Was It Something I Read?

Writing Without an MFA

efore I begin with relaying here what I told a woman, on LinkedIn of all places, how to find a writing mentor, I just want to talk about the weather.  The flooding is a lot worse than I thought it was in the Midwest.  Somewhere in Iowa, somewhere in Nebraska, somewhere in South Dakota, the waters exceed the borders of the rivers, the usual little creeks, and pour out all around them into the farmers' fields, into peoples' homes, into the roads.  In spite of the heat and sun, the water sits.  It is all at once impressive, intimidating, beautiful, and horrible.  Frogs hopped on wet roads where cars usually roar at freeway speeds, splashing carelessly in water ankle deep and higher.  Different spectrums of green.  Robust frogs.

That is, I'm guessing.  My husband saw the frogs.  I stayed in the car, waiting. 

Now very simply, someone on LinkedIn asked how can she get a writing mentor.  She does not have an MFA, and she does not want one.  Here is my response:

I wouldn't know how to find a mentor, but I'll take a few guesses:

Check out Fictionaut. Although it's called Fictionaut, there is also poetry.  As it is now, it's invite only, but they will soon open up to everyone. 

Check out the writing community on Google+. It's pretty big. If you have an account, just type "writer" in the search box. People talk about writing topics all the time here, ask for jobs, advice, etc.

Check out writers on Twitter.

Find out if one of your favorite writers, or writers you read, or a writer who writes like you, is approachable. If her/his name is really big, like Margaret Atwood, s/he may not have the time to help you, nor may be able to help you legally (I mention Atwood because she notes that her lawyers advise her against reading folks' unpublished work). You can find writers via their blogs, publicists (check the acknowledgement page of their books, the websites of their publishers, etc), or sometimes, a simple search on a search engine.

Find out if there is a local writing community. There may be published or aspiring writers in your area. You are more than able to start a writing group, too! Put up a call at your local library or bookshop. Or find an online community (many exist). If you've never been in a workshop, you may want to look up how these work.

You don't have to be a student to take a writing workshop. Audit a class! If the prof is really cool (like a poor graduate student/teacher asst), s/he may let you sit in for free. You may find a mentor in that prof or in one of the students in the class (many grad students are already accomplished writers). Or, maybe your local community college has continuing education classes.

 

Very Briefly on Jack Black's You Can't Win

 have begun writing the actual comprehensive exams.  In fact, I have a rough draft for the field paper, and that feels good.  Also, I have a rough draft of the introduction for the focus, and that, too, feels good.  Since I am a creative writer, and hardly a scholar, I don't know what will happen to those papers once they're done, submitted, passed (oh, please pass first time around.  No revise and and resubmit, please), and I get to move on to the dissertation (which is mostly done).

In my app tabs for Godzilla?

• gmail
• yahoo mail
• facebook
• this (TypePad)
• g+

In this tab group:

• "The MFA Is the New MBA" (psh!  I'll see if that MFA or this eventual PhD will earn me a job).
• "Let Computers Compute. It’s the Age of the Right Brain" (see above)
• "A Touchy Subject: Childhood Masturbation Is as Natural as It Is Embarrassing" (please don't ask; it's embarrassing): Actually, a pretty decent article, considering the subject.
• Big Fish Games: Play Coral Cup 2 Free. . .etc, etc, distraction

In the other tab group (only have two open):

Calls for jobs in The Chronicle.  Lots of jobs that I have a snowball's chance in this harmful heatwave heat. 

Enough of all that.  Here's my annotation for You Can't Win, a book that inspired Wm S. Burroughs:

Black, Jack. You Can't Win. 1927. Oakland: AK Press, 2000.

 A memoir of Black, You Can't Win chronicles his life as a train hopper and thief, as well as many other outsider occupations. The story is set in post-Civil War America, near the turn of the century. Admirably, Black discusses not only the plights of not only the struggling railroad bums, but also of women indebted to pimps and madams who desire a better existence.

Until next time, whenever that will be.

 

Short Annotation on Winesburg, Ohio

ot much going on today.  I'm still reading The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich and hope to be done soon.  And without further ado, here is my annotation for:

Anderson, Sherwood. Winesburg, Ohio: A group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life. 1919. New York: Bantam Classics, 1995.

This is a collection of short stories connected through George Willard, an aspiring writer. Although connected, many of the stories, all around characters that are in some way grotesque, can stand alone.  Outstanding  stories include “The Book of the Grotesque,” “Hands,” “The Philosopher,” “Adventure,” “Tandy,” and “Queer.” All of the stories sketch out a clear picture of the character in question and offer a premise that is worth exploring, but the ones I listed above work very well with not only exhibiting the hopelessness of the characters' situations, but also how the book works in terms of society. For example, “Hands” examines homosexuality—suspected or real—and pedophilia and “Adventure” admits a pleasure in female sexuality when to do so was still, relatively, taboo.

