ass backwords

Paley: "This Woman, Faith, Who Works for Me"

2011-12-14T18:05:00.003-05:00

Found yet another treasure trove of audio files. UPenn's Kelly Writer's House has a searchable database of recorded events, both lectures/classes and readings. I greatly enjoyed this reading by Grace Paley, which is available in both RealAudio and MP3, in which she shares a short story, several poems, and a short autobiographical essay. What a mind, and what courage. I love how she talks about her perennial protag: "This Woman, Faith, Who Works for Me." Grace, Faith, both fantastic qualities this writer left for us to learn from.

Here's the reading with audio only. Finally figured out the widget thing (again).

The archive is enormous and searchable. Poets and prose writers. Enjoy.

Hoagland: "The Naming is Not a Divorce from the Thing"

2011-12-09T13:06:00.002-05:00

I've discovered a new audio resource, a ton of interviews, lectures, and readings of poets and writers both living and dead. It's called Wired for Books, from Ohio University radio, and I'm just scratching the surface.

Love him or hate him, this one is worth a listen, Tony Hoagland lecturing on poetics, the "new" and "old" poetry, and litany poems as a good place to see what "new" is. He talks about the "American plain style," as given to us by William Carlos Williams, and its legacy in the last 40 years, in which language is pushing its way back up to the front. On the gap between the word and the thing: "The naming is not a divorce from the thing; the naming is a kind of wedding with the thing."

Among the poems he reads and unpacks is "Or," by Thomas Sayers Ellis, which embodies the American plain style and also a sense of the "game" of language.

here's the MP3:
http://www.wiredforbooks.org/mp3/litfest/TonyHoaglandLecture.mp3

Maron and Almond on Self Doubt

2011-11-06T08:13:00.000-05:00

If you're a fan of Marc Maron, you'll recognize his ability to zero in on the troubled soul of his subject, in this case writer and mentor and inspiration Steve Almond. Almond almost sounds like he is disappointed with himself. I guess even rock stars are human. Steve, you didn't disappoint us. We are here. We are reading. We are grateful for your stories.

Listen here.

Lynda Barry Has the Cure for Rejection Blues, I Think

2011-11-06T08:04:00.000-05:00

In a world where there are a lot of people saying "no," it's nice to hear someone say simply "good." Not "the best." Not "better than his but worse than hers." Just "good." Without any specifics or actual judgments. That part is up to you, the writer.

Because are we really doing this for approval? Really? There are much easier ways to get approval, I think.

The big irony is, maybe 80% of my published work came out of working with Barry's method. Some of it even came out of the class itself. Barry's focus is on imagery and working in series. She steers away from publication, fame, all that claptrap. Regarding fame, she says, "It's a cookbook," which only the gray haired people and science fiction geeks understand, but then she is kind enough to explain. I won't here. Wikipedia does a good job.

This article on Barry's class in the NY times is worth a read.

Virtual Summer Conference: Sellers on the Nonexistent Top Ten Tips

2011-06-29T04:40:00.000-04:00

Given recent events, it's hard to just resume activities. But I am doing it.

Back to the Virtual Summer Conference. Here's a podcast I have listened to often, Heather Sellers giving a talk called, "10 Tips for Finishing Your Book." She confesses early on, "there are no top ten tips," and, "when you're at a conference, it's really easy to turn into a child," with respect to the plethora of advice one receives at these events. "Remember, you already know every single thing you need to know--you just need to do it," Sellers says. So the bulk of her talk is about how to find the kind of solitary play that fosters the right mindset for finishing a long project. She's from the Lynda Barry / Robert Olen Butler school of teaching writing, which I always find gets things moving for me.

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE HEATHER SELLERS TALK VIA ITUNES.
(It's iTunes U. You can stream or download. Track #4.)

I Am Really Really Going to Miss Cheryl B

2011-06-20T05:32:00.005-04:00

Our NYC writer's community lost a beautiful soul and giant talent on June 18. Cheryl Burke, AKA Cheryl B, died after a difficult battle with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Many of you knew her well and don't need to be told what a heartbreak this is for all of us. Each of us has our particular reasons for missing Cheryl. I'm going to tell you mine.

I met Cheryl onstage at a poetry slam at the Nuyorican in the early 1990's. I had been on that little postage stamp of a stage plenty, and was old hat at slamming. I was a little cocky. Along came the new girl, this pale, beautiful, feisty, well-dressed, dark-haired lesbian chick, one of the other three slammers, and the minute she began speaking into the microphone, I knew I had no chance of winning the slam. She was angry, but in a way that was disarming and humorous and united the room in laughter. The poems were crafted, but natural, and their message was clear: this was her three minutes on the mic and she was going to fucking USE IT. She would not apologize for being who she was. She was loud, she was direct, and she was funny as hell. And she had unbelievably great shoes.

Later, after we got to know each other, I told her how intimidated I was by her that night. She surprised me completely (again!) by telling me how much I had inspired her, before she ever got on the mic. She had been going to hear me perform with my gals the Pussy Poets, and ours were among the voices that had encouraged her to speak up with her own. The inspiree had become the inspiration. This would turn out to be a theme in our friendship.

Since then, Cheryl and I have crossed paths in many creative endeavors. We were in a band together, Hot Sauce Gizzard, in which we performed our words with a funk ensemble. She did a poem with a hard rock song backing her up, about her beloved New Jersey and a very unusual drive down Route 35, involving a BK drivethrough and thoughts of Sylvia Plath. The band, and her poetry, was featured in a documentary film, Beef, by Jon Baskin.

Cheryl became a poetry curator and invited me to read at her Atomic and Poetry vs. Comedy series. I became a chapbook publisher and issued her tiny volume, Chicks, on Big Fat Press. She invited me to be her opening act on at least one occasion. She was becoming a headliner and I was happy to tag along and watch her audience grow.

And, aside from the collaborative ventures, we attended each other's readings. A lot of them. It always felt really, really good to look out from the stage and see a familiar face. It always felt really, really good to sit in the audience and hear what new material she was coming up with. I went to Cheryl's readings to let her know I wanted her to keep doing it. I went to her readings to hear what the hell she would come up with next, in her hybrid of poetry, comedy, and memoir.

Later still, we were in a small writer's group together for several years, and shared raw work. This was my opportunity to get to know the offstage Cheryl better, and to learn what an insightful reader she was, as well as writer. She had the unique ability to get at the meat of an issue with an unfinished piece, in very few words. By now she had an MFA, but didn't talk in workshop-speak, just told us in plain language how she reacted to our work. I realize why her students kept coming back to her at Gotham. I began wondering if Cheryl was an introvert or an extrovert, and I discovered she was a little of both. There was something so special about this quiet, non-performative side of Cheryl, and this is the part I am going to miss most. We had rich conversations about crafting words, living gently in the world, finding love, and coping with difficulty. We shared a fondness for animals, cats in particular. We talked about our families. We talked about where to buy the perfect outfit for $30. Including shoes. We commiserated over computer problems, as writers do. She enlightened me on issues in the LGBT community, and entertained us with stories of lesbian courtship rituals.

During Cheryl's illness, I had an opportunity to get to know her partner Kelli. Their love and loyalty to each other was an absolute blessing, and the constant, intelligent humor they shared felt good to witness. I was so grateful to see Cheryl with a person so trustworthy, a person who clearly loves her and will miss her in ways the rest of us can't begin to comprehend. My relationship with Cheryl was one of writerly camaraderie and mutual creative support. I can only imagine the deep loss those in her immediate circle are feeling now, Kelli and the rest of Cheryl's family, both the family she was born into and the family she found in the lesbian community. My one solace as I think about her last days was knowing she felt loved, and that Kelli helped her greatly to feel this way, and that she died in safety of Kelli's arms.

Cheryl's example of sobriety and self-care inspires me to pay attention to my health and the health of those around me. Her fierce desire to live, against what proved to be horrendous odds, inspires me to respect life. Her bravery in her work and life, her defiance of labels, artistic and otherwise, and her commitment to empowering others in her community of writers and comics inspires me to keep working and reaching out to other creative people. And her dark, dark sense of humor will probably surprise me still in the years to come, when I come across her words somewhere, and find myself laughing again.

Cheryl was one of those people who was getting more and more and more interesting with age. This is what is absolutely breaking my heart. We won't get to see what the hell she comes up with next. The last time I saw her was about a week before she died, with the other members of the writing group. Kelli laid out a potluck buffet for us on the hospital tray and made a plate for Cheryl, then let us have some alone time with her. Though Cheryl was struggling for air and quite medicated, she managed to put several Cheryl quips into the conversation. Beside her bed was a card she had received from a grade school student. On it, in scratchy marker, the child had written: I hope you get bitter. The kid obviously meant better, but Cheryl had pulled this card out of the batch of thirty to put at her bedside. "That's my favorite," she said.

She never stopped being her. She had a real gift, an ability to make the dark things light.

Please rest in peace, dear one. Your unique voice, your laugh, your kindness, your generosity, your good example, and your ability to make any situation--and I mean any situation--funny: these will all be missed terribly, but not forgotten.

Bloomsday Helper

2011-06-16T21:23:00.001-04:00

We interrupt this Virtual Summer Conference to bring you a Bloomsday interlude. My hubby introduced me to this podcast by Frank Delaney, who dissects Ulysses line by line. I've embedded the intro episode below, or you can go to the site and click to the rest of them. Every Wednesday for the next 22 years or so? Enjoy the "vulgarity of a single day" in Dublin!

Virtual Summer Conference: Bender on Boredom, Weirdness, and Humor

2011-06-16T04:19:00.000-04:00

Aimee Bender always livens up a conference. Here she is speaking to Google employees and enjoying the free M&M's. She reads the short story "Fruit and Words," then answers questions about the writing process. She's pro-Nanowrimo, for its power to make writing less precious and more fun. She talks about her 2-hour daily writing regimen, which eliminates the I-should-be-writing guilt and makes her just bored enough to push herself into areas of weirdness and humor.

Virtual Summer Conference: The Obligatory Publishing Panel

2011-06-15T03:26:00.006-04:00

What's a summer conference without a publishing panel? My summer conference will have a little point/counterpoint. We'll start with agent / publicist Erin Cox's talk, "Agents: How to Find One, Keep One, and Be Inspired," which focuses on the basics of getting started in traditional publishing: find the right agents for your material, treat the agent like a human (ie don't send them all the same letter), know your audience, and find your reading public before you approach agents.

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE AGENT TALK VIA ITUNES.
(It's iTunes U. You can stream or download. Track #2.)

Or, are you becoming totally jaded about platforms, proposals, and all the trappings of today's gasping publishing industry? Check out this international panel of "revolutionaries" (surprise! They think big houses have their role in the culture, as much as little houses!) who have defected from big places for the creative freedom of small places: Ben Greenman, Mykola Riabchuk, Dale Peck, Carmen Boullosa, Amy Scholder, and moderator (dressed as "the man") Lisa Dierbeck of Mischief and Mayhem. Defection goes both ways. Authors start at small houses and defect to big ones, or start at big houses and escape to little ones. Is editorial guidance "censorship?" (My opinion? Maybe so, with the author's partial responsibility. Censorship brought on by desperation.) The lighting is a little dim, which makes them seem like those brave people who risk grave danger to talk to reporters on television.

Virtual Summer Conference: The Almond Show

2011-06-14T19:03:00.000-04:00

I can attest that Steve Almond gives a good workshop. Here he is answering the questions of a group of fiction students, and reading from his self-published collection. It's like his workshop, only without the manuscript part...

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Lit TV: Boswell and Shepard. Virtual Summer Conference!

2011-06-13T19:45:00.000-04:00

I'm not going to any summer conferences this year, so how about we make our own? Virtual conference, anyone?

We'll start with an evening reading, two short fiction heroes. Here, Robert Boswell reads from "Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards."

Reading by Robert Boswell from ASU English on Vimeo.

And here, Jim Shepard reads in entirety his astonishing short, "Boy's Town."

Author Jim Shepard reading "Boys Town" from ASU English on Vimeo.

We can pretend to go out for drinks after the reading and talk about their viruosity with voice, or the fact that both stories feature looming incarceration, or what crushes we have on them as writers.

Junot Diaz and the "Culture of Respectability"

2011-06-07T17:06:00.000-04:00

AWP has started podcasting weekly! Here's what they have on offer. You can subscribe via iTunes too.

I found myself laughing outloud at episode 15, Junot Diaz reading at the 2011 conference. When asked about the use of profanity and rough language in his work, he talked about the "culture of respectability" as a way to silence others. Censorship becomes "a wonderful way to obscure the vast, violent privilege of the people who have it." It's the keeping-it-real argument all over again, but I never tire of hearing it, because it's true. And as for his focus on Dominican-American identity (as well as New Jersey identity), it really is an offshoot of the reading he did as a kid, where he felt he was not represented.

Lit TV: Robert Olen Butler and the Terrorism of Our Own Longings and Horrors

2011-05-26T22:51:00.004-04:00

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It's like going to school for free! It's like being in Georgia without getting on a plane! Check out Robert Olen Butler talking not only about his novel HELL, but also about the creative process. He argues that the artist creating the object is akin to an athlete "in the zone"--too much analysis destroys the ability to create the object being analyzed. Do we analyze literary fiction too much? Are conscious craft and technique "the antithesis of the creative process?" To him, the artist is the one who "faces down the unconscious," and is "profoundly uncomfortable" with abstraction.

