ALR proofreading party - 5:30-7:00
Student Reading Series - 7:00
- Andy Briseño - fiction
- Emily Allen - poetry
- Matthew Davis - fiction
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Final Graduate Student Reading!
Please join us this Friday at Banter Coffee Shop for our final graduate student reading of the semester. If what you crave in the libinal pit of your desire-deprived stomach is nothing less than an evening of white-knuckled thrills, swashbuckling adventure, and heart-pounding eroticism, then let me tell you something factual: ALR wants to satisfy you.
And in addition to our orgasmic casserole of original fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by UNT graduate students, if you show up early then perhaps we'll let you participate in the ALR reading party! Help us proof the new Spring 2011 issue, in which your name shall thus be inkly inscribed forerevermore, and get a line on that pesky, barren joke of a CV whose desolate blankness you've thus far been so painfully ashamed of! The American Literary Review wants you to feel good about yourself and your place in this mad, mad world!
ALR proofreading party - 5:30-7:00
ALR proofreading party - 5:30-7:00
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Happy Thanksgiving! We brought blankets!
This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful* for our production editor Tim Boswell, who seemed very weary in the office today. Last week, faced with the fact that the ALR reading for that night was going to be all fiction readers due to a scheduling snafu (he makes the schedule so blame him), and knowing that his slot was right in the middle of that reading when the audience's good will and attention spans would both be waning, he did what any true American hero would do: he wrote a choose-your-own-adventure dinner theater piece called The Crying of a Lot of 49 Year Olds. We all got parts. We got to do voices. Some of us realized halfway through that we, specifically, were probably being mocked, but we were having so much fun that we didn't care. It was pretty great, and I dare each and every one of you to do something half as ridiculous the next time you give a reading. We all take ourselves far too seriously.
*I am also thankful for a day of reading books and playing fallout without feeling terribly guilty afterwards. It's exceedingly rare.
*I am also thankful for a day of reading books and playing fallout without feeling terribly guilty afterwards. It's exceedingly rare.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Masters of the Typewriter, Doctors of the Whip
Elif Batuman's provocative article, "Get a Real Degree," in September's issue of the London Review of Books has produced even more pencil-gnawing in the MFA blogosphere than usual. Batuman's opening premise, "Even within the seemingly homogeneous sphere of the university English department, a schism has opened up between literary scholarship and creative writing," is one that us weirdos in Creative Writing-English PhD programs might immediately shelve in the "no-duh" section of our mental libraries. We are all too familiar with this schismy schism; with one foot in Creative Writing and another foot in the Literature, we try not to think about a full-blown case of departmental war breaking out where the two intersect.
But Batuman goes on to offer a brilliant critique of Mark McGurl's The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing. McGurl's book proposes to interpret the rise of the MFA program "not as an occasion for praise or lamentation but as an established fact in need of historical interpretation." Batuman uses McGurl's dry aims as a springboard for her own deliciously unambivalent inquiry into institutionalization's effect on American fiction. While some of Batuman's critiques of program-fiction are stale (making fun of "show-don't tell" is now as ubiquitous as the slogan itself) her fearless dive into the shark-filled waters of the socio-political-grievance-novel is breathtaking to observe, not least because you are waiting for a team of politically correct white men to swim over and club her over the head with accusations of insensitivity or worse.
To get the full brilliance of Batuman's walk through this minefield, you really need to read the article, but for a taste, consider her take on McGurl's dialectic between Raymond Carver and Joyce Carol Oates, which Batuman uses to launch the question of "Who is the real outcast?" What she's really talking about here is program-fiction's preference for the narrative of the outsider. The problem, for Batuman, is that programs often tell their writing students that one can only be an outsider (and therefore fiction writer) by virtue of one's minority class, race, gender, religion, personal history of war or trauma, etc. According to Batuman, the my-life-is-worse-than-yours-contest between fiction writers is like:
Some would say that the memoir is facing similar problems in terms of privileging outsider narratives (indeed, during a recent Q&A at UNT, Kathryn Harrison said something along these lines) but I still believe nonfiction allows an escape from the smell of shame emanating off the pages of outsider narratives ventriloquized by insiders (Batuman's looking at you, Dave Eggers!). But as Batuman points out, even Eggers began as an outsider (in his trauma memoir), and his fiction increasingly reads like nonfiction.
So why not just write nonfiction? Given the shame that, as Batuman argues, writers feel about their elitism, isn't it better to state it up front as nonfiction requires (see Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family and Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - both nonfiction masterpieces concerning black life written by white women who don't/can't disguise their whiteness) rather than smuggle it under the skimpy blanket that fiction writers call "creativity" (see James Franco's debut. You know, James Franco - that total outsider who writes about slavery). Isn't it more interesting to know that even the James Francos of the world understand, or at least want to understand, all this outsideryness? Is there any reason we need to fictionalize these narratives? Personally, I think Mary Karr's voice rings truest in the debate over nonfiction's relationship to fiction: "God is in the truth." If made-up stuff can no longer express truth, then why not give the old truthy-truth a go?
