Seven Impossible Interviews Before Breakfast #9:
The One. The Only. Haven Kimmel.
February 22nd, 2007 by Eisha and Jules
Dear Readers, our “Pinch Me” moment has finally come full circle. Not only did the impossibly-gracious Haven Kimmel agree to an interview with two squealing, hysterical bloggers who can offer nothing in return (except to promise never to bother her again), but she actually composed and delivered the answers during a week-long-and-counting migraine, and moments before she left on a reading/signing tour to promote the paperback release of She Got Up Off the Couch. Even if she weren’t such an amazingly talented author, we’d love her just for that. But she is an amazingly talented author, and in case you still haven’t taken our advice and picked up one of her novels or memoirs, we’ll throw together a little Haven Kimmel 101 before the interview proper. And then if her fabulous responses still don’t convince you to read her books already… well, heaven help you.
“If you took the complete works of E. B. White and put them in a blender with the essays of David Sedaris, you might end up with a delicious concoction close to the hilarious, irrepressible charm that is Haven Kimmel,” author Alison Smith has observed. And the two of us have already established that we’re hugely huge Haven fans, so perhaps it won’t strike our readers as too terribly much when we say that “irrepressible” could also describe our enthusiasm for any new Haven Kimmel work — whether it be her upcoming third novel or her upcoming chapter book for children, both to be released this year (and both discussed below).
On my end-of-the-year report card all she wrote was “Is disruptive in class. Colors outside the lines. Talks out of turn.” When I showed it to my parents, they read it out loud to me, and my mom said, “Good for you, sweetheart.” And my dad gave me a little pat on the back. (A Girl Named Zippy)
Having started out as a poet (as she told Random House in a 2001 interview, “{t}his prose thing I’m doing is really an act of infidelity and I’m terrified Poetry will find out”), Haven Kimmel’s first published book was her memoir of childhood in small-town America (population of three hundred, to be exact), A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana (2001), which is consistently told from the viewpoint of the author as a young girl. Zippy zoomed to the top of The New York Times bestseller list and became a book club darling. As many reviewers were keen to point out, the book is a rare thing in today’s age: a happy memoir about growing up. “I wanted to awaken childhood,” Haven has said about this captivating, well-crafted work, which Library Journal called “a love letter to her hometown” and which is full of warmth and wit and eloquence and grace. And, as Newsweek’s Malcolm Jones put it, “{Kimmel} can sum up ancestry in a single sentence.”
Her first novel, The Solace of Leaving Early, was published in 2002. With startling insight and compassion, Solace tells the story of two people — a preacher who may be too smart for his own faith, and a would-be academic who has left her doctorate program in disgrace — who are thrown into an uncomfortable alliance to care for two orphaned sisters. Something Rising (Light and Swift), published in 2004, stars the fiercely competent and independent Cassie, who supports her fragile sister and depressed mother by hustling pool. Both are gorgeously lyrical, ridiculously beautiful, and utterly original, with characters so honest and flawed and true that they practically leave bruises on you.
Cassie stood, stretched herself out, then went inside for her backpack… She carried in it a Swiss Army knife, a compass, a box of waterproof matches, a second box of waterproof matches, a rain poncho, an old snakebite kit, a small flashlight, a harmonica she couldn’t play, a worn guide to dressing field injuries. Now she added a ball-peen hammer – a regular hammer was too heavy to carry – and a small box of nails; boards were always popping loose on the shack, and if she left it to the inbreds and malcontents, as Jimmy called them, the shack would fall down around their ears and they’d go right on sucking the heads off crawdaddies. She also added a second chocolate milk, knowing that everyone down at the river would want it but be afraid to ask; this was the sort of gesture that kept everyone clear about who stood where. Cassie was the person with the chocolate milk and the hammer in her hand, that was all they needed to know. (Something Rising (Light and Swift))
She also penned the picture book, Orville: A Dog Story (illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker) in 2003, a true story which she originally intended to be a chapter in Zippy. And she contributed to Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible (published in 2004 and edited by Peter Manseau and Jeff Sharlet) with her re-telling of the Book of Revelation. Publishers Weekly described Killing the Buddha as having “{s}ome of the most original and insightful spiritual writing to come out of America since Jack Kerouac first hit the road.”
