Author Spotlight
There Are Dry Tiny Horses Running in My Veins: Mourning Barry Hannah
Below are a few eulogies, remembrances, encomia, etc. for the late Barry Hannah. No introduction needed. Thank you, Barry.
Jeremiah Chamberlin (editor at Fiction Writers Review):
I experienced both sides of Barry’s honesty when I was a student of his in 2003 at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. The day of my workshop, we moved around the table in usual fashion–what’s working, what isn’t. Janet Peery was co-teaching the session, and among the group were writers such as Ben Percy, Lisa Lerner, Dave Schuman, Dave Koch, Forrest Anderson, and John Struloeff. I was giddy to be in the room with one of my literary heroes. And while the others were offering feedback on my writing, I stole the occasional glance to see how Barry was reacting. Most of the time he spent flipping fairly idly through my pages. So perhaps I shouldn’t have been a surprise when, upon his turn to speak, he began gutting the opening paragraph of the prologue to the novel I’d been working on. Sentence by sentence, word by word, he worked like a butcher, cutting back the fat. Let’s just say that there wasn’t much meat left when he got down to the bone. Or, rather, he showed me that there hadn’t been much muscle to begin with. Would it be too much to say I felt eviscerated along with my work?
Yet it wasn’t cruel. It was honest. And when the furnace of my face cooled I saw that he was mostly right.
But I didn’t want my teacher and literary icon to have this impression of my work (I swear, the rest was better). So, later that night, during the evening cocktail hour, I slipped him one of my stories, one which I’d been carrying around for the better part of an hour rolled up in my fist, wrinkled and creased. And when I finally got the nerve to give it to him, I tried hard to assure him that this wasn’t extra work. Nothing I was looking for feedback on. Nothing he even had to read during the conference. Just, well, something I wanted him to have. And I’m sure I must have said something inane like, “I hope you enjoy it.” As if it were some sort of gift. Walking away, I was certain that I had made things worse.
And the next morning, when Barry found me at breakfast, I was more than sure of my mistake. “Here, kid,” he said, handing the story back to me across the table. Without another word, he walked off. Cut to blistered cheeks again. In front of an entire table of your peers, Barry Hannah has just returned the story you gave him the evening before, the story meant to redeem you. “Thanks, but no thanks,” is what you read in this gesture. And in that moment you imagine escaping back to Michigan several days from now–it’s a nice, long trip from Tennessee, one that will give you plenty of highway to replay this moment over and over and over.
Yet when I unrolled my story, he’d scrawled this across the top in loopy script: “Great story. Thanks for giving me this. I’m nominating it for Best New American Voices.” Simple. Generous. An unasked for kindness. And I realized that it wasn’t about you in that classroom; for Barry it was about the work.
(read the rest here)
Michael Bible (author of My Second Best Bear Rug” (Paper Hero Press) and “Gorilla Math” (Greying Ghost Press)):
Barry was my teacher and my hero. Over the last five years I got to know him and it was a pleasure and a gift. There are many stories about Barry. Anyone that met him once had a Barry story. I live in Oxford and our Conference for the Book for this year was in honor of Barry and starts Thursday (not sure what’s going to happen now). The town is in a state of shock and mourning. AlI I can think about is how Barry was the funniest goddamn person I ever knew. It was the Hannah Show for two and a half hours each week of workshop. He didn’t so much teach us as he did lead us. He was our Captain. He would put that on his
syllabus.”I’m your Captain for the next six weeks.” He thought if we didn’t get better at writing, it was his fault. He wanted us to be better writers, but I think more he wanted us to be better humans, to laugh more, to try for joy. He used that word at lot. I think it was his favorite word. Joy. But he told us how hard joy was to get and keep. That you had to fight for joy and defend it from the haters of our world. He talked about his friendships with other writers, Brautigan, Carver, Lish. He was hard as hell on us too, but somehow gentle at the same time. He would destroy you in workshop and then buy you a beer and act like you were his oldest friend. It wasn’t personal. And when he gave you praise you knew you’d earned it. If he liked your story he would say things like, “this is a work of genius and deserves wild applause.” And when he was harsh he gave it to you straight. Never going into much detail. I remember getting a story back my first year and all it said was, “Oh, please. I don’t believe this. Lacks authority.” He liked that word, too. Authority. We worked hard because we didn’t want to let our Captain down.
