Ode to a Dead Salmon, our very own bad writing contest, is back this year, and we've already received our first entry. So summon your fishy muse, take a look at the guidelines, and send your best bad writing to 49writers@gmail.com by August 15. Attack that fish from any angle - fun, fanciful, political, environmental, or just plain awful. The winner gets an autographed T-shirt chosen from well-known Alaskan artist (and author!) Ray Troll's collection.
We've got one spot left in what promises to be one of the best writing events in Alaska this year: the Sept. 3-5 49 Writers Tutka Bay Retreat with David Vann. If you want to snag it (sorry - another dead fish allusion), sign up today. Questions? Email us at 49writers@gmail.com. We're also arranging Vann's Anchorage reading and book signing at Metro Books from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 2. Stay tuned, too, for word on a possible pre-retreat event with David Vann in Seldovia.
In other 49 Writers news, watch for the launching of both our new website and our fall term instructional schedule next month. And if that's not enough, we're gearing up for our next 49 Writers online book club discussion - in a week or two, we'll be asking your thoughts on which book to feature.
The Alaska Writers Conference, hosted by the Alaska Writers Guild, is coming closer, set to take place September 10th, 11th, 12th. After July 31st, the registration cost will go up $20, so visit their website and sign up!
In the second half of August, Alaskan Fiddler-Poet Ken Waldman, who says it's hard to know where's home anymore, will be in-state and making a number of appearances.
Thursday, August 19th, 1pm Concert, Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center
Monday, August 23rd, 11am Signing, Museum of the North, Fairbanks
Tuesday, August 24th, 10pm Show, Denali Salmon Bake in Denali National Park
Thursday, August 26th, 5.30pm Show, Alaska State Fair in Palmer
Friday and Saturday, August 27th and 28th Concert, Workshop and more, Wrangell Mountains Center, McCarthy
Monday August 30th, 5pm UAA Bookstore presents event at Consortium Library, UAA Campus, Anchorage
Alaska writer Clif Bates recommends this website: http://literature-map.com/. He says, 'Just type an author's name in and it will give you a map of authors of a similar/related nature. It's interesting and sometimes helps find new authors to read.'
Check out Publishers' Weekly for a story of how the self-publishing company FastPencil has been adding movers and shakers to its board of directors, developing a new imprint and recruiting established authors.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Needs a Little Work: guest post by Rich Chiappone
Thanks to Rich Chiappone, who has been our featured author this month and is also the author of this week's cover story, "Rich! Bear!" in The Anchorage Press.
Last week, in my blog titled “Will You Read My Manuscript For Me?” I encouraged writers to both give advice freely and to receive it with an open mind. It seemed like a generous and well-intended thing to write about. Today, one week after posting that I got an e-mail from a national magazine informing me that they are planning to use a story I sent them back in March. This is a very well respected, big circulation magazine that I am extremely pleased to publish in. But, it is not all good news. As if to prove the old sarcastic comment that no good deed goes unpunished, the acceptance e-mail opens with this:
Thanks for sending us your story "Special." We enjoyed reading it and would like to see it in the magazine, but it still needs a little work on your end.
Of course, what I wanted to hear was, “Don’t change a word.” What I got were suggestions for editing and revising the story. Back in the prehistoric days of the hard copy manuscripts and snail mail responses, what followed a comment like “needs a little work” was usually twelve pages of red pencil marks hacking out the excess verbiage. Today, the actual editing is often left to the writer. The editors allude to overlong writing that is “a little too much”; a character’s behavior is declared “a little hard to believe.” And so forth. There is no manuscript. There are no red pencil marks. Maybe that’s for the better. Maybe trying to guess just how little work this story needs (or more to the point, how much) will make me a better editor of my own writing in the future. We’ll see. In any case, I now have to print it out again and sharpen my own red pencil. Wish me luck.
This much-appreciated acceptance letter was waiting in my computer today when I got home from teaching in the intensive residency portion of the Masters of Fine Arts low residence program at the university in Anchorage. It’s been a wonderful week and a half. Working with grad students in creative writing is a dream come true for me. But getting this acceptance now, after spending ten days talking to students about their own attempts to publish, took me back to my years as a student –also at UAA—and reminded me of my first attempts at placing short stories in magazines, almost twenty years ago.
At that time, as I mentioned before, everything was done by mail. I printed out a story and sent it to a magazine with a self-addressed stamped envelope paper-clipped to it. Months later (that has not changed) the rejection slip or (rarely) an acceptance letter arrived in the mail. I still have the log I created to keep track of all the optimistic submittals and all the heart-breaking rejections during the four year period between 1990 and 1994, when I was a grad student at UAA.
On six faded, dog-eared (tear stained?) pages of yellow legal pad paper I have the record of that dismal and yet exhilarating time in my life. Each page has four vertical columns: on the far left hand margin the column is headed “date sent”; the next column is the title of the story; continuing across the page is the name of the magazine; in the far right hand margin the column heading has the rather cold-blooded words “date rejected.” I was a tough nut, even then (forget that stuff about tear stains; it is probably coffee or beer). Me. Tough.
The earliest date is 10/31/1990; on that day I must have been feeling particularly optimistic, or maybe just full of myself: I sent three submissions out to three separate magazines. Looking in the right hand margin, I can see they all came back rejected the following February. February always was a mean month. I revised them, put them in new envelopes and sent them out again.
According to my log, it looks like I sent out a total of thirty-nine submissions in 1991. The columns of names and submission dates cover two pages of notebook paper. The far right hand “date rejected” column has one or two notes scribbled among the infamous rejection dates --things like, “not reading until January 92” or “don’t read in summer” indicating I was not paying attention to the magazines’ submission guidelines. I was new at this. But I was getting older quickly. The file folder full of rejection slips was getting thicker. Placing fiction was not any easier then than it is now.
Halfway down the page labeled 1992, one line of writing is circled in bright red marking pen. Date sent: 2/17—Story: “Things Come to Mind”---Magazine: New Virginia Review. In the “date rejected” column the word ACCEPTED. It was my first year as a grad student. On the next page are two more of the effusive ACCEPTED’s. 1992 was a very good year. But the rejection file was really bulging now. Still, I felt like I was improving; instead of form letters and rejection slips I was now getting encouraging letters from editors telling me that although the liked my writing, they were declining to publish it.
On the next page of the submission log the output declined: fewer than twenty submissions in 1993, fewer yet in 1994. But the results were getting better; maybe I was getting better. Three ACCEPTED’s on the next page of the log: ZYZZYVA, Gray’s Sporting Journal, Sou’wester. Hardly any form rejections anymore. Nothing but warm and friendly letters saying they weren’t going to publish my story, notes asking to see more of my work.
All told, that six page submission log shows that in the four years I was in grad school I got one hundred and thirteen rejections and six publications. One hundred and thirteen. The joy of the six acceptances burned off quickly; the cold pain of the rejections lingered like late winter ice clinging to my heart. Or maybe they were like war wounds. They proved I had been in the trenches of the submission wars.
In May of 1994 I graduated from the MFA program and sold a story to Playboy a few weeks later. By then I had been recruited by a big name New York agent. Life was good: a master’s degree, an agent, national magazine publication. What could go wring?
I did not publish another story for five years. I quit saving the rejection slips; they were not badges of honor anymore. Don’t ask.
Well, that’s my walk down memory lane, sometimes known as the Valley of the Shadow of Rejection. I have to get to work on this story that has been more or less accepted. How much of the editor’s advice shall I take? How much shall I choose to ignore? If I knew the answer to that, I’d write a book about it titled Needs a Little Work.
As I said before: wish me luck. It is always needed.
Richard Chiappone, a recipient of the Robert Traver Award, is the author of the story collection Water of an Undetermined Depth. His writing has appeared in anthologies and national publications including Playboy, the Sun, and Gray’s Sporting Journal. His story, Raccoon, was made into an award winning short film, and his work has been featured on BBC Radio. A thirty-year Alaskan, Chiappone lives with his wife, Lin, and several Siamese cats on a steelhead river near Anchor Point, the westernmost point on the contiguous highway system of North America. He teaches writing for the University of Alaska and serves on the faculty of the annual Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference in the town of Homer.
Last week, in my blog titled “Will You Read My Manuscript For Me?” I encouraged writers to both give advice freely and to receive it with an open mind. It seemed like a generous and well-intended thing to write about. Today, one week after posting that I got an e-mail from a national magazine informing me that they are planning to use a story I sent them back in March. This is a very well respected, big circulation magazine that I am extremely pleased to publish in. But, it is not all good news. As if to prove the old sarcastic comment that no good deed goes unpunished, the acceptance e-mail opens with this:
Thanks for sending us your story "Special." We enjoyed reading it and would like to see it in the magazine, but it still needs a little work on your end.
Of course, what I wanted to hear was, “Don’t change a word.” What I got were suggestions for editing and revising the story. Back in the prehistoric days of the hard copy manuscripts and snail mail responses, what followed a comment like “needs a little work” was usually twelve pages of red pencil marks hacking out the excess verbiage. Today, the actual editing is often left to the writer. The editors allude to overlong writing that is “a little too much”; a character’s behavior is declared “a little hard to believe.” And so forth. There is no manuscript. There are no red pencil marks. Maybe that’s for the better. Maybe trying to guess just how little work this story needs (or more to the point, how much) will make me a better editor of my own writing in the future. We’ll see. In any case, I now have to print it out again and sharpen my own red pencil. Wish me luck.
This much-appreciated acceptance letter was waiting in my computer today when I got home from teaching in the intensive residency portion of the Masters of Fine Arts low residence program at the university in Anchorage. It’s been a wonderful week and a half. Working with grad students in creative writing is a dream come true for me. But getting this acceptance now, after spending ten days talking to students about their own attempts to publish, took me back to my years as a student –also at UAA—and reminded me of my first attempts at placing short stories in magazines, almost twenty years ago.
At that time, as I mentioned before, everything was done by mail. I printed out a story and sent it to a magazine with a self-addressed stamped envelope paper-clipped to it. Months later (that has not changed) the rejection slip or (rarely) an acceptance letter arrived in the mail. I still have the log I created to keep track of all the optimistic submittals and all the heart-breaking rejections during the four year period between 1990 and 1994, when I was a grad student at UAA.
On six faded, dog-eared (tear stained?) pages of yellow legal pad paper I have the record of that dismal and yet exhilarating time in my life. Each page has four vertical columns: on the far left hand margin the column is headed “date sent”; the next column is the title of the story; continuing across the page is the name of the magazine; in the far right hand margin the column heading has the rather cold-blooded words “date rejected.” I was a tough nut, even then (forget that stuff about tear stains; it is probably coffee or beer). Me. Tough.
The earliest date is 10/31/1990; on that day I must have been feeling particularly optimistic, or maybe just full of myself: I sent three submissions out to three separate magazines. Looking in the right hand margin, I can see they all came back rejected the following February. February always was a mean month. I revised them, put them in new envelopes and sent them out again.
According to my log, it looks like I sent out a total of thirty-nine submissions in 1991. The columns of names and submission dates cover two pages of notebook paper. The far right hand “date rejected” column has one or two notes scribbled among the infamous rejection dates --things like, “not reading until January 92” or “don’t read in summer” indicating I was not paying attention to the magazines’ submission guidelines. I was new at this. But I was getting older quickly. The file folder full of rejection slips was getting thicker. Placing fiction was not any easier then than it is now.
Halfway down the page labeled 1992, one line of writing is circled in bright red marking pen. Date sent: 2/17—Story: “Things Come to Mind”---Magazine: New Virginia Review. In the “date rejected” column the word ACCEPTED. It was my first year as a grad student. On the next page are two more of the effusive ACCEPTED’s. 1992 was a very good year. But the rejection file was really bulging now. Still, I felt like I was improving; instead of form letters and rejection slips I was now getting encouraging letters from editors telling me that although the liked my writing, they were declining to publish it.
On the next page of the submission log the output declined: fewer than twenty submissions in 1993, fewer yet in 1994. But the results were getting better; maybe I was getting better. Three ACCEPTED’s on the next page of the log: ZYZZYVA, Gray’s Sporting Journal, Sou’wester. Hardly any form rejections anymore. Nothing but warm and friendly letters saying they weren’t going to publish my story, notes asking to see more of my work.
