Posts filed under 'Readin' & Writin''
Among the many, many reasons you should feel sorry for me is the fact that I never went to camp as a child. In Britain, people just didn’t send their kids off to camp. (They may today, but I’m not certain.) When we moved to the states when I was about 10, camp was a distinctly American tradition, largely saved for people who had the means and, I thought, didn’t like their kids so much. So while a handful of my friends trotted off to camp for weeks on end during the summer, I remained behind, largely puzzled and only mildly envious. I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy camp nor was I sure why kids would want to sleep in bug-filled cabins, swim in murky lakes and fashion macrame bracelets when they could stay indoors all summer watching sitcoms.
So you can imagine it was a little odd and, surprisingly, a little thrilling for me to shop for my trip up north to the Bear River Writer’s Conference at Camp Michigania last weekend. As I tossed bug spray into my basket at Target and mulled over the right flashlight to take (who knew there were so many flashlights?), Chris assured me that if I got lonely and the other writers made fun of me, I could come home at anytime.
As it turns out, the conference was a terrific experience. For the past few years, I’ve made a point of attending a summer writing workshop, saving my pennies and signing up for five-day sessions at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. But at the urging of the generous and lovely Nick Delbanco, I opted for Bear River this year — largely because the special guest was, as I’ve noted here, one of my favorite authors, Amy Hempel.
One of the unique things about Bear River, as compared with other writing conferences and workshops, is that it focuses squarely on producing new work. It’s not the place to drag along the manuscript you’ve been working on merely to expose it to a new set of critical eyes — or as often happens, let’s face it, in the hopes of receiving unqualified praise and encouragement. Instead, it’s about inspiration, greasing the wheel and writing on the spot. Which is just as well, because I’m so far behind where I’d like to be with my current writing project that being in an environment that forced me to exercise my writing muscles was precisely what I needed.
I took a workshop on Painting and Fiction with Elizabeth Kostova, she of the best-selling vampire epic, The Historian. It was, in retrospect, perhaps not precisely the right workshop for me. While I thought we would focus on how the process of writing compares with the process of painting, and how the latter could inform and influence the former, the workshop leaned more strongly towards the use of paintings in our writing — as inspiration but, more directly, as subject. And I confess to being surprised by the number of people in our ten-person group who were specifically interested in including paintings in their fiction, for the most part in historical novels.
But the experience of attending Bear River was still good for me for two key reasons. First, I tend to forget that I know how to write. As silly as that may sound, and despite the fact I make my living as a freelancer, I do. I get so cowed by my fears and what feels like the weight of writing that I forget I’m even capable of it. Confidence among writers — more specifically, among this writer — is so fleeting, so difficult to maintain. Our free writing exercises and our homework, as rusty and slap shod as they were given time restraints, reminded me that I can do this, that I can string words together.
The second reason is that I remembered I like to be around people and that I am, for the most part, pretty good at it. As someone still relatively new to Ann Arbor and who works from home, I spend a tremendous amount of time by myself. Most of my time, in fact. Again, my memory proves tricky and, locked away in my office typing on my keyboard, I forget that I can meet new people, that I can make conversation with strangers and that I am, at least as a general proposition, likeable. I forget that I’m funny. I forget that I can find things in common with writers from all different backgrounds, from all walks of life, with all different interests. I was fortunate to be paired with cabin mates who were friendly and funny and I crossed paths with all sorts of interesting folk I’m grateful to have known, however briefly.
I think when I sit at home alone in my office, my fear can so easily eclipse my passion and, as a result, my productivity (which is weak under the best of circumstances) grinds to a halt. Over dinner the night of my return, Chris noted the extent to which I come home from these things energized and excited about writing and he suggested I look for at least one more to attend during the year. Such a smart man that husband of mine. (If you have any suggestions for great writing workshops, perhaps during the winter to balance my summer excursion, please let me know!)
Of course, the real initial draw for me to Bear River was the chance to meet Amy Hempel. She is, as I’ve noted here, pretty much the reason I wanted to become a writer. And when I glimpsed her across the room the first night — petite and pretty beneath a mass of long white hair — I was practically catatonic. I became a bumbling dork, moving closer to where she sat and glancing furtively at her out of the corner of my eye.
