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more than words is the programme delving into the world of books and their authors this week's judy collins talks about chamberlain is your host for more than words for mr john sigg and tyler chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university hello i'm done segal welcome once again toward own words there isn't a dear friend back not all for a novel by any means well we're glad to see you treat less than you were sitting in that chair now we were talking about the other book they realized there were a real life story is now a note this is the fantasy life we just chuckling that's right that's right it's certainly surely is partly my fantasy life and fantasies compostable kinds of things you you never imagined would happen or i have a friend who read my novel and said gee you know she's english and quite a wonderful writer hassan was very nervous and her name is kennedy fraser and she said you know yeah this
is sort of a combination of what it can for the body i wonder what it is shameless says it's called shameless a new things that is it a mystery it is yes you create this so woman this prison this heroine catherine signed who is both strong week she's both smart and naive in his home and then as they got his real world and it's your first ugly viable follow senate voted on the ground and still have your head i get that but most of all things beautiful she is vulnerable it reminds me when you say that of the hair was that i've read through my
life french a hair to have women who follows fear on the ground that you have imagination and whose had who's heads are somewhat in the cloud yes catherine by the way throughout the course of the book she started out to be the sleuth primarily and she becomes smarter she becomes stronger she makes a shift toward the end of the book where she takes responsibility much more for her life and she does at the beginning it definitely her life is affected by her racing being raised on a ranch in kansas she thinks about that a watch he's haunted by this this this relationship with the woman that she had although she has you know she has a boyfriend and he's had other men in her life and then she has a psychiatry is that she went to this all this dilemma celeste about the woman's aside to act as the bastard is all that well you know when the book first started i had actually already matthew
we had time together and work together and the original title of the work with the psychiatry it's revenge for that were more than one side fire was in the book and they were all terrible but but this gentleman that's in this book who is awful he didn't come out of my fantasy life and the things that happened with him haven't happened with me metaphorically but i must say that that the sexual abuse of women buy a song oh yes the campus of psychologists and visit and i guess it's a symbol i think it is a syndrome as i say it's never happened directly to me only in a metaphorical sense i see a lot of them and wonderfully helpful psychiatry us and psychologists through the years at times in my life but there is a definite tendency to a kind of turning over at once will have people of this kind and catherine has this period in worship in which she does this as a tool or years it's a story
to local zithers know hillary and in which is a surprisingly hard i mean i've ever sang that one of the year end and let me just go beyond that to say that the that also is filled with dreams but it's essential sexual story joe henry i really have afforded was so it's less weight including way judy collins says but although i think the ceo of the whole context of the book mexican cause it's a book will know him and then we would we won't share and is itching without it we won't tell we won't divulge the trick i was even surprising shocks me ow it i had no idea i had no idea i had two other suspects yes and then the you know on the other lovely like a movie i like to do that why were gone then i hoped to make a movie of it and if they make a movie of it
and the part that will that somebody will want blood is the part of young rinaldo years lee and even though you only seem briefly before we know the hospital men dies of murder and that role i mean the way you describe him is a look pop his attitude the trolleys been through we drop in the coincidence his relationship with issac up here all that makes that role last night asher phone today and delicious now who would play it oh young nicholas cage ten years ago and it's a funny name isn't that renault will not funny for those of you are named ronaldo it's not that humor or ozone or his name was rinaldo chance and he originally i hated here because it was just too ridiculous
to retake of the babies was the name of the group that she is involved with a climate warms up and i changed that to the new world because there actually is a group called the baby's you know this whole area of rockabilly won gold award through the book and don't you think it's interesting that i the writer of the book was able to do cover songs cover versions of the new board so i can say i can sing the cover there yet it's a fall idea to read to release the music at the same time you released the book it was a very late home run i think for the publisher because i didn't know this was going to happen you know this image of you know the music of the book no i had no idea i wrote the characters now chile is julie clearwater is catherine's best friend and she's a lovely woman who's who's had a