He rode his motorcycle around town with a dew rag on his head, always grinning. He beat back cancer twice and smoked till the day he died. He loved his students and considered us friends and treated us like peers. He wanted to start an MFA band at some point called the Mother Fuckers Association, M.F.A. but we never got around to it. He loved music and considered it the highest art. He believed in teaching writing, that it could help you if you listened and worked as hard as you could. But he hated the idea of “school.” When class started he would shut the door and say, “Ok, that’s school out there. This is life in here.” He got me out of my literary theory requirement by telling the chair of the department (a Princeton educated Marxist critic) that there was no such thing as literary theory. For the first two years I knew him I couldn’t talk I was so scared of him. I was terrified of his books they were so good. When I read them I thought this is some weird genius guy who works and works on every sentence, sharpening them. But after I got to know him I realized that his prose, his sentences, were not worked over at all. It wasn’t technique. That was just the way he talked. He talked the way his prose sounded and his prose sounded the way he talked. He was always living each sentence he said. Diamonds flew out every time he opened his mouth.
He had been sick ever since I knew him and in the past few months it got worse. Last Friday he came into the bookstore and I was working. He had his oxygen tank on and finished his cigarette before walked in. We had just been talking about him, wondering how he was doing and then bam there he was, walking through the door. He joked with us about stuff in the news, bought some books. After a while I had to go on my dinner break and I said, “Bye, Barry.” And he said, “Bye, Michael. Bye, my buddy.” He looked better than he had in a long time and was happy. In his last few days he was surrounded by students. He gave us absolutely everything he had.
The following is his syllabus from fall of 2007. The original was typed on a typewriter.
Hannah fall 07. office hours:1-3:30, Wed, 205 Bondurant.
Writing Workshop 698.
This semester let’s concentrate on entertainment as apposed to mere “character study,” and stories of no passion but still-life “insights.” Why does lack of action, red-blooded emotion, plague graduate school fiction? This old flag has waved too long.
What happened to pirates, storms, fiends, horror, temptresses with cleavage, lies, theft, greed, lust, random acts of meaningless (or meaningFUL) violence? Have the news media captured all the good stuff?
I’d love to see us recapture the passions of old. This instructor has groaned too long over the riskless, “subtle” flat “studies” unneeded and rejected, for the main part, by even the reading public.
We’ll have 4 stories about a month apart.
Stories due finals day. No final as such exists.
Deadlines are dead final. One absence is allowed. Two mean failure.
I will be your Captain for the next six weeks. Happy sailing. The better you get, the more fun – for me, for you.
Lincoln Michel (Gigantic editor, Faster Times book editor fiction writer/poet, DJ):
I was among the dwarves over in Alabama at the school, where almost everybody dies early. There is a poison in Tuscaloosa that draws souls towards the low middle. Hardly anybody has honest work. Queers full of backbiting and rumors set the tone. Nobody has ever missed a meal. Everybody has about exactly enough courage to jaywalk or cheat a wife or friend with a quote from Nietzsche on his lips.
These are the opening sentences to a story called “Ride, Fly, Penetrate, Loiter.” It is hard to talk about writing like Hannah’s. He is the kind of mad-cap genius you are almost afraid to read when you are a young writer, or, hell, an old one, because he smashes every rule and bit of sense and builds it back up from scratch into something raw and gleaming. You can’t help but let him sink into you. I’m doing it already. What do I love about this passage? Look how beautifully the tone and town are set, yet without any concrete details or the expected plot set-up. Hannah’s sentences always careen to their own logic, their clauses leap out of the bushes at you. They are like the folk sayings transmitted from some other world. And that last sentence is one of my favorite in fiction. A writer needs to swallow some Hannah sentences on a regular basis. He is good for the soul.
Here’s my own attempt:
One comes to Barry Hannah in the same way one drives a car through a building and keeps going. The metaphor stops there.
Barry Hannah is nothing if not a master of presentation. His work does not represent or narrate the event. His work presents the event itself, immediately: the moment of insurrection, a Civil War of its own. “Ray, I didn’t think it would ever get to this”: this is the moment of fissure, of quake, and the rhetoric of madness which defines Hannah’s “I”–the water liar who teases us with the truth like waving a gun playfully only to, finally, fire it.
How to mourn Barry Hannah? Surely we re-read, or read for the first time. But there is another life to mourning: we do not forget. Though I have never met Hannah, his voice, his southern intimacy, has been etched into me. That warmth and gentleness which will slip subtly away and forget itself in moments of high despair, of an “I” lost to itself–that passion, that fecund joy which seats each sentence, that laughter simultaneous with the very worst hurt: it might be trite, but when we read Hannah, we give him life, even, or especially in his absence.
