tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63779398207400201502024-03-06T05:32:58.568-05:00STAIRCASE WRITING - Katharine Weber's Writing JournalThe French call it "l'esprit d'escalier," stairway wit. The witty thing you should have said that occurs to you only as you descend the stairs at the end of the evening. As a novelist, I find that I have staircase thoughts about each of my books, starting with my first novel, published in 1995.Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.comBlogger130125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-26638613680806680062021-02-19T12:27:00.004-05:002021-02-19T12:28:07.825-05:00JANE OF HEARTS<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiErS6QIjQ2FlSIMzM3upS2Q3H7abua_ow70ZojE3-LY3keSFv2oV4rP3ywtN4q1L7IJYINg9qzqR0vY59oNiFUWKzJRiSrsYROpEmKzGuLUo7aD9hxz0QnE4Lm6b7HRwX6yPzeJN57ttOH/s2048/JANE+OF+HEARTS+COVER+FOR+CATALOG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1325" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiErS6QIjQ2FlSIMzM3upS2Q3H7abua_ow70ZojE3-LY3keSFv2oV4rP3ywtN4q1L7IJYINg9qzqR0vY59oNiFUWKzJRiSrsYROpEmKzGuLUo7aD9hxz0QnE4Lm6b7HRwX6yPzeJN57ttOH/s320/JANE+OF+HEARTS+COVER+FOR+CATALOG.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: medium;">JANE OF HEARTS, COMING FROM PAUL DRY BOOKS IN MARCH 2022</span></div><p></p>Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-20756574799772558352021-01-30T11:40:00.001-05:002021-01-30T11:40:32.470-05:00New book news<p> NEW BOOK! </p><p><br /></p><p>Paul Dry Books will publish JANE OF HEARTS, a story collection and novella, in March 2022</p><p><br /></p>KATHARINE WEBERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368061714749220442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-7874145581248007102018-03-04T20:13:00.001-05:002018-03-04T20:13:56.270-05:00HARK, HARK! THE ARC!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>...With everything that pretty is,</i><br />
<i>My novel sweet, arise:</i><br />
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<i>Arise, arise! </i>Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com173tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-19079668983832538232018-02-26T12:11:00.001-05:002018-03-04T20:06:36.668-05:00First staircase thought about Still Life With Monkey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In today's news, one of the best/worst corrections ever, from the Associated Press. In <i>Still Life With Monkey</i>, there is a moment when this mistake would have belonged perfectly in the thoughts of a child whose father has just died.<br />
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Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-33072653227244960402018-02-19T15:55:00.000-05:002018-02-19T15:55:49.851-05:00Still Life With Monkey with Monkey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Farah the helper monkey took her own red pencil to my manuscript pages. Who could possibly have more expertise?<br />
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In case you are wondering, Farah is a 35-year-old tufted capuchin monkey. Why is she named Farah? Think about it. She has a beautiful tuft (if you like that sort of thing), and 35 years ago a certain actress famous for her flowing and voluminous hair was very popular....yes, that's right.Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-74635356808866153122018-02-19T15:03:00.001-05:002018-02-19T15:58:38.666-05:00STILL LIFE WITH MONKEY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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At long last! <i>Still Life With Monkey</i>! This wonderful cover strikes all the notes. Publication in early September, with books on store shelves in August. It's already available for pre-order on Amazon and the Paul Dry Books website: www.pauldrybooks.com<br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "amazon ember" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white;">“STILL LIFE WITH MONKEY is a brilliantly crafted novel, brimming with heart. Pairing poetry with wisdom, this is a story about what it means to live, love, and grow.” ―Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "amazon ember" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white;">“Katharine Weber goes deep with the extraordinary STILL LIFE WITH MONKEY, a rich and compelling meditation on the question of what makes life worth living. Her characters are vividly, achingly real, including the tiny, furry one at the novel’s center. I kept thinking about all of them long after I’d read the final words of this beautiful book.” ―Ann Packer, author of The Dive From Clausen's Pier</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "amazon ember" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white;">“In Katharine Weber’s new novel she takes on one of the most challenging subjects we know―the question of how to face a life we never imagined. She does so with great subtlety, tenderness and intelligence, as well as the beautiful prose we expect from her.” ―Roxana Robinson, author of This Is My Daughter</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "amazon ember" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white;">"Among the many brilliances of Katharine Weber’s new novel, is the whole idea of a ‘still life.’ Painters saw unnatural stillness as a contradiction in terms, yet containing a mysterious truth. Here, too, mysterious truth - a car accident, a wheelchair (another contradiction), paralysis, and honest and beautifully-drawn people, stopped in midpassage. To this still life comes the capuchin monkey, the service animal who attends the disconnections of the spine, the spirit, and of the species. STILL LIFE is life still―the theme of this original, remarkable book.” ―Roger Rosenblatt, author of Kayak Morning</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "amazon ember" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white;">“STILL LIFE WITH MONKEY is radiantly tender and piercingly sad. Katharine Weber is a magician of a novelist, one who writes about loss and loneliness with such compassion and humor that we feel enchanted as we read.” ―Brian Morton, author of Starting Out in the Evening and Florence Gordon</span></span>Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-30069617572436163982017-05-21T15:34:00.000-04:002017-05-21T15:34:46.638-04:00STILL LIFE WITH MONKEYIt's been a long while between postings<br />
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here, but I am thrilled to report that my novel, now titled (conclusively) STILL LIFE WITH MONKEY will be published in September, 2018 by Paul Dry Books.KATHARINE WEBERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368061714749220442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-59581138899531149752015-06-12T11:27:00.000-04:002015-06-12T11:27:27.541-04:00Mother's Pearls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A real staircase writing post. If I had known of this exchange, I would have been delighted to tuck it into <em>The Memory Of All That</em>. (Picture is my grandmother, Kay Swift, not wearing pearls.) The writer David Margolick sent me this little find in the S.N. Behrman papers at the New York Public Library.<br />
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<b>Letter from Kay Swift to SNB, MAY 21, 1972: </b><div class="yiv6930854411MsoNormal">
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<b> Dear Berry,</b></div>
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<b> Thank you for that keen edge of delight I felt while reading the first two instalments [sic] of ‘People In A Diary,’ in the New Yorker. I can hardly wait for more.</b></div>
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<b> At the risk of sounding fancy-schmancy, I’m compelled to tell you something I’ve told only Emily Paley – and that just now on the telephone. After reading the piece and noting your extraordinary use of words, and thinking about the fact that nobody else quite possesses this faculty, I went and found my mother’s real pearls in a hiding-place, and put them on. I’m wearing them right now, (in bed, after a fairly trying day) and there is some connection or other between these beautiful pearls and your writing.</b></div>
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<b> Three days later, SNB to Kay Swift:</b></div>
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<br /> <b>Thank you for your enchanting note...I have never driven a girl to wear pearls before, and thank you for initiating me into this revolutionary activity.</b></div>
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KATHARINE WEBERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368061714749220442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-50361147764682923552015-06-05T17:45:00.000-04:002015-06-05T17:45:17.246-04:00Title ChangeI have changed the title again. This feels right. My novel is now called <em>Remind Me Who I Am. </em><br />
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KATHARINE WEBERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368061714749220442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-28604517495927567972015-05-16T00:21:00.001-04:002015-05-16T00:21:32.007-04:00Revision complete!<em>Activities of Daily Living</em> turned in. <br />
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Hoping for the best.Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-40757811263931925202014-12-17T13:49:00.000-05:002014-12-19T00:04:08.026-05:00Still Revising (With Monkey)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Yet another revision in progress........responding to superb notes from wise editors.<br />
<br />KATHARINE WEBERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368061714749220442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-76226135768390045662014-10-04T17:06:00.000-04:002014-10-04T17:06:40.160-04:00Revising! Still Life With MonkeyOne of my favorite moments in the process of writing a novel is where I am right now, pumping more air into the tires, responding to utterly brilliant and insightful notes and questions from my literary agent, Amy Williams. I aim to finish before the end of the month.<br />
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KATHARINE WEBERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368061714749220442noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-21337234173960136792014-09-10T07:28:00.000-04:002014-09-10T07:28:08.089-04:00STILL LIFE WITH MONKEYThe finished manuscript goes to my literary agent today, with a new title that better captures the sensibility of the novel: <em>Still Life with Monkey</em>. <br />