But regardless of whether program-writers deal in fiction or nonfiction, my biggest contention with Batuman's examination of shame in the writing-program world is that I believe this shame is somewhat well-justified. Whether you're a student on Planet MFA or Planet PhD - the classrooms of each are, yes, shamefully lacking a representative number of students of color, students from working-class backgrounds, students from rural areas. For this and many other reasons, we Creative Writing PhDs should heed Batuman's article as a call to arms: We know the typewriter, we know the whip - it would be shameful if we didn't write about both.
But Batuman goes on to offer a brilliant critique of Mark McGurl's The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing. McGurl's book proposes to interpret the rise of the MFA program "not as an occasion for praise or lamentation but as an established fact in need of historical interpretation." Batuman uses McGurl's dry aims as a springboard for her own deliciously unambivalent inquiry into institutionalization's effect on American fiction. While some of Batuman's critiques of program-fiction are stale (making fun of "show-don't tell" is now as ubiquitous as the slogan itself) her fearless dive into the shark-filled waters of the socio-political-grievance-novel is breathtaking to observe, not least because you are waiting for a team of politically correct white men to swim over and club her over the head with accusations of insensitivity or worse.
To get the full brilliance of Batuman's walk through this minefield, you really need to read the article, but for a taste, consider her take on McGurl's dialectic between Raymond Carver and Joyce Carol Oates, which Batuman uses to launch the question of "Who is the real outcast?" What she's really talking about here is program-fiction's preference for the narrative of the outsider. The problem, for Batuman, is that programs often tell their writing students that one can only be an outsider (and therefore fiction writer) by virtue of one's minority class, race, gender, religion, personal history of war or trauma, etc. According to Batuman, the my-life-is-worse-than-yours-contest between fiction writers is like:
Batuman's argues that the real cause of this preference for outsider-narrative is "shame," specifically, the shame of the profession of writing:"a hot-dog eating contest between a human and a grizzly bear. Is the real outcast the professor's grieving widow alone in the empty house in the college town, or the paranoid Bosnian graduate student threatened with deportation? Which estranged cousin is the real outcast: the German girl who survived Auschwitz and became a successful but caustic solitary anthropology professor; or the American girl who narrowly avoided being murdered by her own father, then became a good wife and mother, but ended up getting cancer?"
"Literary writing is inherently elitist and impractical. It doesn't directly cure disease, combat injustice...Because writing is suspected to be narcissistic and wasteful, it must be 'disciplined' by the program--as McGurl documents with a 1941 promotional photo of Paul Engle, then director of the Iowa workshop, seated at a desk with a typewriter and a large whip."At this point in Batuman's article, I was thinking, "Enter nonfiction to the rescue!" Nonfiction doesn't cure cancer either, but it can draw the reader's attention toward cancer in a way that fiction cannot. While novels can offer a heightened reality that nonfiction can't always achieve, at the end of the day, real cancer is, well, real. Indeed, Batuman goes on to mention the "gap in quality between American literary fiction and non-fiction today." (Guess which is of better quality!) But as an example, Batuman points to This American Life--nonfiction, sure, but is a radio/TV program really the only example of great nonfiction she can come up with? Batuman is clearly brilliant and a pleasure to read, but I was disappointed when she dropped her line of inquiry right when she got to nonfiction--an obvious antidote to at least some of the problems she has argued inherent in program-fiction. Hey Batuman! Over here, in the nonfiction section! The nonfiction novel is waving at you! The memoir is jumping up and down, trying to get your attention! The Personal Essay just Facebook-friended you! Over in this section, we don't worry about all this false-ventriloquism of the artificial outsider. We declare who we are at the door! I'll be writing a memoir from the perspective of Jessica Hindman, who is many things, but has never been and will never be a pregnant Vietnamese woman (unlike, say, Robert Olen Butler). If I want to know what a pregnant Vietnamese woman's life is like, I'll go find one and ask her. Then I'll transcribe my notes and begin the same narrative craft process that fiction writers undertake, with slightly different rules.
Some would say that the memoir is facing similar problems in terms of privileging outsider narratives (indeed, during a recent Q&A at UNT, Kathryn Harrison said something along these lines) but I still believe nonfiction allows an escape from the smell of shame emanating off the pages of outsider narratives ventriloquized by insiders (Batuman's looking at you, Dave Eggers!). But as Batuman points out, even Eggers began as an outsider (in his trauma memoir), and his fiction increasingly reads like nonfiction.
