Wednesday, July 27, 2022

When Writers Gather

DEBORAH CROMBIE: The other night at dinner we were talking about the apocryphal story in which Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, and L. Ron Hubbard were having drinks somewhere (in my imagination, a hotel bar at an early sci-fi convention) and made an informal bet as to who could invent the best religion--resulting in Stranger in a Strange Land, The Foundation Trilogy, Dune, and Scientology.  This is probably not true (the dates don't work out, for one thing) but if it was, wouldn't that have been a fun conversation to overhear?


Heinlein in 1976

This started me thinking about other groups of well-know writers that gathered regularly. Of course there was the famous (or infamous) Algonquin Round Table in New York, also known as the Vicious Circle for their practical jokes and barbed wit. They met for lunch most days between 1919 and 1929, and although membership varied, included Harpo Marx, Alexander Woolcott, Dorothy Parker, and Charles MacArthur.


left to right, Art Samuels, Charles MacArthur, Harpo Marx, Dorothy Parker, and Alexander Woolcott

Then there was Paris. Who hasn't dreamed of sitting in Les Deux Magots with Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Kay Boyle, and the other literary luminaries of the 1920's Lost Generation? (Digging out our copy of Midnight in Paris now...) I would, however, pass on the absinthe!


And that brings me to my personal favorite "writer's group," the Inklings. Between the early 1930s and 1949, a loose group of literary enthusiasts gathered regularly at an Oxford pub called the Eagle and Child (affectionately known as the Bird and Baby.) The group included (but was not limited to) C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and occasionally, Dorothy L. Sayers. 

In college I was obsessed with the Inklings. They were the subject of my senior year directed study paper, and on my first trip to England the year I graduated, this pub in Oxford topped even London on my must-see list.


To have been included in those conversations was my ultimate fantasy--basically, I wanted to be an Inking when I grew up.

REDS and readers, if you could be a fly on the wall at one of these gatherings--or another that I haven't mentioned--which one would you choose?

I wonder if the Internet has done away with this sort of regular and fruitful exchange of work and ideas among writers. Or has it bettered it in other ways? 

(Although we Reds chat on our group email on a daily basis, we're not usually brainstorming plots or solving philosophical dilemmas. Maybe we should!)


74 comments:

  1. Goodness, being a fly on the wall in any gathering with Isaac Asimov would have been amazing . . . .
    I think I’d have chosen the Inklings group . . . it would be hard to pass up anything with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien participating . . . .

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    1. Asimov was an incredible intellect, and a visionary, but I've never been inclined to reread his books.

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    2. As a science fiction reader from a young age, I was a huge fan of his work, and was super excited that he spoke at my college graduation. I may have been the only person there who was looking forward to the speech more than actually getting my diploma!

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    3. You heard Asimov speak?? How fabulous, Julia. He's reputed to have said that the only person smarter than him was Carl Sagan, and Sagan was bloody brilliant.

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    4. I was fortunate to hear Carl Sagan speak. Wonderful. And modest, I thought

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    5. Julia, what a great speaker for your graduation . . . lucky you! I never had the opportunity to hear Isaac Asimov speak but I've reread many of his books.

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  2. I think it would be fun to listen in to the Inklings as well.

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  3. So cool the pub is still there! Yes, the Inklings would be my choice to listen in on! My daughter has told me of some of the conversations between C.S. Lewis and Tolkien.

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  4. Fascinating Debs--you were so far ahead of us studying the inklings in college! My college thesis was on the surrealists, Max Ernst and Paul Eluard. I bet if I went back to reread that, I'd be lost! The Jungle Red family is like a writers group, gathering here every day to chat about the state of the world. I would love to talk weekly about plots!

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    1. LUCY: I tried to comment here. I will try again. My college thesis was about History in Literature by authors like Sir Walter Scott. Ironically, my TA was a feminist and she steered me towards novels by Men?? Perhaps she thought that my choices were too "Lightweight" LOL. I wanted to write my college thesis about History in ROMANCE novels by women authors.

      Diana

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    2. That would have been a great topic, Diana.

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  5. All those wonderful groups! I'd never heard that about the sci-fi authors' meeting and what came out of it. I also hadn't heard about the Inklings - great name, great authors.

    There was the Saturday Club in Boston in the nineteenth century, which included Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Emerson, Whittier, and others. The Atlantic Monthly was born out of it. But...where were the ladies?

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    1. It's hard not to notice how vastly outnumbered the female writers are in these things.

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    2. Great question! I was at the bookstore the other day and I mentioned that most of the books were written by Male authors. Why was I surprised? I grew up with so many novels by women in my home library. Though I do have several books by male authors, most of my books are by women.

      Diana

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    3. The Saturday Club would have been fascinating, Edith.

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  6. I want to be a fly on the wall in the Saturday Night Live writers' room... in the classic days back when Roseanne RoseannaDanna was being hatched. Remember back when there was a big controversy when some guy/writer said women couldn't be funny?

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    1. And then Tina Fey and Amy Poehler put that canard to bed!

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    2. I would like to join you on the wall in the Saturday Night Live writers' room, Hallie. Actually, it'd be fun to be in any writers room with Mel Brooks, dontcha think?

