Next encore booknotes. Jill krementz was a guest on booknotes in 1997 to talk about her book the writers desk a collection of authors and photos photos. Cspan jill krementz, photographer, you have a book out called the writers desk. Whats it all about . Guest its a collection of my photographs over it period of 30 years of writers and i photographed over 1500 rider so of course its not all the writers. My favorite pictures of a lot of the writers at their desks but they are all writers that there had desks or near their desks or behind their desks. Somewhere theres a desk in the picture. Literally or figuratively. Cspan why did you pick this for the covert . Guest i suppose because its one of my favorite photographs. I think its pretty recognizable now so people would know it was my book and because i think that it is a picture about a writer. Its a picture about a writers place and i think you feel looking at that picture that of course this is where she would write. Its like her writing. Cspan heres a picture thats not in the book that you gave us to show where she is not at her desk. Why did you i guess why didnt you use this one in the book . Guest first of all i hadnt taken it then and more importantly i brought that picture alone simply because it reflected a visit i had had with her very recently. I went down a year ago. I was having a show of photographs in mississippi and i went to jackson to see her first and broader all the photographs. She was looking at that photograph on the cover of the book and all the others and she said jill thank you for bringing me these. Its just like to visit upstairs. It made me very sad because she could no longer navigate the stairs to go up to that room where she once wrote. But i found it very interesting on another level because i think that all my work that i do as a documentary photographer of writers is in a sense a visit upstairs. Its a way to bring you and your viewers and anybody who sees the pictures up those stairs to see where someone like her works or even if the desk is not literally upstairs even if its downstairs in a cottage in the back it still upstairs, upstairs being a private place. I never thought in a million years that i would be showing a photograph to the person i had taken it of and i would be transporting them back upstairs to a place where they could no longer go. So thats why that picture is so meaningful to me. Cspan who is this fellow . Guest that is Kurt Vonnegut my husband who you just met, the fellow hoosier. Cspan he doesnt have any shoes on here. Guest thats true and hes wearing his pajamas. Thats in our house in sagaponack. Whats interesting about that photograph to me is that reflects the ritual for curt. It happens to be doing the New York Times crossword puzzle in ink. He is really incapable of writing before he has done that puzzle. And i think that a lot of writers have rituals and a lot of the writers talk about these rituals. For most of them, its just this cup of strong black coffee. For Tennessee Williams, it was a glass of wine. For george simenon, he actually went to a doctor for a checkup before he started to write, and he had his Blood Pressure taken and his heart listened to. And then he went into total seclusion, like a monk, for 11 days. He didnt come out. He didnt do anything else but write. So rituals interest me. I think the most important aspect of this book is that its not just photographs. I think that what makes it interesting to people is that each writer, each of the 56 writers, has text accompanying the photograph which talks about, in their words, the creative process; how and why and where and when they write. And some of them talk about the rituals. Some of them say where they got the desk. With kurt, he talks about a prayer for writers. With everybody, its different. And i think that its this juxtaposition and this marriage of words to the text that makes it different than just a picture book. Cspan how long have you been married to Kurt Vonnegut . Guest weve been together since 1970. So thats. Cspan whered you meet him . Guest i met him photographing him. I was working at Time Magazine as a reporter. I noticed that every copy boy had a copy of breakfast of champions sticking out of their jeans pocket, and i was just starting to photograph writers and i was very friendly with dave sherman, who was the picture editora picture editor and the book editor of life magazine. So id go up and see him, and id very often photograph writers that he told me had books coming up. And so i photographed kurt for life, and while i was photographing him for life there was a reporter from the New York Times who wasmagazine who was doing a story. So i ended up selling pictures to the times and it just kept going and. Cspan you said you were a reporter for time . Guest i was. Cspan when did you start your. Guest i was a reporter in the new york bureau. Cspan when did you start your photography . Guest ive always gone back and forth between writing and photography. I started photographing actually in 1961. I got a nikon for my 21st birthday as a birthday present and i was working for show magazine first as a secretary, then as a reporter. And all thethe person who gave it to me had brought it from japan, and all the directions were in japanese. So i went to see henry wolf, the art director, to ask him how i might load this camerahow i might open this camera. So he loaded it up for me and he said, `oh he said, `this is like having a rolls royce and not knowing how to drive. but its the only camera i had. I went off, took pictures and, with no shame whatsoever, came back to henry and asked him if he could unload the camera and how could we get some contact sheets or whatever and he sent them out for contact sheets. And then i had him look at my contact sheets and talk about which ones were good and which werent. And he became a mentor for me and a very, very important mentor. Right from the beginning, he told me hed look at a contact sheet and hed say, `if you take three or four pictures of a person doing something, dont shoot a whole roll, justyou know, take different pictures. and he almost didnt have to tell me that because i was so poor then and a roll of film cost so much that i needed to have at least 20 situations on a roll of film. And i alsoit didnt have a motor drive. It justbut i think photographers staythey stick a roll of film in and theyll take four rolls of the same picture. I think its nuts. Cspan did you ever do covers for Time Magazine . Guest not on assignment when i wenti came down here and covered the march on the pentagon. They had 27 photographers on assignment on day rate with expenses, but i sent my film in that night. I was staying with neil and susan sheehan, and i had got a call that night to say that i had gotten the cover. Cspan what year was that . Guest yeah, when was that . 