Last Thursday, writer and teacher C.M. Mayo shared her insights about how writing students can make the most of their workshop experience, and I thought we might like some additional thoughts on the subject from some top-notch teachers, teaching a range of writing students at different levels:
"Etiquette matters more than we might want to admit. When students come to class late because making copies for the class took longer than they expected, additional class time has to be allotted for distribution. Because students—especially beginning students—often learn as much from discussing others' work as they do from receiving comments on their own writing, it's important not to miss workshop sessions. While absences are often unplanned, other students notice when they've put effort into responding to someone's work and then that someone isn't there for them.
"Nancy Andreassen, in The Creating Brain, admits that artistic production is an isolated activity in many ways, but she points out that creativity is fostered when the artist is part of a community, has interaction with other artists, and engages in processes like critique and apprenticeship. Students who foster a workshop community do themselves and each other a great service." ~~Anna Leahy, North Central College
****************
“Know who you are. I know it's a bit shopworn, but Shakespeare is always worth repeating. And also always true: I think some students come into programs expecting/hoping to be "made" into writers. But they already are; they had to be to get in. And we admitted them BECAUSE of who they are. So even though workshops may seem like exercises in transformation, consider them instead a kind of an audience lab. Change your work. Don't change who you are.” ~~Liam Callanan, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
*****************
And now, a desperate plea from a university professor who wishes to remain anonymous:
"Characters must be human beings. I'm not talking about fully developed, complex characters, though that is always good. I mean no characters who are vampires, dragons, robots or rodents.
"No abortion stories…unless you have actually had one.
"Seeking therapy (attending AA or similar groups) or taking Prozac is not a sufficient resolution.
"Try to avoid writing about writers, particularly writers with writers' block, staring at their computer curser blinking while their roommate snores."
****************
Next week, I’ll offer my thoughts on what makes a good writing workshop and how participants can work toward that goal.
About: Anna Leahy’s poetry collection Constituents of Matter won the Wick Poetry Prize and will be published by Kent State University Press in September 2007. She is the editor of Power and Identity in the Creative Writing Classroom, a collection of pedagogy essays published by Multilingual Matters and recently reviewed in the journal Pedagogy. Her collaborative work with an art historian on the ekphrastic poetry of Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey appears in ELN and is forthcoming in an anthology on women's ekphrastic writing.
About: Liam Callanan coordinates the PhD program in creative writing at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. He's the author of the novels All Saints and The Cloud Atlas.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Self-Indulgence: I'm Featured in The Washington Post
A slight break from the writing life: I am featured in today’s “Chef on Call” article in The Washington Post Food section. The premise of “Chef on Call” is that average home cooks—i.e. me—write in to talk about some cooking skill/menu they’d like to learn to do, and reporter David Hagedorn pairs the average person with a professional chef who teaches the new trick.
For as long as I remember, I have been fascinated by canning. (Too many "Little House on the Prairie" books, perhaps? And check out my canning “fantasy” on pages 178-180 of my first novel, Pears on a Willow Tree.) But in real life, every time I read about canning, I always got to the part that said something along the lines of, “And if you don’t boil your jars perfectly, you will get botulism and die.” Kind of scared me off canning.
Ten years ago, I read a memorable essay in the Washington Post called “50 Things To Do Before I Die,” about a woman who had come up with a list of things that she would like to do in her life—mostly ordinary and within the realm of possibility; I mean, sure we’d all like to star in a major Hollywood production or win the Nobel Prize for Literature, but let’s be real. Whenever she was feeling stifled, she’d pull out her list and do something. I liked that idea, and made up my own list (which is a great exercise in itself). Canning was right there.
Now, thanks to the Washington Post responding to my “Chef on Call” plea, I have canned. I spent a wonderful and informative afternoon in the restaurant kitchen of Buck's Fishing and Camping, gaining confidence in canning from D.C. chef Carole Greenwood, who makes her own pickles, hot peppers, and many other goodies. Then I came home and tried it myself. And now, being obsessive, my basement is already filled with too many Ball jars and lids; I’m no expert, but at least I’m confident—or reasonably sure—I won’t die when I eat the peach preserves I canned yesterday.
So, check out the article, and/or come up with your own list of 50 things to do before you die…and get busy!
