Nora Ephron, 71, has died

Nora Ephron died Tuesday at the age of 71 of acute leukemia in New York. If news of her severe illness was a surprise to some, her death was foreshadowed by gossip columnist Liz Smith, who published an online memorial to Ephron on Tuesday afternoon, before she passed away.

Ephron got her start as a writer in New York in 1962. A recent Wellesley grad, she wrote a parody of a New York Post story -- and then was hired by the Post. She wrote about her experiences as a journalist, among other things, in her final book, "I Remember Nothing." She was there when the Beatles first came to America -- but she didn't get the full effect. "I was at Kennedy Airport. I went to the Ed Sullivan show," she told the NPR show Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. "But I couldn't hear them."

Like much of her work, the collection of humorous essays took a look at the personal and found a way to make it funny. Ephron published it and 2006's "I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman" with Alfred A. Knopf, her longtime publisher. The company said in a statement, "It is with great sadness that we report that Nora Ephron has died at the age of 71, after a battle with leukemia. She brought an awful lot of people a tremendous amount of joy. She will be sorely missed."

Ephron's first big publication was the sensational 1983 roman-a-clef "Heartburn." The novel was based on the dissolution of her marriage to famed Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein, co-author of "All the President's Men."

That same year, the film "Silkwood" was released; Ephron had written the screenplay, for which she recieved an Oscar nomination. Her film career took off: she wrote the screenplay for "Heartburn"  and for "When Harry Met Sally." Her directorial debut came with another romantic comedy she'd written, "Sleepless in Seattle." Her last release was "Julie & Julia"; Ephron directed the film and adapted the screenplay from the book of the same name by Julie Powell. Yet even with her Hollywood success, Ephron continued to write.

The Times' Mary McNamara reviewed Ephron's last book. "When I was a journalist just out of college, I worked at Ms. magazine and all my friends and I wanted to be Nora Ephron," she wrote in 2010. "She turned her divorce into a wise and hilarious novel, she wrote about events and people in such a way that was informative but also full of wit and stinging cultural analysis. She wrote about food before everyone was a foodie. She was smarter, darker and funnier than Anna Quindlen. Ephron's voice helped launch a whole new way of writing, and I still love to hear it...."

Read our complete obituary of Nora Ephron.

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Photo: Nora Ephron in 2010. Credit: Charles Sykes / Associated Press

Margaret Atwood jumps into teen writing site Wattpad

Margaret Atwood has always been one step ahead. The recent to-do over the use of the word "vagina" on the Michigan state House floor, for instance, would fit right in with the world she imagined in "The Handmaid's Tale," which was published back in 1985.

So maybe other adult novelists should take note of Atwood's latest move: She's jumped into the frenetic teen writing site Wattpad. "I look forward to exploring the ways Wattpad connects people to reading and writing, and may help give them confidence through feedback from readers," Atwood writes on her author page.

Wattpad is a Toronto-based social reading app and website that's been rapidly adopted by teens. It claims 9 million users, more than 70% of whom engage with the materials on Wattpad through a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet. Earlier this month, the company announced $17 million in Series B funding; currently, its platform is completely free to use. More than 500,000 new stories and poems -- in 25 languages -- are added each month.

On Monday, Atwood posted two poems on the site, "Thriller Suite" and "Update on Werewolves." The site captures and displays all kinds of metrics about the writing shared there. Atwood's poems have had more than 1,600 reads.

In a release announcing Atwood's participation, Chief Executive Allen Lau said, "Our community of readers and writers are thrilled, especially our poets.... Just imagine what it means for a young aspiring poet to interact with Margaret Atwood!"

So far, just 15 people have ventured to leave comments on Atwood's poems. They may be shy to engage  with the revered 72-year-old author, who has received the Arthur C. Clark Award, has won Canada's Governor General Award twice, and recieved the Man Booker prize in 2000 for "The Blind Assassin."

It may take a little time for the site's users to find the best way to interact with Atwood, who is accustomed to presenting finished, polished work. One of the most fertile uses of Wattpad is as a place for people working on a writing project to post it in serial form. For the popular work "The Bro Code," which has had more than 1.5 million reads, comments show that readers got started and want more. A typical one: "Plzzzzzz plzzzzz upload i luv the book so much! It is soooo hard 4 me to stop reading! Things r so intense i can hardly stand it!"

