San Francisco Public Library

Love, Loosha, the letters of Lucia Berlin & Kenward Elmslie, edited by Chip Livingston

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 325-328) and index (pages 329-332)

contains biographical information

photographsillustrations

index present

non fiction

Love, Loosha

bibliography

1311592075

edited by Chip Livingston

the letters of Lucia Berlin & Kenward Elmslie

"Love, Loosha reveals the lives and literary obsessions of two great American writers through their frequent letters to each other. It details their writing habits and expressions, how they invented new words or offered new spellings to emphasize and reflect tone, dialect, accent, and dramatics. They discuss publishing and social trends, political correctness, offending others and being offended. They gossip. They dish. And they entertain, for not only are Kenward and Lucia writing to the other, they are writing/or the other, hoping to cheer and delight their very important pen pal. But they are also aware of the quality in their exchange, frequently mentioning the desire to have their letters published, as creative and informative as they are, so their letters ultimately become a correspondence for and to the public, showing contemporary readers a history of international literature as written and analyzed between two intimate friends. Lucia and Kenward led theatrical lives of glamour, drama, travel, love, loss, and literature. For each other, they review the books they are reading, as well as performances of readings and shows by friends, a mad mix of international writers, artists, opera singers, movie and stage actors, composers, and producers. Friends and writers critiqued and contextualized include Gore Vidal, John Ashbery, George Plimpton, Anne Waldman, Ed Dom, James Schuyler, Paul Auster, Frank O'Hara, Grace Paley, Tony Kushner, Mabel Mercer, Elaine Stritch, Leonard Bernstein, Felicia Montealegre, Sandy Duncan, Stella Adler, Stephen Sondheim, Brenda Lewis, Ned Rorem, John Cameron Mitchell, and Truman Capote. Love, Loosha also includes drawings, collages, and collected and postcard originals they sent to each other and included in the letters"--, Provided by publisher

Part I. 1994-2000 : Letters from Maxwell Avenue, Boulder, CO -- Letters from Calais, VT, and New York, NY -- Part II. 2000-2001 : Letters from Valmont Road, Boulder, CO -- Letters from Calais, VT, and New York, NY -- Part III. 2001-2003 : Letters from Croyden Avenue, Los Angeles, CA -- Letters from Calais, VT, and New York, NY -- Part IV. 2003-2004 : Letters from Washington Blvd., Marina del Rey, CA -- Letters from Calais, VT, and New York, NY