David W. Berner is a memoirist whose personal
stories tell all of our stories. His memoirs reflect on our
collective relationships and how those experiences link us to the world we
share. From stories of fathers and sons, to road trips, travel memoir, pets,
and music, David's books are mirrors of our common human experience.
Storytelling has been a part of
David's life since his days as a young boy, delivering The Pittsburgh
Press newspaper. He began telling his own stories and the stories of others as
a reporter for numerous radio stations, including freelance work at National
Public Radio and more recently for CBS in Chicago.
David's reporting background has
given birth to award-winning memoirs and novels based on his own experiences.
He has been the
Writer-in-Residence for the Jack
Kerouac Project in Orlando, where he was privileged to live and work at the Kerouac
House in Orlando for two-and-a-half months. He later was honored with the
Writer-in-Residence position at the Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Home in Oak Park,
Illinois.
Website: https://www.davidwberner.com/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/davidwberner
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DavidWBernerWriter/?modal=admin_todo_tour
(David W. Berner—Writer)
About the Book:
THE CONSEQUENCE OF STARS is a unique
and thoughtful memoir on our eternal search for home. Told in a series of
essays on love, loss, travel, music, spirituality, and the joys of solitude,
memoirist David W. Berner, reaches deep to discover where he belongs and ultimately where all of us belong.
memoirist David W. Berner, reaches deep to discover where he belongs and ultimately where all of us belong.
"Berner gives us both travelogue and memoir in living,
breathing depth and color." --- D.S. White, Editor-in-Chief, Longshot
Island.
"A writer with an enormous sense of humanity." -- San
Francisco Review of Books
"Reflective, engaging...Berner's authentic storytelling
takes you with him on his travels through the chapters of his life where in the
end, he reveals connections to finding a place to be, his home under the
stars." -- Nancy Chadwick, author of Under the Birch Tree.
ORDER YOUR COPY:
Adelaide Books
I’d like to know more about you as a person
first. What do you do when you’re not
writing?
I am an associate professor in the Communication Department
at Columbia College Chicago and I have been a journalist for many years, mainly
working in broadcasting, including work for CBS radio and some freelancing for
public radio.
When did you start writing?
I was in second grade. Our teacher helped us make paper
mache books. We each wrote a story and she helped us produce the actual book.
My book was titled The Cyclops. I was
fascinated with the ocean when I was kid. I still have that book. My mother
saves it. But real writing, in terms of short essays and books, came in my 40s,
but I was writing news copy for years as a reporter before that.
As a published author, what would you say was the most
pivotal point of your writing life?
Getting published for the first time. It validated my work.
But while working on my second book, I was honored with the Writer-in-Residence
position at the Jack Kerouac Project in Orlando
and was allowed to live and work in Kerouac’s old house for three months. That
was a marvelous experience. I wrote every day in the same room where Kerouac
wrote The Dharma Bums. It was
heavenly.
If you could go anywhere in the world to start writing your
next book, where would that be and why?
Wow. Hmmm. I assume you mean using that place as a setting
in the story? Maybe Spain.
Although, I’ve been to Cuba
and that would be so interesting to use Havana
as a setting. But if you are talking about a great place to write, just
write—hmmm—well, you know what? I think it would be Spain
again, sitting in a villa on the southern coast somewhere, windows open, breeze
dancing with the white curtains, late day sun, glass of wine.
If you had 4 hours of extra time today, what would you do?
Besides write? Walk my dog. Write music. Play guitar. Go to
a long lunch with my wife. But I don’t really consider those things something I
would do with “extra time”—that’s just life.
Where would you like to set a story that you haven’t done
yet?
I’ve written essays in my newest book, The Consequence of
Stars, that take in many places where I have traveled—Paris, Cuba, The Navajo
Nation, just to name some. The book is part travelogue and memoir, so “place”
plays a big part. But I think it would be interesting to write a piece about
somewhere deeply urban and gritty. I haven’t done that yet.
Back to your present book, THE CONSEQUENCE OF STARS: A MEMOIR, how did you publish it?
It was a query and a submission to Adelaide Books,
NY/Lisbon. I had it out to several publishers and Adelaide
was the right fit.
In writing your book, did you travel anywhere for research?
I didn’t travel specifically for research, but there is a
lot of travel in this book. As I mentioned—Paris,
Cuba, The Navajo
Nation—but I also write about time in Orlando
at the Kerouac house, my hometown—Pittsburgh,
Chicago, and a cross-country train
trip from Seattle to Chicago.
Why was writing THE
CONSEQUENCE OF STARS: A MEMOIR so important to you?
I had this gem of an idea years ago about what “home” meant
to me, what it means to all of us. How do we see home? What is it physically
and emotionally? How do we find it? Why do we forever seek it? And how do we do
that? It fascinated me but it took some time to shape those thoughts into a
cohesive theme. Once I did that, it came together in spurts, with me always
remembering that the concept of home is forever in flux. This book is not a
typical memoir, it is not a self-indulgent work, as some poorly thought out
memoirs can be, and hopefully the reader will find it to be a shared
experience, a book about me but also about all of us.
Where do you get your best ideas and why do you think that
is?
Norman Mailer called writing “the spooky art.” He was right.
I have no idea where ideas come from. They just surface, emerge, morph. I am
not a planner, I do not outline. I just write and let the characters and the
story, or the theme, come to me. It’s as if all of it works itself out through
the process of writing. Spooky, right? Like Joan Didion, I believe I write to
find out what I’m thinking. She said the same in so many words. It is so true.
Any final words?
I hope those who are not necessarily essay or memoir readers
will read THE CONSEQUENCE OF STARS. I
do believe it’s a book for all of us, something we all have in common, this
concept of home. It’s part of our shared human condition.
Can't wait to read it, David
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