James Salter

Welcome back to Word Theater Short Story Specialists.

This week, we're giving you one from the vault, a story by James Salter, one of America's best writers who, sadly, is no longer with us.

James Salter won the Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature, the 2012 Penn Malamud Award, the 1989 Penn Faulkner Award, among many others for his work.

Salter was a member of the Air Force, serving in World War II up until 1961, while writing in his off-duty time.

His novel, A Sport and a Pastime, is regarded as a modern classic, and in 2010, Salter won the Rea Award for the short story.

Indeed.

Well, as much as we love a good pun scout, perhaps we don't want to be quite so literal in this instance.

Here now is James Salter's short story, Such Fun, performed by Carla Gugino with James in the room to hear his story brought to life.

First Draft highlights the voices of writers as they discuss their work, their craft, and the literary arts.

My guest is James Salter.

He has published poetry, essays, memoir, short stories, novels, and a book about food.

He won the Penn Faulkner Award for his short story collection, Dust and Other Stories.

You're listening to First Draft, a dialogue on writing produced at Aspen Public Radio.

I'm Mitzi Rapkin.

My guest is James Salter.

I wanted to ask you about something you said in an interview once.

Right.

I think that very, um, so it's important to say just a few other things about James Salter.

So born James Solitowis known to his friends as hook knows or Jim Solitowis, James Solitowis and enters the, uh, air force Academy like his father, um, when he wanted to go to Stanford and he was a pilot, um, And then started writing stories while he was still in the Air Force, saying, but he changed his name to James Salters, saying it was just so no one could identify him as the author of them because it would be frowned upon.

But it was also to kind of hide his possibly, depending on how you look at it, to hide his identity.

antecedents, his ancestry.

And he what he James Salter was a man who believed in, you know, the idea of genius and a great man.

And it had to be a man and a writer who and he wanted that type of greatness.

That's the theme and all of his all his work.

Okay, Gretch, what is our quotation this week?

This comes from James Salter, his book Burning the Days.

"Sometimes you are aware when your great moments are happening, and sometimes they arise from the past.

Perhaps it's the same with people."

And then since then, I finished reading Cripsheet by Emily Oster, which is her second book on children, but focusing on having kids, but is on focusing on slightly older kids.

And then also a novel called Solo Faces by James Salter, which is set in Chamonix largely and is a book I've been wanting to read for a while.

So a mixed bag of things.

What about you, Richard?

It is The WIP Morning Show.

John Ritchie in and James Salter in for Jodi Kamer.

Maria Hughes, Vanie Honamirian hanging out.

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