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    3. Oh my gosh, the writer's room with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. Geniuses.

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    4. The SNL writer's room might have said woman can't be funny but the person who put it into print, at some length, was acclaimed (but not by me!) journalist Christopher Hitchens. An often very irritating writer IMHO. Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner worked for Sid Caesar...and what a writers room that must have been!

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  7. I have heard of the Algonquin Round Table but not the Inklings. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall in the group that British actors/comedians (and writers) Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry & Emma Thompson formed while they studied in Cambridge in the early 1980s.

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    1. GRACE: Big fan of Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson here. I would have loved to that too.

      Diana

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    2. Oh, yes, that would have been brilliant. And what about the Monty Pythons?

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    3. Here's the link to the Cambridge Footlights list of members. I did not know that Rowan Atkinson (Mr Bean) was also in the group in 1981.
      https://www.cambridgefootlights.org/history

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    4. What a brilliant group! I didn't know about them, but I would have loved that. Thanks for the info Grace. Does anyone believe that such groups could exist now? I think social media has destroyed a lot of the potential.

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  8. With my luck, I'd arrive on the wall just as someone would be talking about repairing their toilet.

    I am intrigued by all the many intellectual groups who have met over time and how very much you know about them, Debs. I have never given them a second thought. In your fifth Gemma and Duncan book, Dreaming of the Bones, a group of students attempts to imitate the group that included Rupert Brooke a half century earlier. That is one of my absolute favorites of all your stories!

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    1. I was going to talk about the Bloomsburys--one of few literary groups that DID include women--but I was afraid I was going on too long. And thank you, Judy.

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  9. All of these groups intrigue me, but if I must choose, it would be a chair at Les Deux Magots. With or without Hemingway et al. Last time we were in Paris, we had an overpriced-for-the-tourists glass of wine there. Got propositioned by a visiting Breton and invited to come stay at his home I suspect it was my daughter he had his eye on. We sometimes can use her as bait

    But I digress. On the same trip we went to Pere Lachaise and visited the grave of Gertrude Stein. I wondered where Alice Toklas might be. No sigh of her anywhere near. And then I looked at the back of the headstone and there her name appeared. Bless her. Playing second fiddle once more.

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    1. I didn't know that about Alice Toklas, Ann. And Les Deux Magots is horribly touristy but, still, you can almost see them out of the corner of your eye.

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  10. Fascinating topic. I remember staying up all night in college a few times with friends talking and talking. We were sure we had solutions to all the problems of the world. My choices of groups to eavesdrop on would be the Inklings or the Bloomsbury group.

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  11. I'd definitely been a fly for the Inklings.

    Have you seen the movie with Owen Wilson where he travels back in time to talk to his favorite authors, including Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and gets a critique from Gertrude Stein? It's called "Midnight in Paris."

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  12. I vote for the Inklings. I would love to have a conversation with Dorothy Sayers.

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    1. A conversation with Dorothy Sayers could be fun!

      Diana

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    2. I suspect that I, at least, couldn't have kept up. :-)

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  13. Any of these groups would be fascinating to listen to, but I think I would be far too intimidated to participate!

    What about the Bloomsbury Group? Virginia Woolf was one of the many luminaries involved, along with E.M. Forster, the artist Vanessa Bell, and lots of others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsbury_Group

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    1. KAREN in OHIO: The Bloomsbury Group sounds fascinating. I could easily imagine my suffragist great grandmother being a member of that group. LOL. Yes, the same great grandmother who got her haircut at the barbershop, which caused my great grandfather to say that he could not bring her to church anymore. LOL

      Diana

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    2. Yes, of course, I was going to mention them, Karen, but was afraid the post was too long. We will be talking about Bloomsbury tomorrow!

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  14. DEBS: So many fascinating writing groups. The Inklings sounds like an awesome group. Which writing group would I have liked to be a fly on the wall? Perhaps any writing group that some authors, who are fluent in Sign Language, were participating in. I remember the first time I went to Malice Domestic conference, it amazed me that I met so many authors who knew sign language - Ellie Alexander, Marty Wingate, among other authors. I think I met Alison Weir, who wrote the English history novels, because she knew a friend of mine at Oxford. Cathy and I were in the same Oxford program and we met Alison for dinner in Cambridge. I did meet Lady Antonia Fraser when she was at a book event in California and she knew my Berkeley professor.

    Just remembered something. Many years ago, I was in a playwriting workshop on the East Coast. Our teacher was one of the original actors with the National Theater for the Deaf. And one of the participants just won an Oscar this year for Best Supporting Actor (CODA).

    In a way, I am already in a writing group. It is mainly online and we are learning the craft of writing a mystery novel. The classes were a birthday gift.

    Diana

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    1. Wonderful that you met so many authors who Sign, Diana! And Antonia Fraser--what a treat!

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  15. Definitely the Inklings. I was fascinated with them years ago, and have always loved C.S. Lewis.