It is very worst hurt which, in Hannah, laughs: love, loss, and Luckies. It is the impossible joy of mourning, of giving life to the dead. The Captain is finally flying.
“I’m going to die from love.”
Tags: Barry Hannah
http://wilsonkevin.blogspot.com/2010/03/barry-hannah.html
Kevin Wilson has a classic BH story.
http://wilsonkevin.blogspot.com/2010/03/barry-hannah.html
Kevin Wilson has a classic BH story.
Square Books Owner (and former Oxford Mayor) Richard Howorth on Barry:
http://squarebooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=451:world-of-letters-oxford-mourn-loss-of-barry-hannah-&catid=1:latest-news
Square Books Owner (and former Oxford Mayor) Richard Howorth on Barry:
http://squarebooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=451:world-of-letters-oxford-mourn-loss-of-barry-hannah-&catid=1:latest-news
Oh Michael, that made me cry.
Oh Michael, that made me cry.
Many do not realize that Gordon Lish did for Barry Hannah what Lish did for Carver — in fact, more so. This will become apparent in an essay I have coming from CRITIQUE and in my Lish book for Routledge. I found this out in Lish’s archives at the Lilly Library — for instance, Lish co-wrote Hannah’s novella RAYand stories in CAPTAIN MAXIMUS more than any Carver story — RAY was just a bunch of incoherent pages written drunkenly that Lish culled together, because Knopf wated a follow-up novel for the successful AIRSHIPS, stories that mostly appeared in ESQUIRE when Lish was fiction ed. there.
HANNAH broke aay frm Lish when he left Knopf though the influence was still there…and when he stopped drinking he didn’t need the crutch of the editor anymore.
Many do not realize that Gordon Lish did for Barry Hannah what Lish did for Carver — in fact, more so. This will become apparent in an essay I have coming from CRITIQUE and in my Lish book for Routledge. I found this out in Lish’s archives at the Lilly Library — for instance, Lish co-wrote Hannah’s novella RAYand stories in CAPTAIN MAXIMUS more than any Carver story — RAY was just a bunch of incoherent pages written drunkenly that Lish culled together, because Knopf wated a follow-up novel for the successful AIRSHIPS, stories that mostly appeared in ESQUIRE when Lish was fiction ed. there.
HANNAH broke aay frm Lish when he left Knopf though the influence was still there…and when he stopped drinking he didn’t need the crutch of the editor anymore.
“He got me out of my literary theory requirement by telling the chair of the department (a Princeton educated Marxist critic) that there was no such thing as literary theory.”
Barry Hannah FTW!
“He got me out of my literary theory requirement by telling the chair of the department (a Princeton educated Marxist critic) that there was no such thing as literary theory.”
Barry Hannah FTW!
i have never read any of his work. had never heard of him really (i guess i’m still fairly new to this world). just read the first pages of Airships. this is something i must read. then i will be mad i didn’t hear of him sooner.
i have never read any of his work. had never heard of him really (i guess i’m still fairly new to this world). just read the first pages of Airships. this is something i must read. then i will be mad i didn’t hear of him sooner.
Not sure this is the time but I’ll say that I’ve heard this before–and I’ll repeat what I’ve said in reply.
If you look at Lish editing Carver, Lish is altering fundamental sentence structure and the way that those sentences relate to one another. That on top of everything else.
Whereas Hannah’s sentences belong to Hannah at a linguistically subatomic level. However he was edited, in whatever mode he was working, Barry’s sentences were unmistakable. His yawp. His music.
Not sure this is the time but I’ll say that I’ve heard this before–and I’ll repeat what I’ve said in reply.
If you look at Lish editing Carver, Lish is altering fundamental sentence structure and the way that those sentences relate to one another. That on top of everything else.
Whereas Hannah’s sentences belong to Hannah at a linguistically subatomic level. However he was edited, in whatever mode he was working, Barry’s sentences were unmistakable. His yawp. His music.
mr. hemmingson. did you just promote your book in the comments section of a post of eulogies of a writer? who has not been dead a week? shame on you.
mr. hemmingson. did you just promote your book in the comments section of a post of eulogies of a writer? who has not been dead a week? shame on you.
thank you very much to the 4 of you for this.
he is and will be missed sorely.
thank you very much to the 4 of you for this.
he is and will be missed sorely.
