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Be More Productive & Get Your Pomodoro On And Get

Posted on June 15, 2013

I first learned of the Pomodoro Technique from Sona, who at some point last year decided to make it a part of everyday conversation. “How many Pomodoros did you spend on your writing today?” or “I just wrote for four Pomodoros.” At first, I just nodded my head as a husband is supposed to do, until one day she used the Pomodoro in an accusatory tone towards me. “How many Pomodoros did you use on FaceBook today?” Sona had calculated that I used six, and my counter argument had centered on her not being a mathematician. Which is true. She is not. But it got me curious. As soon as I found out the word literally means tomato, I knew this was going to be brilliant.

The Pomodor Technique helps to keep you organized, especially if your work and faffing about seep into your reading and writing time. It was developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s, who I’m guessing enjoyed eating tomatoes. Who doesn’t like tomatoes? Pomodoris are small, red, juicy, and so tasty. The app lets you write down specific tasks and helps keep track of how much time you’re spending on these tasks.

Pomoodoro Time Management App for Writers

A major part of the creative writing courses I teach is spent on revision, and inevitably the conversation turns to the writing process. Beginning creative writing students have this impression that writers are extremely disciplined and organized. People who sit at their desks, furiously typing away on their typewriters, crumpling up drafts that don’t work and throwing them towards the bin , occasionally lifting their heads up to smell the salt water wafting in the air, as they look out at their beach front property. I, of course, correct my students, and tell them that this is only the way I work. Okay, not really. Sort of.

They are surprised to hear and read interviews I sometimes bring in of writers they are fans of, confessing they don’t have any system. Or others, who churn out insane amounts of work like Joyce Carol Oates. When the hell does this woman sleep? In a collection of interviews collected over several decades of Salman Rushdie, for example, he confesses early on that he envies writers who have a set schedule, and admits that he is “extremely lazy,” in an early interview.

Rushdie’s “technique,” it seems is really just to wing it and get it done. During my year at the CUNY Writers’ Institute, that was really what it came down to: getting it done. It’s been a little over a month since I’ve graduated and I’m letting other things bog me down and get in the way of me sitting down to write. Email. Job search. Facebook. Twitter. Blogging. Fortunately, there’s an app for that. For Windows, Mac, and whatever the hell Ubuntu is. It’s completely free: http://www.pomodoroapp.com

I use the Pomodoro app to make sure I don’t faff about watching TV for 20 Pomodoros. It’s a great way not just to organize your writing time, but cooking time, and reading time, and regimenting your social media time. Essentially, it’s a kitchen timer, broken down into 25 minute increments. Every 25 minute block of time has a specific task associated with it, and you use as many pomodoros as you need to accomplish a task. The best part about each pomodoro is that when the buzzer rings, you can take a short 3-5 minute break, and for every four, you can take a longer 15-30 minute one.  Once you set the task and timer, the app disappears, leaving you alone with your work until the last few seconds of the pomodoro.

What do you think of it?

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Categories: Lit Life, Musings

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Theater Review: Notes On Neil Labute’s “Reasons to be Happy”

Posted on June 11, 2013

Neil Labute's play, "Reasons to be Happy"Over the weekend, Sona surprised me for our anniversary by taking me to Reasons to be Happy, a new play by one of my favorite playwrights, although you may question how much I like him at the end of this post: Neil LaBute. As a special bonus, Pam (Jenna Fischer) from the office played Stephanie the angry, racist hairdresser. That’s not really her title. Or maybe it is. This is about as far as you should read if you don’t want me to reveal anything more about the play.  It’s still playing if you want to get tickets: http://www.mcctheater.org. Then come back and read my rant. I mean, review.

Ahem: Spoiler Alert.

Three years after a volatile break up, Greg and Stephanie run into each other in the parking lot of a Trader Joe’s and old wounds resurface. They broke up because he had casually mentioned to a third party she had a “regular” face, and she flipped out, unveiling deeper issues of beauty, society, and the fickleness of their relationship. This play picks up where the other left off and deals with the aftermath.

A few scenes in, at Stephanie’s insistence, Greg agrees to give their relationship another go. There are just a few hurdles. Stephanie is married, and Greg is dating her former friend, Carly, a single mom, who we find out just before the intermission, is pregnant. Like a telenovela, except with a Nirvana soundtrack. Stephanie assumes that Greg agreeing to restarting their relationship means he will actually do something and promptly ends her marriage, moves back with her parents. He, on the other hand, does nothing and continues going through the motions of being in a relationship with Carly.

But he isn’t rejecting Stephanie. He wants them both, and in this world LaBute has created, Greg has the power to choose either, and in the end he magnanimously chooses to reject both of them and find himself by taking a teaching job in New York City. The ending is very hopeful and gives the impression that as unlikely as it might be, he and Stephanie have a shot as the curtains come to a draw when she is reading a NYC travel guide in the break room. The character of Kent, a seemingly minor character, acts as the foil to Greg. He is Carly’s ex-husband, an alpha male, and although he can’t properly express himself with much eloquence, there’s a poignancy and grief to his eloquence that not many playwrights could get across very well.

As I sat through Reasons to be Happy, at first it seemed as though it was quite a departure from Neil Labute’s other plays because it’s not as dark in tone and every character has some genuinely hilarious lines, but mainly it ends on a happy note. Initially, I also thought the female characters were written well, given their circumstances, which is of course a situation created by LaBute. But when we left the theater and I thought more about it, I was surprised at how similar it was to Fat Pig. which is brutal in the way he assaults the comfort of the audience from the get go. Things that I glossed over and forgave the main character for was one line Carly says. “I took care of it,” referring to the abortion she had and her lack of emotion, letting Greg off the hook. Stephanie has ended her marriage because she thought there was something real here, and these are all things Greg set into motion, and he doesn’t seem bothered that his child has been aborted.