For as long as I remember, I have been fascinated by canning. (Too many "Little House on the Prairie" books, perhaps? And check out my canning “fantasy” on pages 178-180 of my first novel, Pears on a Willow Tree.) But in real life, every time I read about canning, I always got to the part that said something along the lines of, “And if you don’t boil your jars perfectly, you will get botulism and die.” Kind of scared me off canning.
Ten years ago, I read a memorable essay in the Washington Post called “50 Things To Do Before I Die,” about a woman who had come up with a list of things that she would like to do in her life—mostly ordinary and within the realm of possibility; I mean, sure we’d all like to star in a major Hollywood production or win the Nobel Prize for Literature, but let’s be real. Whenever she was feeling stifled, she’d pull out her list and do something. I liked that idea, and made up my own list (which is a great exercise in itself). Canning was right there.
Now, thanks to the Washington Post responding to my “Chef on Call” plea, I have canned. I spent a wonderful and informative afternoon in the restaurant kitchen of Buck's Fishing and Camping, gaining confidence in canning from D.C. chef Carole Greenwood, who makes her own pickles, hot peppers, and many other goodies. Then I came home and tried it myself. And now, being obsessive, my basement is already filled with too many Ball jars and lids; I’m no expert, but at least I’m confident—or reasonably sure—I won’t die when I eat the peach preserves I canned yesterday.
So, check out the article, and/or come up with your own list of 50 things to do before you die…and get busy!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Work in Progress: Revisions, or "Yo, Adrian!"
Well, I’ve started revising my third novel, tentatively titled Prodigal Daughters. This is the “final” revision (ha, ha)—but it is the last stage before I send it out into the world for the first time. Usually, I enjoy this final phase of revising—all that tinkering with word choice and commas; the excitement of the exact right phrase—but I find that during the process of writing the draft I have taken on some very bad habits that amuse me now that I see them in full action.
I’ve been working on this book for a while and all along have been showing it in progress to my writing group. I’ve learned that when showing novels in progress to people, it doesn’t make sense to perfect every sentence, since the chances are excellent that the sentence you spend all afternoon working on is the sentence in the scene that everyone agrees is unnecessary. Cut! There goes your perfect sentence…and all that time you spent making it so.
So during the earlier draft stages, I became rather lazy and literally found myself thinking, “Oh, this is good enough for the writing group.” Or—even worse—if I came upon a plotting point that I didn’t think I had resolved: “I'm sure the writing group will know how to fix that.” And the sin of all sins: knowing in my heart of heart that something wasn’t working, but thinking, “Not to worry, I can sneak this lapse by the writing group.” (Yes, they often catch those lapses; but I have put a few things over on them due to the inherent difficulties of reading a novel chapter by chapter over the course of years.)
Now that it’s crunch time and the draft does need to be “perfect,” there’s no falling back on that lazy thinking. No one’s going to bail me out; no writing group eyes are going to look over this revision; no writing group brain trust is going to help me figure out how to end Chapter Two if Callie doesn’t storm off in a huff as I’ve written. See, she also storms off in a huff at the end of Chapter Five, and that’s too many huffs for one person in one book…and because the group only reads a chapter at a time, I did manage to sneak that by them! But now I’m alone in a room with my heart of heart saying, “Nu-uh. Can’t fool me, Miss Smarty-Pants.”
I guess that’s what I love about revising: There are no shortcuts. There’s only you—armed with what you’ve learned about your characters and your story over the years you’ve been working—and it’s you alone up against the word. Mano a mano. You will never wrestle the word into submission. But with perseverance, luck, and faith in yourself, you can be a worthy foe and emerge standing. Like Rocky Balboa, you can go the distance—with the pages and the sweat to prove it.
I’ve been working on this book for a while and all along have been showing it in progress to my writing group. I’ve learned that when showing novels in progress to people, it doesn’t make sense to perfect every sentence, since the chances are excellent that the sentence you spend all afternoon working on is the sentence in the scene that everyone agrees is unnecessary. Cut! There goes your perfect sentence…and all that time you spent making it so.
