April 2010 Archives
Or drywall, as the case may be:
Yeah, baby. It's looking good. Walls.Everything's seriously under construction right now, including the manuscript of THE DESIRE PROJECTS. Revising most mornings before work gets started has been a lifesaver; today, I hit page 332, so there are only about 40 more pages to go. Then I'll put down my pen and start putting in the changes electronically. Then we shall see.
I'm psyched about the offer for ISLAND OF BONES, the essay collection, but the contract is still under negotiation, so I'll restrain myself and be discreet. I can't wait to announce it, though. I'm very excited. I'm really proud of those essays. Did I tell you that the editor of Fourth Genre nominated "Grip" for a Pushcart? (I know, I know: lots of things get nominated for Pushcarts. Still, I'm excited.)
Speaking of really proud, my hat is all the way off to emily danforth, one of our Ph.D. students here at UNL, who just got a contract (and a serious advance--I mean like amazing, I mean like way better than lots of my professional-writer friends get) from HarperCollins for her first novel.
Can you imagine still being in grad school and having achieved that? Damn. In grad school, I was still figuring out which fork to use.
Tomorrow's the last day of classes, and I'll be picking up 30 papers from my women's lit students, which I'm actually pretty psyched about reading. This evening, I meet with my four graduate teaching interns to wrap up the semester. And my nature writing workshop is winding down, too. Grades are due in early May.
It's the denouement, the un-knotting.
And then comes the reason any writer takes an academic gig: Summer. Peace, solitude. The pen, the paper.
That's this character's motivation, let me tell you. And then we'll see what gets built.
Gentle readers, the electricians left this morning. My new office has walls, a door (with a lock), lights, and the Internet. I'm so happy. Photos soon.
It awaits paint and a floor. Oh, and furniture. But it's standing, and I love it.
Thanks so much to whoever nominated one of my blog posts as "Best Writing Advice" for Jane Friedman's blog at Writer's Digest. The titles of all 20 blog posts look fascinating and useful; link to the list here. What a nice surprise, to be in such good company. Thank you!
If you live in Lincoln and need to buy some gifts (or spoil yourself), shop tomorrow, Saturday the 24th, at Ten Thousand Villages in the Haymarket. Ten Thousand Villages is an amazing enterprise, period, but tomorrow, ten percent of their profits tomorrow go to Voices of Hope, a center that helps survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. So get your shop on and do some good. Thanks, Ariana, for the heads-up.
I'm very excited to have received, just yesterday, an acceptance from Indiana Review of my creative nonfiction piece "Hip Joints." It's about sexual harassment and strip mining in West Virginia in the '80s, when I was a high school senior and my boss at the factory hadn't yet heard of women's rights. (Pre-Anita Hill, sexual harassment wasn't a term very many people anywhere knew, and it sure hadn't trickled down to rural Appalachia back when I was sixteen.) "Hip Joints" (which are what we manufactured at the factory, but you can see the possibilities) is an ecofeminist piece that also incorporates issues of ethnicity. I'm happy that it's going to have an audience soon.
Here at UNL, there's one week left in the semester, and it's total crazy-time. Students are writing their final papers, and graduate students are defending their theses and dissertations and taking oral exams--which means we professors should really have cloned ourselves by now to handle it all. Somewhat counterintuitively, I've taken to revising a chapter of THE DESIRE PROJECTS every morning before the work-day starts. (I had been revising one chapter a week, and calling it good.) This makes me much happier. I can go around blithely, knowing I've paid my dues to writing first.
In other news, my Little Sister Amara turned 16 this week, my marriage to the HH turned 15, and Grey is counting down the days until his college graduation. Spring is always such an exciting time. And damn, it's good not to have to wear a coat everywhere!
It awaits paint and a floor. Oh, and furniture. But it's standing, and I love it.
Thanks so much to whoever nominated one of my blog posts as "Best Writing Advice" for Jane Friedman's blog at Writer's Digest. The titles of all 20 blog posts look fascinating and useful; link to the list here. What a nice surprise, to be in such good company. Thank you!
If you live in Lincoln and need to buy some gifts (or spoil yourself), shop tomorrow, Saturday the 24th, at Ten Thousand Villages in the Haymarket. Ten Thousand Villages is an amazing enterprise, period, but tomorrow, ten percent of their profits tomorrow go to Voices of Hope, a center that helps survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. So get your shop on and do some good. Thanks, Ariana, for the heads-up.