Her most recent work (2005) is She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana, her second memoir in which we further our adventures with the Jarvis family once again from the point-of-view of the author as a child. However, the memoir is primarily, in Haven’s words, “the story of my mother’s evolution and the way it reflects a broader cultural shift.” Haven is currently on tour, promoting Couch’s paperback release.
“We didn’t say on that afternoon or any other that maybe it was unusual how she had to wash my clothes and give me a bath; Rose’s mother did it, too, and she never said anything. Melinda did it year in and year out. Olive didn’t mention that I had two grandmothers who were my real grandmothers and I had never once been asked to spend the night with them. A big thing, a gigantic winged thing, hovered where that conversation might have been, and only my sister would speak of it…” (She Got Up Off the Couch)
This year Haven will bring to her readers the third novel in what she calls her Hopwood Trilogy (read below for more on that), entitled The Used World. It is set in fictional Hopwood County, Indiana, as were her first two novels.
She earned an undergraduate degree in English and Creative Writing from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, followed by a graduate degree from North Carolina State University (having studied with novelist Lee Smith). She also attended seminary, as you’ll read below, and she currently lives in Durham, North Carolina.
Here’s one of our favorite descriptions of Haven, written by Dave Korzon of The Rambler:
Haven Kimmel is a magnificent collection of paradoxes. She is a Quaker who eschews political correctness and who admittedly feels most at home among the less-than-well-behaved. She is extremely shy when it comes to talking about herself, but her memoirs . . . are intimate documentations of her family and childhood . . . She is a writer’s writer, so enamored with the craft that she went off to hone her skills in, of all places, seminary. Her writing brims with wit and athletic turns of phrase but can make the most hardened of readers puddle up with emotion. There are mysteries here, to be sure, the answers ultimately belonging to only Kimmel herself. But apart from all this, plain and simple, Haven Kimmel rocks . . .
Haven has said before her only real dream as a child was to grow up to be a rodeo star. Though she probably would have made an entertaining one, we’re glad she chose writing for a career. And we’re grateful that she agreed to let us bring her to you in an interview.
7-Imp: Tell us about your decision to enter a Quaker seminary.
Haven: I lived on a 55-acre farm in Indiana; fallow. The house was haunted, I think. I’m pretty sure. It was built in 1826 and a lot has happened since then. The house sat back a long lane (the property appears in The Used World) and during one particularly horrible winter storm I got snowed in there alone. My daughter had just gone to see her grandparents, and eighteen inches of snow fell in one hour. Snow is a persistent theme in any question involving Indiana. So I was alone back there and extremely isolated, with just my rottweiler, Roxanne. The power came and went; heat came and went. It took almost two weeks for that long lane to be plowed, because no plow could fit between the locust trees that lined either side.
I had just graduated from college and was trying to figure out what I was going to do next. I had a degree in English but had minored in like 327 things, so I could have gone to graduate school in many different fields. I was a published poet at 21, and I continued to enjoy success as a poet for all the years I lived in the Midwest, so everyone assumed I would get an MFA. MFAs were all the rage, even more so than now. But during those two weeks I spent a lot of time alone with my mind: no radio, no movies, no telephone. I hadn’t watched television for years, so I didn’t miss that. I read and read and read. And toward the end of that time I read Gail Godwin’s Father Melancholy’s Daughter and I knew in an instant. I didn’t want to write about myself; I didn’t want to write about the circularity of criticism; I didn’t want to write about the agonies of being unable to write. More than anything else, I didn’t want to write about . . . I don’t know, how my refrigerator is a metaphor for how cold the world is or WHATEVER. Everybody was writing these poems with STUFF in them, ‘Ode To My Washing Machine’ and whatnot and I thought, well, just kill me first. Here we are, standing in the world, this ruined cathedral, writing poems about our tepid complaints and self-pity and broken appliances. I decided I only had two choices: spend a few years thinking about the really big questions and then become a writer, or go to graduate school and become an academic. As a lifelong Quaker, I called the only Quaker seminary in the world and asked for the Dean. I said, “I’m a sinner and a heathen and I fall short of grace every day, and you’ll never turn me into a Christian.” He said, “Fabulous! Diversity!”
