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LOUISE HAWES



Last Updated: 12/9/2009

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Gender: Female
Status: Single
Age: 102
Sign: Gemini

State: North Carolina
Country: US
Signup Date: 4/26/2006

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Tuesday, February 10, 2009 


Who's Afraid of Thomas Wolfe?

Last month, as I walked through the front door of the Weymouth Center for the Arts, in southeastern North Carolina, I noticed a pleasant, capable woman arranging a magnificent bouquet in a large vase in the entry hall. When I complimented her on the arrangement, she responded that she was glad I enjoyed it. "It's all for you, you know," she added. "Every- thing we do here is for writers."

If you push a pen for a living, you are probably as surprised as I was to hear that anyone, anywhere, devotes themselves to writers. But then you haven't heard about the Ladies of Weymouth. A volunteer group, these dear and tender souls maintain the lushly manicured gardens and the antique-filled rooms of Weymouth. They host events and fundraisers to supply the writers' quarters of this southern mansion with fresh flowers, shelves full of books, and a bountifully equipped kitchen, study and library.

While I hadn't died and gone to heaven, as a Writer in Residence at Weymouth, I had certainly found a place designed to inspire and clear the decks -- I was certain the blocks I'd encountered with my new novel were about to melt away. Even fate and nature were in on the scheme: a fluke in the old house's electrical system meant that wireless was available only downstairs, in the ball room, so my addiction to checking email hourly was effectively nipped in the bud. And while the nearby lake and the quaint town of Southern Pines were both within walking distance, it was chilly and rainy -- perfect weather for staying in and working, right?

Perfect for some. But not, apparently, for my on-again, off-again muse (whom long ago, in the throes of angst and deep irony, I christened Constance). I found myself sitting determinedly at my laptop, waiting. And waiting. After the first day, I broke out the white chocolate; after two, I stopped showering and started sweating. On the third, I heard time's winged chariot revving its engine behind me. (I had signed on for only five days.) Desperate measures for desperate times: perhaps, I thought, Constance was an old fashioned girl and would prefer to be wooed by hand rather than computer. I was, after all, a guest in a house Thomas Wolfe himself had visited. In fact, the plaque on my door announced that I was staying in the Thomas Wolfe room. I didn't own a typewriter like Wolfe's, of course, but I had brought a tablet with me. Dutifully, I took it out and waited, pencil in hand, for free-written descriptions and dialogue to flow. I waited. And waited. By the fourth day, I was biting my nails, over-snacking, and completely demoralized. I went to check my email in the ball room.

That's where I met another, newly arrived Writer in  Residence (there are four bedrooms at Weymouth, with space for four lucky authors). She asked me which room I was in, and when I told her, she replied with delight, "Oh, you got the haunted room!"

"Haunted?" I inquired, not altogether as thrilled as she seemed to be. She told me that she had been coming to Weymouth for years, and that I was fortunate, indeed. Thomas Wolfe's ghost, she explained, was mischievous only to writers who didn't cotton to restless spirits. "He's always wonderful to people who aren't afraid of him," she assured me.
Was I afraid of Thomas Wolfe? I asked myself this on my last night, as I sank into a bed tucked under the famous writer's photo. Not really, I decided. I was much more daunted than haunted. My muse and Wolfe could fight it out, I decided, yawning. I was going to sleep.

Not, as it turns out, for long. At 3 AM I woke in a cold sweat. Something had changed; something was different --about the room, about me. It took my sitting with the voice in my head, then padding to my laptop to transcribe it. It took my writing at break-neck speed my last morning at Weymouth. It took those five frantic hours to accomplish what I'd been hoping for -- I had the way into my new book. I was off and running!

And I'm still at work. Now that I'm home, of course, there are other things competing for my attention: friends and phone calls and family -- all the luscious, messy business of life. But it doesn't matter, because the foundation's been laid, and I know I'm on the right track. Someone , you see, grabbed Constance by the scruff and shook poetry into her. She's on fire! In the wake of my first writer's retreat, then, I'm filled with relief and swamped with gratitude -- to a ghost. Thank you, Tom!!!   
 






4:53 AM 
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Thursday, December 06, 2007 

The Inside Story

First, let me tell you that the cover of my new book, Black Pearls, a Faerie Strand (due out in April), is wicked. It titillates. It's lush and clever. It makes you look twice. It puts the book into a reading niche a lot of people choose first -- gothic, dark, faerie:


And the only way you'll ever know how much better it could have been is by opening the book and looking at the illustrations inside! They're by Rebecca Guay, the same artist who did the cover, but they weren't drawn for the marketing committee. They were created when Rebecca, sensitive and in tune with the stories, made art that became an integral, seamless part of each tale. They are deeper, sadder, truer. Here's one:


         
It never ceases to amaze me the disdain with which marketeers treat consumers. When given a choice between gore and glory, between lust and love, between what's hot and what's timeless, the people who think they know you almost always take the easy, low road.

