Squaw Valley Community of Writers hosts literary events all summer. For more info visit www.squawvalleywriters.org. I attended two events on Monday, August 5, 2002.

The first session was a panel discussion. I'll give the panelist's name, affiliation and web site, if known, followed by any of their comments I found interesting or helpful.

The session was moderated by Santa Monica Review editor, Andrew Tonkovich, www.sma.edu/sm_review Alan Cheuse, Nat'l Public Radio's All Things Considered www.previewport.com (input Cheuse in the search field)

He looks for review books that are "beautiful work, powerful." He is drawn to a certain aesthetic, which, he says, he cannot explain any better than to say the books he reviews on the air are works that appeal to him. In his opinion, American writers have produced very few non-feeble novels dealing with politics. He says authors who seek to report rather than create the news are on the right track, which in context, I took to mean that while composing, we'd do well to keep our personal opinions to ourselves and let our characters do their thing.

He says he reads news from both political extremes to keep his sense of balance, but admitted that his 25-year-old daughter, a political activist for a bipartisan concern in Washington DC, has his ear.

He admonishes writers to make a difference in American society by donating time and energy to reverse what he sees as public school inertia relative to illiteracy. Go out and read to kids, says he.

Ann Close, New York Review of Books www.nybooks.com

Ann measures industry rattlings by reading the New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, lots of books and through social contacts.

Lynn Freed, novelist and U. C. Davis English Professor www.lynnfreed.com

Lynn says she stays current by using Internet news services and by reading the Wall Street Journal. She says because of the volume she generally reads the first three paragraphs and feels she gets the point of the story.

Lynn said cause always corrupts literature. She went on to say that while all good fiction probably is political (her examples were Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina), the writer obsessed or deeply concerned with a cause is wise to hold off writing about that devotion: a writer involved with a cause cannot get the writing correct.

Jervey Tervalon, author of Dead Above Ground, Living for the City and Understand This  (Lots of web sites came up on Google, but none seemed to be his personal site)

Jervey, like Alan, tries to keep his ear open to many voices. He listens intently on the street and reads non-mainstream news, mostly online. He also says he no longer believes there is any such thing as non-fiction, though if he supported this statement, I missed it.

Al Young www.alyoung.org

Al said democracy is a novel in progress. We tend to see it as a finished product, but it simply isn't so. He went on to explain that American letters are noticeably superficial when compared to the world stage. World writers are producing works that are broader, deeper and more moving. (Here the panelists erupted into a sort of breathless, unified, "Yes, but, we had our hearts broken on Sept 11^th, so the new stuff bubbling up is much stronger.")

He says writers should look at their novels as conversations and as such should not feel they need to provide every answer.

That's it.