Now oddly enough, I went to seminary and everyone there wanted me to become an academic, but instead I wrote a book about myself. So you just never know. (I don’t owe Zippy to the Earlham School of Religion, but I sure owe Solace to it.)
7-Imp: The theme of people trying to come to terms with their own faith, either within the structure of organized religion or just outside it, comes up frequently in both your memoirs and fiction. Do any characters or situations in your works particularly reflect your own struggle with the “big questions”?
Haven: Oh, look! You said “big questions” right after I did! That is so cute.
I don’t think there’s an intelligent person of faith who doesn’t struggle. As Keats called the world a “veil of soul-making” so is religion a veil of meaning-making. As Buddhists or Quakers or Hindus we are to deepen ourselves, and to learn in that process how to live. And not just how to live but how to do so with more compassion and kindness and acceptance of finitude and decay and mortality. Except that finitude and decay and mortality really really suck, and they make merry with our attempts at depth and growth; the plain facts of human existence make religion look naïve at best. So it has to be a choice, like marriage. You get up in the morning, you decide to stay married. That’s marriage. You get up in the morning, you believe in the Buddha-field or Quaker Universalism or Allah or whatever, and that’s religion. Some people find it much easier than others, for whatever reason. For some people it seems indisputable; objectively true and self-evident. Bless them.
All that said, the character closest to my heart is Amos Townsend in Solace. It isn’t easy for him and yet he tries every day. To me he embodies a certain level of heroism: the silent struggle that results in small, quotidian victories of goodness over the Self, over shallowness and narcissism. I love him as much when he fails as when he succeeds.
7-Imp: You’ve referred to your previous two novels — along with The Used World, to be published this year — as the “Hopwood Trilogy.” Without giving too much away about the brand-new one, how are the three novels linked? When you were writing Solace did you know that it would be part of a trilogy, or did that idea come later?
Haven: I’ve always referred to the three books as a trilogy of place; each novel is set in a different town in the same county. But they are linked thematically, too, and characters pop in and out of the three books. Amos is a character in The Used World, but he’s not the focus of the novel.
I knew when I was writing Solace that I was beginning a trilogy, but I didn’t know how it would unfold. For one thing I’m not the same person who wrote the first draft of that novel five years ago; I’m certainly not the same writer. What I most wanted to do was to write novels that showed a set of lives here, and another here, and a third here, all close together geographically, and to do so with as much precision and detail and accuracy as possible. I wanted to bring that part of the world to life as broadly and directly as I could.
7-Imp: Word on the street is, Mike Nichols got the rights to direct and produce the film version of Solace over a year ago. How’s that coming? And who’s gonna play Epiphany and Immaculata now that the Fanning sisters are too old?
Haven: Last year I was at dinner with a large group of people and some question came up and I said, innocently enough I thought, “I don’t know; I just don’t care about movies.” There was a huge, overwhelming silence, and then a man in his late twenties said, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that before,” as if I’d declared an erotic attachment to applesauce. I was made to explain myself, although of course how could I when I had just said all I knew how to say on the subject. I don’t care about movies. Nichols has since renewed his option on the novel; he’s keeping it even if he doesn’t make it, which is fine with me. Seeing a novel of mine on the big screen makes about as much sense to me as seeing it dropped into a shark tank: goodbye, novel.
7-Imp: You possess such an obvious affection for your characters. When you wrap up a novel or memoir, is it hard to say goodbye to them?
