tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20651811712809099702024-03-17T22:59:09.063-04:00Mason Fictionan alternative online resource for faculty, alumni, current students, and prospective students, with a slight focus on fictionwcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.comBlogger307125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-71604034315280080352012-04-04T12:18:00.001-04:002012-04-04T12:19:12.926-04:00How Teaching Literature Changed the Way I Read (and Write)Sometime over the course of my development as a writer I started asking myself how an author captivates readers. I left behind notions of the written word as an anthropological artifact of culture and focused on reading texts as a writer. I became concerned with the decisions an author made in order to draw the reader in. How could you capture someone's interest? What events need to develop by the end in order to fulfill the promises you make early on in a narrative? These and other questions filled my mind as a I read. The social relevance of a text to audiences played a secondary role to drawing readers in. My taste in reading drifted as well toward authors who would most complement my style. I sought out Kafka and Camus initially, followed by Calvino, Cortazar, Borges, Murakami and Atwood. Lately I find my taste to be less specialized. I seek out authors with a more robust audience. People like Chekhov, Hemingway, Woolf, and Joyce are canonical figures in the craft of writing. Their work has appeal that has lasted through generations. It's as if I were a child suddenly learning the nutritional value of spinach and subsequently craving it in the hope of becoming a literary Popeye.<br /> <br />More importantly, I think I've been looking for works of literature that are more accessible to readers. Not everyone will have a taste for Borges. His writing is more scientific than most. While I find his imagination fascinating, introductory readers may be discouraged by something with a form they do not recognize. The changes in my taste in literature are directly tied to my teaching it for the first time.<br /> <br />I'm most surprised by how my insight into a text changed. Instead of instantly going to the points in the text that I find most engaging, points that demonstrate a technique or style I have yet to grasp, I find myself fixating on the moving parts of a story. I'm teaching <i>The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao</i> by Junot Diaz this semester. Instead of focusing on the slapdash tone of the narrators, the numerous pop culture references, or the footnotes that in my opinion distinguish this book stylistically from others being produced today, I look at the struggle of Oscar's mother Beli. I look at how characters embrace and defy tradition. I see the mother's plight mirrored in her daughter Lola. I see conflict passed on from generation to generation. I see Abelard struggle under Trujillo and how Abelard's trauma influences his descendants. I try to understand why Oscar escapes from the world of New Jersey. I examine the influence of the Dominican Republic in New Jersey and vice versa. These are all conflicts that are clear on first reading. If you are teaching a text however, you must understand how each part operates throughout the text. Overall, teaching literature demands a more complete understanding of how a text works. On numerous levels, you have to be prepared to discuss not just plot and character but how these elements come together to create a unified work. It's almost as if you have to look at a piece of writing through a telescope and extrapolate an understanding of the cosmos based on what you observe. The task can be arduous, yet I find that greater understanding of how works of literature function results from such study.<br /> <br />As a teacher, I have to be prepared to discuss not just the aspects of a text I find interesting, but all aspects. The interest of students in the classroom could be on gender relations, identity, of the social context of a work. There's no way to determine what will capture a student's interest before walking into the classroom and seeing what people have to say. As a teacher, you have to be prepared for all eventualities, and to pursue discussion down the avenues that best bring light to the young readers in the classroom. <br /> <br />The change in perspective doesn't run contrary to being a writer. Having a broad comprehension of how writing works on a systemic level opens up new possibilities for being aware of my own writing. I can take a step back from the line I compose and examine how that line plays a role in the development of the narrative. It's a way of multitasking, of keeping your focus on a specific point while looking at a story as a unified entity, one with its own logic and rules that govern how the text should develop.<br /> <br />Teaching literature has changed the way I read. I feel like a more thorough reader, one who sees not just the innovative mechanisms at work in a piece of literature, but understands the system of literary devices working as a whole. It is a more comprehensive picture of writing that I achieve. It's like a clockmaker seeing not just the individual cogs, but seeing how gears turn one another to make a clock maintain its time. The change in perspective is a dynamic one. Rather than write with a drive that compels me through a narrative, often blindly, I can create with an idea for how a piece works on a larger scale.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-80713433855851236512012-03-31T14:46:00.004-04:002012-03-31T15:02:55.791-04:00Travel Scholarship to Southeast AsiaRough Guides is offering a scholarship to Malaysia, Bali, and Singapore. All you have to do to is send them your writing convincing them that you'd be a good travel writer. It seems a good opportunity to build some travel writing pieces.<br /><br />More information can be found <a href="http://journals.worldnomads.com/scholarships/story/82158/Worldwide/Travel-Writing-Scholarship-2012-Southeast-Asiaor">here</a>.