved ones stricken with Alzheimer's. Seeing your beautiful documentary, “I remember better when I paint” I am struck not only by the remarkable effort you made to help your mother by reintroducing art into her life, but by the incredible achievement of turning this personal struggle into a film which Alzheimer’s associations all over the world have embraced. At what point did you know that you would write and produce a film? How did this come about?
BH : It has been a journey to think about Alzheimer’s in a new way. In the moments when she painted, my mother truly seemed to come alive. That is why we wanted to share these experiences—in the hope that they will help show how our society can address the challenge of Alzheimer's and other memory problems, not only through the search for new medical treatments which might prevent or at least slow the progression of the disease—as important as they are—but also through the healing, communicative power of the creative arts.
With the help of her doctor, the art students who worked with her and a friend (Mary Louise Stott), I met our film director Eric Ellena and he encouraged us to share our story—and said he would like to produce a documentary together.
LZ : Early in the documentary, we learn that your mother had completely stopped speaking and grown so agitated it became difficult to care for her. You arranged for students at the Chicago Art Institute to work with her. It took months to get a first result. Where did you get this idea? How did you know it would work? What made you continue?
BH : As my mother, who had been an artist, struggled with Alzheimer’s in her later years, I asked her if perhaps she might want to paint again. And she had said one day, “Oh yes! I remember better when I paint.” With that phrase ringing in my mind, I became determined to somehow bring my mother back from her detached state. And so I enlisted the help of her doctor. And with his help and the efforts of a dedicated group of art students, and with strong encouragement from our family, my mother, who had used the name Hilgos to sign her work, picked up a brush at age 90 and began to paint again. Through painting and sculpting, she emerged from her listless state and reconnected to the world around her. Her Alzheimer’s symptoms eased, at least in part. She spoke, she danced, she played catch and sculpted—and she painted and painted and painted.
LZ: One of the most exciting discoveries for me was the idea that by soliciting the parts of the brain that still function—sensibility to art, emotion--one can touch and connect with what remains profoundly human. There is a kind of awakening—not just for the Alzheimer’s patients, but for the people dealing with them, family, caretakers, doctors. Did you know about this when you started out?
BH : I knew very little about Alzheimer’s. My mother’s doctor encouraged us to continue to work with my mother. I did not really have any understanding of the disease nor did I know that there were still parts of the brain that could still function. But when I saw the awakening in my mother I decided I wanted to help those who are as afraid of Alzheimer’s as I was, after my mother’s diagnosis—but now are looking for ways to help cope with the disease. Alzheimer neurologists and other doctors have helped us to understand why such therapies can be so helpful, pointing to the fact that they awaken areas of the brain that have not been affected by the disease.
LZ : What were your goals ? Had you made a film before? Did you have any idea how difficult it would be?
BH : Our goal and hope is that this intergenerational story and the stories of others in this film will help educate and raise awareness of those who are touched by Alzheimer’s.
I had never made a film before but was director of research for a governor and then Vice President and I think that helped prepare me to do the necessary research for the film. The information gathering has never seemed very difficult. It was always interesting and exciting.
LZ : How did you write this film? Did you have an overall idea of what it should be, or did it evolve organically as events progressed and you met more experts. Did you discuss it with your mother?
BH : Writing the film evolved organically. I was never able to discuss it with mother. But I did find a letter from mother written before her Alzheimer’s saying that she had such a wonderful and healthy life that if she could ever help the medical world she would like to do that. So we decided we could share her amazing story.
We found other stories similar to the one of mother. I had attended art and health as well as Alzheimer’s conferences. I had worked with mother’s doctor who had encouraged us to put the story into written form. The art students who worked with mother were so dedicated and we continued together to do research and write up what we had discovered. We visited nursing homes and day care centers. We contacted museums where people with Alzheimer’s were able to look at and discuss the masters they were seeing. For a five year period we collected research information on all facets of Alzheimer’s: medical discussions, books, press clips and anything we could find and kept track of that information. In fact the director asked us to put together a resource book.. which we had already started. A group of very dedicated students helped me put that information together with the help and guidance of Dorothy Seman, a director of a day care center in Chicago, whom I had met at an Alzheimer’s conference.
LZ : “I remember better when I paint” is available in both French and English. Olivia de Havilland performs the English narration. What was it like working with her? How did you convince her to participate?
BH : Olivia de Havilland heard mother had Alzheimer's and that since so many of her friends had died from Alzheimer's, she volunteered to help by doing the narration. She is wonderful and great fun to work with.
LZ: How long did it take you to go from the idea to the finished film?
BH : The idea for the film was that of a friend. It originated in the spring of 2006. We have just completed the documentary in December 2009. The original project with my mother began in the fall of 1995 with her doctor and the art students.
