The Lightning Room: Blog People

Hello! Welcome back to Blog People, a venture here at the Lightning Room in which interview editors Simon and DeWitt interview their fellow denizens of The Blog. In our second installment, Simon interviews Dan Pinkerton, author of the column “Marvelous Medicine.”

1. You write the monthly column “Marvelous Medicine” (often subtitled “Books for Precocious Kids and Kid-Hearted Grown-ups”) for PANK –could you tell us a little about it, and perhaps its beginnings?

Sheila was familiar with my writing, so when she took over as editor of the PANK blog she asked if I’d like to contribute something on a regular basis.  I was enthusiastic about doing a themed column, but neither Sheila nor I were too keen on the first couple ideas I proposed.  Then I had one of those eureka moments as I was reading to my kids.  They are six and eight, so they’re starting to read some of the books I remember enjoying as a child, so I envisioned writing a monthly piece on children’s books that might hold some appeal for literary-minded adults.  I presented the idea to Sheila and she approved (perhaps because she also has young kids at home?).

I’ve started by discussing some writers who will likely be familiar to PANK fans – Donald Barthelme, George Saunders, Matthea Harvey – but I’m hoping to branch out and explore “lost” (out of print) books and underappreciated authors.

2. Is there one particular book that you read as a kid and still return to now over and over? What’s your benchmark?

That’s a tough question!  There are some books and authors I remember vividly from childhood, but I sort of left children’s lit behind until I had kids of my own.  In recent years I’ve returned to children’s lit as a source of inspiration because frankly some of these books are more imaginative and – gasp! – entertaining than the adult literature I’d been reading.  The “Series of Unfortunate Events” and “Mysterious Benedict Society” books, among others, have been a lot of fun to read.  And of course I had to hop on the “Harry Potter” and “Hunger Games” bandwagons.

A.A. Milne’s writing, at the sentence level, is endlessly inventive (though my kids still giggle at the scatalogical sound of “Pooh Bear”).  I loved the John Bellairs mysteries as a kid, also the “Bagthorpe Saga” books by Helen Cresswell, “Danny the Champion of the World” and “George’s Marvelous Medicine” by Roald Dahl, and anything by John R. Tunis.  I’m hoping to write about some of these in future posts.

3. Broadly speaking, what do you think we have to gain from reading books written for a younger audience? What can we appreciate now that we might not have when we were small, and vice-versa?

For some of us, at least, our most intense experiences with books came when we were kids, that feeling of total immersion, lost time, a visceral love of the characters.  Adult literary fiction is more cerebral, so emotionally we’re more distanced from it.  Honestly the last time I had that childlike sense of immersion was when I read the first couple George Martin books from the “Song of Ice and Fire” series, which are extremely well-written.  I’m envious of Martin’s ability to dream up such a complex, detailed world.

I can’t speak for others, but personally I feel that school kills some of the unfettered love we feel for books.  Once the critical faculty has been developed to a certain extent, it’s hard to shut off.  We can still appreciate what we read as children, but we’ll never love these books quite as deeply as we once did.

On the other hand, many of the smarter children’s writers include jokes and references intended as little gifts for the grown-ups reading along with their kids, things that sail right over a child’s head.  So I think there’s definitely a merit in rereading books we first picked up when we were young.

4. What age were you when you first read something and thought to yourself, “Wow, this – this is great.” I.e., when did you discover that reading was the key?

I was very fortunate in that I never needed to discover reading for myself.  I grew up in a house full of books.  Not only did my mom read to me every day, but I would often find my parents reading in their spare moments.  Even now they devour books and will often read aloud to one another.  This type of behavior is infectious.  Other kids spent their summer days at the pool or playing video games; I spent mine at the library, and by choice.  I think that if we force our kids to read they’ll view it as a punishment, but we can certainly model the act for them.  My son brings home library books, but he also loves reading on his Kindle.  I think this is something we need to embrace.

Early immersive reading is crucial to writers.  That may seem obvious, but I truly believe that reading, more than writing or classroom instruction, serves as the writer’s apprenticeship.  A writer’s voice is a melting pot of all the writing he or she has internalized, the styles and modes.  I was baffled when I got to grad school and encountered people claiming they wanted to be writers who hadn’t read anything!

5. Can you situate yourself for our readers? The PANK team comes from all over.

Aside from a few years in Pennsylvania, I’m an Iowan born and bred.  Though my father wasn’t a farmer, his father was, and I grew up in a nineteenth-century farmhouse out in the country, surrounded by cornfields.  It could get pretty quiet out there, so books were a great companion.

6. Tell me about your first-ever interaction with PANK.

I knew one of the founding editors, Matt Seigel, from school.  We were admirer’s of each other’s work, so he asked me to submit something for the new journal he was starting up.  I sent him some poems, and PANK decided to publish a couple.  Later on they published a few more of my poems on the website, so all told they’ve been extremely kind to me.  Of course, PANK is becoming a premier journal so I was glad to get in when I did.  Now if I submitted something I doubt I’d make the cut!

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Dan Pinkerton lives in Des Moines, Iowa with his wife and two kids, both of whom have strong opinions about what constitutes great literature. His stories and poems have appeared in such places as Quarterly West, Hayden’s Ferry Review, New Orleans Review, Subtropics, Sonora Review, Boston Review, and the Best New American Voices anthology.

Simon Jacobs curates the Safety Pin Review, a wearable medium for work of fewer than 30 words. He may be found at simonajacobs.blogspot.com.