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-19710423857916445962012-03-20T13:52:00.003-04:002012-03-20T13:56:18.230-04:00Jane Friedman's Start Here: How to Get Your Book PublishedIn keeping with recent posts, I thought readers might like to take a look at Jane Friedman's <a href="http://janefriedman.com/2012/01/28/start-here-how-to-get-your-book-published/">Start Here: How to Get Your Book Published</a>. It covers query letters, e-publishing, finding an agent, and more. I saw Jane speak at a panel on new media at AWP. She seemed well informed about current an emerging trends in publishing. Take a look around her blog for further information on technology and the writing life.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-63782685660788151752012-03-08T16:32:00.003-05:002012-03-08T16:33:59.763-05:00Finding an Agent IIAnother useful link on finding an agent. <a href="http://www.agentquery.com/writer_hq.aspx">Here</a> is a step by step guide with examples on how to write a query letter.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-62758494548238099382012-03-07T17:29:00.007-05:002012-03-07T21:09:56.854-05:00AWP: A First Time Visitor's PerspectiveOnce a year, writers gather in large numbers. They migrate from all over the country. Some travel internationally. Poets, novelists, nonfiction writers - the participants come from different genres. Some are established authors with numerous publications. Others are emerging. Only the glimmer of the writing life exists in their hungry eyes. What is this nexus of writers? It's the Associated Writing Programs conference, of course.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEIJro1vhkMDy_GJg_p-T3gJhJcq2wP9Rbu9H5iVplhGhawx3CqfHbL5DmCjaWs47Ir53rlKL23fyFLgkD0rbq7hCabfUkhKUXiDUds8THkHYVqWJwYQmnvKpAFXNDIj8IshLsBZEDQEY7/s1600/IMG_4329.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEIJro1vhkMDy_GJg_p-T3gJhJcq2wP9Rbu9H5iVplhGhawx3CqfHbL5DmCjaWs47Ir53rlKL23fyFLgkD0rbq7hCabfUkhKUXiDUds8THkHYVqWJwYQmnvKpAFXNDIj8IshLsBZEDQEY7/s320/IMG_4329.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717286120331041618" border="0" /></a><br />When I first heard about AWP I wasn't sure what to make of it. Writing is a solitary task. What need would I have for surrounding myself with people milling in every direction? At the conference writers run everywhere. They move from panels to the book fair to readings to launch parties and back again. The cycle repeats for three days until the participants dissipate, exhausted but with a renewed energy for the writing life. They spread forth just as strangely as they congregated, seemingly drawn by some otherworldly force. Each returns to isolated lives as writers in remote places far away from all of their kind. New friends and contacts are made. The occasional row and late night hookup make for good stories in their regular lives. Each in turn waits for next year when writers convene en masse and the stories begin again.<br /><br />In all, the experience is an intense one. No writer is fully prepared for the madness that ensues. As I said earlier, writing is a solitary task. Being surrounded by so many others can be taxing, but it's exciting as well. Anytime thousands of writers come together, an exchange of ideas occurs. You can see the lights going off in people's heads. There is a palpable hum that accompanies you as you walk through hotel meeting rooms and hallways. Cafes brim with ideas uttered and met with understanding. Individuals recognize similar beliefs in other people's eyes and words. You leave happy to have met others like you, people who share the same tastes and goals. You share a common language with the people at AWP. For someone who spends the majority of his or her time writing alone, the experience can be overwhelming, yet there's a strange euphoria in the hyper-stimulation of the senses. It's as if you meet what you sought after years of writing and found it was too much to take in all at once.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgslwRAHlZUMHTLpGq-qcu6xt6XxOZ7OEaqaLxx1f9pjL0i_vVArBsbcjB-QmDbuIagQGAZ2tSCXfRF7SRdVkIcIDf6gaml3tcrIM3DcbeaSQxYIzwRCWMaLtc8zQFJN2BGknC5P-eSIg-f/s1600/IMG_4322.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgslwRAHlZUMHTLpGq-qcu6xt6XxOZ7OEaqaLxx1f9pjL0i_vVArBsbcjB-QmDbuIagQGAZ2tSCXfRF7SRdVkIcIDf6gaml3tcrIM3DcbeaSQxYIzwRCWMaLtc8zQFJN2BGknC5P-eSIg-f/s320/IMG_4322.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717286596805905698" border="0" /></a><br />I must admit, the stories I had heard about AWP resembled MFA Spring Break more than a meeting of literary luminaries. All the cliches about two weeks spent in Cancun seemed to apply to this convergence of writers. You see the young literati drinking pbrs, sporting beards, dropping names of who they met at readings, all while looking wolfishly at each other through a haze of alcohol.<br /><br />That culture exists at AWP. There certainly is a festive element to the atmosphere as friends from school reunite from the various paths they took in their writing lives. Others take part their pursuit less seriously and see the conference as an excuse to leave their literary ambitions behind in order to party.<br /><br />What surprised me was that genuine exchanges do occur. The panels are actually informative. If nothing else, participants learn the landscape of the writing world they hope to traverse. It's like seeing a field map to the literary life. Readings are everywhere. Emerging authors and established figures all have moments where they share their work with audiences eager to hear what is being written today. The host city must collectively increase its literary awareness by the sheer number of spoken words alone. It's in the air.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxSKpppdRBZFLYBi0ZgBV0jw3TRbNsCyKMj_RWOULH5M40n-yqtr9x6o_ueTOXyjKLH18ICjZqkkOGup8IZ98IQ0ElcyVsW6pPOvAa0CNrmxmGYpYSC_xLRUgAXsy0TpJV3Fkx7VhTHxUy/s1600/IMG_4325.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxSKpppdRBZFLYBi0ZgBV0jw3TRbNsCyKMj_RWOULH5M40n-yqtr9x6o_ueTOXyjKLH18ICjZqkkOGup8IZ98IQ0ElcyVsW6pPOvAa0CNrmxmGYpYSC_xLRUgAXsy0TpJV3Fkx7VhTHxUy/s320/IMG_4325.