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Letter from Seville II: The Endless City
Many friends, both old friends at home and new friends here in Seville, have asked if we'll be traveling around Spain during our time here. We could; five weeks is a long time, and my teaching schedule would permit quick overnight trips to other cities, especially with the good rail system Spain has. We could go to Madrid, Córdoba, Barcelona... A few people who know me well have asked, too, if we plan to trek up to Galicia, to see the province where my grandfather was born, the place from where my family name comes.
But we decided, after much debate, to stay here in Seville. To dwell. To live here, as much as such a thing is possible. To walk to work, to walk to the market, to cook, to wander, to read on the patio, to relax into the pace of life--to relax, period. (And honestly, as an adoptee whose adopted family was itself difficult and fractured, I'm tired of "roots trips" that, while rewarding, are always painful, intense, and ambiguous, leading to more questions, more quandaries of identity and belonging. I've done enough of those for a while.)
So we decided to stay here. And rather than feeling restrictive, this dwelling--I'm happy to report, in our final week here--has felt liberatory, fascinating, delightful.
Which is due, I think, in no small part to the fact that Seville is an endless city.
I don't mean endless in the sense of size, of sheer measurable quantity; the city proper can be circumnavigated in a single long walk.
Rather, it's endless in terms of those layers I wrote about last time: the palimpsest of history, the Iberians, the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Visigoths, the Moors, the Reconquista--the way that, over the many centuries, tiny crooked streets no wider than your outstretched arms have been wedged in among the monasteries and palaces and churches and ordinary houses of ordinary working people. You round a corner, and suddenly there's a tiny store with handmade shoes, or silk bags, or fountain pens and ink, or the exquisite ceramics for which Seville (especially Triana) is known. Tiny tapas bars. Tiny coffee shops. A vast hospital for elderly and ailing priests, with a beautiful sunken fountain in the center of its courtyard. Seville is dense, layered, thicketed with surprises. Even after four weeks of walking, walking, walking, we keep noticing alleys we haven't yet walked down, and when we do, lo and behold: three ancient Roman columns.
Seville is also home to many lush public gardens, including one of world's great city parks, Parque Maria Luisa, which itself is full of endless surprises. Within its grounds are, among other things, two fine museums, rose gardens, the vast showpiece La Plaza de España, and a fountain complex modeled upon the Alhambra. And trees! Huge magnolia trees thick as banyans, towering much higher than magnolias we've seen in Louisiana. Palm trees. Pergolas covered with wisteria. Statues of famous local figures, including Maria Luisa herself, who donated
the grounds, which used to belong privately to the San Telmo palace, to
the city of Seville in the 1890s. Long allées of jacaranda trees, their electric blue blossoms scattered on the sandy soil beneath.
We walk or go running in the park every day, among the peacocks and pigeons and horse-drawn carriages and local Sevillanos out for their evening strolls. It's a beautiful thing to do. Later, we head out for tapas, wine, and cold Cruzcampo, to which words cannot do justice. Our nights often end late at the lit cathedral, watching the swallows dart and swoop through the darkness.
So our time here, all of it spent on foot, has not been dull. And of course I've had the pleasure of teaching, as well. My students are lovely! Their work is so intriguing and well done. (My favorite student title thus far: "THE CONCEPTION OF MARTÍN ZARZA MINO IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR OF THE BLANK PAGE MADE UP OF SWEET SWEET CARAMEL.") The work is wonderfully varied: they're writing cryptic poems, and stories with multiple first-person narrators, classic tales, and thoroughly modern realistic pieces about urban alienation. They're fearless! Moreover, given that English is a second language for all of them, they're impressively sophisticated in our discussions, tossing about terms like postmodern and metafiction as lightly as jacaranda blossoms.
They've been on strike since last week, protesting the jump in tuition that the government has announced. (Our class has been meeting anyway, at the students' request.) To study is a right, not a privilege, their banners declare.
The BBC reports that tuition here will go up by 25%.* Individual students, meanwhile, have told me that their own particular bills will double. At the same time, professors have been told they'll have to teach 30% more next year, after just having received their second recent pay cut. And unemployment here is already at 25%. It's a difficult, volatile situation. We've seen several demonstrations and marches out on our walks.
The final thing that's kept me busy is the editing of my second novel. My editor was kind enough to send her edits here to Spain, so I've been working steadily on those. My deadline is the end of June.
I'm lucky. I've always been lucky with editors, and my St. Martin's editor's engagement with this manuscript was thorough, thoughtful, and smart. I couldn't ask for a more attentive, invested reader. She makes great suggestions, suggestions that actually push the manuscript closer toward what it wants to be (which is not always the same thing as what I want it to be). And the HH, who's recently gone on a Raymond Chandler binge, is reading it now, too, and making great suggestions as well. Here's hoping it turns out to be an even better book than Hell or High Water. Revising it on our beautiful patio, I hope, will make a difference.
Alas, however endless Seville may be, it's coming too quickly to an end for us. A week from now, we'll be over the Atlantic, missing our new friends and my new students, our minds dappled with sol y sombra, and already trying to figure out ways to make our life at home more filled with the delicias we found here.
*Many thanks to Amelia Montes for the link to the story!
But we decided, after much debate, to stay here in Seville. To dwell. To live here, as much as such a thing is possible. To walk to work, to walk to the market, to cook, to wander, to read on the patio, to relax into the pace of life--to relax, period. (And honestly, as an adoptee whose adopted family was itself difficult and fractured, I'm tired of "roots trips" that, while rewarding, are always painful, intense, and ambiguous, leading to more questions, more quandaries of identity and belonging. I've done enough of those for a while.)