All told, that six page submission log shows that in the four years I was in grad school I got one hundred and thirteen rejections and six publications. One hundred and thirteen. The joy of the six acceptances burned off quickly; the cold pain of the rejections lingered like late winter ice clinging to my heart. Or maybe they were like war wounds. They proved I had been in the trenches of the submission wars.
In May of 1994 I graduated from the MFA program and sold a story to Playboy a few weeks later. By then I had been recruited by a big name New York agent. Life was good: a master’s degree, an agent, national magazine publication. What could go wring?
I did not publish another story for five years. I quit saving the rejection slips; they were not badges of honor anymore. Don’t ask.
Well, that’s my walk down memory lane, sometimes known as the Valley of the Shadow of Rejection. I have to get to work on this story that has been more or less accepted. How much of the editor’s advice shall I take? How much shall I choose to ignore? If I knew the answer to that, I’d write a book about it titled Needs a Little Work.
As I said before: wish me luck. It is always needed.
Richard Chiappone, a recipient of the Robert Traver Award, is the author of the story collection Water of an Undetermined Depth. His writing has appeared in anthologies and national publications including Playboy, the Sun, and Gray’s Sporting Journal. His story, Raccoon, was made into an award winning short film, and his work has been featured on BBC Radio. A thirty-year Alaskan, Chiappone lives with his wife, Lin, and several Siamese cats on a steelhead river near Anchor Point, the westernmost point on the contiguous highway system of North America. He teaches writing for the University of Alaska and serves on the faculty of the annual Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference in the town of Homer.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Andromeda/Your Turn: Gender Thoughts and Reading Women Writers
I had dinner last night with an Alaska fiction writer -- soon-to-be-debut-novelist! (excitement) -- and we talked about many, many things. But one thing that came up was the question of whether we write more masculine or more feminine books. That's a tricky subject, and perhaps I'll be criticized for making any distinction at all. But if feminine books tend to feature smaller spaces and more domestic premises and personal issues/social conflict on the intimate scale; and if masculine books tend to feature more action and more emphasis on external events and a historical/political backdrop, then I seem to write more masculine stories. I do know for sure that I get more reader mail from men, who see themselves in the characters I've written.
I didn't plan to blog about gender as an issue, however, until I sat down this morning and decided to surf a few Alaska writer websites. The first one I checked out was UAA MFA student Erin Anais Hanson's blog, in which she was asking herself why she has so few women writers (only Willa Cather) on her favorite writers list. Many MFA students compile a required reading list, and she was sensing a gender imbalance in her own upcoming year's planned reading. With effort, she did think of Jane Austen, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, and -- the only living woman on her favorites list -- Annie Proulx. It sounds like she got help adding a few more to read this year: Toni Morrison, Nicole Krauss, and Margaret Atwood.
So, on a bleak and rainy day when reading recommendations seem fitting: What living, literary women novelists might you add to Erin's list, including writers who haven't yet made the canon?
I'll toss out a few, noticing that each one of these writers straddles the literary/commercial world in an interesting way, and each one also has an extremely non-sentimental, acerbic voice, which is perhaps why I like to read them, regardless of gender:
Meg Wolitzer, especially The Wife
Lionel Shriver, especially We Need to Talk About Kevin
Zoe Heller, especially What Was She Thinking? (Also called Notes on a Scandal)
Zadie Smith, especially White Teeth
Other thoughts?
I didn't plan to blog about gender as an issue, however, until I sat down this morning and decided to surf a few Alaska writer websites. The first one I checked out was UAA MFA student Erin Anais Hanson's blog, in which she was asking herself why she has so few women writers (only Willa Cather) on her favorite writers list. Many MFA students compile a required reading list, and she was sensing a gender imbalance in her own upcoming year's planned reading. With effort, she did think of Jane Austen, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, and -- the only living woman on her favorites list -- Annie Proulx. It sounds like she got help adding a few more to read this year: Toni Morrison, Nicole Krauss, and Margaret Atwood.
So, on a bleak and rainy day when reading recommendations seem fitting: What living, literary women novelists might you add to Erin's list, including writers who haven't yet made the canon?
I'll toss out a few, noticing that each one of these writers straddles the literary/commercial world in an interesting way, and each one also has an extremely non-sentimental, acerbic voice, which is perhaps why I like to read them, regardless of gender:
Meg Wolitzer, especially The Wife
Lionel Shriver, especially We Need to Talk About Kevin
Zoe Heller, especially What Was She Thinking? (Also called Notes on a Scandal)
Zadie Smith, especially White Teeth
Other thoughts?
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Debbie: Interview with 49 Writers volunteer Lorena Knapp
As part of our ongoing series of interviews with the outstanding 49 Writers crew, Volunteer Coordinator Debbie Moderow catches up with Lorena Knapp - no small feat, since Lorena spends a good deal of her time up in the air.
Tell us about your day job, Lorena.
I am a helicopter pilot. The view from my corner office is incredible! Last week flying across the North Slope I saw nearly 8,000 caribou migrating.
Why did you decide to volunteer at the 49 Alaska Writing Center/Raven Place?
I am currently working on my first novel. As a beginning writer I think it is important to establish a network within the local writing community. At first I was a bit intimidated to get involved since I have only recently started focusing on my writing. Everyone has been extremely welcoming and volunteering at 49Writers has been a great way for me to connect with other writers.
What's a highlight of your involvement so far?
I mostly volunteer updating the Calendar and Deadlines sidebars on the blog. I have also helped with the guesthouse. I have enjoyed becoming more proficient with blogger and html and but mostly I love feeling like I am contributing to and a part of the writing community in Alaska.
Tell us something about your own literary interests or activities.
I try to write between flights or while waiting for the weather to improve. In addition to writing, I love the outdoors and one of my favorite activities is orienteering with the Arctic Orienteering Club. I also love to travel and am planning a trip to Italy in the fall.
What's the last great book you read?
Right now I am reading last book of the Stieg Larsson series.
When you picture a writing center ten years from now, what do you imagine?
I imagine a writing center that develops mentoring relationships amongst Alaskan writers. In Alaska we are geographically spread and writing can often be a lonely endeavor. I see the Writing Center using technology to bring people together across the state to connect and develop our talents as writers.
We can always use more help at 49 Writers. Our current needs include a blog ad coordinator, a membership coordinator, and volunteers to help with upcoming local events. If you're interested in any of theses positions, or if you'd just like to add yourself to our bank of talented volunteer writers, email us at 49writers@gmail.com or fill out our volunteer form.
Tell us about your day job, Lorena.
I am a helicopter pilot. The view from my corner office is incredible! Last week flying across the North Slope I saw nearly 8,000 caribou migrating.
Why did you decide to volunteer at the 49 Alaska Writing Center/Raven Place?
I am currently working on my first novel. As a beginning writer I think it is important to establish a network within the local writing community. At first I was a bit intimidated to get involved since I have only recently started focusing on my writing. Everyone has been extremely welcoming and volunteering at 49Writers has been a great way for me to connect with other writers.
What's a highlight of your involvement so far?
I mostly volunteer updating the Calendar and Deadlines sidebars on the blog. I have also helped with the guesthouse. I have enjoyed becoming more proficient with blogger and html and but mostly I love feeling like I am contributing to and a part of the writing community in Alaska.
Tell us something about your own literary interests or activities.
I try to write between flights or while waiting for the weather to improve. In addition to writing, I love the outdoors and one of my favorite activities is orienteering with the Arctic Orienteering Club. I also love to travel and am planning a trip to Italy in the fall.
What's the last great book you read?
Right now I am reading last book of the Stieg Larsson series.
When you picture a writing center ten years from now, what do you imagine?
I imagine a writing center that develops mentoring relationships amongst Alaskan writers. In Alaska we are geographically spread and writing can often be a lonely endeavor. I see the Writing Center using technology to bring people together across the state to connect and develop our talents as writers.
We can always use more help at 49 Writers. Our current needs include a blog ad coordinator, a membership coordinator, and volunteers to help with upcoming local events. If you're interested in any of theses positions, or if you'd just like to add yourself to our bank of talented volunteer writers, email us at 49writers@gmail.com or fill out our volunteer form.
Monday, July 26, 2010
It's back!!! The 49 Writers Ode to a Dead Salmon bad writing contest
Summer's in full swing, the fish are running, and you know what that means: our hugely popular "Ode to a Dead Salmon" bad writing contest is back. Take a look at last year's finalists, sharpen your pencils and follow that smell. We want your best worst writing.
The idea for the contest came from our interview with Alaska's Writer Laureate Nancy Lord. When Andromeda asked why she didn't immediately write about her Alaskan experiences, Nancy said, "I think I was scared off, years ago, by something John Haines wrote in “The Writer as Alaskan”: a kind of condemnation that new-comers to Alaska always mined the same myths, 'odes to dead salmon,' and that it would take generations to develop a worthy Alaskan literature. I’d written a few odes to dead salmon and knew that I needed to get beyond the obvious."
Last year we got bad writing from all over the world. We posted it all and let our readers vote. Our winner got some great press, including a write-up in Alaska Magazine.
Now it's time to do it all over again. We want your best tongue-in-cheek "Ode to a Dead Salmon" bad Alaskan writing, poetry or prose, fiction or non. We'll publish all entries at http://www.alaskanauthors.com/ so the world can read them, and we'll post the finalists here at 49 Writers. And yes, famed and fishy Alaskan artist Ray Troll has once again offered an autographed T-shirt of choice to our winner. But the main goal, of course, is to have fun.
The rules:
1. Entries must conform to our editorial policy.
2. We need your real name and real email address. If you want your entry to be posted under a pseudonym or left anonymous, make that clear in your email.
3. No more than three entries per person.
4. No more than 800 words per entry (shorter is just fine with us: limerick, haiku, opening lines). 5. Entries must be your own original work.
6. You keep the copyright, of course, but by entering you're giving us permission to post.
7. This is our contest. We make the rules (that's the beauty of blogging, folks), and the rules may change as we see fit. We'll let you know if they do.
8. All entries must be emailed to 49writers@gmail.com by midnight on August 15.
The idea for the contest came from our interview with Alaska's Writer Laureate Nancy Lord. When Andromeda asked why she didn't immediately write about her Alaskan experiences, Nancy said, "I think I was scared off, years ago, by something John Haines wrote in “The Writer as Alaskan”: a kind of condemnation that new-comers to Alaska always mined the same myths, 'odes to dead salmon,' and that it would take generations to develop a worthy Alaskan literature. I’d written a few odes to dead salmon and knew that I needed to get beyond the obvious."
Last year we got bad writing from all over the world. We posted it all and let our readers vote. Our winner got some great press, including a write-up in Alaska Magazine.
Now it's time to do it all over again. We want your best tongue-in-cheek "Ode to a Dead Salmon" bad Alaskan writing, poetry or prose, fiction or non. We'll publish all entries at http://www.alaskanauthors.com/ so the world can read them, and we'll post the finalists here at 49 Writers. And yes, famed and fishy Alaskan artist Ray Troll has once again offered an autographed T-shirt of choice to our winner. But the main goal, of course, is to have fun.
The rules:
1. Entries must conform to our editorial policy.
2. We need your real name and real email address. If you want your entry to be posted under a pseudonym or left anonymous, make that clear in your email.
3. No more than three entries per person.
4. No more than 800 words per entry (shorter is just fine with us: limerick, haiku, opening lines). 5. Entries must be your own original work.
6. You keep the copyright, of course, but by entering you're giving us permission to post.
7. This is our contest. We make the rules (that's the beauty of blogging, folks), and the rules may change as we see fit. We'll let you know if they do.
8. All entries must be emailed to 49writers@gmail.com by midnight on August 15.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Ela: 49 Writers Weekly Round-up
We're on the homestretch for registration for the writing retreat with acclaimed author David Vann at Tutka Bay Lodge. Only three of 17 spots remain. Decision time!
Last Friday, we shared the news that our 415 L. Street facility is being sold and we'll be moving on Nov. 1. That's all we knew a week ago, but what a difference seven days make. We researched a slew of locations, talked with some organizations, convened an advisory committee to discuss, and are very happy to say that we have a number of excellent options available, with one we're particularly excited about (if you don't mind waiting just a couple weeks more while we hammer out the details and get Board approval on the final decision). We still look forward to enjoying our 415 L. Street facility with you in September and October, but as at least one advisory committee member told us, "Raven Place" is wherever we are -- meaning all of us, plus the events and upcoming classes we're so excited about. (We knew there was a reason we picked a mobile bird as a mascot -- and a trickster at that!) We've told you once and plan to tell you many more times: good things keep happening in large part because of the good work already done -- by volunteers, supporters, blog participants, and so on. Thanks again for being such an inspiring bunch of people.
