Q: Where did vernacular writer come from?
A: In
It was a good show. I enjoyed it.
Jane Fonda published a coffeetable book that was impressive.
Q: They had a folk art show that excluded white folk artists?
A: Tacky, wasn’t it.
Vernacular translates of native-born slaves.
A slave is an ambassador in bonds, who speaks boldly, as one ought to speak. To his master.
I started calling myself a vernacular writer.
I had vernacular writer business cards made up.
Q: As well you might have.
Did anybody object, and say a white person couldn’t be a slave?
A: Nobody paid any attention whatsoever.
Q: Did anybody think it was tacky to exclude white folk artists from a folk art show?
A: Not so’s you’d notice.
Q: Did you think it was funny?
A: I did, but no one but Larry was laughing.
And you know Larry’s eccentric.
Q: Larry thought it was funny?
A: He did.
Q: Did he think you calling yourself a vernacular writer was funny?
A: He did.
Sometimes I called myself America’s greatest writer, short for America’s greatest living unpublished, or underpublished writer, perhaps the greatest unpublished, or underpublished American writer ever.
He would
introduce me as, “
He thought it was funny that I couldn’t get published.
It is funny. It’s like saying, “