So we decided to stay here. And rather than feeling restrictive, this dwelling--I'm happy to report, in our final week here--has felt liberatory, fascinating, delightful.
Which is due, I think, in no small part to the fact that Seville is an endless city.
I don't mean endless in the sense of size, of sheer measurable quantity; the city proper can be circumnavigated in a single long walk.
Rather, it's endless in terms of those layers I wrote about last time: the palimpsest of history, the Iberians, the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Visigoths, the Moors, the Reconquista--the way that, over the many centuries, tiny crooked streets no wider than your outstretched arms have been wedged in among the monasteries and palaces and churches and ordinary houses of ordinary working people. You round a corner, and suddenly there's a tiny store with handmade shoes, or silk bags, or fountain pens and ink, or the exquisite ceramics for which Seville (especially Triana) is known. Tiny tapas bars. Tiny coffee shops. A vast hospital for elderly and ailing priests, with a beautiful sunken fountain in the center of its courtyard. Seville is dense, layered, thicketed with surprises. Even after four weeks of walking, walking, walking, we keep noticing alleys we haven't yet walked down, and when we do, lo and behold: three ancient Roman columns.
Seville is also home to many lush public gardens, including one of world's great city parks, Parque Maria Luisa, which itself is full of endless surprises. Within its grounds are, among other things, two fine museums, rose gardens, the vast showpiece La Plaza de España, and a fountain complex modeled upon the Alhambra. And trees! Huge magnolia trees thick as banyans, towering much higher than magnolias we've seen in Louisiana. Palm trees. Pergolas covered with wisteria. Statues of famous local figures, including Maria Luisa herself, who donated
the grounds, which used to belong privately to the San Telmo palace, to
the city of Seville in the 1890s. Long allées of jacaranda trees, their electric blue blossoms scattered on the sandy soil beneath. We walk or go running in the park every day, among the peacocks and pigeons and horse-drawn carriages and local Sevillanos out for their evening strolls. It's a beautiful thing to do. Later, we head out for tapas, wine, and cold Cruzcampo, to which words cannot do justice. Our nights often end late at the lit cathedral, watching the swallows dart and swoop through the darkness.
So our time here, all of it spent on foot, has not been dull. And of course I've had the pleasure of teaching, as well. My students are lovely! Their work is so intriguing and well done. (My favorite student title thus far: "THE CONCEPTION OF MARTÍN ZARZA MINO IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR OF THE BLANK PAGE MADE UP OF SWEET SWEET CARAMEL.") The work is wonderfully varied: they're writing cryptic poems, and stories with multiple first-person narrators, classic tales, and thoroughly modern realistic pieces about urban alienation. They're fearless! Moreover, given that English is a second language for all of them, they're impressively sophisticated in our discussions, tossing about terms like postmodern and metafiction as lightly as jacaranda blossoms.
They've been on strike since last week, protesting the jump in tuition that the government has announced. (Our class has been meeting anyway, at the students' request.) To study is a right, not a privilege, their banners declare.
The BBC reports that tuition here will go up by 25%.* Individual students, meanwhile, have told me that their own particular bills will double. At the same time, professors have been told they'll have to teach 30% more next year, after just having received their second recent pay cut. And unemployment here is already at 25%. It's a difficult, volatile situation. We've seen several demonstrations and marches out on our walks.The final thing that's kept me busy is the editing of my second novel. My editor was kind enough to send her edits here to Spain, so I've been working steadily on those. My deadline is the end of June.
I'm lucky. I've always been lucky with editors, and my St. Martin's editor's engagement with this manuscript was thorough, thoughtful, and smart. I couldn't ask for a more attentive, invested reader. She makes great suggestions, suggestions that actually push the manuscript closer toward what it wants to be (which is not always the same thing as what I want it to be). And the HH, who's recently gone on a Raymond Chandler binge, is reading it now, too, and making great suggestions as well. Here's hoping it turns out to be an even better book than Hell or High Water. Revising it on our beautiful patio, I hope, will make a difference.
Alas, however endless Seville may be, it's coming too quickly to an end for us. A week from now, we'll be over the Atlantic, missing our new friends and my new students, our minds dappled with sol y sombra, and already trying to figure out ways to make our life at home more filled with the delicias we found here.*Many thanks to Amelia Montes for the link to the story!
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Judging
Judge not, lest ye be judged. The biblical scripture is iconic, in settings religious and less so; it even showed up on Mad Men last night, embossed on an ad-man's portfolio. The episode was called "Judge Not"--which was a funny coincidence, because it's been on my mind lately.
When I was a child, growing up among Jehovah's Witnesses, the scripture was quoted often, but the primary interpretive thrust was that we should be humble and not judge others--which was confusing, of course, because we did judge others, all the time, for being worldly in a variety of ways. The way we used the scripture never made a lot of sense to me.
But as an adult, I've often wondered about the phrase as a simple truism, one that has to do with your own mind, your own process. That is, if you're the kind of person who constantly, unhappily judges others, such judging will become your mental habit, and you won't be able to help turning that caustic gaze upon yourself. And that will be painful.
At least, that was my experience for much of my life, and the scripture makes sense in that context.
I recently read two essays by Sally Adee, "Zap your brain into the zone: Fast track to pure focus" and "How electrical brain stimulation can change the way we think," about transcranial direct current stimulation--introducing an electrical current (about the same as a 9-volt battery) into the brain of awake, conscious learners.
It immediately creates startling improvement. Learners become relaxed, totally focused, and totally engaged. They learn skills more quickly and with less strain. The mental state the essay describes--the focus, the concentration, the effortless flow--is similar to what Zen practitioners and long-time meditators describe. Electrical stimulation provides a way of achieving that state of "flow" so highly sought after by athletes and musicians. (And snipers, as one piece points out. In the sequel to Hell or High Water, Nola's therapist wants her to meditate in order to modulate the effects of PTSD, but she can't. She goes to the shooting range instead.)