The Alaska Book Festival presents a Poetry Panel on Wednesday, July 28 at 7pm in the Schaible Auditorium on the UAF Campus in Fairbanks. Peggy Shumaker will moderate a panel of poets - Derek Burleson, Cindy Hardy, Jeanne Clark - in a discussion of Alaska's best poetry collections.
The editors of F Magazine thank everyone for their submissions and will announce acceptances within the week. The deadline for September's submissions is August 10th. The theme is 'The Things We Lose.' For October, the theme will be 'Learning a Craft,' November will be 'Altered States,' and December, 'Villains, Scoundrels and Low Down Dirty Bastards.' They request submissions by email attachment in word.doc format. Title the document with genre_Month_Last Name format. Submit to Teeka Ballas at artzineF@gmail.com, unless you're submitting poetry, in which case submit to Bruce Farnsworth at whenpoetsfly@hotmail.com.
Juneau writer Geoff Kirsch publishes a column every second week in the Juneau Empire. This week's offering is a wry look at the writer-as-handyman and the built-in obsolescence of household plumbing.
The Alaska Writers Guild will also be hosting the 2010 Alaska Writers’ Conference – mark your calendars for September 10th, 11th, 12th. See their website for latest information and to sign up.
Since 1965, the Pacific Northwest Book Association has presented an annual award to recognize excellent new books published in the region. If you're a publicist or publisher, it's not too late to nominate a book: nominations close October 29th - see the Awards page on their website for full details. But while you're there, check out their list of nominees for 2011 - Alaskans are well-represented by Kiyo and Tomi Marsh and Laura Cooper's 'Fishes and Dishes Cookbook,' Charles Wohlforth's
'The Fate of Nature
' and Lynn Schooler's 'Walking Home
.' A great list all round besides that - worth a look for some intriguing titles.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Will You Read My Manuscript? A guest post by Rich Chiappone
OK, I am not making this up: one minute ago, today July 16, at about 10:15 AM, I climbed into my comfortable writing chair, here in my dorm room at UAA intending to write this week’s blog on the subject of giving advice to newer writers who ask me to read there work. I had just typed in the title, “Will You Read My Manuscript For Me?” when my cell phone rang, showing a strange number from an unfamiliar area code. I swear to God, it was a former student asking me to critique her novel in progress.
I’m here in a dorm room on campus because I’ve spent the week serving on the faculty of the Master’s of Fine Art’s degree program offered by the University of Alaska Anchorage. It is our third annual intensive residency. If you are not familiar with a low residency program see Andromeda’s recent entries on the subject. In a nutshell, it works like this: grad students seeking a MFA degree in creative writing come from all over the country and spend two weeks each summer on campus attending daily classes and lectures and workshops, and nightly readings by faculty and guest authors. Over the winter each student works with a faculty mentor via e-mail or other electronic means. In other words, it is my job to give advice to new writers.
But that phone call came from a person I haven’t seen in a few years, an acquaintance from the town of Homer, where I live. This sort of thing happens to writers all the time. This is not a complaint. Not at all. It is flattering to think that someone values your opinion on writing –presumably because she has read and liked something you’ve written. It’s like a dinner guest asking for your eggplant parmesan recipe.
They are saying, taste my eggplant dish and tell me what you think it needs. Or, “What is your recipe for writing the kind of book you wrote?” Here in the MFA program, the advice-giving is very structured, codified: students are required to submit so many pages per semester, and the mentor is expected to respond in a reasonable amount of time… and so forth. It is a contract. Although we mentors all learn a great deal in the process ourselves, the actual advice-giving is, by necessity, mostly a one way street. At the end of the three years, the student should be able to offer professional advice to others too. We take this seriously.
But, what I‘d like to talk about and hopefully encourage is an exchange of opinions and advice about writing not just between published authors and their college students but between and among all writers, however experienced. Creative writing classes and programs are only one model of the learning process, and not for everyone. But a writing group is something everybody should have for both altruistic reasons and selfish ones too. Think of it this way: you want to exchange recipes and cooking tips with friends who love to cook because not only will their tips make you a better chef, but you will end up eating their cooking too and you want to be as good as it can be. You should share your writing advice with friends for the same reasons: to improve your own and because you want them to write delicious books. Every writer should have a group of peers who willingly share their recipes. Giving advice, getting advice, and knowing when to ignore advice are essential parts of becoming a professional writer.
Here are some admittedly brief suggestions about sharing writing advice with friends.
1. On choosing your writing friends
Conventional wisdom would seem to dictate that you surround yourself with far better writers than yourself, in order to drain as much brilliance off them as you can. But, although it is important to read the great masters of the canon and good books of all kinds (I say, “Read the best books you can stomach”) you can sometimes benefit more from struggling through a friend’s craft problems than by reading nothing but the near perfect prose of geniuses (medical students can’t learn much from healthy people). And there is something reassuring about sharing ideas that make sense to you: sharing your insights with another writer who has not yet mastered that particular element of the craft. Also, you will often be surprised to find that a friend who may be a very new and raw writer is an extremely sophisticated and wise reader. Welcome the input of every single reader you can get –however skilled or unskilled a writer that person may be.
2. On giving advice.
Never turn down a chance to edit or critique another writer’s work. (The acquaintance who called me just as I sat down to write this, handed me her flash drive last night at my public reading here on campus; I will get back to her with comments in a month or so.) Remember the old adage: the best way to learn something is by teaching it to someone else. Beware, however. It is relatively relaxing and enjoyable to edit a friend’s story (compared to wrestling with your own writer’s block for example), because you have nothing invested in that story. On the other hand, you risk everything, with every sentence of your own work (hence the writer’s block). Helping your friends can become a convenient excuse not to work on your own writing. I could write a book about that subject, but I’m too busy at the moment.
There is no space here to spell out guidelines for editing and critiquing other people’s work. That’s a whole ‘nother thing, as they say. But, briefly, be gentle with your friend and her feelings, but unmerciful with the manuscript. That is a hard thing to do. A couple days ago I brought into a class some samples of what professional magazine editors had done to my manuscripts to get them into shape to publish them. The pages were crisscrossed with red pencil marks. The editors had slashed out unneeded word, sentences, sometimes whole paragraphs. Then I asked my students to take a page from something they had written. I told them to black out the name on the page. I shuffled the unnamed pages and handed them back randomly, asking them to each imagine being an editor about to publish the piece, and to edit the page. There was an awful lot of silent slashing going on for the next few minutes. The students were startled, even horrified to realize how brutal they became when they did not know whose page they were editing. They’ve only been together here on campus or a week, and already they are hesitant to crush their new friends’ feelings. That’s good. No one wants that. But out there in the larger world, the world of publishing, most of the editors, agents and other gatekeepers who decide whether your work lives in public (that’s where “publishing” comes from) or dies in the rejection pile, do not know you.
So, be uncommonly nice to your writing group members every day in every way you can. Life is short and you need as many friends as you can get. But do not be foolishly kind to their manuscripts. You will not be doing your friends any favors with that.
3. Ignoring advice.
Last month at the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference , bestselling novelist Karen Joy Fowler got up to read from her historical novel Sarah Canary. She explained that the story, set in the nineteenth century in Puget Sound, is a traditional drama, but with the narrative constantly interrupted by long passages of historical fact. One reviewer called it a combination novel and history lesson. Karen told the audience at Alice’s Champagne Palace in Homer that she was going to read one of those historical, factual sections. Then she stopped and smiled and said, “My writing group was unanimous in the opinion that these interruptions killed the flow of the story. They said that I should get rid of all of them. I chose to ignore that advice. “
That takes a lot of nerve, and for Karen Joy Fowler, it paid off with a successful book. On the other hand, a number of years ago a someone asked me to look her novel manuscript. I suggested a major change in point of view for very specific reasons. Upon getting my advice the author dispiritedly said, “That’s exactly what Nat Sobel told me too. But I I’m not going to do all that rewriting.” I asked if she meant Nat Sobel of the Sobel and Weber Literary Agency-- Richard Russo’s agent and a major player in the publishing world. She said, yes. I was astounded. I mean, when your local small town writing instructor tells you he thinks your novel should be completely re-written, it’s one thing to decline that advice. But when your local small town writing instructor AND Nat Sobel, a huge literary agent both tell you to do exactly the same thing for exactly the same reasons, it is more than a coincidence. You might consider that they could be right. In the long run, that writer kept looking for someone to tell her it was fine the way it was –she probably still is. I understand. We all want to hear the same thing when we give someone our work: “Don’t change a word.”
My advice is, don’t trust anyone who tells you that.
Richard Chiappone, a recipient of the Robert Traver Award, is the author of the story collection Water of an Undetermined Depth. His writing has appeared in anthologies and national publications including Playboy, the Sun, and Gray’s Sporting Journal. His story, Raccoon, was made into an award winning short film, and his work has been featured on BBC Radio. A thirty-year Alaskan, Chiappone lives with his wife, Lin, and several Siamese cats on a steelhead river near Anchor Point, the westernmost point on the contiguous highway system of North America. He teaches writing for the University of Alaska and serves on the faculty of the annual Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference in the town of Homer.
I’m here in a dorm room on campus because I’ve spent the week serving on the faculty of the Master’s of Fine Art’s degree program offered by the University of Alaska Anchorage. It is our third annual intensive residency. If you are not familiar with a low residency program see Andromeda’s recent entries on the subject. In a nutshell, it works like this: grad students seeking a MFA degree in creative writing come from all over the country and spend two weeks each summer on campus attending daily classes and lectures and workshops, and nightly readings by faculty and guest authors. Over the winter each student works with a faculty mentor via e-mail or other electronic means. In other words, it is my job to give advice to new writers.
But that phone call came from a person I haven’t seen in a few years, an acquaintance from the town of Homer, where I live. This sort of thing happens to writers all the time. This is not a complaint. Not at all. It is flattering to think that someone values your opinion on writing –presumably because she has read and liked something you’ve written. It’s like a dinner guest asking for your eggplant parmesan recipe.
They are saying, taste my eggplant dish and tell me what you think it needs. Or, “What is your recipe for writing the kind of book you wrote?” Here in the MFA program, the advice-giving is very structured, codified: students are required to submit so many pages per semester, and the mentor is expected to respond in a reasonable amount of time… and so forth. It is a contract. Although we mentors all learn a great deal in the process ourselves, the actual advice-giving is, by necessity, mostly a one way street. At the end of the three years, the student should be able to offer professional advice to others too. We take this seriously.
But, what I‘d like to talk about and hopefully encourage is an exchange of opinions and advice about writing not just between published authors and their college students but between and among all writers, however experienced. Creative writing classes and programs are only one model of the learning process, and not for everyone. But a writing group is something everybody should have for both altruistic reasons and selfish ones too. Think of it this way: you want to exchange recipes and cooking tips with friends who love to cook because not only will their tips make you a better chef, but you will end up eating their cooking too and you want to be as good as it can be. You should share your writing advice with friends for the same reasons: to improve your own and because you want them to write delicious books. Every writer should have a group of peers who willingly share their recipes. Giving advice, getting advice, and knowing when to ignore advice are essential parts of becoming a professional writer.
Here are some admittedly brief suggestions about sharing writing advice with friends.
1. On choosing your writing friends
Conventional wisdom would seem to dictate that you surround yourself with far better writers than yourself, in order to drain as much brilliance off them as you can. But, although it is important to read the great masters of the canon and good books of all kinds (I say, “Read the best books you can stomach”) you can sometimes benefit more from struggling through a friend’s craft problems than by reading nothing but the near perfect prose of geniuses (medical students can’t learn much from healthy people). And there is something reassuring about sharing ideas that make sense to you: sharing your insights with another writer who has not yet mastered that particular element of the craft. Also, you will often be surprised to find that a friend who may be a very new and raw writer is an extremely sophisticated and wise reader. Welcome the input of every single reader you can get –however skilled or unskilled a writer that person may be.