By the second day I worked up the courage to assault her, just as she was on the way into the craft talk she was scheduled to give. Clutching my hard copy of her collected stories, I blabbered on, slathering her with praise and actually (I kid you not) getting misty as I spoke with her. She was, fortunately and not surprisingly, extremely gracious and was kind enough to sign my book rather than having me escorted from the building.
I have to say, even in my starry-eyed state, I found her craft talk a little hard to follow. She warned us at the start that it would not be linear as she doesn’t think in a linear way and, in turn, doesn’t write linear stories. And while that’s part of what I admire most about her stories — along with her use of humor and pathos and her ability to plum the depths of emotion without being sentimental — it doesn’t necessarily make for a riveting craft talk. I came away with a page full of notes that included the names of poets she likes, some quotes from writers and not much sense of how Amy Hempel writes or how to apply it all to my own writing life. While a tad disappointing, it was also somehow comforting. I’m not sure that I want my writers to be completely polished, to be dazzling orators, to be good at every mode of expression. It helps to know they are imperfect in life, even as I may make them perfect on the page.
Hempel also did a reading in the nearby town of Petoskey, along with the very funny and talented poet Jim Daniels, at the Crooked Tree Arts Center. It was a brief but enjoyable reading and the Center is stunning — a Victorian church repurposed, and beautifully so, into a community Arts Center with a small stage and gallery space. I have a feeling the world might be a much better place if we repurposed all the churches in this manner. (We also had time to visit the current show, a collection of photographer Bill Eppridge’s 1968 campaign photos of Robert F. Kennedy. Extremely moving and while it could be argued that I’ve been crying at everything of late, I’m certain this would have yielded the same results under any circumstances.)
The Bear River experience was so different from that of the Iowa workshops I’ve attended and, at the risk of blasphemy (although, given the previous paragraph, that may seem a disingenuous concern), I enjoyed it far more. At Iowa, the workshops and homework seemed a bit more intensive, but once you’re outside of the classroom, you’re largely on your own. Everyone stays different places and no meals are provided and although the isolation can prove productive, it can also be, well, extremely isolating.
At Bear River, you share a cabin (that’s mine above, #14) with other writers and take all your meals in the dining hall. (You can, of course, skip them if you like and wander off grounds or hole up in your cabin with a bag of nuts, so to speak.) The result is a much greater sense of community. With about 90 attendees, by the end of four days, you know just about everyone by sight if not by name. And while I’m blaspheming, I’ll even go so far as to suggest that, in my limited experience, the overall talent at Bear River was superior to what I’ve encountered thus far at Iowa. Again, no offense. To anyone. Anywhere. Ever.
In addition, the setting is so bucolic, with meandering camp grounds along the shore of the same Lake Walloon that inspired Hemingway. I found it a great deal more inspiring than the campus of the University of Iowa, with its sterile air-conditioned classrooms, and the surrounding streets of Iowa City. (No offense, Iowa City.) Even on the rainy days — and two out of the four were overcast and drizzly — there was a mysterious fog that settled over Camp Michigania of precisely the sort we writers enjoy. Each morning, whether the lake was illuminated by the beating sun or hidden by mist, I felt a deep sense of peace as I trudged through the wet grass, warm coffee in hand, across the wooden foot bridge to my workshop in north camp. I don’t necessarily make a habit of communing with nature — we’ve found we don’t often have much to say to one another — but it was beautiful and quiet and I loved it.
On the last day, as tends to happen at these things, participants signed up to read their work. (I never sign up for these things; I’m never sure I have anything I want to hear myself read.) While these things are always hit and miss, I was blown away by some of the writing, and especially moved by the funny, smart, emotionally surprising work of the Ann Arbor Youth Poetry Slam team members who were there. I’d seen these teenage boys bumbling around camp for three days, wondering who on earth were these yahoos playing football with a soda bottle on the front lawn — only to be wowed into reticence and deep admiration by their rhythm, vocabularies, perspectives and humor. (If you’re in Ann Arbor, you should find a way to check them out.)
Unfortunately, a pall was cast over our last afternoon when a woman suffered what turned out to be a cerebral hemorrhage while reading her poem. It was scary and threw everyone off and even though the evening’s reading continued as scheduled, I think we were all a bit shaken and worried. We learned at breakfast our last day, before heading out, that she’d been airlifted to a hospital in Detroit and was in critical care. Should anything awful happen as a result, I hope there’s some comfort to be taken in the fact that she was doing what she loved when tragedy struck.