If you like this, I highly recommend his book for writers, FROM WHERE YOU DREAM. I wrote it up a few years ago.

Also, check out Forum Network in general. I'm just getting started. Amazing resource.

Lit TV: "You Have to Forget Yourself"

2011-05-22T16:16:00.004-04:00

This craft talk by Peter Straub, offered by The Center for Fiction, starts off jokey but ends up quite serious indeed. He opens with rules and tricks, like starting a sentence with "and" or "but" is like "a rimshot" (and not in a good way), but by part three, admits to slogging with the process like anyone else. There aren't really any tricks. With regard to revision: "What really works for me is always related to something I'd written earlier, and the best advice I give myself in such times is to really go back and look at what I did on page four, look at what I did in chapter three--because there's a reason those things happen. They seem random, and at the time when you write them they may be random, but as you go on, they're determinative. They color everything that happens afterward, and they must be remembered."

He reminds that it's not about you, it's about the thing you are making. With respect to killing his favorite parts: "You have to forget yourself." I think I need to hang that sentence over my monitor.

FREEDOM's Just Another Word for Me Missing My Train Stop

2011-05-06T16:20:00.011-04:00

This blogger thinks Jonathan Franzen's FREEDOM lives up to the hype, and earned its sprawling proportions. (Love a spread-out book about, among other things, the harmful nature of spreading out.) Family conflict runs deep, and it takes a lot of pages. Just ask those Russian novelists the character Patty keeps reading. Meticulous plotting, with many, many ends he manages to tie up. Characters you love but might not want to live with--the best kind!

If you enjoyed it as much as me, you might get a kick out of this podcast from Slate's DoubleX Gabfest, in which they hash out all the major characters and themes (including spoilers, so read it first for sure). Is it a masterpiece? Do we care? What will we do until the next Franzen opus?

Also, if you're a fan, prepare to be a little freaked by this 1996 Charlie Rose roundtable in which Franzen has a mild debate with (RIP) David Foster Wallace. They are discussing the death of the novel. Turns out we humans are far more mortal than the stories we tell.

And on a lighter note, Franzen is among the advice-giving writers in this old Guardian article, "The Ten Rules for Writing Fiction." His #10, which reminds me of his characters: "You have to love before you can be relentless."

Lit TV: Abani on Horror, Humanity, and Superhero Comix.

2011-04-26T18:18:00.003-04:00

"You can steel your heart against any kind of trouble, any kind of horror, but the simple act of kindness from a complete stranger will unstitch you."

This one grabs me in the gut every time I watch it. Thought I'd share.

Lit TV: Getting to Know Litmags

2011-04-23T12:52:00.007-04:00

Youtube, Vimeo, and the like are loaded with live reading videos, which can be a fun way to get to know literary magazines. This video, sponsored by CLMP and NY Public Library, features members of the editorial staff of several magazines. They make macro comments about each magazine, talk about publication schedule, philosophy, and history, before reading excerpts.

Taking Care of the Writer

2011-04-20T18:45:00.002-04:00

With so many folks around me learning to cope with serious illness, grief, and transitions, it's absurd for me to obsess on my recent batch of routine literary disappointments. The skinny SASE's and almost-theres are nothing new to me, and I have plenty of practice handling them.

One disappointment has nothing to do with literary merit. The class I was planning on taking this summer has been canceled. I heard from Captain Fiction himself that he has chosen to take care of his own health instead. Six-hour lectures are no joke for anyone at any age. He clearly made the right choice, one that I hope might lead him back to the writing desk. (It's selfish of me, but I would not mind reading another single-paragraph Lishkowitz novel.) Maybe I can learn, if not from his yelling voice in class, from his example of self-care. (Dumb, therapyish choice of words, for which he would probably yell at me, but yeah. I said it.) He is "refusing the gas pipe," to use his own words. Refusing suicide-by-teaching.

I find myself running all those choice sentences through my head, the ones I have been composing carefully and hoping to test out on him, the man with the magic ear. Then it dawns on me: this is just the usual schoolgirl crap. Hoping to please teacher. Hoping to please editor. Please, notice me! Notice me! When will I just stop already?

The teacher I need to please is me. The editor I need to please is me. The ear I need to tune up is mine. Self-care is how adults cope with routine difficulty and disappointment.

And with that in mind, I went back to another teacher, one I have never met. Natalie Goldberg's books helped me access some rich subject matter back when I was first exploring fiction-writing. I discovered they are available on audio download, for a reasonable price, read by the author, with remarks thrown in, the 50-year-old Natalie commenting on the 36-year-old Natalie. She has evolved, but also cares for the person she used to be. It's a self study that is full of the right kind of humility. In her Long Island accent, she "nags" (her word) me gently to "get to work."

Teachers come in all forms--some gentle, some not--some in person, some far removed by geography or time. So, for the moment, I'm back on track. Writing. Back in the practice, as she says.

I feel impotent in the face of the frailties of body and spirit I have been hearing about in the past few weeks. I think we all do. For all of you I know who are heartbroken or grieving or in pain or facing giant challenges right now, I think about you every day, and wish you peace of mind, energy, and courage.

Lit TV. Gaitskill Talks About Reading

2011-04-19T18:03:00.003-04:00

If you haven't discovered the Center for Fiction channel at Youtube yet, discover it. They have full videos of their fantastic events, in parts. In this one, for example, Mary Gaitskill talks about the writer's arm. It's very physical, to her, writing, and reading is a sharing of the physical between writer and reader. I love this point of view.

Dogs With Hands--ALWAYS FUNNY.

2011-04-17T10:21:00.002-04:00

Right up there with hairy men in tutus.

Some Old Drawings.

2011-04-16T18:10:00.004-04:00

This embedded slideshow thing is new for me. Fun!

The drawings are 52 illustrations for a long poem I did in 1994, entitled Stories Inside a Crawling Skin. I published it at home in an edition of 52 (or was it 50)? signed copies. I'm proud of both the drawings and the poems, even though my work has evolved a bit since then. What I miss is the artmaking energy I had. I still have the research and inquiry and obsession thing pretty strongly, but I don't stay up all night drawing any more. I sleep instead! Gave up drawing for dreaming.

Running Around in Circles

2011-04-14T18:05:00.001-04:00

In a good way! Check out Baby Gracie, all grown up. She has her own friends, even.

Medieval Guild System? Maybe.

2011-04-13T18:01:00.004-04:00

I just love Anis Shivani's essay in the Fall 2010 issue of Boulevard, "The MFA/Creative Writing System is a Closed, Undemocratic, Medieval Guild System that Represses Good Writing." I don't entirely agree with it, but I do love the argument. What are your thoughts? "Well-told myths of internal solidarity and well-timed rituals to enhance fellow-feeling"--well, that sounds about right. Programs each have their "house style." He goes after all the big institutions: the schools, the artist colonies, the fellowships, the summer conferences, the magazines, even the annual "bacchanal" of the AWP gathering, with an almost gleeful hammer. Masters, journeymen, and the rest of us schlubs trying to get in.

The only thing missing from his argument is joy. Yes! The kind of joy that doesn't come from a dark outlook. Maybe this fellow-feeling isn't all that false. Just one girl's opinion.

As for the assertion of written output getting more "conservative," this is something many of us agree on, including the MFA-ers themselves. Part of the challenge of entering the guild is knowing which kool-aid to drink, not losing sight of the world outside the guild.

Anyway, I highly recommend this entertaining essay. Inflammatory in all the right places.

Hempel's Dog Notices Stuff Too

2011-04-12T21:41:00.001-04:00

What's not to love about Amy Hempel and her yellow lab? And that wonderful story, "The Harvest?"

"How you solve being alive...what do you have that you can draw on?"

Live at r.kv.r.y

2011-04-11T12:50:00.003-04:00

Check out the April 2011 issue of r.kv.r.y, and not just because I'm in it! I love the theme of this journal: recovery in all its forms. Emotional, physical, even environmental. Also, the editor, Mary Akers, interviewed me here, on the r.kv.r.y blog. Topics include knitting, transitioning from visual art to written art, and the use of sensory detail in fiction.

(Yes, I'm alive!) Ann Beattie on craft.

2011-04-09T15:06:00.005-04:00

Sorry for my long blogosphere absence. I decided today I miss it.

So I'll go right to my go-to: podcasts. I am still addicted.

Check out this Michael Silverblatt interview with Ann Beattie. They talk about the process of getting into the New Yorker (she went through the slushpile), the temptation to "hide behind technique," how "bringing the strands together" feels concocted in a short story, and how she aims to undercut lyricism. The key is the "surprise after the surprise." Beattie did not take any fiction workshops, but did learn a ton from sitting beside editor Roger Angell.

Writing Class Time Machine

2010-10-12T18:36:00.000-04:00

Ever wish you could take a workshop with Faulkner? Check out this free resource. Listen in on a writing class from 1957.

Without the Mosquitos

2010-08-20T16:38:00.005-04:00

This year Bread Loaf posted some of its readings very quickly on podcast. Free and no mosquito bites! Jim Shepard's fiction reading is worth a listen. Click here to go to iTunes U, then click on Summer 2010: Lectures & Readings to get to the content.

Life Before Language--and After, and During

2010-08-18T19:24:00.002-04:00

What emotions does a human being feel on the discovery that things have names? How did Shakespeare come up with new words and expressions (madcap? eyesore? dead as a doornail?) that feel like they always existed? Is language required to think about thinking? How do humans develop language in a vacuum of language? Why do I always cry when I listen to Radiolab?

Tune in and join the sobfest...

Judging a Book by the Evolution of Its Cover

2010-07-19T18:19:00.001-04:00

I found this article and slideshow from WSJ interesting, about the evolution of a book cover for a bestseller. I see this book everywhere I look now. Wild to think it almost didn't look like that. I haven't read the book, so I won't comment on its guts. But the final version of the cover is my favorite. Also the one that was "too Scandinavian."

A Memoir is Not a Shoutout

2010-07-15T22:07:00.001-04:00

Catching up on my podcasts. I don't write much memoir, but I enjoy a peek under the hood, since fiction is not all that different. I like what Stephen Elliott (no relation, but I like how he spells his name) has to say, and the plain way he says it, on the Pen on Fire podcast. Free writing lesson! He talks about not-knowing, which we writers love to talk about, and editing characters out for the sake of narrative, since a memoir is "not a shoutout." Enjoy and be inspired.

OK, I'll Go There

2010-07-13T17:37:00.000-04:00

I'm not a cuteness blog, but this can't be stopped.

Two younguns have joined our household recently. Above is Grace, who is now about 11 weeks old. The vet guesses she'll grow to 50 pounds or so.

And the sleeping view:

We've never had a puppy this age before, and it's an education.

And below is her brother, Antonio, who we adopted last fall. He's about a year old now.

Guy from Star Trek Writes Stories?

2010-07-08T00:04:00.002-04:00

...says the guy with the lapdog. Oh, and women can sort of write too. But who can read? Enjoy Gary Shteyngart's new book trailer:

When Road is Paved with Gold / When Road is Just a Road

2010-07-05T17:29:00.001-04:00

This conversation between Jonathan Lethem and Patti Smith is a real treat. Watch as they discuss paving the way for the next generation; the "adolescent quarantine" of coolness and learning to broaden the scope; building a writer's discipline while raising a family; collecting powerful objects and taking care of them during one's lifetime; walking with Walt Whitman. Plus a song by Patti, a tribute to William Blake and his years of working in obscurity. Gives me the gumption to get my ass to work. The interview is a great complement to the writings of each, particularly Smith's recent memoir, JUST KIDS.

Trying a Different Audio Host

2010-06-30T22:33:00.005-04:00

I decided to test a different audio host with streaming. Below is a poem/music collaboration I did with my sweetheart, James Barr, a couple years ago. Let's see how this widget works out! If it holds up OK (the last one didn't), I'll start adding tracks.

(Opinions welcome on both the widget and the audio piece.)

Go To FileFactory.com

How Not to How To

2010-06-29T22:06:00.001-04:00

Kudos to Richard Bausch for holding the line. In the new world of reading, where aspiring writers are primarily a sales demographic, it's tempting to participate in the game in order to make a paycheck. Check out his article in The Atlantic, How to Write in 700 Easy Lessons, in which he reminds us that the last thing fiction writers need to read is formulaic prescription books.

Sounds like he received a lesson himself, on the length some publishers will go to protect their cash cow, the "how to write" genre. How long until the "how to write" section in the bookstore gets bigger than the literature section?

No More Hibernation

2010-06-22T20:00:00.001-04:00

I’ve been in blog hibernation too long. Blame Facebook, blame my day job, blame TV, blame my novel, blame my need to walk around and do nothing, blame it all. I've decided to try updating the blog again for awhile, primarily links to other things I find interesting.

Salon.com smart lady Laura Miller takes on the topic of the day, self-publishing. She nails it:

What happens once the self-publishing revolution really gets going, when all of those previously rejected manuscripts hit the marketplace, en masse, in print and e-book form, swelling the ranks of 99-cent Kindle and iBook offerings by the millions? Is the public prepared to meet the slush pile? …You've either experienced slush or you haven't, and the difference is not trivial.

I have read slush. I have been slush. Slush has its purpose.