So why not just write nonfiction? Given the shame that, as Batuman argues, writers feel about their elitism, isn't it better to state it up front as nonfiction requires (see Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family and Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - both nonfiction masterpieces concerning black life written by white women who don't/can't disguise their whiteness) rather than smuggle it under the skimpy blanket that fiction writers call "creativity" (see James Franco's debut. You know, James Franco - that total outsider who writes about slavery). Isn't it more interesting to know that even the James Francos of the world understand, or at least want to understand, all this outsideryness? Is there any reason we need to fictionalize these narratives? Personally, I think Mary Karr's voice rings truest in the debate over nonfiction's relationship to fiction: "God is in the truth." If made-up stuff can no longer express truth, then why not give the old truthy-truth a go?
But regardless of whether program-writers deal in fiction or nonfiction, my biggest contention with Batuman's examination of shame in the writing-program world is that I believe this shame is somewhat well-justified. Whether you're a student on Planet MFA or Planet PhD - the classrooms of each are, yes, shamefully lacking a representative number of students of color, students from working-class backgrounds, students from rural areas. For this and many other reasons, we Creative Writing PhDs should heed Batuman's article as a call to arms: We know the typewriter, we know the whip - it would be shameful if we didn't write about both.
Monday, November 1, 2010
On doldrums and telling yourself that a fallow period is good for you and not getting super anxious about how if you don't write something great you will die unremembered and alone
Lately, I have felt like one of those inbred dogs that fall to pieces too young, their bad hips a mystery to the children they were brought into the home to please. I loll useless in the corner and make up overwrought metaphors is what I’m saying. I hope I’m not alone in this feeling—I hope it is something universal to the writing life, where so much of who you are and who you want to be are squirreled away into words, the value of which are decided far down the line by strangers who don’t really know your pain and how very very special it is.
I know I must have some modicum of talent, given that sometimes I get a nice email from a stranger who’s read my book, and perhaps once in awhile I get stopped on campus by someone who heard me read somewhere, but I never feel sure of it. How do you get there? How do you arrive at the self-assured charging ahead that seems to be a necessity in this crushing business? These questions press down on me more when I don't have something compelling to write about, which, lately, I don't. I am always haunted by the words of Flannery O’Connor (that sassy bitch): “Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.” I keep thinking that I will turn some corner or walk into some room and find that all my colleagues and professors are seated around a plate of cookies. Dr. Phil is there, and he tells me I should have a seat, these people want to talk to me about something, about how I’m hurting their lives, about how they have a way that I can get well.
What can I say? I am often a bummer. This post is not meant as a bummer, though. It is meant as a hopeful, timid proclamation of solidarity. I am saying to you, dear reader, dear Imaginary Audience: “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but I’m doing it.” And you can take that with you as a token that what we do is worth doing, or you can look at this and say, “Well, at least I’m not a walking whiny joke like this dude over here” and get by a little better for it. Either way, I did my best to help.
I know I must have some modicum of talent, given that sometimes I get a nice email from a stranger who’s read my book, and perhaps once in awhile I get stopped on campus by someone who heard me read somewhere, but I never feel sure of it. How do you get there? How do you arrive at the self-assured charging ahead that seems to be a necessity in this crushing business? These questions press down on me more when I don't have something compelling to write about, which, lately, I don't. I am always haunted by the words of Flannery O’Connor (that sassy bitch): “Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.” I keep thinking that I will turn some corner or walk into some room and find that all my colleagues and professors are seated around a plate of cookies. Dr. Phil is there, and he tells me I should have a seat, these people want to talk to me about something, about how I’m hurting their lives, about how they have a way that I can get well.
What can I say? I am often a bummer. This post is not meant as a bummer, though. It is meant as a hopeful, timid proclamation of solidarity. I am saying to you, dear reader, dear Imaginary Audience: “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but I’m doing it.” And you can take that with you as a token that what we do is worth doing, or you can look at this and say, “Well, at least I’m not a walking whiny joke like this dude over here” and get by a little better for it. Either way, I did my best to help.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Upcoming Events, Wonders
I think somewhere in our talks about blogging there was mention of including local events and happenings. Last night Beard and I went to TEX gallery. I read a story about adulterous priests. One of the readers read prose poems while smearing cake all over herself. It was Kullberg's birthday. Colin Winette was in town. It was awesome.
In light of that, I decided to take up the baton of promoting these other awesome literary events which will soon be happening right here in lil d.
Also, there is a really cool series of events called The Narrative Arc that's going to be put on by the New Media department. They are looking for readers for the final event on Friday, November 12th.
Below are all of the details for these events. I hope to see everyone there. Happy fall!
-Hillary
Opportunity to meet writer Sherman Alexie:
Asst. Professor in New Media Jenny Vogel is asking for fiction, nonfiction, or poetry students to read for five or ten minutes on Friday November 12 at UNT on the Square. This is an impressive idea to explore the complexities of narrative in multiple forms and a variety of objects.