I was looking at my Hannah books last night and realized that most were signed, which I was delighted to see. In Ray, he wrote: “To Kevin, Sabres up!” Hahaha.
The only one I haven’t read yet is Yonder Stands Your Orphan. I may have to start on it now. But like Larry Brown’s last novel, I almost don’t want to enter it.
Does anyone know if that last novel of Barry’s will be coming out?
I was looking at my Hannah books last night and realized that most were signed, which I was delighted to see. In Ray, he wrote: “To Kevin, Sabres up!” Hahaha.
The only one I haven’t read yet is Yonder Stands Your Orphan. I may have to start on it now. But like Larry Brown’s last novel, I almost don’t want to enter it.
Does anyone know if that last novel of Barry’s will be coming out?
I was doing pretty much the same thing, wondering about the same question. Last I knew he was carving it into stories–but I don’t at what stage, etc. One consolation was that I realized I hadn’t read Geronimo Rex in long enough that it was going to be effectively new when I start another read.
Yonder has much to love.
I was doing pretty much the same thing, wondering about the same question. Last I knew he was carving it into stories–but I don’t at what stage, etc. One consolation was that I realized I hadn’t read Geronimo Rex in long enough that it was going to be effectively new when I start another read.
Yonder has much to love.
[…] At htmlgiant, Alec Niedenthal, Jeremiah Chamberlain, Michael Bible, and myself comment on his life and writing. Here is what I said, in regards to one of my favorite […]
[…] htmlgiant.com has posted a collection of eulogies and remembrances given by writers and editors, which can he found here. […]
The Tin House interview (from 09) has a lot about where Sick Soldier is/was:
http://tinhousebooks.com/blog/?p=724
The Tin House interview (from 09) has a lot about where Sick Soldier is/was:
http://tinhousebooks.com/blog/?p=724
Mr. Hemmingson,
Clearly you never met Barry. I encourage you to pull your head out of your immensely unimportant academic theorizing and show some respect for the artist that Barry was and for his grieving fans and family. Your shameless self promotion at a time like this is reprehensible.
Mr. Hemmingson,
Clearly you never met Barry. I encourage you to pull your head out of your immensely unimportant academic theorizing and show some respect for the artist that Barry was and for his grieving fans and family. Your shameless self promotion at a time like this is reprehensible.
This is a fine collection of eulogies. Thank you for compiling them for us to enjoy. Barry’s work and character touched so many of us. He will be missed.
This is a fine collection of eulogies. Thank you for compiling them for us to enjoy. Barry’s work and character touched so many of us. He will be missed.
I once had to edit a segment of a show during which Barry spoke. We were trying to shorten his segment for rebroadcast. My sound guy and I gave up. You are right Drew, Barry’s writing AND speaking exist on a subatomic level.
I once had to edit a segment of a show during which Barry spoke. We were trying to shorten his segment for rebroadcast. My sound guy and I gave up. You are right Drew, Barry’s writing AND speaking exist on a subatomic level.
These are great. Wow, Michael Hemmingson, please remove Lish’s dick from your mouth and pay some respect.
These are great. Wow, Michael Hemmingson, please remove Lish’s dick from your mouth and pay some respect.
great post, alec.
lot of great hannah love to pour through here.
great post, alec.
lot of great hannah love to pour through here.
[…] Niedenthal subsequently put together a collection of remembrances for the same site entitled “There are Dry Tiny Horses Running in My Veins: Mourning Barry […]
Barry: Fuck you kindly.
Bobby, I mean. ;)
Barry: Fuck you kindly.
Bobby, I mean. ;)
Now that is great.
And you didn’t plug your book!
Now that is great.
And you didn’t plug your book!
Freudian slip much?
Freudian slip much?
Hannah’s connection with Lish was not meant as a slight, but as acknowledgment that Lish helped him become who he was. My listing the article/book was to back up my claims — y’know, as in, I have done my homework.. Drew Johnson: you have no idea what you are talking about because you have done no research beyond your bedroom. I have looked at all of Barry Hannah’s edited manuscripts, covered in beer and whiskey stains, and Lish wrote a lot of those classic sentences in RAY and CAPTAIN MAXIMUS. Hannah fans won’t like to hear this truth but it’s the truth In Ray, the last three sentences, and the “Sabres Up!” –well, not Barry’s words: Lish did the same here as he did with Carver: added in his own stuff. In fact there is a letter from Hannah stating Lish is a co-writer more than an editor. At the time Hannah was so drunk and on cocaine (and yes, I know people who did it with him at the time) he could not write coherently and Lish backed him up with Knopf and saved his career. I have read all of Hannah’s letters to Lish saying so: “You saved me, Captain.” Period. Don;’t believe it? Go to the Lily Library and see for yourself.
