The Writing Life: reflections by a working writer. The Writing Life

Reflections of a working writer, a university screenwriting professor, and the editor of Oregon Literary Review.

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Charles Deemer

Editor,
Oregon Literary Review

MFA, Playwriting, University of Oregon

Writing faculty, Portland State University (part-time)

Retired playwright and screenwriter.
Active novelist, librettist and teacher.

Email: cdeemer(at)yahoo(dot)com

The eagle flies!

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Finalist, Oregon Book Award

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"Can We Talk About Me For A Change?"
Playwright Debra Neff Nathans

Inkygirl
Debbie Ridpath Ohi, a weblog for writers (resources)

Silliman's Blog
Ron Silliman, contemporary poetry and poetics

Maud Newton
literary links, amusements, politics, rants

Darren Barefoot
Technical and creative writing, theatre, Dublin

Rob's Writing Pains
Journey of a struggling writer.

Mad, Mad World
Cara Swann, fiction writer, journalist, "reflections on humanity, random news & my life."

Writeright
Random musings on a writer's life and times.

Flaskaland
Barbara Flaska's compilation of the best online articles about music and culture.

Write Of Way
Samantha Blackmon's written musings on writing (composition and rhetoric).

Alexander b. Craghead: blog
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Rodney's Painted Pen
Rodney Bohen's daily commentary "on the wondrous two legged beast we fondly refer to as mankind." His pen runneth over.

Frustrated Writer
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scribble, scribble, scribble
Journalist Dale Keiger teaches nonfiction scribbling to undergraduate and graduate students at Johns Hopkins University.

The Unofficial Dave Barry Blog
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The official blog of science fiction / horror author Terence West.

William Gibson Blog
Famed author of Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic: The Screenplay.

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Joe Clifford Faust's "blog of a working writer: tracking writing projects, musings on the creative process, occasional side trips into music, media, politics, religion, etc."

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A blog by John D. Nugent - Composer, Playwright, and Artistic Director of the Johnson City Independent Theatre Company

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Official site of occult fiction author Sean-Alonzo, exploring symbolism, alternative history, philosophy, secret societies and other areas of the esoteric tradition.

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Maunderings of Alex Epstein, tv scribe, about life, politics, and the tv show I'm co-creating.

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Glenn's adventures in screenwriting.

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Hebrew modern literature at its best, by Corinna Hasofferett.

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Robin Reagler's poetry blog.

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Author of the Sam Turner and Stone Lewis novels.

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Writer's Blog.
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The Writing Life
A blog by Katey Schultz.

It Beats Working 9-5
A screenwriting blog by a young Canadian screenwriter.

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The Writing Life...
"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's."
J.D. Salinger

"All my best friends are writers and are dead."
A friend over beer, Berkeley, winter, 1959

"And it came to pass that all the stars in the firmament had ceased to shine. But how was anyone to know?"
The Half-Life Conspiracy

After October 31, 2006,
new posts are published at


The Writing Life II

(Posts archived here are from 01/10/03 - 10/31/06)

 
Friday, March 31, 2006  

Intensity
What I liked best about John Adams' Nixon in China last night was the intensity of the orchestration, delivering an unrelenting rhythm full of tension and promise of dramatic action to come. The payoff doesn't exactly come, or at least not in the way I expected it, and there is little "story" per se in the libretto -- to use a differentiation I make in my classes, this is a situation, not a story. Still, the music drives forward so strongly, I was on the edge of my seat through most of the evening. I especially like the almost surreal third (last) act, called "the most difficult" by the critics, in which the great men of power strip off the trappings of power by literally undressing and changing into pajamas on stage while singing reflective, contemplative thoughts which become layered on one another. I found the effect powerful. However, not all Portland opera goers agreed: an unusually large number in the audience "fled" this performance, most at the end of act one, more at the second intermission, perhaps 10% or more of the sold out house gone by the not-totally-enthusiastic curtain call. I counted 27 empty seats after first intermission in the seating area around me. More after the second. Too bad. Portland Opera needs to be encouraged for doing this, which actually was a co-production of five regional opera companies, most in the west.

This, despite my comments above, was one of the better performance events I've seen in Portland in years. The best events seem to come from the Golden Age of Portland theater twenty years ago. In particular, I remember:
  • the remarkable company Peter Fornara put together under an improbable CETA grant for a year, which one week opened in repertory four plays in four nights (if memory serves me right, they were Cabaret, Joe Egg, American Buffalo and Marat/Sade)
  • Kathleen Worley's one-woman show about Virginia Woolf
  • Katherine King in Coward's Separate Lives
  • Storefront Theatre's remarkable original post-apocalyptic rock opera
  • my own hyperdrama Chateau de Mort performed in the historic Pittock Mansion (at one moment, eight scenes going on simultaneously on three floors) with its original cast with B. Joe Medley and Gaynor Sterchi playing the Brodeys (putting it on this list is not merely vanity: a Seattle arts critic called it the second most important Northwest arts event in its year, second only to a Seattle performance by Barishnikov)
  • the Paul deLay Band before Paul went to prison for drugs, with several members (guitar, piano) who went on to lead their own blues bands later, especially when playing in intimate clubs like the White Eagle
  • other plays at Storefront, the New Rose Theatre, Theatre Workshop and elsewhere too numerous to mention


All of these events happened in the late 1970s and 1980s. Nixon in China is right up there with them.

3/31/2006 05:56:00 AM | 1 comments

Comments:
I didn't know The Production Company was started with a CETA grant.
How about that.
Thanks, Charles.
-eric
 
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