Anderson seems influential to writers like Raymond Carver, in that he refrains from telling his audience about his characters and chooses to show, instead, their needs, wants, and lacks.

Until next time!

On Gatsby, Again, But Annotating T.C. Boyle

ack towards the beginning of this annotating/comprehensive endeavor, I annotated Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.  I said something along the lines that it is a teachable book--perfect for high school and firsty and second year college students because it is so accessible.  Even so, Macmillian decided to do an intermediate version.  On Gatsby.  Really.  I could understand if it was something dense, like, I don't know The Sound and the Fury (actually, I haven't read that one yet, but I heard that it was difficult.  Then again I was told that Moby Dick was hard dense, but it was an enjoyable read!), or maybe anything by Joseph Conrad (who is always a chore for me), but not The Great Gatsby!

Anyway, on facebook, a friend of mine posted a link to the Chicago Sun Times article (see above) and one of his friends posted this cartoon, which is geeky-English/lit major-hilarious.  That made me think of The Great Gatsby video game, or this one.  Then there's all this.  I get off point, I know.

In other news, here's my annotation for one of my new (new to me) favorite short story collections, T.C. Boyle's Tooth and Claw!

 

Boyle, T.C. Tooth and Claw: and Other Stories. New York: Viking, 2005.

 Boyle gets in close in these stories, using only a handful of characters (two or three, usually) per piece, so nothing feels crowded. He looks at alcoholism, love relationships, parenthood, and although his style and subject matter is reminiscent of Raymond Carver's, Boyle lets the narration tells his tales, whereas Carver seems to depend more on dialog. Still, it is clear that Boyle has read Carver well.

“Dogology” breaks away from the subject matter of most of the stories, a chronicle of a woman who is studying dogs by immersion and about two unrelated girls being raised by wolves in India. In some ways, “Chicxulub” seems to veer from the common themes, too, but there is a feeling of loss and personal struggle as in the others. The first person voice in stories such as “When I Woke Up This Morning, Everything I Had Was Gone” and “The Swift Passage of the Animals” makes the I character in both more honest in his failures.

I'm being called for dinner.

On Naomi Shihab Nye and Everything Else

ife, for me, now consists of:

 

 

• one toddling twin who is going to the pot like a super star and one toddling twin who prefers not to

• two paragraphs of a twenty page paper completed.  Well, two rough paragraphs.  And a sort-of thesis.

• twenty-one books to read and annotate/or incorporate in one of two twenty page papers to write

• one form rejection from a literay magazine, one mean rejection from another literary magazine, about fifteen submissions out

• one flat full of mean and spiteful upstairs neighbors, who are being evicted

the following annotation on Naomi Shihab Nye's Never in a Hurry:

Nye, Naomi Shihab.  Never in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places.  Columbia, SC:     U South Carolina Press, 1996.

    Brief, poetic essays on the author's life in the United States and visiting family in the Israel/Palistine area.  Some of the shorter essays—a couple of pages or fewer—may be considered prose poems, such as “Marie,” which is only a paragraph long.  And throughout, everything in Nye's life is fodder for subject, such as shopping for used cars in Hawai'i or eccentric neighbors.
    “One Village” is an excellent long essay about a visit Nye makes to Palistine, to visit her paternal grandmother and other family.  “The Rattle of Wheels toward the Rooms of the New Mothers” is harrowing and very well written.  “Enigma” is short and puzzling, but has a narrative arc, like so many of Nye's essays, that reveals her ability to tell a story.

 
That essay “The Rattle of Wheels toward the Rooms of the New Mothers” scared the crap out of me when I first read it.  I was pregnant then and having a hard time at it.  I didn't know why yet, and my obstetrician/pediatrician passed it off as being something else, or nothing at all.  That should have been a sign to drop him then, but what did I know?  But I held on to that essay during my entire pregnancy and since I had a difficult pregnancy and delivery, my babies were roomed away from me.  Every noise I heard outside my room as I convalesced sound like bad news coming.  That feeling of impending dread continued for about thirteen days.

I met Nye a couple a years back when she was a visiting professor at my university.  She is a very vibrant woman.  Tireless.  She travels around, teaching writing, writing, smiling, writing. . . when she was here, I bought a copy of her book of poetry Honeybee.  She signed it: "To Dee in friendship."  I didn't take her class, so she didn't know me.  You can only take so many workshops.  And since it was a small session (I think a cap of nine), I wanted to let the students who were poets and cnf writers take it, who would have benefited more from her than me.