LZ : Many of us have projects we would like to do, and few of us manage to see them through. What are the key skills and qualities needed to realize such a project?
BH : First one needs an idea and then I think friends and mentors and a sense of inspiration, all helping one see the connection and path to realize the project.
LZ : So often Alzheimer’s overwhelms the family. In any extremely difficult situation, you helped your mother and created something remarkable in the process. Where did this positive energy come from?
BH : I think it came from mother’s original words “I Remember Better When I Paint”. Her words guided me to speak to her doctor. Then her doctor helped connect me to the art students… and then the path just continued.
LZ :The documentary is being praised as a reference source in the use of non-drug therapies for Alzheimer’s. Experts from all over the world are interviewed in the film and many attended the film premier. How did you achieve this? How was this organized?
BH : It evolved and the wonderful Hilgos team was able to find mentors to help us. Filming was done in many parts of Europe and the US showing Alzheimer’s patients focusing and reconnecting as they paint, visit the Louvre in Paris, the Art Institute in Chicago and the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, and even enjoy the Big Apple Circus in New York.
Among those featured are Yasmin Aga Khan, president of Alzheimer's Disease International and daughter of Rita Hayworth who had Alzheimer’s.The documentary also interviews renowned neurologists who explain how creative activities engage areas of the brain that are not damaged by disease and thus help reawaken a sense of personality, identity and dignity. Doctors interviewed include:Dr. Robert Butler, founding director of the National Institute of Aging; Dr. Sam Gandy of Mount Sinai; Dr. Robert Green of BU; Doctor Bob Stern of BU; Dr. Gene Cohen of GWU; Dr. Barry Reisberg of NYU and Dr. Avertano Noronha of Univ. of Chicago; Dr. Lawrence Lazarus formerly of Rush Presbyterian Chicago.
LZ: What next?
BH : We would like to continue our student play, “I Remember Better When I Paint,” in classrooms as an educational exercise, and we would like to expand our museum and school-based project, where art students work with people having memory problems in more and more communities.
LZ: When you began work on your memoir, did you intend to write about social issues?
CV: Absolutely not. What fascinated me about Life Writing, or memoir, was the narrative aspects, how events could be turned into stories by studying their significance. At first I considered social and political issuesas distracting, slowing down the story, and I remember being quite annoyed when a fellow writer critiqued one of my schoolboy stories and wanted to know what the colour of the cook's skin was. As time went by I was obliged to modify this stance because some stories weren't fully understandable without reference to larger issues in my Caribbean society.
LZ : As a teenager in the Caribbean, you won an essay contest on Abraham Lincoln for which the prize was an invitation to WashingtonDC. A science nerd with no particular interest in racial politics, you found yourself in travelling the USA at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. As a memoirist what were the challenges you faced writing about this episode decades later.
CV : The challenge was thatthe protagonist (my teenaged self) was not very aware, or critical, of his Caribbean social and racial environment. He had little to compare it with, and even when he visited the USA he remained quite naive. He knew nothing of Martin Luther King and probably assimilated the Ku Klux Klan with Tolkein's orcs. To deal with this lack of sophistication and yet inform the reader, the writer has to use other viewpoints, closer to his own, but without confusing the reader, who must know when the protagonist is thinking something and when a comment comes straight from the current writer. I use multiple personas to deal with this problem, and on the positive side the tension between the writer's views and the young protagonist's views can be stimulating. It takes a lot of care in the writing for the change of personas to be seamless. Today, it is clear that the USIA was "wise" and somewhat manipulative with me in 1959, only showing me the positive aspects of US internal race relations. Projecting a positive image of the USA via Lincoln was part of a massive diplomatic effort in the Cold War to keep places like the Caribbean friendly. At the time, my protagonist was completely unaware of this.
LZ: One of the particular pleasures of Caribbean Chemistry is your precise, analytical approach to the intense emotions and sensations of childhood. Has a passion for science made you a better writer?
CV : On the whole, yes. A quest for truth, an attention to detail, and a willingness to analyse causes of events are all part of a scientific outlook. But there is a negative side. Many scientists don't like over-colourful images, they repeat themselves too often, and they systematically hedge their bets. A scientist might say, "The man was approximately five feet tall", because he's not sure whether the "true" height is one or two inches either way. In fiction, or in a memoir intended as narrative, it is better to remove the uncertainty (cut the word approximately) unless this is vital to the story. So there is a shift in language - precision for it's own sake has much less value than in a research paper. Doubt is still very important, but it moves to another level.
LZ: You claim not to understand poetry (or poets), yet your writing has a quiet lyrical quality to it. Are you secretly one of them?