June 5th, 2008
Roger Main, 1958. “Children, The Gorbals, Glasgow.”
On our trip to Glasgow earlier this month, I was seated on our Detroit-to-Amsterdam leg across the aisle from two Scottish women. Give a cheery smile to a Scots woman and you’ll likely wind up in conversation that covers everything but the kitchen sink, as I did with these two nice women — both of whom were from a small town outside Glasgow and had wound up in Fort Wayne, Ind. where they’d met through a mutual acquaintance. Our chatter about Glasgow included a mention of the Gorbals, the city’s infamous former slums internationally known for their poverty and violence , and one of them asked if I’d read the book “No Mean City.”
I hadn’t, but I largely forgot about our conversation until Chris and I visited the People’s Palace, a small museum covering Glasgow’s “social history.” Included in the compact museum were a few displays about life in Glasgow’s slums in the first half of the 20th Century and the book popped back into my mind. At the Glasgow airport, before we headed home, I happened upon a copy of “No Mean City” at a book shop and although I was pressed for room in my carry-on, I snapped it up.
The book, which I finished last night, was first published in 1935 and it tells the story of Johnnie Stark, a gang member in the Gorbals who gains his rise to fame as the Razor King, so called for his prowess with sharp weaponry. And it’s a terrible, terrible book. I mean, it’s a bad book — at least in terms of any literary merit. The plotting and pacing is wildly inconsistent, the language ricochets from nearly incomprehensible slang to overly flowery prose and the events are, at times, literally enough to make you laugh out loud.
Apparently “No Mean City” was written first as a manuscript by one A. McArthur, an unemployed denizen of the Gorbals in the 1920s. It somehow fell into the lap of an London journalist named H. Kingsley Long who felt that the manuscript, though in desperate need of tidying up, was a scathing, relentless and accurate portrayal of the violence and poverty of the Gorbals. (Upon learning this, I admit that I’m dying to know what it must have looked like before Long got a hold of it. )
And it’s precisely this fascinating and ugly glimpse into that kept me reading despite how terrible it is. I left Glasgow when I was ten, but as an adult I’ve developed both an appreciation for and curiosity about the city of my birth. Glasgow’s a funny place. And as embarrassed as I am to admit it, at no point during my childhood did I understand that the area I was raised in, the West End, was a world away from the way muc of the rest of the city lived and had lived. We were middle class to be sure, but in a city where even a small gap between the “classes” was massive and a matter of great import, a source of terrific pride.
A little history, if you’ll allow me… During the Victorian Era, it enjoyed a prosperity (largely due to the shipyards) that earned it the nickname the “second city of the Empire” — after London, of course — and it boasts some of the most stunning period architecture you’ll see anywhere in Europe.
At the end of the 19th Century, immigrants flocked to Glasgow to look for work, many taking up residence in the Gorbals, packed into overcrowded tenement buildings with little or no sanitation. Glasgow was hard hit in the recession following World War I and the ensuing depression and conditions in the Gorbals continued to worsen. It is a fascinating microcosm of the hopelessness and despair of inescapable poverty. And, for all its faults, “No Mean City” certainly paints that picture with an insider’s brush.
Some of the Glaswegian slang — commonly known as “the patter” — proved tough for me to penetrate and I’m relatively familiar with much Scot speak. It did make for some entertaining read-aloud scenes to keep Chris and me entertained as I read and it has expanded our own vocabulary. (Chris now refers to me as his “fine bit stuff” and threatens to give me a “sherricking” if I ever cross him.)
“No Mean City” is not an easy read — mostly because the writing is so bad and the plot moves in fits and starts. (Also, it’s tough to find anyone to root for, especially the main character and his idiot wife, Lizzie.) And maybe it wouldn’t hold the least bit of interest for anyone who doesn’t know or care about Glasgow at all but I find in writing this post that I have a strange affection for the book… now that it’s finished and I don’t have to read another page.