LaBute skillfully creates a plot that is not any different from his other plays. It is pretty dark, laden with meanness, even though it is unintentional, and there are the usual characters he tends to explore: straight, white people in dysfunctional relationships, with a straight, white male in a position of power. Like Tom from Fat Pig, Greg controls the fate of the story and the lives of the women involved. The other male character is a foil to show that under the façade of politeness and nicety, he is an asshole. Except in this play, the foil is as nice a guy as you’re going to find in a Neil LaBute play.

Unlike his other plays, where the tension and meanness is unrelentless, in this play we’re put at ease with unrelenting zingers that serve to wrap this story up as comedy. He successfully manipulates the audience into not feeling angst when it’s all over and the tension does not feel suffocating. Through the humor, we discover a lot about the characters, and although there are some major implausibility issues with some of the scenes (to start: why the fuck would both girls agree to meet him in the break room? Why are they so desperate to be with him that they give him the power to choose one of them like this a 1970s porn? And he just magically gets a full time teaching job in NYC. Just like that. That happens). Greg is that non-committal, wishy washy, heterosexual, white male, unwilling to make a life decision that LaBute likes to use to put a lens on larger issues.

He writes dialogue extremely well, but I did find the stereotypes a little grating once I left the theater. And Greg, the substitute teacher, who is at a much higher intellectual and cultural level than anybody else in the play because he reads, is being fought over by two working class women, and Kent, also working class, can’t express himself because that requires going to college, and can only do things that involve physical prowess.

Stephanie is a hairdresser, so obviously she’s not very clever or educated, and LaBute uses that to channel casual racism as part of her character.

“You and your fucking words,” Stephanie says. She confuses Holland Tunnel with Hellen Keller, who she knows nothing about. Established early on that she’s not very bright.

Somehow they get on the topic of Rhode Island, which she has no clue about its location or anything about it. She’s a hairdresser. They don’t know about these things. Greg mentions Brown University being there. “Brown? The color of dogshit,” she says, making her a potentially racist hairdresser.

When he refuses to make a decision, she calls him, “Gandhi or that black one.” Of course he’s the only one who knows the answer.
“oh fuck em, theyre Asian. They can wait.”

Carly, a single mom, is outwardly strong, and while she doesn’t give Greg power over her decision to have an abortion, she is ultimately a vulnerable girl with the same track record in relationships as Stephanie. So it makes sense for her to want a deadbeat, lying, substitute teacher in her life.

Carly feels rejected when Greg rejects her sexual advances. Shows her vulnerability. “I feel safe.”
“It’s not 1845 anymore. I have options.”
“If there is no us, there is only me.”

“I feel like I could love you”
“I dont need a dog. I need a man.”

Kent, makes equally poor choices in relationships and realizes how badly he fucked up the best relationship he had with Carly, but he’s doing alright in the sexy lady department, even if he isn’t happy. He has an incredibly beautiful girlfriend, or so he claims, but laments to Greg that men are always checking her out. Because she’s so hot. On the bright side, he talks about his major sexual conquests he’s been her first for, because these things are important.

Picks up book on table. “White fang. Sounds gay.”
“She’s really cute, Jennifer,” Greg says about Kent’s daughter.

“Dont be gay”
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone says she looks like me”

“You’re so diplomatic. You should work in an embassy. Is that the right word?”

“I just think reading is kinda useless. Even if youre doing something stupid, at least youre doing something.
“Reading is selfish. Instead of reading, you could be out doing something useful. Like building a church.”
“Has reading made you any happier?”

As much as it seems like I didn’t enjoy the play, the contrary is true. I think he’s a fantastic dramatist and writes dialogue better than many writers I’ve read. For a longer rant on the issue, read my review of Fat Pig.

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Theater Review: Neil LaBute’s, “Fat Pig”

Posted on June 9, 2013

Playbill: Fat PigOver the weekend, I went to see Neil LaBute’s latest play, Reasons to Be Happy and was pleasantly surprised not to feel guilty immediately afterwards. The guilt came a little later on, and I wrote an entire blog post about that here. The characters in his plays are brutal. Sometimes they kill children, are involved in gangrapes, beating of homosexuals, and in other cases, they’re sociopaths, unable to feel empathy for anyone.

His plays have been called out for misogyny, misanthropy, and relying too heavily on shock as part of the narrative. I don’t disagree with any of that, but the one thing they gloss over is that he is an absolute genius when it comes to manipulating words, and creating the most imaginative plotlines. So it’s a little disappointing such a brilliant writer is constantly writing plays about straight, white people. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

This is not my first encounter with Neil LaBute. Many years ago – 2004 to be exact –as a surprise, my wife, Sona took me to see Fat Pig at the Off-Broadway MCC Theater in New York City for New Year’s. Then we stuffed our faces with freshly made Mexican food at La Palapa and waddled to mid town in the middle of the night, blissfully unaware of the irony as our jiggly bellies swayed back and forth. Fat Pig revolves around Tom, a seemingly nice guy, with boyish charm, played by Andrew McCarthy. He is dating a confident, overweight librarian, and Carter, his best friend, played by Jeremy Piven, mercilessly ridicules her because of her weight, and also Tom for dating a “fat pig.” He tells him to “stick with your own kind.”

