August 2010 Archives
Equality Issues
After a long and fruitful week of getting up to speed in my new position over in Ethnic Studies and teaching my first session of a graduate workshop in memoir, I am looking forward to some kicking-back time tonight at 7 p.m. at Indigo Bridge Books, swilling some ethical decaf and listening to a bunch of slam-winning young people, including one Grey Castro, perform their spoken-word poetry for us locals.
I'm a little nervous. Among the pieces Grey's going to do is one about what it was like for him to read my memoir The Truth Book, something he put off for four years after its publication, aware that it probably wouldn't be pretty. Wise child. But he took the plunge, and responded with words. I've read a paper copy of the piece, and that alone was intense enough to leave me torn up for a while. It won Grey a slam in Ohio, so, though I'm obviously saturated with bias, I'm not the only one who thinks it's strong work. So this evening should be interesting. It's kind of a rare and special privilege to now be in a two-generation cycle of making art from hard things.
On the topic of making art from hard things at a broader sociopolitical level, i.e., surviving U.S. history, the inimitable Honorée Fanonne Jeffers posted a bracing piece on why Women's Equality Day still doesn't feel so equal:
I'm a little nervous. Among the pieces Grey's going to do is one about what it was like for him to read my memoir The Truth Book, something he put off for four years after its publication, aware that it probably wouldn't be pretty. Wise child. But he took the plunge, and responded with words. I've read a paper copy of the piece, and that alone was intense enough to leave me torn up for a while. It won Grey a slam in Ohio, so, though I'm obviously saturated with bias, I'm not the only one who thinks it's strong work. So this evening should be interesting. It's kind of a rare and special privilege to now be in a two-generation cycle of making art from hard things.
On the topic of making art from hard things at a broader sociopolitical level, i.e., surviving U.S. history, the inimitable Honorée Fanonne Jeffers posted a bracing piece on why Women's Equality Day still doesn't feel so equal:
So, I don’t celebrate Women’s Equality Day today, because contrary to popular mainstream American opinion, Women includes all American women, not just White ladies.
Alyss Dixson's guest-post in The Atlantic's blog, "On Invisibility, Gender, and Publishing," looks at how women's literary work fares in the world of publishing and prizes, and what women are doing about it.
As far as how this woman's work is faring in the world of publishing, I received my contract for ISLAND OF BONES in the mail yesterday--hurray! But gentle readers, it looks like there's an error in it. A minor, dinky little error that, sigh, nonetheless means I can't just sign and be done, which I have so been looking forward to, because I don't like to celebrate until the ink is on the dotted line, and I do love to celebrate. Now: more waiting. C'est la vie.
As far as how this woman's work is faring in the world of publishing, I received my contract for ISLAND OF BONES in the mail yesterday--hurray! But gentle readers, it looks like there's an error in it. A minor, dinky little error that, sigh, nonetheless means I can't just sign and be done, which I have so been looking forward to, because I don't like to celebrate until the ink is on the dotted line, and I do love to celebrate. Now: more waiting. C'est la vie.
Categories:
Late-Breaking Byatt
Whoa! Thanks to the Handsome Husband for this link to a story about A.S. Byatt, who claimed that women who write novels of intellectual substance are seen as unnatural--and sparked a debate about it. Also note Ian Rankin on female crime writers and the Orange prize chair on women's "misery lit."
With Nothing Except Your Life
Rest in peace, Abbey Lincoln. The jazz singer and civil-rights force passed away last Saturday; NPR ran a tribute that includes cuts from her music and great clips from two past interviews; you can read and/or listen here. Lincoln has interesting things to say about artistic integrity and (heads-up, mujeres) about her own transformation from sexy supper-club commodity to "warrior woman."