But so what? Yes, a loss of a great writer. It saddens one. Very much. Indeed. Yes.
Hannah’s connection with Lish was not meant as a slight, but as acknowledgment that Lish helped him become who he was. My listing the article/book was to back up my claims — y’know, as in, I have done my homework.. Drew Johnson: you have no idea what you are talking about because you have done no research beyond your bedroom. I have looked at all of Barry Hannah’s edited manuscripts, covered in beer and whiskey stains, and Lish wrote a lot of those classic sentences in RAY and CAPTAIN MAXIMUS. Hannah fans won’t like to hear this truth but it’s the truth In Ray, the last three sentences, and the “Sabres Up!” –well, not Barry’s words: Lish did the same here as he did with Carver: added in his own stuff. In fact there is a letter from Hannah stating Lish is a co-writer more than an editor. At the time Hannah was so drunk and on cocaine (and yes, I know people who did it with him at the time) he could not write coherently and Lish backed him up with Knopf and saved his career. I have read all of Hannah’s letters to Lish saying so: “You saved me, Captain.” Period. Don;’t believe it? Go to the Lily Library and see for yourself.
But so what? Yes, a loss of a great writer. It saddens one. Very much. Indeed. Yes.
Amy Hempel once wrote a great profile on Hannah in VOGUE, in the early 80s. Wish it was online. See also Larry McCaffery’s interview with him for more great insights.
Amy Hempel once wrote a great profile on Hannah in VOGUE, in the early 80s. Wish it was online. See also Larry McCaffery’s interview with him for more great insights.
wow…Michael Hemmingson, you must of REALLY known the truth about Barry. What’s your deal, man.
wow…Michael Hemmingson, you must of REALLY known the truth about Barry. What’s your deal, man.
Your research misses the point. As do you, you sad, sad little man.
Your research misses the point. As do you, you sad, sad little man.
This made me cackle.
This made me cackle.
Is anyone else picturing Michael Hemmingson crashing Barry’s funeral, much like those Kansas preachers at soldiers’ funerals?
Is anyone else picturing Michael Hemmingson crashing Barry’s funeral, much like those Kansas preachers at soldiers’ funerals?
mr. hemmingson. i have looked barry’s manuscripts at the ole miss archive they paint a different picture. the sabers up line comes earlier in the book and likely lish just chose to put it as the last sentence. not really writing it as you claim. much of the book was written out by hand most of what we know as ray is in there but has been edited down and many things that lish chose to cut were sometimes better or just as good. barry never claimed that lish wasn’t a strong influence on his work. he praised him offen. in may ways lish let the stories and novels of barry’s (and carver’s) breath. let the really good lines come through. lish’s place in american letters in secure, no doubt. but raymond carver and barry hannah wrote beautiful (and sometime better) stories without him too. i will be interested in seeing your book when it comes out and im glad you’re doing the work on lish. i think much of the objection to your comment was timing. it would have been more appropriate for a later post or one on lish. and no, sir. you were not backing up your claims by plugging your book. sorry.
mr. hemmingson. i have looked barry’s manuscripts at the ole miss archive they paint a different picture. the sabers up line comes earlier in the book and likely lish just chose to put it as the last sentence. not really writing it as you claim. much of the book was written out by hand most of what we know as ray is in there but has been edited down and many things that lish chose to cut were sometimes better or just as good. barry never claimed that lish wasn’t a strong influence on his work. he praised him offen. in may ways lish let the stories and novels of barry’s (and carver’s) breath. let the really good lines come through. lish’s place in american letters in secure, no doubt. but raymond carver and barry hannah wrote beautiful (and sometime better) stories without him too. i will be interested in seeing your book when it comes out and im glad you’re doing the work on lish. i think much of the objection to your comment was timing. it would have been more appropriate for a later post or one on lish. and no, sir. you were not backing up your claims by plugging your book. sorry.
