Noble Pen Meeting
July 30, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids
I happen to remember that over 20 years ago, when I first started telling people — when I was a teenager — that I wanted to be a writer, I was met with this same kind of, sort of fear-based reaction. And people [...]
Noble Pen Meeting
July 23, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids
Stephen King’s first four novels were rejected. “This guy from Maine sent in this novel over the transom,” said Bill Thompson, his former editor at Doubleday. Mr. Thompson, sensing something there, asked to see subsequent novels, but still rejected the next three. However, [...]
Noble Pen Meeting
July 16, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids
A southern writer named John Kennedy Toole wrote a comic novel about life in New Orleans called A Confederacy of Dunces. It was so relentlessly rejected by publishers that he killed himself. That was in 1969. His mother refused to give up on [...]
Noble Pen Meeting
July 9, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids
…there’s a hormone secreted into the bloodstream of most writers that makes them hate their own work while they are doing it, or immediately after. This, coupled with the chorus of critical reaction from those privileged to take a first look, is almost [...]