So during the earlier draft stages, I became rather lazy and literally found myself thinking, “Oh, this is good enough for the writing group.” Or—even worse—if I came upon a plotting point that I didn’t think I had resolved: “I'm sure the writing group will know how to fix that.” And the sin of all sins: knowing in my heart of heart that something wasn’t working, but thinking, “Not to worry, I can sneak this lapse by the writing group.” (Yes, they often catch those lapses; but I have put a few things over on them due to the inherent difficulties of reading a novel chapter by chapter over the course of years.)
Now that it’s crunch time and the draft does need to be “perfect,” there’s no falling back on that lazy thinking. No one’s going to bail me out; no writing group eyes are going to look over this revision; no writing group brain trust is going to help me figure out how to end Chapter Two if Callie doesn’t storm off in a huff as I’ve written. See, she also storms off in a huff at the end of Chapter Five, and that’s too many huffs for one person in one book…and because the group only reads a chapter at a time, I did manage to sneak that by them! But now I’m alone in a room with my heart of heart saying, “Nu-uh. Can’t fool me, Miss Smarty-Pants.”
I guess that’s what I love about revising: There are no shortcuts. There’s only you—armed with what you’ve learned about your characters and your story over the years you’ve been working—and it’s you alone up against the word. Mano a mano. You will never wrestle the word into submission. But with perseverance, luck, and faith in yourself, you can be a worthy foe and emerge standing. Like Rocky Balboa, you can go the distance—with the pages and the sweat to prove it.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!
I've made some small changes to the blog. First, I added some new literary blogs to my list:
--Paper Cuts is written by Dwight Garner, of the New York Times Book Review. I’m usually leery of blogs that might be disguised corporate shills or part of some grand marketing scheme, but that isn’t the case here. Rather, Garner uses the resources of his position at the Book Review to delve deeper into books and authors. There’s also a weekly interview. (Unfortunately, I see that he’s on hiatus until September 3. But there’s lots to read in the archives, and this one deserves a daily stop.)
--Rate Your Students is for all you teachers out there. Get advice, vent, laugh, and cry with your fellow profs. If the thought of “back to school” is like fingernails on a blackboard, definitely check this out!
--If the ranting from teachers doesn’t scare you, the MFA Weblog is helpful for anyone who is thinking about getting an MFA, applying to a graduate program in writing, looking for information on various programs.
I also organized the contents of the blog by the each posting’s identifying label/s (on the left). Now if you’d like to read all the guest essays, simply click on the “Guests in Progress” label to pull them up.
Hope this is helpful. As always, suggestions are welcome!
--Paper Cuts is written by Dwight Garner, of the New York Times Book Review. I’m usually leery of blogs that might be disguised corporate shills or part of some grand marketing scheme, but that isn’t the case here. Rather, Garner uses the resources of his position at the Book Review to delve deeper into books and authors. There’s also a weekly interview. (Unfortunately, I see that he’s on hiatus until September 3. But there’s lots to read in the archives, and this one deserves a daily stop.)
--Rate Your Students is for all you teachers out there. Get advice, vent, laugh, and cry with your fellow profs. If the thought of “back to school” is like fingernails on a blackboard, definitely check this out!
--If the ranting from teachers doesn’t scare you, the MFA Weblog is helpful for anyone who is thinking about getting an MFA, applying to a graduate program in writing, looking for information on various programs.
I also organized the contents of the blog by the each posting’s identifying label/s (on the left). Now if you’d like to read all the guest essays, simply click on the “Guests in Progress” label to pull them up.
Hope this is helpful. As always, suggestions are welcome!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Guest in Progress: C.M. Mayo--Back to School Edition, Part 1
With the beginning of the school year just around the corner—and with my first semester experience of the rigors of summer school safely under my belt—I thought it might be interesting to think about how students can use the workshop situation most effectively. That is, we could spend all day debating the merits of MFA programs and the benefits and evils of the workshop paradigm (and maybe someday we will!), but for now, let’s simply proceed from the assumption that this is how it is:
--People interested in writing eventually end up in a workshop of some sort.
--People who take enough workshops often end up in a graduate writing program of some sort.