Haven: I think that might be the case if I were ever allowed to say goodbye. Instead, my editor says things like, “This is perfect and you are a genius; now I’d like to see an entirely new draft in a month.” So I do that, and she says the same thing again. I’ve been working on The Used World for four years, and in that time have written and published two other books. I’ve written five drafts of The Used World, followed by copyediting and the page proofs I finished correcting at 5:00 this morning. I’ve read the book cover to cover at least twelve times. Then when it’s published the publicity campaign will begin and I’ll have to read from it night after night, and I’ll be asked the same questions over and over, so I guess what I’m trying to say is I can hardly miss them if they won’t go away.
7-Imp: Can you tell us about any upcoming children’s book titles? Also, we saw in an interview that you described yourself as “phobic of writing,” since each word is so important, such a huge responsibility in your view. Do you feel like writing a picture book is even more so, due to its shorter length and compactness?
Haven: I have a children’s chapter book coming out this fall, and the tentative title is Kaline Klattermaster’s Treehouse. The main character is a seven-year-old boy with ADHD. He’s so funny I can hardly think about him. This is my first chapter book, so I got to spread my wings a little bit -– there is more room than in a picture book for sure -– but I was still entirely conscious of every syllable and how it would be read or heard by second and third graders. One of my best friends, Leslie Staub, is an author/illustrator, and she keeps her picture books at THREE HUNDRED WORDS. I use more than that asking my husband to bring me some sweet tea from the kitchen.
7-Imp: We are huge fans of your two memoirs. We’re dying to ask how your mama is doing, but we are just sure you get asked that all the time. So, how about: Are you still in love with Telly Savalas (or Glen Campbell? Or Engelbert Humperdinck? Or Jesus?)? Also, the ending of your first memoir — in which you receive your little piano — is quite memorable. Do you still play?
Haven: Telly Savalas: now there was a man. But you know what? I also had a MASSIVE LOVE CRUSH on Yul Brynner. I think you see what I’m getting at. I come across pictures of Yul Brynner and I have to close my eyes and think of England. Glen Campbell. It’s very unfortunate about that mugshot, because he is truly one of the greatest musicians alive; he’s one of the best studio guitarists of the past fifty years. Somebody needs to do a Johnny Cash on him before it’s too late: put him in the studio with just a guitar and his fabulous voice and his sweet little hair. I lost track of Engelbert Humperdinck, although it’s possible he still keeps track of me. And Jesus, you know. He never was what he appeared to be.
I played the piano for years and years, and indeed for a long time believed I’d be a singer/songwriter. From the age of twelve on I listened with furious concentration to Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon –- you can name the rest. Writing music and lyrics seemed to come very easily to me. I recorded some, I played in clubs for a while. And THEN I was working in a music store and we got a demo copy of Tori Amos’s Little Earthquakes (which might as well be her first record, as only music geeks have heard Y Kant Tori Read and thank heavens for that). I walked around the store, helping customers, putting things away, all the while taking in every note of that record, and I never played the piano again. My feeling was, “If you can’t do it like that, don’t do it at all.” And I didn’t.
7-Imp: What’s one thing that most people don’t know about you?
Haven: I am hyper-vigilant, and would be dangerous if threatened. My friend Augusten is the same way; we often say to one another, “If someone broke into my house or attacked me in the street, it’s THEM I would fear for.” I am all ethics ethics philosophy pacifism blah blah Quakerism justice etc. But as Yo La Tengo recently put it so succinctly: I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass.
7-Imp: What’s the Short List of Records You’re Listening To Right Now?
Haven: The new Patty Griffin, Children Running Through.
The soundtrack to the documentary Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Specifically, I play Teddy Thompson’s cover of “Tonight Will Be Fine” over and over and over until my ears are bleeding. Also his cover of “The Future.” Damn what a combination, Teddy Thompson’s voice and Leonard Cohen’s songs.
Antony and the Johnsons, I Am A Bird Now.
The Pernice Brothers, Discover A Lovelier You.
Damien Rice, 9. I love this record but it has a 21-minute song on it, which, I love you Damien but no.
My FAVORITE record right now is Midlake’s The Trials of Van Occupanther. Just sublime.