2. On giving advice.
Never turn down a chance to edit or critique another writer’s work. (The acquaintance who called me just as I sat down to write this, handed me her flash drive last night at my public reading here on campus; I will get back to her with comments in a month or so.) Remember the old adage: the best way to learn something is by teaching it to someone else. Beware, however. It is relatively relaxing and enjoyable to edit a friend’s story (compared to wrestling with your own writer’s block for example), because you have nothing invested in that story. On the other hand, you risk everything, with every sentence of your own work (hence the writer’s block). Helping your friends can become a convenient excuse not to work on your own writing. I could write a book about that subject, but I’m too busy at the moment.
There is no space here to spell out guidelines for editing and critiquing other people’s work. That’s a whole ‘nother thing, as they say. But, briefly, be gentle with your friend and her feelings, but unmerciful with the manuscript. That is a hard thing to do. A couple days ago I brought into a class some samples of what professional magazine editors had done to my manuscripts to get them into shape to publish them. The pages were crisscrossed with red pencil marks. The editors had slashed out unneeded word, sentences, sometimes whole paragraphs. Then I asked my students to take a page from something they had written. I told them to black out the name on the page. I shuffled the unnamed pages and handed them back randomly, asking them to each imagine being an editor about to publish the piece, and to edit the page. There was an awful lot of silent slashing going on for the next few minutes. The students were startled, even horrified to realize how brutal they became when they did not know whose page they were editing. They’ve only been together here on campus or a week, and already they are hesitant to crush their new friends’ feelings. That’s good. No one wants that. But out there in the larger world, the world of publishing, most of the editors, agents and other gatekeepers who decide whether your work lives in public (that’s where “publishing” comes from) or dies in the rejection pile, do not know you.
So, be uncommonly nice to your writing group members every day in every way you can. Life is short and you need as many friends as you can get. But do not be foolishly kind to their manuscripts. You will not be doing your friends any favors with that.
3. Ignoring advice.
Last month at the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference , bestselling novelist Karen Joy Fowler got up to read from her historical novel Sarah Canary. She explained that the story, set in the nineteenth century in Puget Sound, is a traditional drama, but with the narrative constantly interrupted by long passages of historical fact. One reviewer called it a combination novel and history lesson. Karen told the audience at Alice’s Champagne Palace in Homer that she was going to read one of those historical, factual sections. Then she stopped and smiled and said, “My writing group was unanimous in the opinion that these interruptions killed the flow of the story. They said that I should get rid of all of them. I chose to ignore that advice. “
That takes a lot of nerve, and for Karen Joy Fowler, it paid off with a successful book. On the other hand, a number of years ago a someone asked me to look her novel manuscript. I suggested a major change in point of view for very specific reasons. Upon getting my advice the author dispiritedly said, “That’s exactly what Nat Sobel told me too. But I I’m not going to do all that rewriting.” I asked if she meant Nat Sobel of the Sobel and Weber Literary Agency-- Richard Russo’s agent and a major player in the publishing world. She said, yes. I was astounded. I mean, when your local small town writing instructor tells you he thinks your novel should be completely re-written, it’s one thing to decline that advice. But when your local small town writing instructor AND Nat Sobel, a huge literary agent both tell you to do exactly the same thing for exactly the same reasons, it is more than a coincidence. You might consider that they could be right. In the long run, that writer kept looking for someone to tell her it was fine the way it was –she probably still is. I understand. We all want to hear the same thing when we give someone our work: “Don’t change a word.”
My advice is, don’t trust anyone who tells you that.
Richard Chiappone, a recipient of the Robert Traver Award, is the author of the story collection Water of an Undetermined Depth. His writing has appeared in anthologies and national publications including Playboy, the Sun, and Gray’s Sporting Journal. His story, Raccoon, was made into an award winning short film, and his work has been featured on BBC Radio. A thirty-year Alaskan, Chiappone lives with his wife, Lin, and several Siamese cats on a steelhead river near Anchor Point, the westernmost point on the contiguous highway system of North America. He teaches writing for the University of Alaska and serves on the faculty of the annual Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference in the town of Homer.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Andromeda/Your Turn: The Perfect Book
Oh, it's been a long time since we've played "Your Turn," and my eyeballs are so deep into emails and various less-creative things that I can't even write a well-crafted blogpost. But I can hope the rest of you are out there doing summery things -- and reading wonderful books -- perhaps even books so wonderful you'd like to mention them to others.
So, tell me: 1) what good book have you read lately? and 2) what's a perfect book for you? and/or 3) have you read anything lately that you had meant to read for a long, long, long time (and why did it take so long)?
I'll pick one that fits all three categories. I'm finally reading Nabokov's Lolita, a book that I have tried to read parts of and set down at various times due to my discomfort with the starting premise (oh -- just graphic pedophilia, that's all; I danced around this by reading other fiction and nonfiction by Mr. VN, knowing all the while that Lolita is the one that really counts).
But once I got past the opening -- I'm now only at the midpoint -- I'm starting to think this may fit into my perfect or almost-perfect book category. What do I mean by perfect? High degree of difficulty (in this case, an unlikeable narrator doing despicable things) -- which only makes the other elements even more astounding; startling use of language; an innovative voice and complete control of narration; but also plot and tension, twists and turns, proving that literature need not be dull. Lots of humor thrown in as well.
When a book I didn't even want to like turns out this good, it's a perfect -- or nearly-perfect -- book.
But of course, I'm only at the midpoint.
Anyone else?
So, tell me: 1) what good book have you read lately? and 2) what's a perfect book for you? and/or 3) have you read anything lately that you had meant to read for a long, long, long time (and why did it take so long)?
I'll pick one that fits all three categories. I'm finally reading Nabokov's Lolita, a book that I have tried to read parts of and set down at various times due to my discomfort with the starting premise (oh -- just graphic pedophilia, that's all; I danced around this by reading other fiction and nonfiction by Mr. VN, knowing all the while that Lolita is the one that really counts).
But once I got past the opening -- I'm now only at the midpoint -- I'm starting to think this may fit into my perfect or almost-perfect book category. What do I mean by perfect? High degree of difficulty (in this case, an unlikeable narrator doing despicable things) -- which only makes the other elements even more astounding; startling use of language; an innovative voice and complete control of narration; but also plot and tension, twists and turns, proving that literature need not be dull. Lots of humor thrown in as well.
When a book I didn't even want to like turns out this good, it's a perfect -- or nearly-perfect -- book.
But of course, I'm only at the midpoint.
Anyone else?
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Writer in Line at the Post Office: a guest post by Don Rearden
A few weeks ago, while I stood in line at our local post office, I couldn’t help but weigh the significance of the moment. I’d waited in line at post offices all over Alaska, but never before did I hold a yellow slip with so much weight to it. This moment was different from those times of waiting to pick a bush order of food or an Amazon order of books and CD’s. This moment also differed from those other rare occasions when I’d be waiting in line to send off a manuscript or screenplay to someone far away that insisted on a paper copy over a digital draft.
This was one of those moments in the line at the post office that I hadn’t heard other writers discuss and I hadn’t given much thought about how emotional or powerful such a moment could be. Heck, this was even bigger than my memory of standing at the door of the little old postal shack in Akiak while waiting for Mrs. Jackson to hand me a box of Sees chocolates and other treasures not available in the village my grandparents had shipped up to us from Montana.
The shipper’s name on the yellow slip read: Canada.
Inside the parcel would be advanced readers copies (or as I’ve learned they call them ARCS in the business) of my novel The Raven’s Gift a book that I’ve spent the last three years of my life working on and the other thirty-three years of my life dreaming about the day I would hold my first book.
The line was beyond glacial, but I’m a patient person. I’d waited my life for this moment. I could wait a bit longer.
When the postal worker waived me forward I stepped up to the counter with gusto. In minutes I would be out in my car tearing open the box and finally getting to hold a real life copy of my novel. Would I cry? Would I shout? Would I do a little dance, right there in the parking lot?
Strange thoughts followed those questions.
I thought about the work ahead. Who would I send the copies to? How would I secure some great blurbs? I worried. I fretted. What if people don’t get it? What if readers didn’t like the characters or the story? What will readers think about me? Worse yet, what if no one reads the darn thing?
The postal worker returned empty handed. “The package is still with the carrier,” she said, “you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
I thought about Seth’s Kantner’s essay in Shopping For Porcupine where the Inupiaq postman delivers bad news with two short words, “Too Bat!” (Too bad!)
Stunned, I had no response. I took my yellow slip back and shuffled out of the post office like a sad little boy with no mail from his grandparents. No dancing. No crying. No transformative literary moment.
I’d waited my life for that moment, and I had no choice but to wait a bit longer.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Andromeda and Deb: 415 L Street to be sold; why we're looking forward with optimism
Friday we got the news: our landlord has signed an agreement to sell, which means we’ll need to vacate 415 L St. by November 1. While we didn’t expect this to happen so fast, we’re not totally taken aback – or even dismayed - by this development. The guesthouse has been a wonderful rallying point for the 49 Alaska Writing Center, and it has also been – thanks to the involvement of volunteers, members, and the general public – a fabulous fundraiser. Assuming we’re able to recoup costs as we expect to, we should – just through mid-September - net $8777 on our efforts from the guesthouse alone. That’s more than we could have dreamed with any other four-month fund-raiser.
Now we look toward the future. Ideally, we’d like to forward recommendations about our next facilities decision to our Board by mid-August. To that end, we’ve quickly assembled a short-term working group – a special projects committee – to help us research and sort through various options. Committee members include people who made an early commitment to the L Street facility as volunteers and guesthouse maintenance/management, as well as individuals who plan to instruct with the writing center this fall, and who may have information to share about physical space needs and preferences. We are aiming to be as inclusive as possible, while not growing this committee too large to be effective.
We still plan to have community-wide online planning and development meetings in August, so if you have broader writing center input you’d like to share, please stay tuned for that opportunity. Having said that, please don’t feel the need to wait. If you have a thought to share about the specific issue of a future physical space, write to Deb and Andromeda at 49writers@gmail.com. We’ll share all comments, concerns, and ideas with our working committee and our Board.
Finally: Does this mean we won’t be utilizing the L Street facility this fall? Not at all. September and October promise to be packed – as will November, in a new location. As a writing center, we are planning an exciting reading/event in Anchorage with David Vann on September 2 – don’t miss it. We’ll also be starting our lineup of instructional offerings, with full details of multiple clinics, workshops, and classes coming in August. As a guesthouse, we also have quite a few early fall bookings, which doesn’t hurt our bottom line. Even with change on the horizon, this autumn promises to be a creative and energizing time. We look forward to enjoying it with you!
Now we look toward the future. Ideally, we’d like to forward recommendations about our next facilities decision to our Board by mid-August. To that end, we’ve quickly assembled a short-term working group – a special projects committee – to help us research and sort through various options. Committee members include people who made an early commitment to the L Street facility as volunteers and guesthouse maintenance/management, as well as individuals who plan to instruct with the writing center this fall, and who may have information to share about physical space needs and preferences. We are aiming to be as inclusive as possible, while not growing this committee too large to be effective.
We still plan to have community-wide online planning and development meetings in August, so if you have broader writing center input you’d like to share, please stay tuned for that opportunity. Having said that, please don’t feel the need to wait. If you have a thought to share about the specific issue of a future physical space, write to Deb and Andromeda at 49writers@gmail.com. We’ll share all comments, concerns, and ideas with our working committee and our Board.
Finally: Does this mean we won’t be utilizing the L Street facility this fall? Not at all. September and October promise to be packed – as will November, in a new location. As a writing center, we are planning an exciting reading/event in Anchorage with David Vann on September 2 – don’t miss it. We’ll also be starting our lineup of instructional offerings, with full details of multiple clinics, workshops, and classes coming in August. As a guesthouse, we also have quite a few early fall bookings, which doesn’t hurt our bottom line. Even with change on the horizon, this autumn promises to be a creative and energizing time. We look forward to enjoying it with you!
Friday, July 16, 2010
Ela: 49 Writers Weekly Round-up
Another week of summer just flooded by! Around the corner is fall, when we'll kick off our 49 Writers instruction season with an intensive writing retreat with acclaimed author David Vann Sept. 3-5 at Tutka Bay Lodge. Only a handful of slots remain, so if you plan to attend, register today. And if you or a fellow writer or artist is looking for an affordable, mission-focused this fall or winter, look no farther than our own Raven Place, where rates for writers on retreat begin at just $481 per week (less 10% for 49 Writers members!)