If you've felt flow, then you know what a wonderful feeling it is. Why does electrical stimulation work to help people achieve flow instantly? "One possibility," writes Adee, "is that the electrodes somehow reduce activity in the prefrontal cortex--the area used in critical thought..."
Critical thought. That's interesting to me.
It's particularly interesting because this feels like the judging season. We're finally done with judging graduate applications and job applicants, and I've just finished judging my second writing contest this year. As a guest editor, I'm judging submissions to a special issue of Brevity. And of course, there's the weekly grading of my students' papers. And then, too, we all judge the arguments and/or aesthetic qualities of the published texts we teach. Judging/critiquing is a useful way to identify strengths and weaknesses, and as a society (and as writers trying to improve our own manuscripts), we need that. We need it when we decide how to vote, or where to live, or any number of things crucial to our well-being.
All of that's fine; it's kind of fun; it's my job; okay. It's one way of using your brain.
But many academics enshrine critical thinking, or judging, as the way to think. (Many people do, to be sure; I'm just surrounded by academics most of the time, so that's my reference group. And because, as academics, we're always using language that explicitly vaunts critical thinking, in order to explain and justify much of what we do as educators, our official esteem for that approach is always writ large.) We critique, critique, critique, and pat ourselves on the back for using that mode.
But then it becomes hard to turn the inner critic off. We find ourselves upset with others much of the time. Moreover, we judge ourselves just as ruthlessly. We imagine we are being judged by others. And then we suffer and are anxious.
Experience tells me this phenomenon is not limited to academics.
"My brain without self-doubt was a revelation," writes Adee, describing the experience of electrical stimulation. "There was suddenly this incredible silence in my head." Her "constant stream of self-criticism" just stopped. For Adee, the effects lasted for about three days.
I'm wondering if this "incredible silence" is what Zen monks pursue with such diligence on their zafus. To live permanently in a zone of effortless focus, tremendous effectiveness, and tranquility would be worth a few leg cramps.
It's definitely the case that critical thinking--assessing, evaluating, judging, analyzing--is one viable, useful, and tremendously important way to use your brain. I'm glad we've got it.
But it's only one way. There are others, and they can lead to greater peace. Acceptance. Love. Curiosity. Openness. Appreciation. Listening.
Just thinking out loud here, friends. Take care.
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Grateful
It's a beautiful bright Friday here in Lincoln, Nebraska, the last day of our official UNL spring break, and I'm feeling grateful for a lot of things.
I'm grateful to all the people who are speaking up and speaking out about the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin and the problems of the "Stand Your Ground" laws in Florida (and elsewhere). I'm grateful that the Toulouse shooter Mohamed Merah can't kill anyone else, and sad about the way it happened.
Peace on the families of the victims. Peace on the families of the killers. Peace.
• the long spates of uninterrupted time this week to work on my second novel, BAD SHOOT, which I'll be sending off to my editor at St. Martin's this coming Monday. I'm at about 250 pages now, which is short, but there's still time.
• the kind feedback from and good points raised by all the commenters on my short piece, "The Dangerous Myth of a Room of One's Own," and the help of Tracy Seeley and Lorraine López as I was writing. I'm glad people are continuing to find the piece useful and tweeting it out there.
• this really nice (and really early!) review of HELL OR HIGH WATER at LitStack. Many thanks to the insightful reviewer, Stephanie Ward.
• the new IndieBound page for HELL OR HIGH WATER, so if you want to get a copy from your local indie bookstore, you can.
I'm grateful to all the people who are speaking up and speaking out about the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin and the problems of the "Stand Your Ground" laws in Florida (and elsewhere). I'm grateful that the Toulouse shooter Mohamed Merah can't kill anyone else, and sad about the way it happened.
Peace on the families of the victims. Peace on the families of the killers. Peace.
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Is THE HELP Helping?
That's the name of the panel that UNL faculty members have put together for next week:
"Is The Help Helping? A Roundtable Discussion on Race, Gender, and History as Fiction," with
I'm really excited. I can't wait to see what they say.
"Is The Help Helping? A Roundtable Discussion on Race, Gender, and History as Fiction," with
It will take place on Wednesday, September 14, 3:30-5:00 p.m. in the Bailey Library, on the second floor of Andrews Hall, City Campus, UNL.Prof. Anna Williams Shavers, Cline Williams Professor of Citizenship Law, UNL Law College
Dr. Kwakiutl Dreher, Ethnic Studies & English, UNL
Dr. Jeannette Eileen Jones, Ethnic Studies & History, UNL
Dr. Patrick Jones, Ethnic Studies & History, UNL.
I'm really excited. I can't wait to see what they say.
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Thanks for Your Help with THE HELP, and a Panel in Lincoln
Many thanks to those of you who've sent (via Twitter & Facebook) these links to other pieces about the book and film The Help. I'm grateful for the chance to expand my initial compilation of key online commentaries.
From Emily Hammerl, these links:
Multiple takes on the problematic aspects of The Help, including the difference between the UK and US versions, plus an announcement of a Twitter discussion on August 28th, #100voicesrespondtothehelp.
"Reading the Help," by Susannah Bartlow, a white feminist whose "goal is to step into necessary solidarity with black feminists."
Claire Potter's "For Colored Only? Understanding The Help Through the Lens of White Womanhood" in the Chronicle of Higher Ed.
Jezebel.com's critique of the way popular magazines' takes on The Help have appealed to readers' taste buds/nostalgia, "Recipes for Shit Pie as Inspired by The Help."