If that sounds a little, well, teenspeak for the literary Atwood, she seems game. “This is an adventure! I wonder what it will be like to share my writing with a new group of people," she said in the release. "Building new readers and writers is crucial for the writing and reading community: if there are no newer readers, soon there will be no older ones. And, in writing as with everything else, you learn by doing.”

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Photo: Margaret Atwood in 2008. Credit: George Whiteside.

Alice Walker says no to Israeli edition of 'The Color Purple'

Citing "apartheid" in Israel and the occupied territories, author Alice Walker declined an offer to publish a new Israeli edition of her prize-winning novel "The Color Purple."

In recent years Walker has become an increasingly vocal advocate for Palestinian issues. Her reply to publisher Yediot Books, which had wanted rights to print a Hebrew edition of "The Color Purple," is posted on the website of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

Thank you so much for wishing to publish my novel THE COLOR PURPLE.  It isn’t possible for me to permit this at this time for the following reason:  As you may know, last Fall in South Africa the Russell Tribunal on Palestine met and determined that Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories.  The testimony we heard, both from Israelis and Palestinians (I was a jurist) was devastating.  I grew up under American apartheid and this was far worse.  Indeed, many South Africans who attended, including Desmond Tutu, felt the Israeli version of these crimes is worse even than  what they suffered under the white supremacist regimes that dominated South Africa for so long.

It is my hope that the non-violent BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, of which I am part, will have enough of an impact on Israeli civilian society to change the situation.

Licensing books internationally rarely makes news. American authors whose works are published overseas get additional payments from international publishers; it can be a nice way for books that sell well to make an additional profit. A book like "The Color Purple," which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and went on to be the subject of a film, would be a good candidate for international sales.

Walker mentions the film in her letter to the Israeli publisher. The movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, came out in 1985. During consideration of whether it should be released in South Africa, Walker and Spielberg agreed to honor a cultural boycott and not allow it to show in that country while it was under apartheid. After the apartheid system was dismantled in the mid-1990s, the film finally did show there. "[T]o this day, when I am in South Africa, I can hold my head high and nothing obstructs the love that flows between me and the people of that country," Walker writes.

Walker's decision to withhold "The Color Purple" from publication has stirred controversy. An email to Anti-Defamation League supporters went out Wednesday afternoon with the subject line "Alice Walker's Decision Not to Publish 'The Color Purple' in Hebrew Exposes Her Own Bias & Bigotry."  In it, the ADL writes, "It is sad that people who inspire to fight bigotry and prejudice continue to have a biased and bigoted side. For some time Walker has been blinded by her anti-Israel animus."

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz notes that Walker's book was published before in Israel; a Hebrew edition appeared in the country in the 1980s. According to publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Walker's books have been translated into more than two dozen languages.

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Photo: Alice Walker at a 1996 book signing at Eso Won Books in Los Angeles. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Armistead Maupin to leave San Francisco behind

Armistead Maupin, whose seminal Tales of the City series has been set in San Francisco, will leave that city behind for good, he says. "It's been 41 years since I landed here and it gave me my story," Maupin tells the San Francisco Chronicle. "I keep reminding myself that Barbary Lane is portable and everything I learned here became part of me and is something I'll always have."

Maupin's "Tales of the City" was initially serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle, telling the story of  inhabitants of 28 Barbary Lane, particularly the likable, gay Michael Tolliver. The first book, published in 1977, was groundbreakingly open for its time and became a bestseller. He continued writing the series until 1989, then turned his attention elsewhere. In 2010, he returned to Barbary Lane with "Mary Ann in Autumn."

As Maupin wrote the first five books in serial form, the series was very of-the-moment; his novels were among the first to deal with the AIDS crisis. He told Times book critic David L. Ulin what it was like to be able to respond to current events in his fiction:

Armistead Maupin: The day after the Chronicle ran the story about Anita Bryant organizing her anti-gay campaign, I had Michael Tolliver's mother write him a letter saying that she had joined the Save Our Children campaign without knowing that her own son was gay. And as fate would have it, I had already established Michael as the son of Florida orange growers.

David L. Ulin: How did the Chronicle deal with your more controversial material?

Armistead Maupin: When the anti-gay measure passed in Florida, I heard a lot of gay people making noises about how we'd have to go back into the closet. I thought: This is not a referendum on whether you're a worthwhile human being. So I had Michael say, "When I came out of the closet, I nailed the door shut." I heard through the grapevine at the Chronicle that the guys upstairs were going to pull it because it was too offensively firebrand. I got on the phone to Dick Thieriot, the younger of the Thieriots, and I told him that if he pulled it, I would quit. I hung up and thought, "You just murdered the goose that laid the golden egg." I paced around the house for three hours, and then he called back and said, "All right."