Tom is presented to us as a passive participant, clearly the moral center and without him, everything is lost in the play. Spoiler alert: everything is lost. Tom is placed in direct contrast to Carter, who is a complete dickhead: overtly misogynistic, cruel, unfeeling, and makes extremely mean spirited fat jokes without any empathy towards her as a person. There are other complications added to this like the slim and pretty Jeannie, who takes it as a personal insult Tom has chosen Helen “the fat pig,” over him, but the central conflict is that the fate of both women rests in Tom’s hands, depending on what he decides to do. The idea of beauty is one that comes up in many of his plays, and is one that he constantly challenges the audience on.

For most of the play, Tom chooses to do nothing, until he is forced to take a stand when Helen pushes him to do so. At a work barbeque, it is clear he is embarrassed by her, and she tells him that their relationship can only work if he accepts her and their situation, even if that means defending her to his friends. And Tom, the hero makes the first decision in the play by giving up. The play ends with them both being broken hearted, and the audience reeling from the emotional turmoil Neil Labute has just put us through, without any emotional payoff.

In the Company of Men, two men decide to inflict cruelty upon a deaf woman by sleeping with her, making her think they’re both in love with her and then dumping her as a game. LaBute has a play with a similar premise I read called, “The Shape of Things,” where a woman is the one who inflicts this cruelty on a boy, who thinks they’re in love. “Let’s hurt someone,” a line from In the Company of Men, in general, sums up all of Neil LaBute’s plays, including Reasons to be Happy: Someone has to get hurt.

For days after watching Fat Pig, I still thought about how mean the dialogue was, the characters, the level of misogyny, and yet how brilliantly written. He writes both male and female characters very effectively. Or at least better than many novels I’ve read and Hollywood films I’ve watched. The stock characters are usually the people Hollywood would make the heroes: that generic chiselledfacewhiteguy. In both Fat Pig and In The Company of Men, these are the men who bear the brunt of the audience’s feelings of hatred. By contrast, the women are usually drawn fairly well, with strong dialogue and are emotionally complex (relatively speaking).

And yet, despite LaBute being a fantastic writer, the claim of mysogyny, racism, or homophobia are also very present in his work with lines like, “Fuck em, they’re Asian. They can wait,” amongst many others. The premise he tends to use seem deliberate in fostering an environment of misogyny, racism, and homophobia akin to Quentin Tarrantino using a narrative premise that allows him to use the word “nigger” through his characters, as a matter of normalcy. It would seem odd not to use the word in a world set during slavery the same way it’s perfectly normal for Neil Labute’s characters to talk about being white, heterosexual, and make jokes about women and minorities. When he does have black characters (no brown ones yet), it’s specifically for issues relating to race. Take the film, “Lakeview Terrace,” where Samuel L. Jackson plays a cop so enraged by an interacial couple that he goes mental and it becomes a bit of a parody. In his 2005 penned play, “This is How it Goes,” he uses an interracial couple to talk about the facade of niceties and get to the meat of the matter: racism and what this term even means.

There are many excellent writers out there in a variety of genres, and we will all continue to flock to their work, but it would be nice if the issue of representation was broached. Or even attempted to be taken into the fold of their narrative and the world they create.

A friend of mine, author Dhonielle Clayton, a YA literature fanatic and little brown librarian in Harlem, wrote an open letter to John Greene about his lack of diversity in any of his novels. And they had a conversation over twitter, one YA book nerd to another, with his reasoning being that he didn’t know how to write non-white characters. He did say that he would think about it in the future, but let’s face it, he doesn’t have to do anything. I think it’s a silliest argument about representation though, and there’s not much in terms of originality in the answer. Brown and black fiction writers are expected to write white, or race neutral characters in their books all the time for the perceived white audience, who won’t otherwise be able to relate.

An excellent article with such a catchy title up on race-bending, Star Trek: Into the Whiteness, calls out JJ Abrams on completely white washing the racially ambigious Khan Noonian Singh, to a white guy. And his reason is exactly the same as every generic white writer.  He didn’t want to villify someone brown. A nice sentiment, but the alternative, it seems, is to pretend we’re all invisible. Here’s a thought. Write us the way you would write a white character, except let us keep our skin color. We’ll even relax the laws that require you to talk about our exotic culture and traditions in our native land. The casting folks for Cloud Atlas decided there aren’t any Asian actors in Hollywood, so thought it a better idea to put a white actor in yellow face, slanting his eyes, and that’s exactly how it went down. Blackface, for now, is not as in vogue as Yellowface. But it may very well make a comeback too.

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Categories: Musings, Reviews

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There’s An App For That: 5 Awesome Apps For Writers

Posted on June 5, 2013

scrivenerscreenshotIenvy people who can write entire novels in their notebook, or sit down at their computer and type out their novels on a simple wordprocessor. But at the same time, I feel sorry for them because they don’t have my totally kickass Apps. I often feel like saying to these people sitting under the shade of a tree, writing in their Moleskin notebooks, “It doesn’t have to be like this. There’s an App for that!”

When I first started writing my short stories for my MFA thesis in 2006, there weren’t any writing apps that I knew of, so my desktop was littered with files and folders within folders for research and rough drafts, random notes, and conversation snippets everywhere. It was hell trying to figure out whether roughdraft_recent was more recent than roughdraft_recentrecent, or roughdraft_finalonegoddamnit.