fabulous career in music but she's decided she wants to get out she was to be a painter we know a lot of people i think share his adventure into acting was a marvelous example people really you know putting themselves on the line to make it a very big change in direction there are actors who paint van johnson as a painter tony bennett has a say there is a pair of some note odd joni mitchell is also paying her so there of course is a precedent here and jillian always had i wrote wood says the characters were musical i wrote in the text for the characters so i wrote her a song regina she was gonna sing tenderly they may in gray is cursed but then i thought now she needs something really snappy an original so maliki is the song that i wrote for her in the book and i wrote into the parts of the harem the story that the newborns i wrote the band singing a
traditional song bright morning star is rising and i wrote a summer songs throughout with mentions of music went about in november last november my publisher said to me what about making an album called chambers along with the book melissa gray will pull together because i'd never written an album of my of all my own songs before so that i'll pull together a sondheim that i haven't recorded a continental i always keep a handful of gems that i'm doing in concert that i haven't recorded that and then in january said no no i was finishing the book and i thought for the eighth time doesn't know i mean i write all these songs myself and out they came in about six weeks that was the payoff for spending all those years writing the book so julia song winds up to be i saw a photograph of your enemy standing together by their say he lied on the law there is so
fearful in that donna goes on about melody and the edge and they all surprise me these songs with how come when you write books is it a day usually an audience gets a free concert i wonder if i could just the end of the beginning let our viewers know it's just what went on like i said it was a dual release of the eu of the book and then and the armament and that shameless shameless as the title of a book that's the title of that wonderful cassette which is my own present as well as from the engine and you know also people would want to know that in the book there is in the rearview mirror back that there is a cd with two of the song toulouse chain which has never been done in publishing jack it isnt absolutely it's it's a special gift to people and that it was jack or miles is the
president of simon schuster came in while i was playing everybody this summit it written for the album while we were planning my very short media to or five days and he said oh i like that you suppose we could put that in the book and then he left the room and then everybody's manage you don't put got their heads together and helen that won and the publisher of pocket books the ad gene then helen and they got together and they put it they put it in the walk and its the first is there and done with fiction what's the one of audio just a wonderful idea of illegally j what surprised me about this but you know i think everyone knows is that it knows that you have this his talent his genius not only from using for music first not only that mom was clear crystal wars but also but also though to write music and you know it your own real life story came out and
not everybody has long live storytelling and so i was not surprised that book rove awfully well this book demonstrate a talent for writing and if you just take the dreams flashback the flashbacks the narrative blending those together and sometimes the stories to metaphors and sometimes it's over in just straightforward hard nose pot boiler a day in every sense of the word and then there is that sensitive back into the past as you go to the ranch a new order in contact with a father and a mother bus tour groups and asked her to himself pirate is of the trailer by a betrayal along are you
saying there but she's talking about a fall and she says she suddenly realizes that as much as she is and she loves him and i and given what she's been through and given what she had known about him suddenly one night in a child who is not surprising that she had some afro and then there are those wonderful lines that jump off the page at you what is it even the devil in the devil works for a president come from wealth listen while my man you know i love that you just you really read and you really appreciate i just think it's i haven't talked about books and read books and been exposed to god's all my life you know from the very beginning but to be riding and you're talking about the flashbacks and the dreams to be in the process of creating the once upon a time creating the story is simply haven't you know you do you mean when you sit down to do that hard as it
maybe to get the times squared away and get you so focused is the most exciting thing in the world to do and it's the most satisfying you know i thought about it because you're a first time novelist ian that's right i thought about it and i'll wondered about your editor just a pocket book i thought here's an editor who serves i got a job at it and i'm glad to take his musicians fiction and mold it in my ways so the story works and i had been an editor given that responsibility first couple things hours of leaving for work she came close off the flashbacks i mean just forget that you got a wonderful story here what you have to get into a union and on one hand into the metaphysical an end and the other ensued child of psychoanalysis but i'll tell you the