So, how to make the most of the workshop experience once you’re there? How can you suceed as a student? As a teacher, there’s nothing I find more frustrating than seeing students not taking advantage of the wealth of opportunity available in all but the most meager class. I WANT students to succeed; I WANT people to become better writers—as do, I dare say, most teachers. So why do some people seem determined to thwart our efforts? Yes, we can’t expect to connect miraculously with every student, but some seem ill-equipped and at a loss in the workshop—and not necessarily because it’s a new experience for them.
Our first entry is a piece that writer and teacher C.M. Mayo posted at her blog, Madam Mayo, and is reprinted here with her kind permission.
Catherine has that enviable writer bio line—“she divides her time between Washington, DC, and Mexico City”—and conducts numerous and varied workshops in both locations. (Go here and also here for more information about current classes Catherine is offering.)
Plus, she’s dynamic, generous, and a go-getter! She was in my writing group for many years and I still miss her comments about how she couldn’t “see” what was going on in my pages…prodding me to add some much needed description, which I generally find difficult to write. Needless to say, her own descriptive writing is stunningly lovely. For more details about Catherine, see below or go here.
C.M. Mayo's 10 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Writing Workshop
#1. Buy and read your teacher's book. (Analogy: would you let a carpenter whose work you've never seen remodel your kitchen?)
#2. Ask him or her to autograph it. (An autographed first edition hardcover can be surprisingly valuable! And: flattery never hurts! Don't be shy about asking for an autograph; authors love this, they really do.)
#3. Expect to learn. (Analogy: do carpenters learn their craft wholly on their own? Maybe what you'll learn is that this is a writing teacher to avoid. Certainly, this is much cheaper experience than having a bad carpenter mess with your kitchen.)
#4. Realize that most people who come to a writing workshop have naive notions about the writing world (think money, celebrity, booze-crazed Bohemia), no clue from Adam how hard it is to write anything worth reading, how tough it is get published, and how consternating an experience it can be to be published (criminey, all these people taking your workshops who never even read your book!!). Realize, you are way ahead of the game by following steps 1-3, and that, therefore, though you might learn a lot about the craft, you do not need validation from this workshop, its leader and/or its participants, which is what you were secretly hoping for, no?
#5. Expect to give thoughtful critiques to others who (though their manuscripts are suprisingly bad, not to mention boring and often tasteless), are, strangely, resistant and argumentative. Expect also to receive unbelievably moronic comments on your manuscript and know that this, actually, is a good thing because learning to take criticism with open-minded equanimity is part of learning to be a published and productive writer—unless, that is, you want to be a writer who cringes at every review, every blog mention, every amazon.com shark attack out of Nowheresville, and is, therefore, both miserable and miserable to be around. (You can win the Nobel Prize and someone, somewhere, will say something unkind about your writing. So, Buck up.)
#6. Despite all of the above, take very seriously your critiquing of other participants's manuscripts, for good karma and all that, but also because the fastest way to learn to recognize problems in your own manuscripts is by identifying the same in others's manuscripts. I think it was Ann Lamott who said (more or less), "we point, but do not cut, with the sword of truth." Read the pages carefully, and offer honest, thoughtful, and detailed critiques in a spirit of kindness. (Wouldn't you want the same?)
#7. Remember the bicycle analogy. Like riding a bicycle, to take criticism productively, a writer needs to be able to balance between meekness (listening to everyone) and arrogance (listening to no one). Too much of either, your writing falls flat. (Too much of either and your whole life falls flat, now that I think about it.)
#8. Do the assigned reading. To learn the craft, workshops are not enough (see again Tip #4). If you do the assigned reading while in a workshop, rather than later (or never) you have the inestimable advantage of being able to ask questions and discuss it with the workshop leader and other participants.
#9. Remember, what goes around comes around. If you come to the workshop with an attitude of respect and goodwill, you will attract the same. (Any exceptions you will, one day, consider hilarious. You can also put them in your novel, ha ha.)
#10. Before, during and after the workshop, keep writing. In other words, don't let the workshop deadlines become a crutch. Don't give your power as an artist to anyone else; find your own motivation, develop your own habits. Play God. God riding a bicycle. ~~ C.M. Mayo
Copyright (c) C.M. Mayo 2007
For more tips from Catherine and many other resources for writers, click here.