The Gorbals still exists in name, but it’s my understanding that the City of Glasgow went to great pains — and expense — to try to erase the history and negative reputation of the area, which had continued to be a sore point in its strong Scottish pride well into the 20th Century. In the 1980s, it was still considered one of the most dangerous areas of the United Kingdom. Not sure where it stands today, but there are a couple
May 23rd, 2008
Is it just me or is this blog slow to load lately? I don’t know if it’s a function of my internet connection, but it seems to be taking a long time. Same with the Word Press dashboard page where I pen these entries. Slow, slow, slow. I’d assume it’s just that my hosting site sucks but I haven’t changed it and I don’t think it was this bad before. Maybe I‘m just growing more impatient . But if you’re having problems with it, I’d like to know. Comments, please!
Let’s see, where were we? A little update, since it’s been a while since I last blogged…
Chris and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary on Monday, although the official observation was last night, when we headed into The Big City (Detroit) to see Eddie Izzard at the Detroit Opera House. The venue is really beautiful, incredibly renovated, absolutely gorgeous in that over-the-top sort of way. It’s also pretty huge, which becomes overwhelmingly evident when a sole figure takes the stage and the entire sold-out crowd goes mad with applause.
Izzard was incredibly funny although, sadly, not in cross-dress for this tour. Not that it would have made much difference, since our seats were way up in the balcony and he could have been wearing Kabuki masks and we wouldn’t have been able to tell. It’s a credit to his literate, rapid-fire style of comedy that he was able to hold us all rapt, keep us doubled over, alone on a stage without set, even when we couldn’t make out his facial expressions.
He’s just such a vibrant, energetic person, an equal opportunity skewer-er and this tour his focus is on religion, civilization, man’s inhumanity to man throughout the ages. You’d be hard pressed to find another comedian with his grasp of history, which is all then filtered through Izzard’s insane brain, slathered with a hefty dose of psychedelic imagination and delivered with frenetic energy and generous helpings of ad libs.
What else, what else? Me, I’ve been a little on the “meh” front lately. For those who are keeping track, I’m still coping with the fall out from getting off Effexor (my fibromyalgia medicine). I’ve been off it for a couple of months now, but apparently it can take many, many months — and, given how long I was on it, perhaps more than a year — for my system to really “reset” and learn to function without it. It’s improving, I think, but I’m still ridiculously weepy, and often irritable.
I’m adjusting more to the new pain meds; don’t get quite as tired as I did before. In fact, the past few nights I’ve battled some wicked insomnia which has left me feeling hit by a truck during the day. But I suspect that’s in large part due to my ongoing battle with sugar, which I — for those keeping score — I am currently losing in a big way. Blech.
I’m gearing up to head up to Camp Michigania at the end of next week for the Bear River Writer’s Conference. My workshop is led by Elizabeth Kostova, she of the ridiculously best-selling vampire novel “The Historian.” (I know, I know, I’m the least vampire-oriented girl on the planet, but I thought she might be a breath of fresh air.) I thought it was going to be sort of a straight-up fiction-writing workshop but apparently the title — which I didn’t know before I signed up — is “Fiction and Painting,” and will explore the similarities between the way painters paint and writers write. Huh. Guess we’ll see about all that.
I’m still more jazzed than anything about the prospect of meeting (or at least being in the same room as) Amy Hempel. I’m going to take my copy of her collected short stories and see if I can’t weasel a signature. I’m such a dork that way! Yeah, but only that way.
May 21st, 2008
It’s been a long time since I’ve picked up a book and been so entertained I can’t wait to steal away, if only for a few moments, to devour another page. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the Pulitzer-winning first novel from acclaimed short story writer Junot Diaz, is the kind of book you fight through sleep to read, a flashy, heartbreaking, funny, intelligent family saga about a Dominican family in New York. Unapologetic in its refusal to cater to those unfamiliar with Dominican slang, astoundingly original in voice and scope and dishing out devastating foot-noted history lessons about the Dominican Republic with irreverent flair, this is a gem of a book.
In other words, you should read it. (Check out this New York Times review for further proof.) And while this tour de force is enough to make an aspiring writer chuck aside her ambition in defeat, Diaz’s honest recounting of the “dozens of times [he] had quit this novel only to restart it” in this Wall Street Journal profile proves ultimately endearing and inspiring. Diaz claims to still be scared of writing but says, of his life post-Pulitizer, “what’s changed is now I have hope I can write something else.”
