ALS signed “TNW,” one page both sides, 5.75 x 7.75, June 21, 1969. Letter to author James Leo Herlihy, referencing the film Midnight Cowboy. In part: "The Kanins tell me they were greatly impressed by your movie. That's something—the approval of the large public and the approval of the judicious. G. Stein taught us we should aim for neither—but she was an austere adviser. What's this about a tape recorder? That's the tool of the social scientists. You have a perfect ear for colloquial speech—and a memory which returns what it can use. If you're writing non-fiction, collect data from outside; if you're writing imaginative narration draw on what's long been stored up within you,—inside. The things from outside that a novelist can use are those that life dumps in his lap & not what he goes out to seek. Haven't you seen young men (from creative writing courses at Ann Arbor, for example) who borrowed 400 dollars from Grandma to go to Tahiti or Labrador to acquire some experience to write about—when what they really should have written about is grandma and the town where they grew up…You mention marijuana. Hell, I smell it around me on all sides—the restaurants around Yale—those around Stockbridge Mass where I just spent a week. Personally I resort to gin and bourbon—but I never invoke it as an aid to writing." In fine condition. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope addressed in Wilder's hand.
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