the G P T LETTERS, #1 The following emails are from Chronicle Books. 5/5/01 Hey Jenkins, There's a building going up directly outside my window. Lots of men in hard hats with power tools. I've been watching them go in and out of the Porta-potty all morning. I passed glimpses on the JS, our fiction editor, late last week. I got in a good ten minutes of shameless plugging for your work before I left his office. I'm sure he hasn't had a chance to read it yet. I'll check on it later this week. I've read most of the pieces in the manuscript in one form or another, but was happily surprised to find a few I haven't read. Regardless, I like to read your writing over and over again. It sparks different things in my mind depending on my mood. Sometimes I read it purely on the surface -- just taking in the scenarios for what they are, having some good laughs.Other times, the writing is not quite what it seems. It becomes full of metaphors, woven with the goo that captures the essense of the mundacity and absurdity of the day to day. The spicy jumbalaya of living. Like I said, sometimes it makes me laugh. Sometimes it makes me feel lonely. Sometimes not so lonely. Sometimes it make me wistful. Nostalgic. Sometime I shake my head and raise an eyebrow, wrought with cynicism, kind of angry in a way. Almost always I feel inspired and optimistic. One of the first conversations I had with J was whether or not we thought of ourselves as pessimistic optimists or optimistic pessimists (what's the difference really?). I remember reading an article or interview where you mention the same thing. Your writing makes perfect sense to people with a certain sense (or an appreciation of senselessness?). I think the thread is lost on others. Where are all those like-minded people? How do you get the word out to them? Is Chronicle the right publisher for it? It was cool to see all the glimpses together creating a bigger picture. I appreciate that you wove some really personal pieces in as the manuscript progressed. At first, I thought it would be purely from an observer's point of view -- a bit removed. But it was good to see parts of you (or are they? it's fiction right!?*) as it unfolded. It helped make the picture seem clearer. Knowing how prolific you are as a visual artist, I can't help but want to make the book more -- add photography throughout, use another sense to experience it. But that may just be me not being able to separate all the work you do. The writing stands solidly on its own. It deserves to be out there. Your final piece from Open Letters is perfect. I don't know how else to say this other than that it pretty much sums IT all up. -- KB 5/17/01 Hey Jenkins - Response from JS below. I'm sorry. It was worth a shot. I sure do hope the right editor connects with it. I'll let you know if I hear anything more... -- KB From: JS Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 5:14 PM Subject: Andy Jenkins Thanks for passing on the manuscript from Andy Jenkins. He has a great eye and can sure write, but the pieces in this manuscript, though often sharp and interesting, are too impressionistic and personal, too much journal snippets, for my tastes -- I just don't know what to do with them in book form. The longer (and more developed) ones were more interesting to me, but even they stopped short of being satisfying, especially when taken together as a collection. His website is quite interesting and shows a lot of creativity (but would be hard to capture in book form too). So what I'm going to do is show the manuscript to a younger editor and see if it sparks with her. I'll let you know more soon. -- JS back to the GPT responses warnings * No.