From Julie Holden, these two: David Denby's review in the New Yorker, and Helena Andrews' piece, "I Was 'The Help,' or Why Cicely Tyson Freaks Me the Hell Out."
From Ashley Lawson, "Eudora Welty's Jackson: 'The Help' in Context" by W. Ralph Edwards on NPR Books.
And from Christin Geall, "On 'The Help,'" at Feministe, about the disturbing "nostalgia for ugly times."
Thanks to Ada Vilageliu Diaz for linking to a piece by Marybeth Gasman, a professor of higher ed at Penn, in The Chronicle of Higher Ed yesterday, "The Strength of African-American Women and American Racism," in which Gasman writes,
Or maybe, by provoking discussion, it is. We'll see.
Mark your calendar for Wednesday, September 14th, 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. in the Bailey Library in Andrews Hall at UNL, where Professors Jeannette Eileen Jones (History & African American Studies), Kwakiutl Dreher (English & African American Studies), Patrick Jones (History & African American Studies), and Anna Williams Shavers, the Cline Williams Professor of Citizenship Law at UNL's Law College, will speak.
More later on that.
For the moment, I'm done--so done--with The Help. Off to see Colombiana.
From Emily Hammerl, these links:
Multiple takes on the problematic aspects of The Help, including the difference between the UK and US versions, plus an announcement of a Twitter discussion on August 28th, #100voicesrespondtothehelp.
"Reading the Help," by Susannah Bartlow, a white feminist whose "goal is to step into necessary solidarity with black feminists."
Claire Potter's "For Colored Only? Understanding The Help Through the Lens of White Womanhood" in the Chronicle of Higher Ed.
Jezebel.com's critique of the way popular magazines' takes on The Help have appealed to readers' taste buds/nostalgia, "Recipes for Shit Pie as Inspired by The Help."
From Julie Holden, these two: David Denby's review in the New Yorker, and Helena Andrews' piece, "I Was 'The Help,' or Why Cicely Tyson Freaks Me the Hell Out."
From Ashley Lawson, "Eudora Welty's Jackson: 'The Help' in Context" by W. Ralph Edwards on NPR Books.
And from Christin Geall, "On 'The Help,'" at Feministe, about the disturbing "nostalgia for ugly times."
Thanks to Ada Vilageliu Diaz for linking to a piece by Marybeth Gasman, a professor of higher ed at Penn, in The Chronicle of Higher Ed yesterday, "The Strength of African-American Women and American Racism," in which Gasman writes,
Thanks, everyone! The "foster interesting discussions" part is what we're hoping to work with here in Lincoln, where the Ethnic Studies faculty is planning a panel. Something like, "Why The Help Isn't Helping."We both enjoyed the film in spite of how difficult it was to watch at times. Although it wasn't entirely historically accurate, many of the the themes in the movie were important and could be used to foster interesting discussions among people of different racial or ethnic backgrounds.
Or maybe, by provoking discussion, it is. We'll see.
Mark your calendar for Wednesday, September 14th, 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. in the Bailey Library in Andrews Hall at UNL, where Professors Jeannette Eileen Jones (History & African American Studies), Kwakiutl Dreher (English & African American Studies), Patrick Jones (History & African American Studies), and Anna Williams Shavers, the Cline Williams Professor of Citizenship Law at UNL's Law College, will speak.
More later on that.
For the moment, I'm done--so done--with The Help. Off to see Colombiana.
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Help Yourself.
You may have already read Entertainment Weekly's piece by Martha Southgate on The Help, in which she calls out the publishing industry and Hollywood for their "continued impulse to reduce the black women and men of the civil rights movement to bit players in the most extraordinary step toward justice that this nation has ever known."
You may have read Jennifer Williams' piece in Ms., which reminds readers that The Help's so-called "untold story" of black domestic workers' difficultie in a racist society has actually been amply explored by such black women writers as Ann Petry, Lorraine Hansberry, Alice Childress, Toni Morrison, and Jamaica Kincaid. Williams calls The Help
And apparently there's nostalgia aplenty, which has not hurt author Kathryn Stockett. She's just become "the first debut novelist to join the Million Club," selling over a million paid copies of her book on Kindle, and I think I heard that it's already sold upward of 3 million copies in hardcover and paperback.
You may have read Matt Zoller Seitz's piece, "Why Hollywood Keeps Whitewashing the Past," which calls The Help
You may have seen how Latina magazine jumped on The Help's bandwagon with its little featurette about "our favorite Latina 'help' roles of all-time!"--and the response by Latina Fatale, "Shame on Latina Magazine!"
But my very favorite so far might be what Roxane Gay says in her piece "The Solace of Preparing Fried Foods and Other Quaint Remembrances from 1960s Mississippi: Thoughts on The Help." Gay sees The Help as "science fiction, creating an alternate universe to the one we live in."
Sigh. Science fiction. An alternate universe. Cowboys & Aliens. Why are mass audiences loving these visions right now?
Several of my women's studies and ethnic studies professor-friends have seen the film lately, and I'm hoping they're going to weigh in about all of this here on the blog at some point. (At UNL, there are also tentative plans to host a panel about the issues the book/film raises. More on that later for local readers.)
In the meantime, to well-meaning nostalgic sci-fi fans of a postracial fantasy world: You is kind, you is smart, you is important. But have you ever read The Bluest Eye?
You may have read Jennifer Williams' piece in Ms., which reminds readers that The Help's so-called "untold story" of black domestic workers' difficultie in a racist society has actually been amply explored by such black women writers as Ann Petry, Lorraine Hansberry, Alice Childress, Toni Morrison, and Jamaica Kincaid. Williams calls The Help
You may have even read the open statement by the Association of Black Women Historians: "We do not recognize the black community described in The Help. . . .":the perfect summer escape for viewers who embrace the fantasy of a postracial America. Those filmgoers can tuck the history of race and class inequality safely in the past, even as the recession deepens already profound racial gaps in wealth and employment.
