Kendra Stanton Lee: The winter of my discontent

Since the first leaves of autumn began to crisp and fall, so, too, have my pleasure, academic reads fallen from my lap to the floor. I have purchased, borrowed, and resurrected from the archives several books of interest. The farthest I have gotten in each is several chapters deep. I've tried fiction and non, brooding and beautiful, romantic and cruel. Everything piques my curiosity but fails to sustain it. I have failed pop quizzes in my class because somehow I developed an allergy to required reading. I became a book club delinquent as month after month I flaked. And then I became a book club drop-out. Is this the winter of my discontent as a reader?

My non-fiction instructor opened class the other night reminding us that these winter months (up here in bleak New England where the sun sets at 4:30p.m.) can be a great time to delve into our writing, to open up the veins of wintry thinking and bleed them out into our work. Perhaps this is the reason I have had no inclination to be a reader since the days grew long and cold and dark. I was frittering away my time trying to do that which I am not meant to do during this season. My brain was longing to produce the kinds of pieces that my brain loves to read during the rest of the year.

I suspect I am not the only one for whom winter triggers a desire to write, rather than to read, to focus on the output rather than the intake. Further, are there particular seasons in which certain genres of fiction or non-fiction are en vogue for you, and other seasons in which those same reads collect dust on your shelves or accrue overdue fines at the library?

Or has Netflix simply ruined us all?

Kendra Stanton Lee's work can be found in Cosmopsis Quarterly 2 as well as on her web site at http://www.kendraspondence.com.

Kendra Stanton Lee: John Elder Robison in Person

I have all sorts of expectations prior to hearing authors read in person. Of course I do. These people published something that someone other than their mothers bought. Somewhere, somehow, they charmed their publishers enough to promote their books. And now their names are listed in newspapers, searched for in library catalogues, and dropped by literati and booksellers alike. It’s enough to be a little bit self-impressed, no?

This was not the case for John Elder Robison, who recently read from his memoir Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's at Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, MA. The latter part of the title refers to Robison’s experience in growing up with a high-functioning form of autism. The former part of the title refers to “Aspergian’s” aversion to making eye contact.

Although the room was packed — I presume with your basic mix of book snobs, teachers and parents of Aspergians (or sisters, in my case), and retirees killing time — Robison seemed surprised, almost tickled that he had gathered such a group around the proverbial campfire.

Robison talked about his life as noted memoirist August Burrough’s older brother, about their dysfunctional upbringing, and about the social struggles he experienced as an Aspergian. He also dwelled on the fact that he had “done all this cool stuff” and even written a book, which he thought was “pretty cool, too!”

This reading was a very refreshing contrast to others I have attended. There was no author looking out at a sea of admirers, appearing smug, as though he expected as much. In this way, Robison defied my expectations.

What have been your experiences regarding meeting writers and artists in public settings? Who surprised you most?

Kendra Stanton Lee's poem "Saturday Chores" appears in Cosmopsis Quarterly 2.