July 2008 Archives
Two Quick Things . . .
. . . before I get on the road.
First, my friend from grad school, Dave Pruett, wrote in about the Cixous/"Laugh of the Medusa"/ecriture feminine thread to say that he's been reading Nuala O'Faolain's memoir Are You Somebody? The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman and thinks it just might fit. So for those of you looking for examples of ecriture feminine, you might check it out. (I haven't read it yet, but I trust Dave's judgment.)
I remember loving O'Faolain's "7 Tips on How to Write a Best-Selling Memoir (even though nobody in the world is interested in you)" when it appeared in Ms. magazine a few years ago. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an online version for you. But it's a great piece, so track it down if you're interested.
Second, I mentioned Helen Elaine Lee's lovely story in a previous blog--the one she read at the Pine Manor residency that made me want to rush home and hug my husband, and I just wanted to tell you that it's called "Marriage Bones," and it appeared in Ancestral House: The Black Short Story in the Americas and Europe, edited by Charles Rowell (of Callaloo fame) and published by Westview Press/Harper Collins in 1995.
There. Now I can drive south with a clear(ish) conscience.
First, my friend from grad school, Dave Pruett, wrote in about the Cixous/"Laugh of the Medusa"/ecriture feminine thread to say that he's been reading Nuala O'Faolain's memoir Are You Somebody? The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman and thinks it just might fit. So for those of you looking for examples of ecriture feminine, you might check it out. (I haven't read it yet, but I trust Dave's judgment.)
I remember loving O'Faolain's "7 Tips on How to Write a Best-Selling Memoir (even though nobody in the world is interested in you)" when it appeared in Ms. magazine a few years ago. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an online version for you. But it's a great piece, so track it down if you're interested.
Second, I mentioned Helen Elaine Lee's lovely story in a previous blog--the one she read at the Pine Manor residency that made me want to rush home and hug my husband, and I just wanted to tell you that it's called "Marriage Bones," and it appeared in Ancestral House: The Black Short Story in the Americas and Europe, edited by Charles Rowell (of Callaloo fame) and published by Westview Press/Harper Collins in 1995.
There. Now I can drive south with a clear(ish) conscience.
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Off to Macondo!
My husband James and I are heading out tomorrow morning for Macondo, the writers' workshop founded by Sandra Cisneros. (Isn't she pretty in that picture on her website? And gotta love those boots, too.)
That's Sandra's house, the site of the original Macondo Workshop, below. Now the workshop has grown so big that it's housed at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio.
I'm excited to be co-teaching a workshop on memoir with the gifted and hilarious Lorraine López, author of the great story collection Soy la Avon Lady, the YA novel Call Me Henri, and the forthcoming novel The Gifted Gabaldon Sisters, which I can't wait to read. Our masters-level students are knockouts, too: editors, authors, professors, and award-winning journalists. It's going to be tons of fun.
Macondo is terrific: warm, nourishing, and focused on both writing and on social justice activism. It's a great place, and I can't wait to reconnect with writer Maribel Sosa, who first suggested Macondo to me. It's where I've met so many cool people, including writer and Chicana lit scholar Amelia Montes, who brought me here to Nebraska, and Pat Alderete, about whom I've blogged before (here and here).
James & I'll be driving down from Nebraska and stopping along the way in Oklahoma City and Austin, to see my brother Tony, his wife Cool Julie, and fearless baby Indigo. I'm so excited.
My
That's Sandra's house, the site of the original Macondo Workshop, below. Now the workshop has grown so big that it's housed at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio.
I'm excited to be co-teaching a workshop on memoir with the gifted and hilarious Lorraine López, author of the great story collection Soy la Avon Lady, the YA novel Call Me Henri, and the forthcoming novel The Gifted Gabaldon Sisters, which I can't wait to read. Our masters-level students are knockouts, too: editors, authors, professors, and award-winning journalists. It's going to be tons of fun.
Macondo is terrific: warm, nourishing, and focused on both writing and on social justice activism. It's a great place, and I can't wait to reconnect with writer Maribel Sosa, who first suggested Macondo to me. It's where I've met so many cool people, including writer and Chicana lit scholar Amelia Montes, who brought me here to Nebraska, and Pat Alderete, about whom I've blogged before (here and here).