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I like the multiple layers of possible meaning here. While I have thought about my work in progress for some three years as <em>The Monkey Helper</em>, it really isn't quite right. And this way, the inevitable, "Is that like Hamburger Helper?" is averted. Though I do have someone ask exactly that in the novel.KATHARINE WEBERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368061714749220442noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-57427271179964785242014-08-31T14:12:00.000-04:002014-08-31T14:12:36.594-04:00Steering toward the finish line!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My Monkey Helper manuscript is now in final stages of revising and filling inside straights, for delivery to my agent next week. KATHARINE WEBERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368061714749220442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-49097419542505267892014-08-09T22:45:00.000-04:002014-08-09T22:49:33.300-04:00Monkey Selfies Are All the Rage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Monkey selfies are in the news these days for a few reasons. <br />
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One, they're inherently funny. <br />
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Two, we have become idiotically selfie-obsessed in general. <br />
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Three, monkey selfies raise intriguing questions about copyright ownership. This case has just been discussed in <em>The New Yorker</em> online: David J. Slater, a British wildlife photographer, set up his camera on a tripod in the hope of capturing wildlife <em>in situ</em> when he was visiting a nature preserve in Indonesia in 2011. The camera was taken over by a crested black macaque . The monkey liked the noise the shutter made and proceeded to take hundreds of pictures of herself. Slater has published lots of these monkey selfies and has claimed ownership/authorship. He asked that the images be removed from the Wiki commons where anyone can use them. Not so fast, says Wikimedia, the image site for Wikipedia.<br />
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The New Yorker piece reports: "If Slater, as the photographer, had said that he wanted the photos taken down, Wikimedia most likely would have complied. The question that arose was whether Slater, who had not held the camera, set up the shot, or pressed the shutter, could be considered the photographer at all. Wikimedia<span style="color: black;">’</span>s position on this was clear: in the licensing conditions found at the bottom of the grinning monkey selfie, they write, “This file is in the public domain because as the work of a non-human animal, it has no human author in whom copyright is vested.” (It should be noted that Wikimedia is not saying that the monkey owns the copyright, as others have reported, but simply that Slater does not.)"<br />
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Why yes, monkeys are my current fascination. I note that crested black macaques aren't very smart, especially compared to capuchins, and they wouldn't be trainable if you wanted them to learn how to take photographs on command. They are just curious. <br />
<br />KATHARINE WEBERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368061714749220442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-15363029275294104332014-06-30T09:10:00.001-04:002014-06-30T09:10:17.423-04:00Digging DeepWhen you're writing, you have to dig deep. Also true if you drop a piece of popcorn between the seats.<br />
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KATHARINE WEBERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368061714749220442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-46887270789104411642014-05-18T11:54:00.002-04:002014-05-18T11:56:12.565-04:00Still Writing!After long silence here at Staircase Writing, I am just checking in at the end of my second wonderful spring term of teaching creative writing at Kenyon College to say that I am hoping to finish my sixth novel (which has been far too long in progress) by the end of the summer. <br />
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Now that the students have left for the summer, I will be spending the next three weeks here on the Kenyon campus, working on <em>The Monkey Helper</em>, with a plan to get back up to full steam. My English Department office is in historic Sunset Cottage, home to the Kenyon Review for many years. (Sunset is only marginally more modern-looking today.)<br />
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Which reminds me! I am delighted to say that I have been moved up the masthead at the Kenyon Review, where I have been a Contributing Editor. I am now an Editor at Large.<br />
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Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-9554729154138760972013-07-11T15:01:00.000-04:002013-07-11T15:01:50.496-04:00Making Hay While the Sun ShinesApologies for silence and lack of updates. Writing, writing. Writing. Must make the best use of the summer to work on <em>The Monkey Helper</em> after a marvelous first spring term teaching at Kenyon College during which I simply didn't get very much work done on the novel. <br />
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Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-86909426915317717642013-03-03T19:39:00.001-05:002013-03-03T19:39:08.846-05:00HERE TODAY is almost here!