Moving into a semester of teaching memoir-writing to graduate students, I was particularly grateful for what Lincoln said about art and claiming the right to one's own voice:
I recently reread the three memoirs that my graduate workshop will be analyzing for craft strategies--Alice Sebold's Lucky, Rigoberto González's Butterfly Boy, and Kathryn Harrison's The Kiss--and was knocked out all over again by their power. I picked books that deal well with really hard, hard material--intimate, tricky stuff like trauma, family, loss, shame, sex--because that's so much harder to handle, for us as writers, than, oh, I don't know, cooking or traveling or learning to tango, all of which are fun and interesting and can take you to deep and difficult places but don't necessarily do so. I learn best from urgent, crucial, driven writing that sticks close to the bone, "words that," to quote Kay Boyle, "must somehow be said."
And it's the how in somehow that we'll be analyzing in the workshop this fall. How does Sebold handle moments she can't fully remember, signaling to readers her lack of specific recall without breaking the flow of the scene? How does González use a real, literal journey to its fullest, richest advantage as an organizing structure? How does he handle shifts in time smoothly and clearly? How does he use descriptive language to suggest resonances between different characters, and how does he work on the page to be fair to the other people in his life? How does Harrison select details that function as object correlatives for the emotional story that's taking place?
Can you tell I love these brave and brilliant books? Getting to talk about this stuff with smart, talented, eager people for three hours every week--and then talk about the students' own work!--is a gift. For a dayjob, it's definitely pretty great.
In that regard, ladies and gents, I'm happy to say that THE DESIRE PROJECTS is finally off my desk. 408 pages of obsessively polished prose that publishing houses may or may not find desirable went into the mail to my agent on Friday--which is a great relief, since classes start on Monday. (When I have to say what I did last summer--and last summer, and the one before that--I'm just going to point mutely to that fat stack of paper.)
The draft came super-fast: on April 1, 2008, I had 22 pages of notes that I'd been dinking around on for about a year, just this and that, sketches toward an outline. By June 10, I had 364 pages. Since then, it's been revision, revision, revision. Expand, cut, edit, polish. Repeat.
And now it's that beautiful feeling, when the manuscript is out of my hands and out in the world. My agent and I haven't decided yet which publishers it will go to, but I'll be posting full reports here as the process unfolds this fall. (I'll try to keep my woes in check when those rejection letters arrive, but consider yourselves forewarned.)
Adding to the cheerful chaos of back-to-school preparations, Greyby arrives tonight (from California--by Greyhound) and will be here with us until early September (when he leaves for Massachusetts--by Greyhound; don't ask, it's a carbon-emissions thing), so the rest of my Saturday will be devoted to cleaning, laundering linens, and hanging shiny gold papel picado all around the room where he'll sleep. The Handsome Husband is out stocking up on vegan cookies and other sundries Grey likes. Hurray!
Ahhh. Family. The good kind. My two very favorite people in the world, right here with me, together for ten days. Forgive me if I look a little dreamy.
Moving into a semester of teaching memoir-writing to graduate students, I was particularly grateful for what Lincoln said about art and claiming the right to one's own voice:
Amen. Writers, artists, everyone: go for it, and be glad.. . . "Oh, why don't you--why don't you shut up?" I think I've had that said to me more than anything else over the years when I was younger. "You talk too much." You know? "Don't rock the boat." Even though they're miserable--people are miserable--they'll tell you this. But you're not supposed to say anything about it.
So when I discovered that there was the world of the artist, it saved my life, because I could strive to be individual and as best as I could be. I didn't have to have money. I didn't have to have anything except my life.
And I went for that. And I'm glad I did.
I recently reread the three memoirs that my graduate workshop will be analyzing for craft strategies--Alice Sebold's Lucky, Rigoberto González's Butterfly Boy, and Kathryn Harrison's The Kiss--and was knocked out all over again by their power. I picked books that deal well with really hard, hard material--intimate, tricky stuff like trauma, family, loss, shame, sex--because that's so much harder to handle, for us as writers, than, oh, I don't know, cooking or traveling or learning to tango, all of which are fun and interesting and can take you to deep and difficult places but don't necessarily do so. I learn best from urgent, crucial, driven writing that sticks close to the bone, "words that," to quote Kay Boyle, "must somehow be said."