James & I'll be driving down from Nebraska and stopping along the way in Oklahoma City and Austin, to see my brother Tony, his wife Cool Julie, and fearless baby Indigo. I'm so excited.
My
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In Memoriam
I returned from Boston to learn that a lovely colleague and friend,
Nick Spencer, had passed away unexpectedly over the weekend. He will
be painfully missed.
Generous, kind, and smart, Nick was our graduate chair in the English department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His book is After Utopia, and he loved, studied, and taught twentieth-century American literature and critical theory.
I didn't know Nick well or for long, but when I arrived on campus for my initial interview, he welcomed (and interrogated!) me warmly, and that warmth continued throughout our interactions over the past year as we worked and socialized together. Nick was unfailingly thoughtful, interesting, and interested in other people.
We only talked briefly about our personal lives, but as I understand it, he came from a working-class background in Great Britain and worked his way through Oxford University and then, here in the U.S., through Emory. At UNL, he worked hard and enthusiastically on behalf of the department and the graduate students, and he worked hard and sincerely to help recruit minority students to our program. He was encouraging and appreciative. He connected with people. He was generous and gentle, a bright soul.
All of our hearts are a little bit broken today. To paraphrase Jane Austen, Where shall we see a better teacher, or a kinder colleague, or a truer friend? Nick, you will be so missed.
Generous, kind, and smart, Nick was our graduate chair in the English department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His book is After Utopia, and he loved, studied, and taught twentieth-century American literature and critical theory.
I didn't know Nick well or for long, but when I arrived on campus for my initial interview, he welcomed (and interrogated!) me warmly, and that warmth continued throughout our interactions over the past year as we worked and socialized together. Nick was unfailingly thoughtful, interesting, and interested in other people.
We only talked briefly about our personal lives, but as I understand it, he came from a working-class background in Great Britain and worked his way through Oxford University and then, here in the U.S., through Emory. At UNL, he worked hard and enthusiastically on behalf of the department and the graduate students, and he worked hard and sincerely to help recruit minority students to our program. He was encouraging and appreciative. He connected with people. He was generous and gentle, a bright soul.
All of our hearts are a little bit broken today. To paraphrase Jane Austen, Where shall we see a better teacher, or a kinder colleague, or a truer friend? Nick, you will be so missed.
Back from Boston!
I'm just back from a wonderful, whirlwind residency at Pine Manor College in
Boston. It was a joy to see the students and faculty, and I love the
readings at night in what used to be a grand old mansion and is now
devoted to one of the most diverse women's colleges in the country.
I got to see my lovely friend (I always think of her as an Arthurian Celtic supermodel in deep cover as a contemporary librarian and mom), the YA author Laura Williams McCaffrey, who writes the blog Here There Be Dragons. She was reading from her forthcoming new YA novel, which will include panels of an original graphic novel within its text. (The graphic novel is a book some of the characters are reading, and the two texts are interwoven throughout the novel. Cool!)
Mike Steinberg, founder of creative nonfiction journal Fourth Genre, read from his lovely, dogged memoir Still Pitching, which I'm now reading. Thumbs up. If anyone you know loves baseball, Still Pitching is a no-brainer gift, but even as a clueless non-sports-fan, I'm still really enjoying it. I'm also reading More Daring Escapes, by poet Steven Huff, who's new to the faculty and who seems like a complete gem. He also has a weekly radio show, "Fiction in Shorts," on NPR-affiliate stations. (I understand that you can stream the show, and as soon as I find out how, I'll put up a link.)
I also got to see my beloved Laure-Anne Bosselaar, poet and LaureAnnetini maker extraordinaire, who gave a dazzling reading in that throaty voice of hers. Her work makes me swoon (and I learned, to my deep un-surprise, that she was taught and mentored by one of my all-time favorite living poets, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, who makes me high every time I hear her read). Laure-Anne not only gave a knockout reading but also made us her famous drink each evening, when the faculty sat out on the porch of the big old house where we stayed and talked writing and life for hours. It was like writers' summer camp.
Helen Elaine Lee read a beautiful story about an aging couple that made me want to run home and hold my husband. YA novelist An Na read from her new book, The Fold, and she did all the voices--a hilarious performance. An adolescent Korean-American girl is offered the "gift" of plastic surgery, which will make her look more "American"--i.e., more white--by removing or reducing the epicanthal fold in her eyelids. The gorgeous cover is below.