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717287140960021490" border="0" /></a><br />I sat in on panels on independent publishing and new media. The indie panel spoke to the attention you receive as an author with an indie press. You get to work on the design and layout of your book. The publisher actually edits it as opposed to the trade giants who basically act as printers. As an emerging author, I had questions about how agents place your work in someone's hands as opposed to the slush pile. It sounded as if most panelists had agents at some point in their careers. They opted to move to indie presses after being noticed because of the experience of having a hand in how the book is made. The new media panel focused on creating an online presence for authors. More often these days writers need to establish their own following in order to get noticed, either by publishers or readers. Some of the useful ideas are to post readings of your work online, write about literary issues on your blog, or share literary links with the online community.<br /><br />As a writer, I feel that you have to connect with the writing community throughout your life. How else will you get published? For me, AWP offers a useful meeting place to share ideas with other writers on a scale not normally available. You have to pick and choose how to wend your way through the conference. It can be exhausting going from panel to launch party to book fair to dinner to readings across the city followed by after parties in hotel rooms. You have to set limits for yourself. For the writer who chooses his time wisely, who follows his interests and explores the city, AWP can be a rewarding experience, one relatively free of the notion that AWP is MFA Spring Break.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-45716190214367659142012-03-05T13:12:00.003-05:002012-03-05T13:21:07.198-05:00Finding an AgentYou've finished a manuscript. After years of toiling away, you've finally gotten to the point where the characters are fully developed, the plot makes sense, and you're ready to send your book out into the world. One question remains: where do you send it?<br /><br />I came across<a href="http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/shenderson/2010/05/litparks-guide-to-finding-a-literary-agent/"> </a><a href="http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/shenderson/2010/05/litparks-guide-to-finding-a-literary-agent/">a guide to finding an agen</a><a href="http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/shenderson/2010/05/litparks-guide-to-finding-a-literary-agent/">t</a> recently on <a href="http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/">The Nervous Breakdown</a>. Take a look for information on how to write a query letter and who to target. Also, the fiction self-interviews are quite funny.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-56821844671813814492012-02-09T11:58:00.002-05:002012-02-09T12:05:32.442-05:00Adjuncts and the MLAThe MLA president recently posted his reaction to a summit concerning adjunct positions in universities <a href="http://www.mla.org/fromthepres">here</a>. For those of you considering a career teaching in higher education, some of the issues broached should be taken into consideration before venturing idealistically into life in the ivory tower. Read on for further understanding of the realities facing adjuncts in the university.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-52779607867304335732012-01-26T13:47:00.001-05:002012-01-26T13:48:47.611-05:00All Things BookishIf you're like me, sometimes it can be a sisyphean task to stay abreast of everything that's happening in the book world. I'm posting a few links that can help you with your literary life.<br /><br /><a href="http://duotrope.com">Duotrope</a> - this is a great site for those of you who are submitting. It has an extensive list of journals by genre, as well as expected response times and acceptance rates. Anyone who is serious about submitting will spend some time looking over this site.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/">Galleycat</a> - Mediabistro's news feed on all things publishing. It's a good way to stay up to date with what's happening in the book industry.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/">The Book Bench</a> - The New Yorker's book blog. Need I say more?wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-89482699468890939742012-01-24T19:13:00.001-05:002012-01-25T00:51:29.534-05:00Call for Submissions: Specter Magazine's Hip-Hop Issue<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/C99iG4HoO1c" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
Hi folks. I'm guest editing a special themed issue of <a href="http://www.spectermagazine.com/" target="_blank">Specter Magazine</a>.<br />
<br />
From the submission guidelines:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Submissions for <a href="http://spectermagazine.submishmash.com/submit" target="_blank">Specter Magazine's</a> first themed issue, The Hip-Hop Issue, are now
open. We're looking for fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and
art/photography which embodies a hip-hop aesthetic. </blockquote>
<br />
Find more details and submit <a href="http://spectermagazine.submishmash.com/submit">here</a> (bottom of the page).<br />
<br />
<br />
Deadline is April, 30, 2012<br />
I'll be doing periodic updates about the issue here: <a href="http://www.spectercollective.com/" target="_blank">The Specter Collective</a> <br />
<br />
Submit away!<br />
<br />
Rion Amilcar Scott, MFA '08<br />
<a href="http://datsunflambe.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Datsun Flambe</a><br />
<a href="http://forgottentunneltv.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Forgotten Tunnel TV</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-4173924345273592382011-10-07T14:34:00.002-04:002011-10-07T14:37:03.226-04:00The Nobel and American NovelistsSwede Tomas Transtrober wins the Nobel. <a href="http://images.salon.com/books/fiction/index.html?story=/books/feature/2011/10/03/why_americans_don_t_win_nobel">Here</a> is a look at American writing in relation to the esteemed prize.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-8579017376653017322011-10-07T14:21:00.001-04:002011-10-07T14:23:23.917-04:00Publishing and Digital ContentWith the rise of music you can download, record stores became obsolete. Many musicians moved to online forums for their work. The ease with which someone could post music increased. Artists received greater exposure as a result. Numerous success stories emerged of people who found record deals after their youtube videos went viral. People download individual tracks rather than whole albums now. The framework of the music industry changed as a result of advances in the delivery of music.