About: C.M. Mayo is the author of the forthcoming The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, as well as the widely-lauded travel memoir, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico, and Sky Over El Nido, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Founding editor of Tameme, the bilingual Spanish/English) chapbook press, Mayo is also a translator of contemporary Mexican poetry and fiction. Her anthology of Mexican fiction in translation, Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion, was published by Whereabouts Press in March 2006.
--People interested in writing eventually end up in a workshop of some sort.
--People who take enough workshops often end up in a graduate writing program of some sort.
So, how to make the most of the workshop experience once you’re there? How can you suceed as a student? As a teacher, there’s nothing I find more frustrating than seeing students not taking advantage of the wealth of opportunity available in all but the most meager class. I WANT students to succeed; I WANT people to become better writers—as do, I dare say, most teachers. So why do some people seem determined to thwart our efforts? Yes, we can’t expect to connect miraculously with every student, but some seem ill-equipped and at a loss in the workshop—and not necessarily because it’s a new experience for them.
Our first entry is a piece that writer and teacher C.M. Mayo posted at her blog, Madam Mayo, and is reprinted here with her kind permission.
Catherine has that enviable writer bio line—“she divides her time between Washington, DC, and Mexico City”—and conducts numerous and varied workshops in both locations. (Go here and also here for more information about current classes Catherine is offering.)
Plus, she’s dynamic, generous, and a go-getter! She was in my writing group for many years and I still miss her comments about how she couldn’t “see” what was going on in my pages…prodding me to add some much needed description, which I generally find difficult to write. Needless to say, her own descriptive writing is stunningly lovely. For more details about Catherine, see below or go here.
C.M. Mayo's 10 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Writing Workshop
#1. Buy and read your teacher's book. (Analogy: would you let a carpenter whose work you've never seen remodel your kitchen?)
#2. Ask him or her to autograph it. (An autographed first edition hardcover can be surprisingly valuable! And: flattery never hurts! Don't be shy about asking for an autograph; authors love this, they really do.)
#3. Expect to learn. (Analogy: do carpenters learn their craft wholly on their own? Maybe what you'll learn is that this is a writing teacher to avoid. Certainly, this is much cheaper experience than having a bad carpenter mess with your kitchen.)
#4. Realize that most people who come to a writing workshop have naive notions about the writing world (think money, celebrity, booze-crazed Bohemia), no clue from Adam how hard it is to write anything worth reading, how tough it is get published, and how consternating an experience it can be to be published (criminey, all these people taking your workshops who never even read your book!!). Realize, you are way ahead of the game by following steps 1-3, and that, therefore, though you might learn a lot about the craft, you do not need validation from this workshop, its leader and/or its participants, which is what you were secretly hoping for, no?
#5. Expect to give thoughtful critiques to others who (though their manuscripts are suprisingly bad, not to mention boring and often tasteless), are, strangely, resistant and argumentative. Expect also to receive unbelievably moronic comments on your manuscript and know that this, actually, is a good thing because learning to take criticism with open-minded equanimity is part of learning to be a published and productive writer—unless, that is, you want to be a writer who cringes at every review, every blog mention, every amazon.com shark attack out of Nowheresville, and is, therefore, both miserable and miserable to be around. (You can win the Nobel Prize and someone, somewhere, will say something unkind about your writing. So, Buck up.)
#6. Despite all of the above, take very seriously your critiquing of other participants's manuscripts, for good karma and all that, but also because the fastest way to learn to recognize problems in your own manuscripts is by identifying the same in others's manuscripts. I think it was Ann Lamott who said (more or less), "we point, but do not cut, with the sword of truth." Read the pages carefully, and offer honest, thoughtful, and detailed critiques in a spirit of kindness. (Wouldn't you want the same?)
#7. Remember the bicycle analogy. Like riding a bicycle, to take criticism productively, a writer needs to be able to balance between meekness (listening to everyone) and arrogance (listening to no one). Too much of either, your writing falls flat. (Too much of either and your whole life falls flat, now that I think about it.)
#8. Do the assigned reading. To learn the craft, workshops are not enough (see again Tip #4). If you do the assigned reading while in a workshop, rather than later (or never) you have the inestimable advantage of being able to ask questions and discuss it with the workshop leader and other participants.
