Fitzgerald Walking Tour

Check out this F. Scott Fitzgerald walking tour in St Paul, Minnesota: http://home.comcast.net/~caudle2/fscotwlk.htm

You don’t even have to be in Minnesota, since the pictures are ample and the text is illuminating and detailed:

“Built in 1882, this house belonged to real estate developer Herman Greve. His daughter Alexandra Greve Kalman and her husband were lifelong friends of Scott and his wife Zelda. Alexandra was the realtor who helped them find several homes when they returned from New York in 1921. She rented them a house in Dellwood, but they were evicted after the pipes froze because they left the house unheated while they were away partying. They also had to leave an apartment at the White Bear Yacht Club because of their partying.”

Those crazy Fitzgeralds…maybe it’s more fun to read about them than to have them in the neighborhood.

(Thanks to my husband Steve for finding this link.  Surely I’ve mentioned a thousand times that he wooed me in the early days by quoting from The Great Gatsby:  “We’ll meet you on some corner.  I’ll be the man smoking two cigarettes.”)

Work in Progress: How to Chat Up a Writer

Out in the real world of the happy hour/reception/party/wedding/holiday gathering, there are plenty of people who don’t care that you’re a writer:

“What do you do?”

“I’m a writer.”

“Oh. Did you try that crab dip?”

I don’t worry about those people one bit.  Nor do I worry about the people who instantly pepper me with a thousand enthusiastic questions about writing: 

“A writer!  What do you write?”

“Novels.”

“What kind?  Mysteries?  Or fiction novels?”

Sigh. “Yes.  ‘Fiction novels.’”

And off we go on to where I get my ideas from and whether or not I write on a computer.  These questions amuse me, and I’m happy to do my small part on educating the world on the writing life.  

The real world people who make me tense are the ones whose spines suddenly stiffen when they hear I’m a writer:  they’re either intimidated to speak to a writer, or they want to impress me in some ill-defined way.  Combine that with an overall DC quality of fear of not knowing-it-all (okay, guilty!) and a general East Coast aggression, and you’ve got a much more uncomfortable and irritating conversation from my perspective.  Friends, relatives, and total strangers:  here are some helpful hints on what NOT to say to a writer.

FOR THE COCKTAIL CHATTERERS:

“A writer? Are you published?”

This is a punch to the gut to any writer not published, or not published much.  It’s a big, bold step for most of us to call ourselves a “writer.”  If we weren’t a “writer,” we would have called ourselves something else.  We’re writers, published or not.  And what we’re thinking is:  You’re a lawyer? Have you won any Supreme Court cases?

Try instead:  What do you write?

“So you’ve published two books?  Have I heard of them?”

Another punch to the gut, because while I want to say, Depends on how well-read you are, I usually bumble out something like, Probably not, with a horrible, false laugh that replays in my head all night long when I can’t sleep.

Try instead:  What are they about?

“How much money do you make?”

Hmmm…how much do you make?

Try NOT asking about money at all, which is exactly what I do when you tell me that you’re a K Street lawyer and I know you want me to know that you make a lot of money.

“I should write a book.  I have a great idea.”

Please do.  And I should go open a medical practice tomorrow.  I think I’ll specialize in heart transplants.

Try instead:  “I’ve thought about writing a book, but it seems so hard.  Do you know of any classes that might be right for me?”

“I don’t read.”

Thank you for giving me a reason to head off to the bar for another drink…excuse me.

Try instead:  “Are there any great books you love to recommend to people who may not read much?”

FOR FRIENDS & FAMILY

“So, have you found a publisher for that novel yet?”

Obviously not, because do you think I would keep this information a secret if I had?

Try asking:  How’s your writing going?  [This is an open-ended question that the writer can easily take any number of directions, depending on how fragile they’re feeling.]

“You know who’s a great writer: Jonathan Franzen*.  I sure love him.  He’s a genius.  Wasn’t he on the cover of Time magazine?”

*Insert whichever writer’s name is most annoying at this exact moment.

In hearing this statement, the only possible conclusion I can draw is that you think that I am NOT a genius.

Try instead:  What are you reading?

Try instead:  Have you read XX?  

I know, I know…the world will not follow the script I write for it.  But isn’t it pretty to think so?

Link Corral: Executive Director Job; Write What You Know?; Poetry on Redux

The Hudson Valley Writers' Center, Inc. is a not-for-profit organization with a mission to advance the art and craft of writing by encouraging writers and readers at all levels to participate in and enjoy the literary arts.  We seek an Executive Director with vision and proven experience in development of not-for-profit organizations and a dedication to the arts and literary pursuits.  The ED is responsible for overall management of the Center's programs, operations, and staff, and for development and fundraising.


Candidates should send a resume with a cover letter and three references as attachments to an email to John Allendorf, Chair, Search Committee c/o Jean Reyes at jean.reyes@klgates.com.  Details and a job description are on our website at www.writerscenter.org

*****

Writer Sandra Beasley has some interesting thoughts on that old saw, “write what you know”:

My point is, what you know extends far beyond internal monologue. Write about the history of a Shenandoah National Park trail, not just a fight you had with your boyfriend as you hiked it. Write about how to make a perfect pie crust, or how to dock a sailboat with one knot. Write about fights your parents had over money when you were a kid, but look up what the actual state of the economy was at the time--how much did a loaf of bread cost? a house? what was the living wage?--and include that too. 