Maybe you can tell? I wanted to put that second sketch on the cover. But perhaps it's not bad news I lost this battle. After all (she said, coyly) now you'll have to buy the book to see the other five magnificent, heart-full drawings inside! Of course, you can sample more of Rebecca's work for free at her website (rebeccaguay.com); you'll discover visual magic worth a whole host of art groupies!

As for my stories? I think they are, quite simply, the best book I've written so far. And yes, they're dark. Sad, too. But each one is filled with the other side of that human coin, as well -- resilience and love.

Enjoy and
Read on,
xxx
Lou



9:54 PM 
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Saturday, June 30, 2007 
Cover Story
(and a new paperback!)

Ever wonder how much say authors have on the cover of their books? I suppose if you're J.K. Rowling or John Grisham, you can pretty much call the shots. But if you're not, you're usually at the mercy of the marketing and art departments.
 
Which is why, a few years ago,  I fought a losing battle over this cover for my historical fiction, The Vanishing Point:


 
The novel's protagonist is a Renaissance painter, a teenage girl at the time the novel takes place. Does this dumpy dough-girl look like a teenager? Does anyone, anywhere have a thumb like the one stuck the wrong way through the pallette? Does this scream Renaissance? Or Queen Elizabeth with a serious eye condition?
 
I humbly suggested, when shown this masterpiece, that I'd prefer the artist's own work on the cover, since her skill had stood the test of time and I wasn't at all sure the same would prove true of Houghton Mifflin's illustrator. But the powers that be informed me that using my protagonist's work would be "old-fashioned." Hello??? She lived four hundred years ago! I even suggested they slice up an authentic painting, use it as part of a collage, if "now" was the look they wanted. But they told me the cover art had already been bought and paid for. To give them credit, after enduring my wailing and moaning and after the intercession of my terrific editor, Kate O'Sullivan, said powers did agree to put the artist's self-portrait on the BACK cover. Now I ask you, who looks younger? More interesting? -- the double-chinned wonder on the front cover above or this young girl relegated to the back:


 
But wait! Just out from the Good Guys Can Actually Win If They're Willing to Wait Long Enough department, here's some great news. The book's coming out in paperback this fall  And guess what's on the cover? The artist's portrait, cut up and used in a fresh, intriguing collage that really captures the spirit of the book:


 
So let's hear it for a marketing department that finally listened. And an art director who actually read the book. And an editor who hung in there and knows which battles can be won. Yeeeeehawww! Or as my heroine might say, Alé!
 
 
2:21 PM 
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Wednesday, May 02, 2007 

Making Friends and Keeping Them

Libraries are banning it. Parents are blocking it. Countless folks over 40 are dissing, hissing, and spitting. Myspace has certainly attracted its share of nay-sayers and self-righteous critics. But the truth is, most of these outraged judges haven't actually visited the site.
 
If they had, and if they'd taken the time to read some comments and blogs and bulletins, they couldn't possibly help noticing how much good there is mixed with the bad. Yes, there are mysogenous ads ("undress the blonde and get a free i-pod!"), irredeemable appeals to lust and greed ("find wealthy men and beautiful women here,"), unconscionable pandering to the lowest common denominator ("snatch the purses without security seeing you and win a free purse!" --okay, this one's got to go!), and just plain six-year old idiocy ("out-fart the hottie and win a ring-tone!"). But what's really going on here, thanks to the mega-bucks these voracious advertisers are spending? What's happening in spite of their treating us like maleable morons? What's happening is conversation-- a broader, more inclusive dialogue than the world has ever known.
 
I started a Myspace site because I knew that's where many of my readers were. But I had no idea of the vibrant, varied interchange that awaited me. I've read kids' poetry on their blogs, checked out their rants, and critiqued their short stories. I've found them thrilled to have readers, responsive to praise, and hungry for feedback.(Teachers all over this country are trying to get students to keep journals. Hello?? There are millions of them on Myspace.) I've discovered that 300, one of the worst movies ever made, is a hit with young girls because Queen Gorgo is an equal partner, a respected, strong woman. I've come to see that rap and hip hop can be funny, sad, and sometimes, brilliant. (Check out "Africa Dream" by Talib Kweli.) I've chatted with people, old and young, professionals and students, artists and zealouts, poor and rich, from Tailand, the U.K., Zimbabwe, Norway, Pakhistan, Venezuela, Yeman, and yes, Iraq.
 
