Book Talk: Kate Feiffer — Morning Pages with Mara Liasson
Elise Hellman was once heralded by audiences and critics as a “playwright to watch.” Then they forgot all about her. When a prestigious theater company unexpectedly offers her a generous commission to write a new play, she has an opportunity to turn her career around. With sixty-five days left until her deadline, Elise starts scribbling a few pages of stream-of-consciousness first thing every morning as a way to get over her writer’s block–a technique called Morning Pages, popularized in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.
What emerges is a witty confessional in which Elise chronicles her life with her teenage stoner son and her overbearing and eccentric mother, who is losing her memory but not her profanity. She writes about her lingering feelings for her ex-husband, her best friend who is acting oddly, and the confusing encounters she has with a handsome stranger in an elevator.
As she writes, the marked-up scenes from her play, Deja New, are revealed, as a story within the story.
Morning Pages is about what life throws at you when you’re trying to write. It is both a humorous exploration of the creative process and a relatable coming-of-age tale for the generation sandwiched between caring for their parents and caring for their kids.
Kate Feiffer, a former television news producer, is an illustrator, and author of eleven highly acclaimed books for children, including Henry the Dog with No Tail and My Mom Is Trying to Ruin My Life. Morning Pages is her first novel for adults. Kate currently divides her time between Martha’s Vineyard, where she raised her daughter Maddy, and New York City, where she grew up.
Feiffer will be in conversation with Mara Liasson. Liasson is a national political correspondent for NPR’s award-winning news magazines “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.” Liasson provides extensive coverage of politics and policy from Washington, D.C., focusing on the White House and Congress, and also reports on political trends beyond the Beltway. She won the White House Correspondents’ Association’s Merriman Smith Award for daily news coverage in 1994, 1995, and again in 1997. Liasson joined NPR in 1985. Prior to joining NPR, Liasson was a freelance radio and television reporter in San Francisco.
