Recently in writers Category
After a long and fruitful week of getting up to speed in my new position over in Ethnic Studies and teaching my first session of a graduate workshop in memoir, I am looking forward to some kicking-back time tonight at 7 p.m. at Indigo Bridge Books, swilling some ethical decaf and listening to a bunch of slam-winning young people, including one Grey Castro, perform their spoken-word poetry for us locals.
I'm a little nervous. Among the pieces Grey's going to do is one about what it was like for him to read my memoir The Truth Book, something he put off for four years after its publication, aware that it probably wouldn't be pretty. Wise child. But he took the plunge, and responded with words. I've read a paper copy of the piece, and that alone was intense enough to leave me torn up for a while. It won Grey a slam in Ohio, so, though I'm obviously saturated with bias, I'm not the only one who thinks it's strong work. So this evening should be interesting. It's kind of a rare and special privilege to now be in a two-generation cycle of making art from hard things.
On the topic of making art from hard things at a broader sociopolitical level, i.e., surviving U.S. history, the inimitable Honorée Fanonne Jeffers posted a bracing piece on why Women's Equality Day still doesn't feel so equal:
I'm a little nervous. Among the pieces Grey's going to do is one about what it was like for him to read my memoir The Truth Book, something he put off for four years after its publication, aware that it probably wouldn't be pretty. Wise child. But he took the plunge, and responded with words. I've read a paper copy of the piece, and that alone was intense enough to leave me torn up for a while. It won Grey a slam in Ohio, so, though I'm obviously saturated with bias, I'm not the only one who thinks it's strong work. So this evening should be interesting. It's kind of a rare and special privilege to now be in a two-generation cycle of making art from hard things.
On the topic of making art from hard things at a broader sociopolitical level, i.e., surviving U.S. history, the inimitable Honorée Fanonne Jeffers posted a bracing piece on why Women's Equality Day still doesn't feel so equal:
So, I don’t celebrate Women’s Equality Day today, because contrary to popular mainstream American opinion, Women includes all American women, not just White ladies.
Alyss Dixson's guest-post in The Atlantic's blog, "On Invisibility, Gender, and Publishing," looks at how women's literary work fares in the world of publishing and prizes, and what women are doing about it.
As far as how this woman's work is faring in the world of publishing, I received my contract for ISLAND OF BONES in the mail yesterday--hurray! But gentle readers, it looks like there's an error in it. A minor, dinky little error that, sigh, nonetheless means I can't just sign and be done, which I have so been looking forward to, because I don't like to celebrate until the ink is on the dotted line, and I do love to celebrate. Now: more waiting. C'est la vie.
As far as how this woman's work is faring in the world of publishing, I received my contract for ISLAND OF BONES in the mail yesterday--hurray! But gentle readers, it looks like there's an error in it. A minor, dinky little error that, sigh, nonetheless means I can't just sign and be done, which I have so been looking forward to, because I don't like to celebrate until the ink is on the dotted line, and I do love to celebrate. Now: more waiting. C'est la vie.
Categories:
Whoa! Thanks to the Handsome Husband for this link to a story about A.S. Byatt, who claimed that women who write novels of intellectual substance are seen as unnatural--and sparked a debate about it. Also note Ian Rankin on female crime writers and the Orange prize chair on women's "misery lit."
Rest in peace, Abbey Lincoln. The jazz singer and civil-rights force passed away last Saturday; NPR ran a tribute that includes cuts from her music and great clips from two past interviews; you can read and/or listen here. Lincoln has interesting things to say about artistic integrity and (heads-up, mujeres) about her own transformation from sexy supper-club commodity to "warrior woman."
Moving into a semester of teaching memoir-writing to graduate students, I was particularly grateful for what Lincoln said about art and claiming the right to one's own voice:
I recently reread the three memoirs that my graduate workshop will be analyzing for craft strategies--Alice Sebold's Lucky, Rigoberto González's Butterfly Boy, and Kathryn Harrison's The Kiss--and was knocked out all over again by their power. I picked books that deal well with really hard, hard material--intimate, tricky stuff like trauma, family, loss, shame, sex--because that's so much harder to handle, for us as writers, than, oh, I don't know, cooking or traveling or learning to tango, all of which are fun and interesting and can take you to deep and difficult places but don't necessarily do so. I learn best from urgent, crucial, driven writing that sticks close to the bone, "words that," to quote Kay Boyle, "must somehow be said."
And it's the how in somehow that we'll be analyzing in the workshop this fall. How does Sebold handle moments she can't fully remember, signaling to readers her lack of specific recall without breaking the flow of the scene? How does González use a real, literal journey to its fullest, richest advantage as an organizing structure? How does he handle shifts in time smoothly and clearly? How does he use descriptive language to suggest resonances between different characters, and how does he work on the page to be fair to the other people in his life? How does Harrison select details that function as object correlatives for the emotional story that's taking place?
Can you tell I love these brave and brilliant books? Getting to talk about this stuff with smart, talented, eager people for three hours every week--and then talk about the students' own work!--is a gift. For a dayjob, it's definitely pretty great.
In that regard, ladies and gents, I'm happy to say that THE DESIRE PROJECTS is finally off my desk. 408 pages of obsessively polished prose that publishing houses may or may not find desirable went into the mail to my agent on Friday--which is a great relief, since classes start on Monday. (When I have to say what I did last summer--and last summer, and the one before that--I'm just going to point mutely to that fat stack of paper.)
The draft came super-fast: on April 1, 2008, I had 22 pages of notes that I'd been dinking around on for about a year, just this and that, sketches toward an outline. By June 10, I had 364 pages. Since then, it's been revision, revision, revision. Expand, cut, edit, polish. Repeat.