If you're interested in reading (and adding a useful line on the CV), please email Professor Vogel at jenny.vogel@unt.edu. She's curating the event.
UNT on the Square presents:
THE NARRATIVE ARC
November 1 – November 12
Opening Reception: Tuesday Nov 2, 5-7PM
UNT on the Square, 109 N. Elm St, Denton, TX 76201
Hours: Mon –Wed 9-5; Thurs 9-8, Fri 9-5, Sat 11-3 (closed for lunch from 12-1)
It's a lucky man who can say "when," "before" and "after."
- Robert Musil "Man Without Qualities," 1930
Narratives are based on a sequence of events, no matter how improbable, "as long as it sets off an emotional tick, to which subsequent episode can provide an answering tock." This suggests that narratives not only rely on sequencing or stringing together cause and effect, but also on our perception or misperception of relationships or dependencies within the episodes. How can this understanding of sequences and a continuation of plot through textual strings be translated into images and objects? What kind of structures can replace the words, sentences and paragraphs to experience narration in a visual context?
The moving image, the graphic novel, or digital art might be the most obvious media where both text and image collide, providing a bridge between the two disciplines. But if narratives are also established through our ability to read dependencies between two or more parts, then stories can emerge from spatial relationships, complex layering of material and meaning, or the artistic process itself.
The artists in this exhibition address the questions raised above, while challenging the conventions of visualizing story.
Artists featured in this exhibition:
Patryce Bak, Ofri Cnaani, Ellie Ga, Sven Johne, Ezra Johnson, Selena Kimball, Ellie Krakow, Dave Mishalanie, Joshua Sanchez, Julie West
and UNT New Media Art students.
Events related to the exhibition:
Tuesday, November 2nd, 5-7PM
Opening Reception
Friday, November 5th, 5-9PM-
First Friday Denton Gallery event with live-cinema projections by UNT New Media Art students
Thursday November 11th, 7-9PM
Exhibition artist Ellie Ga will perform The Fortune Tellers, a performative lecture about her experiences on board the Tara, a sailboat drifting in the frozen pack ice in the Arctic Ocean.
Friday November 12th, 5-6:30PM
Reading by UNT Creative Writing students
We still have spots available at a small pre-lecture discussion this Thursday with writer Sherman Alexie. You must sign up in advance to attend. The event is free.
Details: 5:30 discussion on Thursday, 10/28 in Silver Eagle Suite (must sign up in advance), reading is at 7:30 in same location
This is a wonderful opportunity for creative writers at UNT. If you are interested in attending, send your name and student ID to Professor Foertsch today. http://us.mc654.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=Jacqueline.Foertsch@unt.edu
Asst. Professor in New Media Jenny Vogel is asking for fiction, nonfiction, or poetry students to read for five or ten minutes on Friday November 12 at UNT on the Square. This is an impressive idea to explore the complexities of narrative in multiple forms and a variety of objects.
If you're interested in reading (and adding a useful line on the CV), please email Professor Vogel at jenny.vogel@unt.edu. She's curating the event.
UNT on the Square presents:
THE NARRATIVE ARC
November 1 – November 12
Opening Reception: Tuesday Nov 2, 5-7PM
UNT on the Square, 109 N. Elm St, Denton, TX 76201
Hours: Mon –Wed 9-5; Thurs 9-8, Fri 9-5, Sat 11-3 (closed for lunch from 12-1)
It's a lucky man who can say "when," "before" and "after."
- Robert Musil "Man Without Qualities," 1930
Narratives are based on a sequence of events, no matter how improbable, "as long as it sets off an emotional tick, to which subsequent episode can provide an answering tock." This suggests that narratives not only rely on sequencing or stringing together cause and effect, but also on our perception or misperception of relationships or dependencies within the episodes. How can this understanding of sequences and a continuation of plot through textual strings be translated into images and objects? What kind of structures can replace the words, sentences and paragraphs to experience narration in a visual context?
The moving image, the graphic novel, or digital art might be the most obvious media where both text and image collide, providing a bridge between the two disciplines. But if narratives are also established through our ability to read dependencies between two or more parts, then stories can emerge from spatial relationships, complex layering of material and meaning, or the artistic process itself.
The artists in this exhibition address the questions raised above, while challenging the conventions of visualizing story.
Artists featured in this exhibition:
Patryce Bak, Ofri Cnaani, Ellie Ga, Sven Johne, Ezra Johnson, Selena Kimball, Ellie Krakow, Dave Mishalanie, Joshua Sanchez, Julie West
and UNT New Media Art students.
