The Inkblotter at The King’s English

If only WordPress would let me post the spiffy slideshow. Ah well, you’ll just have to click through to see the many fantastic entries in our Design Bella’s Wedding Competition! The top three entries, decided by Shannon Hale (author), Sheryl Gillilan (Art Access), and Carol Phillips (Whimsy Clothing) stand to win:

First Prize, Bella’s Bracelet, courtesy of The King’s English Bookshop ($75 value)
Second Prize, $40 Gift Certificate to Whimsy, courtesy of Whimsy Clothing
Third Prize, $30 Gift Certificate to Graywhale CD Exchange, courtesty of Graywhale

Lucky them!

Design Bella's Wedding Dress Competition at TKE

[where: 1511 S 1500 E, Salt Lake City, UT]

Since I am too lazy to blog today, allow me to direct you over to Shannon Hale’s fascinating ruminations on toddlers, four-year-olds, and stories.

I don’t know how I missed this earlier this month (ok, maybe I do):

Paperback Dreams, a new documentary by San Francisco filmmaker Alex Beckstead, chronicles the history of Bay Area bookstores Cody’s Books and Kepler’s Books and Magazines, and in doing so, it offers a microcosm of the struggles faced by many independent booksellers over the past 50 years. . . .

A native of Salt Lake City, Beckstead grew up shopping at the King’s English Bookshop, Sam Weller’s Zion Bookstore and the now-defunct Waking Owl. After he moved to San Francisco, Beckstead became a fan of Kepler’s and Cody’s. “I worked in Menlo Park on documentaries and bought a lot of my books for research at Kepler’s,” Beckstead said. “When I heard Kepler’s was closing [briefly in 2005], I was shocked: it’s in one of the most affluent, educated cities in America—just 15 minutes from Stanford University—and it made me realize that if an independent bookstore couldn’t survive there, there must be a larger story.”

I’m glad that we are partially responsible for the existence of this documentary; once you go indie, you never go back! The Paperback Dreams website is fantastic, except for the part where it tells me that I missed an advance screening at BEA. Sigh. I suppose it was unavoidable that I miss things… I’ll just have to watch it when it airs on PBS in November.

I’m marking my calendar right now; if anything deserves a documentary, it’s independent bookstores. In fact, I’ve been telling anyone who will listen that we deserve our own reality TV show. Don’t you think? If plumbers can get on TV (and is it just me, or is Mike Rowe irresistible even when covered in coal dust? I have to admit right now, though, that it frightens me that the Discovery Channel is now on the Hot or Not? bandwagon…) then booksellers definitely deserve their 15 minutes. Agents/producers, if you’re interested you know where to find me!

As locals will know, the Writers@Work Conference is in full swing down at Westminster. The author line-up this year is fantastic: Steve Almond, Dean Bakopoulos, Victoria Redel, Kim Addonizio, Abigail Thomas, Ladette Randolph, Martha Rhodes, Kate Coles, Rick Campbell, and Peter Rock are all teaching workshops, doing readings, and generally dispensing their knowledge and author-glow to all the attendees. For aspiring and practicing writers, there’s nothing in Salt Lake City that’ll get you more bang for your buck, as they say. If we didn’t have to man the book table, we’d be crashing workshops ourselves — maybe next year!

It’s not surprising that the media have closely followed the publication of Paul McGill’s Finding the Lost Weekend. It’s also not surprising that some of the publicity has been less than happy with the book. A novel based on an actual event in McGill’s history, Finding the Lost Weekend tells a story of alcohol and abuse at a Salt Lake Catholic high school in the late ’60s.

Some folks feel that books about priests and abuse should be fact — that fiction is not the way to treat topics as serious as this. Others, of course, disagree and argue that fiction about troubling issues is sometimes even more effective at provoking dialogue and discussion than memoir or autobiography. With fact, you can get bogged down in the nitty gritty details of verification: Was that the exact conversation? Was this person really there at this hour on this day? Or is the author blending/confusing/distorting events? With fiction, you can move past all that to the truth of the story, the ‘fact’ that horrible things happen to people, and need to be acknowledged.

But I think most interesting is McGill’s own statement about his book. After a few interviews, he decided to write an Author’s Commentary on his book. I’d like to quote one passage in particular (caps author’s own):

“I have never denied or confirmed a sexual assault at the real “Lost Weekend Retreat.” However, the opportunity and risk of such an attack was ever present and alive for more than (40) hours while approximately (80) 17-18 year olds were turned loose to drink freely, all at the encouragement of Catholic priests. I am onlly one of some (80) classmates who took advantage of the opportunity. Who would want their child placed in this situation?

The depiction of rape and abuse in my book of FICTION are symbolic only. Each event symbolizes the “rape” of trust, loyalty, innocence, and most importantly the soul, as the scandal continues to contort year by year and as the number of crippled souls mount.”

I used the real “Lost Weekend Retreat” as a foundation to build my work on. It made the perfect setting to make my point.”

Interesting, no? You can find out more about the author on his homepage, Paul-McGill.com, and you can buy the book here. Signed copies, of which we have several, also contain the full text of his commentary on the book and the controversy surrounding it.