And it's the how in somehow that we'll be analyzing in the workshop this fall. How does Sebold handle moments she can't fully remember, signaling to readers her lack of specific recall without breaking the flow of the scene? How does González use a real, literal journey to its fullest, richest advantage as an organizing structure? How does he handle shifts in time smoothly and clearly? How does he use descriptive language to suggest resonances between different characters, and how does he work on the page to be fair to the other people in his life? How does Harrison select details that function as object correlatives for the emotional story that's taking place?
Can you tell I love these brave and brilliant books? Getting to talk about this stuff with smart, talented, eager people for three hours every week--and then talk about the students' own work!--is a gift. For a dayjob, it's definitely pretty great.
In that regard, ladies and gents, I'm happy to say that THE DESIRE PROJECTS is finally off my desk. 408 pages of obsessively polished prose that publishing houses may or may not find desirable went into the mail to my agent on Friday--which is a great relief, since classes start on Monday. (When I have to say what I did last summer--and last summer, and the one before that--I'm just going to point mutely to that fat stack of paper.)
The draft came super-fast: on April 1, 2008, I had 22 pages of notes that I'd been dinking around on for about a year, just this and that, sketches toward an outline. By June 10, I had 364 pages. Since then, it's been revision, revision, revision. Expand, cut, edit, polish. Repeat.
And now it's that beautiful feeling, when the manuscript is out of my hands and out in the world. My agent and I haven't decided yet which publishers it will go to, but I'll be posting full reports here as the process unfolds this fall. (I'll try to keep my woes in check when those rejection letters arrive, but consider yourselves forewarned.)
Adding to the cheerful chaos of back-to-school preparations, Greyby arrives tonight (from California--by Greyhound) and will be here with us until early September (when he leaves for Massachusetts--by Greyhound; don't ask, it's a carbon-emissions thing), so the rest of my Saturday will be devoted to cleaning, laundering linens, and hanging shiny gold papel picado all around the room where he'll sleep. The Handsome Husband is out stocking up on vegan cookies and other sundries Grey likes. Hurray!
Ahhh. Family. The good kind. My two very favorite people in the world, right here with me, together for ten days. Forgive me if I look a little dreamy.
Wake Up and Smell the Windmills, Already
Nebraskans, other Midwesterners, bird-lovers, protectors of unique and fragile ecosystems: if you'd like a quick and painless overview of the ramifications of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, you can read Prairie Fire's recent piece about it.
Then, if you'd like to sign a petition against the pipeline, which will run for over 100 miles through the Nebraska Sandhills, go here.
And if you'd also like to join with the League of Conservation Voters and the National Wildlife Federation in sending a message protesting the pipeline directly to President Obama, you can go here, too.
Then, if you'd like to sign a petition against the pipeline, which will run for over 100 miles through the Nebraska Sandhills, go here.
And if you'd also like to join with the League of Conservation Voters and the National Wildlife Federation in sending a message protesting the pipeline directly to President Obama, you can go here, too.
Categories:
Gender and Your Literary Work
Will flowers on the cover of your novel prevent it from being considered for literary prizes? If your focus and setting are domestic, will critics be surprised when your book turns out to be textured and intelligent? Novelist Diane Meier surveys the field in "Chick Lit? Women's Literature? Why Not Just . . . Literature?":
It's enough to make one wistful for the days when a pseudonym--Acton Bell, George Eliot, Anonymous--could cocoon a book in a sheltering layer of seriousness.
And what does that say about the state of things in 2010?
Meier fillets the reviews of her own book, The Season of Second Chances, which assessed it in terms of how well it conformed to or diverged from the conventions of chick-lit, as though chick-lit were itself the new neutral, the norm to which every book authored by a woman must be compared.Still, if Tom Wolfe had written "The Recessionistas," he would have noted the brands of shoes, the Birkin bags and the personal trainers. And he would have been praised for his attention to detail. . . .
But my concern is larger, for the issue is insidious: the way Chick Lit has been used to denigrate a wide swath of novels about contemporary life that happen to be written by women.