I’ve gone through countless Apps over the years to attempt to keep my research organized and to keep track of my writing sessions. Some have been excellent writing Apps, and others way too complicated to use, or are a major waste of time to customize and setup. Here is a list of five Apps that I use:

The Apps:

Scrivener: This is my all time favourite App, which has a great user interface and lets you have the notecard open as you type in fullscreen. It keeps everything organized and doesn’t have so many options that make it overwhelming. There is a wordcount feature that requires the use of Growl on your Mac, but you have to get a hack to use it on the iPad, although they are developing an official version. It’s a fantastic application. $45

Storyist: Like Scrivener, this is a wonderful App that lets you organize your writing with subfolders, and different sections, including using notecards and plot points. It has a flexible wordcount feature that lets you add goals for a session with a little ding when you’ve reached your goal. The main reason I switched from Scrivener is that it has an extremely efficient official iPad version that lets you create new projects, view and edit your files from your iPad or iPhone, in conjunction with dropbox. $59

Dropbox: There really isn’t a valid reason not to have this installed on every desktop, laptop, and mobile device you own. Save your files and folders in dropbox and you can access them from anywhere and on any device. It keeps everything synchronized so you can work on a document on your laptop and continue working on it on a desktop or iphone elsewhere. You can use it to share folders or files with individuals or groups. It’s the ultimate in writer apps and the free version comes with 2GB, plenty of space to hold all of your files and then some. Get the free version!

Producteev: This is the kick in the pants you need to properly schedule your life. You can add tasks and assign a task to someone else or to a group of people. You can create networks and projects, so it’s great for writing groups as well. Use it online, across devices, and it’ll send you emails if you want it to remind you of when things are due. Get it for free! An alternative is the Pomodoro App, which does not have as many bells and whistles, but it sets a timer for you to complete each task. Also free.

Mac Freedom: The problem with coffee shops and many Writers’ Colonies is that they often have wifi available. It’s never used for “research,” and I end up getting on social media or checking my email. That lasts about 8 hours and then my day is done. This effectively acts as an Internet Killer, which is what they should call it. It disables your wifi for however long you can bear to be without it and no amount of sniveling, crying, or begging will let you come back on. Nothing will let you back online before time is up. If you think restarting the computer will solve things and let you get high on FaceBook, think again. This detox is not for the weak willed. Get it for $10.

Crashplan: This extra one is not an App and only available for your computers, but ilike dropbox, it is absolutely crucial in making sure you’re covered just in case something happens to your work. . It creates full back up of your entire hard drive(s), including external drives and it lets you download any of your files from any computer. Plans start at only $2 a month.

What apps are you using?

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Categories: Lit Life

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Mindy Kaling and the Burden of Race

Posted on June 4, 2013

A few months ago, I read Anita Felicelli’s no-holds barred essay on the Rumpus titled “The Sacred and the Profane,” and thought the points she raises are very interesting ones. Some I’m conflicted about, and others I completely agree with. But it’s a conversation I feel should be taking place. She covers a lot of ground in the essay, but since I’m not getting paid, I’m only going to address a point she brings up towards the end of her essay, concerning my friend Mindy Kaling, And I don’t mean in the FaceBook friend type of way.  We’re Twitter friends. Okay, I’m following her and retweet her on occasion. Fine, pretty often. Sometimes I don’t even know what TV show she’s referencing. “Pete and Peggy have a kid together.” Retweet that mofo. “Live in Hollywood/Work in the Valley/look like Bollywood/Talk like the Valley.” She just tweeted my life, sort of. Retweet. Fade to black. Insert awesome transition here.

In the first part of the essay, Anita’s argument centers on the imbalance of media coverage and the lens the American media in particular uses to highlight things going on in countries with brown folk, where things that happen “over there,” become emblematic of the culture, the religion, the inherent savagery and otherness in direct contrast to freedom loving America, where dodgy things are one-offs. I more or less agree with that. But then she takes on Mindy Kaling, and I had to take a break from reading her essay to mash up some ginger and calm myself down. Anita’s point is that despite Mindy being funny, she bears a responsibility to bringing more diversity to the show by hiring writers of color, and writing parts for actors of color. Anita writes:

“She didn’t ask for the responsibility — as she says, television is not politics, though it also functions on popularity — but she has it. When you’re a minority who is not as successful as she is in her field, you see that opportunities are few and far between for minorities in the arts. It also turns out Kaling’s writer’s room is mostly men. Mindy Kaling says she isn’t interested in having ethnic humor, or her skin color, or her gender define her: ‘I never want to be called the funniest Indian female comedian that exists…I feel like I can go head-to-head with the best white, male comedy writers that are out there. Why would I want to self-categorize myself into a smaller group than I’m able to compete in?’”

And this is where the conflict comes in. Does she bear the responsibility? She is in a place of power and could very well hire a more diverse staff if she wanted to, but the real question is would she still have a show? I agree that it would be nice if she did all of those things, but it’s a tall order. Mindy Kaling is utterly hilarious, an extremely talented writer and actor, and has surrounded herself with other talented people. Who are all white, or “race neutral.” This is not an accident. After the pilot of The Mindy Project aired, the blogosphere went crazy with people scratching their heads (post on it having “squicky jokes about race.”), others making accusations of it being unfunny, of the show being a mess.

In the pilot episode, an uninsured Muslim patient walks into the office dressed in “Muslim attire,” and Kaling complains, to Betsy Putch played by Zoe Jarman, who says, “More white patients. Done.” As Homer Simpson says, “it’s funny because it’s true.” And that is sadly why I found it funny the same way I found the racial humor in Harold and Kumar funny. And why people still turn to clips of Goodness Gracious Me for a hit of humor that hits home.  It’s unfortunate there has never been another show quite as epic.

What were we talking about? Ah yes, white people. From the writers on the show t0 every single major character — the best friend, the romantic hopeful, the one night stand, and miscellaneous platonic relationships, every single one of them is white for all intents and purposes. But this is nothing new. Plenty of shows have an all-white cast, including some of my favorites, like The Following, where even the terrorist is white. You know there’s a racial agenda when a brown man can’t even play the terrorist. At least the show 24 gave brown actors something to do.