And now it's that beautiful feeling, when the manuscript is out of my hands and out in the world. My agent and I haven't decided yet which publishers it will go to, but I'll be posting full reports here as the process unfolds this fall. (I'll try to keep my woes in check when those rejection letters arrive, but consider yourselves forewarned.)
Adding to the cheerful chaos of back-to-school preparations, Greyby arrives tonight (from California--by Greyhound) and will be here with us until early September (when he leaves for Massachusetts--by Greyhound; don't ask, it's a carbon-emissions thing), so the rest of my Saturday will be devoted to cleaning, laundering linens, and hanging shiny gold papel picado all around the room where he'll sleep. The Handsome Husband is out stocking up on vegan cookies and other sundries Grey likes. Hurray!
Ahhh. Family. The good kind. My two very favorite people in the world, right here with me, together for ten days. Forgive me if I look a little dreamy.
Moving into a semester of teaching memoir-writing to graduate students, I was particularly grateful for what Lincoln said about art and claiming the right to one's own voice:
Amen. Writers, artists, everyone: go for it, and be glad.. . . "Oh, why don't you--why don't you shut up?" I think I've had that said to me more than anything else over the years when I was younger. "You talk too much." You know? "Don't rock the boat." Even though they're miserable--people are miserable--they'll tell you this. But you're not supposed to say anything about it.
So when I discovered that there was the world of the artist, it saved my life, because I could strive to be individual and as best as I could be. I didn't have to have money. I didn't have to have anything except my life.
And I went for that. And I'm glad I did.
I recently reread the three memoirs that my graduate workshop will be analyzing for craft strategies--Alice Sebold's Lucky, Rigoberto González's Butterfly Boy, and Kathryn Harrison's The Kiss--and was knocked out all over again by their power. I picked books that deal well with really hard, hard material--intimate, tricky stuff like trauma, family, loss, shame, sex--because that's so much harder to handle, for us as writers, than, oh, I don't know, cooking or traveling or learning to tango, all of which are fun and interesting and can take you to deep and difficult places but don't necessarily do so. I learn best from urgent, crucial, driven writing that sticks close to the bone, "words that," to quote Kay Boyle, "must somehow be said."
And it's the how in somehow that we'll be analyzing in the workshop this fall. How does Sebold handle moments she can't fully remember, signaling to readers her lack of specific recall without breaking the flow of the scene? How does González use a real, literal journey to its fullest, richest advantage as an organizing structure? How does he handle shifts in time smoothly and clearly? How does he use descriptive language to suggest resonances between different characters, and how does he work on the page to be fair to the other people in his life? How does Harrison select details that function as object correlatives for the emotional story that's taking place?
Can you tell I love these brave and brilliant books? Getting to talk about this stuff with smart, talented, eager people for three hours every week--and then talk about the students' own work!--is a gift. For a dayjob, it's definitely pretty great.
In that regard, ladies and gents, I'm happy to say that THE DESIRE PROJECTS is finally off my desk. 408 pages of obsessively polished prose that publishing houses may or may not find desirable went into the mail to my agent on Friday--which is a great relief, since classes start on Monday. (When I have to say what I did last summer--and last summer, and the one before that--I'm just going to point mutely to that fat stack of paper.)
The draft came super-fast: on April 1, 2008, I had 22 pages of notes that I'd been dinking around on for about a year, just this and that, sketches toward an outline. By June 10, I had 364 pages. Since then, it's been revision, revision, revision. Expand, cut, edit, polish. Repeat.
And now it's that beautiful feeling, when the manuscript is out of my hands and out in the world. My agent and I haven't decided yet which publishers it will go to, but I'll be posting full reports here as the process unfolds this fall. (I'll try to keep my woes in check when those rejection letters arrive, but consider yourselves forewarned.)
Adding to the cheerful chaos of back-to-school preparations, Greyby arrives tonight (from California--by Greyhound) and will be here with us until early September (when he leaves for Massachusetts--by Greyhound; don't ask, it's a carbon-emissions thing), so the rest of my Saturday will be devoted to cleaning, laundering linens, and hanging shiny gold papel picado all around the room where he'll sleep. The Handsome Husband is out stocking up on vegan cookies and other sundries Grey likes. Hurray!
Ahhh. Family. The good kind. My two very favorite people in the world, right here with me, together for ten days. Forgive me if I look a little dreamy.
Will flowers on the cover of your novel prevent it from being considered for literary prizes? If your focus and setting are domestic, will critics be surprised when your book turns out to be textured and intelligent? Novelist Diane Meier surveys the field in "Chick Lit? Women's Literature? Why Not Just . . . Literature?":
It's enough to make one wistful for the days when a pseudonym--Acton Bell, George Eliot, Anonymous--could cocoon a book in a sheltering layer of seriousness.
And what does that say about the state of things in 2010?
Meier fillets the reviews of her own book, The Season of Second Chances, which assessed it in terms of how well it conformed to or diverged from the conventions of chick-lit, as though chick-lit were itself the new neutral, the norm to which every book authored by a woman must be compared.Still, if Tom Wolfe had written "The Recessionistas," he would have noted the brands of shoes, the Birkin bags and the personal trainers. And he would have been praised for his attention to detail. . . .
But my concern is larger, for the issue is insidious: the way Chick Lit has been used to denigrate a wide swath of novels about contemporary life that happen to be written by women.
If you think it's not affecting our work, not affecting what the publishers are handed, not affecting the legacy we leave for future generations, you're wrong.
It's enough to make one wistful for the days when a pseudonym--Acton Bell, George Eliot, Anonymous--could cocoon a book in a sheltering layer of seriousness.