It strikes me that the last two writers I’ve posted about here, Diaz and Lahiri, are both writers who speak frankly about how hard this business of writing is — but, ultimately, that it brings hope. I like that. I need that. It makes me feel not so alone in my struggles to put words on the page and reminds me that there is a reason for doing so.
May 8th, 2008
I don’t remember a lot of things. I have a memory like a sieve. (Except, oddly enough, for anything before the age of around 18, including the plot of every sitcom episode I ever watched as a child. Apparently, after that, my brain was full.) Thus, it was a surprise to me — and a pleasant one at that — to learn I’ve been credited with inspiring the theme for the soon-to-be-released latest issue of 52nd City, my favorite literary mag.
Actually, since the theme of the new issue is “sexy,” I should probably clarify that the 52nd City website credits me with suggesting the theme, as opposed to inspiring it. That’s a big difference, I realize, as I write this. The latter could be confusing, particularly to anyone who’s ever actually met me.
Even more thrilling than this claim to fame — and the very fact that a new issue is imminent — is that I have a piece in the issue. It’s a pretty short piece about an encounter I had with a woman at the St. Louis Greyhound bus station about five years ago. I actually tried to expand it, to fictionalize it to make it more resonant. But, in the end, I hope (and think) that it’s best left alone, as an unembellished glimpse at a brief, awkward moment in time.
To find out, you’ll need to get your paws on the new issue and I can’t think of a better way to do so than to attend the release party, this Saturday, April 26 at Snowflake. Now, having been out of St. Louis for a few years now, I don’t know what a Snowflake is, but it sounds cool and refreshing, and that seems reason enough to go. From the 52nd City website, the event details are as follows:
52nd City Sexy Issue Release
Where: Snowflake, 3156 Cherokee Street
When: Saturday, April 26, 2008
Time: 4:00-7:00pm
Admission: Free
What’s classier than Playboy and Maxim and much easier to hide under your mattress or in your sock drawer? SEXY–52nd City Magazine’s ninth issue. Join us at the Snowflake on Saturday, April 26 from 4 to 7 p.m. for some delightfully cheeky food, drink, music, and entertainment. This issue includes a free CD from the SOUND issue–and a party at Snowflake never disappoints.
52nd City is also making some big changes after this issue — they’ll be going to a free distribution model. Personally, I have some mixed feelings about it — I hate that people seem so reluctant to pay a decent and fair price for good writing. But I hope the increased circulation will attract even more advertisers and help ease the editors pain, eking by as they do by the skin of their teeth each month to pay the costs of producing this lovely-looking product.
It’s worth noting that contributors are not paid for their submissions, so it’s not like the writers or the editors make a penny. It’s truly a labor of love. Thus, if you are a fan of writers and writing, of St. Louis, of art, of independent publishing, of me, of my cats, of being acknowledged for your support of said things, please note that there is now a Paypal button on the front page of 52nd City’s website and you can make a contribution to the print fund, no matter how small (or big, of course), to help keep this gem afloat. I’d consider it a personal favor.
Also, on an entirely unrelated note, I just ate the most sublime avocado. Perfectly ripe, not even a bit brown around the edges. Thank you, nature. Thank you very much.
April 24th, 2008
Perhaps the most endearing, interesting thing about seeing Jhumpa Lahiri read at Borders last night was the fact that she seemed so uncomfortable doing so. I’m heartened by writers who are just that: writers. And not performers. She struck me as someone far more at home lost in grappling with words at her computer than standing in front of a room full of fans. I like that. The author-as-rock-star phenomena is often so off-putting to me. Although, if I ever publish a book, I plan to only do readings in giant sports arenas. But that’s just how I am.
I was also moved, quite literally, to tears by her admission that some of her stories were two years in the making. I tend to be so hard on myself when my stories don’t emerge fully formed or beaten into submission after a month of revision. I tend to be so impatient with the process because it is so very, very difficult, so very frustrating. And, along those lines, I also took great comfort in Lahiri’s admission that winning literary prizes, in the end, makes no difference in the writing process because it is still hard and humbling and it doesn’t make it any easier. She said:
“Every time I write something new from scratch, I am on all fours on the ground, trying to stand up…I am like a child, trying and trying and trying to stand up.”
Which I think is so raw and beautiful and honest. I love her for not making it seem like writing is easy and, by extension, not giving me permission to give up just because it doesn’t come quickly or easily.
