The Electron Pencil

By The Book

A quick one today because I was very lazy this AM and then I had my regular afternoon book writin’ session with Charlotte Zietlow. BTW: The Zietlow memoir is coming along fabulously. We’re working on her 1974 campaign for US Congress right now. Phew — 41 years ago — Charlotte looked like a kid, for pity’s sake!

Here’s a sneak preview of some pix I’ve taken of items from her vast treasure trove of files and images:

Window Card

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Tri-fold Pamphlet

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Good News, Bad News

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In the above Herald-Telephone piece, Charlotte is anointed the coming star of the Democratic Party in Indiana because she ran such a strong campaign against well-known state senator Elden Tipton. She’d only decided to run in February for the May primary and whupped the bejesus out of four other Dems, including Mayor Frank McCloskey’s chosen candidate.

Man, this stuff is fun.

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Sanders Speaks

Bloom magazine threw its second Book Club bash yesterday evening at FARM Bloomington’s Root Cellar Lounge. Just like the first one, featuring author Michael Koryta, last night’s soiree packed the house.

Scott Russell Sanders talked about how he came to write Divine Animal, the book selected by Bloom boss Malcolm Abrams. Frankly, I haven’t read it yet — my queue of books is about as tall as Sally the Dog standing on Steve the Dog’s head. But believe me, Divine Animal‘s in the stack now.

The audience peppered Sanders with Qs for a good hour and a half. He explained precisely when and where he got the idea for the book, how the characters came to him, and his process for letting the characters tell their stories to him before he writes them all down.

This Bloom mag Book Club is the atom bomb, I’m telling you.

You wanna get in on the next one? Okay. The third Book Club selection is Young Titan, a biography of a youthful Winston Churchill penned by Bloomington’s own top-notch Anglophile, Michael Shelden. We’ve got a big order in at the Book Corner so you can start buying it later this week. So far, our two best selling titles for 2015 have been Koryta’s Those Who Wish Me Dead and Divine Animal. We oughtta pay Malcolm a salary.

The meeting for Young Titan will be Tuesday, June 9, 5:30pm, at Finch’s Brasserie.

Here are some snapshots from last night’s get-together:

Malcolm Abrams (L) & Scott Russell Sanders

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Here’s something I hadn’t known: A teenaged Sanders had a choice between studying physics at Brown University or accepting a basketball scholarship at another school. He chose physics, natch.

Author Julia Karr & Her Friend, Caren Stoll

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Karr just finished writing the first draft of the last book in her Young Adult trilogy featuring teen Nina Oberon and her travails in a near-future dystopia. Book one was entitled XVI (or Sixteen, for those of you who don’t recognize Roman numerals) and its sequel was Truth. The third has no title yet; Karr’s only begun revisions and corrections within the last few days.

Sanders Tells His Tale

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The title of Sanders’ book comes from a line written by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay, “The Poet.” Emerson’s line reads:

As the traveller who has lost his way, throws his reins on his horse’s neck, and trusts to the instinct of the animal to find his road, so must we do with the divine animal who carries us through this world.

Sanders Chats With Fans

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Alright, get going on Young Titan.

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