fact that you were able to put all makes the story all the more gripping it's mary higgins clark close to an angelic and she will because when she said lets are not long ago he re problem about a wonderful person and a wonderful writer she's also with my am with my publisher with our but it's funny that you should say that about the first such a funny story and when i first wrote the wendy's first six chapters poured out and i said what is this i sent it to my agent she called me back in twenty four hours first and only time she's ever done that she said this is a novel you she said i've got somebody who will remain go unnamed year out for anonymity purposes as someone who loves the book was to meet with hughes i met with a
big publisher from one of the houses about his senior editor jeanne gang rape a lot that he said now i want you to cut the flashbacks and cut those trained and you work on that first tense of those roles as you know and i i went home and i worked no no contract i worked and i worked and i worked for months and i sent him the results the first person or insult and he hated it more than almost anything i think he'd ever read and he wrote a letter to my agent and said that in as many words and i said oh my god when i get to do and she said will you just go back to square one like and i went back to square one i reconfigured it as it was in the beginning with the flashback centuries and the first two because to me it somehow i'll tell you what it is it's a musical that's how the shape most demos from this fast paced and then i want that lift i want you to go into amusing it's awful pattern then we sell that she sold it to another
company and another editor barada luggage bought it and said now we'll sit down and talk about your editorial process and i came to see her and she said i have two things to tell you a number one i want to cut the flashbacks and she declared the entire business she went off to climb mountains she's a wonderful woman and gallo i don't think would be offended that i told lewis crucially this image use your delightful intuition i held back of course i said having gone through the phase of for years now i've been working on the book more than that you have psychologist are just bide my time and i held to this farm like and then of course i found or was given by the goddess an editor who understood and you saw it and you helped me tremendously with this with this first
person poisoning that's what needed to be my friend for its wrong harold ramos widow and they're very good friends of mine for cid you know dialing you know darling you've written three books here she said you know i i think that if you will you just consider the role of an editor given a first not even a first novelist star you've got a balancing act i mean for a solid hour but ecology go second way you know more about your college i was a ship thirdly you don't worry about about not making changes that a risky what you've done with his book to me is when you find another litter was a very risky to let her go into these at alice's dreams about art to go back to the back of the orion show we'll miss you quote i mean you created this the powerful guy you
created an artist on the other side her good friend julie you've created other people or so russo decorate the background and andrew almost without exception the trailer bound and ali abdalla ali and the trailers of bizarre for heavy on the kind of the trail here i find pieces of what i perceived to be the song judy collins in both camps inside an end an injury absolutely i guess lee we realize and did you realize that we know it now now and they have it you know if you simply look at a gestalt model for dreams france's the dish dolls therapist will tell you that all the parts of your dream are you the killer the heel are the the child the adults and so i think that happens and i would've known because i have met hadn't written
novels before but i think that's right just as in your writing of of songs now the songwriting news i think affects him deeply both the flashbacks and dreams but also does get into the context of the characters they're parts of julianne juli wants to change she also wants steadiness you know she wants consistency issues tired of the ups and downs of her life on the road to painting gives the perfect opportunity in my mind always happens a part of always in the painted because they can listen to music while they work on which i can do because i'm making it so i can't listen to it and out when youre writing poetry you can't listen to beethoven and you have to be focused on at least i can perhaps these young kids on the internet can't i can't do that a multi disciplinary they may be but i i can't have i can't do it although i do i don't surf he had to write i wrote all these books and i know how to get around pretty good with a hacking technique but but yes i think that there are definitely parts of
myself in these characters on the bad ones the good ones the writing i do so much and i haven't been in these two in these two dominant in the women's and hope and end and one ever identified you don't know how to talk but at the moment you know it was the bad juju was suspected of the prayer and would you do you think yeah elitism a bubble burst so yes absolutely the casting could have that moment of question and you have to be crazy to me when you were right i also i live here and i've had very very