I completely get why Mindy doesn’t want to self-categorize. She wants to stay on the air and she’s already rocked the boat with subtle to not so subtle references to race and her Indian origin. I never thought I’d see the day when not just one, but two Asian leads were cast in a Hollywood film, yet Harold and Kumar happened with a brilliant marketing strategy that it would go straight to DVD and then amass a following. Which is exactly what happened, after many awful roles Kal Penn was forced to take on, from terrorist to bumbling Indian, to rapper from some kind of Middle Eastern country (ha! the hilarity!) with access to a rocket launcher and a completely over the top accent. And he’s an extremely talented actor, just look at any scene from The Namesake if there’s any doubt.

But as groundbreaking as Harold and Kumar was in showing Hollywood that two brown leads could make money at the box office, it stopped there. Cloud Atlas saw us bringing back yellowface (or maybe it never really went away), where white actors like Hugo Weaving put on slanty eyes and boom, they’re Asian. Here’s a radical thought: just hire a real one.

Growing up in California in the ’90s, there were all kinds of shows with African Americans on them, from Family Matters to the Fresh Prince. And now, there’s nothing unless you go over to BET, which has really awful shows. Blackface, fortunately, is still uncool, but yellowface never really went away, and is a staple on Disney. JJ Abrams even replaced the villain, Khan Noonian Singh, with white actor, Benedict Cumberbatch on Star Trek’s Into the Whiteness. I mean, Darkness.

Mindy Kaling is undoubtedly a total badass. And she’s a woman of color with her own show on a major network. This is no small achievement. And she doesn’t take shortcuts by writing hollow characters or going into lazy stereotypes. Most of the characters have some depth and even her take on familiar tropes is original. Like Mindy, her character is also a badass, and wonderfully complex despite the facade of being vapid. All of the characters are equally well written, and most importantly the show is funny as hell. That’s a fact and you do not argue with facts. It would be nice if she decided to fight the power and bring in a diverse writing staff, as well as diversify the characters on the show.  But I don’t know if she would fight for a brown, romantic lead. Naveen Andrews is on twitter. So is Kal Penn. I’m pretty sure they’d make time for Mindy Kaling.

Until the revolution. . . .

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Viva La Revolucion! 30 Day Novel Writing Chapter Challenge!

Posted on June 3, 2013

writerprogressIt’s been firmly established that I suck at self imposed deadlines. I graduated from the CUNY Writers’ Institute in May, and since then, I have done absolutely nothing relating to my writing. And I’m not exaggerating, even if you count the time I went to a coffee shop, with the intention of revising my chapter. But as soon as I ordered a chocolate croissant warmed up, it all went to hell. To hell, I say. I’d like to think that the Writers’ Institute has instilled me with some sort of work ethic, but unfortunately it has not. If there is no threat of humiliation from other students and fancy pant editors, nothing gets done. Some of my classmates from the Writers’ Institute, who are also feeling this same way have formed a writing group fittingly called The Stockholm Syndrome Writer’s Collective (#SSWC), but have yet to meet, so I’ll let you know how that goes.

It’s a repeat performance of years past. From moments, days, months, and unfortunately years, after my MFA, writing conferences, panels, or writing workshops I’ve been a part of. Fortunately, my wife, Sona, shares my madness, and sometimes we go to creative writing panels and conferences together. There is a momentary high where we are invigorated and excited about getting to our writing, but after a promising start, it dies out to things like the art of the hustle a.k.a. freelance writing, adjuncting, paying bills, consuming mass media and generally spending way too much time waffling about in front of the telly or the computer. We have pangs of guilt, but it’s become a part of the cycle.

Navdeep Singh Dhillon Graduating From The CUNY Writers' Institute Fiction ProgramThis current cycle was particularly painful because it happened through muffled screams, in slow motion, where the writing, routine, deadlines came to a screeching halt, and I predicted it would happen the second my last workshop at the CUNY Writers’ Institute ended. This is not to say I just let it happen. In a frenzy, the week before my reading, I stayed up six nights in a row like a crackhead to revise two short stories and two novel chapters that had gone through some pretty intense workshops. But after my reading, despite plans to make a routine and get shit done, everything came to an abrupt halt. That state of restlessness, guilt, the stress of inertia, it all returned.

I wish I was one of those people who could plan out their day and just pencil in 2 hours of writing time, or spend an entire day just writing. But I’m not that bloke. I’m the other bloke, who says, “but first, let me check my email.”

Me and Sona are currently participating in Michelle Rafter’s Wordcount Blogathon (Day 3 yo!) and even involved my dad, Pashaura Singh Dhillon, a 74 year old Punjabi poet. It’s an exciting process to be forced to write everyday. And my blog posts are long, in case you couldn’t tell, so for the past few days I’ve logged in about 1500- 2000 words a day on narrative blog posts on this site and over at ishqinabackpack.com. As much as it’s kicking my ass, it’s a lot of fun just sitting the fuck down and writing. It’s also been fun connecting with other bloggers and readers online.

I’m stretched thin already with completing the blogathon with this site and our travel site (ishqinabackpack.com), starting a summer teaching blogging and fiction gig, and in the midst of selling our place and buying a new one.  So being the practical parents that we are, we thought what better time to add a Novel Writing Chapter Challenge to the mix in 30 day cycles? Also read Sona’s blog post on the chapter challenge).