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I am delighted to announce that playwright David Caudle [<a href="http://davidcaudle.org/home" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://davidcaudle.org/home</a>] has written a new musical play
<strong>HERE TODAY</strong>, inspired by my memoir, <em>The Memory Of All That: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Family's Legacy of Infidelities.</em> The
show, which is based on the love triangle of Kay Swift, her husband and collaborator Jimmy Warburg (in other words, my grandparents), and George Gershwin, will feature the score to <em>Fine and Dandy</em>, along with other Kay
Swift songs. The first showcase will take place at the Ziegfeld Society meeting
in New York City on Saturday, April 27th at 3:30 in the Lang Recital Hall at
Hunter College.</div>
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I will participate in an after-show discussion along with
David Caudle and Music Director Aaron Gandy. Tickets are on sale now! More information is here (scroll down to April 27th): <a href="http://www.theziegfeldsociety.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.theziegfeldsociety.com/</a></div>
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Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-28226418877310632252012-08-19T07:59:00.001-04:002012-08-21T08:27:47.123-04:00Back to My Monkey Business<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Working on The Monkey Helper. Want something? Take a number! Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-53547636793949622242012-07-19T11:14:00.000-04:002012-07-19T11:14:29.662-04:00Nazi Chocolate Plot<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Much as I have moved on from all things chocolate since the publication of my last novel<em> True</em> <em>Confections</em> two years ago, today's news reveals a story I would surely have included in my novel about chocolate, racism, and the Third Reich's Madagascar Plan for the Jews of Europe. Wire stories report:<br />
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London, July 18 (<span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1342592950_1">ANI</span>): Secret wartime papers exchanged between <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1342592950_7">MI5</span> officials have revealed that the Nazis' plans to conquer <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1342592950_5">Britain</span> included a deadly assault on Sir <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1342592950_0">Winston Churchill</span> with exploding chocolate. <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1342592950_2">Adolf Hitler</span>'s bomb-makers coated explosive devices with a thin layer of <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1342592950_3">rich dark chocolate</span> and then packaged it in expensive-looking black and gold paper.</div>
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The Germans planned to use secret agents working in Britain to discreetly place the bars of chocolate - branded as Peter's Chocolate - among other luxury items taken on trays into the dining room used by the War Cabinet during the Second World War. The lethal slabs of confection were packed with enough explosives to kill anyone within several metres.<br />
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<div id="yui_3_5_1_23_1342709884598_339">
But Hitler's plot was foiled by British spies who discovered that they were being made and tipped off one of MI5's most senior intelligence chiefs, Lord Victor Rothschild. Lord Rothschild, a scientist in peace time as well as a key member of the Rothschild banking family, immediately typed a letter to a talented illustrator seconded to his unit asking him to draw poster-size images of the chocolate to warn the public to be on the look-out for the bars. His letter to the artist, <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1342592950_4">Laurence Fish</span>, is dated May 4, 1943 and was written from his secret bunker in Parliament Street, central London.</div>
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The letter, marked 'Secret', reads "Dear Fish, I wonder if you could do a drawing for me of an explosive slab of chocolate...We have received information that the enemy are using pound slabs of chocolate which are made of steel with a very thin covering of <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1342592950_8">real chocolate</span>," the Daily Mail quoted the letter as reading. "Inside there is high explosive and some form of delay mechanism... When you break off a piece of chocolate at one end in the normal way, instead of it falling away, a piece of canvas is revealed stuck into the middle of the piece which has been broken off and a ticking into the middle of the remainder of the slab. When the piece of chocolate is pulled sharply, the canvas is also pulled and this initiates the mechanism. I enclose a very poor sketch done by somebody who has seen one of these. It is wrapped in the usual sort of black paper with gold lettering, the variety being PETERS. Would it be possible for you to do a drawing of this, one possibly with the paper half taken off revealing one end and another with the piece broken off showing the canvas. The text should indicate that this piece together with the attached canvas is pulled out sharply and that after a delay of seven seconds the bomb goes off."<br />
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The letter was found by Fish's wife, journalist Jean Bray, as she sorted through his possessions following the artist's death, aged 89, in 2009. Incredible! Not only would Alice Ziplinsky have had a lot to say about this, but I would dearly love to have been able to weave it into the Ziplinsky family history and the story of Zip's Candies. This is exactly the sort of headsmacking item that compelled me to name this blog Staircase Writing. </div>
Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-47288450829057224772012-06-29T23:24:00.000-04:002012-06-29T23:26:23.638-04:00Working on The Monkey Helper<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Not much to say right now because I am working on my novel,<em> The Monkey Helper</em>.Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-35494962054277566542012-06-11T13:36:00.001-04:002012-06-11T13:37:36.936-04:00(Re)Publication Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Broadway Books paperback edition of <em>The Memory Of All That: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Family's Legacy of Infidelities</em> is on bookstore shelves now, with the official pub date being tomorrow, June 12th. The new cover puts emphasis on the New York-ness of the story, complete with a not-quite finished Chrysler Building in the background. It also features a really terrific, slightly come-hither photograph of my grandmother circa 1928 in her leopard coat and a fetching cloche hat. Here's hoping new readers are attracted by the new cover!<br />
<br />Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-806482544099754042012-05-25T22:48:00.003-04:002012-05-26T00:56:47.346-04:00Must Have Names and Facts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My memoir, <em>THE MEMORY OF ALL THAT: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Families Legacy of Infidelities</em> will be out in a pretty new paperback edition from Broadway Books in a couple of weeks.<br />
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A question I have been asked a few times since the book's publication last July is about my motivation and indiscretion in writing about family history. Why did I delve into such personal stories about my grandmother Kay Swift, in particular? My answer each time has been the observation that unlike most family stories, numerous versions of the central events in my family's history have been in the public view all along. The events and personalities have been scrutinized and gossiped about and picked over for decades, in newspaper stories, magazine articles, gossip columns, cultural histories, and biographies. Countless people think they know all about my family members. And so what I have written is in many ways a counter-story, a push back against the distorted narrative that has been in public view for a very long time. I know that what I have written is an act of loyalty, love, and devotion. I also know that certain people are both judgmental and truly uncomfortable about my choices.<br />
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Last week I came across a particular letter, dated Saturday November 9th, 1940, one of hundreds of letters from my grandmother to her lifelong friend Mary Lasker, to whom she wrote nearly daily from the ranch in Oregon where she had lived for a year by then with her second husband, a cowboy. At the time of the letter, Kay was 43, thirteen years younger than I am now.<br />
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I read through all the letters a few years ago, but I didn't recall this particular passage, which seems especially pertinent at this moment, and I am very glad I found it. She ended the eight-page rambling and reflective letter to her closest confidante with this passing thought: "When I'm 75 my autobiography would be good reading -- but that is fairly far off; and no discreet autobiog. is any good at all. Must have names & facts."Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6377939820740020150.post-81889155911872626402012-05-14T09:47:00.001-04:002012-05-14T10:43:14.753-04:00Finding Vermeer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My second novel, <em>The Music Lesson</em>, is about an IRA splinter group's plot to steal a Vermeer from the Queen. In the course of the story, the mysterious circumstances of the unsolved theft of paintings from the Gardner Museum in Boston are explained. (Make that "explained" for the literal-minded among us. It is a novel. But my fictional explanation may well be on the money.) The 1990 theft (the largest single property theft in American history) of thirteen paintings and objects has never been solved, and today the Gardner continues to exhibit the empty frames of the missing masterpieces.<br />
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Last week, the FBI swarmed the Manchester, Connecticut home of "reputed mobster" Robert Gentile (aren't all "mobsters" invariably "reputed"?) , who federal prosecutors apparently believe has a link to that heist.<br />
Gentile, 75, is being held without bail pending his federal trial on drug dealing charges. The FBI used a ground-penetrating radar device as well as dogs in the search. Most intriguing is the site of a filled-in swimming pool on Gentile's property. While the search warrant was apparently for weapons, Gentile's attorney told the Boston Globe "We all know what they are actually looking for - and they are looking for the paintings." Evidence obtained that day is now being sifted. Obviously, they haven't found a cache of paintings. Yet.<br />
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Readers of <em>The Music Lesson</em>, published in 1999, nine years after the Gardner theft, will recognize why this latest development is of<em> particular</em> interest to me. Saying more would be a plot spoiler.<br />
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"The museum continues to offer a $5 million reward for information leading to the recovery of the artworks in good condition," museum officials said in a statement. "Anyone with information about the theft, the location of the stolen artworks, and/or the investigation, should contact the Gardner Museum." On its website, the museum also urges those in possession of the stolen masterpieces "to conserve them in recommended temperatures and humidity levels."<br />
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Stay tuned!Katharine Weberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05933086172475315821noreply@blogger.com1