Maupin is leaving San Francisco behind for Santa Fe, where he, husband Christopher Turner and their labradoodle plan to settle. Maupin said he and Turner are "both craving a little more space and some nature," and that the move is "giving us new dreams."

Before they get to New Mexico, however, there is a summer of other adventures: first to Provincetown, Mass., then a cross-country book tour back to the West. That will end with the two attending Burning Man, after which they'll head home -- no longer to San Francisco, but to Santa Fe.

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Photo: Armistead Maupin at home in San Francisco. Credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

The Reading Life: The wisdom of Harry Crews

This is part of the occasional series "The Reading Life" by book critic David L. Ulin.

In the latest issue of the literary quarterly New Letters, there's an interview from the early 1980s with Harry Crews.

Crews, who died in March at the age of 76, was a satirist, but, really, he was more than that: His novels emerge out of the dreamscape, offering bleakly funny, exaggerated portraits of America at the brink.

In his first, "The Gospel Singer," an itinerant preacher ends up in a Georgia town more grotesque than any in Flannery O'Connor's writing; "A Feast of Snakes" (1976) involves a rattlesnake roundup. My favorite is "Car," in which a man eats a full-size automobile, four ounces at a time.

The New Letters interview was conducted at a moment when Crews was on (or just coming off) the skids, at the tail end of a decades-long wrestling match with alcohol -- "I drank with two hands," he once said. "... I was drunk every day for 30 years" -- and unsure of what to do next. Nonetheless, he was feisty, not giving an inch.

Here he is on what it takes to be a writer:

One of the things that prevents people from becoming writers is the inability to look at their lives and look at what they believe. They can't look at themselves honestly and say, "Okay, that's how it is." Society makes it damn near necessary to disguise yourself. To appear "normal." To appear like everybody else. ... Whatever people think of me is fine. I made peace with that a long time ago, and realized that I'm not "gone" be like most people, not "gone" be what most people called decent. I'm not like most people, and I don't act like most people. I can live with that just fine and always have.

And here, on whether or not alcohol had finished him (clearly it hadn't, since he went on to publish five more books):

Wimps always think that things are destroyed. Wimps see a little blood and bone, and they think the game is over. They don't know you can go out and get taped up real good and shot up with a little dope and get back in and hit somebody. No ... I'm a long way from finished.

 Best of all are his thoughts on whether "all writers are congenital liars, as Faulkner said":

Oh, yes. I think the business of being a fabulist, that is to be involved with fabrication and making things up and living in the world of the imagination, all that spills over into lying even when you don't have to lie, just because you want to tell something that is memorable and compelling. In your own mind, this isn't what happened to me at Daytona Beach, but this is the way it should have happened. You tell it, and it's a great story. It's not true to the facts of the matter, but very true to the spirit of what happened -- truer in spirit than the facts are. When you give someone the spirit of the thing, that's better than the facts.

-- David L. Ulin

Photo: Harry Crews in 1998. Credit: The Gainesville (Fla.) Sun

Celebrating Bloomsday and James Joyce

On Saturday, Angelenos can celebrate one of the greatest novels of the 20th century -– by gathering together and raising a glass of Guinness.

June 16 is Bloomsday, so called for Leopold Bloom, the main character in James Joyce's "Ulysses." The notoriously challenging novel blasted through formal conventions and become an iconic work of modernist fiction; its 600-plus pages take place in Dublin over the course of a single day, June 16, 1904.

Although it has now become the focus of public celebrations, “Ulysses” was, at first, the stuff of hushed words and darting glances. Serialized by an American literary journal in the late teens, part of Joyce's novel -- involving masturbation -- was ruled obscene in 1921. Expatriate Sylvia Beach, owner of the famed Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company, published the complete "Ulysses" abroad in 1922, yet it was officially banned in America. In 1933, Random House’s attempt to import copies of the controversial novel were at the center of a major court case; “Ulysses” won, helping to prise open laws regarding “obscene” content.

Of course, just because American readers had access to “Ulysses” didn’t mean it was accessible. The novel is the stuff of semester-long seminars and Ph.D. theses – making it an odd candidate for marathon public readings, city tours and evening dancing.