30 Day WordCount Chapter Challenge

The challenge is open to novel writers of any genre. The purpose is to devise a plan that works for you. A chapter a week. If you’re a maniac, a chapter a day. 1000 words a day. 2000 a day. x amount per week. A 30 minute writing sprint. five sessions of 500 words per session. Whatever works for you. The official hashtag on twitter is #chapterchallenge, but we’ll also be using existing ones like #amwriting and #writingsprint. If there are others you’re using, just make sure you use it in conjunction with #chapterchallenge.

The Basics

1) Follow us on twitter @navdeep_dhillon and @Sona_C
2) Like us on our Fan Pages: Navdeep | Sona
3) During the 30 day cycle, every Monday, I will post a weekly Chapter Challenge Reflection post, where I will write about my writing week. You will do the same on your website or blog. Link back to me. Easy Peasy.
4) Connect with me and Sona via twitter using the official hashtag #chapterchallenge.
5) There will also be scheduled twitter gangsta parties before each cycle and after. If you’ve never participated in a twitter chat, sign in to this website with your twitter ID on the day of the chat: www.tweetchat.com.

Cycle #1: The very first 3o Day Novel Writing Chapter Challenge starts on Monday, June 10th and ends on Wednesday, July 10th, because we couldn’t get our shit together before June 1st.

What Won’t Happen

  • - We can’t connect you to agents, editors, or anyone in a position of power. We can’t even claim to know a guy who knows a guy . . .
  • - We’re not in any position to help you get published, but know a guy, who has read a book. We can tell you about the book.
  • - Don’t send us anything. Unless it’s money. Or British chocolate. Or whisky. Those things we will never ever say no to, especially the last two.

Details

  • Badges - You want badges, we got badges. Just not yet. Okay, probably not for a while. But once we do, you can be sure they will look spectacular. Like fireworks. They’ll explode on the screen and things will catch on fire, a bunch of shit will be destroyed. Great for parties.
  • June 8th ChapterChallenge Twitter chat – Most likely, it’ll just be me and Sona hanging out in the twitter chat. But hopefully some more folks will join in. It will take place Thursday, June 6, at 6 p.m. Pacific time/9 p.m Eastern time. What, you got better things to do on a Thursday evening? The chat will last about half an hour. Unless shit gets crazy. Then who knows? We’ll be using the hashtag #chapterchallenge. If you’ve never participated in a twitter chat, check out this website: www.tweetchat.com.
  • July 11 Gangsta Party and Twitter chat - Once the challenge is over, we’ll give everyone who participated a link to an image they can use on their sites (if you have them) based The blogathon ends on Sunday, June 30. All June 30 posts must be published by 8 p.m. Pacific time in order to give the blogathon crew time to verify the results. The wrap party will take place on Monday, July 1, at 10 a.m. Pacific time/1 p.m. Eastern. We’ll share what we liked and learned, then announce raffle prize winners.

Prizes

Design your own prizes. I’m getting taken out to a speakeasy in NYC and barbeque by Sona for each cycle. Right, Sona? Good. Glad that’s sorted. The real prize is a sense of accomplishment, as small as it may seem at first, that you completed 30 days of noveling and made some fucking progress instead of moping around, bitching to yourself or on facebook and twitter about how you should be writing more (or at all!), #sadface.

Signing Up

Write a response to the chapter challenge every Monday during the cycle in progress on your own online spaces. Link back here. That’s it. It’ll be more fun if you have twitter and facebook, but if you’re a person that hates fun, then that’s all you have to do. If you’re a person who likes fun, on the other hand, then pop back up to “Basics” and do everything there. Remember, the very first session starts June 10th.

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Video: Illinois Teacher Resigns In YouTube Video, Calls Out Administration Over Standardized Testing

Posted on June 2, 2013


I spend way too much time on the internet and as such, I am generally pretty unmoved by most videos lamenting the state of education. Even essays and articles on education reform I don’t find particularly engaging. As an adjunct instructor, the instability of teaching without the prospects of a full time teaching job for many years is a sad reality of my profession. And as cliched as it is, it is a rewarding job. But the wage is not a livable one, and I know many adjuncts who are on welfare, or work as waitresses or in coffeeshops just to get by and be able to afford health insurance.

I count myself extremely fortunate that I’ve been teaching for almost ten years, and am allowed to teach  classes in subjects I love like film, creative writing, and literature, but more importantly I am given the autonomy to teach the way I feel is best. This is not the case for many adjuncts at other institutions, especially when there’s some idiotic pre-determined reading list that everyone is mandated to teach. One of the things I truly enjoy about teaching is that I’m able to take a complicated idea and explain it to my student, and it never ceases to bring a smile to my face when they get it. Especially when it’s about dealing with dry subjects like grammar. And the diversity of the students make every course I teach really a lot of fun for me. Yes, I need to be entertained too.

One of the assignments I had my creative writing students do was to retell a folktale or fairytale and many of my students have identities rooted in other countries, and they came back with the craziest stories that went well beyond Little Red Riding Hood. There were stories of baby eaters, soul stealing foxes, and magical lands. As much as I lament having to hustle to pay the bills. There’s just no way adjunct teaching would pay the bills. My first year in NYC, I taught 8 classes, including online courses at Kaplan and the Arts Institute. And even if I had been able to sustain that intensity (and not gotten any writing at all done), it still isn’t enough money. But most importantly, you can’t get any writing done because you constantly have to hustle. And that is part of the reason I felt such empathy for this teacher. I can’t imagine not teaching and it would take a lot for me to say I’m giving up teaching. Truth is, I like it. I’m good at it. And it sucks that there’s just no stability in it with 80% of the teachers employed being adjuncts, there is no reason for institutions to better the situation when there are plenty of grad students and adjuncts who need the jobs to replenish any vacancies.

