You Can’t Write About That

I was reading an article and the interviewee said this about the stories he writes:  When you’re forced into exile, you lose places, you lose people, but you also lose money, and nobody wants to talk about that because it isn’t a very elegant thing to discuss.

No.  Nobody wants to talk about that.

There are so many taboo subjects, and then there are even qualifiers on top of those subjects.  You can’t write about:

ABUSE.  Physical-sexual-emotional-or-any-iteration, especially if you’re going to name names and the abusers are still living.

MONEY.  Having too much or too little, as both are crimes infused with their own twisted swords of shame.

RACE.  If you’re a minority, shut the hell up, you’re complaining.  If you’re not a minority, shut the hell up, you’ve already had the microphone long enough.

RELIGION.  If you’re a believer, you’re preaching.  If you’re a nonbeliever, you’re preaching.

ACADEMIA.  If you’re a professor, you’ve sworn to abide by the code.  Students, you can never, never write about your teachers or fellow students or what really goes on behind the wall, lest you become the scourge of your community.

YOUR CHILDREN.  Shame on you for being a parent who would even consider, gasp!, writing about your children.

The list is long and there are so many fucking “rules.”

This morning a friend sent me a quote from this book:  I needed words because unhappy families are conspiracies of silence. The one who breaks the silence is never forgiven.

Taboo subjects are funny things.  Is nothing sacred?  Do we really need to know about this?  What makes you think it’s your place to ‘tell’?  What if your version is the wrong version?

I recently read a piece about racism wherein the author said, basically, please don’t respond to this with your own stories of racist relatives and the like, I don’t want to hear it.  What?  This admonishment to shut up (to the reader!) still, weeks later, bugs the hell out of me.

Years ago, when I published my first essay, people said, “Maybe you should change the names.”  When I first told a friend I was writing a book about growing up in Missouri, she said, “How will you ever go home?  What if no one ever speaks to you again?”  All of these people mean well.  They’re worried about me.  And they have good reason.  What happens if I break the rules, break the code?  What if I cross a bridge and can’t come back?

What subject are you avoiding?  And if you’re not avoiding it, how do you manage the pressure to keep quiet?

My So-Shelf Life

What do your books, and how you toss them about, say about you?

I love a challenge and Lyra threw this one down: take a picture of your shelves and think about what they might say about you, the genesis for which came from The Paris Review‘s “Shelf-Conscious” article.  I picked our living room shelf because it’s most visible to passers-by.  I took the above photo at eye level.

The first thing that comes to mind:  Neat.  Freak.  *sigh*  When my daughter was in high school, her boyfriend said he couldn’t get off the couch without me fluffing his pillow.  He had (has?) a point.  I blame it on the dogs —- maybe if our bookshelves are tidy and the pillows fluffed no one will notice the floating tumbleweeds of dog hair?

We sort by genre:  Fiction, General Nonfiction, Politics, Memoir, Biography, French, The Classics, The Holocaust, WWII, The Civil War, Funk & Wagnalls, First Editions, Sports, Poetry, Writing, Short Stories, Mysteries/Thrillers, New-and-Waiting-To-Be-Read.

We are our own used book store.

When our kids still lived at home, they’d head out on a Friday night and there we’d be, their parents, lamps on, a glass of wine on the end table, noses in our books.  ”You guys are so exciting!” they’d laugh.  Now they’re all grown up.  And when they come to visit, guess who’s nose is in a book while dad manages the dogs and mom keeps them fed.

We are a family of book nuts nerds wackos lovers.

Bookshelves flank all 4 walls of our dining room.  It’s colorful.  It’s noise-absorbing.  And anytime somebody comes for supper there’s stuff all around us to talk about.  People often leave this house with a borrowed book.

Looking at the 2 shelves in this photo, I see all of the books I haven’t read.  Somebody should shut down my Amazon.com account until I read these books.  I mean, come on.  I bought THE MARCH and RAGTIME right after I saw E.L. Doctorow — last year.  And why aren’t they shelved next to each other?  Maybe I’m not as organized as I think I am????