<br /><br />I wonder if similar changes will affect the publishing industry. With e-readers delivering digital content, what's to stop authors from posting short stories for sale? We could see a resurgence in the short story as a result of the ease with which readers can access the story. Take Barry Eisler for example. You can read about how he bucked the traditional publishing contract for a digital deal with Amazon <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/10/07/141116856/barry-eislers-detachment-from-legacy-publishing">here</a>. I wonder if emerging authors will embrace online delivery for their work. The possibility exists for finding a broader audience. Say you offer a section of your novel as free downloadable content. It gathers interest on the web. Publishers take note and you end up with a book deal as a result. It could streamline the publication process. Instead of the slush pile, editors would file through the stories with the highest hits. It's an interesting scenario to imagine. Innovative indie writing could find a larger audience. Rather than rely wholly on an editor's decision to publish, user ratings could drive sales of writing. <br /><br />Will digital content revolutionize publishing? Will indie writing find a groundswell of support through digital venues? I'm not sure, but the possibility is heartening. Time will tell if readers are willing to embrace digital forms of reading over a tangible book.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-58910524927339123132011-10-05T14:09:00.002-04:002011-10-05T14:12:19.207-04:00Literary Guide to DCNeed to find a bookstore in DC? Looking for writers' communities in the area? Check out the Washington, DC city guide from Poets & Writers <a href="http://www.pw.org/content/washingtondc">here</a>. It's well worth your time.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-14138582065640471942011-09-12T14:15:00.002-04:002011-09-12T14:19:30.335-04:00Murakami, Marathons, and Novel WritingResidencies are a new experience for me. I spent part of the summer working on my novel at an artist colony in Vermont. It's easy to see why uninterrupted studio time in an environment of other practicing artists has its appeal. Everyone you meet is working on a play, poem, short story, novel, painting, sculpture, mixed media installation, or other inspired piece of art. The environment provides for interesting discussions of aesthetics and art. If nothing else, the excitement of everyone creating in the same space for several weeks can be enough to inspire the most lackadaisical of writers to practice their craft.<br /><br />The daily routine of sitting in my studio at the desk, opening the document and writing is a ritual of sorts. In quiet and consistent surroundings, it becomes easier to create. You develop a routine - a specific time, a specific place, or specific music - and train yourself to write. Sometimes writing flows freely and you are truly impressed at the ease with which you write. Your writing seems stellar and you see your artistic vision clearly on the page. These are good days. Other times writing can be a chore. Even the most reliable environment can produce nothing but a few lines, and those lines you think are worthless. But you have to keep going. You can't let yourself down. To stop would be to abandon the dream of being a writer. As a novelist, you have to sustain this practice over the course of years. Finding the energy to persevere can be a task all its own.<br /> <br />Haruki Murakami talked about the process of novel writing in his memoir <i>What I Talk About When I Talk About Running</i>. He provides an interesting take on the endurance it takes to be a novelist.<br /><blockquote>In the novelist's profession, as far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as winning or losing. Maybe numbers of copies sold, awards won, and critics' praise serve as outward standards for accomplishment in literature, but none of them really matter. What's crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you've set for yourself. Failure to reach that bar is not something you can easily explain away. When it comes to other people, you can always come up with a reasonable explanation, but you can't fool yourself. In this sense, writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation, and doesn't seek validation in the outwardly visible.</blockquote> It's remarkable that Murakami states that writers write for themselves, especially when that motivation must last for sometimes years. If you are not personally satisfied with the output of writing you create, no opinion matters other than your own. The author is the creator of the benchmark of success, not the critic. To create this kind of drive takes discipline and hard work. I often talk to other poets and short story writers and they ask me how I deal with all the moving parts. How do I keep coming back to the same piece day after day? The answer to both is that I do it for myself. No one will be more disappointed than me if I don't finish my novel. I will be letting myself down. Nothing anyone else says would change the fact that if I did not complete the novel, I would be failing at one of the goals I set for myself.<br /> <br />Murakami further elaborates,<br /><blockquote>You'll naturally learn both concentration and endurance when you sit down every day at your desk and train yourself to focus on one point. This is a lot like the training of muscles I wrote about a moment ago. You have to continually transmit the object of your focus to your entire body, and make sure it thoroughly assimilates the information necessary for you to write every single day and concentrate on the work at hand. And gradually you'll expand the limits of what you're able to do. Almost imperceptibly you'll make the bar rise. This involves the same process as jogging every day to strengthen your muscles and develop a runner's physique. Add a stimulus and keep it up. And repeat. Patience is a must in this process, but I guarantee the results will come. </blockquote>I've spent a few years on my novel and can now see the finish line. It really did take years, some more fruitful