And I loved her unabashed passion for the art of writing fiction. In response to one young reader’s question, she said she thought that books and fiction are everything, that creating a good novel or a good story is one of the most important things anyone can contribute in a lifetime. Perhaps out of anyone else’s mouth, those words would have seemed like hubris. But Lahiri has such humility about her that it was just obvious she was speaking of literature as a whole and not her own accomplishments, considerable though they may be. Of literature, of books and of writing, she said:
“They are my religion…. They give me faith and they give me hope and they guide me when I am lost.”
Isn’t it strange — both wonderful and slightly uncomfortable — to feel so deeply understood, to share such naked passion with someone you’ve never met, someone whose words and whose attitudes about writing give you faith, give you hope and guide you when you are lost?
April 10th, 2008
I’m in the midst of reading Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary for (gasp!) the very first time. How I missed reading a classic such as this in my expansive liberal arts education, I don’t know. But I did. And now I’m making up for it. I could tell you that I am fueled by some passion for the classics but the truth is I kind of struck a deal with a writer friend of mine, whose favorite book this is, and am trying to make good on my end of the bargain.
I’ll be taking a respite from my reading this eve to head down to the downtown Borders (trivia: Borders started in Ann Arbor) for a reading by a very different writer indeed, the lovely and amazing Jhumpa Lahiri. She is, perhaps, about as different a writer as you can get from Monsieur Flaubert, even if both are given to plumbing the depths of human unhappiness within the family structure. If you haven’t read her stuff, you may have seen the film The Namesake, based on Lahiri’s debut novel and featured either Harold or Kumar is, of course, of course, not nearly as good. It doesn’t count. You must still read the book.
It has been, in fact, a long time since I read and was instantly drawn to a writer the way I was when I first read Lahiri’s short stories. (An exception may be Junot Diaz who, I was delighted to hear, just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction yesterday for his novel The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.)
Lahiri is a spare writer, somehow achieving a balance that I find infuriating to accomplish: rich emotion without sentimentality. How? HOW, I ask you? I do not know. It is my hope, however, that if I go and bask in her presence and listen to her share with us her own written words, it will somehow rub off on me and I will become an equally magnificent writer through nothing other than proximity.
It could happen, right?
April 9th, 2008
I’m giddy with excitement. This week I sent in my registration for the Bear River Writers’ Conference. Normally, I spend a week during the summer at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival but I had mixed feelngs about returning this year. I’m not sure how much I got out of last year’s workshop, although the real indulgence is a week spent focused on writing, reading and the discussion thereof.
Last year, when I was taking a fiction course in U-M’s grad school, our esteemed instructor — and accomplished author — Nick Delbanco, pulled me aside and mentioned the Bear River Writers Conference. He thought I might be interested in it because this year’s guest is…Amy Hempel. My jaw dropped. I can’t really think of another writer who had such a direct and powerful effect on my desire and decision to become a writer.
When I read Amy Hempel’s short story, “In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” in high school, it was what made me want to be a writer. Up until that point, I knew I loved to write, but I wasn’t making an emotional connection to the male-dominated texts we’d been reading for years — Dickens, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Conrad. That’s not to say that I didn’t appreciate their work, just that it didn’t speak to me on the level that moved me to say, “I want to do that.” Amy Hempel did.
During the short story revival of the eighties, Amy Hempel was one of the many young female writers who emerged to well-deserved critical praise. Along with writers like Lorrie Moore and Mona Simpson, she redefined the short story and blazed a path for writers of all ilk, but especially young women. Now “In The Cemetery” has been anthologized to death but still stands, I think, as one of the great short stories of all time — beautiful, spare, poignant and funny. If you have dealt with loss or grief or, hell, even just thought about it, it will make you laugh and weep and wonder how on earth someone can do all those things without delving into melodrama, without taking it over the top. In other words, if you haven’t read it, do.
All of that is my long-winded way of trying to explain why I’m giddy to be spending a week at Bear River in early summer in lieu of going to Iowa this year. The conference takes place in Northern Michigan — a really beautiful part of the world — at Camp Michigania, the U-M alumni camp. And while Hempel is not teaching an actual workshop, I’m hoping I can bribe Nick Delbanco to broker a very brief introduction so that I may drool all over her and perhaps have her sign the gorgeous hardcover anthology of her collected stories, which Chris bought me last year.