We emerging fiction writers are not know for our self-restraint. The hardest thing for us to learn is how to tell if a project is finished, since the nature of writing is that revision is an infinite possibility. How do thoughtful and serious writers deal with the infinite? With arbitrary cutoff dates, with addiction to workshopping, with rulebooks of various sorts, with editor rejections. We feed on feedback. We’re insatiable. Workshop is a verb.

We feel special for having finished a novel, then we learn that everyone in the world has finished a novel, then we learn that we never did finish one ourselves, or that this pack of pages is more mess than novel, and we use it for kindling, and we quit for awhile and watch HBO. Then we get the itch and go back to the desk and write another novel. Somewhere in the process someone says yes, someone with the power to publish. But I rely on the chorus of nos to keep my feet on the ground and teach me patience. The older I get, the more grateful I am for the rejections. I would hate for them all to disappear.

Thanks, Mary Akers, for the link.

I'm Reading This Thursday at KGB

2010-05-18T14:53:00.001-04:00

If you're in NYC and free, come on by, it's free!

Drunken! Careening! Writers!
Thursday, May 20, 2010, 7pm
KGB Bar, 85 E. 4th St.
FREE
Andrea Alton & Allen Warnock
Jacob Appel
Anne Elliott
"Amazing Points of View"
with your hostess, Kathleen Warnock

Allen Warnock & Andrea Alton as Carl & Shelly
Andrea Alton is a New York based, actor/writer/comedian. She recently finished a commercial run of Carl & Shelly, Best Friends Forever (co-writer/actor with Allen Warnock) which originally premiered at the 2008 NY Fringe Festival. Other favorite theatre credits include The Chiselers and Labor Day Weekend (Emerging Artists Theatre), The Strangest Kind of Romance (Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival), Big Girl, Little World (NY Fringe Festival) and Reckless, She Stoops to Conquer (Kaleidoscope Theatre Company). Andrea performs characters and sketch through out the city and most recently took part in the Miss Fag Pageant at Comix as Miss Park Slope which was a benefit for the Harvey Milk School. www.andreaalton.com.

Allen Warnock: Theatre credits include: The Skin of Our Teeth, A Servant of Two Masters, and WASP (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Off-White Christmas (Manhattan Theatre Source) and Zen and the Art of Doing Nothing (Center Stage, Midtown Int. Theatre Fest '08). Allen co-wrote and appeared in Carl & Shelly, Best Friends Forever which premiered at the '08 NY Fringe Fest and later received a commercial run at Theatre 3 this past February. Film credits: Morning Glory(with Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton, upcoming) and The Wedding Bros. (with Dan Fogler). www.myspace.com/allenwarren.

Anne Elliott Anne Elliott's stories have appeared in Hobart, Pindeldyboz, Opium, FRiGG, 3:AM, and other indie litmags, including the late, great WV. She hails from the Pacific Northwest, and resides now in Brooklyn, where her hobbies include gardening and feral cat management. She has an MFA in visual / performance art from UC San Diego. http://assbackwords.blogspot.com/

Jacob M. Appel Jacob M. Appel's short fiction has appeared in more than 120 leading literary journals. His prose has won the Boston Review Short Fiction Competition, the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Award for the Short Story, the Dana Award, the Arts & Letters Prize for Fiction, the North American Review's Kurt Vonnegut Prize, and many others. Jacob's stage plays have been performed in New York City, regionally and abroad. Jacob has taught most recently at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and at the Gotham Writers' Workshop in New York City. Jacob holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Brown, an M.A. and an M.Phil. from Columbia, an M.D. from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, an M.F.A. from N.Y.U. and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He also publishes in the field of bioethics He currently practices medicine at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. www.jacobmappel.com

What We Think About When We Think About Carver

2009-12-15T19:27:00.001-05:00

Are Raymond Carver's stories really by Raymond Carver? Have we accepted the death of the author in this postmodern era? Or, is it a disappointment to note the differences between the urtext version of Carver's stories and the lean, enigmatic, Gordon Lish-edited ones? On Slate's audio book club podcast, Meghan O'Rourke, Troy Patterson, and Katie Roiphe have a very stimulating discussion of the mythology of Carver, fiction as collaboration, and which version they like better. Which matters more, the story or its authorship? Feel free to discuss in comments, I'd like your views...

Listen to Cliff Garstang Talk About Linked Collections

2009-12-08T19:02:00.001-05:00

Cliff Garstang gives the best summary of linked short fiction collections that I've heard. Is it a "story cycle" or "novel in stories?" Lots of reading & writing ideas in here, plus an excerpt from his new book at the end. Enjoy!

Write Camp Notes Part Two

2009-08-16T15:41:00.009-04:00

As promised, I'll continue with my report from the New York State Summer Writers' Institute at Skidmore College. I had two workshop instructors, Amy Hempel and Mary Gaitskill. I'm a fan of the writings of both of them, for different reasons.

Hempel's fiction has a warm feeling that I appreciate; I haven't pinpointed exactly how she accomplishes it, but I have a couple theories. One possibility is that she doesn't rely on conflict in the traditional sense. Because much of her work is very very short, she doesn't need to use conflict to make one commit to reading, and her notion of "plot" is more reliant on character obsession and language. Her humor is based in surpise, the disarming turns her narrators take inside paragraphs, or indeed sentences. And she doesn't waste language. This feels to me very respectful of the reader and is another source of warmth.

One of the things I like about Gaitskill's work (Veronica in particular) is her facility with physical description to bring out character emotion. Her empathy is not just for characters but for everything in their world. When I read her work, I am reminded that emotions are not something contained inside a human being. We all radiate emotion all around us, in the way we observe the world and interact with it. The interpenetration is palpable and mysterious. Gaitskill captures this in a very rare way.

I bring up these observations about their work because each had an approach to teaching writing that was consitent with these observations.

Amy Hempel immediately set a warm tone. At the beginning of each critique we went around the room and each named something that we thought was working well in the story. This was a welcome reminder to me that something positive can be said about every unfinished work, and I mean every one, and it does not hurt to give specifics. Further, pointing out what works is not the same as saying you love the story, it's finished, etc. We had no trouble with this exercise.

After going around the circle, she asked us leading questions, like "how did people feel about ____?" Sometimes she even took a vote. What I liked was how she followed up after our response: she addressed the writer each time and instead of "here's what you should do," she said, "so there's some information you can use." (Or something like that.) It's an important distinction, and very respectful of the writer. One of the reasons we go to workshop is to learn how strangers react. The reactions are a data point, not necessarily a prescription for how to move forward.

Hempel also found moments in each critique to address us all with general ideas about how to make fiction better. Questions to ask ourselves: what do I have that's already enough? What happens in this story--not what is it "about," but what happens? (She allowed that what happens is often language, not incident.) Regarding setting: what is the thing that only happens here? Is the story an account of an event or an event itself? And some tidbits I jotted in my notebook: Pay attention to what you give yourself to work with later. The story needs to be logical on its own terms. In stories of illness, illness is the situation, not the story. (I think of her much anthologized "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried.")

Her comments in my manuscipt were gems. I had submitted a reminiscence piece and she encouraged me to do something to bring it into the present, to give a reason for discussing 1977 right now. It's a logic question. I've played with this suggestion and I'm happier with the story. And her line edits were what you would expect from Hempel. Like she said, what do I have that's already enough? It's hard for me, sometimes, to trust that I've adequately presented a theme. Her cuts were quite encouraging. Like yes, I did say it already. She helped me to trust my readers more.

On to Mary Gaitskill. She opened the class with a discussion of the state of literature. Her argument was that we attend writing programs to learn how to write better, and since this costs money, social class is involved. (The elephant in the room at a nice college like Skidmore, and she said it on the first day. I applauded inwardly.) Further, writers teach at writing programs to make a living, because publishing isn't enough. And to top it off, the only people who read literary fiction are aspiring writers, writers, academics, etc. It's become an insular world. We are ghettoizing ourselves. She seemed really distraught over this development, over the inability of writers to actually interact with people in other walks of life.

Her approach to teaching writing reminded me of the (offstage) teacher in her story "Description." Partly because of themes in the student stories we were critiquing, and partly because this is her strong suit, she focused on creating emotional empathy through physical description. The discussion was tremendously helpful to me. We went through stories of John Cheever and Flannery O'Connor, among others, to look at the use of crude characterization mixed with not-crude description. It's an angle I hadn't thought of before. The crude, maybe even grotesque nature of the characters in the textbook stories had a similarity to Gaitskill's earlier work, and she pointed out where the description in the stories "opened up" and became more subtle. Listening to Gaitskill's close reading was worth the price of admission.

Early in the class, Gaiskill discussed the mysterious nature of what makes writing great. "It's like a person's unconscious or guts--invisible but essential--that inner quality that makes the work alive." And she argued that style is a big part of it. "We think of style as something superficial," she said, "but it's not. " The examples she gave later in the class supported this argument, where the nature of the description turned softer, making character identities--even crude ones--fall apart.

Which is in line with something Hempel said, and I'll close with it: "The more consistent a character is, the less credible." I'll chew on this for awhile, while I go off to finish my household chores.

Hope this has been fun for you to read. If you ever get the chance to work with either of these teachers, I recommend them.

Write Camp Notes Part One

2009-08-08T18:18:00.007-04:00

It's been a couple weeks since I got back from the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore College. Now that I've finally unpacked, I'll share.

First the basics and logistics. It was a four week workshop with the option to attend for only two. I was there for the second half. Many of the students were there on scholarship from grad or undergrad creative writing programs at other schools. Others were teachers using continuing ed grants. Others were serious "hobbyists" like me, who need to play full-time writer for a couple weeks every year, on vacation from otherwise unrelated dayjobs. And there was a handful of retirees, some just starting to write. The mix of age and experience was large (with all the positive and negative aspects one would expect). Most of us stayed in the dorms, in a block of single rooms set aside for writers.

The schedule was less strenous than other conferences. Mornings were unprogrammed. Workshop met Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. Class size ranged from 5 to 16. There were 7 concurrent workshops, so it was possible to learn every single student's name. Some students paid extra for a consultation on a book-length manuscript with an author of note. (Many of them told me it was a shining highlight of the conference.) Tuesday and Thursday afternoons were generic Q&A sessions with visiting writers. (These sessions relied on the students to provide the topics of discussion, which I felt was a weakness relative to other conferences--I would have preferred to hear the authors talk on specific craft-related subjects. Wouldn't you love to hear Russell Banks talk about voice for an hour? Or Charles Simic talk about what one learns from doing translations? But I digress.) Each evening had a reading by two of the faculty or visitors, followed by a reception. There was a good amount of drinking but alcohol was not the main event. Sunday evening had a student reading and barbecue at an old Victorian mansion attached to the school.

But enough with the nuts and bolts, and on to the unique and/or noteworthy aspects. My overall impression was that we were encouraged to delve deeply into the work of others. The nightly faculty readings were long (each author for as much as 45 minutes) and gave more than a taste of a writer's work. Bob Boyers, the director, gave a thorough, thoughtful introduction to each writer, and while the good-natured jokes did fly about the length of his speeches, they were an art form unto themselves, carefully composed (and even, from previous years, compiled in a volume called A BOOK OF COMMON PRAISE), and designed to help us hear new things in the work of authors we thought we already knew.

A word on the faculty and guests. It's an astonishing list of literary heavies, and my reason for going. (My favorite readings were from Charles Simic, Danzy Senna, Nick Delbanco, Rick Moody, and my teachers Amy Hempel and Mary Gaitskill.) Hero worship was definitely in the air. But the faculty, too, seemed committed to passing the baton. It felt (to me) like it was more than a dayjob to them.

This theme of delving deeply extended into the classroom, where we were reading and annotating 30 pages each of student prose. (Most other workshops I have done ask for half that amount.) With a class of 16, plus assigned published works to read, the load added up. I learned what a slow reader I am. I had flash memories of the oppressive weekends of grading papers, back when I used to teach comp. So the "free" mornings in Saratoga Springs turned out to be me with my folder and pencil, changing venue but not activity: to the cafe in town, to the cafeteria, to the library, to my dorm, to the outdoor chair. To work and work some more, this annotating freak went.

The sheer volume of required reading created in me a new impatience for extra verbiage, for explanation of character motive and/or backstory, for wit for wit's sake. I apologize (if you're reading this) to my classmates for the mass of delete marks I put in your pages. It's not you, it's me, and I think I overreached. I encourage you to ignore the unhelpful comments. I'm not one of those people who thinks workshop is about thickening your skin. But it is about sharpening one's taste and editing skills, and I grew a lot in that department. Emphasis on taste, as in that's why there's horseracing.

I kept thinking about what my husband says about a good day up at bat. The pitch might be coming at 80MPH but if you're in the groove, if you've practiced your fundamentals and put on your lucky underwear and said rabbit rabbit rabbit when you got out of bed in the morning, if you are in the best possible shape before you stand at the plate, the ball looks like it's hanging in the air. All you have to do is whack it.

I felt a little of this shift happening in my brain. The long hours spent picking apart other peoples' unfinished work has made it much easier to pick apart my own. The mistakes and missed opportunities jump out faster. I don't have to beg readers to show them all to me.

The other byproduct of the deep-looking emphasis of the conference was a total lack of instruction on how to get published. I found this refreshing. It wasn't a matter of the discussion being premature for the students (it was for some, but not all), but rather, it would almost be in bad taste. This was a conference about writing and reading, but not about sales. Yahoo.