I'm very excited to have received, just yesterday, an acceptance from Indiana Review of my creative nonfiction piece "Hip Joints." It's about sexual harassment and strip mining in West Virginia in the '80s, when I was a high school senior and my boss at the factory hadn't yet heard of women's rights. (Pre-Anita Hill, sexual harassment wasn't a term very many people anywhere knew, and it sure hadn't trickled down to rural Appalachia back when I was sixteen.) "Hip Joints" (which are what we manufactured at the factory, but you can see the possibilities) is an ecofeminist piece that also incorporates issues of ethnicity. I'm happy that it's going to have an audience soon.
Here at UNL, there's one week left in the semester, and it's total crazy-time. Students are writing their final papers, and graduate students are defending their theses and dissertations and taking oral exams--which means we professors should really have cloned ourselves by now to handle it all. Somewhat counterintuitively, I've taken to revising a chapter of THE DESIRE PROJECTS every morning before the work-day starts. (I had been revising one chapter a week, and calling it good.) This makes me much happier. I can go around blithely, knowing I've paid my dues to writing first.
In other news, my Little Sister Amara turned 16 this week, my marriage to the HH turned 15, and Grey is counting down the days until his college graduation. Spring is always such an exciting time. And damn, it's good not to have to wear a coat everywhere!
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Welcome home, everyone who trekked across the country for the annual AWP conference!
Here's the report. I learned that Nebraska can throw you a freak snowstorm in April (we drove through it on the way there), that I am affected by altitude (huff, puff), that Denver has wild architecture and great restaurants, and that folks smoke pot right on the sidewalk. I learned that by-invitation-only parties in penthouses are not as exciting as they sound, though it still feels nice to be on the list. I learned that even very glamorous-looking people can sometimes need a bit of social rescuing, and that it feels good to reach out when they do. I learned that having your partner along at a professional conference is great fun. I remembered how lovely it can be to reconnect with friends.
I learned that I love the paintings of Moyo Ogundipe! Holy wow. This is the one we saw at the Denver Art Museum:
In this small venue, you can't really see the intricacies, the details, the repetitions and rhythms. (Look at the birds, the snake, the image on the headgear.) But please know: the work is gorgeous.
But in more literary terms, I learned the following:
I learned that elena minor, who founded PALABRA, runs it as a complete labor of love. She does everything herself, and she funds the production costs out of her own pocket--while working a full-time dayjob doing bookkeeping for a performing arts center. If you've ever been interested in the journal, which promotes avant-garde work by Latin@ writers, you might consider supporting it by subscribing. Read Francisco Aragón's interview with elena here and Marcela Landres's interview with her here. I got to spend an hour talking with elena at the PALABRA/Con Tinta table at the book fair, and it was one of the highlights of the conference for me.
I learned that Janice Harrington does a knockout close reading. I heard her speak on the Black Goes Green panel, which featured contributors to Camille Dungy's anthology Black Nature, about which you've heard on here. Some of the panelists, in addition to reading their own work, very generously offered their analyses of other poets' contributions. Janice's close reading of Anthony Walton's "Carrion" was superb, and I trotted right over to the BOA table afterward and picked up her own collection, Even the Hollow My Body Made Is Gone, and it's excellent. There's no guarantee that someone who's a precise, original reader and a generous, enthusiastic person will write good work, but it's sure true in this case.
I learned that I really want to read Manuel Ramos's work. He read just a sliver on a panel of Latinas y Latinos who write mystery, and I really liked the energy and precision of his language. All of the panelists were great, and I liked hearing them articulate how, for them, mystery novels are about social justice. For Ramos, the genre can provide "a sense of justice that isn't always found in real life." Panelist Alicia Gaspar de Alba sees the detective protagonist as no better than other people, but simply "more outraged, more indignant" about injustice.
On a panel about biography, here were the quotable quotes:
Bob Root: "Even if I don't entirely catch the person I'm tracking, I can bring the pursuit alive for the reader."
Kim Stafford, quoting the advice his father William Stafford gave him about where to put his writing energies: "Do the thing that's trying to happen. Do the thing that's most alive."
Honor Moore, quoting the advice Arthur Miller gave her when he read a draft of her biographical work: "Throw away the research and write it like a novel. You are the authority. We will come to know her through you." (This was after she'd totally immersed herself in the research and knew all the facts intimately.)
Honor Moore: "Write the hot spots."