196364sixtyit wasit. Cspan well, the reason i ask is because i think i was the military officer assigned to you in 66 or 67 and i havent seen you since that day. But im sure that you got the cover. Guest then it was init was 1967. Yes. And i remember that i was down and i thought, `well, if i want to shooti mean, therere all these photographers with important credentials and i thought i should go up to Arlington Cemetery and get everybody coming up. So i got there very early and i went up there and i was waiting and waiting. I was all alone. And i thought, `well, maybe theymaybe im just here and ill be here till 10 00 tonight. Maybe they went a different way. so i went down to see what was happening, and by then, i saw what was happening and i took a few pictures of everybody in the front of the line. I got Norman Mailer and Robert Lowell and all those people and ben spock, and i got one of those pictures inside that issue of time. Then i went back up to Arlington Cemetery. By then, there were all these guardsmen fromand they said i couldnt go passed. And i said, `well, i was just up there. and they said, `well do you have credentials . so i had no credentials, but i had my passport. So i took out my passport and i showed it to them and id traveled so much that they saw all these things pulling out and they said ok. And i went back up and i took that picture with the long lens. And. Cspan of memorial bridge. Guest yeah. And then i took some color because i know that i ended up getting the magazine that thethe cover of the New York Times magazine with my color. And i only shot half a roll of color. And when i went to send them in, i had 13 pictures. And i thought, `well, that is so unlucky. Im not going toso iand i couldnt add one because i didntso i took one out and i sent 12 over. So youll never need to convince me ever in my life not to send 13 pictures. I never sent 13 of anything. So i did very well that day and that was my onetime cover and you were probably the one who let me through. Thank you. Cspan thirty years ago. Anyway. Guest it was 1967, right . Yeah. Cspan it was either 66 or 67. Go back to your book for a moment. You have a picture here of john updike and he wrote the introduction for the book. Guest he did. Cspan how did that work . Guest hes an old friend of mine. Ive photographed him 39 times. Over the years, iveand i just thought that he would be the best person. He loves photographs. I just showed him the dummy and i said, `id like you to do it. And if youd be interested, it would just be such an honor. and he did write it. He sent it to me in a week. Kurt was sitting with me in my office when his introduction came in. I read it and i just started to cry. I was so moved by his introduction. And he actually had noticed some of the things in the photographs that i hadnt. He, himself, has three desksone where he answers his mail; a second where he actually writes his books; a third where he does his work for the new yorker which is very high tech with a computer and a printer; and then he has a Fourth Office where he has a big cozy chair and he just sits in there reading books and reviewing them for the new yorker and the new york review of books. Cspan heres the picture ofi guess this would be the computer picture. Guest yeah. Its been very satisfying to me toover the years, to have gone back revisiting authors and really documenting their lives documenting their children as they grow up. With updike, i just loved going to visit his mother on her birthday. I knew his mother was alive, that she had been a writer for the new yorker, that she had published a novel, and i knew that johns son david was a writer. And i realized that this was the only situation of three generations of living american writers. There were other families, like the benchleys, but one writer was dead. So i asked john if i could take a photograph of all three of them some time and he said `well, you know, ill think about it. and id keep asking him, and then finally he called me one day and he said, `im going to visit my motherits on her birthday`david will be there, and if you want to come, come. and so that was really fine. And he had given her pictures over the years that i had taken of him. So i went in, i think, as a friend of the family. Cspan when did you take this picture of bill buckley . Guest oh, gosh, i guess in the early 70s i wasfirst i photographed him at home, and then he said he was going over to nbc to do an interview and i asked if i could go with him. And he said yes, and i jumped into the front of the car with the chauffeur. When im traveling with a writer or anyone im photographing, i do always sit in the front with the driver, because i dont want to bother somebody when theyre in a car. I know thats a time for them to gather their thoughts if theyre going to an interview or whatever theyre doing. And i just like to stay out of their hair. I like to have enough distance so that they dont feel claustrophobic. So i turned around and there he was working with rowley, his companion over the backseat of the car. And i was to find out that he had had this car especially built for him. When the people who were building the car called and asked him how much leg room he wanted, he says, in the book that he actually extended his legs, asked for a few more inches, and he ended up with an office in the backseat of his own car. Cspan is thereor are there a number of things you can say about writers after