Fielding Dawson’s account of life at Black Mountain College first appeared in 1970 before being reissued with a lot of new material in 1991. On May 23rd 1990 he wrote the following from New York:
‘Before established narrative will change, ideas must change, and through a speech involving many varied, still changing ideas, a new formula will present itself for us to follow. We’re on the edge of it, have been for most of this century, but our problem—and failure—is we won’t change. And, therefore, we will be stuck with the stylized successful slime that characterizes our bland, and boring, vicious culture.
But a few individuals here and there, including me, do change, and I’m not fool enough to overlook, or deny my responsibility in it. Change must become a discipline’.
More on Fielding Dawson and the British small-press publishing scene to follow and a reminder to those who knew (alert to those who didn’t) that there is a one-day conference at the University of Salford on Saturday 31st March from 9.00-5.00: Writing and the Small Press. For details contact Lucie Armitt at the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences, University of Salford, Salford, M5 4WT.
Tears in the Fence 