Events related to the exhibition:
Tuesday, November 2nd, 5-7PM
Opening Reception
Friday, November 5th, 5-9PM-
First Friday Denton Gallery event with live-cinema projections by UNT New Media Art students
Thursday November 11th, 7-9PM
Exhibition artist Ellie Ga will perform The Fortune Tellers, a performative lecture about her experiences on board the Tara, a sailboat drifting in the frozen pack ice in the Arctic Ocean.
Friday November 12th, 5-6:30PM
Reading by UNT Creative Writing students
This Poem Tastes Funny
Recently, I received a package in the mail from a professor at my MFA program. It's a poster advertising a reading to celebrate 25 years of the Tom McGrath Visiting Writers Series. The reader, looking thoughtful with a stem of glasses on his lips, is Billy Collins.
I laughed when I unrolled the poster. I don't like Billy Collins. I mean, I really don't like Billy Collins. I'm sure every poet in my MFA program knew that I was adamantly against Collins' brand of poetry (I know the professor who sent me the poster knew—he was my thesis chair). If they didn't know, they could read about it—the first section of my thesis is partly devoted to critiquing Collins, particularly his use of humor.
Now, I'm not saying that Collins' is “wrong” in his use of humor or anything like that. My argument revolves around the idea that he really doesn't try as hard as he could. Sure, a reader could interpret one of his poems in x amount of ways, but one, I think, doesn't really have to apply themselves too much to “get it.” In my research for my brief discussion of Collins, I came across an interview where he said that “poetry should be transparent” and that “there's an awful lot of bad poetry...about 87 percent of the poetry in America is not worth reading.” One can assume anything that is not transparent, not easy to get on the first read, not difficult to understand, is not worth reading. Well, that's excluding an awful lot.
What Collins' does not talk about, and what seems to get lost in a lot of discussion about “good” and “bad” poetry, is taste. The literary theory class I'm in pokes at my brain and makes me want to ask, “But, does taste really exist?” And yes, it does. It has to exist. If there were no such thing as taste, Collins would love that 87% of poetry he currently dislikes. If there were no taste, I would like Collins' poetry.
But where does taste come from? How do I know what I like and what I don't? Saying, “I like making the familiar unfamiliar,” is true, but, that seems to be Collins' modus operandi too, though there are different results. Can I just say that my gut tells me what I like? Can I say that growing up in “flyover country” makes my imagination work harder? I don't know. These are questions I can't answer.
I don't know how many poems in the world I'd call “awful,” but I don't think 87% is close. I couldn't even count that number of poems. Collins' taste must be narrow in scope though if 87% are not worth reading. 87% of people who buy poetry from chain bookstores, such as Barnes & Noble and Borders, probably buy Collins' books. He has broken sales records for poetry (I know, this is hard to believe, it's poetry after all). Every time I have been to a chain bookstore, I have seen Collins' name staring at me from a handful of book spines. My professor told me over 400 people came to hear Collins' read. Almost every reading I attended while I was a MFA student, there were around 25 people, maximum. Does this mean I have bad taste? Am I missing something here?
I will give Collins credit though—I am happy that poetry is still being read other than by those of us in the Academy or graduate students in English. One of the things that poetry, or literature for that matter should do, is entertain. Many people are entertained by Collins' poems. That's especially telling today, where electronic media dominates the entertainment landscape.
So, I'm going to put the poster up in my cubicle. I'm not sure what my professor told Collins about me, if anything, or if he read my thesis introduction. Collins was nice enough to sign it though, in what appears as a cheerful scribble. This reminds me that I stole a poem idea from Collins and even got the poem published. I hope it's the most awful poem ever written.
Now, I'm not saying that Collins' is “wrong” in his use of humor or anything like that. My argument revolves around the idea that he really doesn't try as hard as he could. Sure, a reader could interpret one of his poems in x amount of ways, but one, I think, doesn't really have to apply themselves too much to “get it.” In my research for my brief discussion of Collins, I came across an interview where he said that “poetry should be transparent” and that “there's an awful lot of bad poetry...about 87 percent of the poetry in America is not worth reading.” One can assume anything that is not transparent, not easy to get on the first read, not difficult to understand, is not worth reading. Well, that's excluding an awful lot.
What Collins' does not talk about, and what seems to get lost in a lot of discussion about “good” and “bad” poetry, is taste. The literary theory class I'm in pokes at my brain and makes me want to ask, “But, does taste really exist?” And yes, it does. It has to exist. If there were no such thing as taste, Collins would love that 87% of poetry he currently dislikes. If there were no taste, I would like Collins' poetry.
But where does taste come from? How do I know what I like and what I don't? Saying, “I like making the familiar unfamiliar,” is true, but, that seems to be Collins' modus operandi too, though there are different results. Can I just say that my gut tells me what I like? Can I say that growing up in “flyover country” makes my imagination work harder? I don't know. These are questions I can't answer.