If you think it's not affecting our work, not affecting what the publishers are handed, not affecting the legacy we leave for future generations, you're wrong.
It's enough to make one wistful for the days when a pseudonym--Acton Bell, George Eliot, Anonymous--could cocoon a book in a sheltering layer of seriousness.
And what does that say about the state of things in 2010?
The Big Push
The Big Sleep, The Big Clock, The Big Knockover: noir novels seem to flourish under titles that start with "The Big," so I'm titling this post "The Big Push." Here's why. My clever and dashing agent has deemed THE DESIRE PROJECTS a hair's breadth from being done, and I have until September 6th, Labor Day, to labor over the final changes.
Unto everything there is a season--including, apparently, submissions to publishing houses, and right after Labor Day is when scads of big, exciting projects go out. Color me tickled that said agent believes THE DESIRE PROJECTS fits that bill. Fingers crossed, y'all.
However, while to most people a September 6th deadline would seem to offer leisure and luxury, school starts sooner. Numerous non-optional "retreats" (a misnomer that always kills me) begin even sooner than that, and I still have a syllabus to write and a new position--Associate Director of Ethnic Studies, yey!--to gear up for. And so, gentle readers, I've been lately immersed in the big push, and I'm trying to finish up revisions tonight. (Before Mad Men, if I'm lucky and good.)
In the little gaps between polishing new scenes and scrubbing old ones, I've been thinking about the vexed relationship among political mandates, ideology, and writing--and by writing, I mean writing as art, not writing as opinion pieces or rhetorical arguments or book reviews or blog posts, but as The Real Thing, the kind we sit down to make with our hearts in our hands. I've been thinking about the difficult, ongoing necessity of carving out a safe, protected space for that kind of writing, a space for it to be what it wants to be, rather than to fulfill our agenda for it.
If that makes half an ounce of sense.
This passage, from an essay called, "The Long Haul" by Stacy D'Erasmo, is vastly clearer on the topic, and it seems worth quoting in full:
Resist. Be true. Don't write agitprop, no matter how noble the goal. "[I]f your writing is essentially obedient to any of these powerful forces, its light will slowly flicker and then go out."
I don't want that for my work, and I don't want it for yours. The world wants your complicated, paradoxical, messy, real art that contradicts itself and contradicts you and every unimpeachable view you'd cop to at a dinner party. Go ahead. Contain multitudes. The water's fine.
The rest of the essay is good, too. (Gratitude to Tayari's blog for pointing me to it.)
For example, I really like the appreciative yet knowing way in which D'Erasmo talks about her two communities: the public community of the university, which provides a necessary shelter, and the wilder, private community that nourishes, provokes, and sustains her.
I'm sure others who read the essay will find their points of connection, as well as their own sticking points. For me personally, for example, I'm not sure that you can't protect your children and also write well. But I could be wrong, and in general, I like very much what D'Erasmo's saying.
And that part above: that's worth framing.
Okay, back to scrubbing, polishing, and stripping away the fat.
Unto everything there is a season--including, apparently, submissions to publishing houses, and right after Labor Day is when scads of big, exciting projects go out. Color me tickled that said agent believes THE DESIRE PROJECTS fits that bill. Fingers crossed, y'all.
However, while to most people a September 6th deadline would seem to offer leisure and luxury, school starts sooner. Numerous non-optional "retreats" (a misnomer that always kills me) begin even sooner than that, and I still have a syllabus to write and a new position--Associate Director of Ethnic Studies, yey!--to gear up for. And so, gentle readers, I've been lately immersed in the big push, and I'm trying to finish up revisions tonight. (Before Mad Men, if I'm lucky and good.)
In the little gaps between polishing new scenes and scrubbing old ones, I've been thinking about the vexed relationship among political mandates, ideology, and writing--and by writing, I mean writing as art, not writing as opinion pieces or rhetorical arguments or book reviews or blog posts, but as The Real Thing, the kind we sit down to make with our hearts in our hands. I've been thinking about the difficult, ongoing necessity of carving out a safe, protected space for that kind of writing, a space for it to be what it wants to be, rather than to fulfill our agenda for it.