And I've learned the same lessons that everyone on Myspace learns: to get friends, you need to reach out. To keep them, you need to be kind, considerate, and alive to the best in everyone.They're the same lessons Our First Friend Tom is learning, and I was proud to see him pitch in with the American Idol drive to feed children. I know he sacrificed some paid ad space, and I'm hoping he also made a sizeable contribution. (Tom?)

So what IS myspace? To date, in the history of the globe, there's never been a better way to make the world smaller. There's never been a more delicious, confusing, silly, hopeful, and confounding melting pot -- a peaceful, nearly endless playground on which we humans can mix and mingle and grow. And until the recess bell rings, I'm staying out here with the kids!!
2:59 AM 
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Saturday, April 21, 2007 

On the Bright Side...

The other night I spoke to some three hundred people about writing. I didn't want this gig. For one thing, it was a freebie, a favor to my local bookstore and to my community. For another, it came two days after the massacre at VA Tech. I couldn't imagine mustering any enthusiasm or performance verve when that senseless slaughter kept interposing itself between me and every mundane, waking moment.
 
Guess what? I am deeply, astonishingly grateful to have spent that evening with
42 Young Authors from kindergarten through 8th grade, and with their teachers, principles, librarians and families. I hadn't heard of this program, spear-headed by the county's media specialists, whereby student writers are awarded local school prizes, then sent to a state-wide writers conference, and finally recognized with medals, a reception, and a bound, hard-cover copy of their book! The county also bought each child (and all their school libraries) a copy of one of my books, and that's where I came in:
 
I arrived after the two buffet lines had thinned and most people were settled in tables at the side of the room or in the inevitable rows of folding chairs down the middle. As I talked to these kids about story telling, as I did lively, interactive exercises with them, as I watched them collect and clutch trophies the size of small dogs, and as I sat afterwards, to sign their copies of my books, I was overwhelmed. If kids everywhere had HALF this much encouragement, a lot more hands would go up in classrooms when I ask who's interested in books! I guarantee you a least three of those Young Authors will grow up to be old ones. And every one of them will be a lifelong reader. They were of all colors, all abilities, and all economic backgrounds. The thing they had in common was that they cared about words and were proud of it. Made me proud, too.
 
And you know? It didn't take away the horror of what we're capable of doing to each other in paranoid, crazed frenzies. But it sure helped put that sick stuff in perspective. Because we're also capable of such caring, such generosity, and such faith in the future. I think another word for it is...love.
1:22 AM 
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Thursday, April 12, 2007 

A VONNEGUT MEMORY TO SHARE


My generation's angry, sarcastic, brilliant spokesman is dead. Kurt Vonnegut wrote Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, and a host of other novels that helped voice our post-war confusion and defiance. And, like Mark Twain before him, Vonnegut captured wondrously the dilemna of finding ourselves in a world not made for us, a mad siren that woos us with its dazzling mix of delights, terrors, beauty and pain.

So I'll hug my signed copy of Bluebeard (which the Times obit didn't even mention!) a bit closer today. I haven't told many people the story of its signing, but now feels like the right time: Years ago, my teenage daughter and I took our respective favorite Vonnegut titles (she was clutching Cat's Cradle) to his reading at the Ethical Culture Society in New York City. After he finished, we rushed toward the aisle to get our books signed, but Vonnegut (who'd looked and acted pretty inebriated during the reading) had vanished!
 
We asked an elderly usher what was up, and he winked, pointing to the back of the huge cathedral-like edifice. "He snuck out the back," he told us. So the two of us took off, in the opposite direction from the rest of the crowd exiting out the front.  We wandered through the dark bowels of the building, coming on a small back door. But when I pushed it open, the street was empty. No one moved on the sidewalk in front of us. We were about to turn back, when I heard a cough BEHIND the door. I peered around it, and there he was, rumpled and crumpled and HIDING. Vonnegut looked up sheepishly. "You caught me," he said.
 
We got our books signed that day -- in a nearly illegible scrawl. And that's my Vonnegut story. I feel guilty about having mashed him behind that door, but I was young and so wanted Robin to have an extraordinary memory of the reading. Now she does.
 