I don't know how many poems in the world I'd call “awful,” but I don't think 87% is close. I couldn't even count that number of poems. Collins' taste must be narrow in scope though if 87% are not worth reading. 87% of people who buy poetry from chain bookstores, such as Barnes & Noble and Borders, probably buy Collins' books. He has broken sales records for poetry (I know, this is hard to believe, it's poetry after all). Every time I have been to a chain bookstore, I have seen Collins' name staring at me from a handful of book spines. My professor told me over 400 people came to hear Collins' read. Almost every reading I attended while I was a MFA student, there were around 25 people, maximum. Does this mean I have bad taste? Am I missing something here?
I will give Collins credit though—I am happy that poetry is still being read other than by those of us in the Academy or graduate students in English. One of the things that poetry, or literature for that matter should do, is entertain. Many people are entertained by Collins' poems. That's especially telling today, where electronic media dominates the entertainment landscape.
So, I'm going to put the poster up in my cubicle. I'm not sure what my professor told Collins about me, if anything, or if he read my thesis introduction. Collins was nice enough to sign it though, in what appears as a cheerful scribble. This reminds me that I stole a poem idea from Collins and even got the poem published. I hope it's the most awful poem ever written.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
The heartbreaking job of the assistant fiction editor
What am I doing? I'll tell you what I'm doing. I'm reading stories, whittling down the list of great ones until what's left are the really great ones that will have a shot at being in our latest issue. And I don't want to be doing this, man. I want to be in bed, or writing, or reading a book, or something. I have my postcolonialism class in the morning with Dr. Raja (who, it should be noted, is able to run down a hundred years of Western thought in the space of forty-five minutes while his students sit there, at once aghast and amazed), there's a stack of grading to be done on my desk that has gone rancid from sitting there too long, I haven't been to the gym in a few weeks and am becoming unacceptably fat and sluggish, and--let's face it--Halo isn't going to play itself. But I'm here, reading stories, making ugly decisions I don't want to make.
I wrote a story last semester about a guy who had my job who started writing odd, personal notes back to the submitters. The guy in my story is a navel-gazer, one of those sad sacks that young men from Brooklyn tend to write about, and in writing it I was trying to work my way through the way this impersonal yet personal connection between the guy who is in charge of reading his way through the pile and the person who has sent their little measure of hope to him along with a SASE is in many ways a horrible bummer. My job as arbiter and gatekeeper makes me the enemy. I am the faceless jerk who says, "No, I don't think so." And then, I toss it carelessly into the rejection box. Carelessly! Now, I am up late reading stories that I genuinely like and trying to decide if I genuinely like them enough, weighing them against the other ones, knowing that my decisions will ultimately be this many blows to this many egos.
The upside is that I've read some great things so far, and I'm going to continue reading great things. So many times over the past few weeks, something has come along in a story that has knocked me flat on my ass. Just now, it happened again. Every time this happens, I want to call the number on the cover letter, I want to ring someone up at this late hour and say, "Hey, look, I don't care what happens from here on out, but this one sentence, right here on page 4. Hell, you've done it."
I probably shouldn't do that, though. We have a reputation. We are respectable. I am prone to gush and am not that great at the whole extemporaneous phone conversation thing. The awkward humanist, in love with everybody. And of course, what does a phone call like that mean if your story doesn't end up making it through the next round? What good then is that one sentence, that self-contained gut-punch of a sentence that woke me up and reminded me why I write in the first place? The person on the other end would be right to feel cheated.
And... that's quite a rant, I guess. What I mean is that I love my job, in part because I hate my job. Keep sending me your stories. I'll try my best to like them hard enough.
I wrote a story last semester about a guy who had my job who started writing odd, personal notes back to the submitters. The guy in my story is a navel-gazer, one of those sad sacks that young men from Brooklyn tend to write about, and in writing it I was trying to work my way through the way this impersonal yet personal connection between the guy who is in charge of reading his way through the pile and the person who has sent their little measure of hope to him along with a SASE is in many ways a horrible bummer. My job as arbiter and gatekeeper makes me the enemy. I am the faceless jerk who says, "No, I don't think so." And then, I toss it carelessly into the rejection box. Carelessly! Now, I am up late reading stories that I genuinely like and trying to decide if I genuinely like them enough, weighing them against the other ones, knowing that my decisions will ultimately be this many blows to this many egos.
I probably shouldn't do that, though. We have a reputation. We are respectable. I am prone to gush and am not that great at the whole extemporaneous phone conversation thing. The awkward humanist, in love with everybody. And of course, what does a phone call like that mean if your story doesn't end up making it through the next round? What good then is that one sentence, that self-contained gut-punch of a sentence that woke me up and reminded me why I write in the first place? The person on the other end would be right to feel cheated.
And... that's quite a rant, I guess. What I mean is that I love my job, in part because I hate my job. Keep sending me your stories. I'll try my best to like them hard enough.