    DebRo

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  16. I do love the romantic idea of lunch or regular meetings with other writers. Perhaps it's best we're doing it online now, though, when you consider how many of the authors taking part in those groups had serious problems with alcohol! Just imagine if you had the equivalent of the bar at Bouchercon every afternoon...

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    1. So true. Although I don't think any of the Inklings were big drinkers. They actually met on Tuesday mornings at the Bird, and I think also at Lewis's rooms on Thursday evenings.

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  17. The Inklings for me--They were so young and, if I remember correctly, some of them didn't make it home from WWI.

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  18. Yes, indeed, maybe we should!
    But just the idea of being in a place and talking to other writers without masks, sigh. Such a wonderful thought.
    I wonder what they REALLY talked about? The "cool religion" story is fascinating.
    And yes, Liz, Midnight in Paris. I love when he realizes who the people are.
    The Career Authors zoom talk every Monday at 10...and have for the pandemic. When we did an in-person workshop in May, I realized there was one of them I had never met in person. Such an odd moment!
    If I had to choose from your options, Debs, I'd. love to hear the science fiction group. Imagine their minds at work!

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    1. Hank, it could have been interesting. But, did they discuss their work and ideas or did they discuss the road work on route 2?

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  19. Rhys: Debs, I’ve often longed for such a group. We get close at our conventions but don’t often discuss our craft. And there will never be the collected correspondence of Rhys and Debs because emails get deleted

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    1. I think about that so often, Rhys. What will literary scholars do when there are no letters? And we should talk more about our books (I could use some brainstorming help at the moment!)

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  20. Oh, how wonderful. it would be the Inklings for me, how delicious. As for another group - The Detection Club. I'd love to be a fly on that wall, too.

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    1. How could I have forgotten about the Detection Club!! I've actually been to a meeting!

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    2. I wanted to mention the Detection Club, too!

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  21. The first time my daughter and I went to England, we went to Oxford and had lunch at the Eagle and Child We are great fans of those writers.

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  22. I couldn't handle a regular diet of Inklings, too much Christian theology for my taste, but I think a day or two with the Bloomsbury bunch might be interesting. Isn't there a Reds table at Bouchercon or Malice? I would love to listen to discussions about the craft and the trade.

    I belong to a Meetup group called "Hungry Minds" that I categorize as a bunch of people who like to hear themselves talk. We don't do plot points, but we do delve into philosophical dilemmas. Tonight, we are going to discuss whether the group should have a (an?) "hate speech" policy. Should be interesting. The advent of that discussion highlights issues that groups grappling with philosophical debate encounter. JRW does it with "be kind" and "don't rant" but can you have a philosophical discussion without a rant or two?

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  23. What a great topic, Debs. And the comments have been so fun, too. I would; have said inklings once - and I did wlak past the Eagle and Child and gave a little salute - but now, I agree that there might have been too much theology. And Lewis, who was hiding some secrets, enforced a rule of "no personal" topics, only intellectual ones. Not sure what that means but pretty sure it's cold. So I'd choose the writers room on Sid Caesar's shows.Funniest people ever! I have a story about the sci-fi group: when I was first a little in the mystery world, years ago, I saw a few writers talk about knowing L. Ron Hubbard in the old days and HEARD HIM SAY: "Not enough money in this writing business. I'm going to start a religion and make a fortune." (!!!)

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    1. Yes, one of the people I heard that Hubbard story from was THERE!

      Frank Herbert told me the reason he wrote Dune was that as a photojournalist, he was sent to cover a shoreline revision project and started wondering, what if they did THAT to a whole planet?

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    2. That sounds a little more likely.

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    3. I'd stick to the earlier Inklings, before theology became such a prominent component.

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  24. I would put Louise Penny, JK Rowling, Wm Saroyan, Tony Hillerman, and Agatha Christie around a table, serve drinks, and let them talk about their (infamous) rejections.

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  25. I thought I'd made a comment but it seems to have disappeared. I once stayed at the Algonquin; does that count?

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  26. The Bloomsburys - I mean the Virginia Woolf clique, but I would be so intimidated that I'd be trembling up there on the wall! (Susan Shea)

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  27. Oh my, all those wonderful groups. I've always been envious of them. Yes, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for most of them, although I might have had trouble keeping up with the insiders wit or the sci-fi fantasy. So many brilliant people were in those groups - hard to imagine the topics. Although as Judy says above, I would probably join them as they were discussing plumbing.

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  28. Inklings FTW - they just seem like the most interesting of the groups and possibly the friendliest. But honestly, I'd be happy to meet up with a group of writers in a pub any old time :)

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  29. I've had lots of fun reading everyone's suggestions for groups to eavesdrop on. So many great possibilities. I'll add that I think I'd like to have been a fly on the wall listening to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman come up with ideas their one collaborative book, GOOD OMENS, which is extremely funny and thought-provoking.

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  30. I'm a Francophile and deeply dove into everything I could find about the Paris group, plus have drank and written at all their bars. ;) I've spent hours in Shakespeare & Company and been a flaneur in as many Paris cafes as possible as I find the French lifestyle such a treat compared to ours. I've studied many of the women of the Left Bank and loved that they didn't cater to the men as much as we've heard. Ah, the stories!

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