Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers - January 10, 2014 Edition

Of interest around the web this week (or sometime)...

> I am especially pleased to see the new website The Saint's Marginalia, led by an essayist I admire, William Bradley. Its mission is to post detailed annotations on classic essays (like this one). And, there's a wiki too, so interested writers/analyzers can pitch in. 

> Traditionally-published fantasy novelist Jim Hines delivers his annual post outlining his entire writing income for last year, along with observations, explanations, caveats. Lively comments too.

> The Writer Beware blog has listed their top blog posts of 2013.

> Likewise, Writer's Digest catalogs their 62 top writing articles from last year.

> On January 28-30, LitCh@t, which runs the popular #LitChat discussions, will hold a Literary Salon on Twitter, featuring a large panel of authors.

> Best-selling novelist Jennifer Weiner wants a little literary respect, and explains why in a profile in The New Yorker by Rebecca Mead.

> Nina Badzin is another writer who gathers links of interest on her blog on occasional Fridays. 

> Dead Flowers, an online "poetry rag" from Bohemian Pupil Press is looking for a few good NON-poets to guest edit upcoming issues. "Indifferent to poetry"? You may be exactly right for the (labor of love) job.

> Finally, this is cool: got some (really) old books? There may be some "fore-edge painting" to discover.

Note: Need a little tough love to get you moving again as a writer, or help you keep your momentum? There are still spaces in my *I Should Be Writing!* Boot Camp which begins on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

What Kind of Essay? The answer is in...the essay.

If you've been a regular here, you may know that I'm putting the final touches on a manuscript--a memoir about the relationship that developed between me and my father (just before, but mostly) after, his death, told in linked essays. 

Some are more narrative than others, some more lyrical. One is long and segmented; a few are short forms. How and why each essay takes the shape and form it does relies on so many factors, and frankly often the *answer* doesn't reveal itself until far along in the revision process.

The rest of the time, I'm typically just following some instinct that's difficult to explain. The material knows, often, what it wants to be. The story knows how it wants to be told. Lately, I trust that if I listen carefully enough and resist the urge to be right about an initial impulse, I can hear when subsequent drafts are telling me something different.

An excerpted essay from the manuscript, with the title of "Eyes, Hands, Hotel, Hospital," is included in the December issue of an online journal with its own distinctly intriguing name, Halfway Down the Stairs.

If I had listened to my initial idea of how this particular piece of the story--my final visits to my father's hospital room--should exist on the page, it might have been three separate things: a light piece about my father, afflicted with Alzheimer's, thinking the hotel was a hospital; a long (and likely maudlin and unruly) prose poem about how his eyes unnerved me; and an essay about how comforted and upset I was by the look and feel of his hands even as everything else about his body was deteriorating. 

But early pages can be squirrelly, and after a dozen or so combined drafts, I put each one away for a while. 

At some point, I realized that it was all connected to those final days, everything running together, a collage of eyes and hands, memories of all the fine hotels we'd stayed at during my childhood, and finally, the reality of the hospital. It wasn't three pieces, it was one -- and a rather straight-ahead narrative essay at that

Which is not to say it might not have worked the other way, ten other ways. But this way felt right.

Here is part of middle of the essay, a section where I write of my father's confusion about where he was.

In the hospital, I asked my father if he wanted me to rub on some hand cream. He shrugged, but I did it anyway. I thought, What the heck, it will kill some time. After, he began what had, at least while I'd been here, become his daily litany of why he must be allowed to leave this place:

They can't keep me here against my will.
I know the law.
If I want to leave, I can you know.
Get them to call me a taxi.
Where's my suitcase? I want to go.
Get your mother; she'll know what to do. (This one I could not help laughing at out loud. My father always did everything related to travel, finances, and dealing with management or authorities; and he always reminded everyone that he alone was qualified to do so.)
Take me home.
I want to go home.
Why can't I go home? (This one I had trouble answering, even glibly, because I wanted to know the same thing. Why couldn't my mother allow him to come home—to his 5,000 square foot house, the one with extra bedrooms and spare bathrooms and wide doorways, the one built with polyester money—instead of making nursing home arrangements?)
Where is my ticket, my passport, the concierge?
When is that damned bellboy coming back?
They make me wait, for what?