Monday, August 30, 2010
"Who is speaking?" Recent Debates about Contemporary Literature
There's been a bit of a furor recently about just who, exactly, is deciding what a work of fiction needs to include in order to be dubbed an "American Masterpiece." First, there was the Huffington Post article that lambasted "The 15 Most Overrated Contemporary American Writers."
This is what, I think, makes the Awl article's conclusion particularly sad: if it is, in fact, impossible for someone speaking from the dominant position to speak for someone in the oppressed or subaltern position, then what help is it if the "single story" about non-white, non-sad, non-literary men is immediately dismissed as one that doesn't speak to the collective American reality?
Interestingly, number 15 is not a writer at all but New York Times Literary critic Michiko Kukatani, who recently gave Johnathan Franzen's new book a rave review, prompted The Atlantic to publish this article, claiming, in so many words, that the NYT neglects female authors and privileges the white, upper-class male writer who lives in Brooklyn (and yes, he is sad).
(The Awl also weighs in, chronicling the response of a few female writers to promote female fiction).
I've taken a particular interest in this latest onslaught of debates on how who is speaking determines who we(the public) are reading because I've also spent the last few days working my way through Ania Loomba's Colonialism/Postcolonialism, and that will get anyone thinking about the politics and power underlying the literary industry in contemporary circles.
On the one hand, certainly not all 15 of the "overrated" authors are white males. Yet this seems to place the "non-white males" on the list in a double bind: they are dismissed both by the NYT and by those who seek to shatter the hold that the NYT and those like them have over what we deem masterpieces of contemporary fiction.
As a sad young literary woman myself, I must confess that I too feel the privileging of the sad young literary men, and not just those who are our contemporaries. This is why Mary Gaitskill is called a "shock" writer and Philip Roth or Charles Bukowski are not, for example.
If language speaks us, then limiting our literary output will have an impact on our worldview, and the cycle which privileges certain subjects and perspectives as more "literary" than others will continue. This seems analogous to colonized subjects inability to locate a language or mode of expression in which to speak.
What does everyone else think about this?
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Here is one reason it is great to be a creative writer or the kind of person who likes creative writers if you live in Denton
All through the spring and summer, while the UNT English Department reading series wound down, Tex Gallery picked up the slack. Tex Gallery is an art space that is run by a couple of guys that decided their house would be more fun if people came over to check out readings, jazz and experimental music, and local artists. They also thought it would be fun to start their own review. So they made both of those things happen, and now every month or so they set up a showing and invite everybody they know, which includes a lot of the people in the creative writing department here at UNT.
I've read there a few times, as have several of our other graduate students, and every time I've been super jazzed afterward. Imagine a large living room without any furniture that is packed with people. It's about ninety degrees, and everybody is sweating and sitting on the floor. I'm talking unbearably hot and uncomfortable. But when you get up there to read, things get electric. They came to see you read. That's what they're doing there. It's a pretty great feeling.
The readers are phenomenal, too. Below are Colin Winnette and Michael Inscoe from last week's set list (full disclosure: my reading will probably be uploaded to the texgallery YouTube account later in the week. I encourage you not to look at it).
So yeah, that's one reason it's great to live in Denton. Not only that, there was also the informal summer reading series that our friend Adam put together (Adam, I would probably brag about you if you had a youtube account), and now that the semester's started back up we also have the monthly student reading series again. In fact, we're having one this Saturday at 7:30 at the Jupiter house on University. Readers include Chelsea Woodard, Nathan Logan, Tim Boswell, Jessica Hindman, Jaclyn Thies, and Zach VandeZande (that's me). If you are within driving distance, there are worse things to do with your Saturday.
I've read there a few times, as have several of our other graduate students, and every time I've been super jazzed afterward. Imagine a large living room without any furniture that is packed with people. It's about ninety degrees, and everybody is sweating and sitting on the floor. I'm talking unbearably hot and uncomfortable. But when you get up there to read, things get electric. They came to see you read. That's what they're doing there. It's a pretty great feeling.
The readers are phenomenal, too. Below are Colin Winnette and Michael Inscoe from last week's set list (full disclosure: my reading will probably be uploaded to the texgallery YouTube account later in the week. I encourage you not to look at it).
