At the end of The Audiobook, I invited listeners to “take the time to listen,” partly because Mark (co-author of Seeking Quan Am) had said, “If one talks too much about the good times, people perceive a candidate for the VFW. The one that pours out all the horrors is seen as a basket case. Try to balance it out and tell the truth, people haven’t time to listen.”
Years ago I used a device to help me teach about good writing, although the device in question might be insulted by the term. He was a coyote who I referred to simply as Coyote. In the storytime in which Coyote existed, I had met him in the produce department in Wegmans.
I wanted to get us to Friendship Village, the rehabilitation center on the outskirts of Hanoi, founded by an American veteran and once again Hai had to be persistent and not give up on the mission.
It is March 1969 in a place west of Saigon that the men called the Tobacco Field. They also called it Ambush Valley. Civilians were rare here, so when this group of farmers walked nearby, Captain Meager (hands on hips in middle photo) went to talk to them. Mark (who took the picture) said Capt. Meager asked them if there were Viet Cong nearby and they said, no, they didn’t know about any Viet Cong.
This was an introduction to Seeking Quan Am that I kept for a long time before going in a different direction.
Mark Smith and I were sitting with a friend in a coffee shop in Ithaca, N.Y. waiting for a mechanic to repair my car. The three of us had been to Vietnam together and we were enjoying a reunion visit. Mark wore a cap with “Vietnam Veteran” embroidered above the bill. We sipped our coffee and nibbled pastry, talking. Suddenly, a stranger appeared at our table, thrust his hand at Mark, and boomed, “Thank you for your service!” Mark, who was holding his coffee cup in his right hand, used his left to simultaneously take the man’s hand and wave him away. The man said something else in a hearty voice and left.
Women are not less fierce than men, less dedicated to ideals, less passionate about beliefs. But women, at least when they are not trying to succeed in a man’s world, write differently than men. They use language differently. Their angle, the focus of their lens, is different. Not better, or not necessarily so, just different.
This is another story about Coyote, who is entirely a literary device, albeit one with a personality.
“Tell me a story,” I demanded.
‘Demanded’ might be too strong a word because I meant it as a compliment. Coyote tells such good stories and I love losing myself in them. Like the year at Christmas when I heard The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for the first time and I listened while I was looking deep within the tree and I thought I had actually got into Narnia somehow.
There is something very satisfying about writing on a typewriter—rolling the paper in, the active little clicks, ripping the paper out if what you wrote
A year ago I sat on a folding chair in an ordinary meeting room listening to poetry. The room had a table with the usual
PROMPT: “How is truth manipulated to serve the ends of war-making? Why would lies be thought to be necessary? Are lies ever justified? What is
Sign up for updates, bonus materials, and announcements by selecting your interests below. Mailings will be approximately monthly, unless a special opportunity comes up. Choose your area of interest for focused information.