Carol Bergman

I first mentioned Jon Lee Anderson last February in a blog about Anthony Shadid, the New York Times reporter who died on his way out of Syria. Both were war reporters. Jon Lee Anderson is now in Aleppo reporting for The New Yorker and, though experienced, I hope he finds his way out of that chaotic, dangerous war zone soon. That said, I’m looking forward to his next dispatch, an apt word to use for a war reporter’s articles. Under siege, protected as much as possible by flak jackets and the soldiers they are traveling with, they find a safe house from which to send their stories to waiting editors via satellite. These stories are not usually written in a quiet study or even a newsroom; they are composed in the field in what is left of human habitation. A far cry from the still sedate 1930’s when wealthy travelers visited a peaceful Aleppo and opened their neatly printed tourist guides issued by “Northern Syria and the Municipality of Aleppo, the “ancient and populous capital of Northern Syria.” Two of these guides are currently on view at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City, quaint collectibles saved by tobacco heiress, Doris Duke. Duke was enamored of the Islamic world which she visited in 1935 on a honeymoon with her first husband. When she returned, she built a Shangri La in Hawaii with artifacts from Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Syria. A conservationist and a philanthropist, I am sure she would have been horrified to learn about the destruction of Aleppo, its antiquities and inhabitants. The desecration of human history in museums and archives is a byproduct of these terrible wars.  Read More 

It was a hot day in mid-July 1992 and the Democrats had arrived in New York for their convention at Madison Square Garden. I had voted in the primary—yes, I am a Democrat—but not for William Jefferson Clinton. I’d read a lot about his tenure as Governor of Arkansas and when I’d learned that he had refused to stay the execution of a retarded man, that was enough for me. Clinton was also a union buster. I believe in unions—though belief is a scary word to use these days—and have belonged to two unions in recent years: the National Writers Union and ACT-UAW at NYU. The National Writers Union is also affiliated with the UAW, a quaint touch, no? UAW: United Auto Workers. At NYU, the union has negotiated salary rises, working conditions, and benefits. Prior to the union, the University, one of the richest in the country, was exploiting its labor—clerical, adjunct, and graduate students—to whose benefit? Not ours.

I wasn’t thinking of any of this on the day I met Bill Clinton except perhaps that he’d also cheated on his accomplished and intelligent wife, with impunity. His spin machine was spinning a new narrative/story which I, of course, did not entirely believe. I wasn’t his Good Wife so didn’t have to forgive him. I voted for Jerry Brown.

It was 7:30 in the morning, dripping hot, and I was trying to run my two laps around the reservoir. I stopped at the water fountains on the track near the Metropolitan Museum and took a long drink. And there was Bill Clinton, dripping hot, at the fountain to my right. Flanked by two beefy security guards, he began running again and so did I. I suppose I was giving chase. Whoopee! But soon lost them, their 8 minute mile to my 10 on a good cool day. So, great, I saw Bill Clinton on the track, I thought. In our celebrity driven culture that story alone would have some cachet at a dinner party. But there was more: When I stopped to stretch at the bars at the 90th street entrance to the track, he came up from behind—yes, dear reader, he lapped me—and, dripping hot, we stretched together—me, Clinton and the two beefy guards. We stood up at about the same time and Clinton extended his sweaty hand. “I’m Bill Clinton.”

“Yes I know,” I said.

Of course I had known this for the better part of fifteen minutes as I was giving chase around the track, but was loath to admit it.

The next ten minutes were quite an experience: No one else around and there I was being regaled by Bill Clinton. I could have been anyone. I could have been wallpaper. I stood and listened. I tried to open my mouth to say something intelligible. I wanted to ask about the retarded man who had been executed, for example. But I was stymied by the spin machine in front of me. Clinton regaled me with rehearsed, exaggerated stories about all he had done as Governor and would do once he became President of our United States. Were the stories fact, fiction or factoid? Was there any difference any more? I had no chance to even voice a doubt. To the very end of our brief encounter, I didn’t have a chance to get a word in sideways. Clinton didn’t ask my name, whether I was a Democrat or not, or whether I had voted for him in the primary. He made good eye contact and was very handsome, however. His sweaty handshake was not slippery, it was strong.