The fiction workshop leaders for the week are Delbanco and Elizabeth Kostova, the local writer who sky-rocketed to fame and best-seller status with her vampire tale, The Historian. So while I’m not really into fantasy writing, I signed up for Kostova’s workshop as my first choice and Delbanco as my second, because I figure the latter has probably seen enough of me and I don’t want him to think I’m stalking him. Plus, a different perspective is always good.
Now, how long until May 29?
February 4th, 2008
I’m finally getting around to writing a bit about our trip to St. Louis a couple of weeks ago. In short, we had a grand time during our brief visit to our old stomping grounds a couple of weeks ago. While I love, love our new life in Ann Arbor, I’ve 17 years worth of friendships built up in St. Louis and there’s just no substitute for that. I miss having so many good friends, the kind who know you really well, the ones who have been around you for years and know your back story. So while it was a tad exhausting going from one date to another and playing catch up, it was also really wonderful.
Amanda and I did Free Candy on the Sunday night and it was a blast. I wish I had some photos to share, but my memory card was full and the few Chris got were not, let’s say, particularly flattering. (I reserve the right to censor such things so that we hosts can always remain in the most beautious light at all times.) The audience was great — I can’t believe that for nearly four years folks have loyally been coming out to catch this crazy live show that began as a goof in a coffee shop.
The evening was linked to the release of the new issue of 52nd City. I know I keep saying this but it bears repeating: but this St. Louis-based magazine is a thing to behold. If you still don’t know it, if you still haven’t picked up a copy or, better yet, subscribed, please, please do so. It’s a collection of some of St. Louis’ best writers musing on art, culture, life, following a specific theme for each of its quarterly issues. This issue’s topic is Foreign Exchange and, as if the print edition didn’t offer up enough solid reading, there’s additional content on the website.
It is a labor of love — and, yes, sometimes frustration — for its dedicated editors, Thomas Crone, Stefene Russell and Andrea Avery and I really want to believe, despite history’s suggestion otherwise, that St. Louis readers can and will support this kind of effort. Phew. I’ve said my piece. For now…and I’m not even IN the current issue. Wait until I get on my soap box for an issue I’m in!
Anyhoo, because we were linking Free Candy to 52nd City, we went with a theme that honored St. Louis writers. Thus, instead of a guest band to play “I Want Candy,” our theme song, we had Thomas do a dramatic reading of the lyrics. And I must say it was one of those moments when I wished dearly we were not non-broadcast, non-recorded, because it was a funny as hell performance I’d love to toss up on You Tube and watch again and again.
In keeping with our writer’s theme, our guests were Debbie Baldwin of The Ladue News and legendary St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill MacClellan, who’s been musing on behalf of the everyman for three decades now. Debbie was a guest on one of our very first installments of Free Candy and she was just a blast again. Having MacClellan on our show as a real “get.” I don’t think he knew quite what to make of us but he was a terrific sport and good fun. He’s a real throwback to the day of the old write-hard, play-hard school of journos, a dying breed, and there’s great comfort to know that a few of these metro columnists are surviving as newspapers “retool” for new readership.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled blog posting about St. Louis… In addition to visiting old haunts, I also checked out a few new spots. I had tea with Amanda at the London Tea Room on Washington Avenue. Lovely space with tons of tea options and, important for ex-pats like myself, a solid selection of British sweets and foods also for sale.
I also met the aforementioned TC for breakfast on Martin Luther King Day at Rooster, a new spot on Locust. It’s a nice place, decorated with a mish-mosh of deco light fixtures and ancient mirrors on the walls. They’re known for their crepes, but TC and I both opted for egg sandwiches, which were big as our heads (well, my head, maybe not Thomas’) and absolutely delish. Mmmm. In fact, writing this, now I really want one.
We stayed at the Ballpark Hilton again (thank you, Priceline!) and I’ll tell you, downtown St. Louis was crazy-deserted. I felt like I was starring in I Am Julia Legend. Granted, it was a holiday weekend, but there’s that odd combo of stunning architecture, empty streets and signs everywhere for new loft developments that all kind of baffles me.
So we headed to the Loop where, apparently, we had missed some sort of ice sculpture event. Thus, there were a few sad almost-melted statues in front of shops, but also a gigantic pile of ice next to Blueberry Hill, just waiting for some skate punk to jump on, break his or her neck and sue the pants off the city of University City. It didn’t happen while we were watching, but the ruffians were circling and danger seemed imminent.