I want to get into more specifics about what I learned in the classroom, but I'll save that for a future post. Just one more thing before I sign off--that sparkly water they have all over Saratoga bubbling from those cute Victorian spigots--delicious! But it contained microbes my body did not know yet. Be warned. Also: racehorses are exciting and gorgeous when they're working out in the morning. They're not wearing all that wacky colorful clothing they wear on race day, and they are not in a big pack, so you can see more of what they're doing. Worth getting up early. Damn, they're fast.

More later! Off to make dinner.

My New Favorite Projaholic Resource

2009-07-19T21:56:00.004-04:00

I'm late to the party discovering the Threadbanger DIY podcasts. I'm at school for two weeks without a TV, so I've been watching these instead! You can learn really cool stuff like how to make a $10 wedding dress out of tee shirts, or dog cookies out of organic stuff, or a stuffed monster out of a pair of pants. Right up my alley. Check out the folks who knit cozies for parking meters! Now that's my kind of graffiti!

Wearing Big Sweater but Forgot His Pants

2009-06-14T21:40:00.006-04:00

Paging Doctor Evil! A shaved cat is a sight to behold. Check out Angus with his bare ass. His stripes are just starting to come in, and he's re-learning how to walk up stairs, attack his sister, and chase bugs! Doctor Not-Evil-at-All prescribed plenty of exercise.

One sobering thing: the shaving revealed some pretty bad burn scars. This is a bird's eye view--sorry the photo isn't clearer. Our little guy has had a rough life: burns, abscesses, a crushed hip, and a crusty eyeball! Sorry, Bud, wish we could have found you sooner.

Chow down! You're home now, crosseyed cat.

It's Hard Out There for a Gimp

2009-06-07T16:45:00.001-04:00

Poor baby! Angus, the feral cat we brought inside way back when, doesn't act like he's in pain, but his right hip is completely messed up inside. We had no idea how bad it was until we got this Xray taken. Who knows what happened to him out there--or when. It's a good thing my dear hubby noticed his slightly lopsided gait and tendency to bunny-hop up the stairs. He'll be getting orthopedic surgery on Thursday, at the vet clinic where said hubby works. We're all pulling for you, Angus! Pretty soon you'll REALLY be able to attack your sister.

Will Wilbur Get a Sister?

2009-05-31T15:07:00.002-04:00

News flash, we may be adopting this dog:

And while we're doing mug shots, a side view:

What do you think? I like her black nailpolish. She's about 2 years old and can jump really high. Will Willie like her as much as we humans do? What about the cats? And what the heck breed is she? A Corgiweiler? I'll keep you posted.

Audio Joys

2009-05-22T19:15:00.003-04:00

You may already know I'm a podcast junkie. Here are a few of my recent faves:

Tobias Wolff reads the Denis Johnson classic short story "Emergency" on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. Time to buy milk for the preemie rabbits and save some lives. Some of my favorite dialogue ever written, the kind that makes me laugh aloud on the subway. (And news to me--I learned that Johnson himself played the patient with the knife in his eye in the movie version of Jesus' Son!)

Zadie Smith talks about language, social class, and inclusion/exclusion in her NYPL lecture "Speaking in Tongues." From Pygmalion to Obama (both president and memoirist). What exactly is "keeping it real," and does education make that impossible? And if so, is that a tragedy, as it has been painted in the past, the so-called "tragedy of the mulatto?" Or, are people like Obama (and Zadie Smith too) teaching us a new way to think about "real?"

Luis Alberto Urrea lectures at Bread Loaf 2008: "The Road Out of Tijuana is Paved with Ink." Talk about keeping it real. Dude has wild stories to tell about his aunt, La Flaca, and her terrifying fireside tales, along with other early experiences that formed who he is as a writer. Instructive and entertaining. Sorry I could not figure out how to deep link to this episode. Click on the "lectures" tab in iTunes. Also recommended from Bread Loaf: Robert Boswell's lecture on omniscient narration, a pared-down version of his essay from The Half-Known World: On Writing Fiction, my new favorite craft book ever.

Alan Davis Drake's podcast of Anton Chekhov's unabridged short stories is fun and well-produced. It's a good way to get up to speed on the classics. There are two things I love about Chekhov (so far)... One: he makes characters' motives transparent--often selfish ones--without completely sacrificing their likeability. Is this the essence of comedy? Or at least the kind of comedy I love, which laughs at the self and the other at the same time? And two: he doesn't appear to be following strict rules of beginning-middle-end. You know how I feel about that crap. Character motive pulls you right on through. That, and the feeling you're sitting around a campfire or card table hearing the story. The structural surprises are welcome and satisfying.

Two Gigs in Same Week? What Are the Odds?

2009-05-05T18:50:00.004-04:00

After a long period of silence, I have two gigs in the same week! I'm feeling lucky.

Both in NYC, one poetry, one prose. Both are lineups I'm stoked to be in.

POETRY:

NYQuarterly series
Monday, May 18 2009, 6PM
Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia Street, NYC 10014
Cover $7 (includes one house drink)

Host: Ted Jonathan
Featuring: R.D. Coleman, Anne Elliott, Jason Tandon

Friends of and contributors to NYQuarterly celebrate one of America's finest poetry journals by reading from its pages.

PROSE:

Drunken! Careening! Writers!
Thursday May 21, 7PM
KGB Bar
85 E. 4th St. NYC
Free

Hostess: Kathleen Warnock
Featuring: Anne Elliott, Jessie Male, Felicia Sullivan

READER BIOS:

In 2005, Jessie Male's advanced knowledge of the frozen foods section earned her the title of assistant editor at the number two grocery trade magazine in the country. She has since been published in numerous food and dance publications and is currently working on two nonfiction collections. Jessie recently emigrated from Brooklyn to Manhattan to serve as a program coordinator at Columbia University. Her family is a constant source of support and material.

Felicia C. Sullivan is the author of The Sky Isn't Visible from Here, which has been featured in Vanity Fair, Elle, USA Today, Redbook, Newsday, and The Washington Post. In 2008, her memoir was optioned for film by Gigi Productions. Sullivan lives in New York where she is presently writing the screenplay adaptation of her memoir and working on her novel, Women and Children First. Visit her online at: http://www.feliciasullivan.com/.

Jason Tandon is the author of two collections of poetry, Give over the Heckler and Everyone Gets Hurt, winner of the St. Lawrence Book Award for a first book (Black Lawrence Press, 2008), and Wee Hour Martyrdom (Sunnyoutside Press, 2008). His poetry and reviews have appeared in many journals including Columbia Poetry Review, DIAGRAM, Fugue, Laurel Review, Madison Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry International, Red Cedar Review, Poet Lore, and Quarterly West. He is currently a Lecturer in Writing at Boston University.

(I'll add info as it becomes available.)

How to Watch TV

2009-03-23T00:54:00.001-04:00

Check out my pals Bill and Janice and their new show, Bilge. It's like Mystery Science Theater 3000 only funny. So far they opine on American Idol, Lost, and Mad Men, and have a brand new catch phrase.

(Audio may not be safe for work)

(and here is their youtube channel)

Three More for the To-Read List

2009-02-21T16:35:00.009-05:00

I'm proud and happy to see my talented netfriends getting their work out there in print. This month, we celebrate three new titles hitting the public:

PRECIOUS, by Sandra Novack, via Random House. Publisher's Weekly says, "The graceful prose and bleak atmosphere underscore the loneliness of each character. Novack takes the massive distance between friends, husbands and wives, and makes it her home." Me, I love bleak, and I love family drama, so I'm definitely gonna read this. You can read an excerpt here at Powell's to decide for yourself.

WOMEN UP ON BLOCKS, a short story collection by Mary Akers, coauthor of RADICAL GRATITUDE. This fiction collection, published by Press 53, "explores the price women pay when they allow the roles of wife, mother, daughter, or lover to define them." Also right up my alley. Akers has a clean, no-nonsense voice that is a joy to read.

NOTHING LIKE AN OCEAN, another short story collection by Jim Tomlinson, author of THINGS KEPT, THINGS LEFT BEHIND, which I gushed over here back when I still had time to write full reviews. The stories in the new collection "reflect Tomlinson’s awareness of place, revisiting the fictional town of Spivey, a community in rural Appalachia where the characters confront difficult circumstances and, with quiet dignity, try to do what is right." This collection comes via University Press of Kentucky's Kentucky Voices series.

Time to get off the net and start reading! So here I go.

2008 Reading Roundup

2008-12-31T21:00:00.002-05:00

Last year I had fun writing mini book reviews from memory, so I'll make it an annual tradition. Here's what stuck with me in my 2008 reading:

Every centimeter of Lynda Barry's WHAT IT IS is covered with full color collage, drawing, and writing, including the endpapers. Monkeys, birds, cats, monsters, found postcards with old person handwriting, yellow legal paper, and pattern. I took it all in. I read it in bed and it fed my dreams. This book instructs on Barry's creative method, passing the art baton to us all.

Believe the hype about David Wroblewski's THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE. The prose has a courageously slow pace, yet the action is riveting. The dogs are real characters, echoing Shakespeare, but never stop being dogs, a rarity in fiction. The conflict is biblical. And Wroblewski used to be a computer programmer who wrote by night, so he's automatically cool to me. Did he quit his day job? I don't know, but the Oprah sticker indicates he probably should.

Ed Park's PERSONAL DAYS is the workplace novel I wish I'd written. Told in titled fragments, sometimes in first person plural, it has the rhythm of a real office on the verge of shutting down. Characters make their own language and amusement even as they panic about their imminent firings. Corporatespeak starts off funny, then becomes eerily poignant. The book is compact; its ideas are huge. And it made me laugh aloud on the subway more than once.

You may already know I'm fascinated with stories of the formerly-religious. I heard Shalom Auslander in an interview suggest bookstores should create a table: "Literature of the Fallen." Ha! We have a genre! I immediately grabbed FORESKIN'S LAMENT, his hilarious memoir. I was surprised to learn that he didn't stop believing in God, but rather, stopped liking him. His God is the vengeful Old Testament version, who hurts his loved ones out of spite. Like if Auslander carries money on the Sabbath, the New York Rangers lose. He's known for his humor, but it's rooted in real trauma, and I surprised myself by crying as I read the heartbreaking end.

And speaking of the Literature of the Fallen, James Wood's THE BOOK AGAINST GOD stayed with me too. This is a PK (preacher's kid) novel rooted in the Anglican tradition of questioning faith. The protag is not likeable--a bad husband, he doesn't finish things, and he speaks embarrasingly in public. Yet this one moved me to tears also, when I realized in a rush that everyone around the protag was playing a role in his noneffectiveness, shushing him and pooh-pooing his atheism. Woods speaks in his critical work of the "unreliably unreliable" narrator, and this book has a prime example, when the untrustworthy protag acknowledges the truth (and conflict) that everyone else refuses to face. It disarmed me completely.

If You Can't Afford Bread Loaf

2008-12-17T00:40:00.002-05:00

If you can't afford Bread Loaf Writer's Conference (or like me, you simply can't get in), here's the good news--they are now podcasting. It's free. Who will you listen to first? I'm thinking James Longenbach, who taught me in a half hour lecture at last year's AWP how to love John Ashbery's line breaks. I'm off to begin downloading.

Turning into a Crazy Old Lady? Here's Proof.

2008-12-14T18:29:00.008-05:00

I made apple-blackberry (right) and apple-cranberry (left) sauce today. I never tried canning before, but it was fun! Can you believe this projaholic never went there? I followed directions as best I could from a Sunset book I had laying around from the 1970s.

Now, to do the dishes....

Giving in to My Tendency to Wander

2008-11-17T06:05:00.002-05:00

Can a Brooklynite be a flaneur? Am I one already? I've embarked on a new project, because I'm a projaholic--I'm attempting to walk every single street in my beloved borough. Started about a week ago. I'm tracking progress in Google Maps. This is going to take me years.

View Larger Map

So far I've noticed a few things I never saw before. Community gardens in Coney Island (on Mermaid and Neptune) are like small farms, with the beach nearby. Swans collect in Sheepshead bay, must be the time of year, and they are very friendly. I think I disappointed them, talking without feeding. Also discovered that a rain poncho is dorky but effective.

Bob & Papa's Big Griot Adventure

2008-11-11T12:39:00.002-05:00

Po-man Bob Holman is blogging from Africa, where Papa Susso is taking him around to record the griot oral tradition. Video included. Enjoy vicariously with me!

Congrats and Miscellany

2008-10-28T19:08:00.001-04:00

Mea culpa, I haven't been blogging. Thanks everyone for your kind words about Boo Boo. We are getting used to his absence.

What I'm not used to is this economic state of affairs. Since I work in finance, I have been busy. In case you're worried, I believe my job is one of the safer ones. I work at a private firm, so no one is shorting our stock. I also don't get paid in stock. And I'm in risk management, which is one of the safer areas these days--unless you make a big mistake. So I've been focusing on not doing that.

Meanwhile, some folks on my blogroll are getting stuff done. I just read on Publisher's Lunch that Xujun Eberlein sold Hong Kong rights to her story collection APOLOGIES FORTHCOMING. Go Xujun! I also read on Publisher's Lunch that Summer Pierre just signed a 2-book deal for an illustrated volume (THE ARTIST IN THE OFFICE) and a calendar (GREAT GALS). Congrats! I love Summer's drawings.