than others. I wish I had someone to give me such sage advice early on. I would have been more disciplined. I would have sat down in front of the computer every day and trained myself to write. Now I'm in an interesting place. I've developed the habits and routine necessary to continue to create every day. The recent residency in Vermont invigorated me, giving me the energy to push through the next couple months to the finish line. Part of me will be sad to see something go that I've lived with for so long. Another part will be relieved to move onto something new. <br /><br />Ultimately, novelists create imaginative worlds in which readers can dally for more than a few minutes. They must have stamina to create such wholly rendered landscapes. We novelists labor day in and day out on a piece, sometimes for years. Finding the dedication to keep moving forward can be challenging. The question can hang over you every day: how do I continue to write? My advice is one page at a time for as many days as you can keep going. It makes the task easier, like training for a marathon. One day, you'll find writing that one page effortless. Then you can piece all the successive days together into a larger work and tell people you're a novelist. A smile comes to my face every time I imagine the day when this will be true for me. It will be the realization of a dream, one I set for myself, and one that I'm close to achieving.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-76312428321030548822011-04-05T18:24:00.001-04:002011-04-05T18:27:26.553-04:00Chekhov Thought He Was a Bad Writer<div>Every writer has moments where the words on the page don't come together. Your characterization is banal. Your plotting is tedious. Even the most basic decisions of word choice sound cliched in your mind. <br /><br />There is an air of uncertainty when you have written something. How will the world react? Will people read the piece, much more so like it? Dire, soul searching moments come. In your mind you realize that every story that can be told has already been told a hundred different ways in dozens of languages. The idea of sending a piece out is ludicrous. No one will ever see your words and if they did, you would be the ridicule of your community. You cradle your head in front of the glowing screen and wonder what you could possibly have to offer after greats like Joyce; Hemingway; Nabokov. </div> <div><br /></div><div>In moments like these, I think of Anton Chekhov.</div><div><br /></div><div>He brings a psychological realism to fiction that was both innovative and enduring. The characters he created still have relevance today. Despite his achievements, he, too, had doubts. Look at his letter to D.V. Grigorovich, an important writer of the time.<br /><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>...If I do have a gift that should be respected, I confess before your pure heart that up to now I haven't respected it. I felt that I had it, but got used to considering it insignificant. There are plenty of purely external reasons to make an individual unfair, extremely suspicious, and distrustful of himself, and I reflect now that there have been plenty of such reasons in my case. All my friends and relations were always condescending toward my writing and constantly advised me in a friendly way not to give up real work for scribbling. I have hundreds of friends in Moscow, a score of whom write, and I cannot recall a single one who read my work or considered me an artist. There is a so-called "literary circle" in Moscow: talents and mediocrities of all shapes and sizes gather once a week in a restaurant and exercise their tongues. If I were to go there and read them a mere snippet of your letter, they would laugh in my face. During the five years I have been roaming around editorial offices I managed to succumb to the general view of my literary insignificance, quickly got used to looking at my work condescendingly, and - kept plugging away! </blockquote></div><div>Such despair exhibited from a now canonical writer. In this excerpt from the Norton Anthology, we can see how writing existed as a solitary, thankless task for Chekhov, yet a single letter of encouragement form Grigorovich provides enough encouragement to exalt the writer. Chekhov later endeavors in the letter to "undertake something serious" in his writing. All this emotion came from a letter of critical praise.<br /></div><div><br /></div>Sometimes all a writer needs is one voice to acknowledge the achievement of creating something. So in those moments when you stare at the page and doubt your words have any worth, remember Chekhov. Even a master of the short story had doubts. We're still reading him over a hundred years after the fact. Then keep plugging away.<br /><br />Chekhov's perseverance provides today's reader with a wealth of stories to enjoy. Imagine if he hadn't continued to write. What would the state of the short story be? Above all a writer must remember to keep writing. It is the act of writing, not the acclaim, that makes one a writer. Send your work out and hope for publication, words of praise, or constructive critiques. And if these don't come, don't stop writing. Otherwise, we might not have stories like Chekhov's for the next generation of readers.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-81336871894536610302011-03-22T23:13:00.005-04:002011-03-22T23:21:35.283-04:00Experiments in Fiction: The OulipoI came across <a href="http://bookforum.com/booklist/4527">a collection of links</a><a href="http://bookforum.com/booklist/4527"> on the Oulipo</a> the other day. For those of you unfamiliar with them, they were a group of experimental writers more influenced by constrictions of form than anything else. An example would be a book by French author Georges Perec written without the use of the letter <i>e</i>.