Andrew Paul Jackson's Grigori Efimovich: The Memory of Liars premieres this month at the Boston Conservatory in Massachusetts. The one-act opera, on which I served as librettist, details the shaky connections between Felix Yusupov, a bumbling traitor to Russia's last Tsar, and his co-conspirators in the death of Rasputin. The monk from Siberia, Grigori Efimovich, has been called a sexual deviant, the devil incarnate, and the downfall of imperialist Russia. He was also a father, a mystic, and the beloved guardian of Alexei, the Tsarevich, a sickly boy and the heir to the throne of the Russian Empire

The story of Rasputin's death achieved near-mythic status because, in part, of Yusupov's Gothic-Horror account of the murder. Yusupov's word is not to be trusted; the memory of liars is a flexible thing.

Based in part on the scholarship of Andrew Cook (To Kill Rasputin), the opera attempts to detail the murder's participants -- including Rasputin himself -- as historical men who lived and died at the onset of the twentieth century. As opposed to caricatures, that is. If you're in Boston, and interested to see the opera, please be advised that seating is limited. The curtains go up Tuesday, April 28th, at 9 pm in Senlly Hall.

Although it has nothing to do with me personally, I'm happy to announce that my short story "The Lexicon of the Sword," which will appear in The Moon City Review, will be placed in the same volume as unpublished letters and manuscript fragments from literary master John Updike. This is a terrific honor, one I never would have expected.

John Updike attended Harvard with a man named Robert Wallace, another writer and poet, from Springfield, Missouri. Updike once called Wallace "the smoothest typist" ever to come out of Springfield. Throughout their lives, they stayed in contact, and when Wallace died, he left his literary estate to the special collections department at the Meyer Library.

I am told the correspondence might be as much as fifty pages of typed material, including a fragment of Updike's famous novel, Rabbit, Run, which was ultimately cut from the final manuscript.

I will be an alumnus when the book appears, but if you're interested in the volume, The Moon City Review is an annual anthology published by the Moon City Press at Missouri State University (distributed by the University of Arkansas).

My short story The Lexicon of the Sword will appear in the Spring 2009 Moon City Review. The MCR is rebooting its image with a whole new look, so I'm flattered the fiction editors thought enough of the story to include it in this inaugural issue.

If you'd like a copy of the journal when it comes out, send your name and mailing address to

Lately I've been reading more. I finished Dan Simmons's Drood, for example, the Gothic re-imagining of Charles Dickens's last five years of life. This was a very long book, and, I must say, quite good. It certainly held my attention.

After Drood, I finally picked up a slender book I've been meaning to read, off and on, for years.

When released in 2005, Peter Pouncy's Rules for Old Men Waiting won numerous awards, including the American Academy of Arts & Letters' Howard D. Vursell Memorial Award. I came across the book one day at Barnes & Noble, where it had been selected as part of their Great New Writers series (or whatever they call it).

The book is short, especially compared to mammoth works like Drood, but carries something I love about short novels: An incredible concentration of feeling. The book is only 208 pages. Yet the compassion is so thick it almost leaks out of the pages. Each sentence is written and polished and perfect. As well they should be. Peter Pouncy took his time writing the book: Twenty-three years, to be exact.

For those who are math-inclined, yes, that is nine and a half pages per year. The pace doesn't bode well for a sequel, and more's the shame, because Pouncy is a terrific writer.

Rules for Old Men Waiting was worth the wait. The story centers around Robert MacIver, an old widower, who has come to his house on the cape ("older than the Republic") to die. The ensuing 208 pages are a patchwork of creation and death, two different but ultimately entertwined aspects of life. As he waits for the end, MacIver recalls his life and his love for his wife, Margaret, and for his son, David, who have both preceded him in death.

While he waits, MacIver struggles with the violence inside him. He recalls his work as a World War I historian and scholar; his own service in World War II; and his son's service in Vietnam.

Since he is losing his life, MacIver, a grizzled old Scot, finds it hard to focus. So he formulates a list of rules: Hence the book's title.

The last rule, Rule 10, is this: Tell a story to its end.