And what does that say about the state of things in 2010?
The Big Sleep, The Big Clock, The Big Knockover: noir novels seem to flourish under titles that start with "The Big," so I'm titling this post "The Big Push." Here's why. My clever and dashing agent has deemed THE DESIRE PROJECTS a hair's breadth from being done, and I have until September 6th, Labor Day, to labor over the final changes.
Unto everything there is a season--including, apparently, submissions to publishing houses, and right after Labor Day is when scads of big, exciting projects go out. Color me tickled that said agent believes THE DESIRE PROJECTS fits that bill. Fingers crossed, y'all.
However, while to most people a September 6th deadline would seem to offer leisure and luxury, school starts sooner. Numerous non-optional "retreats" (a misnomer that always kills me) begin even sooner than that, and I still have a syllabus to write and a new position--Associate Director of Ethnic Studies, yey!--to gear up for. And so, gentle readers, I've been lately immersed in the big push, and I'm trying to finish up revisions tonight. (Before Mad Men, if I'm lucky and good.)
In the little gaps between polishing new scenes and scrubbing old ones, I've been thinking about the vexed relationship among political mandates, ideology, and writing--and by writing, I mean writing as art, not writing as opinion pieces or rhetorical arguments or book reviews or blog posts, but as The Real Thing, the kind we sit down to make with our hearts in our hands. I've been thinking about the difficult, ongoing necessity of carving out a safe, protected space for that kind of writing, a space for it to be what it wants to be, rather than to fulfill our agenda for it.
If that makes half an ounce of sense.
This passage, from an essay called, "The Long Haul" by Stacy D'Erasmo, is vastly clearer on the topic, and it seems worth quoting in full:
Resist. Be true. Don't write agitprop, no matter how noble the goal. "[I]f your writing is essentially obedient to any of these powerful forces, its light will slowly flicker and then go out."
I don't want that for my work, and I don't want it for yours. The world wants your complicated, paradoxical, messy, real art that contradicts itself and contradicts you and every unimpeachable view you'd cop to at a dinner party. Go ahead. Contain multitudes. The water's fine.
The rest of the essay is good, too. (Gratitude to Tayari's blog for pointing me to it.)
For example, I really like the appreciative yet knowing way in which D'Erasmo talks about her two communities: the public community of the university, which provides a necessary shelter, and the wilder, private community that nourishes, provokes, and sustains her.
I'm sure others who read the essay will find their points of connection, as well as their own sticking points. For me personally, for example, I'm not sure that you can't protect your children and also write well. But I could be wrong, and in general, I like very much what D'Erasmo's saying.
And that part above: that's worth framing.
Okay, back to scrubbing, polishing, and stripping away the fat.
Unto everything there is a season--including, apparently, submissions to publishing houses, and right after Labor Day is when scads of big, exciting projects go out. Color me tickled that said agent believes THE DESIRE PROJECTS fits that bill. Fingers crossed, y'all.
However, while to most people a September 6th deadline would seem to offer leisure and luxury, school starts sooner. Numerous non-optional "retreats" (a misnomer that always kills me) begin even sooner than that, and I still have a syllabus to write and a new position--Associate Director of Ethnic Studies, yey!--to gear up for. And so, gentle readers, I've been lately immersed in the big push, and I'm trying to finish up revisions tonight. (Before Mad Men, if I'm lucky and good.)
In the little gaps between polishing new scenes and scrubbing old ones, I've been thinking about the vexed relationship among political mandates, ideology, and writing--and by writing, I mean writing as art, not writing as opinion pieces or rhetorical arguments or book reviews or blog posts, but as The Real Thing, the kind we sit down to make with our hearts in our hands. I've been thinking about the difficult, ongoing necessity of carving out a safe, protected space for that kind of writing, a space for it to be what it wants to be, rather than to fulfill our agenda for it.
If that makes half an ounce of sense.
This passage, from an essay called, "The Long Haul" by Stacy D'Erasmo, is vastly clearer on the topic, and it seems worth quoting in full:
Oh, thank you, Stacy. I love that.. . . I have also begun to believe that the writer who continues to write, and to write well, to write deeply, often finds that she quietly, year by year, constructs a system of values that is by nature resistant. It’s not that one sets out to do this, exactly; but it happens, it accretes, as the choices the world offers inevitably arise. It may begin as an uncomfortable awareness, a prickling, even a sinking feeling. But you know it. You see the deal. You hesitate, almost wishing you didn’t know what you know, which is something along these lines: You cannot continue to write well if you believe that money is the measure of a person’s worth. You cannot continue to write well if you believe that critical consensus is the measure of an artist’s worth. You cannot continue to write well if you are protecting your family, your children, your community, or your social position. You cannot continue to write well if you don’t believe in the value of art as such—as itself—not in the service of some greater cause or system or set of beliefs, whether those beliefs fall to the right or the left or rise to the more spiritual realms above. You can write well without money, without praise, without social or political approval—you might not be that happy or look that great, but you can do it—but if your writing is essentially obedient to any of these powerful forces, its light will slowly flicker and then go out.
Resist. Be true. Don't write agitprop, no matter how noble the goal. "[I]f your writing is essentially obedient to any of these powerful forces, its light will slowly flicker and then go out."
I don't want that for my work, and I don't want it for yours. The world wants your complicated, paradoxical, messy, real art that contradicts itself and contradicts you and every unimpeachable view you'd cop to at a dinner party. Go ahead. Contain multitudes. The water's fine.
The rest of the essay is good, too. (Gratitude to Tayari's blog for pointing me to it.)