I hope as many of you as possible are enjoying the delightful banquet of nightly readings this week (and next!), offered as part of the UAA MFA program summer residency. Saturday night features a new departure, with a theatrical reading of work by Zack Rogow. On Sunday, we'll be treated to Nancy Lord and Valerie Miner. The grand finales on Monday and Tuesday feature three renowned Alaskan writers apiece: Anne Caston, Rich Chiappone and Sherry Simpson on Monday, and Jo-Ann Mapson, Derick Burleson and David Stevenson on Tuesday. The Anthology Cold Flashes,
edited by Michael Engelhard and featuring work by several UAA MFA students, will be on sale after the readings each night.
A new resource for writers keen to keep pace with publishing news has been launched this week: check out PWxyz from Publishers Weekly. It is a new blog dedicated to up-to-the-minute publishing news, news about authors, publishing houses, e-books and e-readers, and analysis of book news from all over the internet. It will be updated throughout each day, and edited by PW's senior editor, Craig Morgan Teicher.
The Alaska State Council on the Arts' Artists In Schools Programs' Teaching Artist roster is open for applications! They have moved to an open application process, reviewed twice-yearly. Applications received by September 1st will be reviewed in September; applications received between September 1st and February 1st will be reviewed in February. See their website for guidelines and application forms.
On Saturday July 31st, 9am-6pm, there will be a workshop titled Exploring the Sacred - Creative Work as Spiritual Practice at Yoga in the Valley, mile 3.5, Palmer Fishhook Rd. Presented by Julie LeMay, Tammy Moser, Penne Chemielewski. This day-long retreat will focus on a 'mindfulness' approach to creative writing, along with yoga, dance and watercolor painting. Cost is $75. See http://www.yogainthevalley.com/ for details.
Here is advance warning for an opportunity to hear our Writer Laureate, Nancy Lord, in residency at Denali National Park August 9-18. On August 18th, she will offer a public program at 7.30pm, held at the Denali Education Center.
I hope as many of you as possible are enjoying the delightful banquet of nightly readings this week (and next!), offered as part of the UAA MFA program summer residency. Saturday night features a new departure, with a theatrical reading of work by Zack Rogow. On Sunday, we'll be treated to Nancy Lord and Valerie Miner. The grand finales on Monday and Tuesday feature three renowned Alaskan writers apiece: Anne Caston, Rich Chiappone and Sherry Simpson on Monday, and Jo-Ann Mapson, Derick Burleson and David Stevenson on Tuesday. The Anthology Cold Flashes,
edited by Michael Engelhard and featuring work by several UAA MFA students, will be on sale after the readings each night.A new resource for writers keen to keep pace with publishing news has been launched this week: check out PWxyz from Publishers Weekly. It is a new blog dedicated to up-to-the-minute publishing news, news about authors, publishing houses, e-books and e-readers, and analysis of book news from all over the internet. It will be updated throughout each day, and edited by PW's senior editor, Craig Morgan Teicher.
The Alaska State Council on the Arts' Artists In Schools Programs' Teaching Artist roster is open for applications! They have moved to an open application process, reviewed twice-yearly. Applications received by September 1st will be reviewed in September; applications received between September 1st and February 1st will be reviewed in February. See their website for guidelines and application forms.
On Saturday July 31st, 9am-6pm, there will be a workshop titled Exploring the Sacred - Creative Work as Spiritual Practice at Yoga in the Valley, mile 3.5, Palmer Fishhook Rd. Presented by Julie LeMay, Tammy Moser, Penne Chemielewski. This day-long retreat will focus on a 'mindfulness' approach to creative writing, along with yoga, dance and watercolor painting. Cost is $75. See http://www.yogainthevalley.com/ for details.
Here is advance warning for an opportunity to hear our Writer Laureate, Nancy Lord, in residency at Denali National Park August 9-18. On August 18th, she will offer a public program at 7.30pm, held at the Denali Education Center.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Andromeda: MFA highlights and the perils of workshopping, with thoughts on Jeffrey Eugenides
I returned from my first MFA residency two weeks ago, but haven’t blogged about it: in part because we have so many great contributors who fill our pages; in part because I’m still processing what I experienced; in part because too much happened to cover in a single blogpost of reasonable length.
(So she explained, before proceeding to write a post of unreasonable length.... You have been warned.)
Glimpses hardly suffice, but I'll start with faculty member Hope Edelman reminding us, in a seminar on exposition in nonfiction: “You get no credit whatsoever for living.” In other words, it’s all in the writing. Even if you had a Hollywood-quality bad childhood; even if you survived an Antarctica expedition that turned into a cannibalistic nightmare (lucky you!), it’s the selection and organization and creation of meaning that matters. When someone intent on writing memoir has had something unusual or terrible happen, we sometimes find ourselves thinking, “Wow – this writer has it made.” As if the work is half done. It isn’t. In fact, our unusual or dramatic experiences may lengthen the writer’s road, delaying the realization that only great writing – only craft – will serve us in the end. You get no credit whatsoever for living.
(So she explained, before proceeding to write a post of unreasonable length.... You have been warned.)
Glimpses hardly suffice, but I'll start with faculty member Hope Edelman reminding us, in a seminar on exposition in nonfiction: “You get no credit whatsoever for living.” In other words, it’s all in the writing. Even if you had a Hollywood-quality bad childhood; even if you survived an Antarctica expedition that turned into a cannibalistic nightmare (lucky you!), it’s the selection and organization and creation of meaning that matters. When someone intent on writing memoir has had something unusual or terrible happen, we sometimes find ourselves thinking, “Wow – this writer has it made.” As if the work is half done. It isn’t. In fact, our unusual or dramatic experiences may lengthen the writer’s road, delaying the realization that only great writing – only craft – will serve us in the end. You get no credit whatsoever for living.
More specifically, Edelman helped us analyze an essay by Joan Didion, separating out the scene-by-scene narrative from the exposition. Until we read aloud those two highlighted sections divorced from each other, I’d never realized where Didion’s voice resides: in the expository or reflective sections. Take away those sections, written from the later vantage point of her older, wiser self, and the piece is competent and entertaining, but not classic Didion. A day after coming home, a talented friend sent me a chapter from her memoir and I performed the same highlighting trick, showing the balance between her narration and exposition. My friend’s style is very different from Didion’s, but dividing the work into these two essential strands made it so much easier for us to discuss the work -- to peer under the hood and see how the engine was working, and what might yet be added, just to add a little more power.
Take that seminar, and follow-up realizations, and multiply at least by ten. That’s what my first term at Antioch felt like. I chose the Edelman/nonfiction example (and I’m not even a nonfiction “major”) almost at random, saving me from having to explain the queer, intense joy I had in my own fiction genre seminars: untangling strands of difficult Faulkner; discussing “defamiliarization” as described by the Russian theorist Victor Shklovsky; sitting in a hot, crowded room for two hours while students waved their arms and competed for the privilege of sharing an opinion about the particular qualities of the semi-colon. There was so much passion in that punctuation seminar we never even got to the full discussion of ellipses, which saddened me, but only in that bittersweet way, knowing that it isn’t often in life you get to spend time with people who care not only about stories, not only about words, but even about the tiniest black, misunderstood specks that stand between words.
What wonderful hours those were; what great material I plan to steal for my own future classrooms! (Good writers borrow; great writers steal. The same could be said for teaching.)
But I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t balance that positive report with a little negative. No violins please – I’m a critical person (ask my husband) and I fully expected to find fault with at least something at my MFA program. In this case, it was with the peer workshops, in which we critiqued each other’s works. My displeasure was not rooted in others’ reactions to my work in particular – in other words, I’m not simply being overly sensitive – but in all of our collective reactions to each other’s works. I did not feel the click and whir of intellectual gears engaging, creating momentum that might have moved our entire small group of writers along, together.
So much can go wrong in workshopping (pardon that hideous gerund, Rich): cruelty or misguided kindness. Too little or too much moderation. Passivity, aggression, or both. Students who don’t prepare at all, or students who think their job is to be copyeditors. (I loved the faculty-led punctuation seminar, discussed two paragraphs above; I don’t believe a peer-critique workshop is the place to impose one’s ideas about where each comma should be placed.)
The process works best with a nearly-finished essay or story, but all too often, one is workshopping part of a novel, or a story that has no ending, and the conversation derails into asking questions that would be answered if only we could read page 21 or 38. Most problematically, one tends not to give a manuscript (for understandable reasons) the same benefit-of-the-doubt one gives a final, published, bound book. When we are reading a book, and come across a word we don’t understand or a motivation not fully revealed or any kind of unanswered question – and if we have confidence in the author’s mastery – we hold that question in our minds. We think, using context as clues. We expect complexity and a voice and a world that does not reflect our own. We meet the author halfway, hoping to be challenged. We enter into a relationship with the book and the author and because of that, we read very differently.
Which is not to say that in a workshop, we should overindulge the author or fail to flag genuine questions or anything that distracts us; but we should be aware of the effect that a wrinkled, raw-looking manuscript has over us, leading us into the false belief that everything is up for grabs and that we are co-authoring a story or essay. We are not. We are reading and offering feedback. That is all. We might be able to suggest that something is not working; we may be able to point out some really big blind spots. In our workshop, we read a great story-in-progress about a character I loved, a sassy cop, who happened to have an inconvenient crush on another male cop, only to find out from the writer that the story's "he" was really a "she." All or nearly all of us had misunderstood the character's gender for at least the first opening pages; I continued to misunderstand for many more, so enamored was I of this "male" character who subverted so many cliches! (Or not. As a female, the character conformed more to type, unfortunately.)
We may be tempted to prescribe potential solutions, as I -- bad workshopper -- was tempted to do. (Are you sure the cop can't be a guy? He makes a really smart and funny and likeable guy. I miss him already and he never existed, even in a fictional sense!) But in the end, the writer will have to supply the integrated solution.
But back to the larger problem, which suggests how easily workshopping can be an essentially conservative process, rewarding what is most familiar to us. Take a really good, published book. Now imagine it being workshopped.
Obviously, Hemingway (choppy sentences! Lack of transitions!), Faulkner (what the hell is going on?), James Joyce even in his less-experimental works (POV confusion! ), Henry James (wordy wordy wordy!), Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (wait – we’re in the middle of the book and suddenly the main character dies and we’re told in parentheses!?) and nearly every innovative classic text would fail, disastrously. These would not be happy or fruitful discussions. Not that I can imagine Ernest or William or James or Henry or Virginia caring -- at least I hope not. (Take the stones out of the pockets, Virginia. We love your work.)
But those are classics, some of them experimental. Those are exceptional authors and exceptional works. What happens if we take a somewhat more conventional book and workshop it?
I could choose any of a dozen books I’ve read this year, but to be neutral and fair, I’ll select the book that happens to be the one my MFA mentee group is discussing this week online, which I've read twice now, having forgotten most of the details after the first time around. (A mid-life MFA has its pleasures, but also its challenges.)
The book is Jeffrey Eugenides The Virgin Suicides, told in the plural first person by an ill-defined group of narrators – adolescent boys – who are watching and reflecting upon the suicidal Lisbon girls.
Let’s take a look at the single most common comment that came up in our workshop, in reference to our own student works, two weeks ago: “This character doesn’t seem embodied.”
The Virgin Suicides narrators are completely disembodied. We don’t know much about them, though we are looking through their eyes. We don’t even know their names. We certainly don’t know their eye and hair color, whether they are fat or slim. They are not individuated – and that is the point. They are not described – and that too, perhaps, is the point.
In a 2005 3:AM Magazine interview, Eugenides said, “I don't know why I seem to like impossible voices. I think it may come from religious literature, you get a voice that issues from a mysterious place and tells you things of the utmost importance. There's something I like about that, about not being able to know exactly where the voice is coming from. Certainly, that's the case in The Virgin Suicides where you don't know how many boys it is. Is it one, two or a hundred, you don't know. But the voice is compelling and holding your attention and it seems to me that only in novels and in literature can you come up with such voices. ”
Try explaining that to your fellow students in a workshop.