Eventually, we walked down the steps to the bridle path and, as I was about to say goodbye, good luck, bon chance, and so on and so forth, the paparazzi arrived, first in a helicopter, then in cars. They descended, deus ex machina, and then they surrounded. A few more joggers came along, some with babies in those over-sized special strollers and they all hovered and the paparazzi snapped photos. A mature female jogger sidled up to Clinton and slipped him a piece of paper. I marveled at her foresight—to carry a paper and pen with her as she jogged. Perhaps she is a writer, I thought. I get my best ideas on the track or in the swimming pool. Yes, I must carry pen and paper with me from now on, I thought. Enough of bending down to the ash track and scrawling dirt letters on my arm.

Dear reader, this is not a factoid: Clinton took the piece of paper and slipped it into a pocket in his shorts. And though I witnessed this and experienced a political regaling, I voted for him anyway.  Read More 

A few weeks ago, I volunteered to meet and encourage a young writer or two at PEN, one of the organizations I belong to, down on lower Broadway in Manhattan. Stacy Leigh, the director of “Readers and Writers,” had sent out an email blast asking for some help. I’ll quote the PEN blurb here:

“Established in 1990, Readers & Writers serves low-income populations that have limited access to writers and a diverse range of literary culture. Working with these groups, Readers & Writers aims to inspire both adults and children to read more regularly and more critically, and to encourage them to explore writers from various cultures and regions. Each year the program sends 60 authors and their books to literacy programs, community centers, schools, and other sites nationwide, reaching out to Americans who can read but may not have a relationship with literature.”

When I arrived, Caitlin, a junior in high school, was still working on her manuscript. I understood the impulse to perfect a draft before letting anyone read it, much less a stranger who is a professional writer. I waited patiently and chatted to Stacy about various PEN issues, including a library that could use some volunteer action. Then Caitlin arrived and Stacy left. I began by asking questions about her process, how the story—it was piece of fiction—unfolds, how she drafts, the nature of revision. Caitlin was full of ideas and enthusiasm which I found completely refreshing. It’s why I enjoy teaching so much.

Readers & Writers also runs during the year. If you are interested in participating, contact Stacy @ PEN: 212 334-1660 stacyleigh@pen.org.  Read More 

Once upon a time, towards the end of Helen Gurley Brown’s reign at the end of the 1990’s, I was a writer for Cosmopolitan Magazine. It wasn’t my intention, it just happened. I had written a book for Doubleday and my editor had moved to Cosmo. She called and asked if I’d like an assignment. I thought about the offer for a millisecond and then I made an appointment to go into the office to go through the blue books, at least that’s what I think they were called. I was directed to a special room with a long conference table upon which sat, like an altar, two large binders with blue pages. The room was austere and quiet; I was the only writer there. One binder was for long articles, the other for short articles. All the ideas had been generated by the editorial staff and Helen Gurley Brown herself. The pages were printed, but most had marginalia by various editors, including HGB, and suggestions for the writers—where and how to begin the research, and so on. This definitely was a winning wicket, I thought to myself. By selecting a page out of the book and unpinning it from the binder, every freelance writer in Cosmo’s stable was assured of money in the bank.

Needless to say, I was a happy writer during my stint working for Cosmo. I can’t remember for how long I lasted—a year or two or three. When my editor left, I left, but not before I’d published some long features in the back of the book—women in politics, women friendly corporations, that sort of thing. And then, one day, I went into the office and couldn’t find anything in either of the binders that appealed to me, so I returned to the short piece binder and found a page with the heading “skin and aging.” I thought, well, I have skin, I am aging, I can write about skin. I unpinned the blue page and skipped to my editor’s office. “Are you sure you want this assignment?” she asked me. And I said, “Yes, absolutely yes,” and off I went.

All I had seen was the $ signs, money in the bank. I hadn’t looked at the marginalia. Scrawled at the bottom of the page was a note from HGB and the phone number of her dermatologist. She’d just had silicone injections in her face and wanted the writer to mention him in the piece.