For example, I really like the appreciative yet knowing way in which D'Erasmo talks about her two communities: the public community of the university, which provides a necessary shelter, and the wilder, private community that nourishes, provokes, and sustains her.
I'm sure others who read the essay will find their points of connection, as well as their own sticking points. For me personally, for example, I'm not sure that you can't protect your children and also write well. But I could be wrong, and in general, I like very much what D'Erasmo's saying.
And that part above: that's worth framing.
Okay, back to scrubbing, polishing, and stripping away the fat.
Categories:
I am so knocked out by the talent of my former students!
Faye Rapoport DesPres's lovely, wise essay, "Up to Nothing," appears in the Summer 2010 issue of Hamilton Stone Review. Anyone who's ever cared for an elderly relative will resonate to the narrator's attempt to reconnect with her husband on a hiking trip--while dealing with the fact that they've left behind his mother, who doesn't want to be left.
Faye's essay "Forty-Six," which examines the narrator's feelings about the loss of youth, also just appeared in the marvelous online journal Ascent. Congratulations, Faye! These must be heady days for you.
It was my privilege to work with Faye when I taught at Pine Manor College in Boston, and I hear that Pine Manor MFA student Jim Kennedy's beautiful, beautiful essay "End of the Line" was a finalist in a contest at Creative Nonfiction and will soon be published in an issue of that journal.
Graduate Faye Snider's lovely essay "Goldie's Gold" was accepted recently by Alimentum, and if you're a foodie and don't know about that journal, you should definitely check it out. Hurray, Faye! I look forward to reading "Goldie's Gold" again.
By the way, I learned that Pine Manor is now offering fellowships and need-based scholarships, and I think that's kind of rare for a low-res program, so if you've considered pursuing an MFA and money has been an obstacle, you might want to check out their program. I'm no longer teaching at Pine Manor, but I love the people there and think they've got a great thing going--which is obvious from the success of their graduates!
Here in the Ph.D. program at UNL, Tom Coakley, an active-duty military officer, wrote an essay, which appeared in Fourth Genre 12:1, that contends with the impossibility of describing/critiquing things that are classified. (Most of us worry about what our mothers will think if we publish this or that. Tom worries about being court-martialed.) His Fourth Genre essay, "How to Speak about the Secret Desert Wars," is brilliant, and if you can lay your hands on it, it will knock you out. It's incisive, critical, authoritative, experimental, beautifully written. He makes art out of a hell that should never have been.
The lovely John Chávez had 3 poems in Issue 5 of Palabra. Here's one I love:
I like the way it moves so fluidly among modes prophetic, imperative, even elegiac--and casual, too ("etc."). John's vision is both tender and clear-sighted.
Aside from publishing his own work, John is actually already in the process of editing (with Carmen Giménez Smith) a collection of Latina/o writing that explores where the field is moving now. So ambitious!
What is wonderful is when you can feel it a genuine honor to work with your students: when you can admire them and learn from them as well as offer what you have. I love teaching. It is a gift.
Faye Rapoport DesPres's lovely, wise essay, "Up to Nothing," appears in the Summer 2010 issue of Hamilton Stone Review. Anyone who's ever cared for an elderly relative will resonate to the narrator's attempt to reconnect with her husband on a hiking trip--while dealing with the fact that they've left behind his mother, who doesn't want to be left.
Faye's essay "Forty-Six," which examines the narrator's feelings about the loss of youth, also just appeared in the marvelous online journal Ascent. Congratulations, Faye! These must be heady days for you.
It was my privilege to work with Faye when I taught at Pine Manor College in Boston, and I hear that Pine Manor MFA student Jim Kennedy's beautiful, beautiful essay "End of the Line" was a finalist in a contest at Creative Nonfiction and will soon be published in an issue of that journal.
Graduate Faye Snider's lovely essay "Goldie's Gold" was accepted recently by Alimentum, and if you're a foodie and don't know about that journal, you should definitely check it out. Hurray, Faye! I look forward to reading "Goldie's Gold" again.
By the way, I learned that Pine Manor is now offering fellowships and need-based scholarships, and I think that's kind of rare for a low-res program, so if you've considered pursuing an MFA and money has been an obstacle, you might want to check out their program. I'm no longer teaching at Pine Manor, but I love the people there and think they've got a great thing going--which is obvious from the success of their graduates!
Here in the Ph.D. program at UNL, Tom Coakley, an active-duty military officer, wrote an essay, which appeared in Fourth Genre 12:1, that contends with the impossibility of describing/critiquing things that are classified. (Most of us worry about what our mothers will think if we publish this or that. Tom worries about being court-martialed.) His Fourth Genre essay, "How to Speak about the Secret Desert Wars," is brilliant, and if you can lay your hands on it, it will knock you out. It's incisive, critical, authoritative, experimental, beautifully written. He makes art out of a hell that should never have been.
The lovely John Chávez had 3 poems in Issue 5 of Palabra. Here's one I love:
Just North of Nowhere
There is only one heart in my body, have mercy on me.
--Franz Wright
Often the changes one yearns for,
one has to suffer. Unless,
waiting near the undershade, the elderberry,
the aster, etc.,
the world is close to blooming,
heart-drawn in minor notes, tuned to the open sun.
Then, how simple to assemble it all (the breaks
in the human vessel).
Like a boy gripping rain on white branches,
you will build
a reliquary in your chest.
Fill it with two watts of light.
Once filled, the moon will exit like a lullaby
from your humming rib cage's hollow.
There you will find a heart,
& waiting nightly you will sing it to sleep.
I like the way it moves so fluidly among modes prophetic, imperative, even elegiac--and casual, too ("etc."). John's vision is both tender and clear-sighted.