My favorite line from their statement calls the book/film "troubling because it reveals a contemporary nostalgia for the days when a black woman could only hope to clean the White House rather than reside in it.". . . The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers. We are specifically concerned about the representations of black life and the lack of attention given to sexual harassment and civil rights activism. . . . The Help is not a story about the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to support their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of a white protagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense of her own.
And apparently there's nostalgia aplenty, which has not hurt author Kathryn Stockett. She's just become "the first debut novelist to join the Million Club," selling over a million paid copies of her book on Kindle, and I think I heard that it's already sold upward of 3 million copies in hardcover and paperback.
You may have read Matt Zoller Seitz's piece, "Why Hollywood Keeps Whitewashing the Past," which calls The Help
And you might already know about Nelson George's criticism of The Help for its "false sense of authenticity" and its "candy-coated cinematography," which "buffers viewers from the era's violence."a college-educated white liberal's wish-fulfillment fantasy of how she would have conducted herself had she been time-warped back to the civil rights era. I wouldn't have just stood by and let it happen. I would have done something! Something brave!
You may have seen how Latina magazine jumped on The Help's bandwagon with its little featurette about "our favorite Latina 'help' roles of all-time!"--and the response by Latina Fatale, "Shame on Latina Magazine!"
But my very favorite so far might be what Roxane Gay says in her piece "The Solace of Preparing Fried Foods and Other Quaint Remembrances from 1960s Mississippi: Thoughts on The Help." Gay sees The Help as "science fiction, creating an alternate universe to the one we live in."
Sigh. Science fiction. An alternate universe. Cowboys & Aliens. Why are mass audiences loving these visions right now?
Several of my women's studies and ethnic studies professor-friends have seen the film lately, and I'm hoping they're going to weigh in about all of this here on the blog at some point. (At UNL, there are also tentative plans to host a panel about the issues the book/film raises. More on that later for local readers.)
In the meantime, to well-meaning nostalgic sci-fi fans of a postracial fantasy world: You is kind, you is smart, you is important. But have you ever read The Bluest Eye?
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A New Book I Can't Wait to Read
I first met the fascinating, gutsy, and apparently indefatigable Wendy Call at the Macondo Writers' Workshop, where we spent a great week together writing memoir. But I'd encountered her work before that, and probably so have you: in her terrific co-edited volume Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, which is full of practical, useful advice from nonfiction writers at the top of their game.
Now Wendy has a new book out that I can't wait to read: No Word for Welcome: The Mexican Village Faces the Global Economy.
No Word for Welcome explores the impact of global industrial development on the people, culture, and natural environment of Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec, offering fully rounded portraits of the teachers, fishers, activists, and farmers who are working to prevent the destruction of their world. No Word for Welcome inserts individual human stories into the macro-story of economic globalization and opens a window for U.S. readers onto a beautiful, fragile part of Mexico.
Critics seem helplessly unable to stop loving this book. Sven Birkerts calls it "an engaged documentary account that is at once informative and stirring," and the Iowa Review praises Wendy's "graceful movement between cultures."
Sandra Cisneros calls No Word for Welcome, “Fascinating. Beautifully written. Deeply researched," and Phillip Lopate offers an unqualified endorsement: "On every level, the work succeeds. She has merged an enormous amount of investigation with a graceful belletristic tone, ferreting out the subject’s contradictions and complexities. It's a beautiful job."
What's more, No Word for Welcome has been published by one of my favorite presses, the University of Nebraska Press, which seems to be racking up Nobel Prize winners right and left lately. For me, their imprimatur has become practically a guarantee of smart, complicated, beautiful, and provocative reads. You can read a short excerpt here.
As Sandra Cisneros points out, the story of corporate industrialization, environmental and cultural destruction, and resistance by la gente is "a story happening everywhere, including our own backyard." This book is relevant to us all.
Bonus for Star City locals: rumor has it that Wendy will be here in Lincoln near the end of October. I'm hoping she'll give a reading somewhere in town (hint, hint, Indigo Bridge Books).
If she does, I intend to bribe my new crop of graduate students into attending. (Talented young people, consider yourselves warned.)
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May 2, 2011
Well, I have absolutely no wisdom about the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
I can only say that it felt strange, roughly into a decade that has, sadly, defined life (and death) for so many young people, for the goal of all these efforts to suddenly, unexpectedly, be reached.
I'm grateful that I was not--like many of the people up in trees last night, wrapped in flags and whooping and hollering--a child in middle school when 9/11 happened, when we turned our whole focus as a nation toward war. I'm glad I had a chance to grow up with other, smaller national problems, without that convulsion of national horror and grief, without watching the adults around me terrified and silenced (if only temporarily), without the bitter ideological substitute for the Cold War that the so-called War on Terror became. I'm glad that the attacks and their ruinous aftermath have occupied only a quarter of my life, after I'd already reached adulthood, and not a full half of it, while my mind and my views were still developing. I'm sorry that the case has been otherwise for so many.
Regarding the killing itself, I continue to think it's so deeply strange that we come to associate a person's ideas and ideology so much with his or her body. Do we think that by destroying the body, we destroy the idea? Ideas, good and ill, can't be expunged from the earth so easily. (On that note, go here to sign a petition to urge the Chinese government to free artist Ai Weiwei, who has been "disappeared" by security forces.)
Do we hope to frighten others away from a similar course by demonstrating what their likely ends will be? Or is it the urge to punish? The urge for revenge?