I called my editor. “I think HGB has forgotten that these injections are illegal,” I said.

“I’ll get back to you,” my editor said. I knew her well enough to catch the tone. She was new at Cosmo and didn’t want to challenge the culture of the magazine. I had to let her handle this.

Then I got a call from the advertising department. They’d heard I was doing a piece about skin. Please, I should mention—a very famous cosmetic company—in the body of the piece so that they could sell them ad space opposite the article. Please.

“Please or I must.”

“You must, please.”

I had heard that the firewall between advertising and editorial was breaking down; this was my first experience of it.

So I called my editor and told her I wanted to get off the story, or she told me, or we told each other, that I was off the story. Parenthetically, I’d found out that Vaseline was the best moisturizer, as opposed to the potions of the very famous cosmetic company I must please should mention, potions I’d savored in HGB’s marble layered private bathroom when I’d mistakenly wandered in during one of my first visits to the Cosmo office.  Read More 

A woman is sitting by the pool, fully dressed and she is reading a book by Delia Ephron—Nora’s sister—reading and then looking at the pool, and then reading again. I spot her as I am doing my last lap and notice the cover of the book—pale pink and pale blue—and recognize her: she lives in my building, I live in hers, we have chatted in the elevator as one chats in the elevator—briefly. Then I am out of the pool, a towel around my shoulders, dripping, cold, and she is telling me she is there to observe and imprint upon her young son the importance of learning to swim so as not to drown in their pool in the Hamptons. “But he is a fish,” I say. Five years old, purple swim cap, goggles, completely adorable. What might Nora have said about such intense, privileged parenting? A lot.

“And why are you reading this book by Delia?”

“Because my mother worked for Nora and we were all at the memorial.”

And though I am cold and dripping, I linger to talk. I am envious that I have not been invited o the memorial and that I had never met Nora Ephron. Because of her writing, especially in the heat of the women’s movement when she collected her Esquire pieces into a book called “Crazy Salad,” we are intimates. And my relationship with Nora continued as she became a filmmaker and my daughter and I watched “When Harry Met Sally,” “Silkwood,” and “You’ve Got Mail,” together.

We women writers of a certain age have always treasured Nora Ephron as one of the first “girls” to crash the ceiling in the newsroom, as a free spirit, as a fine essayist, screenwriter and director, and as a brave honest soul. As homage and tribute, I have just finished reading her last two books: “I Feel Bad About My Neck,” and “I Remember Nothing,” and though they are permeated with the culture of celebrity, they are still wonderful, honest, well written books. Except for one thing: Nora never let on that she was dying. Reading them posthumously is hard as so many of the essays obliquely foreshadow her death, a funeral oration from beyond the grave written by the deceased in her own, strong voice. Read More 

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures/buildings are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people/politicians in't.

A departure from William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I
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I delivered an archive of printed emails and memorabilia to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum yesterday. Historians and archivists are challenged these days; so much is lost in cyberspace. I had printed out emails and poems I’d written, so I offered them as documentation. There is also an oral history archive if anyone reading this blog would like to contribute their experiences: www.911memorial.org.

I was nervous about taking the #2 train to the Fulton Street station and had flashbacks as soon as I was on the train. Most New Yorkers I know have traumatic memories of that day and mild PTSD that comes and goes. We all tell stories around the time of the anniversary and the anniversary is coming up. And I have had firemen and firemen’s wives in my workshops, survivors, therapists and other relief workers. When I wrote to my student, Vasu Varadhan, to tell her I was going down to the site, she wrote back to say she was on the way there with her husband to see/touch her son Gopal’s name on the memorial wall. It was eerie, she said, that we should be exchanging emails just on this day. Vasu is working on a memoir about her childhood, adolescence, and arranged marriage that will be dedicated to Gopal, one of many who were slaughtered that day, the preface to the wars we have been fighting ever since. What blind folly is this, Shakespeare might have said. Or did he? Did we not know this was coming? Could we not understand the consequences of our actions before the attack and beyond?