“The really big breakthrough was in 1982, celebrating the centenary of Joyce's birth with a large Joyce symposium in Dublin,” Dr. Vincent Cheng, co-editor of 2009’s “Joyce in Context,” writes from this year’s conference in Ireland. “Bloomsday 2004 in Dublin was the first time that it felt like a fully public celebration, with lots of locals and tourists joining the Joycean academics in celebrating the day.” People lucky enough to be in Dublin this year can download the JoyceWays iPhone app, three years in the making, a literary tour through the city circa 1904.

Joyce enthusiasm has spread across America, where Symphony Space in New York has presented “Bloomsday on Broadway” for 31 years; this year’s performance will be streamed live online. Also online will be a classic reading by Alec Baldwin, Wallace Shawn and others at Pacifica Radio; at seven hours, it’s still only a portion of the 600-plus-page text.

At the Hammer, which hosts LA’s premiere performance-and-participation Bloomsday event, actors will be reading the book’s “Aeolus” section, or, more plainly, the part of the novel set in the offices of the Freeman’s Journal newspaper. It also includes a visit to a pub.

The Hammer will be offering happy hour Guinness from 6 to 7:30 p.m., accompanied by Irish music. Joyce enthusiasts can arrive up to two hours earlier to participate in an open “Ulysses” reading. When the performance is done, there will be more music, and more Guinness.

Is all this drinking and dancing an appropriate way to celebrate a brilliant work of literature? “I think Bloomsday events absolutely do a service to Joyce's work,” Cheng says. “Not only are they a lot of fun for Joyce aficionados, but they get people who have never read Joyce (and who might otherwise never dare try such challenging reading) interested in looking at these wonderful (but very difficult) books, especially ‘Ulysses.’"

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Photo: Celebrating Irish heritage and Bloomsday, named for James Joyce's "Ulysses," at the Hammer in 2011. Credit: Hammer Museum

Ernest Hemingway's home has sold, but we can still visit

The childhood home of Ernest Hemingway in Oak Park, Ill., has been sold; the deal closed Tuesday. A couple will turn the three-story house, which was divided into three apartments in the 1930s, back into a single-family private home.

The Ernest Hemingway Foundation purchased the property in 2001 in hopes of making it a cultural center, the Associated Press reports. Those efforts failed to come to fruition and the house was put on the market for $525,000, which was its final price.

The house was designed by architect Henry G. Fiddelke in collaboration with Grace Hall Hemingway. The Hemingway family moved to the house in 1906, when Hemingway was 7. "The building was built originally as a glorious home for entertaining,” real estate agent Steve Scheuring said. “Ernest’s mother was really the one that took charge in assisting the design of the home. It once had a music room off the north side and she [Grace] held music events in the home while the front two rooms off the entry foyer were his father’s physician offices.”

Hemingway slept in a third-floor bedroom until he graduated from high school. According to some reports, he began writing fiction there before leaving to write for the Kansas City Star; others say he returned to the house after World War I, writing there while recuperating from his injuries. In any event, the legend stands that Hemingway began writing in the house in Oak Park.

Buyers Kurt and Mary Jane Neumann plan to make the home a single-family residence where their family can live. But that doesn't mean the doors are locked. “We don't want anyone to feel like we're going to shutter it up or minimize the historical significance,” Bruce Neumann told the AP. “We appreciate curiosity in the home. We just need to balance the reality that it's going to be our family home.”

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Photo: Ernest Hemingway's boyhood home in Oak Park, Ill. Credit: Baird & Warner Real Estate

Interview: Richelle Mead on 'The Golden Lily,' vampires and alchemists

When Richelle Mead wrapped up her bestselling "Vampire Academy" series in 2010, some die-hard fans wanted it to go on forever. But Mead decided on a different tack: She launched a spin-off that picked up where "Last Sacrifice" left off, centering a new series on an alchemist named Sydney who is tasked with protecting a vampire princess. We caught up with the 35-year-old author, and new mom, to talk about "The Golden Lily," the second installment in her six-book "Bloodlines" series, published Tuesday. Mead is currently on tour and will stop at Barnes & Noble in Santa Monica on June 18.

Jacket Copy: Did you worry about alienating "Vampire Academy" fans with a lead character in the new series who isn't especially fond of bloodsuckers?