[…] Alec Niedenthal’s collection of remembrances (which includes a syllabus from one of Hannah’s classes) […]
[…] has. A.N. Devers‘ piece evokes the shock of learning about his death. HTMLGiant gathers a few thoughts from admirers. Justin Taylor recalls Hannah’s influence. Nathan Deuel offers a contrary view. Wells […]
WHAT DO YOU SEE WHEN YOU TAKE OFF YOUR GLASSES? THE WORLD? MUST BE FRIGHTENING.
WHAT DO YOU SEE WHEN YOU TAKE OFF YOUR GLASSES? THE WORLD? MUST BE FRIGHTENING.
Michael Herringson is probably right. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t a self-serving prick. BTW, Michael: The editor’s job is to edit. They add, subtract, make changes. You should know this, considering that, according to your wiki page, you’ve published over 5000 books. Highlighting Lish’s contributions to Hannah’s book does nothing but point out the obvious and put most of the attention on you. I mean, you seem like you’ve got the self-promotion part down pat. Give it a rest.
Michael Herringson is probably right. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t a self-serving prick. BTW, Michael: The editor’s job is to edit. They add, subtract, make changes. You should know this, considering that, according to your wiki page, you’ve published over 5000 books. Highlighting Lish’s contributions to Hannah’s book does nothing but point out the obvious and put most of the attention on you. I mean, you seem like you’ve got the self-promotion part down pat. Give it a rest.
The Carver manuscripts at Ohio Univ. do not show Lish’s editing, as Tess Gallagher wanted it, but the files in Lish’s show different. The same with Hannah’s. The fact is, there are letter from Hannah in these files acknowledging the lines Lish hasput in, including the “Sabres.” You cannot argue against it when the writer himself says it.
The Carver manuscripts at Ohio Univ. do not show Lish’s editing, as Tess Gallagher wanted it, but the files in Lish’s show different. The same with Hannah’s. The fact is, there are letter from Hannah in these files acknowledging the lines Lish hasput in, including the “Sabres.” You cannot argue against it when the writer himself says it.
50, not 5000. Give me time. I mean, you haven’t even published one, right?
50, not 5000. Give me time. I mean, you haven’t even published one, right?
On the Facebook Barry Hannah Page, someone posted this:
Mark Mooneyham: He knew I had been drinking too much lately (circa 1998) and asked me as I came out of City Grocery, “Shouldn’t you be working on your Galleys?” I said, “I don’t have any to work on.” He said, “That’s my point.” One of the best wake up calls of my life.
Very pertinent, as shows what a wise man Mr. Hannah was — so I say the same for the whiners and ass brackets here: Don’t you have any galleys to work on? Oh — and why not?
MH
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hemmingson
On the Facebook Barry Hannah Page, someone posted this:
Mark Mooneyham: He knew I had been drinking too much lately (circa 1998) and asked me as I came out of City Grocery, “Shouldn’t you be working on your Galleys?” I said, “I don’t have any to work on.” He said, “That’s my point.” One of the best wake up calls of my life.
Very pertinent, as shows what a wise man Mr. Hannah was — so I say the same for the whiners and ass brackets here: Don’t you have any galleys to work on? Oh — and why not?
MH
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hemmingson
Slippers.
Slippers.
My bad — it was in Vanity Fair.
My bad — it was in Vanity Fair.
Listen, you miserable disrespectful douchebag. Fuck off. People are mourning Barry Hannah’s death, and you’re using it as an excuse to stir the shit to benefit your book. Then you close with an appeal to your authority (“Do you have any galleys to work on?”), by which I guess you mean you publish a bunch of books on university presses and ragamuffin presses and the occasional reputable press, which I guess is a fine enough accomplishment, although, if I were you, I’d wish I had published one great book instead of fifty forgettable ones. Also, if that’s your claim to authority, I guess you mean to say it trumps the reciprocal authority of the commenters in this response thread who publish their books with Harper Collins and a bunch of the most reputable small presses in the United States. To me, that’s a ridiculous way to resolve the dispute, which boils down to a question of basic civility, which you, motherfucker, lack and lack and lack. My suggestion is the next time you get a Google alert about Barry Hannah or Gordon Lish, you run off and do what you apparently do — talk and talk about yourself some more — unless it’s here at HTML Giant, because you’ve made yourself more than unwelcome here.
