Yes, it sounds like a cliché but there is no better way way of putting it:
Things happen for a reason.
I could not fly to Bangkok - everything conspired against the trip and I was dissapointed - but the stars rewarded me with something even better.
A festival took place at the Literature House with a focus on Contemporary American Literature and the organizer managed to attract an impressive set of panelists.
- Lori Stein, the editor of the Paris Review (a publication I treasure), James Wood, the writer and literary critic at The New Yorker who wrote How Fiction Works (which I had just finished reading and found very thoughtful and helpful), John Jeremiah Sullivan, novelist and now writer with the Paris Review and the New York Times (see a recent piece on the Williams Sisters here) Donald Antrim, who wrote one of America's strangest novels according to Johathan Franzen (He wrote "The Hundred Brothers" whose first paragraph is brilliant. Chapter 1 is here), Lucas Witmann, the editor of Newsweek's The Daily Beast, Elif Batuman, a brilliant American-Turkish writer and essayist, also independent but also writing for The New Yorker, and the publisher Fiona McCrae. They invited Joachim Trier, the Norwegian filmmaker, director of Reprise and Oslo August 30. (See separate entry).
I don't even want to imagine what I would have missed if I had not gone to this festival. Everyone was approachable and very generous with their time.
It did wonders not only to my imagination but also allowed me to experience a breakthrough in my novel.
Below is a photo of Litteraturehuset as it is called in Norwegian. A glorious park sits in front of the House. I discovered a perfect place for reading.
Clearly, the not so sweet side of the talks is the business of publishing novel, what they expect (at least in the US). Fortunately, I am not writting because I want to "make it in America" (which was one of the themes of the sessions).