Hahahaha! says my daughter’s old boyfriend from afar.  Fluff that pillow.

What do you see?

The Case for Instant Oatmeal

…. and other ways I survive AWP.

I’ve been to the mountaintop AWP website and printed out my schedule.  Beware.  You have to make your selections for day one, and print, then day two, and print, etc….  I thought I’d be all smart and efficient and pick my seminars for all of the days and then print, which means I lost all of my info and had to start over.  Twice.

AWP is 3 days of overwhelming madness.  This will be my 3rd time, which means 2 things:

1.  I know very little.

2.  If anything I’ve learned the hard way can help you, it’s worth sharing.

The Hourly Grind

There will be one or two or three seminars you’d like to attend every single hour.  Be choosy.  Pick one session you can’t live without, and one back up.  Have a Plan A and a Plan B.  Sometimes you’ll find you can’t get to a room in time, or maybe the room is so full it’s SRO and people are spilling out of the doors (this happens) and you can’t see or hear a thing, so always have a Plan B.  You won’t have time to look for a Plan B on the fly.

Drugs of Choice

My brain is always sufficiently fried by the middle of day one.  I power my way through the headaches, and on into day two.  By day three I literally limp the hell out of there.  All well worth it, but it truly is your writer brain out in public! with thousands of people and on information overload.  Keep your pocketbook full of whatever works for you.

Your Bag of Bones

The last 2 times I went, they gave us nice AWP-labeled, canvas bags when we picked up our name tags.  Word to the wise:  bring your own tote bag.  It’s so flippin’ crowded and everybody has the same damned bag.  You’ll force your way into to a crowd and plop down for an hour-long talk, only to look up and wonder, “Shit, which one of these is mine?” or “Who took my bag?”  I’ve seen it happen.  It ain’t pretty.

Your Rock Stars

Comb through the list of seminars to see who’s on the panels.  Sometimes the panel topic won’t float your boat, but the people doing the talking will.  For example, Dan Chaon is on a panel I won’t miss, even though the topic isn’t my first choice.  But it’s Dan Chaon, so it becomes my first choice.  Capiche?

Panel members’ names will not print out on your schedule so make sure you note the ones you must not miss.  Friday at 1:30 Kathryn Harrison will be discussing Research & the Personal Memoir.  If I miss her I’ll be totally wigged out.  Write their names on your schedule so you don’t forget where they’ll be and when.

Breakfast

As anal as this sounds, I mean it.  If I don’t have breakfast, I can’t function.  And it’s almost impossible to get breakfast.  The hotels are sold out and the surrounding areas will be packed as well.  Last year, instead of going in desperate search of a $10 bagel or coffee, and standing in long lines, I brought packets of instant oatmeal.  I got to sleep later and show up to the first seminar at 9:00 without needing to find food first.

Also, since the seminars last all day long, with no lunch break, you never know when or where you might pick up food.  Bring your oatmeal, some Nutrigrain bars, something.  Trust me.

Dinner

As nonsensical as this sounds, it might be easier to take a cab away from the hotels to find dinner.  All of the nearby restaurants worth eating in will be overflowing.  I’ve seen people wait an hour for a table, only to leave and try to find somewhere else and find nothing.  If you’re meeting people for dinner, you might want to pick a spot a short cab ride away and either ride together or meet there.

The Cocktail Parties

I’m too old for this nonsense, so I can’t help you here.  I’ve wandered past these receptions (there are lots of them) and never once had the desire to go in.  I believe there’s free food, and maybe even drinks.  If I knew someone personally who was hosting, maybe.  But I’d rather skip the crowded, standing-room-only, loud space and meet a friend or two in the lobby or somewhere else for a chat or a beer.

Bringing Your Laptop

This is a tough one.  It’s hard for those of us who write on a computer to leave it at home.  I brought mine the first year and will never bring it again.  It’s too heavy to lug around all day and night — I’m certainly not leaving it in my room — and the reality is there’s no time to write while you’re at AWP.  Any minutes I can escape from the madness will have me lying down in a dark, silent place with my eyes closed.

Jonathan Franzen Is Everywhere!