I also learned that Nick Flynn and Natasha Trethewey have reading voices of gold. They were on a panel for the new anthology The Art of Losing, edited by Kevin Young, and seriously, there should have been a table of hankies at the end of every aisle. Such gorgeous pieces, so well read.
And that's me, really.
We got home late Sunday night to this:
Okay, so it looks a little like a cage, alarmingly, but I couldn't be more excited. Drywall will make a difference. Here's Spyder, looking coy:
Here's the report. I learned that Nebraska can throw you a freak snowstorm in April (we drove through it on the way there), that I am affected by altitude (huff, puff), that Denver has wild architecture and great restaurants, and that folks smoke pot right on the sidewalk. I learned that by-invitation-only parties in penthouses are not as exciting as they sound, though it still feels nice to be on the list. I learned that even very glamorous-looking people can sometimes need a bit of social rescuing, and that it feels good to reach out when they do. I learned that having your partner along at a professional conference is great fun. I remembered how lovely it can be to reconnect with friends.
I learned that I love the paintings of Moyo Ogundipe! Holy wow. This is the one we saw at the Denver Art Museum:
In this small venue, you can't really see the intricacies, the details, the repetitions and rhythms. (Look at the birds, the snake, the image on the headgear.) But please know: the work is gorgeous.But in more literary terms, I learned the following:
I learned that elena minor, who founded PALABRA, runs it as a complete labor of love. She does everything herself, and she funds the production costs out of her own pocket--while working a full-time dayjob doing bookkeeping for a performing arts center. If you've ever been interested in the journal, which promotes avant-garde work by Latin@ writers, you might consider supporting it by subscribing. Read Francisco Aragón's interview with elena here and Marcela Landres's interview with her here. I got to spend an hour talking with elena at the PALABRA/Con Tinta table at the book fair, and it was one of the highlights of the conference for me.
I learned that Janice Harrington does a knockout close reading. I heard her speak on the Black Goes Green panel, which featured contributors to Camille Dungy's anthology Black Nature, about which you've heard on here. Some of the panelists, in addition to reading their own work, very generously offered their analyses of other poets' contributions. Janice's close reading of Anthony Walton's "Carrion" was superb, and I trotted right over to the BOA table afterward and picked up her own collection, Even the Hollow My Body Made Is Gone, and it's excellent. There's no guarantee that someone who's a precise, original reader and a generous, enthusiastic person will write good work, but it's sure true in this case.
I learned that I really want to read Manuel Ramos's work. He read just a sliver on a panel of Latinas y Latinos who write mystery, and I really liked the energy and precision of his language. All of the panelists were great, and I liked hearing them articulate how, for them, mystery novels are about social justice. For Ramos, the genre can provide "a sense of justice that isn't always found in real life." Panelist Alicia Gaspar de Alba sees the detective protagonist as no better than other people, but simply "more outraged, more indignant" about injustice.
On a panel about biography, here were the quotable quotes:
Bob Root: "Even if I don't entirely catch the person I'm tracking, I can bring the pursuit alive for the reader."
Kim Stafford, quoting the advice his father William Stafford gave him about where to put his writing energies: "Do the thing that's trying to happen. Do the thing that's most alive."
Honor Moore, quoting the advice Arthur Miller gave her when he read a draft of her biographical work: "Throw away the research and write it like a novel. You are the authority. We will come to know her through you." (This was after she'd totally immersed herself in the research and knew all the facts intimately.)
Honor Moore: "Write the hot spots."
I also learned that Nick Flynn and Natasha Trethewey have reading voices of gold. They were on a panel for the new anthology The Art of Losing, edited by Kevin Young, and seriously, there should have been a table of hankies at the end of every aisle. Such gorgeous pieces, so well read.
And that's me, really.
We got home late Sunday night to this:
Okay, so it looks a little like a cage, alarmingly, but I couldn't be more excited. Drywall will make a difference. Here's Spyder, looking coy:And here's how we're living for the duration. James calls it a yurt, and I've always been a big fan of yurts, tents--anything soft and portable, anything nomadic and lovely.
I think it's kind of cool. It reminds me of those childhood forts, with sheets draped over the table, and it makes our apartment todo mysterious. I might not want to take it all down.
I think it's kind of cool. It reminds me of those childhood forts, with sheets draped over the table, and it makes our apartment todo mysterious. I might not want to take it all down.Categories:
The website of WILLA, Women in Letters and Literary Arts, has gone live just days before the AWP, which is germane because it was the rejection of her proposed AWP panel on women writers that led Cate Marvin to write the email that got the WILLA ball rolling last fall. WILLA seeks to address a lot of issues, but particularly those surrounding how women's writing is received, reviewed, reported, and respected. (You know, the kind of thing I gripe about from time to time when I skim the TOCs of the big magazines or report on the fellatastic fantasies of important journal editors.)
