Interview With Corey Mesler

I don’t get out much and still haven’t made it over to Burke’s Books, Memphis’ oldest and best indie bookstore, but I was able to interview the owner recently. Here’s what published author and poet Corey Mesler had to say:

I remember the first time I spoke to you. I called Burke’s Books looking for something and you were so damn nice, I never forgot you. But I don’t recall how we finally became friends. Do you?

I don’t. I’m sure it was because you’re so outgoing and nice. And we must have met online, of course, since the web is my surrogate world for now.

What did you do for work before you bought Burke’s Books?

I have been working in the bookselling business for all of my 32 working years, Burke’s being the 3^rd stop on my See-How-Many-Bookstores-I-Can-Run-Into-the-Ground tour.

I’ve been to your website. Do you blog, as well?

No, because I have no opinions on anything.

Somehow, I doubt that.

Ok, I have this opinion: aluminum foil is the best thing man has ever come up with.

And this one: Hope Davis should be getting the same salary as Julia Roberts.

And this one more: Fitzgerald’s best book is really Tender is the Night and not The Great Gatsby.

Oh, and one more: To Kill a Mockingbird, Confederacy of Dunces and The Beach Boys and James Dean are over-rated. How’s that for controversial?

So many writers seem to come from the wrong side of the tracks. Do you?

I don’t even know where the tracks are, except for the tracks of my tears.

Great song. I love Motown. Which genre of music do you love?

Far and wide. But mostly 60s psych-pop. And, of course, Dylan and the Beatles, who did some fine 60s psych-pop themselves. And then, anytime, anywhere, Miles Davis.

Writers, and bloggers, in particular, tend to form their own clubs. Who’s in your club?

Joan of Arc, Tristan Tzara, Elias Canetti, Richard Brautigan, Humbert Humbert, Karl Kraus, Charlie Chaplin, the Laker Cheerleaders, Oedipus, Rod Serling, Iris Murdoch, Billy Pilgrim, Monty Python, Franz Kafka.

What do you love most about writing?

Oh, golly. That it’s solitary. That it fires my brain like nothing else. That it keeps me from watching Three’s Company reruns. That it stays with me all through the day even when I’m not writing.

Do write on schedule?

Yes, ma’am. It is the only area of my life I am disciplined about. I get up with the birds, sometimes even before the birds, and I have to go out to the trees and shout, “Hey, get outta your nests you slugabeds!” and write every morning, emphasis on the every.

When writing fiction, you don’t use dialogue tags. Explain.

I like the characters to be defined by voice. I like the whole shebang to be driven by nothing but voice. That is, of course, when I am writing my funny little dialogue thingums.

Define “Chapbook.”

Traditionally it is a small collection of prose or poetry, often staple-bound, working on one theme.

Who inspires you? What’s your muse like? What is his or her name?

My muse is an ex-alcoholic from Cincinnati named Lanny. As to who inspires me, the list is as long as the heaven’s roles but here are a few: Joyce, William Carlos Williams, Frank O’Hara, Dylan, Leonard Cohen, my brother, Walker Percy, Camus, Dick Van Dyke, Yeats, Vonnegut, Fellini, my children, Nabokov, The Marx Brothers.

I love the poetry you’ve shared with me. It’s inspired my own work. Share something with me now.

You’re very kind.

No. Just honest.

Phoenix

They’ve piled

fresh lumber

in the yard

of the burned-out

duplex.

Thank you. You read it here first, folks.

You seem like the kind of guy who has seen The Big Chill. You know that scene where Jeff Goldblum goes downstairs to hit on Chloe, and she comes to the door in her underwear, no clue what he’s up to, and when she says good night and closes the door, he turns and smiles? You know how you feel at that moment? That’s how I feel when I read this one you penned:

Watching Syrie Bathe

Only her golden hair

visible above

the edge of the tub.

And when she

descends like Ophelia

the water too becomes

ah, golden.

It slides like butterscotch over my brain. And in this one, I hear the blue wail of a saxophone on some dark and lonely street corner:

Blues for Wendy Ward

After 20 years I find a picture

of you inside a book of art.

Your smile is patient:

you were waiting for what life

would bring you after me.

I love this one because I often get my greatest inspiration in the shower:

Nothing Matters

Nothing matters

yet still

I rise

and step from the tub,

half dry off,

find my glasses

abandoned on the

chair over which

I hung my pants,

scrabble for

pen and paper,

and steady myself

on the towel rack,

to write this down.

And this one:

Writing (to) You

The letter I sent to you

died on the way.

A dead letter.

Later, I wrote another letter.

I didn’t put your

name on the envelope.

