Teapots

I have so many reactions to this wonderful interview Buzzfeed has up with Helen Oyeyemi. They are, in no particular order:

1. How quickly can I obtain her book and find time to read it?
2. What kinds of tea does she like and which teapots go with them?
3. Is she doing a CA leg of her booktour?
4. Can I use my sneaky lure-the-editor-with-tea moves to make friends with Helen Oyeyemi?
5. Is this like a fairytale (it MUST be like a fairytale!) where if I use the wrong kind of tea for the pot she'll vanish forever, never to be seen by my mortal eyes again?

Event: Flash Fiction Forum

Been enjoying The Loyalty of Water? Local to the Bay Area? Not local, but planning on being here on March 12th? Come out and see some of us!

Lita Kurth, she of the yin-yang tattoo, is a cofounder of a vibrant local reading series in San Jose, the Flash Fiction Forum. This time around, you'll be able to meet her in person and listen to both me and Allison Landa read from our writing.

Here's the official information:

WHAT: Flash Fiction Forum! (a bimonthly curated reading series)

WHERE: The WORKS/SJ Gallery, 365 S. Market St. in downtown San Jose (in the same building as the Convention Center parking lot). Parking is about $3/hour.

WHEN: This time, March 12th. Generally, the second Wednesday of the month from 7 to about 8:30 PM. 

HOW MUCH: Although the event is free, beer and wine are available for sale to help WORKS with expenses and they also ask a donation of $2 for those who are able.

WHO: As of today, 3/4, it'll be these beautiful people:

1.     Jan Berkeley “Double Fantasy”

2.     Donelle McGee, “Homecoming”

3.     Jessica Barksdale Inclan, “He Grabbed Me” published in KneeJerk magazine, Oct., 2013

4.     Celia Stahr, “Detroit: Independence Day, 1932” is drawn from a larger work in progress, Frida Kahlo in America: A Mexican Artist’s Cross-Cultural Journey Into the Unknown

5.     Emily Breunig, “For the Children,” an excerpt from her novel, A Ghost at the Edge of the Sea

 6.     Victoria M. Johnson, “Thirteen Things to Do on Friday the 13^th” 

INTERMISSION

7.     Marilyn Fahey, “Last Letter”

8.     Allison Landa “Creation”

9.     Leslie  Hoffman, “Cecile Street”

10.  Renee Schell “Suburban Fantasy”

All are welcome! Hope to see you there.

The Loyalty of Water: Why Write?

Guest post by Melissa R. Sipin

Why do you write? What are your goals as a writer?

These questions haunt me. Whether it’s late at night after hours of writing or in a seminar with Juliana Spahr, who forces us to read articles on the gatekeepers of literature, the MFA Machine, AWP and its capitalistic complications (like its rejection of the proposed panel, “Principled Protest in Academia: the Story of the University of Houston Sit-in,” and its acceptance of another that encouraged a third [and probably expensive] degree), or Kathi Week’s book, The Problem of Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Juliana asks us to create graphs, maps, and trees of prizewinners in recent Poets & Writers (How many men have won awards? Women? Let’s re-look at the VIDA Count), asks us to interrogate the data of who gets into this or that journal, and asks us to examine the trends of who gets published in this or that prize-winning collection (like Cliff Garstang’s Journal Ranking based upon the Pushcart anthology). She asks us: what do you do with this data?

Faced with all of this: why do you write?

It’s a difficult question for me to answer, if only because the reason why I write is an emotive, intellectual choice, almost like falling in love.

Click to read more ...

AWP Tips

From the scarily freqently perfectly timed mind of Roxane Gay:

Some Dos and Don’ts:

Do drink a lot of water. Go offsite to buy bottled water because the convention center and hotel will charge exorbitant prices.

Don’t thrust your unsolicited manuscript into an editor’s hands. It will be awkward for both of you.

Do visit the host city for at least an hour or two. There is life beyond the convention center.

Don’t try to attend everything. It’s not possible. Instead, pick a few panels and offsite readings to attend and leave the rest to possibility.

Do acquire a good tote, and on Saturday evening, ship home all the books and magazines you buy.

Don’t pretend to have read someone’s book if you haven’t. Don’t be sycophantic or use flattery as social currency. You can and should engage writers in normal conversation. Writers are people, too.

Do have fun and do not take the conference too seriously. Do carve out quality time with your friends when you can—a quiet hour for coffee or a meal far from the hubbub of the conference.

The only part of this I won't be taking to heart is the shipping part of it, because we will have a trunk. Great American road trip, here we come!

If you're going to be there, I hope to see you! This is my very first writing conference, and any other tips (or drinks and moments of commiseration once we're emotionally flattened) are more than welcome.

Loyalty: Ann Patchett

Long ago I heard Ann Patchett talk about how she decided, at a relatively young age, that she couldn't be a writer and a parent. Since she knew she wanted most to be a writer, she has not had children, by choice. This has stuck with me as someone who has been a writer since I knew what pencils did--and as someone who does, in fact, also want to be a parent. It's interesting to note that, at least according to Wikipedia, Patchett's mother is also a novelist. I would love to be a fly on the wall if the two of them ever discuss this. For now, however, this is the best I can do.

The following is excerpted from an interview published in The Denver Post.

Q: Do you write at the same time every day?

A: How I wish I had a routine. I think I'm a very hard worker and productive, but I don't think it's about sitting down and hammering out a certain number of pages in a day. I hardly ever have a deadline, and no one sees (my work) until I feel it's ready for publication.

I am very parochial in my habits. I get stuck all the time and can't figure things out, but because I have all these obligations I get things done. I am so grateful I am not a procrastinator.

Q: Do you work on multiple projects at once? Novels, essays, articles?

A: In general, I'm very careful with my brain. I don't think I can do it all, which is why I didn't have children. [Long ago] I understood that I could be good at certain things, but not at 20 things.