Yesterday while looking for some old files, I found the letter I wrote to Alfred Publishing, asking for permission to use Joni Mitchell’s song lyrics from Both Sides Now in The Sign for Drowning. Seeking permissions was one of the many steps of getting published that came as a surprise to me and that additionally gave me unexpected gratification.
In such a slim novel, I managed to quote four songs and I quoted numerous passages from The Little Prince. During the editing and pre-publication process, Trumpeter informed me that it was the author’s responsibility to get permissions for credits. I found myself revisiting the songs that I’d incorporated into the story.
Anna and Megan performed Cole Porter’s, Let’s Do It, as children entertaining their parents. My father and I sang that song as a duet many mornings as my entire family got ready for work and school in one bathroom- even though we had three! Carolyn, Anna’s mother, teaches her granddaughter Adrea- who is deaf- how to play Both Sides Now on the piano. I have a lifelong love for Joni Mitchell, starting with a casette tape that I sang along to in my car for hundreds of hours as a teenager. I confess, I got some mishevious pleasure from not seeking permission for Scarborough Fair, but instead crediting it as a Celtic folk song- origins unknown, which it is. I’d heard that Paul Simon does not give permissions. Lastly, and most thrilling, was writing to Harcourt, and including in my letter the exact quotes of Antoine de Saint- Exupery I would be using from The Little Prince. This book is so meaningful and beloved to me. I wove pieces of the little prince’s journey to foreign planets, and particularly his love of an ephemeral flower into Anna and Adrea’s story of their own journey into the unknown and ephemeral world they built together.
It’s hard to explain the pride and satisfaction I felt receiving letters from Harcourt and from Alfred Publishing, who published both Joni Mtichell and Cole Porter, granting permission to use these meaningful lines in my own work. It was like my novel and my words co-mingled with the thoughts and places that these artists had created. I felt I was in great company, having been granted permission to place their words in my book. I still do.
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