What else? Jim Tomlinson's second story collection, NOTHING LIKE AN OCEAN, will be with us soon, as will Sandra Novack's first novel, PRECIOUS. Mary Akers completed a beautiful book trailer for her book collaboration, RADICAL GRATITUDE (or THE GREATEST GIFT, depending on where you live). I'm adding Stage Voices to my blogroll too, it's a cool resource for playwrights and actors. (I am neither, but I like the blog.)

I am addicted to the following: Crooks and Liars for my liberal elite news, Intrade for market-based odds on the election(Obama is at about 85% right now), and Television Without Pity, for analysis of Generation Kill, True Blood, and Lost. Who needs drugs when we have the internet.

Other news: I just went to LA to try to squeeze in a couple vacation days. Saw my brother in a fantastic play in Pasadena, The Sequence, about the human genome project. Also walked a lot, fretted about the office while not there, and ate as much sushi as possible. It was great to see my brother and sister in law.

And in cat news, this hat-wearing kitty is charming Japan and me. She really doesn't seem to mind the stationmaster's hat. Check her out!

Introducing a Fiber Artist from Japan

2008-10-01T04:26:00.002-04:00

Fiber artist Angus Barr (and Cute Overload) introduced me to the work of this creative feline from Japan. We are jealous!

Here she makes her own "chou chou." She's really good with scissors and an iron.

Here she makes her own grocery bag out of regular bandanas.

Angus tells me rule #1 of fiber art is to document the process. Process is as important as result! Glad we are not alone in this feeling.

Farewell, Porkchop

2008-09-16T10:04:00.004-04:00

Boo finally got too sick to bear, quit eating, no joy left. We had him put to sleep last Monday evening, September 8. He was more ready than we were. We are sure going to miss this guy.

Cat Hospice, and Other Developments

2008-08-16T18:29:00.005-04:00

About time I filled you in on the pets, indoor and out.

Boo is terminally ill. We don't have a definitive diagnosis. After tons of blood tests, a sonogram, and an experimental treatment with steroids, we have decided to let him just live out his life without further intervention. We're continuing the steroids to help him keep what appetite he has left. The vet thinks it is probably some kind of cancer, but we can't know more without putting him under the knife, and we've decided to go with palliative care instead. This guy used to be a big fat pig, 18-pounder. Now he's barely 11 pounds, skin and bones. He walks around in a fog, takes a long time to decide to jump into the chair or take a bit of food. We're going to miss him, but have decided not to torture him any more with procedures he doesn't understand, procedures that would probably only lead to a dire diagnosis anyway.

Willie is turning into an old man hypochondriac. We just got his teeth cleaned. They are in great shape, no extractions, not bad for a 10-year old! So what if he has gray hair! I think it looks handsome on him. Quit, moping, Silver Fox!

He got a little razor burn from the day of dental(blood pressure cuff on his tail) and he decided to make a mountain out of a molehill, spent a day licking himself sore, unsupervised. So he had to wear his punitive e-collar for a week. Doesn't it look cute on him?

Meanwhile, we are feeding Boo whenever he indicates he might eat, which means the other cats are stealing and getting downright beefy. Angus is wearing the weight well, like a wrestler. But look at Ava! She's a marshmallow!

Our outdoor colony is down to 5 cats again. We are not sure what happened to the favored Pablo. Probably he got driven away by the diehards here. We heard some fighting one night and the next day he was gone. Meanwhile, Juno (and I WISH I had photos of this) moved around the corner and became the doorman at an apartment building. She went from shy to I-love-everybody. She just hung out under the awning and waited for people to come out and give her the love and food she deserves. I have no doubts that she has a new name now and a new indoor home. Go Juno!

Vince, Marcel, Rrose, Elvis, and Elvis are all doing the usual, the morning food choir, the afternoon lolling in the sun, the offerings of dead mice and birds all over our yard.

Self-Consciousness vs. Art--It's Rigged

2008-08-11T18:54:00.001-04:00

Very inspiring interview with Andre Dubus III on Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's radio show, Writers on Writing.

Do your writer self a favor and listen in. He talks about self-consciousness and the damage it does to art--a message this insecure, inexperienced writer needs to hear over and over and over. Also covers how it feels to be one of two Andre Dubuses in the literary world, and how he arrives at honesty in his fiction. He talks about his method of research (interview people about their jobs, etc., but not about how they feel--thats the writer's job), and how he gets unstuck (patience, waiting). And of course, my favorite topic: trusting intuition. In his words: "The horse knows the way."

As usual, Barbara coaxes the good stuff out of her guest. Brava!

Another Case of Not Paranoid Enough

2008-07-30T12:37:00.005-04:00

Folks, for a person who writes computer code all day, I'm an idiot. You know how they tell you to change your passwords often? Well, I always thought the insecurity of my forgetting my new password superceded the insecurity of having a stale, hackable one.

Long story short, I had a keylogger trojan on one of my computers that logged the password for my online banking account. Through that, some nice evildoers were able to change my account email to something that looked like my email but was not my email. (This is the point where I am grateful for my 20/20 eyesight--caught it in time.) I changed the email back to me. 20 minutes later (and all during lunch, I might add--had I not been eating at my desk, things would be different) I received an email confirming the addition of an outside bank account to my online banking profile. Had I not caught the first breach, I would not have received this email. I called my bank and had my online banking turned off. The evildoers had not begun transfering funds yet. I'm very glad I was not on vacation.

Then began the pain in the butt part of it: All new accounts. This right before direct deposit coming in and automated payments going out. Month end. Brilliant.

I asked tech support at work how I could have prevented it. "You can't," he said, "unless you want to unplug from the internet and email. It's the risk of being online." I asked if I got it through web browsing or email. He said it can arrive either way.

I didn't lose any money (I don't think, at least not yet) but I did lose several hours of my time and probably got some new gray hair in the process. I've learned my lesson. Change old password often. Especially before long periods away from computers. Not foolproof, but helpful. Thought I'd share.

If You're Jonesin' for a Summer Conference

2008-07-21T18:32:00.003-04:00

I didn't schedule any summer conferences this year, and I wish I had! Luckily, some attendees are reporting back:

Cliff Garstang has been blogging from Sewanee, where he is workshopping with Tim O'Brien. A conference veteran, he opted out of several sessions and managed to get some writing done. Go Cliff!

Ryan Call also blogs from Sewanee, where he re-learned how to do the rope-swing-swimming-hole thing. The key is you have to let go. Also reports back from his workshop with Christine Schutt.

Donna Trussell, another conference veteran (and convert from fiction to poetry), compares her experience at Sewanee with her memories of Breadloaf.

Incredible faculty at Sewanee this year. I'm kicking myself for not applying.

From Tin House, the anonymous Lit Scribbler reports back from Steve Almond's workshop, with some story tips. Almond's advice is still about putting characters in danger because you love them, which still rings true to me. Great teacher.

Poet Sharon Hurlbut, also reporting from Tin House, captures well that reeling feeling you get at a writer's conference. The overstimulation is like a drug. She seems to have done what I did, attend everything. She studied with Mary Jo Bang.

And lest you think the summer conference experience is all fun and explosions of the positive, Anatomy of a Dress reports back on bad chemistry with poetry workshop leader Nick Flynn. Sounds like a workshop I would have loved to take, but I tend to prefer the touchy-feely bewilderment stuff. Some people want to be taken more seriously.

My feeling on writing workshops in general is you're paying the instructor to give you their shtick. You might connect with it. You might not. You might feel targeted in class. You might feel ignored. Regardless, you are buying an experience, one of many experiences you can use when you sit down to write and revise. You are not buying a critique for your manuscript, IMO. It's not really about you. It's about IT. Like I said, touchy feely. My favorite workshop ever was Lynda Barry who gave no feedback whatsoever (didn't even learn NAMES), but gave memorable shtick and helped me generate several fresh pieces (some of which have been published).

And if you want to just feel good, from SLC, Utah, it's fun to read the buzz around the Writers at Work Conference's fiction fellowship winner, Ben Roberts, who rocked the house with a Mormon story, selected by non-Mormon Steve Almond. Something tells me Ben loves his characters and therefore lets them behave badly. Go Ben!

Poets Aren't All 98 Pound Weaklings...

2008-07-20T13:37:00.003-04:00

Let's all cheer on poet Todd Colby as he races in his fifth triathlon today. Go Todd! Hope it isn't so beastly hot up there today as it is here.

Mean Green Zine

2008-07-16T14:17:00.006-04:00

I got my contributor's copy of Opium 6: Go Green! (But Save Me First), and I'm impressed. (And not just with the page that has my 500-word memoir, "A Turtle Weighs In on the Republican Nomination.") I'm honored to be sharing a cover with the likes of Aimee Bender, Jim Tomlinson, and others. Included are several entries from Opium's 100-Word Story series and Bookmark Contest, and a beautiful retro design by David Barringer. Very playful layout, with WPA-esque graphics to go with each story. Plus some lit-witty green tips on "restraint and responsibility." An issue worth looking at.

Kudos to editor Todd Zuniga for putting it all together.

PEN's Achebe Tribute Now Online

2008-07-14T18:22:00.003-04:00

I went to this event at Town Hall last February and found it really inspiring. Chris Abani was so funny and charming, talking about how to use literature to lure women; Suheir Hammad was fierce as she read one of her own poems; Chimamanda Adichie did a great job of repping the newest generation of Nigerian voices, with stories of her childhood in Chinua Achebe's former house (!); Ha Jin enlightened me on the loaded choice of writing in English; Colum McCann made me want to grovel and be his student: "What gives off the deepest sparks is the democracy of story-telling."

And of course, softspoken Chinua Achebe brought down the house at the end, talking about the publication (almost thwarted by a typist) of THINGS FALL APART, and expressing gratitude to his readers .

The place was packed. The line outside was long. It was one of those moments where I loved New York, claustrophobia and all. Now the computerized world can listen in, with added elbow room and a pause button. I look forward to listening again.

Exorcize

2008-07-13T19:46:00.000-04:00

I've been enjoying Larissa Shmailo's new spoken word CD, EXORCISM, particularly the track, "How to Meet and Dance with Your Death (Como Encuentrar y Bailar con Su Muerte): A Cure for Suicide." If you like it on the page, you'll love it out loud. You can sample it on her MySpace page too. This poem digs at you.

The whole CD digs, though, bringing forth fiery, unorthodox, visceral imagery of the Devil and Magdalena, lovers and torturers and survivors. She crafts breath, rhythm, and rhyme, with a relaxed and dancerly demeanor and natural authority. Subtle music accompaniment and vocal multitracking. Highly recommended.

Undercooked Steak

2008-07-07T21:21:00.006-04:00

I was in a celebratory mood and decided to make my reader copies nice this time. Who cares if it is a first draft? I can't believe how easy this POD technology is. And cheap! For the same cost as copying a 300+ page manuscript at Kinkos, I had shiny, real books made. Uploaded the file Monday, received the books on Friday. Who says POD has to be used just for self-publishing? How about as a groovy alternative to the alternatives? A simple means to make 11 copies for a handful of helpful pals? It's totally private. You Google this book, you don't find it. Unsearchable on the POD publisher I used. Just what I wanted!

I designed the cover with Microsoft Publisher and some photos I shot in my house and at St. Luke's garden in the West Village. I love wandering around and finding images to go with my text. I'm thinking this might lead to a more graphic project next time around. More of a chicken and egg work of art, where the images and the text talk to each other and generate new images and text.

Another part of me wants to unretire Big Fat Press yet again and start soliciting manuscripts from the talented and frustrated writers I know out there. Maybe that can be my retirement career. If books still exist by the time I retire.

The problem with POD technology is that it's too easy to make a "real" book. This novel reminds me of a badly cooked steak. It looks delicious. But inside there's lots of fat that tastes disgusting. A little bit longer on the grill would not hurt. So the key while reading this draft is not to be snowed by the format. There's something about messy pages from my inkjet printer that is a lot less sacred, if less portable. I'm not hesitating with my red pen, but I'm a little worried my readers might.

In the meantime, it was a very fun experiment. If I ever do find a home for this, none of the design decisions will be mine, so at least I got to have my creative moment.

Now it's time to put it aside for a month or so and work on other stuff, so I can reread with fresh eyes.

This Video Has a Stellar Cast

2008-07-02T02:27:00.000-04:00

Check out Janice Erlbaum's new book trailer, for HAVE YOU FOUND HER.

Have You Found Her from Milk Products on Vimeo.

THE END

2008-05-27T06:13:00.002-04:00

Magic words. It's supposed to feel good writing them on your novel. I was anticipating the end of my novel Alma so much that I even wrote THE END on a post-it and tacked it up over my desk, to remind me of my goal. Just make it to the end, that's all. It doesn't have to be good, you just have to make it to the end. This has been my mantra. Just finish already. I'm even visualizing it, like those dang The Secret people suggest.

So then I got to the end of the novel over the weekend, and I couldn't bring myself to write the words. It didn't feel like my silly visualization. I had been seeing myself as Jane Fonda playing Lillian Hellman in that movie Julia. Did you ever see that? She gets to the end of her play and types THE END THE END THE END THE END and smiles and leans back in her chair.

I should have felt elated, but instead I'm left with melancholy. Maybe because that's the tone this novel ends on, melancholy. The characters don't fix all their problems. They even get new ones. It's a sad feeling. Maybe the right one.

Not sure.

Time to read and reread now. But I might stick it in the drawer for awhile first.