All these, I suppose.
It left me feeling hollow and disturbed. Not euphoric. Impressed with Obama, sure. But only up to a point.
In the Dhammapada, it says, "For hatred can never put an end to hatred. Love alone can. This is unalterable law." Encountering that text quite early in life has probably ruined me for triumphant violence.
It goes on: "People forget that their lives will end soon. For those who remember, quarrels come to an end." I like that part, too.
Shifting gears entirely: if all goes well, one year from today--on May 2, 2012--I'll be teaching my first class at the University of Seville! I'll teach creative writing for five weeks. I'm excited! They want someone who will teach in English; I want a place redolent with new scents and sights where I can be a flâneur and improve my Spanish. Perfect exchange. Many thanks to colleagues Ariana, Amelia, and James, who encouraged me to apply, and to future colleague María Luisa, whom I can't wait to meet.
Many happy returns of the day to these lovely students and former students who've recently published their work or had pieces accepted:
I'm excited to report that the University of Nebraska Press has acquired paperback rights to my memoir The Truth Book. Thank you, Tom Swanson! They're deciding now about when to release it. I'm happy, because it will have a redesigned cover--no more tabloidesque red, white, and black--and will get to shed, at long last, its rather sensationalistic subtitle, which was imposed by Arcade, the original press, and which always embarrassed me and seemed to point readers down a prematurely narrowed road.
Ah, the power of marketing departments. Sigh.
Anyway, I'm happy about the new incarnation The Truth Book will get to have, and I look forward to seeing what the University of Nebraska Press, with its wonderful book designers, will do with it.
But most of all, I love the fact that it will finally be available in a less expensive version for readers and especially for students.
I started reading War and Peace this morning, and finished Jennifer Egan's The Keep over the weekend, which I can't recommend highly enough (especially if you have a weakness for the Gothic). It's self-reflexive postmodernism, yes, but with a heart and a point, and it's just a lovely, wholly intelligent work of art. So clever and haunted and well wrought. (White privilege alert, though: no characters of color to be found.)
In other book news, the editor who acquired THE DESIRE PROJECTS emailed today to say that she'll have her edits on the first 200 pages sent to me by the end of this week! I'm so excited. I'm finishing grading final papers right now, and just about the time I turn in final grades, her edits should be here. She's also putting together the announcement for Publishers Marketplace, so that's exciting, too. More soon . . .
I can only say that it felt strange, roughly into a decade that has, sadly, defined life (and death) for so many young people, for the goal of all these efforts to suddenly, unexpectedly, be reached.
I'm grateful that I was not--like many of the people up in trees last night, wrapped in flags and whooping and hollering--a child in middle school when 9/11 happened, when we turned our whole focus as a nation toward war. I'm glad I had a chance to grow up with other, smaller national problems, without that convulsion of national horror and grief, without watching the adults around me terrified and silenced (if only temporarily), without the bitter ideological substitute for the Cold War that the so-called War on Terror became. I'm glad that the attacks and their ruinous aftermath have occupied only a quarter of my life, after I'd already reached adulthood, and not a full half of it, while my mind and my views were still developing. I'm sorry that the case has been otherwise for so many.
Regarding the killing itself, I continue to think it's so deeply strange that we come to associate a person's ideas and ideology so much with his or her body. Do we think that by destroying the body, we destroy the idea? Ideas, good and ill, can't be expunged from the earth so easily. (On that note, go here to sign a petition to urge the Chinese government to free artist Ai Weiwei, who has been "disappeared" by security forces.)
Do we hope to frighten others away from a similar course by demonstrating what their likely ends will be? Or is it the urge to punish? The urge for revenge?
All these, I suppose.
It left me feeling hollow and disturbed. Not euphoric. Impressed with Obama, sure. But only up to a point.
In the Dhammapada, it says, "For hatred can never put an end to hatred. Love alone can. This is unalterable law." Encountering that text quite early in life has probably ruined me for triumphant violence.
It goes on: "People forget that their lives will end soon. For those who remember, quarrels come to an end." I like that part, too.
~
Shifting gears entirely: if all goes well, one year from today--on May 2, 2012--I'll be teaching my first class at the University of Seville! I'll teach creative writing for five weeks. I'm excited! They want someone who will teach in English; I want a place redolent with new scents and sights where I can be a flâneur and improve my Spanish. Perfect exchange. Many thanks to colleagues Ariana, Amelia, and James, who encouraged me to apply, and to future colleague María Luisa, whom I can't wait to meet.
Many happy returns of the day to these lovely students and former students who've recently published their work or had pieces accepted:
¡Felicidades! Wow! Enjoy the glow, and be sure to let it last.Faye Snider, whose creative nonfiction "Goldie's Gold" will appear in Alimentum this June
DeMisty Bellinger, whose short story "what plums would do" appears online in SpringGun
Sindu Sathiyaseelan (who has also been moonlighting as my fantastic and indispensable research assistant; lucky me) who's had creative nonfiction accepted by both Brevity and Water~Stone Review
I'm excited to report that the University of Nebraska Press has acquired paperback rights to my memoir The Truth Book. Thank you, Tom Swanson! They're deciding now about when to release it. I'm happy, because it will have a redesigned cover--no more tabloidesque red, white, and black--and will get to shed, at long last, its rather sensationalistic subtitle, which was imposed by Arcade, the original press, and which always embarrassed me and seemed to point readers down a prematurely narrowed road.
Ah, the power of marketing departments. Sigh.
Anyway, I'm happy about the new incarnation The Truth Book will get to have, and I look forward to seeing what the University of Nebraska Press, with its wonderful book designers, will do with it.
But most of all, I love the fact that it will finally be available in a less expensive version for readers and especially for students.
