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A letter from Alasdair Gray

After Edward Carey (author of Little) finished writing his first book in 1999, he wrote to his hero, Alasdair Gray. This was Gray’s response.

…please tell anyone you know in the writing game that I’m too selfish to be of use to anyone. If you photocopy this letter and pass it around I will think it a favor.

That handwriting! Exquisite. I want to copy every letter.

I’d never heard of Gray or his work until a few years ago, when Elizabeth McCracken (author of Bowlaway, and, not coincidentally, Edward’s wife) sent me this charming video of him talking about his writing and art:

“I couldn’t make a living by either of them,” he said, “so the writing helped the painting and the painting helped the writing.”

I particularly loved his response to the ever-worn-out question, “Can writing be taught?”

Of course! I couldn’t write before I was was taught! That’s why they give it to you in primary schools. Writing and speaking are things that have to be learned first. Some people at a certain stage think that they don’t have to learn any more. If you’re very interested in words then you try to keep on learning more. And the best way, of course, is by reading other writers. Good ones! Or even bad ones are better than none to begin with.

Delightful video. Do watch.

Related reading: Edward Carey at the APL

The residue of creativity

A few days ago, my friend Wendy MacNaughton (who has a terrific new column in the New York Times) posted this “Mistakes” jar, filled with eraser shavings “and tears.”

Einstein supposedly said that creativity is the residue of wasted time, but I think a lot about the residue of creativity. Sometimes that residue is a work of art, but more often than not, it’s a tiny trail of waste —debris, dust, shavings, clippings, trash, etc.


I love it when artists collect and display this residue. (Sometimes they even sell it.) One of my favorite parts of Edward Carey’s show at the Austin Public Library was a bowl of his pencils, used all the way to the stumps.


Years ago, I saw a show of book carver Brian Dettmer, and there was a box of his X-acto blades on a pedestal. (He estimates he goes through “15-50 blades a day, usually switching over to a new blade every ten minutes to half hour.”


In 2013, designer Craighton Berman ran a funny, tongue-in-cheek Kickstarter called “The Campaign for the Accurate Measurement of Creativity.” It included a “Sharpener Jar” — “a product designed to quantify creative output.”


Since I wrote Show Your Work! in 2013, I’ve been interested in how artists share their process, how social media allows you to share when there’s nothing, really, to share, and how sometimes the scraps and ephemera from our process can turn into their own attractions. (Above: Amanda Palmer’s sticky notes posted while working on The Art of Asking: “[I] was trying to find a way to share their colorful beauty without also revealing their content.”)


Oh, and while I’m riffing: “Butt Pattern,” from the #MTAMuseum (more here) is this idea of process-residue-as-art taken to its most extreme and funny conclusion.

Edward Carey at Austin Public Library


I actually left the house last night to attend Edward Carey’s art show opening & book release for Little at the Central Library gallery. It was a special treat because after Edward read, he was interviewed by his wife, Elizabeth McCracken. (It was their first time onstage together.)

I’m inspired by how much pictures and words are fully integrated in Carey’s work. His stories often start with a drawing, and he’s drawing constantly while writing. (I wondered about how much his visual thinking makes it into his classroom work —  he mentioned that in his courses at UT he talks to his students about maps and the importance of knowing the worlds of your characters.) If you read this blog regularly, you might remember his bit on productive procrastination:

The exhibit (up until January) is very well done, and organized by book. (The second great exhibit I’ve seen in the space — the first was Lance Letscher.) Here is original artwork for The Iremonger Trilogy:

And here’s a drawing from the new one:

Carey’s work is wonderfully dark, but with a good splash of humor. (It’s fitting that earlier in the day my 3-year-old was drawing pages out of Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies.)

There’s a lot to like in the show, but my favorite thing might’ve been this bowl of his pencil stubs — Tombow Bs, I think— which resembled an ashtray with cigarette butts. (Carey is a former chain smoker.)

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