Please let me know if you're interested in reading a draft. Last time I printed and bound a bunch of copies and passed them out. The feedback I got was invaluable (thanks guys!). I'm particularly interested in your reaction if you have intimate knowledge of any of the following subcultures:

1. actors and urban acting studios
2. 12-step programs
3. clergy families
4. people adopted in the 1960's
5. interracial families, particularly children of color with white parents
6. public hospitals and emergency medicine
7. NYC stagehands and dressers for professional stage
8. the oevre of Tennessee Williams

No pressure. And one need not know any of this crap. To me, the most helpful feedback is, "during this part of the book, I was feeling _____." Seriously.

OK, back to work now.

I'll Hit the Mic, KGB, May 15, Come on Down!

2008-05-12T12:12:00.001-04:00

KGB Bar 5/15/08 7PM
85 E 4th St., NYC
FREE

AAA-mazing Writers!
Anne Elliott
Angela Himsel
Alyson Palmer
And your guest host, A. Rich Merritt

Anne Elliott is a writer, ukulelist, and feral cat caretaker living in Brooklyn. Her fiction can be seen in Hobart, Pindeldyboz, Smokelong Quarterly, FRiGG, and others. She blogs on felines and fiction at http://assbackwords.blogspot.com

Angela Himsel has been obsessed with God for a long while, and she'd like to think that God is equally obsessed with her -- and with the rest of us. In her novel, God on the Couch, God takes to the couch in an attempt to understand the Creator/creation relationship. Angela's writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Jewish Week, the Forward, Lilith, online at beliefnet.com and elsewhere.

Best known as the tallest third of the pop rock band, BETTY, Alyson Palmer also writes. BETTY has performed in venues all over the world since 1986 and is known to television audiences through their recognizable theme songs for Showtime’s "The L Word," HBO's "Encyclopedia", "Cover Shot" on TLC, Comedy Central's "Out On The Edge" and Discovery TV's "Ms. Adventure". Alyson has appeared on "The L Word" and "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.". She writes and performs original songs with long-time-love Tony Salvatore in Tony & Alyson and Tot Rock in the raucous Tone Alley. She blogs at www.mamarox.com

Drunken! Careening! Writers! is a reading series dedicated to the proposition that readings should be: excellent, well-read pieces that have at least one thing in them that makes people laugh (nervous laughter counts), and don't run more than 15 minutes each. For more information, or to be added to the mailing list, email CareeningWriters@aol.com.

Guest Blogger Angus Barr on Stockholm Syndrome, Missing Cojones, and a Cat's Right to Be Chosen For

2008-05-10T18:08:00.012-04:00

Hi, you may know me, I'm Angus Barr, brother of the famous Vince. I live with Anne and everyone else inside the house, which wasn't always the case for me. I used to be a shy feral cat, a few years ago, sleeping under the hosta in the front yard. But then I got a really bad abscess on my belly, and it slowed me down. Next thing you know, they're taking me away in the car, I'm put into a mysterious sleep, and when I wake up, I've lost my balls, have a plastic drain in my belly, and I live indoors. The crazy thing is, I like it, even after my belly healed. There's nothing like a warm lap. Plus, sometimes I get to surf the web with Anne. She moves the cursor around for me to chase.

As you know, two new homeless cats showed up on the back porch recently. My human benefactors took it upon themselves to cage them for a week, and take them away for a day to a mobile clinic. When they came back they were missing the top of their left ears. Oh, and all their sexual glands.

This one, Juno, developed Stockholm Syndrome somewhere along the way. I hear she was actually purring in her cage. This might have been because she was fixing to have kittens in there. It's sad, the choice Anne made for her, but Anne tells me there were over 20 homeless cats at the mobile clinic, all beautiful, some kittens, and the world does not need more kittens. I happen to agree with that. We have three cats living in this house and sometimes that is too much for me. Not to mention the tribe outside.

So, in the world of feline abortion, Juno does not have the right to choose. Humans choose for her. It's tough being a cat. But she seems cool with it, if a little hormonally confused. Now she won't starve, trying to feed little ones.

She didn't want to come out of her cage. Safe, private, with a maid to come and clean it every day, twice a day food--she wants back in! Sorry, Juno. This hotel room won't last. I hope you cleaned out the minibar.

And this guy, I couldn't believe all the yelling! Enough already! Pablo, they call him, but they should have called him Pavarotti. They were planning to put him outside the evening of his trip to the clinic, but turns out he was already missing one of his balls. The doctor had to look around inside his abdomen for it. So he had a little more recovery time than expected.

My benefactors let them out in the basement because the traps had to go back to Neighborhood Cats. So they had their last day of recovery living like normal indoor cats. They were friendly enough to handle it, probably not quite feral to begin with. I didn't get to hang out with them--can you believe they kept us separate? Something about spreading disease, or whatever, one of those things people care so much about.

But even Juno ventured away from her cage, disguising herself as a guitar pedal. She got to like the basement a little too much, if you ask me. When they moved her out into the yard, she just sat on the back porch meowing. So that's it? You're done with me now? I thought you loved me!

Yeah, we have a pretty good thing happening in here. I get to sleep in a bed, and play with my sister, and cuddle with the dog. There just isn't enough room for everyone.

Young Lions, Younger Lions, and other Rites of Spring

2008-05-04T12:06:00.014-04:00

Doesn't Vince make a nice stoop lion? As regal as the dudes in front of the NY Public Library, where I had the good fortune this week to be present to watch my net-friend Ron Currie win this year's Young Lions Fiction Award. I could not have been happier to hear his name called. If you haven't read GOD IS DEAD, check it out, it's one of the most original works I've ever seen, in any year, and captures well the human need for God, which according to some theology, might actually be God. A lot to talk about at your book club. Congrats Ron!

It's been an eventful week. As you know, our feral cat colony has two newcomers. As of today, they have both been captured (yay!) and are in the chilling out phase in our basement. Here they are in their traps. They will live in them for a week: two days before surgery, and two days after surgery.

Here's Pablo. (They do have eyes, they just close them when the flash goes off.) He has proven to be talkative and might be friendly enough to adopt, as soon as his pee stops smelling like tomcat. Anyone interested? He has a very expressive vocal range. My husband has been recording him.

Here's Juno. She is quiet, ravenous, and appears to be pregnant. I doubt she will become adoptable but you never know. Let me know if she appeals to you. She could do well in a quiet home.

And finally, I just need to celebrate: this year I managed to walk through Brooklyn Botanic Garden on the optimal weekend. Last weekend in April, for future reference, that seems to be the one. Lilacs, tulips, magnolia, and of course, cherry blossom. Enjoy!

A House in Need of Mirth

2008-04-23T12:35:00.005-04:00

The Mount, Edith Wharton's landmark home in the Berkshires, is at dire risk of foreclosure. They are accepting online pledges now and need to raise $3 million before May 31 to keep this historic monument open to the public. I feel it is important not to lose this piece of our cultural history to our crappy current economy. (Though that would have the feeling of a Wharton novel, wouldn't it?) Join me in chipping in! If they do not make the goal, they will not call in pledges.

Just Desserts

2008-04-23T11:48:00.003-04:00

Rumor has it that at the Bake Sale benefit for Sangham House writers' residencies, Rick Moody is going to throw a pie at Dale Peck.

It's about time! Rick Moody inspires me. He made me want to be a writer. Take that, you Pecker!

And well done to both of them for being good sports.

The Complexity of the Simplicity

2008-04-21T18:55:00.002-04:00

Even after 10 years of marriage, I'm still a big fan of my trophy hubby, as it should be! He has just uploaded his remix of Radiohead's "Nude" for the online remix project. Have you seen it? It's a cool idea of collaborative art. Average citizens can buy/download the individual tracks and then reinterpret them. Another way that Radiohead is revolutionizing the music industry.

If you like my fella's version, you can vote for it. (It's fun to listen to other versions too.)

Brooklyn in Bloom

2008-04-20T18:15:00.012-04:00

I walked through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's cherry esplanade this afternoon. So on the verge! Tight, dark buds everywhere. They should be bright pink and fluffy by next weekend. The tulips are in bloom; the magnolia just finishing up. I love April. I love Claritin, too.

Our yard is blooming too, in more ways than one. Here, Wilbur sniffs the flowers he has worked so hard to keep fertilized through the winter.

Unfortunately, our formerly-stable feral cat colony has a couple newcomers. Here is one we call Pablo. He sleeps with a hatchet because he has to. The others have been trying to drive him off. He isn't smart around cars, and I fear he is not long for this world. He's starting to warm up to us humans, so hopefully we will be able to help his pee become way less smelly, with a trip to the mobile spay/neuter clinic.

Along with Pablo came Juno, who is camera shy. We know she is female, and fear she is with child. She hasn't had any suitors around, so chances are she is either pregnant or already spayed. Hard to tell--she keeps her distance. She does eat like a horse. If I ever get a photo I will post it, but the priority is to take care of her health first.

Meanwhile, the regulars continue to beg, sniff catnip, and entertain. Here, Rrose hangs out in the garage rafters.

Her brother Marcel hangs on top of the garage door. Both siblings survived the winter well and are chubby and happy. (I believe they have another benefactor on the block.)

And Vince gets philosophical near the flat mouse he has contributed to the yard's decor. (I opted not to post the closeup shot.)

While we're looking at cute animals, here is former porch-rat Ava chilling in front of the TV with Wilbur. Do they love John Adams as much as they appear to? Does it inspire them to be patriotic? Does Ava, like me, have a TV crush on Thomas Jefferson?

Late Bloomer Alert

2008-04-08T16:38:00.004-04:00

I refuse to call myself a late bloomer because

(a) I'm not that old.
(b) I haven't exactly bloomed yet.

So, maybe I aspire to be a late bloomer. Here's some advice and inspiration from Writer's Digest: "Publish Your First Book After 50." (I did not know that about Laura Ingalls Wilder. I gobbled up the Little House books! She taught me how to write about food, that's for sure.)

One thing strikes me most about the advice in this article: you have to be patient with yourself. Just because you're older doesn't mean you can learn to write faster. Everybody ends up with novels in the drawer.

Wearing Out My Headphones

2008-04-04T17:39:00.003-04:00

If you have a mind-numbing job like mine, looking at code and numbers all day, the right soundtrack can save your sanity. I'm still loyal to the podcasts on my sidebar, but here are a few new (to me) things I'm digging a whole lot:

Slate's Audio Book Club. It's like eavesdropping on a discussion in the professors' lounge. I loved the way they managed to contrast the treatment of social class in Joan Didion vs. Edith Wharton, both writers with access to the jetset lifestyle of their day. In Didion's THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, the events of the story assert how irrelevant one's social standing becomes when the big transitions of life go down. But in Wharton's THE HOUSE OF MIRTH, the demands of class are the arbiters of fate, and the characters (and narrator) are aware of the pitfalls of the game, even as they play it, with tragic consequenses. We should all have a book club as smart and passionate as Stephen Metcalf, Meghan O'Rourke, and Katie Roiphe, who don't just sit around and agree on everything. Sparks fly.

The New Yorker Fiction Podcast. Fiction editor Deborah Treisman talks with current New Yorker authors about short stories from the archive. What I love about this is the same thing I love about Slate--I get to hear thoughtful readers talk about the experience of reading. They pick apart the choices made by the author, with the eyes of a fellows writer and/or editors. And the most important part: the writer isn't present. It's a refreshing change from the author interviews I listen to frequently, reminds me what this literature thing is all about: scattering seeds out there in the world to take on lives of their own in other people's brains. I enjoyed hearing Antonya Nelson read Mavis Gallant's short story "When We Were Nearly Young," set in Madrid, then talk about what attracts her to Gallant's work, primarily the nonresolution of endings.

Conjunctions Audio Vault. It's not a podcast, but it's a great RealAudio archive. Groove with me on John Barth's "I've Been Told: A Story's Story," narrated from a story's POV. (An "old fart" story, at that.) Breakneck delivery, full of musical vocal nuance, worth a repeat listen or two.

I Love My Blogroll

2008-03-26T18:33:00.004-04:00

While I am focusing all my inadequate creative energy on my fiction, let's look at what some of my fave bloggers are up to.

At Xujun Eberlein's Inside Out China, there's an inspiring discussion of Pamela Erens' first novel, THE UNDERSTORY. I'm just crazy about this novel. I just finished it and I'm considering starting from the beginning and reading it again, just to see how the hell she put this thing together. What I can't fathom is how she managed to use sustained metaphors to glue the story together, but nothing screams, "I'm a metaphor!" Erens achieves several subtle effects with this book. I highly recommend it. And I recommend Inside Out China too, for a fresh take on Chinese culture and politics, as well as literature.

Mary Akers is understandably excited about her new book, RADICAL GRATITUDE AND OTHER LIFE LESSONS LEARNED IN SIBERIA. The message is awe-inspiring, and the format--one person's fictionalization of another person's true story--is fascinating to me. I look forward to reading this. Don Capone reviews the book on his groovy blog, Capone's Hit List.

Tao Lin's relentless layering of self-questioning, metafiction, autopromotion, and literary scab-picking never fails to intrigue me, sometimes moving me to tears. You either grok it or you don't. I feel like an old lady getting a peek into the future of literature, the way literature will be after I am dead. It's not a bad feeling. Check out the February post, THE GAY STEPDAD. I can't seem to link directly, you'll have to scroll.

Steve Almond's kid is cute as hell.