Aside from publishing his own work, John is actually already in the process of editing (with Carmen Giménez Smith) a collection of Latina/o writing that explores where the field is moving now. So ambitious!
What is wonderful is when you can feel it a genuine honor to work with your students: when you can admire them and learn from them as well as offer what you have. I love teaching. It is a gift.
Gentle readers, it doesn't have the sparkle or brevity of "Paris," but I have been spackling, sanding, taping, priming, and painting since we parted.
Little Office, as I have unimaginatively dubbed her, needed to be ready for the phone date my agent and I are having this week about the last (please, the last) changes to THE DESIRE PROJECTS. Nutshell: he loves it--yey! he almost never loves anything: he's a tough, approval-withholding agent--but the manuscript is still not, if I'm understanding correctly, sufficiently foregrounding the suspenseful parts. I'm not sure; I'll know more after we talk. And then it will be time to make final revisions. He thinks I can finish by the end of my summer break and we can have it out at publishing houses by early fall.
Moreover, we are this close to signing the contract for ISLAND OF BONES, the collection of essays, and then I'll have some time to make revisions to that manuscript as well. As soon as the ink is dry, I'll divulge all the details, including the two phenomenal writers who served as outside readers for the manuscript. Their imprimatur is as exciting to me as the contract itself!
Anyway, that's a lot of revising coming up, and I needed smooth, clean--and turquoise, as it turns out; turquoise won the swatch contest--walls within which to write.
Readers, I'm now intimately aware of why my smarter, better off friends hire professionals to do their house-painting. (Have I been in here too long, or does spackling compound smell like chocolate?)
Well, the walls are smooth turquoise now, and it looks great. I'm enrobed in turquoise. Please forgive my absence from the blog. The job had to be done. Thank goodness for Little Office's littleness, and for the HH's help today.
In other news, alas, the inimitable Sonam has abandoned Lincoln, leaving us bereft, but before he departed he kindly gave me modernist Rebecca West's essay "Pounce," and all of you who find cats intriguing creatures should find it. (I generally don't, frankly, yet I still liked the essay, which is quite a testament to something.) It's included in The Essential Rebecca West: Uncollected Prose, which is just out from Pearhouse Press. West's prose is effervescent, surprising, delicious. I've always liked her work; this collection offers a chance to read things that never made it onto the beaten path.
And here are a couple of other recommendations, books I've been chomping down since the semester ended:
• the American Book Award winner When Living Was a Labor Camp, about California's San Joaquin Valley, by Diana García, who was born in a migrant labor camp there. If you've read or taught with the terrific anthology Latino Boom, you've come across the title poem, but the whole collection is well worth it. Here's an excerpt from "Valley Fever":
It was also good for me. Since my own sympathies and views are postnationalist, I'm not naturally driven, as a reader or scholar, by imperatives of cultural nationalism, though that's how the field of literature remains chopped up, so I don't have quite the grasp of Cuban-American literature that I should for someone who teaches in the field of Latin@ lit. This collection filled gaps for me and offered discoveries, like Dolores Prida, who now fascinates me.
• Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability. The title basically says it all. This book explains, smartly, the rationale for most of the decisions the HH and I've been (fairly inarticulately) making for the past three years. The book is persuasive without being at all preachy, and New Yorker writer David Owen's clever prose is a joy: clean, fluid, crisp.
I'd been longing to read since it came out in 2009. It was worth the wait. I highly recommend it. Unswayed? You can read the opening here.
• Lastly, I am loving the stylistic and ethical clarity of Nadine Gordimer's new collection of essays, Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1954-2008, which just hit the shelves this summer. PW calls the collection "comprehensive--sometimes too comprehensive," and I can see their point. It's hefty. Nonetheless, in the best of these pieces, Gordimer models for me what a writer is supposed to be. Awake. Alert. Speaking.
Little Office, as I have unimaginatively dubbed her, needed to be ready for the phone date my agent and I are having this week about the last (please, the last) changes to THE DESIRE PROJECTS. Nutshell: he loves it--yey! he almost never loves anything: he's a tough, approval-withholding agent--but the manuscript is still not, if I'm understanding correctly, sufficiently foregrounding the suspenseful parts. I'm not sure; I'll know more after we talk. And then it will be time to make final revisions. He thinks I can finish by the end of my summer break and we can have it out at publishing houses by early fall.
Moreover, we are this close to signing the contract for ISLAND OF BONES, the collection of essays, and then I'll have some time to make revisions to that manuscript as well. As soon as the ink is dry, I'll divulge all the details, including the two phenomenal writers who served as outside readers for the manuscript. Their imprimatur is as exciting to me as the contract itself!
Anyway, that's a lot of revising coming up, and I needed smooth, clean--and turquoise, as it turns out; turquoise won the swatch contest--walls within which to write.
Readers, I'm now intimately aware of why my smarter, better off friends hire professionals to do their house-painting. (Have I been in here too long, or does spackling compound smell like chocolate?)
Well, the walls are smooth turquoise now, and it looks great. I'm enrobed in turquoise. Please forgive my absence from the blog. The job had to be done. Thank goodness for Little Office's littleness, and for the HH's help today.
In other news, alas, the inimitable Sonam has abandoned Lincoln, leaving us bereft, but before he departed he kindly gave me modernist Rebecca West's essay "Pounce," and all of you who find cats intriguing creatures should find it. (I generally don't, frankly, yet I still liked the essay, which is quite a testament to something.) It's included in The Essential Rebecca West: Uncollected Prose, which is just out from Pearhouse Press. West's prose is effervescent, surprising, delicious. I've always liked her work; this collection offers a chance to read things that never made it onto the beaten path.