It was a terrific trip, with lots of great reunions with old friends and discoveries of new, especially the three lovely new students in creative nonfiction, who had the kindness (and stamina!) to keep showing up for three-hour workshops each day. Kerry, Cindy, and Erin: Thanks! Great job! You made the week great. And my former student Faye did a knockout job introducing my reading. She was so moving that it was a seriously tough act to follow. But what an honor to be introduced so warmly. Thanks, Faye!
I got to see my lovely friend (I always think of her as an Arthurian Celtic supermodel in deep cover as a contemporary librarian and mom), the YA author Laura Williams McCaffrey, who writes the blog Here There Be Dragons. She was reading from her forthcoming new YA novel, which will include panels of an original graphic novel within its text. (The graphic novel is a book some of the characters are reading, and the two texts are interwoven throughout the novel. Cool!)
Mike Steinberg, founder of creative nonfiction journal Fourth Genre, read from his lovely, dogged memoir Still Pitching, which I'm now reading. Thumbs up. If anyone you know loves baseball, Still Pitching is a no-brainer gift, but even as a clueless non-sports-fan, I'm still really enjoying it. I'm also reading More Daring Escapes, by poet Steven Huff, who's new to the faculty and who seems like a complete gem. He also has a weekly radio show, "Fiction in Shorts," on NPR-affiliate stations. (I understand that you can stream the show, and as soon as I find out how, I'll put up a link.)
I also got to see my beloved Laure-Anne Bosselaar, poet and LaureAnnetini maker extraordinaire, who gave a dazzling reading in that throaty voice of hers. Her work makes me swoon (and I learned, to my deep un-surprise, that she was taught and mentored by one of my all-time favorite living poets, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, who makes me high every time I hear her read). Laure-Anne not only gave a knockout reading but also made us her famous drink each evening, when the faculty sat out on the porch of the big old house where we stayed and talked writing and life for hours. It was like writers' summer camp.
Helen Elaine Lee read a beautiful story about an aging couple that made me want to run home and hold my husband. YA novelist An Na read from her new book, The Fold, and she did all the voices--a hilarious performance. An adolescent Korean-American girl is offered the "gift" of plastic surgery, which will make her look more "American"--i.e., more white--by removing or reducing the epicanthal fold in her eyelids. The gorgeous cover is below.
It was a terrific trip, with lots of great reunions with old friends and discoveries of new, especially the three lovely new students in creative nonfiction, who had the kindness (and stamina!) to keep showing up for three-hour workshops each day. Kerry, Cindy, and Erin: Thanks! Great job! You made the week great. And my former student Faye did a knockout job introducing my reading. She was so moving that it was a seriously tough act to follow. But what an honor to be introduced so warmly. Thanks, Faye!
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New Graffiti Blog
I just read the opening whirlwind manifesto on the blog Streetheart: Ethics of Graffiti. The writing's good, and the anonymous author really throws down:
The new McDonalds in your city, the one running on factory farms that keep animals drugged in minuscule cages for their entire lives--were you asked if they could decorate your skyline with their golden arches? And Coca-Cola--the same Coca-Cola that has employed paramilitary groups to murder and torture Colombian workers to break up their union--did they ask you before taking up a patch of your commute bigger than your front yard with one of their advertisements?He/she's not pulling any punches; see for yourself. I'm curious to see what comes next.
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Playing with Boys
Despite therapy for it (from a psychotherapist/commercial pilot, no less, and I recommend him), I am still afflicted by a lingering anxiety about flying. At least I can get on a plane now, though, and magazines or light reading help to distract me at thirty thousand feet--an excellent reason, I think, to have bought a novel for my trip this Tuesday to teach in the Pine Manor
low-res MFA program.
I got Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez's Playing With Boys, her 2004 follow-up to the chica lit breakout The Dirty Girls Social Club. (And $5.99 in hardcover at Walgreen's--you can't beat it.) I just finished the first chapter, and I'll share this little bit from the voice of one of her co-narrators, Alexis:
LNK-ORD-BOS, here I come.