The people watching is awesome.  There will be plenty of 25 yr olds who look exactly like Franzen — the tousled hair!  the glasses!  the Ivy league wool sweaters! — you’ll think you’ve spotted him a dozen times a day.  Silvia Plath will be there, too, so keep your camera handy.

Where’s Your Miniskirt?

The only people I’ve seen dressed up are on panels.  Day or night.  Wear comfortable walking shoes.  You might have to jog to get to your next spot (because you’ve run into a friend like ME and I’ve held you up) or hike a load of stairs.  I’ve been in seminars so crowded I’ve had to cozy up with strangers, cross-legged on the floor, so I’ll be leaving my miniskirts at home.

The conference takes place in 2 hotels that look to be about 8 blocks apart.  Sure, there’s a shuttle, but what if it’s full or not there or late or …… what if you have to walk.  Be ready to put on some miles.

The Margaret Atwood Keynote

You’ll notice she’s not at either of the hotels.  This is an off-site event and there will be a few thousand people there.  It starts at 8:30, but I will be there no later than 8:00 to get a decent seat.  There’s nothing worse than looking forward to seeing one of your idols, and then arriving on-time to find you have to sit so far back you can’t see or hear her.

P.S.  Even if you’re not a huge fan, Atwood is a fantastic speaker.  She’s smart as hell, funny, opinionated, and she’s even been known to sing.

The Son

This weekend our town opened the doors to our new library.  It was a gray-skied, drizzling, winter day, but no matter.  Check out this crowd.

___________

John Steinbeck lived in our little town for a few important literary years:  he wrote OF MICE AND MEN and THE GRAPES OF WRATH just up the hill from my house.

It seems fitting that his son, Thomas Steinbeck, open our new house of books.  Thom spoke for an hour to a standing-room-only crowd.  He started by documenting the world history of libraries, and told stories about how he often escaped his dysfunctional family and skipped school, hiding out in the local library.

Sound familiar, anyone?

Truant officers, he laughed, didn’t know you weren’t supposed to be in the library.

Thom is a writer.  Imagine following in such iconic footsteps.  He says he doesn’t read novels, he enjoys history and biographies, and he writes his novels based on what he’s learned.  You can find more about his books here.  Like his father, he bases most of his stories in California.  He does not, however, feel like he’s competing.  John Steinbeck won both the Pulitzer and the Nobel.  Who in their right mind, he said, would think they could compete with that?  One of these, he said, was more than enough for one family.

When he was 5 or 6 years old, Thom asked his father what he did for a living.  While his friends’ fathers put on suits and bow ties and carried briefcases out their doors in the morning, his did not.  His father came down for breakfast in his pajamas and went right back up to his room for the day.  He figured he must be permanently out of work.

One day the boy asked, What do you do?

And his father answered, I reconnect people with their humanity.

Indeed.

Poetry Night

Last night we went to a reading.

Not just any reading — it was a special poetry event, hosted by the high school where I help out with a workshop.  The guest of honor was Sally Ashton, the Poet Laureate of Santa Clara County.

Sally was fantastic.  She talked about how she came to choose poetry as her life’s work; she read several pieces and they were, every single one, engaging and fun and thoughtful; and the kids loved her.

___________

Their wonderful teacher, and my good friend, Mr. Mouton.

Jason, who graduated last year, came back to be the opening act. He was such a pro!

Little Book

That’s My Kind of Superbowl

We spent Superbowl Sunday — where else? — at a book fair.  Here are a few observations.

Paper books are not dead.  Believe it.  In fact, modern First Editions are worth quite a lot of cash.  And by modern I mean books that came out in the last century.  Who knew a F.E. Chuck Palahniuk book, like CHOKE, which came out just 11 years ago, could go for $400?

Hardbacks, and their covers, are art.  Check out the original cover of SLAUGHTER-HOUSE FIVE — the arch is like the entrance to a holy vestibule.  Or how about the yellow spotlight, both shining on and encapsulating the human figure, on DEATH OF A SALESMAN.  Or how about the orange and green A and M on Auggie March.

