Search Results for: Birds of a lesser paradise

Got a very thoughtful e-mail from a blog reader early this a.m. giving me the good  morning news that  Amazon has chosen Megan Mayhew Bergman’s “Birds Of A Lesser Paradise” as one of the best books of March, and that is great news and justly deserved. It is out this week.  Bergman’s short story collection is an exploration of family, love, commitment and it is brilliant, touching and powerful. Megan lives in nearby Vermont, and is part of the Battenkill Experiment, which means if you buy her wonderful new book – she is reading at the bookstore March 9, 6:30 p.m. – she will sign and personalize the book for you. Connie will ship the book anywhere in the country. You can use PayPal at the Battenkill website or e-mail connie directly at [email protected]. (You can also get signed copies of my books there, as well as those by Jenna Woginrich, James Howard Kunstler, and Megan.).

A wonderful way to support a brilliant new author, a great independent bookstore, and to also discover a wonderful writer. I loved this book, it is really a wonderful achievement. Megan came by the farm with her two daughters and couple of weeks ago and I am working on convincing her to get a donkey. Simon did most of the arguing for me.

I hope you will take my word for it and get this book, on Amazon if you like, through Connie if you choose, anywhere you want. I am so pleased to hear this news. Cream rises. Writers need support as well as bookstores, especially young ones breaking through in a cluttered and changing market. Megan’s blog has also become one of the “Blogs I Love” on this website.

You can meet her charming self there as well.

When I began my life as a writer, I wanted more than anything else for someone – another writer hopefully – to pick up one of my books and say, “wow, this is one of the best books I’ve ever read, and this writer is really going to go places.” Perhaps because it never happened, at least not in that way, I have found the experience of coming across a wonderful book by a young writer to be among  the most thrilling and meaningful experiences of my life.

I rarely focus on the work of other writer’s because I think people can make their own choices, and are bombarded by so much hype. Publishing has changed since I began writing, and it is much more difficult for brilliant new writers to be seen and read. Especially literary writers and even more so, short story writers. I was introduced to Megan last week, and I not heard of her even though she lives near Bennington, Vermont and teaches at Bennington College. I fell in love with this book almost from the first page, at the wrenching descriptions of a mother and daughter struggling to connect and the equally wrenching portrait of a parrot named Carnie.

Megan Mayhew Bergman is, in my mind, one of these amazing writers I always dreamed of being. Encountering her first work – “Birds Of A Lesser Paradise,” out March 6, from Scribner is one of those magical encounters. My first short-story collection, “Dancing Dogs” will be published this September and I hope people love it as much as I loved this book. Life is curious, in the coincides and connections it offers up.

Megan’s new book – I see that is is getting lush and richly-deserved reviews –  is extraordinarily powerful and beautifully written, and I related to so many of her themes – an astonishing ability to portray the spirits of animals, a fierce believe in self-determination, an elegaic sense of family and place. You and I know one another, and I believe just about everyone reading this on this site will love this writer’s work. You can check Megan out on her blog. (Megan is overcoming her literary sensitivities and is building a new site). And more good  news – Connie Brooks of Battenkill Books is taking advance orders for “Birds Of A Lesser Paradise.”  Megan will personalize any books purchased through Battenkill, which can be reached on the store’s website or by calling 518 677-2515. The book will also be available anywhere books are sold. The Battenkill Experiment only grows.

How fortunate I am to have come across a gifted writer like this. She lives on a small farm with goats, dogs, a horse and some chickens. I think I will get her to go for a donkey. I can so imagine her writing about a donkey. She is coming out next week to meet Simon and Lulu and Fanny.

I can’t tell you how much I look forward to reading and seeing how much you enjoy this very striking new work, the first of many from a very brilliant new literary voice. I love that my dream comes true, also, even in reverse and over time.  Do not ever give up on your dreams.