Virgin Suicides would fail the workshop test in other ways – just as it would fail many a book club discussion. The deaths of the virgins (sorry for the plot spoiler) are melodramatic and not credible or well-explained. (Admittedly, this bothered me, but it was so part of the author’s larger themes that I can’t do more than quibble.) Loose threads? This book is a moth-eaten shawl. But it’s also a thing of beauty and the very distinct vision of an author who writes with style and purpose, telling the stories he seems made to tell.
I could go on – but I’m well-past reasonable blogpost wordcount. Let me close here, reiterating that I loved my first MFA residency, and I’m not against workshopping (that evil gerund). In some (not all) of our 49 Alaska Writing Center classes, we will be using workshopping methods; any one who takes active part in a community of writers ends up critiquing or being critiqued in some way, and certainly sharing and learning how to parse feedback is an essential step in the lifelong education of a writer.
What I do believe is this: workshopping is an art, an art that must be learned and hopefully can be taught, just like writing. It demands thinking not just about our own work, not just about our fellow students’ work, but about all of literature, asking all the difficult questions: How do we understand what we read? How would different people in different times or places read this differently? What does it mean to be a responsible and informed critic? How has the fairly modern process of workshopping changed American literature over the last half-century (actually, a book has been written about just that topic, and I plan to read it soon, and would love to hear others' opinions -- perhaps even at this very blog).
It takes work to workshop. That’s the plain truth.
So much more to do; so much more to learn and discuss. Glad we’re all in it together.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Gerunds from Hell: A Guest-post by Rich Chiappone
Recently, at the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference, when the facilitator of a panel I was sitting on, my friend Nancy Lord, introduced me to the audience, she added (only half joking), “Rich is a bit of a contrarian."
Of course, I responded, “Am not!”
Of course, I responded, “Am not!”
OK, it’s a lame joke, but I cannot refuse a straight line like that. And I don’t mind bearing that label. I think it’s okay for artists to air contradictory ideas in public. That’s how we grow; it’s called the dialectic. What would be the point of bringing together 150 writers if they all told each other what they already believed for three days and nights?
Last year, in the first ten minutes of the conference, I unintentionally offended some people in the room with my clumsy assertion that nature writing, like many other genres, could use a makeover. This year the conference offered a workshop and discussion by Nancy titled “Sick of Nature: Make it New.” The session’s description in the program included this: suggestions for avoiding earnestness and tendentiousness that can turn readers away from “nature writing.” I’m not taking credit for that; far smarter people than I have noticed that almost nobody wants to be called a nature writer these days. In fact, the decision to put “nature writing” inside those quote marks in the program notes hints at a desire to be distanced from the dreaded moniker, even while attempting to refurbish it. This is exactly the kind of serious matter the conference gives writers the opportunity to discuss.
Although I swore I would behave and keep my irritating opinions to myself, this year, once more, in the first minutes of the first day, when someone suggested that new writers keep a daily journal, I hinted that I didn’t think that was a good idea. Actually what I said was, “Journal writing is the work of Satan.”
Maybe that should be explained.
First of all let’s define the terms. When I pointed that the dictionary describes a journal as “a daily record of news and events of a personal nature; a diary,” someone changed the term to “notebook.” Well, that’s different. A writer’s notebook is anything he jots snippets of dialog, ideas, images and so forth into at every chance. I’d say something of the sort is an absolute necessity for writers of all levels. But it is categorically different than a vessel you ritualistically fill with a chronicle of each day --instead of, say, actually working on your writing.
And so here is my first misgiving about daily journal writing (I refuse to use the awful gerund “journaling,” perhaps the most egregious bastardization of a noun into a verb and back again since the hideous word “workshopping” was coined --not coincidentally, also by we teachers of creative writing). It is a waste of precious time. Most new writers I’ve met are working, teaching, raising families; they are basically swamped with the responsibilities of daily life. Who has time to take twenty minutes each day to document it? According to my unscientific, anecdotal and completely biased research, virtually all the professional writers I’ve met say they do not keep a daily journal; all of them do keep notebooks they scribble in whenever they can. Conversely, an awful lot of the people in writing classes and at conferences say they want to be writers, but do little else but write in their journals. The problem is, it feels like real writing, and you can easily fool yourself into thinking you’ve done your writing work for the day, the month, the years that go by as your journals pile up and that novel you want to write never gets started.
Secondly, journal writing promotes solipsism. Art transcends the personal and reaches for the universal. We write for readers. The notion of writing for oneself is a frigid, withholding and basically frightened stance: nothing ventured, nothing criticized. Nobody is going to judge or critique that secret journal. Frankly it seems like an excuse to avoid commitment to the craft.
And that brings me to my final complaint.
Writing in the vacuum of one’s journal encourages sloppiness and bad writing of every kind, because there is no concern for a reader’s basic needs: coherence, continuity and clarity. If no one is ever going to see what goes on the page, there is no need for the most important of step in the writing process: revision.
All that said, I do think there are people for whom journal writing is a wonderful idea: children, for example. Friends who teach high school English classes say it is the only way they can get students to use the written language –aside from texting. My wife, a high school counselor, says that may be because teenagers are doing the monumentally hard work of figuring out who they are and have little time to consider the needs of life forms outside themselves. In any case, adolescents possess the intense self-absorption that journal writing rewards. It’s a luxury grownups cannot afford, and a disastrous stance for writers of any age to take.
Not everyone will agree. Someone will come forward and point out that she has written six best-selling books, works in a coal mine all day, and has fourteen children she’s raising on her own ---and still writes in her journal each and every evening, religiously. That person probably also balances her checkbook to the penny and keeps track of her gas mileage with every single fill-up too. If that sounds like you, by all means, ignore my suggestion to spend more time on writing something that someone else might want to read, and less time talking to yourself in your journal. If, on the other hand, you can’t seem to find time to write that memoir you’ve been thinking about. Well…..
* * *
Like my contrarian joke, my low opinion of “journaling” as a means toward better writing is only half serious. It’s none of my business. But it is fun to poke a sacred writing workshop cow like that one, I’ll admit.
At another panel discussion in Homer last month, I dumped out an overstuffed manila envelope containing notes and story ideas and images that I had jotted down on everything from the backs of envelopes to Costco receipts and bits of wallpaper. Some scraps had just a single word or two on them. The handwriting was mostly unintelligible, possibly scribbled in the middle of the night upon being wakened by a dream, or scratched on a Spenard Builders’ Supply Invoice on the seat of my truck while driving between Homer and Anchorage. Each cryptic message to myself was intended to trigger whatever I had been thinking about when I wrote it.
Out of the pile, I picked a blue sticky note with uncommonly legible words on it. I read the three things listed in a row--in my wife’s handwriting.
Snow
Banjo music
Journaling
Someone in the conference audience asked what they meant.
Last April as yet another snowstorm buried the remnants of any hope for winter’s quick demise, I hung my head and whimpered something about three things I’m sure to find in hell one day. My wife, unfazed by my mood swings after thirty years together, said, “You need to use that.” She wrote down the three things I said the devil had in store for me.
When I stumbled onto them again there in front of an audience at the table at the conference, the June sun was smiling through the windows of the big meeting room. I knew my wife was right. Later that same day, this poem came out of that scrap.
All The Things We Hate The Most
Somehow I doubt that Dante’s sinner-crammed circles
are the true blueprint for hell.
My guess is that Satan, the apparent creator
of Amazon’s “recommendation” software,
will use it to customize an individual ring of anguish
for each and every unlucky one of us.
I see myself checking in at the Hotel Nether World,
flameproof jammies in my suitcase, my toothbrush eternal.
The horned bellhop will escort me to my room,
where it will snow, of course, every depressing afternoon.
There will be banjo music in an endless loop, all quaint and farmy.
And as I settle into my finely personalized agony
I will find that the only available reading material
-- forever -- will be the journals of teenage girls.
Richard Chiappone, a recipient of the Robert Traver Award, is the author of the story collection Water of an Undetermined Depth. His writing has appeared in anthologies and national publications including Playboy, the Sun, and Gray’s Sporting Journal. His story, Raccoon, was made into an award winning short film, and his work has been featured on BBC Radio. A thirty-year Alaskan, Chiappone lives with his wife, Lin, and several Siamese cats on a steelhead river near Anchor Point, the westernmost point on the contiguous highway system of North America. He teaches writing for the University of Alaska and serves on the faculty of the annual Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference in the town of Homer.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Your Turn: Writing Instruction
Some say writing can't be taught. It's not hard to see how one might reach that conclusion. Writers tend to stumble dazed from one project and, sitting down to start another, wonder whether they really know anything at all about this puzzling and miraculous process.
On the flip side of that thinking, contrast craft with all the vagueries of publishing - the trials of submission, the frustrations of promotion and sales, the way stars rise and fall on the whims of the market. Our craft - what we learn, how we apply it, how we share what we know with others - at least that's within our control.
Of course here at 49 Writers, we believe not only that writing can be taught, but that it should be taught well and often and in many forums that support the hard work of writers. To that end, we've drafted our Instructional Philosophy. No surprise in the first couple of sentences:
Some say good writing can’t be taught. We think that’s rubbish. Instruction alone won’t make you a great writer, but it will take you a good long way in that direction. At the heart of our mission is a firm commitment to instruction that encourages students from a variety of backgrounds and experiences to become more thoughtful, prolific, and proficient as they explore their passion for the written word. For both emerging and established writers, we offer workshops and courses unfettered by the academic constraints of credit hours, grading, and university tuition. We offer no easy answers or cheap tricks. Rather, we aim to delve deep into the mysteries of language, discovery and expression with teaching that is both student-centered and well-structured around meaningful outcomes. We also believe that good teaching, like good writing, develops through a life-long process of learning that includes evaluating our work, sharing ideas, and stretching ourselves – sometimes beyond our comfort zones.
Having articulated our thinking on instruction, we're always open to your ideas. What kind of writing instruction appeals to you most? Short, pithy workshops? Practical how-to clinics? Multi-week courses that encourage independent work between sessions? What kind of teaching do you prefer? What classroom pet peeves drive you crazy?
This month we'll be putting together the courses we'll offer this fall. What course or courses would make you want to drop everything and run to sign up? Share your thoughts here, or email us at 49writers@gmail.com. We can't promise your dream course will make this term's schedule, but we'll add it to our long-term planning list.
On the flip side of that thinking, contrast craft with all the vagueries of publishing - the trials of submission, the frustrations of promotion and sales, the way stars rise and fall on the whims of the market. Our craft - what we learn, how we apply it, how we share what we know with others - at least that's within our control.
Of course here at 49 Writers, we believe not only that writing can be taught, but that it should be taught well and often and in many forums that support the hard work of writers. To that end, we've drafted our Instructional Philosophy. No surprise in the first couple of sentences:
Some say good writing can’t be taught. We think that’s rubbish. Instruction alone won’t make you a great writer, but it will take you a good long way in that direction. At the heart of our mission is a firm commitment to instruction that encourages students from a variety of backgrounds and experiences to become more thoughtful, prolific, and proficient as they explore their passion for the written word. For both emerging and established writers, we offer workshops and courses unfettered by the academic constraints of credit hours, grading, and university tuition. We offer no easy answers or cheap tricks. Rather, we aim to delve deep into the mysteries of language, discovery and expression with teaching that is both student-centered and well-structured around meaningful outcomes. We also believe that good teaching, like good writing, develops through a life-long process of learning that includes evaluating our work, sharing ideas, and stretching ourselves – sometimes beyond our comfort zones.
Having articulated our thinking on instruction, we're always open to your ideas. What kind of writing instruction appeals to you most? Short, pithy workshops? Practical how-to clinics? Multi-week courses that encourage independent work between sessions? What kind of teaching do you prefer? What classroom pet peeves drive you crazy?
This month we'll be putting together the courses we'll offer this fall. What course or courses would make you want to drop everything and run to sign up? Share your thoughts here, or email us at 49writers@gmail.com. We can't promise your dream course will make this term's schedule, but we'll add it to our long-term planning list.
Monday, July 12, 2010
First semester poet seeks voice: A guest post by John Morgan
As I staggered out of the Quonset hut and stood at a crosswalk near the Old Capital waiting for the light, George Starbuck’s brusque question ricocheted around in my head. “Why,” he’d just asked at my first conference, holding a batch of my prize-winning undergraduate poems out at arm’s length as if they gave off a rancid odor, “are you writing this stuff?”