Now I sit here in the dark

waiting for someone

to come and explain you to me.

Outside I can hear the

bright new coinage of the children.

The bright new coinage of the children. No one but you would think of it that way. It’s brilliant. The thing I’ve found about writing is that sometimes you have to bare yourself, grit your teeth and write anyway, or there would be no real truth in what we write. You do that don’t you? Sometimes write things that are private because you hope it will strike a chord in the reader?

Yes, when I’m writing I am fearless. In all other areas of life I am chickenshit – hence the agoraphobia – but when I am at the keyboard I am almost conscienceless.

Almost? What line will you not cross?

Knowingly hurting someone, especially someone I know.

What do you think is the root of your agoraphobia? Is it a selfish desire to stay home and write? How long have you had the condition?

I wish it stemmed from a selfish desire to stay home. Staying home is all well and good until a seemingly unseen force says you HAVE to stay home. Then it is a jail sentence. According to my shrink I have been building my agoraphobia my whole life, partly from the things bullies told me about myself when small which I have internalized and now use against myself. I have become my bullies.

That’s too bad. You’re a great guy, but then, if you were able to share more of your physical self with the world, your emotional and mental self might suffer the consequences, and so might your readers. Do you think your condition is at all partly responsible for your talent, or would you have been gifted in spite of it?

I have that fear, that my so-called talent is linked to my insular world, my trapped circumstances, my popcorn machine head. But, when I queried my shrink about this question early on, his wise response was, “You want to write from your best self.” I guess I am still in search of my best self.

You’re writing another novel. How many are published now? Do you outline, or go with the flow?

Two published novels, two more finished. No, no outlines. The most recent novel I did the most pre-planning for, making extensive notes, keeping a long list of the characters and their traits so I didn’t mix them up, even keeping a map of Arkansas in front of me (it’s set in a small fictional Arkansas town). I guess, mostly, I go with the flow, maybe because I have been left out of “the flow” in real life.

Do you have other talents?

I used to amuse at parties with my rendition of “Hello Goodbye” as it might be sung by Bob Dylan. I am a passing good bookseller and a pretty good parent.

Your son Toby is a talented artist. Would you like to give him a plug here? Where can people reading this interview get a peek at his artwork? And why don’t you have him design the logo for your new Burke’s Books tee shirt logo?

Happily. Early on I recognized that Toby would surpass me, talent-wise, before he was a big dog. He is a true artist in that he works from his soul and his soul is a beautiful thing to witness. Toby, who starts at MCA in the fall, is doing mostly oil paintings now and so, I don’t know where to see his work. I haven’t seen enough of it myself. We have a t-shirt logo contest going on right now….I guess he’s not eligible.

I like the picture of you at your book signing. It reminds me of Johnny Depp in Benny & Joon.

I told my daughter you said I looked like Johnny Depp, if only for a moment. She said, man, is she deluded. Well, ok, she doesn’t even know the word deluded but she looked at me askance. I happily attach it here. And, oh, thank you.

LOL. No wonder she said that. Wrong picture. In the one I meant, you were sitting behind the table, and it was a combination of the hat you were wearing and the expression on your face. Oh, well.

Write something here and now that is bound to piss someone off.

I slept with women in college who would normally only sleep with jocks, women who were apparently charmed by my acid tongue.

Who were you in your previous life?

I was myself only stronger.

I don’t think you realize your own strength. Thanks for submitting to this. Is there anything you’d like to add before I tell people where to find your website and they go off and leave me here?

Buy my books! Buy my books at my bookstore! Thank you.

Here’s where, folks:

http://www.coreymesler.com/

http://www.burkesbooks.com/

The Second Duchess

Years ago, I met an author in what became a doomed writer’s critique group. The most fortunate thing about it was that I was partnered with her, and it was my honor and privilege to be able to read the first chapter of her work about a duchess during the Italian Renaissance who was based on the famous Robert Browning poem, “My Last Duchess.” It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. It was like slipping through a doorway into a very different and very real world, where I could not only see the ancient stone walls on either side of the narrow, twisting streets, but hear the crowd murmuring and cheering while gathered to catch a glimpse of their new duchess, and the metal ringing as the coins she tossed to them sometimes hit the cobbled street. I could feel the rocking of the barge and sway of the litter in which she was carried to her wedding, and smell the roses, lilies, lavender and thyme she held in her arms. It thoroughly transported me to another world.

The author I met was Elizabeth Loupas, and the story,  

The Second Duchess, 

finally published and released on the first of this month, is bound to become as famous as its immortal counterpart. The tale opens in Italy in 1565 and is centered on Barbara of Austria, the second wife of Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, whose first wife was the young and beautiful Lucrezia de’Medici. 

