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Unhappily ever after: once upon a time, there was a writer--it doesn''t matter which writer--with talent to burn. Wanna guess how the story ends?

Article Excerpt
LIKE THE TIDES, THE SEASONS, AND THE Bandera branch of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Texas Book Festival is coming around again, allowing us to meet authors we love, hate, or very possibly, find a tittle ho-hum. I always look forward to the book festival because it provides me with the spiritual soapbox to give advice to other authors, an audience that, predictably, has never learned to listen. Conversely, I've never learned to pull my lips together, so the system works. My advice to authors, and the misguided multitudes who want to be authors, is a variation on a truthful if sometimes tedious theme. "Talent," I tell them in stentorian tones, "is its own reward. If you're unlucky enough to have it, don't expect anything else." These wise words, of course, come from a man who's spent his entire professional career trying to eclipse Leon Redbone. [paragraph] My theory is that in all areas of creative human endeavor, the presence...