Speaking of Blueberry Hill, it has a new flashy sign up over its door. Or, at least, it’s new to us. It features a nice, white retro couple dancing above a marquee that now flashes upcoming acts on the LED screen. It all seems a little Hollywood for the venue, but what do I know? Maybe Joe Edwards got a buy-one-get-one offer on flashy LED screens when he put up the one at The Pageant.
All in all, a very good trip. Never long enough to see all the people I love, for as much time as I’d like. I leave you with one last shot, the Vintage Vinyl tribute to MLK. I’m many days late and more than a few dollars short, but honor his dream, people. Word.
February 1st, 2008
On New Year’s day we got another inch or so of snow, putting our total at nearly a foot in 24 hours. And I have to say, I love it. Chris always laughs at me because the minute snow starts to fall from the sky, I get a gigantic grin on my face, beaming like a giddy child. Can’t explain it, but snow makes me happy. Check back with me in a few days, perhaps, when I actually have to venture out of the house for something more than a quick trip to the gym — and when the roads are more traveled, turning the roadside piles black and grimy — but for now, I’m still thrilled.
I’m actually enjoying 2008 a lot so far. After the chaos that was December, it’s very strange to have no deadlines bearing down on me and actually have time to do what I want. I’ve been mildly productive, continuing my organizing streak, making piles to go to Goodwill, etc. It also means more down time for doing the things I’ve wanted to for ages, including afternoons of knitting, sewing, crafting and reading. In fact, I finally got around to alphabetizing my books, something I’ve been meaning to do since we moved here. (Don’t laugh! I just hate it when I look for a specific book or story and can’t find it.)
That particular task did remind me that I have so much reading I want and need to do, so many volumes that just haven’t been cracked yet. One of my goals for this year — I’m avoiding the word resolution — is to try to read the equivalent of one short story a day. (By equivalent, I mean I may have a day when I read five or I may be reading a novel, in which case, I just need to read a significant chunk.)
I’ve been helped in my initial attempt by The New Yorker’s winter fiction issue. I’m now gunning to read more Junot Diaz and Jhumpa Lahiri. (Lahiri’s story, about a college student coping with his father’s remarriage, was particularly moving to me.) I know, add them to the list, right? There’s a really interesting article in there about Raymond Carver’s relationship with his editor Gordon Lish and the extent to which Lish cut — and, it looks to me — even rewrote some of Carver’s work.
It seems Lish cut Carver’s manuscript for Carver’s seminal “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” by a good 40%. It begs the question: was the minimalist style for which Carver is celebrated really of his own doing (and his own intent) or was it created by his editor? According to the article, Carver’s widow, the poet Tess Gallagher, suggests that Carver was gut wrenched by Lish’s edits on his first two collections, to the point that he nearly pulled the plug on the publication of “What We Talk About.” (The New Yorker publishes a letter from Carver to Lish in which he long-windedly and reveals his sense of inner torture about the cut-down versions of his stories and begs Lish to halt publication.)
The article also includes an unedited version of the volume’s title story, under Carver’s original title, “Beginners.” If you’re familiar with the story — which focuses on two couples drinking at a kitchen table and discussing love as the sun sets — you’ll likely be quite stunned at how different the original is, particularly towards the end. It becomes a very different tale with Lish’s edits, ending on a different note and with, according to the New Yorker, lines that appear to have been written by Lish. (You can see the line by line edits Lish made to the story here, which include changing character names for what strikes me as no evident reason other than Lish’s preference.)
I don’t feel I know enough about fiction to say whether or not the original is a better story. I can certainly see some of the places where Lish may have felt there could be some reduction. But what startles me a bit, as a wannabe fiction writer, is how much the ending beat of the story is changed by the editor. Forgive me if it sounds dramatic, but it makes me wonder what the truth is in the rest of Carver’s writing — what he wanted us to experience, versus what Lish wanted to achieve. Gallagher’s now hoping to re-publish “What We Talk About” with Carver’s original versions of the stories in it, so perhaps we’ll find out. For those of us who came to love short fiction in part because of Carver’s stories, I’m not sure how much we want to know.
January 3rd, 2008
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