I got Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez's Playing With Boys, her 2004 follow-up to the chica lit breakout The Dirty Girls Social Club. (And $5.99 in hardcover at Walgreen's--you can't beat it.) I just finished the first chapter, and I'll share this little bit from the voice of one of her co-narrators, Alexis:
As I often had to tell reporters, America was changing, fast. Tortillas now outsold bagels. Famously, Americans now ate more salsa than ketchup. Wal-Mart carried plantains, yuca, and Goya products. Kraft in the U.S. had come out with something they called "mayonesa," a Mexican mayonnaise with lime. Why? Not because they were nice. Because they had to. The top FM stations in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago now broadcast in Spanish, and the U.S. had become the world's fourth-largest Spanish-speaking country. I was one of those lucky people who had long existed in a United States that spoke Spanish and English with matching facility. I swung with ease between the cheesy comedy of Sábado Gigante and the cheesy comedy of WB sitcoms. Some academic types, like my professors at Southern Methodist University, called people like me bicultural. But with Latinos poised to make up one in four Americans in the blink of a big brown eye, I preferred to call it American.And here's one more clip:
Dangit. He was married? I'd been hoping he wasn't, and was a little surprised, given the shameless way the boy had flirted with me, that he was married. Or at least I thought he'd been flirting. But that was the problem with me. I misread men all the time. I thought they wanted me when all they wanted was a sandwich.I laughed out loud. Playing with Boys will be a frothy counterbalance to the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, which is 2600+ pages of Bible-paper, dense with theory, and from which I'll be teaching while I'm Boston. It's very, very good, and my friend, the lovely Laurie Finke at Kenyon, co-edited--but, as you can imagine, it's way less fun. Give me drama, sex, quips, and cultural observations any day.
LNK-ORD-BOS, here I come.
On Memoir and Money
The practice of art isn't to make a living. It's to make your soul grow.I was excited to find out recently that a panel on memoir organized by UNL grad students Madeline Wiseman and Kelly Gray Carlisle has been accepted for next year's AWP conference in Chicago. Madeline, Kelly, Sue Silverman, Lucy Ferriss, Karen McElmurray, and I will be having a conversation about memoir, truth, lies, and the workings of memory.
~Kurt Vonnegut
Here's the description Kelly and Madeline wrote:
Czeslaw Milosz said, “It is possible that there is no other memory than the memory of wounds.” Our panel investigates the role of factual accuracy in memoir, why memoirists invent to improve the facts, and the difficulty in telling traumatic memory. What if research reveals conflicting truths? What is the cost of invention to the story? How do the psychological and physiological workings of memory, the act of writing, and the influence of the world outside the writer hinder or enrich the truth?But what's on my mind right now is, How can a professor of memoir encourage student writers to be sincere and honest when wildly successful examples of cynical, dishonest memoir writers are flourishing?
Yesterday, I read Walter Kirn's evisceration of James Frey's new novel in the New York Times Book Review; you'll remember Frey as the falsifying memoirist upbraided by Oprah on national TV. Regarding his new novel, Frey told one journalist, "“I know I’m going to be slaughtered" by the critics (and Kirn didn't pull any punches), "but so be it. I’m much more concerned with what the people who spend their money on my book think of it, rather than the people in the ivory towers of the intelligentsia.”
And that really gets at the heart of the matter. Spinning the concept of honesty, of fidelity to facts, as a luxury of the academic elite, Frey spun his life into a tale of sensationalism and played a public hungry for gore. He cares about the people who spend money on him, and the payoff has been huge. Raised wealthy, Frey now owns not only a 3-bedroom condo in Soho, but a one-bedroom ($985,000) apartment next to it, along with a beach house in Amagansett. His new novel was purchased by HarperCollins for an estimated $1.5 million.
Frey told Vanity Fair about being affirmed by Norman Mailer. The two self-styled bad boys
talked about memoirs, a genre, Mailer said, that was by definition corrupt: “That’s why a writer writes his memoir, to tell a lie and create an ideal self. Everything I’ve ever written is memoir, you know, is an inflated vision of the ideal Platonic self.”Um. Or not. To me, it sounds like Norman Mailer's definition is by definition corrupt.
But how to encourage students to pursue genuine, honest, even un-sexy questions in their memoir writing, when the alternative is so lucrative? Why grow your soul, in Vonnegut's words, when you can tour like a rock star?
"Where any view of Money exists," wrote the poet William Blake, "Art cannot be carried on, but War only."
Any view. So if you're a writer, stop thinking about the monetary payoff. The true payoff comes in doing the work, and what you learn there.