<br /><br />I find Calvino to be a refreshing voice among the list. He approaches narrative with a playfulness not often seen by many authors. In <i>The Baron in the Trees</i>, a tale unfolds in which the young baron Cosimo refuses his sister's cooking (a dinner of snails) in favor of a life among the limbs of trees. He never returns to land, pursuing a robust life without ever feeling earth under his feet again. I think it is Calvino's daring for experimentation that allows him to create interesting scenarios like in <i>The Baron in the Trees</i>. <i><br /><br />Invisible Cities</i> and <i>If on a Winter's Night a Traveler</i> both break from traditional linear narratives in favor of a mosaic approach. <i>Invisible Cities</i> details Marco Polo's account to Kubla Kahn of all the places in the empire Marco Polo has seen in his travels. As you read one fantastic tale after another, you begin to wonder at the reality of the tale, and of how the narrative consists of one man telling another of fantastical cities.<br /><br />Stefanie Sobelle continues to describe Calvino's innovation about <i>If on a Winter's Night a Traveler</i>:<blockquote>This novel seems like a collection of first chapters, each written in a different style, which are cut off before the narrative can fully reveal itself. “You,” the novel’s protagonist, are reading a book called <i id="anonymous_element_19">If on a winter’s night a traveler</i> and soon realize Your book is flawed. You go to the shop and replace it, only to find that the next copy is also flawed (albeit differently). The third time You return it, it happens again, and so on. Meanwhile, You meet a woman with whom You become embroiled in a series of literary escapades, until the end of the book when, to Your surprise, You’ve completed reading a novel after all.</blockquote> <i> </i>In each of Calvino's novels, you can see how a story can be told effectively without the continuity of time. Even character is in play with Calvino's fiction.<br /><br />The Oulipo can be an inspiring place to start thinking about innovation in fiction. Do you really need the letter <i>a</i> in your story? Maybe the sequence of your novel can be rearranged with each reading, as in Julio Cortazar's <i>Hopscotch</i>. While you are pushing the boundaries of your writing with experiments in form, wherever the experiments may take you, consider this quote from Raymond Carver:<br /><blockquote>I get a little nervous if I find myself within earshot of somber discussions about "formal innovation" in fiction writing. Too often "experimental writing" is a license to be careless, silly, or imitative in the writing. Even worse, a license to try to brutalize or alienate the reader. Too often such writing gives us no news of the world, or else describes a desert landscape and that's all - a few dunes and lizards here and there, but no people; a place uninhabited by anything recognizably human, a place of interest only to a few scientific specialists.</blockquote>In this quote, Carver argues not to forget the humanistic element when experimenting with form. If a narrative is so abstract that a reader cannot connect with it, then what purpose does it ultimately serve? Someone has to read a story and find something with which to empathize. Without this element, writing would have no audience; for why do we read if not to understand our own experience? There can certainly be an amount of escapism in reading, but ultimately, if there is nothing with which you can connect, where can you fit within the narrative? Carver's words should be a reminder for those of us who like to experiment with fiction. Ask yourself when you write, "Where is the reader in this?"wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-26459383309115417662011-01-05T15:08:00.004-05:002011-04-05T18:50:30.660-04:00Tin House Has a New BlogTin House has opened up its new blog the <a href="http://networkedblogs.com/cACHY">Open Bar</a> to accompany its new website. On it, you can find useful links to many online literary institutions. Keep an eye out for upcoming features such as an "extended interview with Pulitzer-winner Paul Harding, indie-bookstore love letters from some of our favorite authors, and a preview of this year’s Summer Writers Workshop." Those of you who have been to Tin House's summer workshop can surely attest that this is a resource worth reading.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-45608375575279638832010-12-14T20:32:00.006-05:002010-12-14T20:40:03.658-05:00MFA or NYC?Slate has an <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2275733/">excerpt</a> from the recent article <span style="font-style: italic;">MFA or NYC </span>in N+1. Well worth a read for anyone interested in how to make a life out of writing.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-65338037619270636652010-10-22T14:45:00.000-04:002010-10-22T14:46:20.970-04:00Fiction Dinner with Steve Goodwin!Fiction Dinner with Steve Goodwin!<br /><br />Steve is graciously allowing us to invade his house on Sunday, November 14th for food, drink, writing pep talks and such. Come on out and see what's up with your favorite fiction peeps, hear what's going with Steve, or in some cases, meet him for the first time.<br /><br />(For the 1st years - we have potluck gatherings of fiction folk a couple of times a year to meet and greet one of our faculty.)<br /><br /><br />Date: Sunday November 14th<br />Time: 6PM<br />Directions / address will be provided!<br /><br />RSVP to lhillcor at gmu.edu with the scrumptious dish (or useful paper products) that you plan on bringing.<br /><br />Looking forward to seeing you or meeting you!<br /><br />LHCUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-64178931298771971342010-10-20T21:36:00.002-04:002010-10-20T21:42:01.926-04:00Pat Devlin and Paul Zaic Read at Loud FirePat Devlin and Paul Zaic will be reading this Sunday at our Loud Fire reading series. Come out and hear your fellow fiction writers share their work. It will be well worth your time.<br /><br />The Loud Fire reading begins on Sunday, October 24th, 6pm at the Soundry, 316 Dominion Road, Vienna, VA.<br /><br />See you there!wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-56105814197844440732010-10-05T12:15:00.002-04:002010-10-05T12:20:07.434-04:00Short Story v. NovelIf you were to tell someone about one moment of your life, and only one, that moment would be the short story. A short story is a glimpse into the life of a character. This glimpse is definitive. The events of a short story compel a character through the rest of his or her life. Everything that happens before a short story is a preamble. Everything after a short story is a consequence. After all, Alan Cheuse often quotes his good friend Bernard Malamud as saying "a short story predicates a life."