I started reading War and Peace this morning, and finished Jennifer Egan's The Keep over the weekend, which I can't recommend highly enough (especially if you have a weakness for the Gothic). It's self-reflexive postmodernism, yes, but with a heart and a point, and it's just a lovely, wholly intelligent work of art. So clever and haunted and well wrought. (White privilege alert, though: no characters of color to be found.)
In other book news, the editor who acquired THE DESIRE PROJECTS emailed today to say that she'll have her edits on the first 200 pages sent to me by the end of this week! I'm so excited. I'm finishing grading final papers right now, and just about the time I turn in final grades, her edits should be here. She's also putting together the announcement for Publishers Marketplace, so that's exciting, too. More soon . . .
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Strength, Service, Vision
"Your Body, Your Voice: Human Rights Now" went beautifully! I have long been interested in (okay: obsessed with) structural similarities among violence at the macro level (the political space of the nation-state), the mid-level (the realm of the street: of crime, law enforcement, and prisons), and the micro level (the domestic space of the family home). How do the dynamics of these three levels of violence differ, and where do they coincide?
Being invited to give a lecture at Indiana State University's tenth annual Human Rights Day conference was a great opportunity to pull my thoughts together into a coherent argument about how illegitimate regimes use traumatizing violence upon the bodies of resisters to shatter the self, thus silencing opposition--and how narrative can function to heal trauma and resist oppression. It was a great chance to share the insights of these wonderful books, which have long been favorites, and others, like Ari Kohen's In Defense of Human Rights: A Non-Religious Grounding in a Pluralistic World, with a big, interested audience.
The talk got a huge turnout of students, staff, faculty, and community folks--it was SRO, w/people lined up in the hallway to hear. Awesome. Afterwards, a lot of people came up to pick up copies of the little "For Further Reading" handout I'd prepared. Great!
I was nervous, naturalmente, when I looked out at the crowd, because you know public speaking makes me shake, but I kept thinking of that great Audre Lorde line that always motivates me:
And she doesn't say, When I dare to use my strength in the service of my ego, or my bank account. No. When I use it in the service of my vision. Then fear ceases to matter.
Hats off to ISU for sponsoring such an important conference every year! Human rights discourse itself is a fragile narrative, one to which we need to give as much attention as possible as often as possible.
I loved getting to read my creative work, too, to a lively and generous audience, and to visit classes in social work and counseling psychology.
A highlight of the visit was meeting novelist Aaron Morales, who's on the faculty there. I'm reading his book Drowning Tucson now, and I like this interview that Rigoberto González did with him last summer.
Many thanks to my host Dr. Keith Byerman and everyone else who worked so hard to bring me to ISU. You spoiled me rotten, and I had an awesome time. Human rights now! ¡Órale!
Being invited to give a lecture at Indiana State University's tenth annual Human Rights Day conference was a great opportunity to pull my thoughts together into a coherent argument about how illegitimate regimes use traumatizing violence upon the bodies of resisters to shatter the self, thus silencing opposition--and how narrative can function to heal trauma and resist oppression. It was a great chance to share the insights of these wonderful books, which have long been favorites, and others, like Ari Kohen's In Defense of Human Rights: A Non-Religious Grounding in a Pluralistic World, with a big, interested audience.
The talk got a huge turnout of students, staff, faculty, and community folks--it was SRO, w/people lined up in the hallway to hear. Awesome. Afterwards, a lot of people came up to pick up copies of the little "For Further Reading" handout I'd prepared. Great!
I was nervous, naturalmente, when I looked out at the crowd, because you know public speaking makes me shake, but I kept thinking of that great Audre Lorde line that always motivates me:
I love that. Notice: she doesn't say, I become less and less afraid. No. You're still afraid. It just becomes less and less significant that you are. You're afraid, but you cease to care about that. You care about others. You care about justice."When I dare to be powerful--to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."
And she doesn't say, When I dare to use my strength in the service of my ego, or my bank account. No. When I use it in the service of my vision. Then fear ceases to matter.
Hats off to ISU for sponsoring such an important conference every year! Human rights discourse itself is a fragile narrative, one to which we need to give as much attention as possible as often as possible.
I loved getting to read my creative work, too, to a lively and generous audience, and to visit classes in social work and counseling psychology.
A highlight of the visit was meeting novelist Aaron Morales, who's on the faculty there. I'm reading his book Drowning Tucson now, and I like this interview that Rigoberto González did with him last summer.
Many thanks to my host Dr. Keith Byerman and everyone else who worked so hard to bring me to ISU. You spoiled me rotten, and I had an awesome time. Human rights now! ¡Órale!
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After the Day's Work
Like many of you, I've been following the news about Japan with pain, sorrow, and concern. Such misery and grief--and anxiety, as we continue to watch and wait. I'm glad that other countries are using this moment as a chance to question the wisdom of building new nuclear facilities, but I'm not sure glad is even the word to use. Peace on Japan.
Here's some much more local news about friends, colleagues, and happenings.
First, a shout-out to my friend and colleague Rhonda Garelick, whose recent op-ed piece in the New York Times leaps from Galliano's recent bout of verbal cruelty and anti-Semitism to link fashion's and fascism's "cult of physical perfection." Bravo, and pass the chips.
Next, though it might seem ironic on the heels of Rhonda's piece, file this little splat of fashion limelight under Reasons To Be Terrance. All this, and writes dazzlingly, too--and he's one of the nicest colleagues I've ever had (at Pine Manor). We should all be so blessed with gifts and grace.
Me, I'm finishing up my manuscript of personal essays, ISLAND OF BONES, for delivery to the University of Nebraska Press on April first--very exciting, nerve-wracking, panic-inducing, etc.--while packing for a week at the University of Iowa, where I'll be spending my spring break teaching a memoir workshop to graduate students in the creative nonfiction program.