CV: Well, English Literature was my best subject at university entrance (A-levels) so clearly I relished Keats, Blake, Coleridge, and Wordsworth at that age. A classical taste. I even wrote poetry myself (a confession). But it's true that modern or post-modern attempts at poetry annoy me. I certainly don't understand most of it. My feeling is that there is quite sufficient poetry in prose. Looking at symmetry and dissymmetry on a page of good prose, noticing the resonance of certain words, is quite good enough for me.
LZ : Caribbean Chemistry is a book about growing up in St Kitts and Antigua which you wrote while living in France. Do you see yourself as an expatriate writer? A British writer? A French writer? Or simply a memoirist? Do these distinction have any meaning at all? What made you write this book?
CV: A memoirist, if anything. I don't think the place you write from is very significant. Many writers feel more at home when at a distance from their subject. I hold a British passport and a St. Kitts passport but have worked and lived in France longer than anyplace else. I got my doctoral degree from the USA and, particularly in the area of "creative non-fiction", I have enormous affinity with America. That seems to make me a citizen of the world, or at least of Europe. The motivation for writing this book has nothing to do with countries and nationality, though. It's mainly the fulfilment of a boyhood dream to write for others something as enjoyable as all the books that have pleased me. Secondarily, the emphasis on memoir has allowed me to place my past in perspective. We go through life with a set of temporary loans - mind, body, and loved ones - assets that disappear all too quickly. A good memoir is a way of preserving some of our thoughts for future generations.
LZ: You worked for years with a writers’ group in Paris. How did this affect your writing—and you?
CV: Writer's groups and workshops are very useful to a developing writer. By himself, a writer is closeted in his limited egoisms; he needs feedback on style and content to develop. But workshops can be confusing when others want you to write their story and not yours. You have to keep control of your project. There is other positive fallout: workshops help to keep you to a schedule, and through workshops over an eight-year period, I have made some of my best friends.
LZ: Caribbean Chemistry was discovered by its publisher thanks to a literary contest. What are the advantages and disadvantages of contests? How can writers benefit from them?
CV: Contests are a valuable refinement if a writer is really serious about being published. When workshops get too supportive (ie more and more wine and less hard knocks) there's no way to measure the objective value of one's work. Entering a big competition and finding out that you are not even placed in a "long list" of the first hundred candidate stories is quite sobering. Competitions make you re-edit your work seriously, which is always a good thing. Many of them give you valuable critiques for a small extra entrance fee. It's an opportunity to sample the market, see what the competition is like, and learn more about the impact your work makes. I discovered, for instance, that certain of my memoir chapters could compete effectively with stories written as pure fiction - the judges couldn't tell the difference , or didn't care. And finally, a competition can lead to publication of a story or of a whole book.
LZ : All the characters in Caribbean Chemistry are real. Do you anticipate any lawsuits?
CV: Lawsuits are unlikely, but not impossible. This is another steep learning curve that the memoir writer has to climb. One shouldn't let the early writing be inhibited by threats until it is done, but when a book is in its final stages the possibility of lawsuits must be studied. British law on libel and invasion of privacy is currently so much in favour of the plaintiff that publishers oblige their authors to obtain written consent to publish from all the characters who appear in the book. I had mentioned 108 names. Fortunately, many of the name owners were deceased! A few of the living obliged me to change their names or even to erase their actions from my book. The right to free speech is weaker in the UK than in the USA, and in my view this seriously limits a writer's possibilities of telling the truth about politicians and important public figures. I hope this will change. From where I sit, a memoir writer has an obligation to be fair to all parties, but he doesn't have to like them, nor to make them look better than they were, nor to cover up their misdeeds. The stakes are the same as for journalists and historians.
LZ: In addition to memoir, you also write science fiction. Is there a link between the two genres?
CV: Superficially, none. But one of my mentors once told me that if I liked SF so much then that should influence my memoir stories. Perhaps there is an unbridled effect in the dreams and fantasies of my protagonist. Going in the other direction, I think that a memoir writer should be able to create quite credible SF. I do have some unfinished projects with stories about the future. But my addiction to memoir means that the "future of the future" is uncertain.
When Claude Allègre famously called France's Education Nationale a "mammoth", I applauded. Minister of Education at the time, he knew what he was talking about and wasn't afraid to speak his mind.
Of course, he flamed out quickly and thoroughly, and none of his proposed reforms came to pass, in part because he relished a fight more than results.
In the past few years, Monsieur Allègre has kept his name in the news by spouting off on the environment. Global warming is a sham! Ecologists got everything wrong. And now, most ridiculous of all, Nicolas Hulot is an imbecile!
But Nicolas Hulot, one of the most productive forces behind the fledgling French ecological movement, is, as anyone who has seen him speak knows, far from idiocy. Stardom is a two-edged sword, but he has used it well, steadily pushing a pragmatic ecological agenda.