Richelle Mead: Sydney is interacting with vampires so much, it's hard to get away from them. But part of this series is looking at the human aspect of the supernatural. In the first series, the narrator was a half vampire, and you were looking at the vampire world from inside out. Sydney lets us look from outside in. To see it through human eyes gives you a different perspective. Things you thought were normal in the first series aren't.

J.C.: The way you kept the two series connected was to import minor characters from "Vampire Academy." What was it about the chemistry between Sydney, Jill, Eddie and Adrian that made you bring them together? And why, in "The Golden Lily," are you adding Dimitri and Angeline to the mix?

R.M.: The stories of these four characters were left incomplete at the end of the first series, by design. All four of them have something startling happen to them, and it was all directly or indirectly a result of Rose, the narrator of the first series. They had these big shocking life changes they're trying to cope with now, so that's how I put them together. As far as Angeline and Dimitri showing up, I knew they were fan favorites. I told people when I wrote the spinoff, I wasn't going to abandon old characters. We'll just see them in the periphery as opposed to the main focus.

J.C.: You live in one of the rainiest cities in the U.S. -- Seattle -- so it's funny that you've set the new series in sunny Palm Springs, but there's another reason, too?

R.M.: The premise of the "Bloodlines" series is they're trying to hide this vampire princess, and they've pretty much chosen the last place anyone would look for a vampire because it's so sunny, so that is by design. It's tricky for her because it's not a particularly pleasant place for her to be. She's in high school, and trying to do mundane things like P.E. outside is strenuous because the sun makes her sick.

J.C.: Palm Springs also sets your vampires apart from the "Twilight" series in rainy Forks, Wash.

R.M.: There is that desire to stay away from that. All the vampire books out there are so different. It's good to throw in some different things.

J.C.: I'm sure you're asked this all the time, but why are vampires so popular?

R.M.: I do get asked this all the time, and I would think by now I would have an answer. I don't know. People have always had a fascination with the supernatural going back to the beginning of time and with vampires in particular. This phenomenon is not new. When I was in high school, it was Anne Rice. Go back farther, and it was Bela Lugosi and Bram Stoker. People like vampires because they're kind of human like, but they're still sort of dangerous and supernatural, so maybe it's a relatable mix. I'm not sure. It's something I would like the answer to as well.

J.C.: You started "Vampire Academy" well before Stephenie Meyer and "Twilight" became household names. Has the success of that series been a help or a hindrance?

R.M.: It's definitely helped. People really want to set up these rivalries because there's a lot of vampire books out there. People want to believe we're all fierce rivals, and really there's just so much camaraderie with authors. Everyone kind of boosts each other. If readers like one vampire book, they'll want to read more, so "Twilight" kicked it off, and it's really helped my series, but I like to think it's more than it being just a vampire book. I like to think it's the characters and stories that appeal to readers.

J.C.: How would you describe the new series' core story?

R.M.: It's a couple different things. One part is the love story. It's a slow burn, so we'll see things progress. Another part is about questioning what you're told. The people Sydney works for have a lot of rules. There's a lot of dogma, and they tell her: This is what vampires are like. This is what these people are like. There's this idea of overcoming prejudice to see things for yourself and ultimately making your own choices. Sydney's working to find her own voice in this series.

J.C.: As a reviewer, it's so great to see such strong female role models in teen fiction.

R.M.: You're absolutely right. It's a great thing to see in books. It's definitely something that's always been important to me. What's fun about "Bloodlines" is it's a different kind of strength we're seeing in a young woman. Rose was obviously strong physically and getting into fights and punching her enemies. She was literally a strong, fierce woman. Sydney is quieter. It's an intellectual strength, and I think that's important to show, too. There's a lot of ways to assert yourself and be a strong person.

J.C.: You're a new mother. How has that impacted your work and creativity?

R.M.: It certainly affects the 9 to 5 schedule. I've had to manage my time better. As far as writing style, I think I'm a little less dark. There's still plenty of that. Don't get me wrong. It hasn't all become rainbows and unicorns, but babies just make you hope for some better things in the world, so there's a little more optimism.

J.C.: Where does film interest stand in the "Vampire Academy" and "Bloodlines" series?

R.M.: There's a lot of rumors. Nothing with "Bloodlines" at all. There's a production company shopping "Vampire Academy" around, so I think that's where the confusion comes from because it sounds more promising than it is. They need to get a studio on board.

