13

JH: I don't associate all that much with other authors. Even socializing with big readers (another somewhat paradoxical activity) is a matter of "I like that book too" or "I disagree, Sir or Madame, that is a fine tome". Books and books have been written about past author circles and I enjoy reading them. Perhaps in the future I'll be a lion, but for now emails do. I prefer the literary to be written rather than spoken, read rather than heard. How about you? he typed. Speaking of dreams, want to hear a dream of mine? I was at a casino playing Blackjack and stood at 17. The dealer busted, and I turned to the onlookers and said "You don't actually have to have 21, you can also just get close to it" and everyone exclaimed approvingly as if I'd said the most profound thing ever. Moral: moderation in all things? Or even the most banal comment, when uttered by a poet, is ravishingly poetic? Or the poetic as didactic? No one else in the dream spoke, so was mine was the first sentence they ever heard?


AHB: Um, the movie Slacker comes to mind. In the 1st scene, a young man (played by director Richard Linklater), sits in the backseat of a taxi and explains top the bored driver his theory about he possibilities of the other road taken. He cites the point in Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and Scarecrow could've chosen a different road. Just by introducing the suggestion of another possible story, opens a universe in which those possible events actually occur. Which I think is my way of saying I don't know. Dreams have so much implied history, even if the people in the dream are strangers, that.... well I dunno. My own history of writing has had times of writerly friendship, but I guess I've never depended on those friendships, at least the writerly part. I've mentioned it before but I went some 15 years without direct writerly contacts. I've enjoyed talking about writers with those who are knowledgeable. The social in the writer world bothers me. I see a difference between network and community. Networks connect likeminded, communities are diverse. Writing scenes seem to be more the former than the latter. I'm not much published except for what I've put online on my own sites the last couple of years. I don't know how much I ought to press it further. I cannot remember the last time I sent any unsolicited work out, years and years. Do you feel concern about your publishing? Do rejections, assuming you get them, bother you? Am I screwing up with my approach? Do you think Dumbledore is really, like, gone?