Such a dynamic woman, though.  You should hear her read.

 

 

 

 

 

This War Called Love

y annotation for the Murguía short story collection is short, but that doesn't mean it is not worth more time with savoring.  I fell in love with his writing almost immediatelly.  I was overwhelmed with the lyricism of his prose, which makes since--he is a poet as well as a prose writer.  This is a slim collection--just nine stories--and worth the short time needed to read it, if not read it again.  Without further ado, my annotation, which is less than this brief review:

Murguía, Alejandro. This War Called Love. San Francisco: City Lights Publishers,     2002.

    A lovely collection of short stories, just nine. A good number.  All of the stories are Mexican or Mexican-American centered; some of the stories have the same narrator/protagonist.  The stories have a poetic language worth reading slowly. Themes include growing up, money, love.  Coming into middle age, or more settled adulthood, is also part of the tales. I am sure that Murguia's life is heavily borrowed from in these pieces.

  The first piece, "Boy on a Wooden Horse," is a painting of a story about a boy growing up--marginally middle-income and marginally poor--who is in love with his starlet mother. "A Lesson in Merengue" is a lesson given by a man who loves the dance and loves his politics. The title story, "This War Called Love," has the lovely line, "You are my biggest battle of this war called love."

Ah, I love good fiction!  In other news, I'm a little late to anything, ever.  Now, I'm a little late to online writing communities.  I found out about some that are interesting and seem legitimate, such as Fictionaut (which is invite only) and Red Lemonade, which I haven't looked too much into yet.  That's it for now.

Fun for Adults and Kids and Childish Adults: NE Writing Conference

eally having a great time at the Nebraska Summer Writing Conference!  Today, I got to hear my conference workshop leader, Maud Casey read as well as fairytale writer (the adult kind) read.  I went to the beginning of the Lemony Snicket event, but family duties called me away.  Before I left, I won a mustache and eye patch.

 

These photos are from my little LG Rumor Touch phone, so not the best quality.  Enjoy!

 

 




 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Workshopping Novels and Bastards from Carolina

ust one bastard, really, despite what this post's title says, and that's Bone, the protagonist in Dorothy Allison's most famous work.  I wrote this annotation a while ago--and I thought I added it!--but here it is today:

 

Allison, Dorothy. Bastard out of Carolina. New York: Plume, 1993.

 

Bastard Out of Carolina chronicles the formative life of Bone Boatwright, a semi-autobiographical character, and her family, including her extended family. Set in Greenville, South Carolina around 1955, the novel gives a stereotypical but just look at a Southern rural town. The story centers on Glen (Bone's stepfather) and Bone's relationship, but also explores Southern racism, sexism, female homosexuality, and the importance of family.

Anney Boatwright, Bone's mother, marries Llye, who soon dies but not before giving her another daughter, Reese. Soon, Anney marries Glen Waddel, who seemingly treats her well, but almost immediately starts abusing Bone both physically and sexually.

The Boatwrigths were poor. But the Waddells—Glen, Anney, Bone, and Reese—were poorer! Because of his attitude and later, his alcoholism, Glen couldn't keep a job, which once forces Anney into prostituiton in order to provide for her daughters. Allison depicts their poverty by saying so and in showing it. Before Anney decides to compromise her integrity for food, there is a scene of utter desparateness:

"One afternoon there was not even flour to make up the pretense of a meal. We [Bone, Reese, and Anney] sat at the kitchen table, Reese and I grumbling over our rumbling bellies. . . . [Anney] got out soda crackers and began to spread them with a layer of dark red ketchup spotted with salt and pepper. She poured us glasses of cold tea and told us stories about real hunger, hunger of days with no expectation that there would ever be biscuits again." (72)

 Allison makes these scenes of want work well with brief but detailed descriptions, nicely told through the voice of Bone, drawing more emotion.

This doesn't have a happy ending, but a realistic one, considering Anney's age and education level. Poverty makes you smarter in some ways, but the desparation is alway present and stronger than what is sometimes right.

That annotation is mostly review, isn't it?  And I have a lot to say about the book as far as meaning, but so what.  This particular book is one of the reasons I chose working class literature as my focus.  The scene that I mention above with the crackers and catsup?  That's what showing is.  That's a way the audience can understand poverty and want without being told.  It's wonderful!