I can't go on right now; I don't want to ruin the end of the book for those of you who might read it. But suffice to say that Rules for Old Men Waiting should be a classic piece of literature along with other great novels about love, creativity, death, and war, including Tolstoy's War & Peace and All Quiet on the Western Front.

Pamela Smith Hill is the award-winning author of Ghost Horses, The Last Grail Keeper, and Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life. She lives in Portland, Oregon, although she grew up in the Missouri Ozarks 'on a steady diet of Bible stories and old TV westerns.' Last Fall, I was fortunate enough to have her come and speak with my class of creative writing students at the university.

If you're interested in Pamela's writing, you can find out about her latest projects, workshops, and more at http://www.pamelasmithhill.com/.

Q: Who is your favorite author and why?

A: I don't have a favorite author, but there are several that I reread periodically:  Mark Twain, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Barbara Pym, Charles Dickens, Laura Ingalls Wilder, T.H. White, and E.B. White. I find inspiration, artistry, and the pure joy of reading in their books.

Q: You mentioned you started your career in newspaper journalism. What do you see as the future of print news? How is the newspaper industry connected (if at all) to reading, fiction, and entertainment? 

A: Unfortunately, traditional newspaper journalism seems to be a dying profession.  Younger readers prefer to get their news online-- it's faster, more timely, and delivers fast-breaking stories better than television.  I'm not sure, however, that online news is as reliable or thorough.  And will it support the dying art of investigative reporting?  Ultimately, I worry that the American public will be satisfied with superficial reporting, that major stories will go under- or unreported, something we've already seen during the last eight years.   
 
As a writer, my background in print journalism strengthened my career as a writer of fiction and biography.  The skills and techniques I used to research newspaper assignments and conduct interviews prepared me for the exhaustive research needed for historical fiction and biography.  I also believe that interviewing strengthened my ability, years later, to write good dialogue.  So for me personally, my training as a newspaper staff writer related directly to my later career as a novelist and biographer.
 
 
Q: John Gardner once wrote that the question he was most asked was, "Do you write with a pen, a pencil... or what?" He said he thought this question delved into the mystical aspect of writing, and questions, at its deepest level, whether there is in fact any hope for the young writer. So I have to ask, do you write with a pen, a pencil... or what? Is there any hope, and, if there is, what is your best advice to students and aspiring authors?

A: I write in Word Perfect (I despise Microsoft Word) at my computer.  Other than to jot down notes to myself or random insights about a work-in-progress, I rarely write with a pen or pencil, perhaps because of my reporting background, where I wrote all my stories on an IBM Selectric typewriter.  Reporters didn't have time to write their stories in longhand.  That said, I always carry a pen and/or pencil and paper with me; I keep yet another set of writing supplies by my bed.  You never know when you'll need them.
 
And I think that, in itself, is hopeful.  Be prepared for the unexpected because the best ideas usually arrive unannounced.
 
My advice to student writers is to continue to write, to perfect your craft, and to read as if your life depended on it.  Because as a writer, it does.

Q: You recently published a biography titled Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life. What drew you to the author of the Little House on the Prairie books? Is there a specific reason you chose to tell Wilder's story? 

A: I was commissioned to write the Wilder biography.  Frankly, if I hadn't been asked, I probably wouldn't have had the courage to take on a subject like Wilder.  What could I possibly say that hadn't been said before?  But once I began to research Wilder's writing life, I discovered that I had plenty to say.
 
Wilder's career as a professional writer and then later as a successful novelist was far more complicated and extensive than most of her readers recognize.  She struggled to find her voice, her subject, her genre, and even her publisher.  This intrigued me-- along with the sheer beauty and simplicity of her prose.  Furthermore, the tension between the facts of her life and the fiction of her "Little House" books reveals Wilder to be a far more interesting and masterful novelist than the literary legend she's become.

Q: If you could tell an aspiring writer one thing, one piece of advice, what would it be and why? 

A: Have faith in your own work and your belief in yourself as a writer.  As novelist Eloise Jarvis McGraw once said, "Nobody but you really cares whether you write or not.  Never mind that, keep at it."