AWP finale

One of several busy rooms at the
AWP bookfair. MFA programs
and small pressed abounded.

The Super Bowl snuck up on me, as I was still hanging out with writers at AWP. Conversation at the Wardman Marriott leaned more toward parataxis than playbooks. I managed to explore the bookfair on Saturday and sit in on a panel (Leaping Prose: Alternative Shapes for Approaching the Novel with Peter Grandbois, Carol Moldaw, Kazim Ali, and Carole Maso) where, ahem, I learned the work parataxis.

Having been absent from academic speak for quite some time, twas an enjoyable place to visit. Hearing master craftsmen consider the complications of their work inspires.

Reconnecting with my own literary community, friends and mentors, fired me up more than any panel. I've already written with or about Neil de la Flor here and here, so I'll just add, really, you should buy his book, Almost Dorothy.  And you shouldn't let him near plastic frogs on your dashboard.  But I also got to connect with a few other people.

On Friday, I saw A. Manette Ansay at the UM MFA happy hour at Tryst. She's published six novels, a memoir and a collection of short stories, all of which you should also buy. Limbo, Blue Water and Sister are my favorites. As far as I know, she's safe around dashboard frogs. And her daughter is adorable. 

Me & Manette

During my time in Miami, she read many, many versions of the godawful novella that was my thesis and commented with insight, warmth, wit and enormous patience. Just last month, in a grand fit of organizing papers (reshuffling), I found myself re-reading her comments. Most notably, she understood central elements of the plot well before I consciously put them together, busy as I was writing my way up and down tangential alleys.

Andrew

Also at Tryst, I got to see friend Andrew, who is hard at work at his first year of his MFA at Ohio State in Columbus. While it is not at all my doing, I feel an unjustified stake in his career as I wrote a recommendation for him for grad school. I don't think it was even for OSU. But in any case, I have exchanged stories with him, commented on his work and receive his insights into mine, so when he hits the bestseller list, I'll be able to say I knew him back when.

A good week of writing and friendship for me, although sadly, just at the moment, I'm succumbing to the halo of germs that surrounds conferences and am now scaring the cats with my sneezes. 

AWP MFA WTF

I got to try on an MFA hat yesterday.

My poet friend, in town for AWP, wears hats, hip little denim fedoras, and I'm so pleased to see him and be able to steal his dashing headwear.

In the symbolic sense, the MFA hat feels increasingly distant, for good and bad, as I graduated and, in some ways, fled full steam away, years ago. As I re-realized recently at an intensely educated happy hour, while I am well-educated, I'm not much of an intellectual. Analytical, yes. But I have a terrible memory for quoting authors, and I haven't even read Nietzsche.  And really, when I meet people, I don't want to get at heads, but at souls.  I get all fired up about how folks feel about their projects and hats, their triumphs and struggles. I want to dissect character, not hypotheses, although I will do the latter to get at the former. 

So far, it hasn't been the most remunerative hobby. But I keep doing it, endlessly fascinated by the oddities of people's stories and hearts. I suppose I'm just nosey. The gift is knowing a fascinating group of friends. 

Thumbing through the catalog for AWP brought up nostalgia for authors I've read, literary centers at which I've taken classes (The Loft in Minneapolis is fantastic; I still miss it), workshop names that spoke to my issues with plot, memoir, whatever. I orbit on the outermost fringe of that academic community and only connect to the traditional publishing world in that I know published authors, have read their novels and poems and memoirs. 

It is oddly fitting that AWP is happening right now, at the precise time when I am consciously trying to write more, to rediscover the uses, joys and pitfalls of writing. When I started graduate school, I thought I would be signing up for that academic team, the conferences and panels and teaching and publishing.  Nope.

One of the few quotes I do know (and love) is by Joan Didion.  She said, "We tell ourselves stories in order to live."  I don't know why other people write.  And certainly there isn't just one reason for anyone.  For me though, I know stories have the power to make sense of the world, give me a version of the many truths from which I can move forward. 

Neil's hat

As I busily hatch new plans and try to avoid picking at old wounds, I am keeping close tabs on the story I tell myself.

The character I am going with today: after a period of turmoil, and then of rest, our plucky heroine is ready to take on bigger challenges.  I'm heading out into the wide wide open.  Whatever that means.

I'll bring a few different hats.  It can get cold out there.

AWP & Groundhog Day

The 2011 Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference & Bookfair starts today in Washington, DC, so if you feel the literary climate of the city suddenly expand, that's why. If you need to impress a writer, throw this word into conversation: omphaloskepsis.  It means contemplation of one's navel. 

Politics and Prose is the official bookstore of the event and conveniently lists the free events on its Web site: http://www.politics-prose.com/2011-AWP%20

Today is also Groundhog Day.

Coincidence? I think not. 

For the few people who haven't seen the Bill Murray movie "Groundhog Day," here is the premise: a weather man named Phil (Murray) is trapped reliving the same day, Groundhog Day, over and over again.  Over the course of a many, many years trapped in Groundhog Day, he acquires new skills and (eventually) a considerably nicer temperament, but no matter what he does on that day, he wakes up at 6am to the same song, Sonny & Cher's classic duet, "I Got You, Babe" on his clock radio.  Everyone he knows remembers nothing of the endless permutations he has had of that one day, successes or failures. 

Revising can feel a lot like Groundhog Day. You take the same scene and tweak a few words and not much changes.  In another round, you change one character's response and the scene goes off in another direction -- but who's to say that direction is any better? You're still waking up to Sonny & Cher, coming back to the scene knowing it doesn't work.  You experiment wildly, as Phil does.  You kidnap a groundhog and kill off characters.  You learn the piano and change point of view. You add characters back in, the same, only subtly different. You become exhausted by the monotony of almost-repetition. "I Got You, Babe" plays endlessly.

And then one day, finally, the scene works. February 3rd arrives! And you start revising the next scene.  Over and over and over again. 

Of course, in the midst of those days, you might have moments when you're a wee bit unhinged. 



Happy Groundhog Day!