And here are a couple of other recommendations, books I've been chomping down since the semester ended:
• the American Book Award winner When Living Was a Labor Camp, about California's San Joaquin Valley, by Diana García, who was born in a migrant labor camp there. If you've read or taught with the terrific anthology Latino Boom, you've come across the title poem, but the whole collection is well worth it. Here's an excerpt from "Valley Fever":
• One Island, Many Voices: Conversations with Cuban-American Writers, which includes interviews with, among others, Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Carolina Hospital, and Achy Obejas. Most writers love reading interviews with other writers; I know I'm always fascinated, always panning for gold. This collection rewarded my eagerness.I was a favorite niece, the only daughter
and no virgin: the valley grew too small.
So I pawned my first flute and typewriter
and headed for a place that had it all--
classy subtitled films, canyon-laced coast,
flamed leaves to the east and desert beyond. . . .
It was also good for me. Since my own sympathies and views are postnationalist, I'm not naturally driven, as a reader or scholar, by imperatives of cultural nationalism, though that's how the field of literature remains chopped up, so I don't have quite the grasp of Cuban-American literature that I should for someone who teaches in the field of Latin@ lit. This collection filled gaps for me and offered discoveries, like Dolores Prida, who now fascinates me.
• Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability. The title basically says it all. This book explains, smartly, the rationale for most of the decisions the HH and I've been (fairly inarticulately) making for the past three years. The book is persuasive without being at all preachy, and New Yorker writer David Owen's clever prose is a joy: clean, fluid, crisp.
I'd been longing to read since it came out in 2009. It was worth the wait. I highly recommend it. Unswayed? You can read the opening here.
• Lastly, I am loving the stylistic and ethical clarity of Nadine Gordimer's new collection of essays, Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1954-2008, which just hit the shelves this summer. PW calls the collection "comprehensive--sometimes too comprehensive," and I can see their point. It's hefty. Nonetheless, in the best of these pieces, Gordimer models for me what a writer is supposed to be. Awake. Alert. Speaking.
Fair and tender readers, I am todo excited about the proposal I submitted for a panel at the 2011 AWP conference in Washington, D.C. (No thing's a sure thing, but I'm hopeful that it'll be accepted.)
The panel is called, "Memoir and Latinidad," and here are the rock-star panelists:
Esmeralda Santiago
Rigoberto González
Luis Rodriguez
Gustavo Pérez Firmat.
In the literary world? Seriously: these folks are rock stars. I am a crazy fan of all of them, so I'm very happy that they all agreed to be on the panel.
As you may know, U.S. Latina/o memoir has developed a rich contemporary tradition that spans the political and stylistic spectrum from Richard Rodriguez to Gloria Anzaldúa. But what, if anything, makes a memoir "Latina/o"? Does latinidad influence aesthetics and craft as well as content? Do contemporary Latina/o memoirists see themselves as inheriting the life-writing techniques and traditions of the U.S., or Latin America, or both? And--perhaps the most vexing question for working writers--how do Latina/o memoirists navigate expectations by the mainstream, broader U.S. culture that their memoirs will represent whole cultures and nations?
These are the questions these amazing writers will be discussing. I can't wait to hear their conversation. (I will just be moderating.)
A panel addressing this specific conjunction of genre and ethnicity will be new for AWP, too. The conference has never showcased anything like this before, and it's very relevant. As the role of Latinos in the U.S. continues to spark national controversy (ay, Arizona), a discussion of the literary construction of self will contribute to the articulation and understanding of Latina/o identity, politics, & aesthetics.
Since all four of the panelists are established senior writers, they'll bring the maturity of long reflection, as well as a diversity of cultural and political backgrounds--Chicano (Rodriguez y González), Cuban-American (Pérez Firmat), and Puerto Rican (Santiago)--to this important public conversation.
These panelists have been serious community activists, too. Por ejemplo, L.A.'s Tia Chucha Centro Cultural was co-founded by Luis J. Rodriguez, who has worked against gang violence and the socioeconomic injustices that foster it for many years. Tia Chucha's annual benefit, featuring Perla Batalla, Ceci Bastida, Kristina Wong, and National Book Award finalist Wanda Coleman, is coming up on August 1st. If you'll be in the L.A. area, check out a good thing!
And if you'll be at AWP in D.C. next February, come to our panel "Memoir and Latinidad"! (If it gets accepted. Fingers crossed.) Maybe we'll see each other there!
The panel is called, "Memoir and Latinidad," and here are the rock-star panelists:
Esmeralda Santiago
Rigoberto González
Luis Rodriguez
Gustavo Pérez Firmat.In the literary world? Seriously: these folks are rock stars. I am a crazy fan of all of them, so I'm very happy that they all agreed to be on the panel.
As you may know, U.S. Latina/o memoir has developed a rich contemporary tradition that spans the political and stylistic spectrum from Richard Rodriguez to Gloria Anzaldúa. But what, if anything, makes a memoir "Latina/o"? Does latinidad influence aesthetics and craft as well as content? Do contemporary Latina/o memoirists see themselves as inheriting the life-writing techniques and traditions of the U.S., or Latin America, or both? And--perhaps the most vexing question for working writers--how do Latina/o memoirists navigate expectations by the mainstream, broader U.S. culture that their memoirs will represent whole cultures and nations?
These are the questions these amazing writers will be discussing. I can't wait to hear their conversation. (I will just be moderating.)
A panel addressing this specific conjunction of genre and ethnicity will be new for AWP, too. The conference has never showcased anything like this before, and it's very relevant. As the role of Latinos in the U.S. continues to spark national controversy (ay, Arizona), a discussion of the literary construction of self will contribute to the articulation and understanding of Latina/o identity, politics, & aesthetics.
