I am petty and shallow
Sep. 23rd, 2004 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaAs at least one person reading this knows, I'm a big fan of Pam Houston. She was in town last night as part of "celebrity author night" at our local independent bookstore, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
She writes short stories about outdoorsy women in the western mountains and deserts, mostly, river trips and hunting and backpacking with men who aren't worth it and dogs who are, and you can tell she's been there. Her novel is coming out in January. She also has a collection of essays out which are pretty much the same thing from a nonfiction perspective. Her writing is impressive and her stories are amazing, ridiculous deathmarches (heh, you thought mine were bad) and fly-fishing in midwinter in Montana in freezing water to her chest because she got invited with a group of guys and didn't want them to think she was a weak woman. That sort of thing.
When she walked in, the first thing I thought was, "gee, she's gained a lot of weight since her book jacket cover photo was taken. I could out-hike you now, fat girl."
Yeah, I pick the one thing I can assert my superiority in. She's still a more famous writer than I am, though.
And when I commented that I really enjoyed her essays and asked if she was writing more nonfiction, she basically said, "oh, essays are just what I toss off to make money, they're nothing, my fiction is all that I care about." Made me feel like I have poor taste. And that all my nonfiction writing is for naught. If I want to be a Writer I must write fiction, I suppose. Oh well. At least I've got a better body.
She writes short stories about outdoorsy women in the western mountains and deserts, mostly, river trips and hunting and backpacking with men who aren't worth it and dogs who are, and you can tell she's been there. Her novel is coming out in January. She also has a collection of essays out which are pretty much the same thing from a nonfiction perspective. Her writing is impressive and her stories are amazing, ridiculous deathmarches (heh, you thought mine were bad) and fly-fishing in midwinter in Montana in freezing water to her chest because she got invited with a group of guys and didn't want them to think she was a weak woman. That sort of thing.
When she walked in, the first thing I thought was, "gee, she's gained a lot of weight since her book jacket cover photo was taken. I could out-hike you now, fat girl."
Yeah, I pick the one thing I can assert my superiority in. She's still a more famous writer than I am, though.
And when I commented that I really enjoyed her essays and asked if she was writing more nonfiction, she basically said, "oh, essays are just what I toss off to make money, they're nothing, my fiction is all that I care about." Made me feel like I have poor taste. And that all my nonfiction writing is for naught. If I want to be a Writer I must write fiction, I suppose. Oh well. At least I've got a better body.
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Date: 2004-09-23 09:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-23 09:49 pm (UTC)Yeah, I like outdoorsy stuff ...
even when they're written by women.
Maybe I will give it a try one of these days.
I'll take a look next time I'm at the library.
A while back I read a couple of Nevada Barr
mysteries ... kind of a fun change of pace
from my normal more serious reading.
Right now I'm in the middle of another Bill
Bryson book: "Made in America" sort of a follow
up to the book I mentioned last week,
on the English language and how it got that way.
This one deals more with the American English,
and how it got that way (sort of).