Out & About / Ventura County : page turner : Healing Words : Writer sees memoirs as universal way to understand and view past.
The topics will include writing, editing and more when Charles Champlin, retired entertainment editor and film critic for the Los Angeles Times, visits the Ventura County Writers Club this week.
Champlin--who teaches, lectures and writes when he isn’t visiting the Carpinteria condo he described as so small the mice are hunchbacked--is 30,000 words into a memoir that picks up where his previous memoir, “Back Where the Past Was,” concluded.
As the book ended, he was leaving his hometown in Hammondsport, N.Y.
After the Army, he graduated from Harvard and became a writer and correspondent for Life and Time magazines. His accomplishments include winning the Order of Arts & Letters from the French government in 1978.
His most recent book, “Hollywood’s Revolutionary Decade,” is an annotated collection of his reviews of the films of the 1970s. Meanwhile, Syracuse University Press is publishing a softcover edition of “Back Where the Past Was,” originally published in 1989 and still attracting readers.
“Just the other day I got a fan letter from a guy down in Georgia someplace, but he grew up 40 miles west of Fargo, North Dakota, and said every word could have been written about his hometown. He responded to the band concerts and the whole ambience,” Champlin said.
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What is so appealing about digging into the past?
“Memoirs kind of have a healing role in the sense that they help identify us to each other and reveal at their best a kind of common humanity,” Champlin said. The new one gets into his military experience--he was awarded the Purple Heart and other honors during World War II.
“As I read it over, it’s all very smooth and amusing, but I realized that perhaps I hadn’t dug deep under the surface enough,” he said. He sent one portion to his old combat squad leader, who wrote back to remind him how scared they all were.
“Sometimes when you look back, you forget the immediacy of the chill of those nights when you were stumbling around in the darkness,” Champlin said.
That description befits a fiction writer. Champlin did write a short story based rather loosely on a colorful uncle who was a pioneer pilot in 1912. It was finally published in a third-rate men’s magazine--a photo on the back prevented him from sending it home. He said he just might write a novel someday, but so far has ignored the temptation.
Plans include teaching “Charles Champlin’s Coming Attractions,” a film class at UC Irvine in October and November. He’s also editing a cousin’s memoir called “Tony’s World” to benefit the Hammondsport History Museum.
HAPPENINGS
* Sunday, 3 p.m. Daphne Rose Kingma will discuss and sign “The 9 Types of Lovers: Why We Love the People We Do and How They Drive Us Crazy.” Thousand Oaks Barnes & Noble, 160 S. Westlake Blvd., 446-2820.
* Monday, 10 a.m. CNN Prime Time News Anchor Linden Soles will open the Artists and Speakers Series at Cal Lutheran University’s Preus-Brandt Forum, 60 W. Olsen Road, Thousand Oaks, 493-3151.
* Tuesday, 7 p.m. The Pop Culture Reading Group will discuss “Shampoo Planet” by Douglas Coupland. Ventura Barnes & Noble, 4360 E. Main St., 339-9170.
* Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. The Ventura County chapter of California Poets in the Schools will present a “Meet the Poets” night, featuring local poets Gary Imlay, Lucia Lemieux, Alicia Morris, Richard Newsham, Ron Reichick and Shelley Savren. Thousand Oaks Barnes & Noble, 446-2820.
* Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. The Ventura County Writers Club will feature former Los Angeles Times entertainment editor Charles Champlin. Call J. Sehnem at 579-9414 for information. Borders, 497-8159.
* Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. Story time with “If You Give a Pig a Pancake” by Laura Numeroff and “Piggies” by Audrey Wood. Ventura Barnes & Noble, 339-9170.
* Wednesday, 7 p.m. Lillian Carson will discuss and sign “The Essential Grandparents” and “The Essential Grandparents’ Guide to Divorce.” Borders, 497-8159.
* Wednesday, 7 p.m. Author and writing teacher Louise Cabral will speak at the monthly meeting of the West Ventura County Chapter of Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network. The Book Mall, 105 S. Oak St., Ventura. Call Patricia Fry at 646-3045 or e-mail PLF@aol.com for more information.
* Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. The book and song reading group will focus on “Phantom of the Opera” by Gaston Le Roux and “The Complete Phantom of the Opera” by George C. Perry, followed by selections from the musical. Thousand Oaks Barnes & Noble, 446-2820.
* Thursday, 7:30 p.m. “Lactose-Free Cookbook” signing and tasting with author Sheri Updike. Ventura Barnes & Noble, 339-9170.
* Friday, 7 p.m. The Rev. Don Pederson will discuss and sign “Mental Laxatives for a Constipated Mind.” Ventura Barnes & Noble, 339-9170.
* Friday, 7 p.m. Reba’s First Book Club monthly story time. Ventura Barnes & Noble, 339-9170. Also Saturday at 10:30 a.m. at Thousand Oaks Barnes & Noble, 446-2820.
* Saturday, 10 a.m. Mystery author Margaret Coel will discuss and sign “The Lost Bird” at Mysteries to Die For, 2940 Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks, 374-0084.
Information about book-signings, writers groups or publishing events can be emailed to anns40aol.com or faxed to 647-5649.