Americana Writing
Q: You could have subtitled POSTCARDS FROM POINT AND SHOOT, instead of AN IMMOBILIZED HERO NOVEL, you could have called it AMERICANA WRITING, OR, HOW FOLK ART, AMERICANA MUSIC, AND VERNACULAR WRITING ARE RELATED.
A: I could have, but I didn't.
Q: Why not?
A: Didn't think of it--or realize it--until the book was under way.
AN IMMOBILIZED HERO NOVEL is the form. AMERICANA WRITING, OR, HOW FOLK ART, AMERICANA
MUSIC, AND VERNACULAR WRITING ARE RELATED is the subject.
The form is how
you convey the subject. Like memory paintings, or story songs.
Postcards.
Poems and prose vignettes.
The next immobilized hero novel might be about
something else.
Q: About crossing over from the underground to the mainstream.
A: Or not crossing over. Staying a best-kept secret. Writing for a cadre
of steadfast fans, who have been with you for decades, in some cases.
I saw
people at the book fair I hadn't seen in decades.
I saw Richard Grayson,
who introduced himself to me at Miami Book Fair International, in 1986. Author of
With Hitler in New York and I Brake for Delmore Schwartz.
I
saw Rick Peabody. He published an excerpt from Screed and a review of the
book when it came out, in 1980. In Gargoyle.
Richard Mathews published
a story of mine, in Konglomerati, in 1984. "You Used To Could Catch
Snook in Downtown Delray Beach."
It was like old home week.
I realized that, when Van Brock was friendly to me, but some of the younger writers
associated with Anhinga Press were not, Rick Campbell was not an older writer, like
Van Brock, he was a younger writer, associated with Anhinga Press.
Now we're
both older writers, like Van Brock. Rick Campbell's associated with Anhinga Press
and I am out here howling at the moon, like a wolf. A bee-wolf. Beowulf.