I guess I’m not the only one reimagining Hemingway history. As those of you who follow my blog know, I’ve written my third novel called Hemingway’s Daughter. As those of you who are Hemingway fans also know, Hemingway did not have a daughter. My second novel, a mystery called The Rage of Plum Blossoms, was just published by Kindle Press in ebook form and the paperback comes out in a few weeks. After publicizing it for a few months, I will re-dedicate to editing Hemingway’s Daughter and get that out.

Anyway, the above mentioned new book looks really interesting. Hemingway (well, really Hadley) famously lost a suitcase of almost all  of his manuscripts in early 1922. Hadley, his first wife, was to meet him in Switzerland, where he was working to get a story for The Toronto Star on the Lousanne Peace Conference. Thinking he might want to work on his own writing (and Lincoln Steffens had asked to see some of his work), Hadley put virtually 100% of his sketches and written stories of the moment into one valise. Hemingway was as yet unpublished and Hadley packed all she could find including carbon copies. While the train was still standing in the Gare de Lyon, Hadley went to buy a bottle of Evian water leaving the suitcase unattended. When she returned, it was gone. Only two stories remained: Up in Michigan, which was buried in the back of a drawer as Gertrude Stein said it was unpublishable (Ha! Shows what she knew!) and My Old Man as it was out with an editor.

While some Hemingway scholars have suggested that maybe this was a good thing as he had to start over with his improved leaner style and a bit more experience, obviously it was an incredible loss to scholars as well as to Hemingway. He was fairly devastated by it and tried not to blame Hadley. However, a bit of bitterness remained as to that topic  despite Hemingway’s forever love for Hadley.

In any event, a new novel by Shaun Harris called The Hemingway Thief tries to find out what happened to those unpublished sketches. It is Mr. Harris’ first novel and features Henry “Coop” Cooper, a struggling novelist kicking back in Mexico. He becomes embroiled in a deadly race for Hemingway’s stolen works.”

The works have never been found. If they turn up in an attic…well, very valuable indeed.

The book could be a lot of fun. Check it out! I know I will when I get a chance.

Another review and description. Sounds like a rollicking mystery and real fun.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/08/the-hemingway-thief-shaun-harris.html

Christine

 Hemingway famously huffed: “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.” 

Faulkner also apparently commented that Hemingway seemed to think he had to marry every woman he fell in love with.

Every other year the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State University holds a conference that draws speakers from around the world.  The conference is of course focused on themes related to William Faulkner, but a second writer is included whose themes and style could be compared and contrasted to Faulkner’s own. 

This year, the Center went with Ernest Hemingway.  Quoting the director of the Center, Dr. Christopher Rieger, “they’re probably the two greatest American novelists of all time, frankly – certainly of the 20^th century.”   

In order to select the invitees to the conference as speakers, the Center made proposals for twenty minute papers on any topic related to William Faulkner and/or Ernest Hemingway.  While many of the presentations are academic and talk about critical analysis of the works of the two authors, the Center also has encouraged events aimed at more general audience for those of us who simply enjoy the study of either Hemingway or Faulkner or both of them.   

The conference is to be held October 20 – 22.  It sounds very fun.

Wonderful idea!  Vets with writing skills perfect their techniques at a writing conference/retreat at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and educational Center. Please read about it below as we near Veterans Day. Love, Christine

Military Veterans Attend HPMEC Writing Retreat

 

PIGGOTT, Ark. — Nine talented writers came together recently to hone their skills and to form a community in Northeast Arkansas at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum & Educational Center (HPMEC) writing retreat for military veterans.

The weekend retreat, held at the site where Ernest Hemingway penned much of his iconic war novel A Farewell to Arms, was funded through a partnership with the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Dr. Rob Lamm, professor of English at Arkansas State, served as mentor for the retreat. A mentor at other HPMEC retreats, Lamm said, “These are very special people-veterans from many branches of service who share a love of literature. Ernest Hemingway would have been impressed by their writing talents.

