The story of my new book
Writing to photos inspired a different kind of storytelling.
One of the happiest days in an author’s life is when their book is available for pre-order—and when they can finally show the world their cover!
The cover for my new book—something out there in the distance—is above. But it’s not just any cover. And it’s not just any book. Which is why I thought I’d tell you its story.
The reason this is not just any book is because I worked with my good friend, the fantastic photographer Gail Butensky—”the girl with the camera,” as she’s been known—who I've been friends with since we waited tables together at Radio Valencia in San Francisco in the early 90s.
I loved Gail’s photos of punk bands, which she’s widely known for, but I especially liked her road trip photos. She gave me a bunch of her photos from various road trips in the Southwest, and I wrote little stories to each one—little flash fictions—but all of the stories are linked into a larger story.
I think of this as a "flash novel." Except it's also a photo book.
In fact, the University of New Mexico Press, our publisher, decided to make the book into an art object unto itself. They succeeded in my book.
My history with photography and writing
When I was in my teens and twenties, I always expected my thirties to be my big decade of success and glory, whatever that might mean. It turned out to be the least successful and least glorious years of my life.
I became so horribly afflicted with carpal tunnel that I had a hard time holding a book during the worst periods. I could barely write at all, and when I did, it was painful.
I was creatively restless, despairing, at the very loosest of loose ends, so I searched for another art form. I took acting classes, but acting didn’t quite feel right. I took a flower arranging class, but, well, no. Then I took a photography class, and … photography is much like writing. Because I was in the role of observer, of witness.
Baudelaire conceived of the artist as a “flâneur,” which means stroller. A flâneur is a connoisseur of the streets, walking into crowds and becoming “a botanist of the sidewalk,” a “passionate spectator” who resides in the ebb and flow of the movement of the city. Susan Sontag wrote in On Photography that the photographer is a “voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes.”
Yes. This is the joy I always feel when I walk around a city with a camera—or when I drive on one of my solitary road trips (we need a word for the flâneur who drives vast distances). I am a random collector of the odd, the discarded. I view life as a series of snapshots—or a collage of snapshots, rather. It’s my favorite metaphor for the way I feel my life’s story.
Making images into stories
My love of photography led me to connect story and image. The writing process for this book was so fun because I didn’t plan the story. I started writing the story of one photo, and it became the first photo in the book, and then, as if shuffling a deck of cards and selecting random cards, I wrote stories to each photo, and I watched as two characters, Dawn and Jonny, began to have adventures and yearnings and despairings as they drove and drove and drove.
Maybe I changed the order of the photo stories at some point, but I don’t remember doing so. Later, after the book’s peer reviewers gave their comments, my editor asked for areas of the story to be fleshed out, and Gail provided more photos, and I chose my favorites and wrote more stories—the story always randomly emerging from the photos.
Getting an odd book published
But this was an odd book to publish. One, publishers don’t like to publish photos because they’re expensive to publish, especially color ones. Two, it’s a different book, and publishers don’t like to take risks on the unknown. My agent told me Big Five publishers wouldn’t be interested.
Thank God. And thank God for the University of New Mexico Press, who had published my book The Art of Brevity, because UNMP liked it for the exact reasons the big publishers didn’t. They saw the opportunity to make the book into an art object— and that being different was a good thing.
[Please support indie presses. They’re publishing the most interesting stuff!]
Available for pre-order!
The book is now available for pre-order, so I hope you’ll buy it and let me know what you think.
Also, just so you know, I include a weekly photo in this newsletter, so I invite you to use it as a story prompt each week. This week I’m featuring one of my favorite photos from the book.
And … 100 Word Story has always offered a monthly photo prompt for people to submit stories to. Each story we publish is also paired with a photo.
Because a quote
"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.”
—Diane Arbus
Write with me!
Upcoming events
July 15: The San Francisco Writers Foundation is hosting me for their Ask-Me-ANYTHING series of monthly interactive video meetings from 12-1 Pacific. The topic? Flash fiction. Come with questions!
July 19: Holy bajoley! I’m doing a live storytelling event: Six Words Live Story Show - Where Do We Go From Here? Six storytellers will kick off their story with a Six-Word Memoir, then dive into the fuller tale behind it. Find out more.
July 24-27: I’ll be teaching at the new Understory Conference in Park City, Utah, with a bunch of other great teachers, including Dani Shapiro and my Memoir Nation partner Brooke Warner. Find out more.
August 30: The Art of Brevity with Catamaran from 10:30 - 1:30 Pacific. Online—so you can attend from anywhere! Find out more.
September 28-October 1: One of the highlights of my year is teaching at the one-of-a-kind Okoboji Writers' & Songwriters' Retreat V News at Lake Okoboji in Iowa. This will be my third year, and the roster of faculty includes great writers, songwriters, and journalists. Early bird registration is still open! Find out more.
Contact me about my one-on-one work with writers
Because a photo
One of my favorites of Gail’s photos from something out there in the distance.
As I was reading this, I imagined the photos you chose to serve as a tarot reading of sorts. Divination as narrative!
I like the connection with photography - always the observer. Stealth photos, those that aren't deliberate are, for me, the best.