Where all the storytellers are above average

Non-Minnesotans have no idea how cool this is, but Minnesota playwright Kevin Kling may take over at "Prairie Home Companion" when Garrison Keiller retires. THIS MEANS I MAY ACTUALLY HAVE TO LISTEN TO 'PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION,' PEOPLE.

Kevin Kling is outstandingly talented and if you like my writing at all, you will love his. Along the lines of Lynda Barry, kind of. If you ever get a chance to see his "Ice Fishing Play," take that chance. Rob and I still quote from it.

Writing is all in the family

Phyllis Greene is the mother of Bob Greene, former Chicago columnist and author of a zillion books that I love ("Be True to Your School," "When We Get to Surf City," "And You Know You Should Be Glad,") despite the fact that his overly nostalgic style can be grating.

Now Phyllis Greene, 90 and in hospice care, has an elegantly written blog of her own. I read her book about losing Bob's dad, "It Must Have Been Moonglow," and you can see that writing runs in their family.

Via Metafilter.

Not everyone gets a happy ending

I admire Emily Gurnon's Pioneer Press piece about her parents and their WW II courtship.

So many of these stories end with the man coming home safe to his patient sweetheart and starting a family and everything is peaches and cream from then on. This story is blunter, and more honest.

And here is another piece that gets at the same point, through a scrapbook that a British blogger found. In most stories, it would have just catalogued the happy times (and dog-show fascination) of an ordinary couple. But this story packs a punch.

Both these links are really worth a lead. These are the stories Hollywood doesn't tell.

Roger Ebert remembers

I love almost anything Roger Ebert writes (although I still don't understand why he liked "Splice" so much!), and he has a wonderful paean to summers gone by.

So bad it's good

The annual Bulwer-Lytton results were announced the other day. This is my favorite winner:

Winner: Children's Literature
"Joanne watched her fellow passengers -- a wizened man reading about alchemy; an oversized bearded man-child; a haunted, bespectacled young man with a scar; and a gaggle of private school children who chatted ceaselessly about Latin and flying around the hockey pitch and the two-faced teacher who they thought was a witch -- there was a story here, she decided."

--Tim Ellis, Haslemere, U.K.

Spaced out

I'll always remember the one snotty college English professor who went through one of my papers and marked every time I left two spaces between sentences, and wrote a snotty note about it. Thanks, dude. That was really not too relevant to my grade, but I'm sure it made you feel pretty superior.

Not Martha links to an article about why this isn't required.

Rest in peace, teacher

Carol Bly has died.

The author, teacher, war protester and ex-wife of Robert "Iron John" Bly was my creative writing teacher when I took an accelerated writing class at St. Paul's Hamline University (my dad's alma mater) my junior or senior year in college at St. Thomas (St. Thomas and Hamline belong to the ACTC, the Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities, and students at one school can take classes at any other.)

A compliment from her was high praise indeed, and I can still remember how a story from her could spellbound the entire class.