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Photo: Richelle Mead; "The Golden Lily," "Bloodlines" and "Last Sacrifice" book jackets. Credit: Malcolm Smith Photography; Penguin Group

Scott Turow flashes back with the Beatles on KCRW

Author Scott Turow is the latest to step into the radio booth for KCRW's Guest DJ Project. In the short recorded segment, the guest DJs select and play five songs while talking about what they like about them, or why they find them important.

Turow, of course, is the bestselling author of legal thrillers such as "Presumed Innocent" and "Reversible Errors." His musical tastes run toward baby boomer-era classics -- Del Shannon, Pete Seeger and, not surprisingly, the Beatles.

But the Beatles song Turow picks is a surprise: "Free as a Bird," released in 1995 with performances by the surviving Beatles grafted onto an archive recording of John Lennon, produced with Yoko Ono's permission. Turow explains what he likes about it:

“What compels me to choose it -- although I always thought it got down-talked in a way it didn’t deserve, I think it’s a great song -- but by the time it was released in 1995 with, you know, the full vocalization, I was a middle-aged father of three. And the anticipation of hearing this new Beatles song brought me back to 13 years old when they first appeared. And I hovered by the TV set and just waited, and by the time the first guitar chords were struck, I was just absolutely transported and moved by this song.

I always liked to imagine that Lennon was singing about the Beatles, as a group, and that together they had felt free as bird. But it was a powerful lesson because I liked John Lennon’s music, the music he made as a solo artist, a great deal. But I’ll still take “Free as a Bird” over anything that he did by himself. The addition of the other three still brings it to a musical level that I don’t think anybody got to on their own.”

In addition to being a writer and a working lawyer, Turow is the head of the Authors Guild. I'll be talking to him about publishing and e-books June 22, when he comes to town. The reason for his visit is, actually, musical: He's a founding member of the writers' rock group the Rock Bottom Remainders. They mostly play covers; Turow sings.

The Rock Bottom Remainders will perform their last public show June 22 at the El Rey Theater with a lineup that includes some big bestsellers: Stephen King, Dave Barry, Amy Tan, Mitch Albom, Matt Groening, Ridley Pearson, Greg Iles, Sam Barry and Roy Blount Jr. Roger McGuinn from the Byrds will be along providing some serious guitar help. All proceeds from the event are to go to charity.

After the jump, the Rock Bottom Remainders sing "Wild Thing" with a fan who had donated money to sing along; he joins Turow at the mic.

Hitchhiking for material: Luckily John Waters didn't get shot

Last month John Waters completed an eight-day cross-country trip. The film director and writer,  known for his unique perspective, decided to make the trip an adventure: He hitchhiked.

Along the way, he was picked up by an indie rock band on tour, a pastor's wife, a married couple and a 20-year-old tea party town councilman. Waters is planning to turn the story of his 15-ride trip into a book, "Carsick," for FSG.

“Everyone my age that I know was so horrified by this idea,” he told the New York Times. “Every young person I know said, ‘Can we come?’ ”

Waters made it Baltimore to his San Francisco apartment without incident. But another hopeful writer who undertook a similar hitchhiking adventure for material wasn't so lucky.

Ray Dolin, a 39-year-old West Virginian working on a book he planned to call “The Kindness of America,” was shot on a rural Montana highway while waiting for a ride.

The Associated Press reports:

Ray Dolin, 39, was shot in the arm as he approached a pickup Saturday evening, thinking the driver was offering him a ride, said Valley County Sheriff Glen Meier....

A 52-year-old man from Washington state, Lloyd Christopher Danielson III, was arrested about four hours later near Culbertson. ... They [police] released no motive in the shooting.

Dolin, who told sheriff's officials that he was writing a memoir titled "Kindness in America," is expected to recover from his injuries. He has worked as a freelance photographer; his father told reporters that his son was traveling across the country taking pictures. 

"My two greatest passions in life are travel and photography," Dolin writes on his website. "I believe that travel broadens one's view of the world. Experiencing other cultures, meeting people from other communities, other countries, and seeing the beauty of the world has helped me understand that all lives are connected and individual."

Waters was less idealistic about his travel experiences. "“You think maybe you’re standing by a highway for a long time, it’s a Zen-like experience,” he said. “It isn’t. It is a despairing experience to figure: No one’s ever going to stop. I’m here forever.”

Maybe Dolin and Waters can do some book tour dates together. Hitchhiking. Maybe.

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Photo: John Waters at the 2012 CFDA Fashion Awards. Credit: Theo Wargo / Getty Images