I had very low expectations of this video that a friend and fellow adjunct sent me with the vague and irritatingly instructive subject line: “Watch this!” So, of course I go through the charade of pretending I’m not going to watch it, and after those three seconds lapse, I click the link. What else am I going to do? Lift weights?

I was immediately drawn to this teacher, who is exactly the kind of person I would want teaching my daughter, rather than someone who values test scores over critical thinking, and has genuine passion for what she does. She is articulate, passionate, and it saddens me that she felt she had no other recourse, but to resign from a job she clearly loves. There are no essays or youtube videos of adjuncts quitting mainly because we don’t matter. As a noun, adjuncts are “a thing added to something else as a supplementary rather than an essential part.”  We don’t fare much better in other parts of speech, whether we’re talking adjectives, nouns, or something more complex.

I’ve worked in places where the faculty and staff are wonderful, and other places where the opposite is true. Adminstrators often are the least qualified to pass judgments on teaching, yet have a say in things they really shouldn’t, where standardized test scores are the only benchmarks for passing particular courses, or teacher evaluations. I tend to do well in my evaluations, yet I still find them ridiculous to be the only criterion. Some questions I think are great, but others are way too subjective, like “Did the teacher teach the subject with passion?” If grammar and sentence mechanics are a major component to a class, how do you do that with passion? Grammar is dry. Essay structure and prompts are boring. Nobody likes doing it no more than anyone enjoys learning about coding. It’s technical. Literature or creative writing, on the other hand, is very different, where this question has at least a better footing.

But to have this be the only criterion for teacher assessments is silly.  Ellen Rubenstein, the Illinois teacher who posted the video above, had only intended the video to be seen by administrators at her school in the hopes it might spark at least a conversation about change, since nothing else seemed to be working. And she was being forced to transfer because she wasn’t being docile. Instead, this one video – the only one she has posted on her YouTube account, went viral, and was viewed by over 400,000 people in one week. As of today, it’s a little over 500,000.

She is obviously a very passionate teacher and I think it’s awful that in the zeal for standardized testing as the only benchmark of skill acquisition, our education system has very little need for actual teachers with any passion. Just before she offers her video resignation, she talks about a really powerful anecdote from an unlikely source: Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hatches the Egg, which I’ve always thought of as a fun, nonsensical book, and one I’m going to put on my reading list for the summer.

51dQu1nVqPL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_When she would read the story about an elephant who hatches an egg, and hunters who take the elephant away to a circus, her daughter (4 at the time) would cry everytime she read the following line: “Horton backs down with a heavy heart” when the hunters force Horton to leave his branch so they can put him on display in a cage. It’s a particularly moving and apt metaphor, and amidst tears, Ellen finally says, “Even my 4 year old daughter knew this was a moment of defeat and loss. I am Horton. And I too am backing down with a heavy heart.”

Even though I hear about the flawed system that causes wonderful teachers like Ellen to either succumb to being “Yes Men,”and remaining quiet,  or to leave their jobs, I remain optimistic. All it takes is one administrator or principal to have an ethical vision and to see how ridiculous it is to raise test scores by homogenizing teaching, like it’s a type of cheese. Here’s a great article about a school principal who cuts security funding, and reinvests it into the Arts program, completely transforming everything about this elementary school in Massachusetts: http://ow.ly/lzDlT.

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Wordcount Blogathon 2013, Here I Come!

Posted on June 1, 2013

A month ago I a graduated from the CUNY Writers’ Institute. Through the program, I have made some real progress on my novel, as well as reignited my first love of writing and reading short stories through an intensive year of workshops with NYC editors. I’ve started blogging about being an urban Papa for Mom.me’s Project Dad, and have begun working for New York Institute of Career Development (NYICD)as a Blogging, Fiction, and Memoir Advisor, which is going brilliantly, not just because it’s across from Grand Central Station, although it doesn’t hurt being right next to such a fun place!  I’ve even gotten two of my short stories into good enough shape to submit to literary journals.
The WordCount Blogathon 2013: #blog2013But with the lack of deadlines, my momentum is waning and my blogging has completely fallen by the wayside. When I first started this blog, it was a way for me to organize my thoughts on my novel and to build my freelance portfolio up. Now, I’d like to create an active readership and a sense of community by regularly posting relevant things, and to make it fun again, rather than it feeling like “work.” My posts have been sporadic, cluttered, and it’s high time I took my blogging seriously. I’m looking forward to the WordCount Blogathon 2013 as an opportunity to revitalize my blog. And as usual, I decided to create more of a challenge by taking on another blog to revitalize: IshqInABackpack.com. Yep, two blogs in 30 days.

I had been sitting around watching Game of Thrones, when my wife, Sona Charaipotra, told me about the Blogathon. I immediately perked up and we both signed up the same time. A minute later, we signed up our flailing travel blog, IshqInABackpack.com, which had initially been created to document our six-month honeymoon through India, and is now rebranded as a narrative-focused family travel site. And it’s even more inconsistent than this site, if you can believe that! Then we managed to convince my 74-year-old father, Pashaura Singh Dhillon, a Punjabi poet and singer, to sign up for the Blogathon. Like both of us, he is also quite lackadaisical about the frequency of his blogging, and very much like me, he spends way too much time on each blog post, making it feel like an all-encompassing essay sometimes. So it’s good fun that it’s become a bi-coastal family affair.  I’ll write a separate Blogathon post for IshqInABackpack.com, and please do checkout my father’s post at: PashauraSinghDhillon.com and Sona’s post: SonaCharaipotra.com, and follow the conversation on Twitter @navdeep_dhillon with the hashtag #blog2013.