I hope you will hop over to Halfway Down the Stairs (where there is a lot of engaging work), and read "Eyes, Hands, Hotel, Hospital."

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers - December 6, 2013 Edition

> It's nomination season for the Pushcart Prizes, Best American Series, and other literary awards. Henry Tonn, who has an essay on the Pushcart nomination list this year, talks "Literary Prizes and the Selection Processes" on his blog, Reading, Writing, and Rejection Slips. I was simultaneously reassured and dismayed by part of the backstory: "This is very nice, and I am happy to be selected, but it behooves me to point out that this particular memoir-essay had previously been rejected by no fewer than 82 publishers. I know, I know, I keep railing on about rejection slips, but the irony here is too much."

> If freelancing is part of your writing life, check in with Yael Grauer, on 20 things she learned (the hard way) in her first four years.

> On the Missouri Review blog, managing editor Michael Nye, speaking as a writer, offers a different take on getting published in "The False Promise of Acceptance and Publication."

> At Utne Reader, William Bradley discusses "Resources for Finding Great Essays," helpful for those who teach, study, read, write and love the essay form.  (hat tip Kate Hopper).

> I've been trying to include here other writers who do Friday link round ups, and am happy this week to point you over to Delia Lloyd's Friday Pix. Delia's an American journalist living in London, and her selections are always interesting, often funny, and never dull.

> Are you making a book trailer on your own? One author offers 20 things she did before, during, and after creating hers.

> Lots of literary journals claim to publish "both new and emerging writers." Writer/blogger Michael Alexander Chaney offers a look at a few major journals that seem to deliver.

> Finally, here's what happened when 425+ British writers of note signed a protest letter to The Times of London over its apparent devaluing of children's literature: The Times ignored the letter. But Nicola Morgan, who has a prominent writing blog, did not.

Have a great weekend.

Looking Inside: Creative Nonfiction in the Fall Issue of Compose

Excuse me for kvelling just a little. (Can an Italian Catholic girl kvell? Nevermind.) I'll just say the Fall 2013 issue of Compose journal is now live and it's lovely. I began as creative nonfiction editor this spring and from the start I knew that founder/managing editor Suzannah Windsor (I interviewed her here), would make sure every aspect of it was excellent, and I've loved being part of a group of editors who are interesting folks.

It's been fun, instructive, challenging, frustrating, and surprising to be involved in my first issue from start to finish – soliciting, reading, selecting (and yes, declining – that's the frustrating part), and editing. I'm proud of the CNF pieces which appear, and working directly with the writers of each piece was one of the most gratifying things I've ever done – and I'm jazzed that I get to do it again for the Spring 2014 issue, and again.

Here's a little tour of the creative nonfiction section.

Because it's likely to make you a little sad in a very good way, depending on the type of person/reader you are, either begin or end with Eliana Ramage's lovely short essay of remembrance, 26 Tea Lights.

Then turn to Lori Horvitz's Little Pink Hatchling, a tale of a college coupling and the messy ways it continues, and doesn't, and does, and ends. Plus, a side of Italian ice.

If you've ever inherited something from a loved one – and then that treasured item was lost from your life  – you will understand the heart of Milena Nigam's Stolen Family Jewelry, and Other Gifts. Actually, I take back the part about inheritance. Anyone who has loved and lost – anything – will find her/himself in Milena's story.

I love a piece of prose that feels like poetry, but is also very clearly creative nonfiction, a piece with brevity and verve, snap and grit, a little mystery and moxie, and that's what Lita Kurth brings to Red on White. Hard to describe, so I won't:  Read it and you'll get it, and be glad you did.

