Cassandra Langer

Went to the Caro lecture Tuesday night. A sold out event-actually free. Some times the best things in life are and this was one of them. He talked about how crucial “setting” is. I think this is true of biography and of fiction as well. If you can’t set the scene and get readers to picture it in their mind’s eye than you really haven’t conveyed the sense of a a person’s landscape. This goes for interior as well as exterior. Caro walks the talk. He actually spent three years in the Texas Hill country doing his research on Lyndon Johnson. I know Austin a little and have been to the hill country. There is some thing burnt out, enduring and elemental about it that you have to experience to really get a sense of the folks who live there. I was fortunate to meet Riba and Joe, both natives of the hill country. I liked them a lot. Riba has a great sense of humor and is as smart of a whip. So forget that old BS about how dumb those folks are–they aren’t and in many ways are far more savvy and fit for survival than me or thee. We could learn a lot from them and most of it is not in the books we read but rather in the hard earth they scratch a living out of and call home.

It was a great evening despite missing my connection with a writer friend due to a change in location of the room and a standing room only turnout. Read his biography–it’s masterful.

The rest of the week back to entering poetry contests and finishing my proposal for the Romaine Biography.

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