And I get to read at Prairie Lights, people! Prairie Lights is a sort of heaven, an icon, a wee paradise for book-lovers traversing the Midwest. James and I have spent many happy hours there on various trips, and now it'll be a thrill to get to read there. I may not return to campus with quite the tan that my students will be sporting after spring break, but I'll get to see friends Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Daisy Hernández, and who knows who else?
I'm also receiving the final batch of essays for FAMILY TROUBLE: MEMOIRISTS ON THE HAZARDS AND REWARDS OF REVEALING FAMILY, an editing project that some of you saw flopping about in its inchoate beginnings back at AWP in 2008. Some great pieces from Dinty Moore and Faith Adiele recently arrived, with just a few more left to come. It's going to be an amazing book--a book I wish I'd had as a graduate student, and a book I'll definitely teach with.
My research assistant Sindu, a meticulous copyeditor and insightful reader, is helping me tremendously on both of these collections. Thank you, Sindu! Thank you, UNL!
And my new editor for THE DESIRE PROJECTS sent me a copy of Denise Mina's Field of Blood, which is why I'm now using wee as a modifier about everything. (Read it and you'll see; it's addictive. Wee bastard. Wee lassie. And what does bint mean?)
Nothing like having a young, poor, ambitious Glaswegian girl who's worried about her fat tummy all the time as the protagonist of a novel. She's a "copyboy" (ah, the casual sexism of the 1980s) who wants to be a journalist, and the guy who asks, "Who's that fat lassie?" when he first sees her is the one she ends up in bed with (after quitting her solid, dull fiancé). Very happily, I might add.
I have to say I loved it. Very well written crime fiction, if you're in the mood for that.
And wasn't it nice of my editor to send it?
Lastly, my friend Barbara DiBernard has just been awarded the Louise Pound-George Howard Distinguished Career Award here at UNL for a lifetime of stellar teaching, research, public service, and administration. She started here as a James Joyce scholar but moved her teaching and research into LGBT and disability issues and is beloved by generations of grateful students and colleagues; my friend Kim (who owns Indigo Bridge Books, which I'm told I rattle on about incessantly) still vividly remembers the class she took from Barbara long ago. I visited Barbara's women's lit class this morning to talk with her students about The Truth Book, which they'd been reading, and had a wonderful time.
Barbara, you'll be so missed when you retire this spring.
Here's some much more local news about friends, colleagues, and happenings.
First, a shout-out to my friend and colleague Rhonda Garelick, whose recent op-ed piece in the New York Times leaps from Galliano's recent bout of verbal cruelty and anti-Semitism to link fashion's and fascism's "cult of physical perfection." Bravo, and pass the chips.
Next, though it might seem ironic on the heels of Rhonda's piece, file this little splat of fashion limelight under Reasons To Be Terrance. All this, and writes dazzlingly, too--and he's one of the nicest colleagues I've ever had (at Pine Manor). We should all be so blessed with gifts and grace.
Me, I'm finishing up my manuscript of personal essays, ISLAND OF BONES, for delivery to the University of Nebraska Press on April first--very exciting, nerve-wracking, panic-inducing, etc.--while packing for a week at the University of Iowa, where I'll be spending my spring break teaching a memoir workshop to graduate students in the creative nonfiction program.
And I get to read at Prairie Lights, people! Prairie Lights is a sort of heaven, an icon, a wee paradise for book-lovers traversing the Midwest. James and I have spent many happy hours there on various trips, and now it'll be a thrill to get to read there. I may not return to campus with quite the tan that my students will be sporting after spring break, but I'll get to see friends Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Daisy Hernández, and who knows who else?
I'm also receiving the final batch of essays for FAMILY TROUBLE: MEMOIRISTS ON THE HAZARDS AND REWARDS OF REVEALING FAMILY, an editing project that some of you saw flopping about in its inchoate beginnings back at AWP in 2008. Some great pieces from Dinty Moore and Faith Adiele recently arrived, with just a few more left to come. It's going to be an amazing book--a book I wish I'd had as a graduate student, and a book I'll definitely teach with.
My research assistant Sindu, a meticulous copyeditor and insightful reader, is helping me tremendously on both of these collections. Thank you, Sindu! Thank you, UNL!
And my new editor for THE DESIRE PROJECTS sent me a copy of Denise Mina's Field of Blood, which is why I'm now using wee as a modifier about everything. (Read it and you'll see; it's addictive. Wee bastard. Wee lassie. And what does bint mean?) Nothing like having a young, poor, ambitious Glaswegian girl who's worried about her fat tummy all the time as the protagonist of a novel. She's a "copyboy" (ah, the casual sexism of the 1980s) who wants to be a journalist, and the guy who asks, "Who's that fat lassie?" when he first sees her is the one she ends up in bed with (after quitting her solid, dull fiancé). Very happily, I might add.
I have to say I loved it. Very well written crime fiction, if you're in the mood for that.
And wasn't it nice of my editor to send it?
Lastly, my friend Barbara DiBernard has just been awarded the Louise Pound-George Howard Distinguished Career Award here at UNL for a lifetime of stellar teaching, research, public service, and administration. She started here as a James Joyce scholar but moved her teaching and research into LGBT and disability issues and is beloved by generations of grateful students and colleagues; my friend Kim (who owns Indigo Bridge Books, which I'm told I rattle on about incessantly) still vividly remembers the class she took from Barbara long ago. I visited Barbara's women's lit class this morning to talk with her students about The Truth Book, which they'd been reading, and had a wonderful time.
Barbara, you'll be so missed when you retire this spring.
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