Bread Loaf 2012: Overheard on the Mountain
Posted on 22 August 2012
Literary Consultant: “Hello, everyone. I’m here to help you get published.”
Jennifer Egan: “In a way my writing career — my commitment to my career — began here. Goon Squad began here, too.”
Writer: “If I hear one more person say they have to ‘fall in love with a book’ to take it on, I’m going to throw up.”
John Elder: “It was hard to live with Robert Frost. It was also probably hard to be Frost.”
Author: “A novel is like a monogamous relationship. With short stories, you can break up with them — or maybe they break up with you.”
Editor: “Google, Amazon, and Apple are not run by book people and yet have a huge stake in the book business.”
Author: “Length does not equal a novel. You can’t just throw something on the page and call it a novel.”
Literary Agent: “If you can’t write a good query letter, I’m not going to read your novel.”
Author: “Writing teachers can be wrong [about who is the most talented or strongest writer] and not know it.”
Editor: “We will forgive all sorts of things if we fall in love with the first 20 pages. It’s like a first date. You think, ‘I could change him.’”
Literary Agent: “Twitter is an echo chamber of 50 writers.”
Writer: “If I write this memoir it might not be marketable, but what the hell? My novel sure isn’t selling, so I might as well write what I want.”
John Elder: “Frost’s work has helped me live my life. There’s no doubt about that.”
Jennifer Egan: “No time seems to pass here.”
Lan Samantha Chang: “One day you’ll come back and find that Bread Loaf has not changed, but you have.”
8 responses to Bread Loaf 2012: Overheard on the Mountain
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I am so effed.
“We will forgive all sorts of things if we fall in love with the first 20 pages. It’s like a first date. You think, ‘I could change him.’”
And I’m willing to change him. . .
This is the one that got me, too. But it has me totally crazed. I know the first couple of chapters have to grab the editor/agent, but this is the first time I’ve heard someone willing to work on the rest if they love the first. Very interesting.
Yes, never mind the unhealthy “ooh, I can change this man” mindset brought into the whole thing :)
Swoon. Why do I feel you’ll be coming home from this a new Laura —- and frankly the old Laura is pretty spectacular, so that’s sayin’ something. Cheers to you! May you also find your Good Squad ….
Double swoon!
also overheard: he’s cute, but his sentences are just so-so.
That’s a great one! Today I also heard: “At this point you’d have to do something really bad, like introduce a clown, for me to stop reading this story.”