This Writer's Life: Books about Writing and
Writers
Updated January 2007
King,
Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.
King's
childhood poverty led him to escapist films--mainly genre horror flicks of the
1950s--and he developed a taste for the imaginative possibilities of horror and
fantasy writing. He contributed to his brother's underground newspaper, was
editor of the high school paper, and eventually wrote sports for a small local
daily before attempting--and publishing, slowly--short stories. After college,
marriage, and during his brief career as a high school English teacher, King
work steadfastly on a number of manuscripts, typing his first published book,
Carrie, in the laundry room of his singlewide trailer.
In
the years since, King has published over 30 novels, two books of non-fiction,
dozens of short stories, and several movie scripts. He admits that while his
work has been panned by literary critics, he is following the same guidelines
and using the same writing skills as any other more respected literary authors.
His stories, he says, find him, and he simply follows them where they
lead.
In
addition to recalling his past and offering ideas about writing, King writes
movingly of being hit by a van two years ago and undergoing serious
rehabilitation--his leg was shattered, four ribs broken, and he suffered severe
weight loss and other injuries.
As a writer, I found his testimony about his life and his craft moving and convincing. I think his story would appeal to any of his fans, others who aspire to write, or anyone looking for an inspiration rags-to-riches story.
Salzman,
Mark. True Notebooks. ©2003. (Non-Fiction).
Salzman, whose previous works of non-fiction include a memoir of his adolescent infatuation with martial arts (Lost in Place) and essays about his experience teaching English in China (Iron and Silk), here chronicles his first year teaching a writing class at Central, a juvenile prison for some of L.A.’s most violent young offenders.
As we meet Salzman’s students with him each week, we learn little or nothing about their crimes. In most cases, Salzman doesn’t know their stories, either, although he is aware that most are in for “187”—Central’s code for murder.
Despite the violence the teens have committed, Salzman, and we, as readers, rarely see the ugly and criminal side of his students. Instead, we get to known Francisco, Nathaniel, Jimmy, Benny, and the others in the group as writers and as people. They write each week about their families, their loneliness, their fears, their hopes, and we grow to care about them, just as Salzman does. As they share their stories, we learn about their backgrounds—broken families, alcoholic, drug-addicted, and incarcerated parents, their lack of male role models—and it becomes clearer how they were sucked into gangs and learned to use violence to settle conflicts and establish their masculinity and power.
Salzman had originally volunteered to teach the writing class as a way to get ideas for fleshing out a character in a novel he was writing, but the longer he works with the teens, the more attached he becomes to them and more committed to the idea that through writing, they can find a voice and gain strength and self-confidence that gang life, broken families, and violence never offered them. His role is not that of counselor, and his role in the group is to offer topics, suggestions for revision, and to keep the inmates from straying from the task of writing. “Tell Jackson his life ain’t meaningless,” Francisco urges Mark after Kevin Jackson reads aloud a dark piece. “If I did that,” Salzman tells him, “he would know that I was just saying it to be nice. He has to work it out for himself, which he’s already doing. My job is to encourage him to keep working.” Although he never steps in and specifically advices any of his writers, Salzman does end up in a supportive role—writing letters to young men who are leaving juvenile detention for adult prison, and in Kevin Jackson’s case, attending the boy’s trial.
When, after working in the facility for a year or so, he is asked at a public reading why he devotes his time to helping criminals—especially those in Central, who are, in most cases, destined to long and even life, sentences—instead of helping other troubled teens avoid the same fate, Salzman admits that this a valid question, and one he asked himself. “What is the value of a positive experience if it is only temporary? How do you weigh the advantages against the disadvantages of affection, or of aspiration? All I could say after all I’d been through with the boys…was that a little good was better than no good at all.”
Readers will come to appreciate Salzman’s efforts, the willingness of the Central staff to let him experiment with the writing group, and the inmates themselves, and their struggles to understand and deal with their pasts, their present incarceration, and the likelihood that most of them will spend decades behind bars. And while we know that they are violent and we see them behave like “clowns” (Salzman’s word) at times, they are also likeable and even funny at times. “Man, some of the stuff I wrote, if you read it, you’d think I was some kind of ax murderer,” Carlos says. “You are a murderer,” his classmate says. “Not a ax murderer,” Carlos points out.
Salzman’s writers are drug dealers, murderers, and thugs. They are undereducated and in some cases, unrepentant about their crimes. But in his story about life inside the writing group he created with them at L.A.’s Central Juvenile Hall, they are humanized and like Salzman, we see them for more than just their crimes. Through their writing, they expose their frailties and we grow to care about what happens to them’
True Notebooks is one of the most powerful and surprisingly poignant works of non-fiction I have read this year, and possibly ever. If you are a teacher or a writer, Salzman’s work will be especially touching—his ability to convey just how important writing and teaching are will move you and affirm your beliefs in these activities. For others, simply seeing the criminal justice system—and the juvenile justice system in particular—is eye-opening and because of Salzman personal account, especially moving.