John Leonard: One of these details is Jesus preaching a sermon about birds sitting in the branches of a tree, a metaphor for souls waiting to receive spiritual comfort, and so the illustration is of various Indian birds sitting in a symbolic tree.
Rose Melberg: Those are pensive. There wasn’t a lot of intention at that time. To a fault.
Leonard: I may be wrong of course.
Melberg: Dude, I’m all over Facebook, though.
Leonard: So there you are, correct timing and social networking.
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Melberg: And I just didn’t want to be sold. And it happened so quickly.
Leonard: Looking back I think people were quite supportive.
Melberg: They’re usually only willing to do it if we’re going to go on tour.
Leonard: The part after publication is pretty much the same, i.e. going around doing readings, sending review copies off, generally promoting yourself.
Melberg: I just can’t promote myself. I’ve never been comfortable with it.
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Leonard: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive” as Wordsworth said of the French Revolution, and yet with hindsight we can see that the French Revolution led only to a bloodbath and then to Napoleon's Empire, which caused an even larger bloodbath.
Melberg: When the initial pain is gone, you’re left with feelings like frustration, regret, sadness, failure.
Leonard: This is my career, anyhow.
Melberg: I think I know exactly what you mean.
Leonard: Which leads to your next question.
—Raymond Cummings has written for Splice Today since 2010.