June 5, 2013
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I can’t wait to check out the Maurice Sendak exhibit at the Society of Illustrators. Today seemed like the perfect time to share one of the most inspirational letters I’ve ever read from his editor the legendary Ursula Nordstrom addressing his letter sharing some doubts about his own capabilities as a writer. Two years after this letter was written, Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are — edited by Nordstrom — was published.
via Letters of Note:
August 21, 1961
Dear Maurice,
I’ve been out of the office with a bad throat and assorted aches, which is why I haven’t written you before. Also I spent the entire day Saturday writing you a big fat long-hand letter about Tolstoy, Life, Death, and other items which you can get at your friendly Green Stamps store. And then I left it at home. Will now send the gist of what I think I wrote, and it will be more legible than my handwriting anyhow.
OK about the Zolotow book, of course. We’re sorry but she is so glad you’re illustrating it, and so are we, that nothing can cloud our pleasure.
I was glad to have your note about the Doris Orgel story. She is making a few changes which she thinks will improve it, and it will really be a charming book and quite original. She came to see me. Isn’t she an interesting person? I was much impressed with her, and I was irritated all over again with myself for not having been enthusiastic about Dwarf Long Nose.
Your cabin by the lake, and your own boat, sound fine. Please remember that the moon will be full on Friday, the 25th, and take a look at it. It should be beautiful over Lake Champlain.
I loved your long letter and hope it clarified some things for you to write it. Sure, Tolstoy and Melville have a lot of furniture in their books and they also know a lot of facts (“where the mouth of a river is”) but that isn’t the only sort of genius, you know that. You are more of a poet in your writing, at least right now. Yes, Tolstoy is wonderful (his publisher asked me for a quote) but you can express as much emotion and “cohesion and purpose” in some of your drawings as there is in War and Peace. I mean that. You write and draw from the inside out—which is why I said poet. (more…)