I hadn’t been down to the site in more than five years and when I surfaced I had to hold back tears. Yet people are working here every day, debarking trains, strolling the streets, going to work, leaving work, I told myself. I was dazed and didn’t know where I was, could not orient south or north, east or west. Instead of the Towers and then the amputated site, there were glass fronted scrapers of various sizes all around, new and sparkling in the summer sun. “We are among our monuments here, such close quarters, and what gets wrecked falls at our feet,” I wrote in an email a week after the attack. And now new monuments are rising and closing in on Lower Manhattan where the Dutch first settled in the 17th century. The cobbled streets are sometimes still visible.

I could not find Liberty Street or One Liberty Plaza so I asked a policeman and he did not know where it was either. But a woman overheard my question and walked me to the building, asked where I was going, what I was doing. When I told her, a story spilled. Yes, she was there on the day. She watched the bodies fall, was covered with ash, and escaped. “How is it coming down here every day all these years?”

“There’s a new Century 21. My friends and I have lunchtime gatherings.”

“Do you go down to the Memorial?

“We work in the Memorial. We are the Memorial." she said.

I had a meeting with an Assistant Curator of Collections, Alexandra Drakakis, who has been working on the 9/11 collection for five years. She asked if I knew anyone with oral memories who could contribute to the oral history archive and/or any writers who have kept emails and journals. Writers, photographers and artists are important witnesses to events; we document these events in our journals and our work.

The Memorial and Museum are a work-in-progress. Sadly, a financial dispute between the 9/11 Foundation and the Port Authority continues. The families are very upset, as they should be. They lost their loved ones in a Great Atrocity, are gathering memorabilia for the Museum, and deserve some closure.

http://bigstory.ap.org/content/911-families-upset-over-ground-zero-museum-delays
 Read More 

I write this blog today with hesitation. We are living in the 21st century. Does the gender gap among writers, readers and publishers still exist? The inspiration for my thoughts is the publication of Richard Ford’s new novel, “Canada.” He is one of a triumvirate of fine white male writers which includes Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff. Sadly, Raymond Carver is no longer with us, but Tobias Wolff and Richard Ford are still writing with gusto. I cannot think of a congerie of white female writers who have written with as much depth or constancy. Why not? The answer to this question will be found among the ruminations of sociologists, psychologists, historians and anthropologists, and not this year.

My concern today is with literature and its legacy. Which books will last, become classics? Of the African-American authors—Toni Morrison and Alice Walker for example—we can be sure of a lasting legacy, but name me, please, a white female writer whose book will be remembered in fifty years. Why F.Scott and not Zelda? “The Great Gatsby” is a masterpiece, as are some of the short stories, but Zelda’s “Save Me The Waltz,” is by far a greater work than any novel by her husband, other than Gatsby. Some think that Zelda went mad from both alcohol and Scott’s denigration of her talent. She ended her life in an asylum.

I am a big Richard Ford fan and downloaded “Canada,” onto my Kindle before it had been reviewed. I knew it would be good; he has never disappointed. And I began reading a collection of his short stories, “Multitude of Sins,” as a warm-up. The stories I have read so far are about adultery, and Ford captures both the male and female point of view with precision and compassion. And though at one time I had thought that Ford had anti-Semitic aspirations—if that is possible—putting words and ideas into his characters mouths that were hard to read, I now understand that these are exactly the thoughts and words his characters might have; the author is not the character. Politically incorrect? No. Honest. If this is how characters speak and feel, than this is how they speak and feel. So I trust that Ford will deliver with “Canada,” and be well remembered as a “great” American novelist after his lifetime.

