Writers on Writers

I’ve just read in a Publishers Weekly email that Alexander McCall Smith, author of No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, will be putting out a new book on poet W. H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden for Princeton University Press’ Writers on Writers series. Looks like Smith’s will be the 2nd title in the series, as I found only one other book listed for Writers on Writers in PUP’s catalog: Phillip Lopate’s Notes on Sontag (which looks quite interesting, by the way).

Not sure why, but one of my first reactions (besides, ooh, what will it be like to read about Auden from the perspective of Ma Ramotswe’s creator?) was to think, I want to write a book for that series. Let’s skip over the real possibility that Princeton wouldn’t be interested in my authoring such a book, since only a small part of the literary world knows I even exist as a writer — I mean, I’m no McCall Smith, with worldwide readership and a crateload of top-selling titles to attract buyer attention. No, let’s say that fame didn’t matter, that my spunky attitude and ability to merge metaphor with poetic irony was the key to getting Princeton to agree to a proposal for the series. So who would I write about?

I had to think about that for a little while. Here’s a list of poets/authors who have had the greatest impact on me as a writer and poet, and that I would find interesting to write about:

Floyd Skloot
Connie Willis
Tom Reninger
Pablo Neruda
Glendon Swarthout
Octavia Butler
William Golding

3 poets, 4 novelists. Of course there are others who I think are marvelous writers. And if I had the gumption to write about all the authors who’ve shaped my own writing in some fashion, I could create my own library of biography. But how to narrow this list down to the one pitch that Princeton would go for, and that I would relish writing?

The big-name attractions would be Neruda, Golding, and then Butler and Willis. They would draw their own audiences. Yet I have personal connections to lesser-known poets, Reninger and Skloot, that would help me delve into a more rounded and inter-connected portrait, if I went with either of them.

My choice, then? Floyd Skloot. Skloot’s poetry and prose is accessible in the way that Billy Collins’ poems are, and therefore they can speak to a wider general audience than do Reninger’s symbol-laden poems. Skloot’s voice is genuine, his diction lyrical. And somehow, he’s unlocked in my own poetry the ability to say what I mean, using a fluid style.

That’s all I’m giving you now — I mean, hey, the rest might show up in a book from PUP’s Series catalog. But I’d like to ask you, if you wanted to pitch a proposal for this series, Who’s the one writer you’d write on?