<br /><br />Novels on the other hand are allowed the space to create entire worlds for readers. Prolonged depictions of life and place set the goal of the novel as something different than that of the short story. Rather than suggest a life that happened outside the confines of a narrative, the novel aims to show the reader life.<br /><br />John Gardner writes in <i>On Becoming a Novelist</i> about the experience of reading a novel.<br /><blockquote>We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page... We slip into a dream, forgetting the room we're sitting in, forgetting it's lunchtime or time to go to work. We recreate, with minor and for the most part unimportant changes, the vivid and continuous dream the writer worked out in his mind (revising and revising until he got it right) and captured in language so that other human beings, whenever they feel like it, may open his book and dream that dream again.</blockquote> Here Gardner demonstrates how novels can be engrossing. Readers can become absorbed in a world different than their own. One can roam around the life of a character and experience a different life. The experience can be so exhaustive that upon closing a book a reader examines his or her own world in a different light, almost unsure of which reality is more compelling.<br /><br />Is one better than the other? They seem to aspire to different goals. Sometimes you need the precision of a Kawabata story, and the suggestion that one moment can predicate an entire life. The brevity of a page can have a simplistic beauty to it. The novel on the other hand can be an exhaustive exploration of time and place. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's <i>One Hundred Years of Solitude</i> explores several generations of a family who inhabit a city from its rise to its fall. In this journey, we see not just the definitive moment of one character but those of a family and a place that are engrossing. Both narrative experiences are satisfying. One offers brevity and the other thoroughness.<br /><br />My question to you is which do you prefer?wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-66999735957140314932010-09-28T20:57:00.003-04:002010-09-29T08:44:25.487-04:00The Paris Review InterviewsVisit <a href="http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/name/#list">The Paris Review Interviews</a> for comprehensive talks with authors like Margaret Atwood, Jorge Luis Borges, Raymond Carver, Julio Cortazar, Richard Ford, Haruki Murakami, David Mamet, Vladmir Nabokov, Susan Sontag and more. It's well worth a visit.<a href="http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/name/#list"><br /></a>wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-38010901630696690152010-09-21T11:14:00.003-04:002010-09-21T17:59:47.607-04:00<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;" >What is a Fiction Writer? </span><br /><br />As a writer of both short stories and unfinished novels, I wonder what it is that defines me as someone who creates fiction. Of course, there is the obvious answer that I make up a story. Where a nonfiction writer bases narrative on events that actually happen, fiction writers take liberties. The characters, the events, even the setting can be drawn from the imagination.<br /><br />In this process fiction is created. I would like to think that fiction is an imitation of life molded from the experiences in our lives in a mimetic fashion, but I feel there may be more to the craft than that. Consider the following quote from <span style="font-style: italic;">How Fiction Works</span> by James Wood.<br /><blockquote>When Robert Browning describes the sound of a bird singing its song twice over, in order to "recapture / The first fine careless rapture," he is being a poet, trying to find the best poetic image; but when Chekhov, in his story "Peasants," says that a bird's cry sounded as if a cow had been locked up in a shed all night, he is being a fiction writer: he is thinking like one of his peasants.</blockquote> Wood implies that it's necessary to inhabit the mind of the characters you create. For a fiction writer, it is not enough to document and comment on the world around you. You must live it. You must think through how a peasant, an expatriate, or a jazz musician would see and describe the world. In this sense, you acquire the diction and perspective of another and create a world that is not true. Some part of the fictive world has to resonate though. There must be something recognizable in fiction with which readers can relate. It is this aspect of recognition that draws readers to experience the life of another, whether the life actually occurred or not.<br /><br />I think it is this ability to capture the mindset of characters that sets the fiction writer apart from the poet and nonfiction writer. If poetry is considered the purest, most condensed form of language, I would argue that fiction should be the considered the superlative telling of life, not of the author's life, or of those the author witnessed, but of those lives the author is capable of imagining.wcpoolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11001725246748533622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-43174743353560318972010-09-12T00:50:00.011-04:002010-09-12T01:38:44.017-04:00Welcome Back, Fiction Writers!You are SO going to want to know about...<br /><br /><em>Phoebe</em>'s Awesome Winter Fiction & Poetry Contests,<br />including its first-ever Nonfiction Contest!<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFukAHrxDHZUrLdY6wg0zHr_lGfP92BVPQxOjwH2syACuhAWmrIeWlHw8txqeLoadaCG_p3kXKovSIBaU_dvOoO8PPW2BoZM6C3C5QMSzJ4cPgmef9EYSQLjzMdIMM0jzyP8GRa-0_zbw/s1600/4512000547_8e9c505901_o.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515896594966893666" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 155px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFukAHrxDHZUrLdY6wg0zHr_lGfP92BVPQxOjwH2syACuhAWmrIeWlHw8txqeLoadaCG_p3kXKovSIBaU_dvOoO8PPW2BoZM6C3C5QMSzJ4cPgmef9EYSQLjzMdIMM0jzyP8GRa-0_zbw/s200/4512000547_8e9c505901_o.