Rivendell

Issue 3, Spring 2004: Workshop to Woodshed

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from Editor's Note:

In jazz lore, the tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins took a two-year hiatus from a thriving career. Famously, Rollins stepped off the stage and onto the Williamsburg Bridge, playing his saxophone to the wind. In doing so, Rollins allowed himself room to grow and mature as an artist outside the limelight. He entered the "woodshed" of creative process, that mythic retreat wherein the artist hones craft. By nature, writers go to the woodshed all the time. Like Sandburg out on his rock, or Dillard in her isolated cabin, we remove ourselves in order to connect. But this is often only half the story. Writers also attend workshops, give readings, participate in conferences, go to retreats, and collaborate with other artists. In doing so, we move ourselves out past the range of our own individual visions, mixing our voices into the larger voice of the choir. Even if we swear off the communal gathering of writers, we often will share our work with a small circle of friends. Indeed, we are perpetually moving between the "woodshed" of solitary work--in the study, alone at the desk--and the public, "literary" life of workshops, conferences and readings.

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Issue 2, Summer 2003: North of Boston

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from Editor's Note:

Editing this journal, I have been constantly taken aback by the generosity of the authors I come in contact with. How easily they allow me to reprint their work. The donations they offer. How they connect other writers and editors and booksellers to our project by bringing copies of RIVENDELL to readings or putting our postcards in letters to friends.

When I tell people about RIVENDELL, they often shake their heads and say, "That must be a labor of love!" I want to say, "What isn't?" But I smile, instead, and tell them how much fun we're having. It is hard work, but the kind that repays our efforts ten-fold.

Hands down the best part of the job has been the correspondence. I thought this might be the case going in, for I have always loved sending and receiving mail. But there's something special about the connections I've made compiling each issue.

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Issue 1, Winter 2002: City of Angels

Cover photo by Robert Morrow
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from Editor's Note:

In the spring of 2000, I returned to teach at Pitzer College, my alma mater, as a visiting writer. Pitzer is located in Claremont, a quiet college town an hour inland from Los Angeles near the base of Mt. Baldy. It had been over ten years since I spent time in southern California. During those first few weeks, I walked around the campus and the town feeling simultaneously at home in, and utterly estranged from, my surroundings.

Early in my stay, I was invited by my old friend and mentor Barry Sanders to sit in on his poetry class; a colleague of his, Peter Harris, was coming to read to the students. I remember sitting in that bright classroom and being bowled over by Harris' dynamic poetry. Harris himself seemed electric with energy and intelligence. I walked out of that classroom bristling with questions. Eventually, I sat down with Peter Harris and turned those questions into the interview that opens this journal. It was in that congenial talk that I first heard about The World Stage, a writers' workshop and performance space located in the heart of L.A.'s Crenshaw District.

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