Since all four of the panelists are established senior writers, they'll bring the maturity of long reflection, as well as a diversity of cultural and political backgrounds--Chicano (Rodriguez y González), Cuban-American (Pérez Firmat), and Puerto Rican (Santiago)--to this important public conversation.
These panelists have been serious community activists, too. Por ejemplo, L.A.'s Tia Chucha Centro Cultural was co-founded by Luis J. Rodriguez, who has worked against gang violence and the socioeconomic injustices that foster it for many years. Tia Chucha's annual benefit, featuring Perla Batalla, Ceci Bastida, Kristina Wong, and National Book Award finalist Wanda Coleman, is coming up on August 1st. If you'll be in the L.A. area, check out a good thing!
And if you'll be at AWP in D.C. next February, come to our panel "Memoir and Latinidad"! (If it gets accepted. Fingers crossed.) Maybe we'll see each other there!
Thank you for checking back! And my apologies are in order: though I carefully composed 8 blog-posts to be published automatically while I was gone, I learned upon my return that the automatic-publishing function had failed. I'm sorry! Thank you for your persistence.
Readers, to quote a favorite poet: I have been to Paris since we parted. And Amsterdam, and the Cinque Terre, and Venice, Umbria, New Orleans, Austin--all spiced with heavy helpings of family, family, family. This month of incredible, dazzling traveling (and interpersonal family dynamics in full, illuminating bloom) will keep me ruminating and writing for weeks and months to come.
But for now, I just wanted to share this happy news from David Brooks's column in today's NYTimes:
David Brooks, of course (with whom I'd say I have a love-hate relationship, except it's more tepid than that) manages to use this good news about the efficacy of reading in the service of a larger argument that privileges hierarchies, elitism, and prestige, using the language of all the Great-Books proponents who've ever made you yawn.
But still, good news is good news. This summer, consider treating the disadvantaged teen of your choice to a dozen books of his or hers. Let books make a difference. Let the beauty you love be what you do.
Readers, to quote a favorite poet: I have been to Paris since we parted. And Amsterdam, and the Cinque Terre, and Venice, Umbria, New Orleans, Austin--all spiced with heavy helpings of family, family, family. This month of incredible, dazzling traveling (and interpersonal family dynamics in full, illuminating bloom) will keep me ruminating and writing for weeks and months to come.
But for now, I just wanted to share this happy news from David Brooks's column in today's NYTimes:
Recently, book publishers got some good news. Researchers gave 852 disadvantaged students 12 books (of their own choosing) to take home at the end of the school year. They did this for three successive years.I was excited, because I'd returned from Austin, where my sister-in-law Cool Julie manages a bookstore, with a totebag full of books for my "Little Sister" Amara. Julie hand-picked several novels that her female teen customers are finding hot right now, so here's hoping Amara likes some of them. Usually, we book-shop together. Amara picks the novels, and then we both read and discuss them. (Readers, it has taken me outside my usual zones of taste. Yeah. But it has been pretty cool, too.)
Then the researchers, led by Richard Allington of the University of Tennessee, looked at those students’ test scores. They found that the students who brought the books home had significantly higher reading scores than other students. These students were less affected by the “summer slide” — the decline that especially afflicts lower-income students during the vacation months. In fact, just having those 12 books seemed to have as much positive effect as attending summer school.
David Brooks, of course (with whom I'd say I have a love-hate relationship, except it's more tepid than that) manages to use this good news about the efficacy of reading in the service of a larger argument that privileges hierarchies, elitism, and prestige, using the language of all the Great-Books proponents who've ever made you yawn.
But still, good news is good news. This summer, consider treating the disadvantaged teen of your choice to a dozen books of his or hers. Let books make a difference. Let the beauty you love be what you do.
Many thanks to Faye for pointing out the gender of all of the editorial gatekeepers of the 2010 Best American collections in this literary news I completely missed. Father Knows Best, anyone?
Another essential gem for writers by Tayari.
Congratulations to my cool friend Naca for having her first, gorgeous book of poetry, Bird Eating Bird, nominated for a Lambda award. I still remember reading it in manuscript and being quietly blown away--before Yusef Komunyaaka picked it for the National Poetry Series. Good luck, Naca! Amelia blogs about the Lammys here.
Big abrazos to Belinda Acosta, who was interviewed here on this blog, for winning the International Latino Book Award for Best First Book for Damas, Dramas, and Ana Ruiz, her debut novel. The sequel, Sisters, Strangers, and Starting Over, is due out this July, and it's already making lists of recommended books and getting good press. Watch for it.
To see all the winners of the International Latino Book Awards, go here. Marjorie Agosín, whose work I have long loved, took home the award for best biography for Of Earth and Sea: A Chilean Memoir.
Good things happening for good people! ¡Órale!
Gentle readers, on Monday I FedExed the new and improved (and improved, and improved) manuscript of THE DESIRE PROJECTS, a literary noir novel, to my agent. My fingers are crossed!
Here's the elevator blurb for it:
When I first conceived the project, I thought it would be cool to try to blend literary writing with the suspense of a thriller and the fun conventions of chica lit. However, no such blending occurred. What has finally emerged is more like a collision between noir and chick lit. A five-car pile-up. Nola, the protagonist, just took over (with nods to Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, Walter Mosley, Sara Paretsky, Kate Atkinson . . .). We'll see. It wants to be a beach read for smart people. Or a smart read for beach people. I don't know.
Many, many thanks to the good friends who read early versions of the book as it struggled to find its feet: Sandra Scofield, Barbara Brandt, Bryn Chancellor (third one down), Grey Castro, and the Handsome Husband. THE DESIRE PROJECTS has changed so much, you'll barely recognize it!