Janice Erlbaum also has a new book, another must-read, HAVE YOU FOUND HER, about her experiences volunteering at the very shelter she lived in as a teenager. The book is an amazing feat of both writing and living. She found a special kid at the shelter, became dangerously attached to her, then rode a yearlong rollercoaster as the kid went in and out of hospitals. I won't give away what happens, you have to read it. She's been blogging about her promotion gigs, and trying to balance them with the part she actually loves more...writing the next book. As a reader, I want her to write the next book too. She's one of my favorite voices ever.

And at Writers in Profile, Kelly Spitzer is talking to writers and editors about slush, the "necessary evil." It's worth reading, maybe as an exercise in tough self-love.

I Didn't Submit To This, But I Love This List

2008-03-13T16:54:00.004-04:00

I'm just now catching up on my blog reading and learned about a new controversy involving an unawarded fiction prize. (Thanks to Ed Champion for schooling me.) Remember a few years ago when Zoo Press decided none of the entries in its fiction contest deserved the book prize?

It's happened again. This time it was the Willesden Herald, and I must say, if the contest was destined not to have a winner, then they handled it better than Zoo press. They offered to split the prize money among the finalists, and publish a list of their names. The finalists were too pissed to play along. They were mad at the judge, Zadie Smith, for not just picking someone. Understandable.

While it is hard to believe that a slush pile of 800 stories contains no winner, one benefit comes out of this contest, a very handy list of reasons short stories don't win contests. I'm saving this list. My favorite: number 23, Faux Jollity. "I think humour only ever exists in something that sets out to be serious. Anything that sets out to be humorous is doomed." I'm guilty of that crime, for sure, the desperate attempt at humor. Or humour, depending on where I'm sending the story.

And Zadie, I can't judge you. I didn't see the stories. I'm just glad I didn't submit.

The Ongoing Pain of the Penultimate Chapter

2008-03-10T14:08:00.002-04:00

So, my novel in progress. I've been writing chapter 19 of 20 for about five months. Just figured out that Chapter 19 should really be two chapters, so now I'm writing chapter 20 of 21. This happened last time I tried to write a novel. It took me the same amount of time to wrap up the first draft as it took to write the first 90% of it. What the hell is wrong with me? Am I allergic to finishing?

I'm analyzing it, this tendency to draw out the end, to get stuck in the penultimate chapter. It's not fear of the next project. I have two next projects on deck, and I'm enthused about both. It's hard to keep from distracting myself with them. Projaholic's curse.

I think part of it is that old bugaboo, the critical brain. The closer I get to the end of the draft, the sooner I'll have to turn the critic back on, the part of my brain that points out the flaws in brilliant color. That part of the brain is jumping up already, and I'm having trouble batting it back down. It's a little like that Whack-a-Mole game. Just shut up already, until I finish this, okay? It's hard to remind myself keep going, don't think about what's wrong with it, don't think about craft, or fixing it, just keep going, just keep going, just keep going.

Is Literary Fiction "Fragile?"

2008-02-27T12:13:00.003-05:00

Anyone else read that thoughtful interview in the latest Poets & Writers with veteran editor Pat Strachan? Wow, she's the real deal. I was particularly struck by this, on how she doctors fiction:

I do think it's extremely dangerous to mess with a novel structurally, because it's close to poetry in that it's almost pure consciousness. The way it comes forth from the writer is the way it should probably be, even though maybe the beginning is unclear or not enough action happens in this part or whatever. With a literary book—I hate to say literary, but a piece of serious fiction that isn’t genre fiction—I try to stay away from structural suggestions because they can be very damaging. One big change can make the whole house of cards fall apart. So with literary fiction I really try to stick to line editing. I also think the less done the better, and I consider myself a fairly heavy editor. But I do as little as I can do, because a work of serious literature is a very fragile construction.

I've been writing fiction for 10+ years and still feel way too inexperienced to agree or disagree with this. My Kerouac-adoring, first-thought-best-thought-digging gut sees some big truth in it. My head is full of ringing bells. I've messed up a few stories along the way with various Frankenrevisions. But I'm also thinking hey, it's just story, it's malleable and rubbery, can it really be that delicate? Are we disrespecting story by calling it delicate? What do you think?

Blog Boredumb, I Has It

2008-02-23T12:16:00.007-05:00

Sorry folks, I just haven't been able to get my brain in blog mode. Too many waves allocated to other things. Like my novel, Alma, first draft almost done, but I won't jinx it by yapping about it. And my job, which I frankly was able to phone in for awhile, but now I have a new boss, new challenges, and finally feel like I'm not just taking up space. It's pedal-to-metal all day at the office, which feels good, makes the day go fast. I miss that lunch-writing break I used to take in the coffeeshop downstairs, but that will come back, eventually, when the job urgency dies down a little.

Anyhoo, when I click on that Internet Explorer icon at the end of the day, I'm more prone to engage in passive activities. Like looking at videos. Have you discovered the page of Flocke videos? Flocke the insanely cute Eisbar? If you need to restore your faith in the power of cute, check her out. Here's one from Youtube:

She's a vocal creature. I think she will be one fierce bear. And speaking of creatures, have you seen the otters holding hands? It's got the plot of a mindless romcom movie. Be sure to watch to the surprise ending.

I'm tired. This is what I have been reduced to, cute-worship. I even check into I Can Has Cheezburger every day, how sick is that? Here's one of my recent favorites:

Enter the ICHC online Poker Cats Contest!

Okay. I'm laughing at puns now. Be worried.

Red-Handed! JMWW Anthology Volume 2

2008-02-08T16:57:00.001-05:00

Folks, I'm delighted to be anthologized again. This time, it's the JMWW annual, which is an offshoot of their awesome web mag. I just got my contributor copy in the mail. Yay!

The anthology is fabulous, and available via Lulu. Here's a great example of how POD technology puts power into the hands of the people, enabling indie web-based litmags to publish print editions, without breaking the bank. It's a smartly edited, fresh collection, and an honor to be included. These folks at JMWW are going places.

Checking In. Still Alive!

2008-01-26T17:40:00.000-05:00

Hi guys, sorry I haven't been blogging much. Life has a way of creeping up. My day job has been taking all of my left brain cells, and some of the right too. Let's just say it's nice to feel challenged, and the work environment has been doing the job well. But I should not use that as an excuse!

Here's an update of my life lately. Just got back from a wonderful whirlwind trip to Los Angeles, where I played scrabble with family and enjoyed myself immensely, doing very little. I'm trying to plug away on my novel #2. Meanwhile, my first novel is one of 836 semifinalists in Amazon's first novel contest, which has more in common with American Idol than any other literary contest I've seen. If you're so inclined, you can read (or review!) an excerpt here, or check out the Publisher's Weekly review that comes as one of the "prizes" for semifinalists. I'm happy with the review. They clearly read the whole book, grokked the characters, and summarized it very well. Thanks, anonymous reviewers!! Thanks too, to the rest of you who chimed in.

Other stuff? I'll be at the AWP conference next Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so if you're there, look out for my nametag. I'll be the one trying to carry too much swag, take in too many panels, then sneak off to the day job at lunch. Part of me wishes it wasn't in New York, so I wouldn't be tempted to go to the office. See you there?

My Inspiring Reads of 2007

2007-12-21T12:31:00.000-05:00

Geez, has it been a whole month since I last posted? Well, at least that's proof I'm not addicted to blogging. Any more, that is.

It's been a momentous reading year for me, thanks to the 2 hours I spend daily on the subway. And since my focus here is on what resonated for me, I'll talk about these books from memory.

I'm not a journalist, I'm not factchecking, and I'm not writing your bleeping term paper for you either. (So HA! all you dot-edu-ers in my web stats, all searching for book reviews you can turn into plagiarized schoolwork. Do other bloggers have this problem?)

So here's what I read and loved and remembered in 2007, not counting books by people I know, where my reading pleasure was tainted by bias.

LET THE NORTHERN LIGHTS ERASE YOUR NAME. Vendela Vida is almost a miniaturist. This slim novel, the story of a mourning American woman's journey to Lapland, has some of the cleanest, freshest, most compact language I have ever seen. Don't rush through it, though it moves quickly. Savor the cool, tiny chapters and mirrored metaphors. Her precision is rare. This author deserves more attention than she gets.

PAINT IT BLACK. Janet Fitch's fat Los Angeles novel is almost the anti-Vida. Another mourning character with a need for mothering. Only this time a hot, dry landscape, and hot language to go with it. Lush, big narrative chapters, deep character study. The troubled, druggie protag stayed with me long after I put the book down. And I adore Fitch's LA--it resembles the LA I've known and visited more than anything else I've read.

NO ONE BELONGS HERE MORE THAN YOU. Miranda July has nailed the square peg thing. The characters in her acclaimed short stories are hopelessly needy and lacking in social skills. Readers are left with a melancholy longing to connect with other human beings, and a dark conviction that this connection will never live up to expectations. Oh yeah, and it's funny. July's ear for dialogue is one of a kind.

SAFEKEEPING and A THREE DOG LIFE. I am in love with these books. Abigail Thomas has changed the way I think about memoir. She's dispensed with the notion of the singular narrative arc, and tells her life the way real people tell stories on themselves--in fragments, with tangents, and echoes, and repetition, and reframed events, and strategic omissions. SAFEKEEPING tells of her second marriage, and A THREE DOG LIFE tells of her third. Tragedy and bad luck all over the place, but they teach gratitude. I want to write like her when I grow up.

MILK. Darcey Steinke's take on religious phenomena is striking and refreshing, in a world where most literature with spiritual subject matter is either party-line-religious or angry-atheist. In the world of this novel, seeing God is a mystical gift, but we're never quite sure if mental illness doesn't play a role too. Members of the clergy are troubled human beings, with sexual urges, vocational doubts, and conscience.

FUN HOME. Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir made me weep on the subway. And also made me cover the page, riding the train with the Flatbush God Squad, suddenly aware I was looking at pictures of girls in flagrante. Told episodically, it's a bittersweet gay coming-out story. Sweet, the way Bechdel's inner lesbian light goes off from reading French women's literature. Sad, the way her father lived a life in the closet, which turned him into a ball of angst, a difficult person to live with. Brilliant drawings of her childhood homestead, a fixer-upper Victorian, with markers of the 1970's tossed in.

Come Hear Us Read, November 28th, NYC

2007-11-21T14:42:00.000-05:00

THIS JUST IN.....

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

NEW Reading Series!!

Friends of Tuesday Shorts are now appearing monthly at the Boxcar Lounge (http://boxcarlounge.com/): Our FIRST phenomenal reading is November 28, 2007, 8:00 PM, 168 Avenue B, East Village NYC.

Please join us and forward to anyone you know. We wanna see your shorts there too!Hosted by Shelly Rae Rich, writer (see http://blog.shellyraerich.com/) and co-editor of Tuesday Shorts (http://myspace.com/tuesdayshorts), the series kicks off with an eclectic group of talent.

And here they are…..

Rusty Barnes grew up in rural northern Appalachia. He received his B.A. from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. from Emerson College. His fiction, poetry and non-fiction have appeared in journals like Pindeldyboz, Post Road, and Red Rock Review. After editing fiction for the Beacon Street Review (now Redivider) and Zoetrope All-Story Extra, he co-founded Night Train, a recently reinvented literary journal, which has been featured in the Boston Globe, The New York Times, and on National Public Radio. Sunnyoutside Press published a collection of his flash fiction, Breaking it Down in November 2007.

Linda DiGusta is a freelance writer and artist. Active in the NYC theatre for more than a decade as a director, designer and performer, the inventiveness of acting and collaboration on a screenplay re-kindled her early interest in fiction, and she has had several short stories published in print and online. In the fine art world, she currently has 2 still-life drawings in the exhibition "Lineal Investigations" at the Housatonic Museum of Art, and her assemblages and drawings have been seen in group exhibitions in Manhattan and Brooklyn, including at Art Gotham in Chelsea this month. Integrating art and writing, Linda also writes for and serves as Executive Editor of Resolve40.com, an online publication created by artists in 2005 to present the art world from a fresh point of view. She lives in midtown Manhattan with artist Mark Wiener and their multi-species family. More at: http://www.lindadi.com/ and http://www.resolve40.com/.

Anne Elliott has performed her poetry, with and without ukulele, at the Whitney Museum (with the Beats show), PS122, Lincoln Center, The Poetry Project at St. Mark's, Woodstock '94, and other venues in and out of NYC. Her poems have appeared in Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe, Verses that Hurt: Pleasure and Pain from the Poemfone Poets, and other anthologies. Her fiction has appeared in Hobart, Pindeldyboz, FRiGG, Ars Medica, and others, and she blogs on the writing life and feral cat management at http://assbackwords.blogspot.com/.

Carol Novack, a former criminal defense lawyer and Australian government grant recipient, is the author of a chapbook of poetry, play, collaborative CD and two collaborative films. Writings may or will be found in many publications, including American Letters & Commentary, Action Yes, Del Sol Review, Diagram, 5_trope, Gargoyle, Journal of Experimental Fiction, La Petite Zine, LIT, Notre Dame Review, and the Star*Vigate anthology of best online writings. Carol publishes the multi-media e-journal Mad Hatters' Review (http://madhattersreview.com/), curates a reading series at the KGB Bar, and runs lyrical fiction writing workshops. She'll be a resident at The Vermont Studio Center next year. For additional details, see her blog (http://carolnovack.blogspot.com/).