You can write for money, too. Sure. We all have to pay the bills. Just don't lie to yourself (or the world) about which master you're serving when you pick up your pen.
What's Coming Up
My novel manuscript, The Desire Projects, went into the mail to my agent last week--hurray!--and I'm now looking forward to my upcoming stint at Pine Major College's low-residency MFA program in Boston. If you're in the Boston area, check out the series of author readings, free and open to the public, which is kicking off on Friday, July 11 with Randall Kenan and Dennis Lehane. (I wish I were going to be there for that one, but I'm only on duty from the 15th to the end.)
Later in July, I'll be down in San Antonio, co-teaching a workshop on writing memoir with Lorraine López at the Macondo Writing Workshop. Macondo is a wonderful experience, generously founded (and funded) by Sandra Cisneros.
As someone whose post-novel-writing eyebrows still remain untweezed, I love Sandra's comment on her writing process:
I do know I am a very slow writer, and I don't write at all on the days I wear shoes and comb my hair. In other words, I am a writer when I stay home, don't see anyone, don't talk too much (which for me is very hard), and am quiet enough to hear the things inside my heart.
With Macondo, Sandra has created a very upbeat, supportive environment for writers, and the week-long program is designed as a masters-level workshop for writers committed not only to their work but also to activist and community engagement, so it's a wildly cool bunch of people. If you're interested, check it out.
Besides the fun of getting to live in the dorms at Our Lady of the Lake University for a week with a slew of great people, I'm excited to see San Antonio again. As a young person, I lived in San Antonio for six years (16-22)--it's where my son Grey was born--and it's always great to go back.
Later in July, I'll be down in San Antonio, co-teaching a workshop on writing memoir with Lorraine López at the Macondo Writing Workshop. Macondo is a wonderful experience, generously founded (and funded) by Sandra Cisneros.
As someone whose post-novel-writing eyebrows still remain untweezed, I love Sandra's comment on her writing process:
I do know I am a very slow writer, and I don't write at all on the days I wear shoes and comb my hair. In other words, I am a writer when I stay home, don't see anyone, don't talk too much (which for me is very hard), and am quiet enough to hear the things inside my heart.
With Macondo, Sandra has created a very upbeat, supportive environment for writers, and the week-long program is designed as a masters-level workshop for writers committed not only to their work but also to activist and community engagement, so it's a wildly cool bunch of people. If you're interested, check it out.
Besides the fun of getting to live in the dorms at Our Lady of the Lake University for a week with a slew of great people, I'm excited to see San Antonio again. As a young person, I lived in San Antonio for six years (16-22)--it's where my son Grey was born--and it's always great to go back.
July 2nd
Everywhere I've gone for the past couple of days, people have asked, "So what are you doing for the Fourth?" I say I'm going to a party at a friend's house, and then they tell me about their fireworks or travel plans.
But I'm not feeling all that festive. Six years ago today, my Dad shot and killed himself.
It's still hard. And it's mingled for me, possibly forever, with the sound of fireworks going off two days later, while I was still in shock. Every time there was a loud bang or pop, I could see that gun going off. It was bad.
Weird, huh? The anniversary effect.
If you have weird things in your life--weird anniversaries of horrible or sad things--please do honor them. Be kind with yourself when they roll around. Time might not completely heal all wounds, but it does buffer them eventually. For me, July 2nd is easier now than it was the first five times it rolled around after my Dad's death, but it's still not easy.
I'm thinking about my Dad today, and I sure do still miss him. Time doesn't change that.
Everybody, please love the people you have while you have them. You never know when they'll be gone.
But I'm not feeling all that festive. Six years ago today, my Dad shot and killed himself.
It's still hard. And it's mingled for me, possibly forever, with the sound of fireworks going off two days later, while I was still in shock. Every time there was a loud bang or pop, I could see that gun going off. It was bad.
Weird, huh? The anniversary effect.
If you have weird things in your life--weird anniversaries of horrible or sad things--please do honor them. Be kind with yourself when they roll around. Time might not completely heal all wounds, but it does buffer them eventually. For me, July 2nd is easier now than it was the first five times it rolled around after my Dad's death, but it's still not easy.
I'm thinking about my Dad today, and I sure do still miss him. Time doesn't change that.
Everybody, please love the people you have while you have them. You never know when they'll be gone.
