Learn History Through Fiction: World’s First Cageless Zoo

San Diego Zoo, conceived by Dr. Harry Wegeforth, grew from the abandoned exotic animal exhibits after the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. A permanent tract of land in Balboa Park was set aside and the zoo opened in 1922. In addition to animals from the Exposition, the zoo acquired a menagerie from the defunct Wonderland Amusement Park. Publication of ZooNooz began in 1925. Belle Benchley, director from 1925-1953, was the only woman in the world to serve in this role. San Diego also was the first “cageless” zoo with moats surrounding the exhibits. Its outdoor avian house boasted the world’s largest bird cage. Discover more San Diego history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

TAZIA AND GEMMA Book Launch and Readings

I’m getting ready to launch my new novel Tazia and Gemma (Vine Leaves Press, 2018). The launch is Sunday, June 3rd from 2:00 to 4:00 PM at Bookbound Bookstore in Ann Arbor and I’ll also be reading from the book on Tuesday, July 31st from 7:00-9:00 PM at Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor. Copies will be available for purchase and signing at both events. You can also order the book at http://www.vineleavespress.com/tazia-and-gemma-by-ann-s-epstein.html. To read more about this sweeping historical novel, beginning with the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in 1911 and ending fifty years later, see NOVELS. For more details about these and other upcoming events, see NEWS. Please join me to celebrate the book’s publication. I’m looking forward to lively Q & A sessions.

Learn History Through Fiction: Greenwich Village Landmark of 1911 Triangle Waist Company Fire

The site of the Triangle Waist Company fire (March 25, 1911) is a national historic landmark in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Originally named the Asch Building, now the Brown Building, the ten-story terra cotta structure lies just east of Washington Square Park on the campus of New York University. The fire, on the 8th to 10th floor where the factory was located, killed 146 people, mostly women, Jewish and Italian immigrants. Read about one survivor of the Triangle Waist Company fire in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

What I’m Reading: Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Asymmetry (Rating 3): A Self-Referential Title for an Uneven Book — I’m baffled by the advanced buzz for Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry, a three-part novel with uneven writing. The first section, about a young woman’s relationship with a famous older writer, said to be based on Philip Roth, no doubt explains the reviewers’ swooning. But while the Roth-like character is thankfully not portrayed as a creep (I’m an avid Roth fan), the woman is a cipher — inert and uninteresting. The power asymmetry in the unconnected second part, which confronts America’s war in Iraq, is more complex and promising, but undeveloped. It needs a book of its own. Part three, a fictitious interview with the writer, has extended riffs on the literary life that are worth perusing. However, the time is better spent reading real interviews with, and books written by, the authors one admires.

Book Trailer for Tazia and Gemma Released

The cinematic book trailer for my new novel Tazia and Gemma (Vine Leaves Press, May 2018), made by the talented team at Gash Productions, is now available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lijLhwR2Yb0. Read more about the book at the publisher’s webpage http://www.vineleavespress.com/tazia-and-gemma-by-ann-s-epstein.html. Print and e-book formats available for pre-order soon.

Actor and Writer: Convince Thyself

(SPOILER ALERT) The solution to the New York Times acrostic puzzle on April 05, 2018 is: Stella Adler, The Art of Acting, “The reality you create on the stage by opening a jar or threading a needle isn’t so that the audience will believe in you. It’s so that you believe in yourself. Acting is truthful when you yourself are convinced.” Adler’s analysis applies equally well to writing. That is, the reality you create on the page with character, setting, and plot isn’t so that the reader will believe in your narrative but rather that you, the writer, convince yourself. For more thoughts on the art and craft of writing, see REFLECTIONS.

Stone by Stone and Word by Word

Like the mason builds a cathedral one stone at a time, so too the writer builds a book one word at a time. Admittedly, this thought is not original (read Anne Lamott’s classic manual Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life) but it encourages the novelist to aim for a magnificent literary edifice. For more thoughts on the art and craft of writing, see REFLECTIONS.

What I’m Reading: Guts by Janet Buttenwieser

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Guts (Rating 5): Interweaving Illness, Family, and Friendship — Janet Buttenwieser rewards readers with three connected stories. First, the book is a moving memoir of how she found the confidence to speak up for herself to a medical establishment that claimed to know her body better than she did, and how she trained that body to take physical risks she never thought possible. Second, Guts is an appreciation of family, the body’s extension that sustains us when we’re ready to surrender and magnifies our joy when we’re already past bursting. The book’s third tale, which embodies the other two, is a testimonial to friendship. Buttenwieser honors the late friend who she gained through admiration, lost through inattention, regained through commitment, and lost again to cancer. Guts, guarantees that her friend will live within her, and her readers, forever.

Learn History Through Fiction: Bibliotherapy for WWI Veterans

BIBLIOTHERAPY is the practice, dating back to the Ancient Greeks, of encouraging reading for therapeutic effect. After the First World War, traumatized (“shell-shocked”) soldiers returning home were often prescribed a course of reading to help them readjust to civilian life. In the U.S., the American Library Association distributed a list of recommended books while the novels of Jane Austen were advised in the U.K. Today, research on “mirror neurons” in the brain shows that reading literary fiction (but not popular fiction or literary nonfiction) improves empathy, i.e., the ability to experience what others go through as if you had gone through it yourself. Learn more about bibliotherapy in an article at https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/can-reading-make-you-happier. To find a book for what ails you, check out The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies (Berthoud & Elderkin, 2016). See what literary novels were popular in the years ending and after the Great War in BEHIND THE STORY. Read more about traumatized WWI veterans in On the Shore (see NOVELS). What novels would you recommend for our shell-shocked country today?

The Eight “Tudes” of Writing

In an interview, a lighting designer described three “tudes” necessary for the job: attitude, aptitude, fortitude. I added five more for the eight tudes essential to being a writer. In alphabetical order (they are of equal importance, albeit at different stages of the creative process): Attitude (thinking of yourself as a writer) // Aptitude (knowing your craft) // Beatitude (the blessing of a creative mind) // Certitude (confidence in the worth of your idea) // Exactitude (seeking the precise word or phrase) // Fortitude (butt-to-the-chair persistence in the face of rejection) // Gratitude (for the gift of writing in your life) // Latitude (to write “shitty first [or more] drafts”). (See REFLECTIONS for more thoughts about writing.)