7-Imp: What is your favorite word?
Haven: “Y’all”
7-Imp: What is your least favorite word?
Haven: “Junket.” When people toss that around, say, “Are you going on a press junket for your new book?” I feel like telling them, “You really don’t want to talk to me that way.”
7-Imp: What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
Haven: Great art, the kind that comes from ferocious originality and fearlessness. Courage in general. Governing one’s life by surprise and suggestion. Flat landscapes and predator birds. Very protective dogs. Ruins.
7-Imp: What turns you off?
Haven: Pretty much everything else.
7-Imp: What is your favorite curse word? (optional)
Haven: “Bitch,” but only when used in peculiar situations and in reference to inappropriate nouns — as in, pointing to my shoes, “John, hand me those bitches, would you?”
7-Imp: What sound or noise do you love?
Haven: Box fans. Large fires.
7-Imp: What sound or noise do you hate?
Haven: The electronic sound from computers and televisions.
7-Imp: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Haven: There isn’t such a thing. This is it for me.
7-Imp: What profession would you not like to do?
Haven: Well, all of them. But there are certain things I would really REALLY hate, like dentistry. I’m sorry, dentists. I also can’t imagine being the person who does the shampooing at hair salons. And then anything involving money or ambition or competition or schmoozing over cocktails in Manhattan. God help me.
7-Imp: If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
Haven: “Here’s your Mom Mary, and all the dogs you ever loved.”
For further reading:
- Visit Purity of Heart: A Haven Kimmel fan site for more information, such as interviews, a bibliography, and more.
- Read here for an excerpt from The Solace of Leaving Early.
Photo credits:
Top photo of Haven with her dog, Cloud (and “pregnant for Baby Augusten but you can’t tell it!”): Greg Plachta
Bottom black and white photo at Sunset Beach, North Carolina:
Augusten Burroughs
So I’ll send this interview to my husband to explain why I wanted to name my first child after her.
by Carey February 22nd, 2007 at 9:17 amI loved this interview. Especially where Haven addresses the “struggle with faith and belief themes” in her books. Been there done that.
by Beverly February 22nd, 2007 at 1:23 pmMakes me want to read everything she’s written.
How lucky that you got to interview her!
Congrats! I know how much her recognition of your site and efforts means to both of you. How superb! She sounds very fun.
by Little Willow February 22nd, 2007 at 10:17 pmI am now a Haven Kimmel fan without reading any of her books! Thank you for introducing me to a new writer! I can’t wait to read her books.
by HipWriterMama February 23rd, 2007 at 8:21 pmSee, here’s the deal. I had to stop watching Grey’s Anatomy this year because it had taken over my life. I can’t get involved with Heroes for the same reason. I have this overwhelming TBR pile of unread books, and so I sometimes have to close my eyes when you talk about Haven Kimmel, because I’m afraid I’ll get hoooked on yet another writer and then think of all the books I’ll have to add to my pile, and you see the problem.
But thanks to this interview, hooked.
Damn you and bless you, Eisha, Jules, and Haven.
by Robin Brande February 24th, 2007 at 1:05 pmi promise you all, you will not be disappointed by her actual books. i’ll even guarantee it: if you read one of her books and decide that jules and i are talking her up way too much and she really isn’t all that, then i’ll, um… geez, i have nothing to offer.
oh, how about i invite you as a guest blogger and we have a conversational debate post about why we think she rocks but you don’t? or i just post some humiliating picture of myself or something. blogger truth-or-dare!
by eisha February 24th, 2007 at 7:23 pmBy the way, I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass has to be the coolest thing I have ever heard a woman say. I so want to be her friend.
by Robin Brande February 24th, 2007 at 7:30 pmi know, i’ve never listened to yo la tengo, but i checked the cd out from the library on the strength of that title alone.
by eisha February 25th, 2007 at 10:37 amJust finished “She Got Up Off the Couch”. This was after reading “A Girl Named Zippy”, yesterday. I immediately went on line for info on Haven. I feel I know her and want to catch up on her family and friends. Read at your own risk because you will be hooked and waiting for her next book about Morreland, IN. Thanks for the interview update.