Barbara, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, is a bit beyond “marriageable age,” and much less attractive than the first duchess, but a politically motivated marriage has been arranged that will save her from being sent to a convent where two of her sisters are already immured, and instead, make her the duchess of the dazzling, opulent royal court of Ferrara. 

It would be a fairytale dream come true for any woman, except that the groom is suspected all across Europe of murdering his beautiful first wife.

Barbara is determined to ignore the rumors about the man with whom she will bed. To even hint at the possibility that the duke may be guilty of murder is treason. But the whispers, insinuations, and threats begin on her wedding day, and soon enough, her own life comes to depend on discovering the truth.  

Elizabeth recreated the royal court to the last  

glittering detail, 

and brought its inhabitants to  

shimmering, intriguing, romantic life. 

I closed it with a deep sigh of satisfaction and the thought, “Oh. Wow.”

You can buy it at Powell's and other fine bookstores. Of course, you can buy it at Amazon, too, but I'm not recommending them after they sent my copy to the wrong address, where it was lost in the mail, never to reach me. :- (

Definitely 5 bookmarks. For an explanation of my bookmark system, click here.

 

 

The Second Duchess by Elizabeth Loupas

My friend, Elizabeth Loupas', little Beagle, Cressie, was seriously injured this week, playing in her own back yard. When Elizabeth told us about it on Facebook, it reminded me to get over to her blog (I am sooooo bad about making the rounds!) to find out what happened. Poor little Cressie. Elizabeth was never able to figure it out. However, while I was there, I was also reminded to update you on the progress of her forthcoming book, The Second Duchess. It was due to come out in January, but for a mysterious reason, the date was pushed back to March 1. It is already garnering excellent reviews, as I knew all along that it would. Here's one from Publisher's Weekly, which is the Bible of the publishing business: 

The Second Duchess
Elizabeth Loupas, NAL, $15 trade paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-451-23215-1
Robert Browning’s classic poem “My Last Duchess” provides the starting point for Loupas’s winning debut set in Renaissance Italy. Barbara of Austria, the virgin bride of Alfonso d’Este, the fifth and last Borgia duke of Ferrara, has heard rumors that Alfonso murdered his first wife, but by marrying the duke she has escaped the convent as well as her controlling brother, Maximilian II. “Banquets and music, dancing and fashion, loving and loathing–everything is an art in Ferrara,” one of the duke’s sisters tells Barbara, who must carefully maneuver around the gossip about her predecessor, gossip that the duke has forbidden, as she seeks to establish herself at court. Meanwhile, spies lurk around every corner, ready to besmirch her reputation and standing. Readers will warm immediately to the clever, intelligent Barbara, while the demanding, sometimes brutal, Alfonso makes an intriguing man of mystery.

And here's another from Joseph - Beth Booksellers. Bookstores get to read advance copies of everything coming out so they'll know what to buy, and what to put on the front and center table of the bookstore.



The Second Duchess, by Elizabeth Loupas (9780451232151, 3/1/2011.)

Barbara of Austria comes to the Duke d’Este as his second wife and is immediately confronted by whispers and insinuations about her predecessor. Did her new husband really murder his first wife? The proud Hapsburg wife attempts to solve the mystery, while the ghost of the previous duchess observes and comments on her efforts. A charming riff on Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess.”
Jennie Turner-Collins
Joseph Beth Booksellers, Cincinnati

And even more good news! The Second Duchess got a book club deal! She has been selected as a featured alternate for the Literary Guild, the Mystery Guild, the Doubleday Book Club, and the Book of the Month Club Online.


There are two more bits of news: Elizabeth (or Elisabetta, as I like to call her) is arranging a combination book-launch party and beagle adoption event at Murder by the Book in Houston. She adopted both of her dogs from Houston Beagle and Hound Rescue, so if you live in that area, you might want to mark your calendar for that. When she gives me a firm date, I'll pass it on to you. 

Secondly, there's a possibility that she'll be in Nashville in August for a writer's conference (Killer Nashville), and with any kind of luck, maybe she'll arrange a book signing there, too. I'm definitely asking for time off work to attend, if she does that. Gina-re, make up the sofa for me! 

One last tidbit here, if you've ever wondered about the publishing process, about how a manuscript becomes a book, just follow along in Elisabetta's blog.

An imperial archduchess, a Medici princess, and the last Borgia duke—intrigue, passion and murder at the glittering Renaissance court of Ferrara. The Second Duchess is now available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Powell's, Books-a-Million, and of course your favorite indie bookstore. In Memphis, please buy from Burke's Books at 936 South Cooper in Midtown!