My children are hooked on Faulkner!

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 20:30:00 +0000

At a recent visit to my children’s pediatrician, the doctor asked, “Have you ever read your kids that children’s book by Faulkner?” He said he read it to his six kids a lot when they were younger, that it was their birthday treat.

(This prescriptive advice wasn’t as random as it sounds. The pediatrician and I tend to talk books, while my children roll their eyes, especially since my first novel came out a few months ago.)

I didn’t know Faulkner had written a children’s book. The doctor looked pleased to have stumped me. He pulled out his prescription pad and wrote "The Wishing Tree" plus WILLIAM FAULKNER, in large letters, in case I forgot.

What, I wondered, would Faulkner have to say to kids? That when you mimic the help, it’s important to get the dialect right? That you shouldn’t drink while doing your homework, only after you’re done?

In academic journals, "The Wishing Tree" is described as Alice in Wonderland–esque, aimed at kids ages 8 to 11. It was originally written in 1927 but not published by Random House until 1964, when one of the children for whom it had been handmade offered it for publication (more later on the awkwardness of this). It had been out of print for years, but there were used copies online in middling condition for $30 to $50.

Film critic Judith Crist: “We all have our stories”

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 20:34:00 +0000

In August, the most hated woman in Hollywood passed away. At least that’s what she was called in her obituary in the L.A. Times. When she died at age 90, Judith Crist rolled the credits on a career as one of the most influential film critics in the U.S., regularly sending down often-crushing opinions via the New York Herald Tribune, New York magazine, TV Guide and the "Today Show." Crist was not in anyone’s binder in the mid-1900s. In an era where prominent female journalists couldn’t even fill a manila envelope, she was the whole damn file cabinet.

But I knew her as a powerful professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, and she was one of my favorite teachers, even though she once delivered me a zing I’ve never forgotten — not on my writing, but on being too precious about sexual harassment.

This was the early '90s, and in her seminar, we read columnists like Russell Baker, William Safire, Calvin Trillin and Anna Quindlen. Each week, there was an assignment on a given topic: current events, a controversial issue in the news, an opinion about a new piece of architecture or an exhibit or restaurant. Her inflexible edict: You cannot write in the first person until the final class.

Salon.com > Nichole Bernier

My children are hooked on Faulkner!

Film critic Judith Crist: “We all have our stories”