“Even more, he would admire their courage, as some chose to revisit the drama and trauma of their experiences by writing memoirs, fiction and poetry. Courage was the unstated, yet ever-present theme, of the retreat. Some writers recalled battles we associate with war. Others wrote of battles for social acceptance and struggles with personal demons.”

Writers began each day with exercises to get started, often looking at samples of Hemingway’s writing as models for their own. They enjoyed lunch together at the educational center and ended the afternoon with a group meeting to reflect, share and discuss the processes used by each writer.

Between formal meetings, the writers had time to work individually, often in the same rooms where Hemingway wrote. The format allowed writers time to focus on their own creative interests, to receive feedback on their work and to form relationships with other writers.

Writers’ retreats for general audiences are held twice annually at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum in Piggott. The next retreat is scheduled for Monday through Friday, Nov. 7-11, with Andrea Hollander of Portland, Ore., serving as mentor. Contact the museum for more information at (870) 598-3487 or email HPMEC director Dr. Adam Long, at adamlong@astate.edu.

 

A bit of literary trivia starting with, of course, Ernest Hemingway.

1. Hemingway hated the cover art for The Great Gatsby. When Scott Fitzgerald showed the copy of The Great Gatsby to Hemingway, he did not like it at all. Fitzgerald told him not to be put off by it, “It had to do with a billboard along a highway in Long Island that was important to the story.” Apparently Fitzgerald told Hemingway that he, Fitzgerald, had initially liked the jacket, but now he didn’t. Hemingway wrote about this anecdote in A Moveable Feast.

   

   

2. Nancy Drew author Carolyn Keene wrote under a pseudonym. The books were actually ghost written by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym ‘Carolyn Keene’.

3. Louis May Alcott refused—despite public hunger—to have her heroine Jo March marry Laurie, the neighbor who was in love with her. Instead, she married Jo to Professor Bhaer and Laurie ended up with her sister Amy.

4. Emily Brontë only published one novel, i.e. Wuthering Heights. Brontë died at the age of 30 a year before the book’s publication so she was not around to see its success.

   

5. Jane Austin’s works were all published anonymously. Her first novel, Sense and Sensibility was published under the name “By A Lady.” Her next novel, Pride and Prejudice was labeled “By the Author of Sense and Sensibility”. It wasn’t until after her death that her brother revealed her name to the public.

   

6. J.R.R. Tolkien’s first name stands for John Ronald Reuel.

7. Vladimir Nabokov wrote Lolita on notecards. According to Life Magazine, the Russian author wrote most of his novels on 3 x 5 notecards and kept blank ones under his pillow whenever inspiration hit.

8. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was almost called “The Last Man in Europe.” The British author took awhile to name his 1949 dystopian novel. He also had trouble deciding what year to set the story and considered 1980 and 1982.

   

9. The monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has no name. The monster from the 1818 gothic horror is referenced as “wretch, demon, and monster” among others. In the book, Frankenstein is the name of the young scientist.

10. John Steinbeck is credited with giving Route 66 its nickname. “66 is the mother road, the road of flight” John Steinbeck described in his Pulitzer prize-winning Grapes of Wrath.

11. William Golding had a hard time publishing The Lord of the Flies. According to Golding’s daughter, Judy Carver, “My earliest memory is not of the book itself, but of a lot of parcels coming back and being sent off again very quickly. He must have been grief stricken every time it returned.”

    

12. Starbucks coffee is named after a main character in Moby-Dick. The Seattle founded coffeehouse considered Pequod (Captain Ahab’s whaling ship) before settling on Starbucks a play on the Pequod’s chief mate Starbuck.

13. The penname Dr. Seuss was a way to escape punishment in college. After getting caught drinking in his room, Theodore Seuss Geisel was banned from the school’s newspaper and other activities. To continue writing, he started using the penname Seuss.