Then I got to thinking about having become, unexpectedly, a thriller writer with the publication of “Say Nothing.” How many female political thriller writers are there? Murder mystery writers, yes. But political thriller writers? Would it have been easier for my agent to sell the book to a mainstream publisher if I had been male? As I am not male, and did not use a male nom de plume, there is no way to know this, of course, but I did have an experience a few years ago which makes me wonder. Frustrated at being unable to sell an essay, I changed my byline to C. Bergman. Nearly instantaneously, I received hearty, admiring, long replies from editors, male and female. The essay was published with that truncated non-gender specific byline. Maybe I should try it again.  Read More 

The revision of my first thriller is finished and available exclusively as a Kindle ebook: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008KS9PTQ. It has been a challenging process. Apparently, I was not writing a murder mystery as I had thought, but a political thriller. Once my agent and I understood that I was criss-crossing genres, accepting the publishers’ confusion about where to place the book also became understandable. And though I do feel that the book has finally arrived, I’m not waiting another year for a round of submissions. A Kindle publication is fine and, in due course, I’ll also make a POD hard copy available. Next up, an attempt to transpose the story to a screen treatment. I’ve written two screen treatments before—with my husband—but he’s busy so I’ll try this one on my own. In the meantime, here’s an excerpt from the press release for “Say Nothing” :

"Two unsolved murders, a killer or killers still at large, and David Rizzo was still missing. And though the murders were grotesque and baffling, local interest peaked and then fell away with the first melt of spring… By the time the cherry blossoms blossomed and fell, and the Wallkill River surged into the flood plain, David Rizzo’s disappearance and the two unsolved murders had vanished from the local papers and from casual conversation. Any fear of a killer residing nearby dissipated in the balmy, scented air… "

In this revised edition of SAY NOTHING, rookie Private Investigator Alison Jenkins, recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq, teams up with her mentor , PI Margaret Singer, to solve the disappearance of a decorated Iraq veteran, David Rizzo. Not far into the investigation, the detectives realize that the young man’s disappearance is only one of several related crimes committed in their jurisdiction and that the FBI has taken a controlling interest in the case and invoked the Patriot Act. When David’s girlfriend and a young Iranian girl are found murdered, the case becomes even more complex and challenging. At each turn in the investigation, the sense of danger intensifies. Though it seems impossible for any crimes to be solved with the government insisting they back off, the detectives are determined to find the killers. What ensues is larger and more complex than they, and particularly Alison, had ever imagined. A political thriller, a murder mystery, and a meditation on the futility of war, SAY NOTHING will twist its way into your psyche and not let go.  Read More 

I went to a screening last night of Alison Klayman’s documentary about Ai Weiwei, the defiant Chinese artist who disappeared into police custody for 81 days in 2011, and survived torture to continue his work and his political/artistic activity, traveling abroad for exhibitions and creating art within China in his large studio in Beijing. (His studio in Shanghai has been demolished by the government.)

As I write, Weiwei has been slapped with a $15 million tax bill and is suing the Chinese government. In other words, he has not been silenced. When his blog was shut down, he started using Twitter. He twitters constantly, using images and words. He has thousands of followers inside China and around the world. The twitters are a thread of distilled wisdoms and observations, and, eventually, they will become history. Here is his Twitter address: https://twitter.com/aiwwenglish/. The Twitter site may also be shut down—it looks a bit strange today as I write—and Weiwei may have moved to Tumblr.

The documentary called “Never Sorry,” soon to be released in the U.S., is riveting from beginning to end, as is Ai Weiwei himself, a free spirit, who reminds me of Michael Moore. He even looks like Michael Moore with his big belly, impish smile, quick wry wit, and courage. I thought it was interesting that Weiwei had lived in the U.S. from 1983-1993. During that formative decade, he had studied art and embraced both intellectual and artistic freedom. Once in your heart, he has said, freedom is there forever.

When asked by Ms. Klayman, who lived in China as a journalist from 2006-2010 and speaks Mandarin, where he finds his courage, Weiwei explains that he is actually very afraid because he knows full well the possible consequences of his actions and his art, which are inseparable for him. Therefore, he continues, he must be courageous, otherwise he will be overwhelmed with fear. And though we live in a free society, Michael Moore has also had to endure threats to his life—not incarceration or torture, but death threats all the same.