When the light turned green, I didn’t move. Why go on? Somehow I’d deceived myself into thinking I was a poet. Now that was over. The question inflamed my conscience as well, because if my claims as a poet were fraudulent, then hadn’t I been leading Nancy on exactly as her parents alleged, luring her into an unsuitable match?
I repeated his words in my mind, shifting the emphasis around to see if I could uncover a glint of hope, and realized that by placing the stress on ‘you’(“Why are you writing this stuff?”), I could conjure up the suggestion that someone with my strong background and verbal skills could (surely!) do better. But that brief flicker was quickly snuffed, since clearly I would have to start from scratch and discover a whole new way of writing if I wanted to measure up, and in that moment the best part of my life’s work, that sheaf of poems he’d just trashed, fluttered around me like brittle leaves and blew off down the street.
Already bald in his mid-thirties, with a shy, sly manner, that brimmed with confidence, Starbuck had dropped out of Cal. Tech. a decade before to devote himself to poetry. A brilliant verbal technician, winner of the Yale Younger Poets Prize, he crafted vivid poems that could embody both farce and tragedy at once. He might, for example, use an acrostic based on a zany pun as the ground for a heartfelt elegy. This sort of game-playing wasn’t to everyone’s taste, but clearly he was a master of verbal constructions and nobody else around was writing sonnets as hip as his. I tried to tell myself that George just didn’t get my stuff, but a more sober voice spoke up, asserting that he got it perfectly well but found it completely dismissible.
When the light turned again, I trudged up Washington Street to my Iowa City rooming house. That wide, tree-lined boulevard featured some impressive Victorian homes, at least one of which boasted a fully stocked fall-out shelter in back, but my place was basic. An ancient refrigerator in the second floor hall was the only amenity and when I ate in, I usually warmed up a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli on a one burner hot-plate. Food was far from my mind at the moment, though, as I fell defeated onto my bed.
To brighten my tiny room, I'd pinned the postcards that Nancy sent from Boston to a bulletin board above my desk. She was taking an art history class at Simmons College, and the latest card, from the Gardner Museum, showed a gleaming St. George, confronting a decorative and not very dangerous-looking dragon. Although we planned to marry over Christmas break, everything remained unsettled, with her parents urging us to postpone the wedding at least until June. They argued the delay would give our relationship a more thorough test and allow them time to adjust to the shock of losing Nancy.
June seemed a lifetime away, but now the questions Starbuck raised about my competence as a poet weighed on me as well. How could I draw this person I loved into a dubious marriage when my professional life was menaced with frustration and failure? But steeling myself against these gloomy thoughts, I managed to scribble an encouraging, playful, rather giddy love letter which recast the postcard she’d sent as an allegory of our vexed circumstances. And then, as an afterthought, I copied it over and set it out in lines like a poem, one very different from any I’d written before:
A LETTER IN LATE OCTOBER
My darling, The St. George, whom you gave me in token,
on the wall above my desk weighs with two hands a thin
gold sword, allegorical of December. The dragon of June
has already been probed by the barber pole spear of love,
and in the reddish distance under an orange sky, you,
dearest Nancy, kneel beneath the high walls of Simmons
Castle, whence St. George on his blue charger will
carry you to the fertile land of Iowa. The sword is light
in his delicate hands, and his face, as smooth as yours,
is calm, though the shaggy dragon squawks and the horse
rears and turns his head away. I take the postcard down.
The colors are as outlandish as they seemed, and I notice
that Crivelli has perpetrated on both the horse and dragon
rather oversized genitals. That must be part of the story.
A slaty turf and evergreens reinforce the impression
of winter. No more barren or fantastic nights, my wife-to-be.
Hesitantly, not sure it was even a poem, I handed it in to Starbuck and he inserted it on the class worksheet. With sections large and impersonal that year, the tone of discussions tended to be pretty ruthless. We were grad students now and poetry was serious business. Like dodge-ballers in sixth grade, we finally had the muscles to raise welts with our well-aimed taunts. Bracing for an onslaught, I declined to read the poem out loud and asked George if he’d read it for me. The comments that followed weren’t friendly.
“Why is this poetry rather than prose?” one student asked.
“If it’s an allegory,” someone else piped in, “then who’s this dragon supposed to be? I don’t get it.”
“I can’t see any point to these line-breaks,” another student complained.
Others attacked the personal nature of the writing and suggested that I ought to check out T.S. Eliot’s essay, “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” where the master explains that poetry must never flaunt the writer’s personal emotion.
Starbuck fielded some of the criticisms himself and let others slide, but I sensed that, in spite of its many flaws, he liked the piece, so after class, I went up to talk.
“Don’t let that guff get to you.” He waved a hand toward the emptying classroom. “Just
keep writing like this. You’re on the right track now.”
By transposing my personal letter into a poem I'd been able to find my voice. This was the key, I realized, and the next poem I wrote, another letter poem based on another Gardner Museum postcard from Nancy, won the Academy of American Poets Prize for Iowa that year. And so, to this day, when I sense a student is having trouble establishing a clear voice, I suggest they try writing a letter poem, one addressed to a lover or a close friend. The intimate tone will give them a leg up, and while it doesn't guarantee success it opens fresh possibilities for a personal diction and believable emotional content that can help with whatever the student-poet tries in the future.
When the light turned green, I didn’t move. Why go on? Somehow I’d deceived myself into thinking I was a poet. Now that was over. The question inflamed my conscience as well, because if my claims as a poet were fraudulent, then hadn’t I been leading Nancy on exactly as her parents alleged, luring her into an unsuitable match?
I repeated his words in my mind, shifting the emphasis around to see if I could uncover a glint of hope, and realized that by placing the stress on ‘you’(“Why are you writing this stuff?”), I could conjure up the suggestion that someone with my strong background and verbal skills could (surely!) do better. But that brief flicker was quickly snuffed, since clearly I would have to start from scratch and discover a whole new way of writing if I wanted to measure up, and in that moment the best part of my life’s work, that sheaf of poems he’d just trashed, fluttered around me like brittle leaves and blew off down the street.
Already bald in his mid-thirties, with a shy, sly manner, that brimmed with confidence, Starbuck had dropped out of Cal. Tech. a decade before to devote himself to poetry. A brilliant verbal technician, winner of the Yale Younger Poets Prize, he crafted vivid poems that could embody both farce and tragedy at once. He might, for example, use an acrostic based on a zany pun as the ground for a heartfelt elegy. This sort of game-playing wasn’t to everyone’s taste, but clearly he was a master of verbal constructions and nobody else around was writing sonnets as hip as his. I tried to tell myself that George just didn’t get my stuff, but a more sober voice spoke up, asserting that he got it perfectly well but found it completely dismissible.
When the light turned again, I trudged up Washington Street to my Iowa City rooming house. That wide, tree-lined boulevard featured some impressive Victorian homes, at least one of which boasted a fully stocked fall-out shelter in back, but my place was basic. An ancient refrigerator in the second floor hall was the only amenity and when I ate in, I usually warmed up a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli on a one burner hot-plate. Food was far from my mind at the moment, though, as I fell defeated onto my bed.
To brighten my tiny room, I'd pinned the postcards that Nancy sent from Boston to a bulletin board above my desk. She was taking an art history class at Simmons College, and the latest card, from the Gardner Museum, showed a gleaming St. George, confronting a decorative and not very dangerous-looking dragon. Although we planned to marry over Christmas break, everything remained unsettled, with her parents urging us to postpone the wedding at least until June. They argued the delay would give our relationship a more thorough test and allow them time to adjust to the shock of losing Nancy.
June seemed a lifetime away, but now the questions Starbuck raised about my competence as a poet weighed on me as well. How could I draw this person I loved into a dubious marriage when my professional life was menaced with frustration and failure? But steeling myself against these gloomy thoughts, I managed to scribble an encouraging, playful, rather giddy love letter which recast the postcard she’d sent as an allegory of our vexed circumstances. And then, as an afterthought, I copied it over and set it out in lines like a poem, one very different from any I’d written before:
A LETTER IN LATE OCTOBER
My darling, The St. George, whom you gave me in token,
on the wall above my desk weighs with two hands a thin
gold sword, allegorical of December. The dragon of June
has already been probed by the barber pole spear of love,
and in the reddish distance under an orange sky, you,
dearest Nancy, kneel beneath the high walls of Simmons
Castle, whence St. George on his blue charger will
carry you to the fertile land of Iowa. The sword is light
in his delicate hands, and his face, as smooth as yours,
is calm, though the shaggy dragon squawks and the horse
rears and turns his head away. I take the postcard down.
The colors are as outlandish as they seemed, and I notice
that Crivelli has perpetrated on both the horse and dragon
rather oversized genitals. That must be part of the story.
A slaty turf and evergreens reinforce the impression
of winter. No more barren or fantastic nights, my wife-to-be.
Hesitantly, not sure it was even a poem, I handed it in to Starbuck and he inserted it on the class worksheet. With sections large and impersonal that year, the tone of discussions tended to be pretty ruthless. We were grad students now and poetry was serious business. Like dodge-ballers in sixth grade, we finally had the muscles to raise welts with our well-aimed taunts. Bracing for an onslaught, I declined to read the poem out loud and asked George if he’d read it for me. The comments that followed weren’t friendly.
“Why is this poetry rather than prose?” one student asked.
“If it’s an allegory,” someone else piped in, “then who’s this dragon supposed to be? I don’t get it.”
“I can’t see any point to these line-breaks,” another student complained.
Others attacked the personal nature of the writing and suggested that I ought to check out T.S. Eliot’s essay, “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” where the master explains that poetry must never flaunt the writer’s personal emotion.
Starbuck fielded some of the criticisms himself and let others slide, but I sensed that, in spite of its many flaws, he liked the piece, so after class, I went up to talk.
“Don’t let that guff get to you.” He waved a hand toward the emptying classroom. “Just
keep writing like this. You’re on the right track now.”
By transposing my personal letter into a poem I'd been able to find my voice. This was the key, I realized, and the next poem I wrote, another letter poem based on another Gardner Museum postcard from Nancy, won the Academy of American Poets Prize for Iowa that year. And so, to this day, when I sense a student is having trouble establishing a clear voice, I suggest they try writing a letter poem, one addressed to a lover or a close friend. The intimate tone will give them a leg up, and while it doesn't guarantee success it opens fresh possibilities for a personal diction and believable emotional content that can help with whatever the student-poet tries in the future.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Ela: 49 Writers Weekly Round-up
We've been feeling the love from statewide newspapers covering the expansion of 49 writers into the 49 Alaska Writing Center and Raven Place guesthouse. Yesterday, The Juneau Empire published a particularly nice feature by Amy Fletcher about all of us (us? who? yes -- I'm talking about you as well, blog reader, because you're part of this great Alaska lit movement we're all building one blog, one zine, one comment, one link, one workshop and one Alaska-authored book at a time). We've also had nice writeups courtesy of Capital City Weekly News and Homer News. Thank you, Alaska newspapers, for taking us seriously when we say we are trying to reach beyond Anchorage. We couldn't do it without you!
Our 49 Writers fall instructional term kicks off with the Tutka Bay Retreat you've been hearing about. In this remote and relaxing Alaskan setting, author David Vann will present the equivalent of a 49 Writers 6-hour workshop (an $89 value in and of itself). "In our four 90-minute craft sessions," Vann explains, "we’ll be looking at a range of short published works (which I’ll make available beforehand). We’ll study these works for style and voice, landscape description, characterization, and dramatic structure. Authors will include Annie Proulx, Marilynne Robinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Cormac McCarthy, Ray Carver, Flannery O’Connor, Nabokov, and others. We’ll have several brief writing exercises that explore what we’ve discussed, and we’ll consider the writing process a bit, including development and revision." Register today, as we have room for only 14 participants.
This weekend sees the beginning of UAA's series of summer readings in conjunction with the MFA residency. Check out the schedule here.
Dive in with author-illustrator Ray Troll at 2pm on Tuesday July 20th in Anchorage or at 6.30pm on Wednesday July 21st in Girdwood for ‘Sharkabet: an A-Z of sharks, living and extinct.’ Z. J.Loussac Public Library, Anchorage, or Scott and Wesley Gerrish Branch Library, Girdwood. (907) 343 2841 for more information.