by Kathy February 27th, 2007 at 10:11 amI LOVE Haven and her books!! I have read them all!! We are lucky enough to know her. She is married to my husbands cousin and we hung out laughing on the beach in North Carolina last summer. She is a honest, fun, loving, VERY FUNNY person!!
by Carey Zimmerman March 1st, 2007 at 12:58 pmThanks for this interview! I just finished reading “She Got Up”. I’m probably 10 or so years younger than Ms. Kimmel, and I grew up in the teeming metropolis of New Castle which she mentions in her books. She’s amazing and she captures Henry County so fantastically. I’m sure I went to church with people she grew up with. It’s good to see someone representin’ east central Indiana who doesn’t play basketball!
by Matt from New Castle March 1st, 2007 at 8:29 pmmy problem, reading haven kimmel, is that i have a hard time differentiating zippy from langston, hopwood from haddington, you get the picture. i said to someone, haven kimmel writes people i want to know. here’s to realism and a true artist, haven kimmel
by rebecca March 29th, 2007 at 8:05 pmI have read “Zippy” and am about to finish reading “…Couch”. I had to know more about Haven Kimmel because her perspective and humor is so real you feel like you know while I don’t. I trying to bridge this gap of the pages I’ve read with the author I don’t know. Her writing creeps inside you. You feel like you know her and her family and friends. It starts to feel initimate. This is an absolutely amazing quality. I live in Los Angeles and I’m disappointed to learn she’s not a featured author at Festival of Books/UCLA/LA Times. I was hoping to see her live. My loss. I enjoyed your blog with her as a way to get to know her better. She’s amazing and I’ll read her other books until she puts the pen down.
by Teri Quinones April 15th, 2007 at 2:50 pm[…] seminary after warning the dean that “You’ll never turn me into a Christian”): I don’t think there’s an intelligent person of faith who doesn’t struggle. As Keats called the world a “veil of soul-making” so is religion a veil of meaning-making. As […]
by Jackie Danicki » Blog Archive » Haven Kimmel on religion June 24th, 2007 at 5:32 pmI am late getting started with Haven’s work.
by Michael September 27th, 2007 at 4:11 pmBeing 45 yr old non metro male I would never have read her books it happened by accident when I was bored at the lib waiting on a friend flipping thought pages of Zippy.
Now look back at some of the exact same occurences in my life as some that she has experienced.
Cant help but love her.
Amazing.
by Denise September 30th, 2007 at 5:54 pmToday, this very day, October 27, 2007, I heard Haven speak at Earlham, the only Quaker seminary in the world. And this interview has the same “feel” as hearing her speak…what’s more, your interview here includes bonus material we didn’t get from her during the 45-minute talk! Many thanks for hounding her.
by Ann Kroeker October 27th, 2007 at 5:42 pm[…] also found the following interview at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast (Why Stop at Six?). I think it captures the energy Haven exuded in person–plus, it provides bonus material we […]
by Adventures in Literary Outings « Ann Kroeker October 30th, 2007 at 10:56 am[…] Jump to Comments At the writers’ colloquium I attended last weekend, the one where Haven Kimmel brought the keynote message, I participated in a breakout session entitled “Writing from the […]
by WFMW: Write from the Heart « Ann Kroeker October 31st, 2007 at 9:52 ami have been a devoted fan of ms. kimmel’s since zippy, and i just finished (read: devoured) used world. i am now re-reading solace, and this time using a highlighter to flag the many heartbreakingly perfect sentences contained within. PLEASE, everyone, read anything of hers you can get your hands on. her books are soul food.
by lorraine November 12th, 2007 at 12:10 pmHaven’s books are amusing and well written. I have enjoyed reading them, but there is more to the “Zippy” stories. Some are even funnier than others. I wish my dad would have the chance to retell some of the stories about him just to give a different perspective on the memiors and maybe complete his story. “Danny” or better known as dad to me has some pretty good ones.