Because I am a writer with a “troublesome conscience,”—a phrase I picked up this morning while reading a bio of Theodore Roosevelt (it described TR’s father), I’ve been very concerned about the harassed and incarcerated artists, writers and dissidents in China and wonder when, if ever, the despotic regime will change their ways, or if they ever will, or what we can do here in the west—other than sign petitions and send letters—to support the persecuted artists, writers and dissidents. Is it better to boycott or to engage? Do we study the example of apartheid, or the Soviet Empire, or Iran? Can anything we do, or don’t do, change the outcome?

My book, "Another Day in Paradise; International Humanitarian Workers Tell Their Stories," with a foreword by humanitarian activist, John le Carré, is soon to be reprinted in China for the second time using a simplified alphabet. During negotiations for its first Chinese edition, I was concerned about the translation: Would the text be censored in any way? I was assured it would not. That was more than five years ago. My concern has not abated for this second Chinese edition as the book, by definition, is subversive. The stories therein are, in part, about the problems relief workers have on the ground in war zones and despotic regimes. And China is a despotic regime. So what, if anything, do they make of the book, and will it reach an audience in China?

On the way home last night, I traveled with a friend who works for a humanitarian organization, and we chatted about the film and how inspiring it was. When we got to the train station, there’d been a power outage, so we had to take a bus. Two young Chinese students, in New York for a three week management course at Columbia University, were waiting at the stop, and we began chatting. One spoke English well, the other didn’t. One had heard of Ai Weiwei, the other did not know who he was. The young woman who knew of him said that he was very different, not like the usual artist in China. Was she pleased? I wasn't sure.  Read More 

I’ve been searching the internet—unsuccessfully—for an interview with Louise Erdrich who revised her first novel, “Love Medicine,” ten years after it’s publication in 1983 and then re-edited it yet again in 2009. Erdrich was not finished with this book and perhaps never will be. Why not?

I can only hypothesize based on my own experience and that of other writers who have talked about the impulse to revise published work and re-release it in the hope that an original audience, and perhaps a new audience, will appreciate improvements in the new/updated/changed essay, nonfiction book, short story, novel, or poem. (I read somewhere that Seamus Heaney has revised his poems after publication.)

Erdrich’s stories and characters are cycled throughout her books and as she moves forward and backward in time, she probably discovers more about them. The temptation to add newly discovered imaginative detail must be overwhelming for her otherwise why go back to the book twice since its first publication? But she also may return to “Love Medicine” at regular intervals to improve the language and storytelling devices. The new edition then becomes a touchstone for her growth as a writer.

I have been evolving “Say Nothing,” my first attempt at a murder mystery/thriller, in a similar way. Based on a real story—the disappearance of a young man—I had thought that what I had written was a murder mystery even though I knew it wasn’t typical or formulaic. As I began taking notes and drafting the story, I wasn’t sure if it would be fiction or journalism. The story had touched me, particularly the suffering of the parents. I had met them upstate and, as the summer progressed and their son still had not been found, I knew I wanted to write something and set about researching similar disappearances. However, I didn’t want to intrude on the distraught family, so began to fictionalize and expand the story to include the war in Iraq and the plight of returning veterans. I self-published an early version of the book so that my mother—then in her late 90’s—could see it in print.

It was my agent who informed me—once she started marketing a revision to mainstream houses –that “Say Nothing” is more like a thriller. Comments came back and I embarked on making the plot, dialogue and setting even more textured. At the suggestion of one editor, I read Tana French and was impressed by her unconventional approach. Obviously, I wasn’t experienced enough in the proto-genre writing I had attempted to pull it off. Twenty-odd agented submissions and nearly one year later the main commentary has been: This is a well written book, but is it a thriller or a murder mystery? Where on the shelf would it go?

My agent, who only works on commission, is done trying to sell “Say Nothing” to a mainstream publisher. So now it is up to me again to find an audience for this revised book.

Up it goes onto Kindle Direct with its new protagonist, many enhancements, and the confidence of its author that she has written a more than decent and interesting book. Has it arrived? Is it finished? Only time will tell.

Check out the amazon database in a couple of weeks and the new—2012 version— of “Say Nothing” will be there.  Read More