A reminder that on Tuesday July 20th, at 7pm, the Alaska Writers Guild presents Elise Sereni Patkotak with a talk on ‘The Circuitous Route to Writing’ – at the fireplace at Barnes and Noble in downtown Anchorage.
The Alaska Writers Guild will also be hosting the 2010 Alaska Writers’ Conference – mark your calendars for September 10th, 11th, 12th. See their website for latest information and to sign up.
Front Range, an internationally circulated, annually published literary journal, seeks submissions starting August 1st (deadline: November 7 2010) for their 6th (2011) issue. See their website for archives and submissions guidelines.
Some more information about submissions to 'F' magazine: Bruce Farnsworth is the poetry editor, and asks that submissions be emailed to him as word documents, or in the body of the text if that is not possible. His email address is whenpoetsfly@hotmail.com.
Two Review announces that poet Nathalie Handal will judge their 2010 poetry contest. Full guidelines can be found at their website.
Speaking of contests, stay tuned for a revival of a certain popular contest held here at 49 Writers last year…the Ode to a Dead Salmon bad poetry competition returns at the end of this month.
Our 49 Writers fall instructional term kicks off with the Tutka Bay Retreat you've been hearing about. In this remote and relaxing Alaskan setting, author David Vann will present the equivalent of a 49 Writers 6-hour workshop (an $89 value in and of itself). "In our four 90-minute craft sessions," Vann explains, "we’ll be looking at a range of short published works (which I’ll make available beforehand). We’ll study these works for style and voice, landscape description, characterization, and dramatic structure. Authors will include Annie Proulx, Marilynne Robinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Cormac McCarthy, Ray Carver, Flannery O’Connor, Nabokov, and others. We’ll have several brief writing exercises that explore what we’ve discussed, and we’ll consider the writing process a bit, including development and revision." Register today, as we have room for only 14 participants.
This weekend sees the beginning of UAA's series of summer readings in conjunction with the MFA residency. Check out the schedule here.
Dive in with author-illustrator Ray Troll at 2pm on Tuesday July 20th in Anchorage or at 6.30pm on Wednesday July 21st in Girdwood for ‘Sharkabet: an A-Z of sharks, living and extinct.’ Z. J.Loussac Public Library, Anchorage, or Scott and Wesley Gerrish Branch Library, Girdwood. (907) 343 2841 for more information.
A reminder that on Tuesday July 20th, at 7pm, the Alaska Writers Guild presents Elise Sereni Patkotak with a talk on ‘The Circuitous Route to Writing’ – at the fireplace at Barnes and Noble in downtown Anchorage.
The Alaska Writers Guild will also be hosting the 2010 Alaska Writers’ Conference – mark your calendars for September 10th, 11th, 12th. See their website for latest information and to sign up.
Front Range, an internationally circulated, annually published literary journal, seeks submissions starting August 1st (deadline: November 7 2010) for their 6th (2011) issue. See their website for archives and submissions guidelines.
Some more information about submissions to 'F' magazine: Bruce Farnsworth is the poetry editor, and asks that submissions be emailed to him as word documents, or in the body of the text if that is not possible. His email address is whenpoetsfly@hotmail.com.
Two Review announces that poet Nathalie Handal will judge their 2010 poetry contest. Full guidelines can be found at their website.
Speaking of contests, stay tuned for a revival of a certain popular contest held here at 49 Writers last year…the Ode to a Dead Salmon bad poetry competition returns at the end of this month.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Bad Beat Stories: Guest-post by July featured author Rich Chiappone
I feel like a lucky guy, I really do. As a writer, I have little ambition to do anything beyond writing as well as I possibly can each time I sit down at the keyboard, and yet, somehow, rather miraculously, I now have two hardbound books to my name. Neither of them were my idea: each was proposed to me by a publisher who saw my stories in magazines and wanted to collect them between covers. Let me take this moment, and this opportunity as guest blogger here on 49 writers, to plug my latest one: Opening Days, a collection of essays, stories and poems, published this past month by Barclay Creek Press. Given the vicissitudes of the rapidly changing publishing world, I know I’m very lucky indeed that I’ve never had to go looking for a publisher. Many of my more ambitious novel-writing friends are not feeling as fortunate lately.
I have a friend in one of the big, rectangular western states who has published three story collections, two novels, and a creative nonfiction book that has been in print for nearly twenty years. Even so, he has been trying to sell his latest novel for over two years with no luck. He recently shared an e-mail from his long-time publisher that basically said this: “We love this book. If you were a new, first time novelist we would buy it in a minute and promote you as the next new flavor of the month with the hope that this would be a huge seller. However, your last three books sold only forty thousand copies each, and our computer models tell us that this one will do the same. We love this book, (author’s name here), but we can’t waste our time on people like you anymore.” Well, maybe it did not say that, exactly. But that’s what my friend heard when he read it. And that’s what I heard too. It’s a story I’m hearing again and again lately from experienced, seasoned, professional writers, and it reminds me of something called a bad beat.
When I was in my early thirties I lived in Las Vegas for a time, working out of the painters’ union hall by day and watching my first marriage coming unglued by night. Sometimes, late in the evening, after our three children were in bed, I would go out and play poker in the casinos for a few hours to get away from the house. I liked the small, truck stop places such as the King Eight Motel on Tropicana Avenue a few blocks west of the putatively glamorous Strip. There were none of the giddy, wedding party tourists in the King Eight, no buses of elderly slot machine junkies pulling into the parking lot. There were just long-haul drivers and short-haul hookers and all the other kinds of bereft, sad-faced mopes that the capital of the Great American Cultural Desert, attracts. Many of them foolishly thought they knew how to play seven card stud. As nature intended, each tawdry, small time casino had a pack of coyotes feeding on these doomed wounded rabbits.
The predators were men and women of a certain age, mostly from the East Coast, retired and playing cards seven days a week to augment their Social Security. The men had great old names like Maury and Sid and Augie, and wore brutal polyester suits, and hats of WWII vintage. Their wifely counterparts sported rings on every cigarette-stained finger and called the dealers and the cocktail waitresses –and sometimes me-- “Honey” or “Doll.” I was the only person at the poker table under sixty most nights back then, long before the current Texas Hold ’em craze was born. I played just well enough to stay alive and maybe take a little money off the rabbits, but I was no threat to the coyotes, and so they took me in.
It was a wonderful place to be miserable: nobody can commiserate like poker players can. They were happy to listen to the story of my marriage gone wrong, and more than pleased to share their own sad tales –which, I soon came to realize, were all about poker playing injuries they had suffered. Late in the evenings, when the hapless truckers and lonely traveling fertilizer reps were broke and gone, when the neighborhood folks had given up their dreams of the big payoff and headed home to bed, and the fierce ringing clamor of the slot machines had shrunk to an occasional desperate tinkle, I ---almost out of money, but not wanting to go home myself--- sat listening far into the night as the old players recounted the hands they had deserved to win that day --but lost anyway! Their bad beat stories.
Among poker players, bad beat stories are part of an endless competition in self-pity, each tale sadder than the one before it. Yet each one is really the same: the narrator played his cards right, and through no fault of his own, some other lesser player got stupendously lucky and won the hand anyway. Bad beats are the nadirs of every poker player’s existence, a slap in the face from all the gods of every religion, maddening in their cosmic unfairness. That said, they do make for compelling narrative, and that’s probably why, in these hard economic times, they have found a new home among literary types.
After hours, last month at the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference in Homer (disclosure: I serve on the organizing committee) I listened to several internationally published writers recount variations of the same horror story my friend in that big western state told me. Like disgruntled stud players who talk of huge pots raked to undeserving players at the other ends of the tables, these writers are seeing the fewer and fewer available book contracts go to newer, younger, hipper, and (presumably) less skillful writers. Again and again I hear them bemoan the difficulty of getting their second, third, fourth, even twelfth book published. The recurring story, muttered darkly over dark beers and darker whiskeys, is always the same: it’s the economy. Well, yes. But on top of that ongoing train wreck is also the unbelievable tsunami of hopeful manuscripts now crashing over the fewer and fewer editors left standing as the big houses lay off staff and close down imprints.
At the conference our guest literary agent, April Eberhardt, of the Kimberly and Cameron and Associates agency said that she gets TEN THOUSAND book manuscripts or proposals every year, herself. I checked with her this week to see if I remembered that number correctly. Here is what April said in the return e-mail: … “as an agency we receive about 30,000 queries a year, which works out to 10,000 per agent annually. Daunting to think about it....”
April said she accepts about twenty-five new clients a year, and has sold eight manuscripts to publishers so far. Some of those have suffered sixty or seventy rejections before finding their publisher.
Daunting?
Swimming up the face of Niagara Falls is daunting. Those are odds no poker player in his right mind would go near.
Late one night at the King Eight Motel, I found myself looking at a pat hand in a seven card stud game with so many players left at the end of the round the dealer had to get permission from the pit boss to shuffle the “muck” (the discarded cards) in order to deal each of us our last card face down. Given the cards showing face up on the table, I saw that the only player who could possibly beat what I was holding needed to draw the last ace in the deck. But I had seen that ace turned over by another player who had folded earlier. The dealer shuffled the muck and dealt. Sure enough, my opponent caught that one ace and pulled the monster pot away from me and into his hungry arms.
Every time I hear a bad beat story from a writer who is struggling against the terrible odds of the publishing game today, I start to think that maybe I should just keep writing pieces for magazines and forget about getting a book contract; maybe yet another small publisher gets the wild idea to do a collection of my stuff once more. Still, against all logic, I’ve been working on a novel for a few years now. So, when I hear an editor or an agent reminding writers how bad the odds are today, I think about that guy at the King Eight Motel poker room who miraculously pulled that recycled ace out of the muck and left me with nothing but a bad beat of a lifetime story --and then I go back to work on the novel.
Because, after all, really, the flip side of every bad beat is a miracle for someone else isn’t it? Why couldn’t it be me?
Richard Chiappone, a recipient of the Robert Traver Award, is the author of the story collection Water of an Undetermined Depth. His writing has appeared in anthologies and national publications including Playboy, the Sun, and Gray’s Sporting Journal. His story, Raccoon, was made into an award winning short film, and his work has been featured on BBC Radio. A thirty-year Alaskan, Chiappone lives with his wife, Lin, and several Siamese cats on a steelhead river near Anchor Point, the westernmost point on the contiguous highway system of North America. He teaches writing for the University of Alaska and serves on the faculty of the annual Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference in the town of Homer.
Andromeda: Interview with 49 Volunteer Eric Larson
Meet writer and writing center volunteer Eric Larson, who not only scrapes and paints, but also helps us organize our complicated start-up finances. He's one of the many 49 Volunteers we couldn't live without, who will be occasionally profiled here and in our newsletter in the months and years ahead... My day-job/ something about me in one sentence:
I work as a research economist for the Municipality.
Why I decided to volunteer at the 49 AK Writing Center/ Raven Place:
I needed a few more volunteer hours for the community practicum requirement for the MFA Creative Writing program at UAA. I like the idea of having a place in town where writers can gather, and I wanted to contribute to make it happen. Also, Raven Place is about four blocks from my house. So, it's an easy walk, and I hope to visit often.
Highlight of my involvement so far:
Painting the flower boxes along the sidewalk. I've pointed them out several times to friends when walking to Snow City.
Something about my own literary interests or activities:
I'm starting my third year in the MFA program. My thesis is a collection of essays about walking in Anchorage.
Last great book I read:
Pieces for the Left Hand: 100 Anecdotes by Robert Lennon
When I picture a writing center 10 years from now, I imagine…:
Daily gatherings for readings, writing classes, and talking about interesting issues in many places like Raven Place, all over the state. They'll be named Eagle Place in Homer, Orca Place in Southeast, Bear Place in Kodiak, Coyote Place in the interior somewhere, and Mammoth Place close to Denali. Each will be a clearinghouse for instructors going into schools, businesses, and government agencies to teach people how to write about the important things in their lives and how to appreciate the value of reading. All of these places will be be fully funded by interest revenues from an endowment established by the State, which in its enlightened wisdom realizes sometime during the next ten years that public funding for education in the arts is one of the best ways to stimulate imagination, foster inspiration, motivate citizens, improve quality of life, create jobs, and save the environment.
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