by Jenny March 22nd, 2008 at 6:56 pmI read Zippy on an airplane the other day and I think the other passengers thought I was quite mentally ill, helplessly laughing and crying and trying to stop and finding it IMPOSSIBLE to do so. My mom grew up in tiny Orestos (sp) Indiana and I know she would find much of herself as a child in Zippy. I’m so very much in love with Ms. Kimmel’s writing. And her music list! That’s my current Pandora station to a tee.. especially Teddy Thompson. She has tapped a deep, deep place, it seems, in many of us.
by Jamie March 28th, 2008 at 4:08 pmI just finished used world I am behind I know but I started zippy a year ago and have read each of Haven’s books twice before moving to the next one.
Jamie your story was cool If I were on that plane I would have undestood
I cant wait for Iodine to come out.
I would like to discuss a few things about all her books and some specifics. I would also welcome any input as well. So I leave my email in the hopes it doesn’t get abused.
michaelterryjr@hotmail.com
Thanks elisha and jules !
by Michael April 2nd, 2008 at 6:54 pmJamie I did the same exact thing while reading Zippy on the el. I was totally the lunatic on the train. Haven is my favorite living author – I’ve already pre-order Iodine on Amazon. Can’t wait!
by LTC April 11th, 2008 at 10:11 am[…] (I’m talkin’ getting an email out of the blue from authors like The One, The Only Haven Kimmel, whose writing we adore, and having to pick ourselves up off the floor). But when parenting […]
by Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast » Blog Archive » Tantrums, Fussing, & Whining, Oh My . . . February 21st, 2009 at 9:58 pmI read She Got Up Off the Couch and now ready A Girl Named Zippy. I adore this woman and every time I look at the baby on the cover I smile. What her mother wrote in the beginning of the book had me rolling and crying. Adorable and adoring.
by Cathy July 5th, 2009 at 7:20 amI keep the blog for our book club going, was looking for an interview to link to and I found your wonderful interview. Zippy, and She got up off the Couch are on my all time favorite list. After I read Zippy, I had to make a conscious effort to read late at night because I realized my kids would someday write a memo, and there I would be, sinking deeper and deeper into the hollow of the couch, with a book in front of my face! I want to move to Morreland, IN. I want to visit with these people…often, and just absorb the Zippy-ness of it all. I want to ride a bike like a mad woman in a red pantsuit, and let dogs howl at the neighbors all night long. I want to go to chuch camp with panty hose bagging around my ankles and “not be saved!” I’ll skip the rats although I suppose that comes part and parcel!
by Carrin July 6th, 2009 at 3:08 pmPlease, if anyone knows…exactly what movement of the Shubert Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat that was mentioned in the last of “The solace of leaving early…please tell me.
by Florence Hall April 14th, 2010 at 7:19 pmI have read all of Haven Kimmel’s books from day one and always check the bookstore to see if another has been published. I love her alone in Norman, Oklahoma, where no one I know has a clue what I am talking about ( I emphasize, “anyone I know”) … ditto Augusten Burroughs, David Sedaris and others. I would love to read a discussion of Iodine should anyone else have read it. I read it a couple of years ago and could not get anyone else to read it so I could talk about it with them.
by mary welch January 23rd, 2011 at 1:02 amI love all of Haven Kimmels books. Is she writing now? I haven’t seen any recent books.
by kim williams May 25th, 2011 at 12:07 amKim, I am not sure. Last I heard she was writing a book on Quakers. I think?? I’ve sort of lost touch of what she’s doing next. Let’s hope we hear something soon! (I guess I could always ask her…)
by jules May 25th, 2011 at 6:45 am[…] the writers’ colloquium I attended last weekend, the one where Haven Kimmel brought the keynote message, I participated in a breakout session entitled “Writing from the […]
by Write from the Heart - Ann Kroeker. Writer August 26th, 2013 at 4:29 pmmentally ill.
by Jan May 8th, 2021 at 8:56 pm