Finally, listen in on Ana Consuelo Matiella as she muses on a certain aunt from her Mexican childhood, an image on a bottle of tequila, and a sudden midlife shift, in La Viuda-The Widow. The turn at the end is delicious.

There's fine fiction and poetry and artwork on offer too, as well as features and craft pieces to feed the writer, from three favorite nonfiction writers/teachers: Marion Roach Smith on Time Management;  Beth Kephart with an excerpt from her new memoir writing book; and Katrina Kenison on the value she found in a reader's nasty email.

Take a look. Read. Maybe submit something to Compose for the next issue. Or submit anywhere.

Many people have said this, and I always wanted to believe though had my doubts, but now I know it's true:  Editors everywhere, at every journal – are waiting, hoping to find something great, something unexpected in the submissions inbox. Surprise one of them.

Guest Blogger Patricia Berry on Finding the Essay at AWP

Patricia Berry, like dozens of literary folk, lives in nearby Montclair, New Jersey. Pat and I were once members of a small writing group for a while, nudging each other on, hatching plans, and laughing around one another's dining room tables. She is an essayist whose work has appeared in several anthologies, including Unbuttoned (Harvard Common Press) and Over the Hill and Between the Sheets (Springboard). Pat is also a creative writing coach who teaches in the Columbia University Summer High School Program; blogs occasionally about books, films and the writing life; and contributes to The Days of Yore, a blog featuring interviews with writers and other artists. She has an MFA in creative writing (nonfiction) from Columbia’s School of the Arts.  

  

Please welcome Patricia Berry.

Like recent guest blogger Ryder Ziebarth, I attended my very first Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference earlier this month in Boston. And like Ryder, I discovered AWP is a heady event—and one designed for sprinters. Since I have not jogged in years, I narrowed my fact-and-inspiration finding to those writing questions that have been nagging me. I circled and starred my way through the program guide, identifying plenty of panels with potential for answers. In the end, only once did I need to dash along the spacious corridors of Hynes Convention Center in search of my next hit of literary intelligence.

Where my work is concerned, there are lately two issues. One is, How do I pitch the project I’ve been laboring over for going on three years? Is it an essay collection or a memoir? I know what I think it is and what I want it to be (essays), and I know what several agents have told me it must be (memoir). Until I’m somebody, the argument goes, that is, an author with so much name recognition that a publisher could actually sell an essay collection with my name on it, I’m stuck with the M word. Not that there’s anything wrong with publishing a memoir. I just don’t think that what I read on my pages adds up to one long and connected personal story. Or should. It turned out AWP had a panel of established writers with whom I could commiserate: The Godzilla of Nonfiction: Has Memoir Swallowed the Essay?

I’ve read Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum regularly since her first book, My Misspent Youth, a collection of individual essays on life as a young professional, was published in 2001. During the Godzilla panel, Daum implied that by publishing essays right out of the gate, she’d snuck in under the wire; the trend toward longer linear narratives had not quite taken hold. She wasn’t so lucky with her most recent book, LifeWould Be Perfect If I Lived in That House (2010). What she wrote as a collection of personal essays around her preoccupation with real estate became memoir when she was informed it would not sell otherwise. Daum applied what she calls “gratuitous connective tissue” to the pieces, ending the book and the property search, a little-too-tidily for her taste, with a wedding. The book, she told us, suffered as a result.

Panelist Emily Fox Gordon’s Book of Days: PersonalEssays (2010) is her fourth book, which I guess makes her somebody. Gordon paid her dues: under pressure from editors, she converted two earlier collections into memoirs. At AWP, Gordon gave a worth-the-price-of-admission tutorial that riffed on the essay as confidence, not confession. The writer should think of the reader not as a judge or authority figure but as a confidante, she said. There is no coercion in this reader-writer relationship. Trusting that the reader is a friend will help write the piece. Gordon spoke, too, of how the personal essay can and, to be more effective, probably should contain memoir-like narrative passages in addition to essayistic analyses of events.