What touched me most in the Times' obit today  is the same thing that drew me to Bluebeard. It's the evidence of a large, wounded, but brave heart behind the words. In this case from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater:
 
"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies — 'God damn it, you've got to be kind.' "

2:46 PM 
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Friday, April 06, 2007 
The Joke's on Me!

So I'm doing a reading in a bookstore last weekend, and it's April 1st. (I should know better, right?) I decide to play a little April Fool's joke on the audience, and I tell them that before I read from my new book (Anteaters Don't Dream - thanks for asking ), I want their feedback on a work in progress.


I reassure them I'm only going to read the first sentence, but that it's kind of long and I would value their input. I open a notebook and read one of the longest, most famous sentences in all of English Lit: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,  it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of  Darkness...etc." You know the drill, right?


When I finish, I look up, smile, and ask, "So, what did you think?"
Lots of people are laughing, nodding, and shouting out things like, "That's great, Charles."

But one man raises his hand, so I call on him. "Well," he says. "I liked the first part all right, but it got a little repetitive, and maybe you should think about re-working the ending."

Hmmmm. There went my April Fool's joke! I didn't have the heart to tell him he was critiquing Charles Dickens!!


12:49 AM 
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Saturday, March 31, 2007 

In My Dream Library!


In a galaxy far, far away, in my dream library, there would be NO age sections at all. Divisions, if any, would be by genre or content, not readership. Picture, if you will, an Abraham Lincoln reading tower in the biography room. It is arranged vertically and conveniently, with picture books (the first place I start any research) about Lincoln on the bottom shelves where little kids can reach them; middle grade biographies next; then longer books, for both teens and adults on the higher shelves. Yes, there would be carrels and chairs scattered around, but the readers sitting in them would be old and young, forced to mix and mingle and share their enthusiasms for the topic.

In my dream library, adults, very few of whom currently read picture books -- unless they're parents or teachers or writers (or students in MFA programs ) -- would discover the fun, lyricism and sophistication of contemporary picture books. Young children who want to know more than a picture book tells them, could read "up," literally and figuratively, combing slightly higher shelves for a chapter book or an easy reader about Lincoln. Middle graders would be able to read "up" and "down" without shame, YA's could read up (most do, anyway!), and adults would venture into the iconolclastic, thrilling world of YA books. In other words, all of our reading worlds would be broader, richer, and more communal. By extrapolation, picture a poetry tower, a mystery tower, a self-help tower, a tower of faith, a holiday tower, and on and on, as the season and whims of readers and librarians dictate.

Make sense? I think so. Is it going to happen? Probably not before a whole herd of avian swine take to the sky. But I can dream, can't I?!

Want to read more? This is part of a recent lecture, "How Old Is a Young Adult, Anyway?" For the whole text, click on SHOP TALK at louisehawes.com.
3:22 AM 
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Monday, March 12, 2007 

So the new book is just out! Anteaters Don't Dream and Other Stories is published by a literary (picture noses toward the ceiling and a mortar board on every editor's head) press, which means a microscopic run and no advertising budget. But it's my first adult title, and I would have placed it with Atila the Hun if he'd promised not to get dirty finger prints all over it!

Hence this blog -- if you live in NC or KY,  I could really use warm bodies and support at the few local readings I'll be doing:

Sunday, April 1
 2 p.m.
McIntyre's Fine Books & Bookends
 
2000 Fearrington Village Center
Pittsboro, NC 27312
Phone: 919 545-5727
 
I plan to read from several stories and sign copies of the book. For writers and aspiring writers, I'll talk a bit about what makes a short story -- and what doesn't. Plus, this is an April Fool's reading, so who knows what surprises await?!
 
Thursday, April 19
 7 p.m.
Quail Ridge Books
 
3522 Wade Avenue
Raleigh, NC 27607
Phone: 919 828-1588
 
Quail Ridge is a Raleigh institution. "Next door" to Whole Foods and Meredith College, it's a popular stop for both students and the community at large. I always love reading and signing here. A crowd of myspacers would make things perfect!
 
 Wednesday, May 30
 5 p.m.
Spalding University's
Celebration of Recently Published Books
 
Crystal Ballroom
Brown Hotel
355 West Broadway
Louisville, KY 40202
Phone: 800-896-8941, ext. 2423
 
Each season, Spalding University honors new books and their authors. Held in the spacious ballroom (loaded with chandeliers and very tasty finger food) of Louisville's grandest old hotel, this group reading always plays to a packed house. With the added attraction of famous Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, who could resist?

You know what? It's a lot easier when the publisher arranges these things. But you know what else? I love this little book and I hope you will, too...y'all come!
 
4:40 AM 
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