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div>Tell everyone you know! Details <a href="http://www.phoebejournal.com/?page_id=4">here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-41730364412079204262010-04-20T14:25:00.004-04:002010-04-20T23:07:35.760-04:00Fiction Dinner with Alan on May 23rd<span style="font-family:PrimaSans BT,Verdana,sans-serif;">Last fiction dinner for year!<br /><br />When: <span style="font-weight: bold;">May 23rd, 6PM</span><br />Where:<span style="font-weight: bold;"> Alan’s house in DC</span> (we'll send out the address)<br /><br />Here is our list. If you told me what you're bringing and I don't have it down here, just send me an email and I'll add it. Those of you still deciding, just let me know when you can so we have an idea of the menu.<br /><br />You know the drill, we'll gather and eat. Then Alan will talk and probably ask us all what we've been reading and if we're revising. (Answers: <span style="font-style: italic;">Ulysses</span> and Of course!)<br /><br /></span> <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 411pt;" width="548" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><col style="width: 168pt;" width="224"> <col style="width: 47pt;" width="63"> <col style="width: 196pt;" width="261"> <tbody><tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt; width: 168pt;" width="224" height="20">Nicole Lee</td> <td class="xl63" style="width: 47pt;" width="63"><br /></td> <td style="width: 196pt;" width="261">gourmet cheese</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Jeff Moscaritolo</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td>pies</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Jay Patel</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td><br /></td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Beckie McGill</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td>wine / pasta salad</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Lisa Hill-Corley<br />Norah Vawter<br /></td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td><br /></td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Sarah Silberman</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td>tomato and cucumber salad</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Elizabeth Gutting</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td><br /></td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Corey Beasley</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td><br /></td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Paul Zaic</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td>slow cooked meat</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Ken Isreal</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td>carrot side dish</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Bree Spencer</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td><br /></td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Kirsten Clodfelter</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td><br /></td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Laura Vinti</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td>dessert</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Pat Devlin</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td><br /></td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Priyanka Champaneri</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td>sparkling cider</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Atossa Shafaie</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td><br /></td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Sara Flood</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td><br /></td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Jennifer Brown</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td>fruit salad</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">David<span style=""> </span>Tucholski</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td><br /></td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Mark Fabiano</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td><span style=""> </span>fresh vegetables and dip, diet soda</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt;" height="20">Ben Brown</td> <td class="xl63"><br /></td> <td><br /></td> </tr> </tbody></table><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 411pt;" width="548" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><col style="width: 168pt;" width="224"><col style="width: 47pt;" width="63"><col style="width: 196pt;" width="261"><tbody><tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td style="height: 15pt; width: 168pt;" width="224" height="20">Amber Smith (maybe)<br /></td> <td style="width: 47pt;" width="63" align="right"><br /></td> <td style="width: 196pt;" width="261">cherry dessert</td> </tr></tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065181171280909970.post-65513569802256649162010-04-19T21:41:00.010-04:002010-04-20T22:23:43.799-04:00Five Alums Win storySouth SelectionThe journal <i>storySouth</i> selected <del>three</del> <del>four</del> <span style="font-weight:bold;">five</span> stories by GMU MFA alumni for its <a href="http://www.storysouth.com/millionwriters/millionwritersnotable_2009.html">Notable Stories of 2009 awards</a>: Tara Laskowski, for “<a href="http://www.fictionweekly.com/LikeEveryoneElse.htm">Like Everyone Else</a>” in <i>Fiction Weekly</i>; Janet Freeman, for “<a href="http://www.pankmagazine.com/?p=1209">The Ugliest Drowned Man in the World Washes Ashore Lake Michigan</a>” in <i>PANK</i>; Benjamin Chadwick, for “<a href="http://roughcopy.net/?p=87">The Power of Fiction</a>” in <i>Rough Copy</i>; Rion Amilcar Scott, for “<a href="http://bapq.net/fall-09/fiction_rolling-in-my-six-fo.pdf">Rolling in My Six-Fo’—Daa Daa Daa—With All My Niggas Saying: Swing Down Sweet Chariot Stop and Let Me Riiiide. Hell Yeah.</a>” in <i>Bosphorus Art Project Quarterly</i>; and Scott Garson, for “<a href="http://www.matchbooklitmag.com/garson.html">About Me and My Cousin</a>,” in <i>Matchbook</i>. Congrats all!<div><div><br /></div><div>Also named was the story “<a href="http://www.failbetter.com/32/OhlinStranger1.php?src=ppNomList&docheck=yes">Stranger Things Have Happened</a>,” by Alix Ohlin, one of our visiting writers in fiction this spring (the story appeared in <i>failbetter.com</i>).</div></div>GMU MFA Fictionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597272245336254215noreply@blogger.com3