Speaking of Baby Greyby, we fly out tomorrow to see him graduate from Oberlin. I'm todo excited & Mama-giddy.
Graduation may not be the biggest achievement of his life thus far, but it is by far the biggest achievement of mine--bigger than writing books, or tenure, or anything. Here's why. Grey is a sweethearted, artsy, slacker guy who would much rather skateboard than study, bless his heart (as we say in the South). On the up-side, he breathes, he lives in his body, he's kind and open and thoughtful and non-judgmental--not to mention a great songwriter. All amazing, wonderful things.
For me, as someone who's always been academically driven and ambitious by nature (or perhaps by necessity)--and who's truly had to fight her own judgmental, impatient inclinations--this has been a tough personal challenge. How to accept and support who Grey really is, at heart, while still equipping him responsibly for his future?
If he ends up being able to skateboard and write songs for a living, great. But if not, he'll need a fallback position. It's a parent's job to think about that, however uncool or un-fun it makes us. (And I say this even as a devoted artist. Publishing stories in little magazines was hardly gonna pay the rent.)
Seeing him graduate from a good school at 21, debt-free, with good grades, has been a long haul, people, but he has done great, and we couldn't be prouder.
Or more relieved. At the graduation ceremony, I may faint.
So at the tail end of this graduation season, here's to all the parents. Respect. Solidarity. You've worked so hard, and you've made sacrifices no one will ever see. A good education is probably the second-best gift you can give your children, and it's huge.
Moreover, an ethical, kind, well educated young adult is one of the best gifts you can give to our shared community. So thank you.
*Yes, Cuban history buffs, her last name is no accident.
Another essential gem for writers by Tayari.
Congratulations to my cool friend Naca for having her first, gorgeous book of poetry, Bird Eating Bird, nominated for a Lambda award. I still remember reading it in manuscript and being quietly blown away--before Yusef Komunyaaka picked it for the National Poetry Series. Good luck, Naca! Amelia blogs about the Lammys here.
Big abrazos to Belinda Acosta, who was interviewed here on this blog, for winning the International Latino Book Award for Best First Book for Damas, Dramas, and Ana Ruiz, her debut novel. The sequel, Sisters, Strangers, and Starting Over, is due out this July, and it's already making lists of recommended books and getting good press. Watch for it.
To see all the winners of the International Latino Book Awards, go here. Marjorie Agosín, whose work I have long loved, took home the award for best biography for Of Earth and Sea: A Chilean Memoir.
Good things happening for good people! ¡Órale!
Gentle readers, on Monday I FedExed the new and improved (and improved, and improved) manuscript of THE DESIRE PROJECTS, a literary noir novel, to my agent. My fingers are crossed!
Here's the elevator blurb for it:
The blurb still sounds a little wonky to me, but you get the picture. If you can think of ways to make it more inviting, let me know.During and after the chaos of Katrina, over a thousand released sex offenders (required by Megan's Law to register their whereabouts with law enforcement) went off the grid. Nola Céspedes*, a mouthy young cubana cub reporter for the Times-Picayune who grew up in the Desire Projects of New Orleans, gets assigned a feature story she doesn't want: to explore the human realities behind the statistics on child molesters' rates of recidivism, their rehabilitation, their reception back into the community--just as a seven-year-old girl disappears from the French Quarter.
And then things get personal.
When I first conceived the project, I thought it would be cool to try to blend literary writing with the suspense of a thriller and the fun conventions of chica lit. However, no such blending occurred. What has finally emerged is more like a collision between noir and chick lit. A five-car pile-up. Nola, the protagonist, just took over (with nods to Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, Walter Mosley, Sara Paretsky, Kate Atkinson . . .). We'll see. It wants to be a beach read for smart people. Or a smart read for beach people. I don't know.
Many, many thanks to the good friends who read early versions of the book as it struggled to find its feet: Sandra Scofield, Barbara Brandt, Bryn Chancellor (third one down), Grey Castro, and the Handsome Husband. THE DESIRE PROJECTS has changed so much, you'll barely recognize it!
Speaking of Baby Greyby, we fly out tomorrow to see him graduate from Oberlin. I'm todo excited & Mama-giddy.
Graduation may not be the biggest achievement of his life thus far, but it is by far the biggest achievement of mine--bigger than writing books, or tenure, or anything. Here's why. Grey is a sweethearted, artsy, slacker guy who would much rather skateboard than study, bless his heart (as we say in the South). On the up-side, he breathes, he lives in his body, he's kind and open and thoughtful and non-judgmental--not to mention a great songwriter. All amazing, wonderful things.
For me, as someone who's always been academically driven and ambitious by nature (or perhaps by necessity)--and who's truly had to fight her own judgmental, impatient inclinations--this has been a tough personal challenge. How to accept and support who Grey really is, at heart, while still equipping him responsibly for his future?
If he ends up being able to skateboard and write songs for a living, great. But if not, he'll need a fallback position. It's a parent's job to think about that, however uncool or un-fun it makes us. (And I say this even as a devoted artist. Publishing stories in little magazines was hardly gonna pay the rent.)
Seeing him graduate from a good school at 21, debt-free, with good grades, has been a long haul, people, but he has done great, and we couldn't be prouder.
Or more relieved. At the graduation ceremony, I may faint.
So at the tail end of this graduation season, here's to all the parents. Respect. Solidarity. You've worked so hard, and you've made sacrifices no one will ever see. A good education is probably the second-best gift you can give your children, and it's huge.
Moreover, an ethical, kind, well educated young adult is one of the best gifts you can give to our shared community. So thank you.
*Yes, Cuban history buffs, her last name is no accident.
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