#9. Remember, what goes around comes around. If you come to the workshop with an attitude of respect and goodwill, you will attract the same. (Any exceptions you will, one day, consider hilarious. You can also put them in your novel, ha ha.)
#10. Before, during and after the workshop, keep writing. In other words, don't let the workshop deadlines become a crutch. Don't give your power as an artist to anyone else; find your own motivation, develop your own habits. Play God. God riding a bicycle. ~~ C.M. Mayo
Copyright (c) C.M. Mayo 2007
For more tips from Catherine and many other resources for writers, click here.
About: C.M. Mayo is the author of the forthcoming The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, as well as the widely-lauded travel memoir, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico, and Sky Over El Nido, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Founding editor of Tameme, the bilingual Spanish/English) chapbook press, Mayo is also a translator of contemporary Mexican poetry and fiction. Her anthology of Mexican fiction in translation, Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion, was published by Whereabouts Press in March 2006.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Giving Voice to Your Work
Here’s an interesting contest announcement for the technologically- and dramatically-inclined:
The Missouri Review invites all writers and writers/producers to participate in our 2007 Audio Competition. We have categories suitable for all kinds of writers.
Voice-Only Literature. If you have a short story, a piece of creative nonfiction, or poetry that you think worthy of recording, enter this category. Pieces in this category are author-read and will not contain other tracks of sound (no music beds or sound effects, etc.) Entries will be judged on literary merit, technical proficiency, and suitability for broadcast. Note: Poets may enter one or more poems as a single entry as long as the total recorded time does not exceed the six-minute limit.
Time: 6 minutes or less.
Category award amount: $500
10-minute Play. Playwrights—here’s a chance to reach a broad audience with your short play. Assemble your voice talent (including yourself if desired) and make your recording. Include verbal stage directions as needed. Entries will be judged on the strength of the script, appropriate voice talent and technical proficiency, and suitability for broadcast.
Time: 10 minutes or less.
Category award amount: $500.
Narrative Essay. Just as in a personal essay, the subject matter and approach is broad. The “I” is present, and the essay is author-read. Additionally, the entry may contain additional layers of sound, including music, ambient sounds, sound effects, etc. Entries will be judged on literary merit, technical proficiency, use of sound, and suitability for broadcast.
Time: 7 minutes or less.
Category award amount: $1,000.
Documentary. This category is devoted to pieces that examine in some depth a time, place, person, event, pastime, trend, or other noteworthy topic. Entries will be judged on the strength of the writing and reporting, technical proficiency, use of sound, and suitability for broadcast.
Time: 10 minutes or less.
Category award amount: $1,000.
Also, up to five finalists selected from all categories will receive the Editors’ Choice Award and a cash prize of $100 each. Winning entries will be featured on the website of The Missouri Review, as Podcasts, and made available to subscribers of the print version of the magazine. In addition to cash prizes, each entrant receives a one-year subscription to The Missouri Review. All entries must be produced in English.
ENTRY FEE AND DEADLINE
$24 for each entry.
You may send multiple audio pieces in a single envelope, but each piece must be submitted on a separate CD. (For example, three entries on three CDs, with a total payment enclosed of $72.)
Entries must be postmarked by September 15, 2007.
Payment may be made by credit card, check or money order. Checks in US dollars should be made payable to The Missouri Review.
Technical requirements: Entries are accepted on CD only. CDs should not contain other audio other than entry material. Submissions must include:
Completed entry form for each entry
A copy of the entry on a CD, labeled with writer/producer, title and length
Brief program synopsis (short writer/producer bio optional)
Entry fee payment
Send Entries to:
The Missouri Review Audio Competition
357 McReynolds Hall
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211
For more information and to download entry forms, go here.
The Missouri Review invites all writers and writers/producers to participate in our 2007 Audio Competition. We have categories suitable for all kinds of writers.
Voice-Only Literature. If you have a short story, a piece of creative nonfiction, or poetry that you think worthy of recording, enter this category. Pieces in this category are author-read and will not contain other tracks of sound (no music beds or sound effects, etc.) Entries will be judged on literary merit, technical proficiency, and suitability for broadcast. Note: Poets may enter one or more poems as a single entry as long as the total recorded time does not exceed the six-minute limit.
Time: 6 minutes or less.