According to our mission statement, the folks in WILLA are "spread across the country, represent different identities, work from within a range of aesthetics, and share the common goal to create a forum at which all women writers may engage in much longed for conversations about literature being produced by women and its reception by the larger culture." You can get involved on Facebook or Twitter, and you can send your email to be notified as soon as membership becomes available. If you're heading to AWP, WILLA has kindly provided a list of events that might interest you.
In other news, the contractors are coming! The contractors are coming! Below please see the corner of our apartment that has been serving as my office since we moved to the new place on January 16th:
(Note the experimental and rather unsuccessful color swatches, the closed blinds obscuring the view of the multilevel parking garage, the very high-tech Internet connection coiled along the wall, and the raw cement floors--which I try to see as Industrial Chic, but they do wear on a girl.)
I'm quite used to writing in a corner of the living room; it's how I've been working since we got to Lincoln, and back in Crawfordsville, Indiana, I did most of my writing at the kitchen table or, in warm weather, on the front porch. In grad school, I drafted some of my best work after hours in the empty corridors of the Blocker building.
But no more. No more! At 42, I am about to get a room of my own, and I'm so excited. It should be done, according to the contractors' schedule, by April 22--which is also by coincidence not only Earth Day but also James's and my 15th wedding anniversary. (I read yesterday that people tend to overestimate how much they'll be made happier by additional wealth, and that simpler things actually make them happier: sex, socializing after work, and having dinner with friends. Meeting just once a month with friends has the happiness-effect of doubling your income, according to one study, and being well married offers the happiness equivalent of an extra $100,000 a year--which I guess makes James my Million and a Half Dollar Man.)
While marital bliss may make one wealthy in happiness, every mujer can still profit from a room with a door she can close.
The duct tape marks where the walls will go:
That's the computer on which I'm typing at this very moment, and on the lowest shelf of the bookcase are some of those notebooks I blather on about incessantly. As soon as I post this blog, I'm going to unplug the computer and drag everything out of the way, so the contractors can do their mighty thing.
You might also notice a small orange fellow in the shot. Shhhh--he believes he's functioning much like a hottie draped across a car hood, adding allure and value by his mere languid presence.
Faye asked kindly about him some time ago, so here is Spyder Von Zeppelin (Grey named him) in all his marmalade glory, earlier this winter:
When we first met Spyder, he was a tiny ball of pale fluff and bones, covered with gunky black oil and cowering under a car in the parking lot of the Kroger in Crawfordsville. Someone had apparently dropped him off to fend for himself.
We were on the way to see the first Pirates of the Caribbean (oh, the lengths to which parents will go), which subtly dates Spyder, and we thought the little kitten's odds did not look good. So we scrapped our movie plans and got a box from the Kroger. Grey lured him out from under the car, and we took him home--just for the night, of course, since the Humane Society was already closed.
And that was that. He's been with us through two sequels and shows no signs of leaving.
Agents? Book deals? Carmen Gimenez Smith keeps it real. (Scroll down to #2.) Thanks, John Chávez, for turning me on to her work.
My Women's and Gender Studies colleague Margaret Jacobs won the biggest book prize you can win if you're a historian, the Bancroft Prize. Her study analyzes the policy of child-removal in Australia and the American West, the trauma it caused to indigenous families, and the role white women played in the whole dynamic. Very important and complicated stuff. Congratulations, Margaret!
I am very excited about an offer that has been made for my book of essays, ISLAND OF BONES, but the ink's not dry, and I don't want to jinx anything, so I'll say no more for the present. However, I'll be reading the title essay at AWP, so if you want a sneak preview, come by on Thursday to the panel chaired by Lorraine López.
I'm also super-excited that, after a year spent at Boys Town, my "little sister" Amara gets to come home to Lincoln at the end of May. She's done great: she has straight As and can now run two miles, and she has the most amazing, upbeat attitude about the world. I get to see her this evening. She's about to turn 16!
Lastly, let me just say I hope that Sonam, Roland, and Rhonda had a wonderful time at the ACLA conference in New Orleans, which sounded fascinating, and I wish them safe travels home.
And everyone who's heading for Denver this week: Safe travels to you, and I hope we see each other!