It seems author David McGlynn was unconsciously trying to avoid such passages while writing essays about violence. He expressed ambivalence about having to convert a collection of these essays to memoir, but he admitted that the act of writing scenes and descriptions of long-ago events following the home invasion and murder of a high school classmate gave him a better understanding of himself. It also became the basis of his memoir A Door in the Ocean (2012). In McGlynn’s case, the pushback from his agent that he write a memoir ultimately made for a more meaningful take on a lifelong obsession.

So has memoir devoured the essay? It seemed as though the panel was saying, Yes, but; as though willing essayists in the audience to follow our hearts for as long as we can hold out. It’s a game plan I can live with. Before closing, moderator Debra Monroe offered a sort of end around, a way to avoid the memoir-or-essays tag altogether. Monroe described how author Jo Ann Beard managed this with her 1999 nonfiction work The Boys of My Youth, which bears only a title -- not followed by a colon or subtitle. On its release, reviewers identified Boys (which one Godzilla panelist described as a perfect book) as they saw it, some calling it memoir, others referring to it as a collection of personal stories.

“I am drawn to the shagginess of the essay,” Phillip Lopate writes in the introduction to his latest collection, Portrait Inside My Head (2013). I like this description and I like that he calls his latest assortment of essays a “hodgepodge,” a label I wish I could pull off with my own work. And how perfect that Lopate was in the audience that afternoon. One after the other, the writers at the table acknowledged the master.

The other issue I brought to AWP was teaching. Each year I am an instructor in Columbia’s summer program for high school students, Over three weeks I hope I help them develop their writing, working along a spectrum that begins with poetry and ends with long form nonfiction. As I passed hundreds of convention bookstalls, the challenge of keeping the teaching fresh for “my kids” was on my mind.

Am I the last to hear of Dave Eggers’ 826 National? The enterprising Mr. Eggers launched his writing and tutoring centers in 2002, and now there’s an 826 National book imprint. This YouTube video gives a little more background on one of its titles.

With all the publisher swag at AWP, one could fill a new tote (the editor of Brain, Child handed me a high-quality green and purple canvas number on the last day) without pulling out one’s wallet until lunch. And then I found myself flipping through 826 National’s Don’t Forget to Write, 50 creative writing lesson plans devised by some wonderful writers, including quirky Sarah Vowell (“The First Draft Is My Enemy: Revisions”) and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart contributor Kristen Schall (“How to Write a One-person Show About a Historical Figure”). When I happened on lesson plan # 32, I dug into my bag and plunked down $23. How could I not? That plan is written by Meghan Daum and titled simply “The Essay.”

Pat would be delighted if you followed her on Twitter @patricia_berry

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, February 8, 2013 Edition

> Can the new retail book site Bookish compete with Amazon?  With backing by founding partners Penguin Group USA, Hachette Book Group, and Simon & Schuster, its odds are perhaps better than most.  Publishers Weekly breaks it down.

> New Conde Nast freelance writer contracts include what the ASJA Word newsletter calls a "nasty surprise" concerning film, TV and other rights.

> Redroom, the popular site where authors interact with other writers and with readers, now has a Classifieds section.

> Why start a new literary journal?  One publisher explains, and asks a few of his journal publisher colleagues to chime in too.

> At Dames of Dialogue, Karen Pullen talks about the challenges (and rewards) of writing a transgendered character.

> Here's a lengthy list of non-contest poetry book publishers.

> Twenty-three outstanding contemporary writers and editors list their 10 favorite essays of all time.  I haven't even gotten to some of the lists yet because I was caught up reading the incisive notes each wrote about how they made their essay choices, like this one from Brenda Miller.

> Finally, if you simply can't get enough of actor Dan Stevens (who plays Matthew Crawley on Downton Abbey), check out his essay in the British literary journal Junket, where he's a contributing editor.

Have a great weekend!