George Ella Lyon and I met at a writing retreat in north Georgia where one afternoon we set off down a narrow trail above a woodland waterfall. As I inched along through what I imagined might be my last moments of life, she scrambled nimbly ahead. Award-winning children’s book writer, poet and novelist – George Ella is like that: taking risks, finding a path for herself over rugged publishing terrain. CLICK HERE FOR MY INTERVIEW WITH HER.–Carol Polsgrove

Like many others, I thought of Mylai when I heard that an American soldier in Afghanistan had been accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians. And I thought, too, of journalist John Sack, who interviewed the man blamed for the Mylai massacre and published what he learned in a book, Lieutenant Calley: His Own Story. I, in turn, interviewed John Sack for my book on Esquire in the Sixties, It Wasn’t Pretty, Folks, But Didn’t We Have Fun? I have published an excerpt from my account of why and how John Sack wrote Calley’s story on my website, http://carolpolsgrove.com – Carol Polsgrove, March 2012

Like many others, I thought of Mylai when I heard that an American soldier in Afghanistan had been accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians. And I thought, too, of journalist John Sack, who interviewed the man blamed for the Mylai massacre and published what he learned in a book, Lieutenant Calley: His Own Story. I, in turn, interviewed John Sack for my book on Esquire in the Sixties, It Wasn’t Pretty, Folks, But Didn’t We Have Fun? I have posted an excerpt from my account of why and how John Sack wrote Calley’s story on my website, http://carolpolsgrove.com .

– Carol Polsgrove, March 2012

Gordon Lish’s heavy editing of Raymond Carver’s stories has become a cause célèbre since I first described it in It Wasn’t Pretty, Folks, But Didn’t We Have Fun? Esquire in the Sixties (1995). Carver was not the only writer Lish tried to reinvent in his drive to bring new fiction to the magazine. – Carol Polsgrove, January 2012 

SEE http://carolpolsgrove.com/