In other news, the conference is going pretty ok.  I'm missing a reading now because I am wiped out and I want to spend time with my family, but I went to my workshop today.  Workshops at writing conferences are so much different than what you'd find in, say, a graduate program.  These aspiring writers don't have the language to approach others' drafts, nor necessarily the understanding of how workshops work and what they're for.  I have to remember that. If I keep that in mind, I'm fine!

My manuscript hasn't been discussed yet and I'm really kind of scared about it, but I'm always afraid of others' critiques of my work.  I appreciate it, but I'm afraid.  Maud Casey, though, is very encouraging and has a cache of knowledged culled from other writers and her own brilliant brain.  I am really happy to work with her!

Never a Dull Moment: Catching 22, Writing, Reading, Summer Conferencing

gain, I have been busy.  I wrote a draft for a novel in six days for the Nebraska Summer Writers Conference.  Hopefully, Maud Casey, the teacher of the workshop that I'm in, will like it!  The other writers in the class have interesting drafts, especially a woman named Shaw.  Sadly, her draft isn't finished.  She must finish it so that I may read it one day!

So writing that draft is part of my excuse for not writing here sooner.  The other parts are reading the other students' drafts, reading comps, and enjoying summer.

I am reading a few books now, including Le Sueur's Ripening: Selected Work, Susan Power's The Grass Dancer, and T. C. Boyle's Tooth and Claw: and Other Stories.

I have a rather abbreviated annotation of Keller's Catch 22.  I thought it was funny in parts, and Keller's style is very reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut and Hunter S. Thompson to me.  But, I thought the book was more than a little repetitive and I got a headache from the metaphorical hammer Keller was using on my head.  Anyway, here's my annotation:

Heller, Joseph.  Catch-22.  1961.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.

A series of vignettes following bombardier Yossarian and a host of other members during the last days of WWII.  Almost each chapter is devoted to a character associated with the cowardly/self-preserving Yossarian, and each is trapped in his own catch-22, or a situation where there are two loosing options.  At the end, Yossarian does escape the war alive.

Short and sweet!

 

Done and done: Summer Finally and Briefly, Carver

 was going to write a post the week before last week, but I got an email from a soon to be ex-fellow student (she has graduated and got a real job), who is also the assistant for our summer writer's conference, telling me to have my novel draft to her stat.  Of course, I didn't know for sure that I was going to be in the fiction master class, which is a novel class, so I hadn't been working on it.  I also did not have time to work on it.  Mind you, I learned of my deadline last Tuesday, the day after I finished grading and the day I was to start doing a whole lot of nothing.  And also mind that the deadline was for that very Friday!  Luckily for me, I was given an extension til Monday, so I finished a rather craptastic draft.

The Monday I finished the draft was my first meeting with my ELL student, so I had to hurry and prepare for that tutoring session in three hours.  That night, after I finished tutoring, I expected for my vacation to start, but I found out about a grant for artist or writer parents with children under eighteen.  The deadline was Friday.  I went into application mode and got it done on Friday at 3:00 and turned it in.  Whew! 

Now, finally for my vacation.  Or life of unemployment.  Or life as stay-at-home mom.  I'm not really sure what I'm calling this, because I'm stil a student.  I was okay with this at first, running out of funding and not teaching in the fall--such is the life of the graduate student/new mother--but I ran into an undergraduate student who heard me read.  He asked if I had any openings in my classes in the fall.  I told him I had no classes in the fall.  Sigh.  I don't know what to do next.  If I get a full time job, it'll pay for daycare at the most and I won't have the time or energy to finish my comps or dissertation.  If I get a part time job and work evenings and weekends, I'll never see my husband.  What to do?  Again, such is my life, etc., etc.

But moving on, here is this post's annotation, which is rather short and very abbreviated.  I've read so much  Carver and have written about him so often, that I feel like I'm repeating myself each time I write about him.  Also, the collection was so large and varied, it was hard to put a finger on it.  But, if you ever want to know which story to read by Carver, I'd be happy to tell you!

Carver, Raymond.  What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories.  New York: Vintage, 1989.

 A large collection of Carver stories, all displaying his famous style of not necessarily minimalism, but economic use of description and heavy on dialog.  The narration in many of the stories, including “Bicycles, Muscles, and Cigarettes” and “They're Not Your Husband,” the narrator seems so unassuming and as much as a background as a beige wall for the characters to play off of.  Many of the stories are in first person, and although these first person narrators are very often undesirable people, there is an admirable honesty about them.

 

So there you have it!  In other news, I have a new(ish) publication out at The Monarch Review (I'm really rethinking the title).  It came out on May 3.

Until next time!