Just another writer
-
Residency day 9
And the last day of my penultimate residency. One of these kind of open days. A morning residency with Beth Ann Fennelly and Tom Franklin which, it turns out, was not so much about collaboration (although they did talk about writing The Tilted World towards the end of their time and more about writing very short…
-
Residency day 8
We’re in the final stretch on the residency. Our morning residency was Hal Hartley talking nominally about dialogue but as much talking about how his writing process builds on the standard three-act 64-scene screenplay format but then is willing to move beyond that. After workshop and lunch, we then had a panel on “Literary Professionalism,”…
-
Beautiful Sentences
It seems as though there might be some place in the world they could have been left alone. Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky.
-
Residency day 7
We began with a fiction workshop on revision from Corinna Vallianatos. She began with her top ten on revision, with the #1 position comprised of suggestions from the class: 10. Put your classmates’ response letters away. Read them, but don’t keep them handy. 9. Be impatient. Be impatient with your own preciousness. Revision is like…
-
Residency day 6
Our morning seminar was Jason Ockert on writing idiosyncratic characters. How does one go about moving a reader? Balance between writing familiar and distinctive. That which is relatable and that which is somehow unfamiliar. Who cares about idiosyncratic characters? For Ockert it’s rudimentary. He has a terrible memory: the great thing about literature is the stuff…
-
Residency day 5
Another full day. It began with Stefan Kiesbye giving a seminar looking at blurred boundaries between fiction and CNF. I was reminded of James Tadd Adcox saying that, to him, CNF was just fiction where the protagonist had the author’s name. Kiesbye looked a number of works, talking about the controversy around the publication of…
-
Residency day 4
The reading/writing day of the residency. I got a fair amount of work done, although there’s always more to write. Our workshop time was spent looking closely at “Paper Lantern” by Stuart Dybek (which is finally coming out in a Dybek collection in June) and “Differently” by Alice Munro. Our lone seminar of the day…
-
Residency day 3
We began the day with a seminar on revision with Jennifer Vanderbes. There were some nice resonances between what she was saying about specificity and yesterday’s fiction genre workshop. Today was my day to be workshopped, which gave me some excellent feedback on my first chapter of the novel. I’m inclined to do a complete…
-
Residency day 2
The day began with a seminar from Erika Meitner and Mary Biddinger on literary taboos. Between the reading that was assigned beforehand and the handout for the seminar there was a lot of food for thought. One student was a bit concerned about “earnest Christianity” being among the taboos so I directed him to Robert…