Still NaNoing (Sort Of)

2007-11-21T14:37:00.000-05:00

Well, folks, the same thing happened to me that happens to a lot of people in November...life. Dayjob stuff captured my attention, and kept me from thinking about my NaNoWriMo novel last week. I've crossed the 25,000 word halfway mark, but I'm way behind quota, and there's no way I'll catch up.

Still, it's 25,000 words I didn't have before. And I'm still going. I'm doing about 1500 a day at the moment, but once you're behind, you're behind. So be it! It's supposed to be an exercise in unconditional self-love, so I'm gonna go easy on myself.

Yell at me if you think I've got it wrong.

Anthologized!

2007-11-08T19:52:00.000-05:00

I was delighted to have my contributor's copies of ONE ON ONE: THE BEST WOMEN'S MONOLOGUES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY arrive in my mail yesterday. Don't you just love the colors?

I love the insides too. It's a resource book for women looking for fresh audition material. Some of it is from familiar playwrights (both women and men)--Neil LaBute, Naomi Iizuka, August Wilson. Some of it is from people I admire up close--Bob Shuman (also an editor of the anthology!), Kathleen Warnock. And some from legends of monoperformance, like Lydia Lunch and Anna Deavere Smith. It's an exciting collection, designed to push the envelope a little, and I'm honored to be a part of it! My piece is something I thought of as a flash fiction thing...until now...

WriMo Update

2007-11-07T18:22:00.000-05:00

In case you're wondering, I'm right on schedule for NaNoWriMo. As of this moment, my November novel's 11,681 words. And still, no plot has emerged. But you know the Wrimo motto: No Plot? No Problem!

Plus, you know how I feel about plot. I won't re-rant on it today.

This novel, or whatever it is, feels more like a meditation, or rumination. More spiral in shape. The themes are coming through, or I'm digging at them. I feel like it hangs together on metaphor and theme, but not on a horizontal timeline.

One thing I'm learning is I like the 1667 word a day quota. I've worked before with a 300 word a day quota, and now I'm thinking that's way not enough. The bigger quota gets me into the composition-head more deeply. It hurts my performance at work, probably, but it's only for a month, right? All my daydreaming out the window.

The other thing I'm learning is the bigger quota means I absolutely can't reread more than a day's work as I get started on a new writing session. I usually do a lot of rereading and tweaking, in my "old" writing process. The Wrimos say don't reread AT ALL, and I disagree with that. Often I reread yesterday's work and find places where I can flesh out the detail. And if building wordcount is the goal, that helps more than it hurts. But reading back any more than that results in memorizing the prose, which only makes it harder to kill the darlings later. I memorize the cadence of a sentence and then it feels "weird" (for lack of a more accurate word) to cut part of it.

Plus, there's no cutting in NaNoWriMo. That's rule one.

I'll keep you posted. Let me know if you're doing it too!

Alternative Blogging Media, Cute Meat

2007-11-01T16:29:00.001-04:00

Check out Summer Pierre, she baked a blog post. She also put her blog to bed. Cute cats too!!

And check out Todd Colby's poem about Panda meat. Also another about Akron liars.

Because I'm Loco

2007-10-31T14:10:00.000-04:00

This projaholic has resisted NaNoWriMo for years but the prospect of writing something that

1. will never be read (not even by me, not even while I'm writing it)
2. doesn't have to be good
3. will not take me years and years to finish

took over my brain. At long last, I will write my "workplace novel." I've got my list of prompts, and I'm on my way to writing some real unpublishable garbage. Go me!! And all you other Wrimos out there. Let's toast to lowering our standards. I'll let you know how it goes.

If it doesn't work out I'll knit something ugly and then unravel it. Same idea...

Cat Theater

2007-10-24T16:35:00.000-04:00

It's actually a little funnier with the sound off, I learned. Try imagining this alternative script:

Meow.
You already said that.
Meow.
Don't be a moron.
Meow. ..that wasn't very nice.
You're stating the obvious.
You never understand me.
Oh, not this again.
Why can't you just listen?
Oh, please.
I don't know what to say.
Oh, baby, I love you. You know that.
I know. I love you too.

Maybe you have an alternative script to share.

I dreamed last night we had to get our cat Ava a white dress for her coming-out ball. She was such a tomboy about it, and really did not understand the stakes. She had to be prepared for the Catillion!

So I'm Not the Only One Too Late to Buy My Own Name.Com

2007-10-18T19:54:00.000-04:00

I'm not aware of a community of Anne Elliotts, but there are a lot of us out there. My hubby suggested I buy the domain theotheranneelliott.com.

From today's Wall Street Journal, check out Andy Jordan, who reaches out to the other Andy Jordans. Ha!

Victor LaValle on Voice (with a Capital V)

2007-10-03T18:50:00.000-04:00

In October's Hobart web edition, Amy Minton interviews Victor LaValle, author of SLAPBOXING WITH JESUS and THE ECSTATIC on the subject of narrative voice.

A sample of LaValle's no-nonsense advice:

I’m really just trying to say that it’s a mistake to think of Voice (or voice) or writing (and Writing) as a simple question of mechanics. When you read your work you should try to recognize the fact that your Voice is already there. Even just in some early form. Don’t reread and revise with the goal of making this one story better or tighter or publishable (at least not to start). Look at it and ask, Do I recognize myself in here? Again, I don’t mean your literal body or personal history (not necessarily). I mean do you find your sense of humor (or lack thereof)? Your intelligence (your specific kind, not just general IQ)? Your concerns? Your sense of joy and tragedy? These technical issues of dialogue and pacing and phrasing and language are red herrings. They’re actually distractions from the real question at hand: are you making work that is singularly your own? Fiction that, for one reason or another, no one else can produce?

Enjoy the rest of the interview...

JMWW--Check it Out!

2007-10-01T19:30:00.000-04:00

I have a short series of very short stories in the new JMWW. It's a beautiful issue. I'm crazy about the artwork by Elizabeth Crisman. And the flashes by Christian Bell are well worth a read. Enjoy!

Another Kind of Peek Under the Hood

2007-09-10T22:51:00.000-04:00

Jim Ruland, of LA's Vermin on the Mount fame, is celebrating the anniversary of his short story collection, BIG LONESOME, by giving the stories-behind-the-stories in this blog. It's worth a read. Ruland's work relies heavily on research, and his process is instructive for anyone else who might like to tell stories that take place in worlds other than our own.

My favorite in the collection is "A Terrible Thing in a Place Like This," the one set in a 19th-century slaughterhouse. In his blog, he doesn't exactly tell us where his fiery, rich prose comes from, but he does let us in on the source for the subject matter, the extensive reading he did before composing the story. His initial burst of research, into a specific historical event, uncovered numerous characters and a setting, but he didn't have an entry into the story until he read the local newspaper from the thirty days before and after the event. And the authorial angle he found comes not just from coverage of the event, but from everything else in the paper--the editorials, even the ads--that gave him a real sense of the emotional landscape of the time.

Littermates

2007-08-22T20:20:00.001-04:00

I apologize for not keeping you posted on our outdoor cat situation. We still have five. Four are represented here, demanding breakfast. From the left: Rrose, her brother Marcel, and her children, Elvis Memphis and Elvis Vegas. Their brother, Elvis Hollywood, succumbed to a car. Their cousin (we think?) Junior disappeared. Vince, the patriarch, was too close to the camera to photograph this morning. He breaks into the house on a regular basis.

Rrose is getting tamer, and fatter! We aren't trying to touch her, which helps in the trust department. She has decided she likes us, and will now pose for photos in exchange for food. Isn't she beautiful? Look how she cocks her head!

Never mind that they all piss all over the place and irritate the neighbors. Pawprints all over the cars. Garages that stink. Yes, we MADE these cats exist by feeding them! It's a weird existential question. None of them are adoptable, they never will be, no matter how friendly they get, unless you like cat pee in your house. We are learning this with Angus, Vince's littermate, the one we brought inside. Unfortunately, he's way too cute to banish.

But Rrose, I have a special place for her in my heart. Poor thing was skinny and perpetually pregnant, until we got her spayed and eartipped. She's the most timid. She's also the most susceptible to catnip. I love watching her get fat and courageous.

And the kids? The white Elvii? Their dad, a neighbor cat named Yves, is AWOL. Deadbeat. But Marcel was a good uncle. He taught these nephews to hunt and beg like pros. They all huddle in a pile for warmth in the winter. Which is just around the corner.

The 500-Word Memoir

2007-08-22T19:47:00.000-04:00

I entered Opium Magazine's 500-Word Memoir contest and managed to make the short list! I may not have a book-length memoir in me, but I could manage 450 words. I just wanted to support Opium, with my last-minute entry, since I have benefited from their terrific parties in the past. And now, not only this needed shot in the arm, but my net-friend Clifford Garstang is on the list too. Congrats, Cliff!

My story is about the 1972 Republican convention. I started it in Lynda Barry's class, on the assignment to list ten American presidents. So now you know it's not fiction. Yes, I really did shout, "Four more years!" I was caught up in the moment. I was also in first grade.

My politics have changed. My brother's too. For the better, I hope.

Support Opium. Watch their Literary Death Match TV. It's hilarious. And don't hesitate to comment...

Your Own Brand of Sumo

2007-08-09T18:47:00.000-04:00

Near the end of Robert Olen Butler's FROM WHERE YOU DREAM: THE PROCESS OF WRITING FICTION, he tells his workshop students:

...when sumo wrestlers are interviewed, they always say the same thing--they barely move their lips--no matter what they're asked, it all boils down to 'I'm going to do my brand of sumo, and I'm going to do my best.' That's it, folks. That's the lesson of the universe.

This, to me, was the book's only big piece of "universal" writing advice; the rest of it focuses on Butler's particular brand of sumo, which (as the subtitle promises) is more about process than analysis, more about heart than head.

Butler's argument, distilled from lectures by editor Janet Burroway, is that fiction can only begin to work if it is coming from the author's unconscious, or "white-hot center." Toward that end, he gives his own method of accessing the unconscious, which involves finding the emotional center of an event--the yearning--then, without naming emotions, exploring concrete sensual details, with a filmic eye.

He shares his own process, even more specifically, outlining his index card methodology. His first step in writing a novel is to sit and daydream out the scenes, without writing them, then jot the basics of each scene on a notecard. Then he plays with the order of the cards, dreams new scenes as necessary. Then he writes the scenes, always in order.

You know me, I always love a peek under the hood. I'm a process junkie, and it's helpful to find more tools for the box. His approach is like method acting: story driven by moment-to-moment motivations, use of sense memory. But, I believe (like many actors have told me), the Method is potentially dangerous if turned into a religion.

The first two sections of the book are, like the good parts of religion, invigorating and inspiring. The first, "The Lectures," gives the basic foundation of Butler's approach to fiction, the writer's "trance" to access the unconscious, the "composting" of concrete memory for future stories. (He suggests journaling in concrete images, not analytic narrative, and you know I love that.) And the second section, "The Workshop," is transcripts of his interaction with students, in which he literally pulls sense details out of them, and stops them when they analyze. It reminds me of Sandy Meisner's book for actors, the next best thing to being in a class. (And by the way, writers can benefit from Meisner's book too.)

But the third section of Butler's book is where the religion-of-the-dreamstate turns dangerous, in my view. It contains full text of three early-draft student stories, followed by Butler's in-class analysis of them. And he judges the stories on whether or not they appear to come from the unconscious. (Like an acting teacher's judgment of "indicating" vs. "living" emotion, if you will.) He encourages students to find moments of "harmonic resonance" in peer work, where they "thrum" with the characters. On the one hand, this is refreshing as hell--you mean we don't have to analyze the POV and rising action crap? And I must admit, in my own work, I've found the most helpful critiques are often simply "I'm feeling _____ now," jotted in the margins of the manuscript.

But writers are not actors. They are not the medium for the finished work. We get the privilege of stepping away and letting the work have a life of its own. Butler the teacher-critic pronounces judgments like this: Story A was written from the analytic mind (GONG!), Story B was written from the unconscious (DING! DING! DING!). And while I agree with his assessment of the success/nonsuccess of these three stories, I find it presumptuous to guess at the writer's state of mind during composition, or to judge the purity of one thinking process over another.

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, on her awesome radio show, often asks her guests questions like, "Do you write your sentences over and over, or do they just come out that way?" (I paraphrase, apologies.) More often, the guest claims to bang on the work until they get it right. I would argue that the presence or absence of the writer's dreamstate is not necessarily evident in the results. For many writers I admire, it's more trial and error than flow (what Butler calls being in "The Zone").

So my wishy washy recommendation is read this book for the tools and inspiration (inspired about 30 pages out of me! Thanks ROB!), but try not to drink the Kool-Aid. It could be a recipe for writer's block and/or quitting altogether. Sometimes battling with a problematic story is worth it. Sometimes early readers find cool emotions in the work that you didn't feel or intend, and this is a raw material you have authored that you can work with. It's okay to make your own clay. It may take longer, being a "draft writer," as Butler puts it, but so be it. The Annie Lamott-esque "shitty first drafts" need not be composted.

What do you guys think? Can you fake the soul of a story with technique, and if so, is the story any less genuine? Can you make readers "thrum" without "thrumming" yourself? Or, is finding your resonant subject matter the main battle, and the technique thing secondary? Anyone else have a response to this book?