Post to the Host
GK responds to queries on topics from childbearing to potato salad, with a little bookstore fetish in between.

Send your own post to the host.
Here's your chance to ask GK your most pressing questions—about the writing life, the radio life, Lake Wobegon, Guy Noir, whatever you like. Also, feel free to send feedback about the show. Honest comments and criticism are always welcome!

Post to the Host:
Hi! Would you please say something about people who fold or mangle or dog-ear the pages in a library book instead of using a bookmark. I recently finished your Christmas book (loved it!) and am now reading your book about Lutherans, and in both of them someone had consistently folded the pages back to save their place (what a loser!!) Obviously a pet peeve of mine, but I was an English major for three years before switching to philosophy. Thanks.

Kate P.
Missoula, MT

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An author is so grateful to have readers that somehow I can't find it in my heart to condemn those who fold or mangle — it's as if you lived alone in the forest and you got visitors for the first time in years and you loved their company, their conversation, but you criticized their poor table manners. Sometimes people bring me books to autograph and I can see only too clearly that the book is unread. And then I see, written in pencil on the title page, "$1–" — they bought a remaindered book that they want me to sign and they didn't even bother to mangle it a little bit to make it look read. Of course I don't say anything, but nonetheless — an author craves readers, and if some of them are rough with the book, well, it's better than sitting undisturbed on the library shelf.

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Post to the Host:
How do you deal with disappointment? When your pantry is bare and all your socks have holes, how can you remind yourself that it will be good again?

Brant M.
Milwaukee

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It's different when you're young than if you're old, and who knows where the dividing line is. I scraped bottom a couple times when I was in my twenties, including the summer of 1966 when I was afraid of going to prison for refusing induction into the Army and was drifting unprepared into marriage full of trepidation and felt that my life was on the rocks.

I went to New York to try to write a try-out piece for The New Yorker and stayed in a rooming house on West 19th Street that was full of mental patients doped up on Thorazine. A hot summer, no money, disaster staring me in the face, and yet I remember a certain buoyancy possessing me, walking around Manhattan with long loping strides, which is the true spirit of youth. A cliché but true. Were I to be in that same situation today, at age 67, it might very well kill me.

It's good to have heroes who can help pull you through disappointment. Nelson Mandela in prison all those years. Emily Dickinson locked in with her mother and sister. Thoreau, despondent after the death of his beloved brother, John. FDR hiding his crippled legs, grinning as he muscled his way to the podium. But in the end you depend on some inner resilience that in good times you don't know is there. We all resist self-pity, which is boring and leads nowhere.

We are like plants, drawn toward sunshine, wanting to burgeon and be fruitful and do good. If a rock falls on us, we find a way to push around it and head up into the light. And it helps to take the short view. Day by day, hour by hour, just do your best and get your rest. Good luck.

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Dear Mr. Keillor,
I run a very small book publishing business, which receives many manuscripts each year that I have to reject. It pains me to dash a writer's hopes, or bruise their feelings, although it does seem unavoidable. I try to say something positive, if possible; offer a concise, honest statement of why I found the manuscript lacking; note that this is my subjective opinion with which others might disagree; thank the writer for the opportunity to consider their work, and wish him or her well in finding the right publisher for the text. I strive to be courteous and diplomatic, but succinct and professional.

That said, do you have any suggestions about rejection letters generally?

Sincerely,
John

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John, you are a good man and conscientious but I do believe that promptness is the crucial thing when rejecting a writer's work and that a very simple "This is just not right for us" is good enough. A "concise, honest statement of why (you) found the manuscript lacking" is very likely to jab deep under the writer's fingernails. What he wants to hear is that the work is "brilliant, lyrical, edgy, and reminiscent of (some writer he admires)" and anything less than that is likely to leave them feeling faintly insulted. For writers, published or not, praise falls like snow on a sidewalk, but hostility is a chunk of ice in our heart. We barely notice the good reviews and we commit the bad ones to memory. You know after reading 100 words whether the manuscript interests you or not, and there's no need to offer an explanation — either the writer has got something or he does not. Make it easy on yourself.

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There was a flurry of mail from English teachers about a grammatical error in a rhubarb commercial on April 17, including this from Jane J. in Berkeley: "It's good that the students in the sketch about springtime and school aren't listening to the English teacher because the grammar of his lesson is incorrect: The verb in "He is feeling lousy" is a linking verb (as are "seem," "feel," "appear," "become" and all forms of "to be")and must be followed by an adjective, in this case "lousy," which is NOT an adverb. Sip some more of that gin." And Christine K. of Traverse City, MI, added: "Often people will say, 'I feel badly,' thinking they are being correct; however, 'bad' is the correct choice when 'feel' is used as a 'state of being.' " The point is well-taken. Others, however, who objected to the mispronunciation of "epitome" and "suave" just didn't get the joke.

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Dear Mr. Keillor,

I'm doing a report on you for my seventh grade Minnesota history report.

I'm just wondering if you could give me some facts about you and your work.

I'd appreciate a quick response for it is almost the end of my school year.

Thanks!

Sincerely,
Emily D.
Mendota Heights

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I was born in Anoka in 1942, the third of six children, and graduated from Anoka High School in 1960 and the University of Minnesota (English major) in 1966. (Two years late, due to a year I took off to write for the paper and a year in which I got nothing but F's because I was editing the campus magazine.) Went to work for Minnesota Public Radio in 1969 and started "A Prairie Home Companion" in 1974. I've been married three times and I have two children (40 and 12 years old), two grandsons, and several stepchildren. I live in St. Paul. I've written quite a few books, not sure how many, and I'm 6'3" and weigh about 215. I write early in the morning, every day. I had two big medical experiences, an open-heart operation in July, 2001, and a slight stroke last September. I read The New York Times every day and I do about 34 radio shows a year and about 60 solo appearances, plus writing a weekly newspaper column and doing "The Writers Almanac" on public radio. I eat Cheerios for breakfast and drink plenty of coffee. I plan to live to the age of 94, which is how old my mother is. I love to sing duets (or, I should say, half of a duet) and work crossword puzzles and sit outdoors with my daughter and eat ice cream at Connie's Creamy Cone on Dale Street in St. Paul. They also do a nice chili dog. I love to ride trains and sit in steam rooms and play ping-pong and eat dinner in quiet restaurants with sociable people. I love to go to symphony concerts and some operas. Love theater and movies. Don't care for jazz much. Love to eat lunch with people I knew as a kid. Love long car trips but don't get to do that anymore.

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