According to our mission statement, the folks in WILLA are "spread across the country, represent different identities, work from within a range of aesthetics, and share the common goal to create a forum at which all women writers may engage in much longed for conversations about literature being produced by women and its reception by the larger culture." You can get involved on Facebook or Twitter, and you can send your email to be notified as soon as membership becomes available. If you're heading to AWP, WILLA has kindly provided a list of events that might interest you.
In other news, the contractors are coming! The contractors are coming! Below please see the corner of our apartment that has been serving as my office since we moved to the new place on January 16th:
(Note the experimental and rather unsuccessful color swatches, the closed blinds obscuring the view of the multilevel parking garage, the very high-tech Internet connection coiled along the wall, and the raw cement floors--which I try to see as Industrial Chic, but they do wear on a girl.)I'm quite used to writing in a corner of the living room; it's how I've been working since we got to Lincoln, and back in Crawfordsville, Indiana, I did most of my writing at the kitchen table or, in warm weather, on the front porch. In grad school, I drafted some of my best work after hours in the empty corridors of the Blocker building.
But no more. No more! At 42, I am about to get a room of my own, and I'm so excited. It should be done, according to the contractors' schedule, by April 22--which is also by coincidence not only Earth Day but also James's and my 15th wedding anniversary. (I read yesterday that people tend to overestimate how much they'll be made happier by additional wealth, and that simpler things actually make them happier: sex, socializing after work, and having dinner with friends. Meeting just once a month with friends has the happiness-effect of doubling your income, according to one study, and being well married offers the happiness equivalent of an extra $100,000 a year--which I guess makes James my Million and a Half Dollar Man.)
While marital bliss may make one wealthy in happiness, every mujer can still profit from a room with a door she can close.
The duct tape marks where the walls will go:
That's the computer on which I'm typing at this very moment, and on the lowest shelf of the bookcase are some of those notebooks I blather on about incessantly. As soon as I post this blog, I'm going to unplug the computer and drag everything out of the way, so the contractors can do their mighty thing.You might also notice a small orange fellow in the shot. Shhhh--he believes he's functioning much like a hottie draped across a car hood, adding allure and value by his mere languid presence.
Faye asked kindly about him some time ago, so here is Spyder Von Zeppelin (Grey named him) in all his marmalade glory, earlier this winter:
When we first met Spyder, he was a tiny ball of pale fluff and bones, covered with gunky black oil and cowering under a car in the parking lot of the Kroger in Crawfordsville. Someone had apparently dropped him off to fend for himself. We were on the way to see the first Pirates of the Caribbean (oh, the lengths to which parents will go), which subtly dates Spyder, and we thought the little kitten's odds did not look good. So we scrapped our movie plans and got a box from the Kroger. Grey lured him out from under the car, and we took him home--just for the night, of course, since the Humane Society was already closed.
And that was that. He's been with us through two sequels and shows no signs of leaving.
~
Even though that last line has the satisfying purse-clasp-snap of closure, I'm going to break all the rules of good blogging and go on here for a bit, since AWP and some ungodly committee meetings will leave me little time to write to you this week, and I don't expect to be back except maybe with tiny bulletins from my iPhone. Here's some random stuff I want to tell you:Agents? Book deals? Carmen Gimenez Smith keeps it real. (Scroll down to #2.) Thanks, John Chávez, for turning me on to her work.
My Women's and Gender Studies colleague Margaret Jacobs won the biggest book prize you can win if you're a historian, the Bancroft Prize. Her study analyzes the policy of child-removal in Australia and the American West, the trauma it caused to indigenous families, and the role white women played in the whole dynamic. Very important and complicated stuff. Congratulations, Margaret!
I am very excited about an offer that has been made for my book of essays, ISLAND OF BONES, but the ink's not dry, and I don't want to jinx anything, so I'll say no more for the present. However, I'll be reading the title essay at AWP, so if you want a sneak preview, come by on Thursday to the panel chaired by Lorraine López.
I'm also super-excited that, after a year spent at Boys Town, my "little sister" Amara gets to come home to Lincoln at the end of May. She's done great: she has straight As and can now run two miles, and she has the most amazing, upbeat attitude about the world. I get to see her this evening. She's about to turn 16!
Lastly, let me just say I hope that Sonam, Roland, and Rhonda had a wonderful time at the ACLA conference in New Orleans, which sounded fascinating, and I wish them safe travels home.
And everyone who's heading for Denver this week: Safe travels to you, and I hope we see each other!
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