If that makes half an ounce of sense.
This passage, from an essay called, "The Long Haul" by Stacy D'Erasmo, is vastly clearer on the topic, and it seems worth quoting in full:
Oh, thank you, Stacy. I love that.. . . I have also begun to believe that the writer who continues to write, and to write well, to write deeply, often finds that she quietly, year by year, constructs a system of values that is by nature resistant. It’s not that one sets out to do this, exactly; but it happens, it accretes, as the choices the world offers inevitably arise. It may begin as an uncomfortable awareness, a prickling, even a sinking feeling. But you know it. You see the deal. You hesitate, almost wishing you didn’t know what you know, which is something along these lines: You cannot continue to write well if you believe that money is the measure of a person’s worth. You cannot continue to write well if you believe that critical consensus is the measure of an artist’s worth. You cannot continue to write well if you are protecting your family, your children, your community, or your social position. You cannot continue to write well if you don’t believe in the value of art as such—as itself—not in the service of some greater cause or system or set of beliefs, whether those beliefs fall to the right or the left or rise to the more spiritual realms above. You can write well without money, without praise, without social or political approval—you might not be that happy or look that great, but you can do it—but if your writing is essentially obedient to any of these powerful forces, its light will slowly flicker and then go out.
Resist. Be true. Don't write agitprop, no matter how noble the goal. "[I]f your writing is essentially obedient to any of these powerful forces, its light will slowly flicker and then go out."
I don't want that for my work, and I don't want it for yours. The world wants your complicated, paradoxical, messy, real art that contradicts itself and contradicts you and every unimpeachable view you'd cop to at a dinner party. Go ahead. Contain multitudes. The water's fine.
The rest of the essay is good, too. (Gratitude to Tayari's blog for pointing me to it.)
For example, I really like the appreciative yet knowing way in which D'Erasmo talks about her two communities: the public community of the university, which provides a necessary shelter, and the wilder, private community that nourishes, provokes, and sustains her.
I'm sure others who read the essay will find their points of connection, as well as their own sticking points. For me personally, for example, I'm not sure that you can't protect your children and also write well. But I could be wrong, and in general, I like very much what D'Erasmo's saying.
And that part above: that's worth framing.
Okay, back to scrubbing, polishing, and stripping away the fat.
Categories:
The Joy of Teaching
I am so knocked out by the talent of my former students!
Faye Rapoport DesPres's lovely, wise essay, "Up to Nothing," appears in the Summer 2010 issue of Hamilton Stone Review. Anyone who's ever cared for an elderly relative will resonate to the narrator's attempt to reconnect with her husband on a hiking trip--while dealing with the fact that they've left behind his mother, who doesn't want to be left.
Faye's essay "Forty-Six," which examines the narrator's feelings about the loss of youth, also just appeared in the marvelous online journal Ascent. Congratulations, Faye! These must be heady days for you.
It was my privilege to work with Faye when I taught at Pine Manor College in Boston, and I hear that Pine Manor MFA student Jim Kennedy's beautiful, beautiful essay "End of the Line" was a finalist in a contest at Creative Nonfiction and will soon be published in an issue of that journal.
Graduate Faye Snider's lovely essay "Goldie's Gold" was accepted recently by Alimentum, and if you're a foodie and don't know about that journal, you should definitely check it out. Hurray, Faye! I look forward to reading "Goldie's Gold" again.
By the way, I learned that Pine Manor is now offering fellowships and need-based scholarships, and I think that's kind of rare for a low-res program, so if you've considered pursuing an MFA and money has been an obstacle, you might want to check out their program. I'm no longer teaching at Pine Manor, but I love the people there and think they've got a great thing going--which is obvious from the success of their graduates!