A certain je ne sais quoi.  Speaking of SLAUGHTER-HOUSE FIVE, I stood before one F.E. wherein Mr. Vonnegut had not only signed it but, around his signature, drew a caricature of himself.  I almost totally lost my senses when I saw this.  Thank god it was behind glass.  I remember taking in a sharp breath of air.  I looked away from the price.  I had to get the heck out of there before I did something really stupid.  Like write a check.

Never never clip the price.  Of course I’ve done it, too, when giving a gift.  But it’s kind of silly, right?  I mean, don’t we all know how much books cost?  Cutting the price out of a F.E. book greatly decreases it’s value.  I saw so many folks spot a book and get excited about it’s pristine condition, only to sag in the shoulders when they saw the price had been lopped off.

Cocktail hour, all day long.   There was a full bar.  I guess it’s kind of like going to an auction: they figure if you get all liquored up, you’ll more easily whip out the credit card.  I spotted said bar from a distance.  I wasn’t about to go near there, knowing that Vonnegut book was in the house.

Window shopping can be fun.  I hate to shop, hate it, but sashaying from booth to booth to check out what the sellers had, to see the creativity (or lack thereof) in their displays, to be surprised by an original Jane Austen or Mark Twain, could make you downright euphoric.  Or catatonic.  Depending.

The Unread.  One thing I love about library books is their worn-out-ness, but of course a book is much more valuable if it looks like it’s never been read.  While I understand this (well, duh) doesn’t it somehow seem counterintuitive?  Who buys an expensive hardback book and never cracks it?

Harry Potter.  It’s been well-documented I’m not a Harry Potter fan.  I read about 50 pages of the first one and said ho-hum.  This place was crawling with F.E.’s of HARRY POTTER.  And they’re pricey.  If you’re one of those folks who waited in line at midnight to buy the First Printings, hang on to them.  And if they haven’t been read?  All the better!  But what are the chances of that?  Unless you’re me.

Haven

This is a true story.

1.  Last Fall, Laura Maylene Walter — our very own Laura — published a piece in Poets & Writers called, I believe, “The Price of Submission” and wrote about it on her blog.  There’s a photo of Joan Didion on the cover, and y’all know how much I love My Joan Didion.

2.  My issue never arrived.  I was informed my subscription had expired.  How was this possible?!?!  I sent them a note.

3.  They promised to fix it and get me the Joan Didion issue.  Which never arrived.  In October, December, and January — I kid you not — I exchanged e-mails with Poets & Writers Customer Service.  They could not, no matter how they tried, get me a magazine.

4.  On January 23, they finally sent me an e-mail saying they were expediting the January/February issue and, not 2 days later, wrapped in brown paper like it was porn, the issue arrived on my doorstep.  Thank you Jaysus!  It wasn’t My Joan Didion, nor My Laura Maylene, but it was here.  I flipped 13 pages in, saw an ad for a writers’ conference, and turned one more page to read John Stazinski’s “A Novel Approach.”

5.  In the next day or so, Lyra told me to get over to Shanna’s blog and read the post about writing her memoir.  While reading through several of Shanna’s posts, there was this:  “When I first started writing this book, back in the dark ages of 2006, I optimistically applied to a handful of prestigious fellowships and conferences. Ignorance is bliss. When the MacDowell Colony asked me to enumerate my previous awards, adding the helpful parenthetical, “e.g.: Guggenheim, NEA, etc.,” I literally wrote in the allotted space, “You’re kidding, right?” 

6.  Ignorance is bliss.

7.  The next day, I was trying to work while men cut brick (with a screaming electric saw) outside my window.  I pulled out the Poets & Writers and spotted, again, that thing about a writer’s conference.  I’ve never been to a writers’ conference, never even applied as it seemed impossible-what’s-the-point-there-are-a-thousand-fucking-people-who-apply —- but since I couldn’t concentrate anyway, and I remembered Shanna’s “You’re kidding, right?”, I quick-filled-out some forms and formatted an essay to submit, pressed send, and promptly forgot all about it.

8.  This afternoon, I got an acceptance letter from the Yale Writers’ Conference, where the master classes will be led by Tom Perrotta and Julia Glass.