having photographed so many . How many1,500 writers . Guest probably 1,600 since i made that last statement because im always working but, you know, i dont know if iin the last few weeks, ive gone back to photograph chaim potok, cynthia ozick, joyce carol oates, erica jong. So i dont know whether i can recount them since ive photographed themorupdike would only count for, you know one time. All i know is that im going to have to get a new house with all my file cabinets of photographs. What have i noticed about writers . I would say that none of them have enough bookshelves. Ive never been in a Writers Office where there werent just piles and piles of books everywhere. Certainly Robert Penn Warren is a prime example of that. Cspan heres a photowell have it on in a momentthati dont think this one is in the book. Guest yes. Thats an example, too, of a picture that wasnt in the book because ithe picture i have in the book is very cluttered and messy and hes wearing his flipflop sandals. But this is very messy, but you have to see the whole picture to realize just how messy it is because you have to have the stuff all on the floor as well as all the stuff above his head. And in a small book thats a square format, its going to just focus on warren and his messy desk. And i had lots of messy table tops. And i had the picture of robert coles showing that he didnt have enough bookcases. So i went with the coles, with the bookcases, and used warren in the outside house because i like the idea of almost being barefooted and having thewell, thats the. Cspan coles picture ofhow many. Guest thats coles picture. I just thought they should be together in the book because they were such. Cspan who is robert kohls . Guest robert coles is one of my heroes. Hes an eminent child psychologist, psychiatrist, who knows how to listen to children. And, again, he is someone who has mentored me all my life. The first book i did, the first childrens book, was called sweet pea. It was a photo essay about a nineyearold girl growing up in mt. Meigs, alabama. And robert coles was very helpful to me and very supportive and has always been on all my how it feels books on everything ive done. I applied for a guggenheim. I didnt get it, but he wrote one of my letters for me. He is someone i admire and respect enormously. Cspan and you mentioned walker percy and heres the photograph. Guest walker percy wrote in bed. I flew down to new orleans to photograph him. I liked the photograph because i think he wrote also with a catholic sensibility. So the cross is important to me in that photograph. I returned, oh, 20 years later to rephotograph him and when i was covering the Republican Convention which was held there not long agoand i went back to covington and had lunch with him and photographed him with Johnny Walker, his grandson. In the earlier picture, Johnny Walker was standing beside him in a window with magnolias outside and walker was standing inside. And Johnny Walker, in his oshkosh overalls, standing, came up to walkers waist. When i returnedi guess it was about 18 years lateri asked ahead of time if Johnny Walker might be there. He said, `oh, yes. Johnny Walker is now a College Student wearing jeans and he is sitting in the window and from his head to his butt is exactly the same height as he once was standing as a twoyearold. And if you look at the two picturesi dont have them with meside by side, it looks as if i took them moments apart because walker didnt change at all; its just the son. And, again, thats a perfect example of what a pleasure it is to be able to have that kind of access to a family and to take those kinds of pictures. It doesnt have anything to do with having them published. It just has more to do, for me with taking them and documenting these peoples lives. And my greatest compliment is always when somebody tells me that their mother loved the picture they sent them, or their son, or if i see it framed in their living room when i goan earlier picture that i sent oryou know, that itsor with e. B. White, who was one of my other heroes. I was so excited before i went to photograph him. I was like a small child waiting for christmas. `only five more days till i do e. B. White; only four more days; only three more days. but then on the third day, before i was going to photograph e. B. White, the phone rang. I was in the kitchen. It was around 3 00 in the afternoon, and this voice said `oh, hi, ms. Krementz. This is andy white, and i didnt even know who it was because i didnt call him andyi didnt knowandyi said, `oh, mr. White he said, `you know, ive been thinking about this photography session, and he said, `you know, i justi amthink i am too old to be photographed. i said, `oh, mr. White, i said `you know, just last week, i photographed p. J. Woodhouse, who is 96 and93 and i did rex stout the day before yesterday and hes 86. i said, `youre only in your 70s. Youre a spring chicken. and he saidhe paused and he said `well, come along then. so i said, `oh, thank you. Thank you. i said, `ill justi promise you, ill take a taxi from the airport. Ill have the taxi wait in the driveway. Ill be just in and out before you know it. so i went and did him. It was a winter day when i went to do him the first time. I photographed him out in the snow with the geese around his house. And we had a very nice time. I spent a few hoursmaybe an hour, i dont know. I justi do know i kept the blue hill taxi waiting for me. And when i returned to new york, i sent him an album of photographs and a thank you note. The whole time i was there, he kept saying, `oh, you know, `its too bad its not spring because i usually write in the boathouse. In fact, thats where i wrote charlottes web. and so i goti became obsessed about going back and photographing him in the boathouse which, indeed, i returned to do. On that same visit, when i went back in the spring, i took a picture of him on a swing. It was a simple wooden swing which his grandchildren had used with just one rope, not two. And hes swinging and his family ended up using that picture on the front page of his Memorial Service when he died. And, again, i was so sad when he died, and yet i