good relationships with my women friends i think that that's a learned skill in part we're blessed with two things as women i were blessed with the ability to share all kinds of experiences on a different level than men share are also given this this this and the conflict or this competition that's what was told to women in the fifties you know you were competitive rather than embracing and so i think as a woman as an adult my age as a female you've learned the process of friendship and i think the process of friendship has been very in which by my own experience of friendship that they talk about everything that julian does say well you know the truth is even the devil works for god that's would hurl trinket tiller it inspired a song that's on the album called wheel rolling which it my brother didn't we think is the best thing i've ever written the night i wouldn't doubt that actually it's a song which was inspired by that line
and then i took off one of a scene that i heard expressed by by in an interview between bill moyers and anne joseph campbell where bill lasts more arid moyers as said campbell well what is a full adult you know how can we talk about in the context of all of these ancient and present day religions who is an adult person and campbell says well i've been an adult person is really a person rolling out of the center of oneself one rolls out of the center you get to the center and then you you roll out and so the wind the title of the song is will rolling and i like it a lot and then it works around that same of even the devil works for god i happen to be somebody who does believe that you know on a deserted has a million yes truth is the two trips and there
are not a lot of the guys guys i ran the other injury i think and i'm not going to go beyond that because it only weight one of the enormity of bohemia tags well what about the next book five years on this novel eight i can you know i don't have to do it i don't think i can i don't think i have to do it that long again i think that i can probably in a number of ways to be more economic and more we get one going quicker having done this but this was like a graduate course services like spending also the combination of writing and songwriting appeals to me since this is a publishing first and since now the form of putting out a novel which includes the music and since my characters are set certainly catherine and start us and julia are good trio of characters they will take with
them and i'm with a dusty lot of so and so well and started a dose that serves as a good cop is so wonderfully candid mean one of the strong and stable i knew i knew the minute the men arrayed against each other and against each other yes yes and i have the personnel he's mixed in needham she needed an un recognizing that first which is good says something else as odd as needed her i think you know if you're married to a job that was whiter that's right that's right buddy nader in the worst we're down like eight wait are and how long you think it would take to do this week i think it'll be that long i think a couple of years i really do i started that and i think well if they force me and now i know i can write a whole album of songs in six weeks and record them i think i could write another novel quickly you know we're not going to kill who really was announcer there but i want to
know you to vote was when you know i did not in fact in the eight years of writing the book everybody in the book except julia and eventually was suspect every everybody except catherine done it at one point or another when you wanna know you don't ask you are down at the end how to define income the conclusion that he was too good to be a term he was too good to be true he sure was too good to be true and boys thief killer in and i do think it shows in it in its own way what's possible this is about an industry i know and i do know that people get trapped collins author of shameless is that rtss is your host as ben johnson involves chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment say they're at vanderbilt university this program was produced in the
studios of wbez in nashville we really need you
Series
A Word on Words
Episode Number
2401
Episode
Judy Collins
Producing Organization
Nashville Public Television
Contributing Organization
Nashville Public Television (Nashville, Tennessee)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/524-bv79s1mk4g
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Description
Episode Description
Shameless
Date
1995-08-02
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
Literature
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:27:48
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Credits
Producing Organization: Nashville Public Television
AAPB Contributor Holdings
Nashville Public Television
Identifier: A0453 (Nashville Public Television)
Format: DVCpro
Duration: 27:48
Nashville Public Television
Identifier: cpb-aacip-524-bv79s1mk4g.mp4 (mediainfo)
Format: video/mp4
Generation: Proxy
Duration: 00:27:48
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Citations
Chicago: “A Word on Words; 2401; Judy Collins,” 1995-08-02, Nashville Public Television, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed June 26, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-524-bv79s1mk4g.
MLA: “A Word on Words; 2401; Judy Collins.” 1995-08-02. Nashville Public Television, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. June 26, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-524-bv79s1mk4g>.
APA: A Word on Words; 2401; Judy Collins. Boston, MA: Nashville Public Television, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-524-bv79s1mk4g