“Morning Pages is truly inspiring! In fact, so much so, that I have started to write down my own ‘recollections.’ Joseph Sutton makes his stories so personal—I feel like I’m actually there watching him achieve his successes and manage his failures.” —Ray Balbes, artist
“Joseph Sutton is the master of the personal essay. In a handful of pages, he tells a small tale and ends each with an epiphany. You can read Morning Pages to see someone work through a case of writer’s block. But I would highly recommend it if you want to read some small masterpieces which happen to have been written at the rate of three pages a day.” —Jay Yamada, Amazon reviewer
“Joseph Sutton, God bless him, writes in the grand storyteller tradition of Jean Shepherd and William Saroyan, both of whom would have been happy, I’m sure, to treat Sutton to a steak and a few martinis in exchange for an autographed copy of Morning Pages.” —Barry Gifford, author of Wild at Heart
Bedside bar mitzvah inspires an ‘almost true story’
Aleza Goldsmith
Jewish Bulletin
In a poll of the holiest places on earth, the foot of a bed might not make the list.
Unless, of course, Joseph Sutton were polled—because that’s where he celebrated his bar mitzvah.
As a 13-year-old living in Hollywood, the now 60-year-old San Francisco resident and author actually marked the rite of passage in his parents’ bedroom. His recently published novel, Morning Pages: The Almost True Story of My Life, recounts the experience, and many others, through a loosely autobiographical character named Ben Halaby.
Tackling the Dreaded “Block”
By Jonathan Farrell
The Sunset Beacon
Very few writers have the opportunity to share with readers the creative process involved in writing. This process is sometimes shared among fellow writers, but not often with the public.
San Francisco writer Joseph Sutton’s novel, Morning Pages: The Almost True Story of My Life, provides a rare glimpse into all the thoughts and feelings a writer has in the quest to do what writers do—write!
Yet there is one obstacle to the creative process that most writers know all too well—the demon known as “writer’s block.”
Ivri Nasawi, Sephardic & Middle Eastern Cultures
Syrian-Jewish writer and Los Angeles native Joseph Sutton (b. 1940) has just published his first novel, Morning Pages: The Almost True Story of My Life, a loosely fictionalized version of his past and present life. After a promising high school football career, Sutton won a football scholarship to the University of Oregon. It wasn’t until the late 1960s, while he was working as a teacher in South-Central Los Angeles, that Sutton realized he wanted to become a writer. And where else do aspiring writers go to live the boho life and write fiction? San Francisco. A familiar face on the Bay Area writers scene, these days Joe Sutton writes for a variety of magazines, including Writer’s Digest and Writers’ Journal. He has written many short stories and his first collection, The Immortal Mouth and Other Stories, will be published in 2002 by Creative Arts Book Co., the publisher of Morning Pages.