Peeking in windows to see what I see...

So maybe not peeking in windows in the literal sense, but I am recently and quite disgustingly taken with podcasts. As a result, I've become quite disturbingly preoccupied with Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac radio bits. Really, though, what's not to love? I think I might even have an old-man crush on Garrison Keillor. The buttery voice makes me tingle a little. Not to mention the fact that he brings me daily, juicy niblets on some of my favorite writers.

For instance, in today's Writer's Almanac, I learned more about Sherwood Anderson, author of Winesburg, Ohio. I freely admit to you that I'm copying and pasting this next bit explicitly without the permission of Garrison Keillor (rawwr!) or The Writer's Almanac, but I'm hoping they'll take pity on my poor, country bumpkin soul since I'm giving them credit and simultaneously lusting after Garrison Keillor (play the flattery card!). And, technically, I probably could've found this information elsewhere on the web. Like, from those plagiarist ingrates over at Wikipedia.

But I digress...

It's the birthday of Sherwood Anderson, born in Camden, Ohio (1876). He was a manager at a mail-order paint company in Elyria, Ohio. But one day, out of the blue, he stood up from his desk and walked out of the office, ignoring everyone who asked where he was going. He was missing for several days, during which his wife received a bizarre letter from him that said, "There is a bridge over a river with cross-ties before it. When I come to that I'll be all right. I'll write all day in the sun and the wind will blow through my hair."

He was found four days later, wandering around in nearby Cleveland. He was diagnosed as having had a nervous breakdown, but he later claimed that he'd only pretended to be crazy so that the paint company wouldn't take him back. And he never did go back. He left his job and he and his wife moved to Chicago to join what became known as the Chicago Renaissance.

Anderson began writing every day, and one rainy night he got out of bed without any clothes on and began to write, as if in a trance, what became the first story for his collection Winesburg, Ohio (1919). He never wrote another book as successful as Winesburg, Ohio, but his simple prose style had a great influence on other writers, including Ernest Hemingway. In fact, a few years after Winesburg, Ohio came out, Anderson met the young Hemingway and wrote him letters of introduction so that he could go to Paris and meet writers like Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound. He also encouraged the young William Faulkner, whom he met in New Orleans. He inspired Faulkner to write his first novel and helped him get published.

Sherwood Anderson said, "I go about looking at horses and cattle. They eat grass, make love, work when they have to, bear their young. I am sick with envy of them."

Incidentally, when I listened to the radio version of this piece today, they left out that last part about cows making love. I suppose ye olde souls in public radio thought that was a little too steamy. I know I'm getting worked up.

The point is, I love reading about how inventive or innovative or just plain cracked some of my favorite authors were. In the case of Sherwood Anderson, I can't claim he's a favorite since I skipped reading Winesburg, Ohio in graduate school because I was at a conference that week. But, the real wonder of this Writer's Almanac thing is that I'm much more likely to actually pick the book up and read it this time because I know a nugget of unforgettable dirt on Sherwood Anderson.

Thank you, Writer's Almanac, and my beloved Gary Keillor (sometimes I just call him "Gare") for the enlightenment, the laughs, and on those hormonal days...the tears.