Here in the Ph.D. program at UNL, Tom Coakley, an active-duty military officer, wrote an essay, which appeared in Fourth Genre 12:1, that contends with the impossibility of describing/critiquing things that are classified. (Most of us worry about what our mothers will think if we publish this or that. Tom worries about being court-martialed.) His Fourth Genre essay, "How to Speak about the Secret Desert Wars," is brilliant, and if you can lay your hands on it, it will knock you out. It's incisive, critical, authoritative, experimental, beautifully written. He makes art out of a hell that should never have been.
The lovely John Chávez had 3 poems in Issue 5 of Palabra. Here's one I love:
I like the way it moves so fluidly among modes prophetic, imperative, even elegiac--and casual, too ("etc."). John's vision is both tender and clear-sighted.
Aside from publishing his own work, John is actually already in the process of editing (with Carmen Giménez Smith) a collection of Latina/o writing that explores where the field is moving now. So ambitious!
What is wonderful is when you can feel it a genuine honor to work with your students: when you can admire them and learn from them as well as offer what you have. I love teaching. It is a gift.
Faye Rapoport DesPres's lovely, wise essay, "Up to Nothing," appears in the Summer 2010 issue of Hamilton Stone Review. Anyone who's ever cared for an elderly relative will resonate to the narrator's attempt to reconnect with her husband on a hiking trip--while dealing with the fact that they've left behind his mother, who doesn't want to be left.
Faye's essay "Forty-Six," which examines the narrator's feelings about the loss of youth, also just appeared in the marvelous online journal Ascent. Congratulations, Faye! These must be heady days for you.
It was my privilege to work with Faye when I taught at Pine Manor College in Boston, and I hear that Pine Manor MFA student Jim Kennedy's beautiful, beautiful essay "End of the Line" was a finalist in a contest at Creative Nonfiction and will soon be published in an issue of that journal.
Graduate Faye Snider's lovely essay "Goldie's Gold" was accepted recently by Alimentum, and if you're a foodie and don't know about that journal, you should definitely check it out. Hurray, Faye! I look forward to reading "Goldie's Gold" again.
By the way, I learned that Pine Manor is now offering fellowships and need-based scholarships, and I think that's kind of rare for a low-res program, so if you've considered pursuing an MFA and money has been an obstacle, you might want to check out their program. I'm no longer teaching at Pine Manor, but I love the people there and think they've got a great thing going--which is obvious from the success of their graduates!
Here in the Ph.D. program at UNL, Tom Coakley, an active-duty military officer, wrote an essay, which appeared in Fourth Genre 12:1, that contends with the impossibility of describing/critiquing things that are classified. (Most of us worry about what our mothers will think if we publish this or that. Tom worries about being court-martialed.) His Fourth Genre essay, "How to Speak about the Secret Desert Wars," is brilliant, and if you can lay your hands on it, it will knock you out. It's incisive, critical, authoritative, experimental, beautifully written. He makes art out of a hell that should never have been.
The lovely John Chávez had 3 poems in Issue 5 of Palabra. Here's one I love:
Just North of Nowhere
There is only one heart in my body, have mercy on me.
--Franz Wright
Often the changes one yearns for,
one has to suffer. Unless,
waiting near the undershade, the elderberry,
the aster, etc.,
the world is close to blooming,
heart-drawn in minor notes, tuned to the open sun.
Then, how simple to assemble it all (the breaks
in the human vessel).
Like a boy gripping rain on white branches,
you will build
a reliquary in your chest.
Fill it with two watts of light.
Once filled, the moon will exit like a lullaby
from your humming rib cage's hollow.
There you will find a heart,
& waiting nightly you will sing it to sleep.
I like the way it moves so fluidly among modes prophetic, imperative, even elegiac--and casual, too ("etc."). John's vision is both tender and clear-sighted.
Aside from publishing his own work, John is actually already in the process of editing (with Carmen Giménez Smith) a collection of Latina/o writing that explores where the field is moving now. So ambitious!
What is wonderful is when you can feel it a genuine honor to work with your students: when you can admire them and learn from them as well as offer what you have. I love teaching. It is a gift.
