Tuesday, March 21
The male Anne Tyler?
So, I've been reading and re-reading some Anne Tyler recently, and it's slowly dawning on me that maybe (and this will sound incredibly presumptuous, but so what) I could become the male Anne Tyler, only instead of writing about middle-age women who use food as a substitute for love and other wacky characters who live in Baltimore, Maryland, I write about middle-age men who feel trapped in their corporate-suburban lives and other wacky characters who live in Utopia, Colorado.
And hers would be a fine career to chase: she's a Pulitzer prize winner who regular publishes and lands on the best seller lists, who's respected among the English departments of our fine college and universities and who from time to time has films made of her books. It's also something to keep in the back of my mind for my agent pitches, as a way to try to identify my style (and one that expands from my previous self-comparison ideas of me being (wanting to be?) a suburban American Nick Hornby, or a western Tom Perotta, or as an untalented Walter Kirn [the last one being more of an 'aspiring to' comparison than a serious one].)
And we won't even go to the stars I really, secretly, nay -- desperately-- want to someday be compared to. I dare not even write their names outloud, at least not in this post. OK: I'm off to the library for two hours of writing and editing. Later!
And hers would be a fine career to chase: she's a Pulitzer prize winner who regular publishes and lands on the best seller lists, who's respected among the English departments of our fine college and universities and who from time to time has films made of her books. It's also something to keep in the back of my mind for my agent pitches, as a way to try to identify my style (and one that expands from my previous self-comparison ideas of me being (wanting to be?) a suburban American Nick Hornby, or a western Tom Perotta, or as an untalented Walter Kirn [the last one being more of an 'aspiring to' comparison than a serious one].)
And we won't even go to the stars I really, secretly, nay -- desperately-- want to someday be compared to. I dare not even write their names outloud, at least not in this post. OK: I'm off to the library for two hours of writing and editing. Later!