*****

New on Redux: A lovely selection of poems by Kelle Groom.

From “Second Language”:

At the mosaic table in a coffee house,

I learned to say I love you in Croatian,

Volim te, we said it in every language

we remembered, laughing because it’s

always the third phrase you want to know:

hello, goodbye, I love you.

Read on.

Read on.

My Story in The Crab Orchard Review, Now Online

The Crab Orchard Review just posted a PDF file of its “Land of Lincoln” issue in which my story, “The Chicago Brother” appears.  This piece—since revised somewhat—is the first chapter of my Chicago novel.

Here’s the beginning:

Chicago, 1899

Sitting on the cold stoop as snow flurried around him, Jozef felt as useless as a third boot.   Upstairs, his wife was huddled deep in Ludwika’s bed, in the front room where the window was.  When any of them were sick, that’s where they lay to get better or to die:  little Janka with the fever was the last one, and she had passed on after a long, terrible week; mass was being said at St. Casimir’s in two Sundays.  Now his wife, Krystyna—not sick, but with a baby that had been coming for too many hours, so it was her turn in Ludwika’s bed, her turn to lie in the front room. 

He had resisted, wanting her to stay in the back bedroom; yes, it was on the airshaft, dark and dank, crowded with the bedding for the little girls, but wasn’t it better for Krystyna to be in a place she knew—the faded wallpaper with the roses, the cracks in the ceiling zigzagging like summer lightning?—“she’ll be fine back here,” he had said, but the women ignored him, lifting Krystyna, pulling her, prodding her into the front, into the bed where people died.  How Ludwika could sleep with those ghosts, but she did. 

“Go,” they told him.  “We’ll take care of her.”

“But…” 

“Go,” and he was nudged out the front door, and one of them even stood there, arms folded like a sentry, watching him clump down the four flights of stairs to be sure he was gone.

You can read the rest here.  Or go here:

 http://craborchardreview.siu.edu/COR_v15n2.html

and scroll to link for Issue 15, number 2. 

Note:  These links are to the entire issue of the journal; my story starts on page 117, though there’s a lot of great writing to explore in this issue!

Conversations and Connections Conference Report

I spoke at the Conversations & Connections conference at Johns Hopkins in Washington, DC, on Saturday.  This may be my favorite local conference, because it’s definitely always a fun time and a good deal for participants (who get a new book and a journal subscription along with their registration fee). 

My main purpose was to hang out, so I didn’t take a lot of notes, but there were a lot of good questions at the first panel I sat in on, about common mistakes made in fiction.  We were warned not to overuse food when writing about other cultures (or, really, to go deeper than just throwing around exotic dishes) and to think hard about that “wise grandmother figure” who often shows up in such stories.  (Hmm…see Pears on a Willow Tree?)  A quote from Zadie Smith also resonated with the crowd:  “When building a novel you will use a lot of scaffolding. Some of this is necessary to hold the thing up, but most isn’t. The majority of it is only there to make you feel secure, and in fact the building will stand without it.”  The point is, panelist Susan Muaddi-Darraj said, is to take the scaffolding down after the building is up; you needed it to write the story, but the story may not need it.

(Side note:  I found that exact quote in a link to a lecture Zadie Smith gave about writing novels that is quite brilliant…go read that, then hurry back here!)

Then I went to a non-fiction oriented panel called “The Art of the Interview.”  No, I’m not becoming a journalist, but it seemed like it might be interesting to learn about something new that I know little about, and I was right.  Great stories about interviewing subjects, and we were left to ponder whether interviewing a tough subject was more akin to a negotiation or a date, or if, in fact, those are the same thing.  Frankly, I also left the room grateful for all the hard work journalists do in service of getting to the Truth.

After a chatty lunch with some Hopkins fiction students, I had no plans for the break before the keynote address, and in one of those fluke moments during which I learn (yet again!) that having no concrete plans can often be the best plan of all, I met another conference speaker, writer Josip Novakovich, and we had a fabulous conversation over a glass of wine while watching Real Madrid and Barcelona battle it out.

I bought his new book of essays, Shopping For a Better Country; based on the first essay I dipped into, this is for sure going to leapfrog to the top of my To Be Read heap.  He’s also known as a fiction writer, and here’s an interesting interview with The Rumpus in which he discusses working in those two different genres:

“Some topics, if they are important, I work in one form and rework in another. Poe, if he had a good theme, would usually write three stories on it with different twists and I think that just writing it (the theme) out once, in one permutation, is not enough. I never quite get it right so I could actually keep going with more permutations, and in some cases, such as death stories and culture clashes I keep going beyond three, in both fiction and nonfiction. And sometimes I don’t know whether the story will remain an essay when I start it as one—if I see I am making shifts, exaggerating, embellishing, I know I have crossed the boundary into the free West.”  (Read the rest.)