Listen, you miserable disrespectful douchebag. Fuck off. People are mourning Barry Hannah’s death, and you’re using it as an excuse to stir the shit to benefit your book. Then you close with an appeal to your authority (“Do you have any galleys to work on?”), by which I guess you mean you publish a bunch of books on university presses and ragamuffin presses and the occasional reputable press, which I guess is a fine enough accomplishment, although, if I were you, I’d wish I had published one great book instead of fifty forgettable ones. Also, if that’s your claim to authority, I guess you mean to say it trumps the reciprocal authority of the commenters in this response thread who publish their books with Harper Collins and a bunch of the most reputable small presses in the United States. To me, that’s a ridiculous way to resolve the dispute, which boils down to a question of basic civility, which you, motherfucker, lack and lack and lack. My suggestion is the next time you get a Google alert about Barry Hannah or Gordon Lish, you run off and do what you apparently do — talk and talk about yourself some more — unless it’s here at HTML Giant, because you’ve made yourself more than unwelcome here.
P.S. — I enjoyed the self-hagiography of your Wikipedia prose.
P.S. — I enjoyed the self-hagiography of your Wikipedia prose.
I like your work, Michael, but I’m a little what-the-fucking about all of this self-promotion.
I like your work, Michael, but I’m a little what-the-fucking about all of this self-promotion.
snap.
snap.
Michael, I loved your work on the Vollmann anthology. I’m something of a fan of yours, and that anthology is one of my favorite books (it made the top shelf on my favorite bookshelf). That said, you are embarrassing yourself here. Let it go, relax. Please. You are a talented guy – this stuff is below you. There are enough people out there already seeking out your work – no need to shove it in our faces.
On a lighter note, that wiki page is really really bad. I visit it every now and then (to see your bibliography), and it really is counter-productive.
Michael, I loved your work on the Vollmann anthology. I’m something of a fan of yours, and that anthology is one of my favorite books (it made the top shelf on my favorite bookshelf). That said, you are embarrassing yourself here. Let it go, relax. Please. You are a talented guy – this stuff is below you. There are enough people out there already seeking out your work – no need to shove it in our faces.
On a lighter note, that wiki page is really really bad. I visit it every now and then (to see your bibliography), and it really is counter-productive.
would everyone (anons and hemingson) chill out, please. a better use of this space would have been to have commentors post, if they had wanted to, their own bh stories/memories/whatnot. id have much rather read that than this current back and forth. i do think the back and forth w/r/t lish and hannah is interesitng, but is probably deserving of its own post/thread, which will come in time.
would everyone (anons and hemingson) chill out, please. a better use of this space would have been to have commentors post, if they had wanted to, their own bh stories/memories/whatnot. id have much rather read that than this current back and forth. i do think the back and forth w/r/t lish and hannah is interesitng, but is probably deserving of its own post/thread, which will come in time.
Don’t think anyone linked this good one:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/03/writers-remember-barry-hannah.html
Don’t think anyone linked this good one:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/03/writers-remember-barry-hannah.html
Enough,
Shouldn’t you be working on your galleys instead of anonymously ranting with a green face? What? Oh yeah…of course…
Enough,
Shouldn’t you be working on your galleys instead of anonymously ranting with a green face? What? Oh yeah…of course…
Ryan, Indeed. Why waste time with cowards who post anonymously? It’s so easy to be a snicker when no one knows who you are. We all know “who” these people are, to pull from a typography — the same guys who sit at the back of a class or coffee house and mutter, “I can do better than any of you” but never do a darn thing, ever.
I have watched these type pop up and disappear for many years.
I have a cool Barry story, when I met him, but is too long to relay here. Must be time for an essay, and if I took the space to write it, the same anons will cry “self promo!” ;)
Ryan, Indeed. Why waste time with cowards who post anonymously? It’s so easy to be a snicker when no one knows who you are. We all know “who” these people are, to pull from a typography — the same guys who sit at the back of a class or coffee house and mutter, “I can do better than any of you” but never do a darn thing, ever.
I have watched these type pop up and disappear for many years.
I have a cool Barry story, when I met him, but is too long to relay here. Must be time for an essay, and if I took the space to write it, the same anons will cry “self promo!” ;)
i for one would be interested in reading the story if you ever write it up, sure sure. also thank you for linking the vanityfair thing.
i for one would be interested in reading the story if you ever write it up, sure sure. also thank you for linking the vanityfair thing.
Dear Michael Hemmingson,
I’m right now working on galleys. And for my own book. So fuck off.
Dear Michael Hemmingson,
I’m right now working on galleys. And for my own book. So fuck off.