Sometimes,with people and animals there is an indefinable magic, and you can read and write about it, but you know it when you see it, and I saw it this morning with Jenna Woginrich and her new horse, Merlin. I should say, in the interests of full disclosure, that I am not entirely comfortable with horses. The first one I was on was spooked by a gunshot and ran me some miles into a tree-limb when I was nine and left me unconscious in a Rhode Island woods. That was the last one I rode on. And I am not much better in riding stables. Just do not feel at home in them, places that just do not seem made for people like me, another of those worlds. I mention this only because I thought that would make it difficult for me to photograph Jenna and yet when I saw her and Merlin, I felt completely at home, and I whispered to my Canon, “magic, let’s get it.”

So yes, I do talk to my camera, give it pep-talks, exhortations, exclamations and strategies. There is a mystery to the human animal bond, magic. Jenna writes about it on her blog. Megan Mayhew Bergman writes about it in her great new book “Birds Of A Lesser Paradise,” (she is reading tonight at 6:30 p.m. at the fabled Battenkill Bookstore, where Maria and I will be) and I write about. But having a good camera and the right lens and the right light and the right animal and human all in one spot at the same time.

I see this magic sometimes with Maria – with the donkeys, with Rocky, with the dogs. I have experienced it – Orson, Izzy, Rose, Lenore, Frieda. With Simon.  I saw it clearly this morning in the riding stable where Jenna keeps Merlin. Jenna is like me in some ways, and was not born with a riding crop in her hand. So that made the photos all the more challenging, all the more interesting. The pictures touched a nerve, and the one above is my favorite. For me, it captures that mystical place that sometimes forms between the right person and the right animal. See what they can do to us, for us, if we let them, if we are open to it, if we learn to listen.  All sorts of things go into that chemistry, and I do not know enough about Jenna to know precisely what brought her to this barn this morning. I was glad I was there, though. And grateful to have had the chance to capture it.

So I have a new blog I love, by the writer Megan Mayhew Bergman. Booklist said readers of this writer will be shocked, amazed and entertained. True. Delighted also. Bergman was, like many literary writers, wary of putting up a blog. Worried about her dignity, she said. She is getting past that, and will soon be over it,  and has gotten a sweet new start to the wonderful experience of a writer connecting with readers in a very new, powerful and effective way.

Bergman is a Southern writer, new to Vermont, with her two kids, vet husband and assorted animals. I think it will be a wonderful experience – for me, you, her – to see this writer and this life of a very talented writer evolve through her work and through the new technology available to people like me and her to get our story out there. Her blog will grow and evolve, and we have the privilege of seeing that happen. You will be hearing a lot about Megan.

You all know what this evolution is like, a great fusion of creativity and individuality. One by one, creative lives get to do their work. Megan gets it, I think, on every level. Her very wonderful new book, “Birds Of A Lesser Paradise” is being published on March 6 by Scribner and is available everywhere, but especially through our very own Battenkill Books. You can read an amazing book – wait until you see how Megan writes about animals, people and family – and support and encourage a very hot young writer and also support the Battenkill Experiment, and help Connie Brooks terrorize Amazon. You can buy Megan’s new book by calling 518 677 2515 or through the store’s website or by e-mailing Connie or her mother Marilyn at [email protected]. Megan, we are so fortunate to have you in this community (digital and real).

You can also follow Megan’s blog by going to the Blogs I Love header at the top of this page. I am very pleased to add Megan to Mary Muncil, Jenna Woginrich, Connie Brooks, Paula Josa-Jones and soon, some other fierce and gifted individualists bring some of the most exciting ideas and writing to the Web, where creativity lives these days. You read stories all of the time about how literacy and civilization is collapsing, but that is not so on the Internet, where real ideas are in full bloom. If you don’t believe me, check out Megan Mayhew Bergman and her spanking new blog. Feel free to tell her, as I will, how to make it better, and watch it grow. You will be richly rewarded: you will get to see a rare thing, a successful writer in the making and help make it happen.