My panel went well—everyone offered some interesting thoughts about how to find/create/maintain a literary community in Washington, DC—I’m sure I’ll post more about this later.  And then on home, sorry to miss the after-party at The Big Hunt…as I said, always a FUN conference, and I’m already looking forward to next year!  (Although, maybe I don’t have to wait?  They’re gearing up for the first-ever Philadelphia Conversations & Connections, so be sure to check that out, Philadelphians!)

Work in Progress: Re-Reading Flannery O'Connor's Mystery and Manners

From “Writing Short Stories”~~

“Another thing I observed about these stories is that most of them don’t go very far inside a character, don’t reveal very much of the character.  I don’t mean that they don’t enter the character’s mind, but they simply don’t show that he has a personality.  Again this goes back partly to speech.  These characters have no distinctive speech to reveal themselves with, and sometimes they have no really distinctive features.  You feel in the end that no personality is revealed because no personality is there.  In most good stories it is the character’s personality that creates the action of the story.  In most of these stories, I feel that the writer has thought of some action and then scrounged up a character to perform it.  You will usually be more successful if you start the other way around.  If you start with a real personality, a real character, then something is bound to happen; and you don’t have to know what before you begin.  In fact it may be better if you don’t know what before you begin.  You ought to be able to discover something from your stories.  If you don’t, probably nobody else will.”

From “The Nature and Aim of Fiction”~~

“The fact is that the materials of the fiction writer are the humblest.  Fiction is about everything human and we are made of our dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn’t try to write fiction.  It’s not a grand enough job for you.”

From “The Nature and Aim of Fiction”~~

“But it is from the kind of world the writer creates, from the kind of character and detail he invests it with, that a reader can find the intellectual meaning of a book.  Once this is found, however, it cannot be drained off and used as a substitute for the book.  As the late John Peale Bishop said: ‘You can’t say Cezanne painted apples and a tablecloth and have said what Cezanne painted.’  The novelist makes his statements by selection, and if he is any good, he selects every word for a reason, every detail for a reason, every incident for a reason, and arranges them in a certain time-sequence for a reason.  He demonstrates something that cannot possible be demonstrated any other way than with a whole novel.”

And for any beleaguered writing students, this gem, also from “The Nature and Aim of Fiction”~~

“I don’t believe in classes where students criticize each other’s manuscript.  Such criticism is generally composed in equal parts of ignorance, flattery, and spite.  It’s the blind leading the blind, and it can be dangerous.  A teacher who tries to impose a way of writing on you can be dangerous too.  Fortunately, most teachers I’ve known were too lazy to do this.  In any case, you should beware of those who appear overenergetic.”

If you’ve never read O'Connor's essays on writing, you must!  (Wow, I really hate this cover…so happy my edition has a peacock on it instead!)

Link Corral: Grammar Wars Over "Hopefully"; New on Redux

From the frontlines of the grammar wars:  The AP stylebook has approved the modern usage of “hopefully” to mean “it is hoped.”  It used to mean only  “in a hopeful manner.” (I.e. Hopefully, we'll have lunch soon used to be incorrect, even though many people would say such a sentence.  The correct usage would be, "Perhaps we'll have lunch soon," she said hopefully.)

I admit that I broke this rule at will in conversation, in my fiction, and sometimes even in formal writing, but it’s still a little sad to see the end to one of those super-snobbish rules that always separated the grammatical folk from the snobbishly grammatical folk.  I mean, I always knew I was using the word incorrectly.  Just don’t you dare cave on alright, which will NEVER be all right with me!

Here’s a funny and informative article in The Washington Post about the “hopefully/it is hoped/in a hopeful manner” issue:

You know these kinds of arguments. You know them well. Linguistic battlefields are scattered with the wreckage left behind by Nauseated vs. Nauseous, by Healthy vs. Healthful, by the legions of people who perpetuated the union between “regardless” and “irrespective,” creating a Frankensteinian hybrid, “irregardless.”

These are the battles that are fought daily between Catholic school graduates, schooled in the dark arts of sentence diagramming and self-righteousness, and their exasperated prey. They are fought between prescriptivists, who believe that rules of language should be preserved at any cost, and descriptivists, who believe that word use should reflect how people actually talk.

“It was an unconscious mistake,” say the descriptivists.

“You mean subconscious.”

“Well, anyways — ”

“You mean anyway.”

“That begs the question. Why do you care about grammar so much?”

“No. It doesn’t! It doesn’t beg the question at all. It raises the question. It raises the question!”

“I’m going to beat you subconscious.”

Read on.

*****

Wonderful poem by Dan Rosenberg on Redux…and don’t miss the “story behind the poem”:  “I sometimes find myself saying overblown things to my students like ‘poets are the gods of the little worlds they create.’ And then I have to think about what the hell I was trying to say.”

From “Here”:

Here’s the word for an ant’s single leg.

I plucked it and breathed it.

I caught it beneath my gum line.

Here are some plants I grew by speaking to them.

Here are the aphids that happened when my mind wandered.

Read on.