9.  Did you hear that?  An ACCEPTANCE LETTER.

10.   Tom Perrotta.  Julia Glass.  And more.

________________

Thanks to the confluence of the above, come June, I’ll be spending two weeks at the Yale Writers’ Conference.

I’ve never been to New Haven.

Why do I keep thinking about Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw making snow angels?

The Invitation

In one of Stephen Elliott‘s recent e-mails, he wrote about becoming a Stanford Fellow.  I wish I’d kept his exact words so as not to misquote him (sorry Stephen), but the gist was he’d submitted a different kind of story in his application.  He’d written from the perspective of a 15 year old mental patient.  After he was accepted he figured it was his originality, more than perfection of prose or command of craft, that got him noticed.

Gathering at Gallery House, waiting for the reading to start.

I thought about this last night at my Peninsula Literary Series reading.  There were 6 of us, and the one that stood out the most for me, and for friends I talked to afterward, was Richard Lawson.   He read 2 short pieces on the following:  A retirement community arguing about whether to put out a flag on the 4th of July, and a gentleman in an elevator who can’t figure out what the “ground floor” means anymore.

What’s missing here?  Death.  Mother issues.  Abuse.  Addiction.  Missing fathers.  Teen angst.  Childhood fear.  Not to say these aren’t worthy subjects — hell, I’m writing about most of them myself, as does Stephen Elliott — but there must also be something else, something off the generic mark, something surprising, that makes it worth telling.

That was Reminder Lesson #1.

I got this lesson a second time as I browsed around the gallery.  A lot of beautiful art (paintings, sculpture, photographs, texture) but there were a few pieces that stood out.  My friend Bonnie (thanks for coming Bonnie!) led me to a series of paintings — all paths-through-the-woods images — and said, “All of these look basically the same, but there’s only one that speaks to me.”  She was right.  Of all the scenes, only one had just the right sunlight dappled through the trees, just the right depth of darkness down the path.  Bonnie raised her hands and opened them outward, “This is the only one inviting me to walk through those trees.”

___________

I have to close this post, of course, with huge thank you’s to my support system.  Because of you I was only a smidge nervous.  I almost forgot how to put my glasses on my face, but other than that… 

Rex and Bonnie, of course.

Tommy, who brought Jason as the best surprise of my night – I’m so proud of you, kid.

And of course you, my blog crew, for your constant encouragement and advice.  Lyra, I wore uncomfortable shoes and they worked: who can be nervous with pinched toes?  Shanna, over at Betsy’s, who said “remember, nobody will mind if your reading is too short.”  (Here I was worried about only having 7 minutes, yet when I was up there at the mic, looking out at those 50 quiet faces, it felt like 7 hours).  Laura, who said “practice!” and I did enough practicing that I almost felt I could read it without the paper.  Erika for the purple Carnvial Mask, which I carried in my purse, folded into my pages, as a talisman.  It all worked.

Now, the morning after, looking at this photo, all I can think is:  Tie your scarf next time – you look like a priest!  And I desperately need a haircut, lest I start channeling a brunette Florence Henderson.

Epigraph

I love a good epigraph.

Some readers page right past them, ignore them completely, think they’re a waste of space.  Not me.  While reading a book, a book I love, I’ll often flip back to the epigraph and think about how perfect — or imperfect — it is for the story.  I’ll wonder how it was chosen.  Years before?  So late it barely made it to print?  Was it the writer’s idea?  The editor’s?

I have many favorites.  Here are two:

But what a shining animal is man,

Who knows, when pain subsides, that is not that,

For worse than that must follow — yet can write

Music, can laugh, play tennis, even plan.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay “Sonnet CLXXI”

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. . . I seek that essential region of the soul where absolute evil confronts brotherhood.

- Andre Malraux, “Lazare” 1974

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When I started writing this post, I intended to share a few I’m considering for my own book.  Now that feels like tempting the fates — the book’s not finished and who knows how this will all end — so I’m tucking them back inside my vest and zipping up.

________

Do you bother with the epigraphs?  Give me one of your favorites.