Andrew Sean Greer and the Art of Writing

Andrew Sean Greer (right) talking to 5 month nephew Arlo, who is sitting on the lap of Greer's identical twin brother, Mike. New York Times photo by Heidi Schumann

Earlier this week, the New York Times' new Bay Area section published a story I wrote on the Sunday routine of novelist Andrew Sean Greer.

The article touched on what Greer did on a typical Sunday. One thing he does not do is write. When he got together with his husband, David Ross, 13 years ago, he promised that he would avoid working on weekends.

Of course, I couldn’t interview Greer and just ask about when he drinks his first cup of coffee in the morning. I am a writer, too, albeit a nonfiction, writer, and I wanted to hear about Greer’s writing habits. So here are some tidbits from the conversation we had.

Greer spent much of the past year in New York, working as a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. Greer applied for the fellowship in order to work on his novel, which is a book about characters who time travel between 1918 and 1941. When he got to New York, the pieces of the novel he had written were set in San Francisco, much like two of his previous books, The Confessions of Max Tivoli and The Story of a Marriage.

But Greer couldn’t resist the vast resources available to him at the library. He found himself captivated by the library’s books, newspapers, and other sources about New York. He walked the streets everyday, sat in cafes, and dined out with friends. Soon the atmosphere of New York had permeated his psyche and Greer tossed the 100 pages he had written and started afresh. He set the next draft in New York and added new characters.  He wrote about 150 pages in the following months.

“Ideally, your head is in your novel most of your waking life,” said Greer. “All of your spare moments, conversations you overhear, thoughts you have, all should be going to the novel. If I sort of let myself forget about the book, it’s hard to get back into it again.”

When Greer is writing intensely, he tends to read classic rather than contemporary literature. “I’m reading Colette right now. I will pick up Proust. I find old fiction helpful. It’s classic for a reason. It is really well done.”

Greer and Ross moved back to their home in San Francisco’s lower Haight at the end of the fellowship in May. Greer spent much of the next few months away from home. He traveled to Italy to read from his work at Letturatura, the Rome Literary Festival. It was an outdoor evening performance (video here)at the Basilica di Massenzio near the Forum. (“It was a warm Roman night. The Forum was all lit up. It was so beautiful it was amazing.”) He also spent six  weeks at a writer’s colony and visited Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman at their summer home in Maine.

So Greer didn’t start to look for a new writing office until September, a search that he Twittered about.

You might think that a writer as successful as Greer might go for a high end, modern office with a view of the city. But it seems that he prefers grunge. Or at least redone grunge. He described his previous office as a “crappy room in someone’s basement.”

He looked all around and almost took an office on a houseboat because he couldn’t find anything else. Then he found a spot in the Mission, with a few small rooms and a loft that lets in lots of light.

“”It’s really nice but it’s really crappy," said Greer. "It looked like a meth lab when I first rented it, so that’s why I had to paint the whole thing. The room was bright pink which is why I had to paint it white.”

Greer calls himself an Internet addict. When he gets up he goes straight to the computer, reads the New York Times online, reads various progressive blogs, but skips literary blogs because he dislikes it when bloggers write snarky comments about his friends. He is so addicted to surfing the web (and who isn’t?) that he uses the program Freedom to limit his Internet access. Before he leaves his home, he programs his Mac Air not to let him go on the web for at least 4 hours. Then he walks to the office,

“It’s a 15-minute walk. I love it because there is a transition. The mind kind of gets into the novel and the one thing I am thinking of on the way over is the first sentence of the next paragraph. Half the battle is getting the next sentence. At least it’s a way to start.”

Then Greer laughed and added: “And it’s usually followed by a nap, and then lunch, all the procrastination I can get in.”

The NBCC Comes to San Francisco

There were drinks and conversation aplenty Friday night in San Francisco when the National Book Critics Circle Board of Directors hosted two panels that looked at the state of West Coast and emerging writers.

About a hundred people crowded into a performance space in downtown San Francisco to hear comments from people like David Ulin, the editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Oscar Villalon, the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, Jennifer Reese, a book critic for Entertainment Weekly, David Kipen, the NEA Director of Literature/BIG READ, Sandy Dijkstra, the literary agent, and authors Michelle Richmond, Greg Sarris, and Andrew Sean Greer, among others.

It was an attempt by the NBCC to broaden its reach and become less New York-centric. On Saturday, for the first time in its history, the NBCC will announce the finalists for its awards from City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.

The group tried to engage themselves and the audience in the question of whether the West Coast is driving American literature. Presumably, since the West was once the frontier and people still gravitate here to remake themselves, the literature they produce is more forward-looking and innovative than that produced in New York.

As provocative as that notion is, the panelists couldn’t agree on its truth.

Jennifer Reese characterized the West Coast as a “goofy, artsy” place that is not “caught up in the intense noise of the literary community of New York.” David Ulin said West Coast writers had an advantage being “out of the fishbowl.” Living 3,000 miles away from New York gives Los Angeles writers the opportunity to fail or to try things that might not work, far away from the glare and scrutiny of the publishing world. Having this ability to experiment ultimately leads to more exciting writing, he said.

Ellen Heltzel of Bookbabes lives in Portland Oregon. She said the area attracts people interested in working in their own métier, not conforming to the tastes and dictates of the New York publishing scene. An example is the poet Gary Snyder, who pursued his own interests in Buddhism and the landscape of the west, His vision and drive had ultimately brought him international recognition. (and a Pulitzer Prize.)

Andrew Sean Greer, the author of Max Tivoli said writers living in New York can find themselves drawn into the literary scene at the expense of their own writing. While it’s a lot of fun to hang out at bars, go to readings, and mingle at publishing events, all that socializing makes it difficult for a writer to do the most important thing – finish his or her book. (Greer moved from New York to Montana to write and found that state TOO quiet, so he eventually moved to San Francisco.)

Mary Ann Gwinn, the book editor of the Seattle Times, said readers on the West Coast are more adventurous, which means writers are more adventurous.

The panelists tried hard not to reduce the discussion to an “Us versus New York” dialogue, and succeeded for the most part. They also seemed cognizant of not trying to elevate West Coast writing over that of other regions, while acknowledging its strengths.

The evening brought out lots of published and aspiring writers and the networking was intense. Mark Sarvas, the blogger behind The Elegant Variation and the author of the forthcoming novel, Harry, Revised, flew up from Los Angeles for evening. Kevin Smokler, the co creator of BookTour.com and author of Bookmark Now, came, as did Jason Roberts, an NBCC finalist last year for his biography, A Sense of the World.

Kemble Scott, author of Soma and the editor of the SoMa Literary Review came, as did New York Times reporter Neil MacFarquhar, author of the novel The Sand Café. Daniel Schifrin, the former director of literary programs for the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, showed up. He has just been appointed “writer in residence” for the new Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Jane Ganhal, co-founder of LitQuake and the author liaison for the new author website Redroom.com, also made an appearance.

One last note: The participants from the first panel on emerging writers were asked to name some writers to look out for. Here are some of their suggestions:

Suzanne Kleid of City Lights Books recommended Cane Hayward’s memoir of growing up in the 1970s, The Hypocrisy of Disco.

David Kipen pointed out that Berkeley mystery author Cornelia Read had just won an NEA fellowship. (I have read her book, A Field of Darkness, and can highly recommend it.)

Michelle Richmond recommended Meg Waite Clayton’s forthcoming novel, The Wednesday Sisters.