What authors do you read? Whose tricks are you trying to figure out?
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Trailer for Murakami\'s new book, IQ84
Other Announcements
Kweli Journal’s writing workshops are limited to 10 students, and the price is very reasonable: http://kwelijournal.org/Workshops.htm
The Asian American literary festival is happening next weekend: http://pageturnerfest.org/schedule
Website that promotes Gen Y writing:
http://www.laptoplitmag.com/
You pick up a phone, hear someone’s voice, and with just a “hello,” and a few other words, you can determine that person’s gender, emotional state, the region where they’ve spent most of their lives, and perhaps their class and educational status.
In other words, you know who they are.
Voice is an oral fingerprint.
Or take Halle Berry. She’s beautiful, of course, but her voice, midwestern, malleable—as compared with other actresses whose voice patterns mark their ethnicities—has been as instrumental to her success as her symmetrical features.
Source: Writers Break
Again, voice is an oral fingerprint.
And speaking of acting, if it’s hard for even the most trained actors to duplicate someone else’s exact voice, where does that leave us as writers? How do we replicate voice on a page, when we have to convey audio on a sheet of paper? I write my more recent work under a pseudonym, which has been strangely liberating. I feel freer to experiment, and writing in a multitude of voices—the voice of someone much younger, much older, or from somewhere far away—has allowed me to figure out why voice is so essential to determining who and what we are.
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I’ve been doing a lot of rereading these last few weeks. It’s been years since I’ve read Wright’s Native Son, Petry’s The Street, and Hurston’s Mules and Men, and as I revisit these texts, I see entirely new worlds that I somehow missed that innocent first time around…Also, I’m rereading these books with a sense of something greater than pleasure; these books give me a tremendous understanding of who I once was—and who I am now…There are some books from my past that I may never read again. There are some books that I don’t think I will ever finish. For instance, I stopped reading Franzen’s Freedom once I realized the wife was going to have the affair, a mere what—20?—pages after the rape? And that she was going to have the affair because her husband wasn’t rough enough? I just couldn’t. (Despite a promise to @Inkognegro to finish!). But maybe I’ll go back. I stopped reading Forster’s Passage to India after the court scene because as perfect and brilliant as the first two parts of the book are, that last third seems unnecessary. The book, to me, focuses on whites and their response to colonialism, and so after you get that response—after this moment of understanding and recognition—where else is there for the novel to go?
But enough about me. What books are you revisiting? What books did you not complete? And what books do you hope to someday return to?
]]>I’ve been writing a lot of thank you notes lately, and I realize–I no longer remember how to write a “cursive Q.” I think the “cursive Q” looks like a “loopy 2″ but then again, it may not be a “loopy 2,” and instead, could be a “floppy Z”???
I have to admit I’m charmed by a quick, warm-hearted text, but I know we’re losing something (I’m not sure what) as fewer people create handwritten letters.
The Always Visible Grace Jones
I’ve been thinking a little about Nicki because I’ve been thinking a lot about fiction, and how much value does it have, really?
Nicki Minaj
This year, as I’ve been trying to balance scholarly activity and creative production, I’ve been reminded, more than ever, that Stories are important to me. The Stories that we tell ourselves–the fictional worlds that we create–can provide so much pleasure and opportunities for exploration, even when these fictions never leave the boundaries of our own imaginations. And yet I still feel the world secretly suspects that something “made up” is totally lacking in value.
And so back to Nicki and what I kind of like about her: In a world where everyone claims to keep it real, she’s not ashamed of artifice. She shamelessly appropriates, with a kind of self-awareness matched only by someone creating her own fictional web.
Nicki appreciates story. And so I respect her game.
]]>I’ve been into the World Science Festival since its inception three years ago. The first time I went, I listened to a lecture on the origins of the universe. The second, I joined my friends Lisa and Dan for a discussion about altruism–and whether humans have an innate capacity for generosity (turns out we do). This last time, I went as a volunteer, and out of my three visits, it was the first time I learned something I didn’t want to.
We volunteers were helping amateur astronomers in Battery Park, hopeful that the cloudy sky would clear up so that we could have the star-gazing party that had been planned. It was a humid evening, and so we were all happy when a volunteer coordinator came along and began handing out ice cream, explaining that a nearby vendor was kindly offering treats for all volunteers. Right after the coordinator’s announcement, two young Latino men, dressed in low jeans and long t-shirts, walked by, and asked if they could have some ice cream. The coordinator told them no.
“How do you know they’re not volunteers?” someone asked, because not all of the volunteers had put on their t-shirts.
“They don’t look like they’re volunteers,” the coordinator explained. “They don’t look like they’re into science.”
The five or so volunteers, a multicultural bunch, just stared at the coordinator, the same question in our eyes: “what did someone who was interested in science look like?”
Interestingly enough, the rock star of physics, Neil deGrasse Tyson, dropped by that night and gave an impromptu chat about astronomy. With his faded jeans and his brown, square face tucked under a cowboy hat, I wondered if the coordinator would think of Tyson as someone who looked like he was “into science.”
My Photo of Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson Regaling Audiences with Stories of the Universe
A much clearer photo of Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson
And I think that’s one of the reasons why I write, because life is filled with moments like these, when people’s expectations collide swiftly with reality.
]]>YOUNG TENDER: I always see you around with a big smile on your face. My name is (Young Tender states his name), and I’d like to get to know you.
ME (flattered): I’m engaged and too old for you, but I like your style. My sister’s younger and cuter than me. Maybe I’ll introduce you next time she’s in town.
YOUNG TENDER: Well, who says I’m into cute? I want your number.
ME (stomps off insulted, thinking–did I just get called ugly???).
It’s surprising to me that someone as good-looking as the young tender could have so little game (I mean, why would you tell someone you’re trying to “holla at” that they’re unattractive???). But anyway, that’s life. Other surprising things I’ve learned this year about writing:
1) Rejection can actually make you more hopeful. I’ve had my share of rejection this year–and with the economy so bad and funding for artists/writers so limited, I don’t think I’m the only one. But the strange thing rejection teaches you is that rejection isn’t the end of the world. And when you finally publish a story that has been rejected more than a few times, you have this feeling that anything is possible, and that gives you the courage and motivation to continue writing.
2) Writers can be other writers’ best source of support. Maybe I read too many biographies of writers as a teenager, but I didn’t realize until recently how much other writers are willing to champion each other’s work (when they really like that work).
3) Your job doesn’t have to mean the end of your writing; in fact, it just might make it better. I teach at a community college, where the teaching load is heavy, but my job has forced me to become a little less disorganized and a lot more focused. When the semester ends and I do get a break, I think I’m more productive than I would have been had I had a less hectic schedule.
What surprising things have you learned this year about writing and life?
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