So yeah, that's one reason it's great to live in Denton. Not only that, there was also the informal summer reading series that our friend Adam put together (Adam, I would probably brag about you if you had a youtube account), and now that the semester's started back up we also have the monthly student reading series again. In fact, we're having one this Saturday at 7:30 at the Jupiter house on University. Readers include Chelsea Woodard, Nathan Logan, Tim Boswell, Jessica Hindman, Jaclyn Thies, and Zach VandeZande (that's me). If you are within driving distance, there are worse things to do with your Saturday.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
ALR Summer Book Club: Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
It's somehow fitting to be writing a blog post about Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned on my 29th birthday, because the stories in this book are about the anger and bitterness that come with being a misfit, and no one is a misfit in society like a 29-year-old balding man in a college town. Plus my generation doesn't really have anything definitive about it, anyway. I was thirteen when Reality Bites came out in theaters, and I was twenty-seven when Twilight came out in theaters; what cultural touchstone am I supposed to hang my hat on? The Matrix? The new Star Wars trilogy? The internet in general? No thanks. I grew up in a time where being jaded wasn't edgy or cool anymore, it was just a natural part of being alive, like breathing or bowel movements. That's why everybody my age loves Bill Murray so much. That's why these stories resonate so well with me. That's why Wells Tower looks like this in most of his pictures:
I talk a lot about the prescience of Don Delillo's White Noise, and I think writers like Tower, Chris Bachelder, Joshua Ferris, and others have grabbed onto what was true about White Noise and carried it out in their fiction (each in different ways, of course). For Wells Tower (god I wish I had a name as cool as Wells Tower), it's about the utter placelessness that modern American culture has given us, both in our familial relationships and our larger role in society.
Maybe that paints too bleak of a picture; there's a certain workaday hope running throughout these stories too, particularly in "Executors of Important Energies," "Leopard," "Door in Your Eye," and the hilarious title story, "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned." That hope is always tempered and used as a buffer against the reality of the situation, but it's there, and it's human, and it's meaningful to this reader, at least. "Executors of Important Energies" is a good example. It is a story of a son whose father has no memory, a father who calls the cops on his wife several times a week and chooses to invite a slovenly, overweight chess hustler to a nice dinner with the family he no longer really recognizes. The father says of the main character's stepmother, "I don't know who this woman is, and I don't know why she's in my house with me. But I'll be honest with you. I think I'd like to try and fuck her." This sentence, to me, is as heartbreaking as it is funny, and the story unfolds this way, with the father saying unpleasant things and bringing an unpleasant person to dinner until his wife walks out. The hope– the redemption, really– in this story is so small that you may not even see it, but it's there in the closing lines, as the chess hustler drives them around in his piss-soaked car looking for the wife:
The impact sent swaying the load of junk and bangles hanging from Dwayne's rearview– Mardi Gras beads, feathered gewgaws, sports medallions– and my father watched the swinging mess with all the fascination of an infant watching the mobile over his crib. He reached out and caught hold of a miniature New Mexico license plate. He frowned at the embossed letters reading "Land of Enchantment.""What is this?" he asked."It's just some bullshit I picked up on the road," said Dwayne."No, this word here, 'enchantment.' What's that mean, again?""Shit," said Dwayne. "You know what charm is, Roger?""Of course," my father said."It's like that, like charm."My father leaned against me, studying the orange Braille. "Land of Charm," he said.
Maybe not everyone would find that to be a hopeful ending, but I do. Yes, it's a confirmation of just how bad off the father is, mentally, but his ability to be moved by something so small and simple becomes uplifting in some understated way.
Tower relishes in good details and well-constructed sentences that reveal a deep understanding of human relationships. Bob Monroe's affair in "The Brown Coast" is discovered because of a footprint on his car windshield that does not match his wife's. In "Retreat," a character would rather eat likely-spoiled meat than admit to being wrong. A sentence I wrote down in my journal, which I stupidly neglected to put a page number with, goes like this: "She would often call just to sigh at me for two hours on the phone, wanting me to applaud her depth of feeling." These are the kinds of things we do, and Tower captures them perfectly.
I've got to give special notice to the title story, which is about middle-aged Vikings who are tired of pillaging. It's a little out of left field, but it fits perfectly with the misfit nature of all of the characters in these stories. The men are ready to settle into an agrarian life, but the newer Vikings won't allow it, and they're excited to keep the tradition of rape and beheading alive while the older Vikings are dragged along to row the ships and grumble. They talk with modern working-class vernacular and are kind of hilariously put-upon by the whole process; while the leader is pulling a villager's lungs out from behind ("Oh lord, is he doing a blood eagle?"), the main characters look at each other, sigh, and decide to find a nice spot in the sun to relax.
The story, as with most of the stories in the collection, has a lot to say about the shift of power that occurs generationally and the strange middle ground of early adulthood, which brings me back to my birthday. I'm 29, well beyond the age of it being acceptable to walk around a party with my own case of beer, but not yet old enough to be excited about a lawnmower purchase. 29 is no-man's-land, and most of the angst of being 29–in life as in these stories–centers around finding ways to make that okay, or finding ways to ignore it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play videogames for the next six hours.
Recommended follow-ups if you dig Wells Tower: Don Delillo, White Noise; Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End; Justin Taylor, Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever; Justin Cronin, Mary and O'Neill
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