Category award amount: $500
10-minute Play. Playwrights—here’s a chance to reach a broad audience with your short play. Assemble your voice talent (including yourself if desired) and make your recording. Include verbal stage directions as needed. Entries will be judged on the strength of the script, appropriate voice talent and technical proficiency, and suitability for broadcast.
Time: 10 minutes or less.
Category award amount: $500.
Narrative Essay. Just as in a personal essay, the subject matter and approach is broad. The “I” is present, and the essay is author-read. Additionally, the entry may contain additional layers of sound, including music, ambient sounds, sound effects, etc. Entries will be judged on literary merit, technical proficiency, use of sound, and suitability for broadcast.
Time: 7 minutes or less.
Category award amount: $1,000.
Documentary. This category is devoted to pieces that examine in some depth a time, place, person, event, pastime, trend, or other noteworthy topic. Entries will be judged on the strength of the writing and reporting, technical proficiency, use of sound, and suitability for broadcast.
Time: 10 minutes or less.
Category award amount: $1,000.
Also, up to five finalists selected from all categories will receive the Editors’ Choice Award and a cash prize of $100 each. Winning entries will be featured on the website of The Missouri Review, as Podcasts, and made available to subscribers of the print version of the magazine. In addition to cash prizes, each entrant receives a one-year subscription to The Missouri Review. All entries must be produced in English.
ENTRY FEE AND DEADLINE
$24 for each entry.
You may send multiple audio pieces in a single envelope, but each piece must be submitted on a separate CD. (For example, three entries on three CDs, with a total payment enclosed of $72.)
Entries must be postmarked by September 15, 2007.
Payment may be made by credit card, check or money order. Checks in US dollars should be made payable to The Missouri Review.
Technical requirements: Entries are accepted on CD only. CDs should not contain other audio other than entry material. Submissions must include:
Completed entry form for each entry
A copy of the entry on a CD, labeled with writer/producer, title and length
Brief program synopsis (short writer/producer bio optional)
Entry fee payment
Send Entries to:
The Missouri Review Audio Competition
357 McReynolds Hall
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211
For more information and to download entry forms, go here.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
"A Vague Possibility of Something Decent"
There's an excellent interview with author David Leavitt at one of my favorite literary blogs, The Elegant Variation. I was especially interested in Leavitt’s views on point of view…and his struggles with the writing process (sound familiar?):
"Generally speaking, I hate starting things. Writing a passage for the first time, I shrink from the ugly disorder of what lands on the page. I'm not one of those writers from whose pens prose flows effortlessly, and who rarely change a word. Instead I hurl something down, print it out, look at it, wince, try to clean it up, print it out again, look at it, see a vague possibility of something decent, work on it some more, print it out again, smile in pleasure, take a break to have a coffee, come back, read it again, cry out in horror that I could think something so hideous was any good, work on it some more, print it out yet again…and so on, until…well, until it's as good as I think I can get it. And even then I'm usually not satisfied. Often I'll pick up one of my earlier books, open it to a page at random, and start rewriting what I'm reading in my head. It's an endless process and it's an essential process. Again, what one is doing, whether one knows it or not, is layering: first you paint the walls, then you put up the curtains, then you lay the carpet, then you arrange the furniture, then you put up the paintings…and lo and behold, you have a room."
"Generally speaking, I hate starting things. Writing a passage for the first time, I shrink from the ugly disorder of what lands on the page. I'm not one of those writers from whose pens prose flows effortlessly, and who rarely change a word. Instead I hurl something down, print it out, look at it, wince, try to clean it up, print it out again, look at it, see a vague possibility of something decent, work on it some more, print it out again, smile in pleasure, take a break to have a coffee, come back, read it again, cry out in horror that I could think something so hideous was any good, work on it some more, print it out yet again…and so on, until…well, until it's as good as I think I can get it. And even then I'm usually not satisfied. Often I'll pick up one of my earlier books, open it to a page at random, and start rewriting what I'm reading in my head. It's an endless process and it's an essential process. Again, what one is doing, whether one knows it or not, is layering: first you paint the walls, then you put up the curtains, then you lay the carpet, then you arrange the furniture, then you put up the paintings…and lo and behold, you have a room."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)