Here are the things I’m going to accomplish through the WordCount Blogathon starting today, June 1st:

  • Structure. Right now, my posts are a little scattered, although they are generally restricted to a couple of categories. I’d like to start writing more structured posts on the craft of writing, my own process, giving props to other writers whose work I like, especially debut authors of novels and short stories through reviews, my thoughts on literary trends, conferences and panels I attend, adjuncting, teaching, and race in literature/film/media.
  • Discipline.  This means setting aside time to read books and short stories, other people’s blog posts, and the act of sitting down to write my own posts. To actually complete the challenge with quality posts. To write for 30 days with 30 posts that are interesting and reflective of what I’m trying to achieve, rather than just going through the motions.
  • Keeping Tabs. Even though the active readership I’ll have during the Blogathon will initially only be Sona and Pappari, I’m going to list my weekly goals on Monday and write a check-on post on Friday to see how I’m able to stick to it. And this will include how my own writing is progressing.
  • Community. I would like to build my readership of this blog to include other bloggers, writers, readers, and anyone who finds the content of my blogs interesting.
  • Comments. It would be great to have a discussion through comments and social media. On other sites, I love how the commenters challenge the author’s views, or deepen the conversation. By completing this Blogathon, I’m hoping to start a steady stream of discussion, rather than sporadic comments on certain posts.

Anyone else doing the WordCount Blogathon in June, 2013? Would love to know what your reasons are and please put a link to your first blog post in the comments. Follow me @navdeep_dhillon.

 

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WORD Bookstore Coming to Jersey City – Summer 2013!

Posted on March 31, 2013

When I first heard the news, the only word (pun intended, just in case I was too subtle) I can use to describe the feeling, is jubilation. But even that seems like an understatement.  In early January, Greenpoint, Brooklyn based WORD Bookstore posted a photo on tumblr of an empty storefront we walk by everyday, just a few steps from the GROVE PATH station, across the street from Tendershoots, our local greengrocer, and right next door to Roman Nose (amazing meatballs!) with just a few simple words: “New year. New WORD. Coming to Jersey City. 2013.”

And that was enough to get me and Sona into a frenzy. Our 3-year-old daughter absolutely loves the bookstore, where we take her quite frequently – what can we say, we’re a nerdo family. She’s also a massive fan of the family owned and run, Roman Nose, where she often insists on walking into just for their pastina soup. Not too long ago, she walked into there and asked for soup with star pasta, which they had no idea what it was, until they noticed their pastina was in fact shaped like stars! It’s definitely become our joint. So it was quite a super fun-fact for us to find out that the whole idea of bringing WORD to Jersey City was in part because of brothers Frank and Raymond Fiore, who own Roman Nose, and are cousins of Christina Onorati, the owner of WORD! Apparently, she popped down for a visit, and thought, Jersey City. Good place for a community bookstore. And that was that. She decided to open the Jersey City branch!

It’s difficult to convey the feeling of excitement we feel everytime we walk by the still boarded up storefront, and every so often, we see the lights on, sounds of construction going on, and just the other day, we saw from a tiny corner of the door that there were book racks, with BOOKS, and a counter. Everyone who knows us, knows that we are absolutely mental about books. When we were in India, we visited Sona’s cousin in Bombay, and had big plans to go exploring the City. We’d left at 9 in the morning, went into a bookshop called “Crosswords” next door, and didn’t get out until 8pm that night. Then we ate kebabs, and caught a Bollywood show, and later curled up with all of our awesome books that we then had to lug around. It’s a bit of an awkward conversation when someone just doesn’t understand the difference between a Barnes and Noble and an independent bookstore like McNally Jackson, or the Strand. I quite like Barnes and Noble in terms of its selection, its layout, its seating areas, and many of its events. But there’s nothing particularly community building about it. Strand, for example, has these lovely notes from their employees on books they recommend that are handwritten endorsements, and McNally Jackson will go out of its way to support local bookclubs and local authors. WORD does all of that, and pushes the fostering of the local community even further through some really lovely programs. They actively help out their local soup kitchen in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and participate in “Story Pirate,” which encourages children to write stories, which will then come alive and acted out by professional actors. I’ve already got my peg-leg and eye patch sorted. I also got one for my 3-year-old daughter, Kavya.

Of course I would be excited if a big chain store was coming down the street. They’re still books. But an Independent Bookshop is really something else entirely. Can’t wait for these elves to finish up!  In the meantime, there’s always something called the “G” train to Greenpoint. I’m not sure I’ll be able to last until summer, so a trip may be in order.

Shortlink: http://ow.ly/jIvbd

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Some Bombdiggidy Panels At The AWP Conference 2013

Posted on March 4, 2013

This year, AWP is in Boston, a short bus ride away from NYC, which gives me and Sona absolutely no reason not to go. I’ve never been to Boston, and the bits and pieces I do know of the City have made me want to go check it out: it has loads of bookshops (even one just for poetry), a subway system. Yep, that pretty much sums up the extent of my knowledge of the City. My instructor, Melinda Lopez, who I took an intensive playwriting workshop with at the Fine Arts Work Center last summer is from there and constantly raves about it, especially the Boston Play Marathon (come on, New York!). And my former creative writing professor, Steve Yarbrough, moved there a few years ago, so it’ll be nice to see him again.

He’s on a panel that I thought sounded quite interesting before I even found out he was on it, called, “Southern Writers in Exile,” on Thursday at 430 pm (see below). What makes it all the more intriguing is that every one of his other novels is set in Loring, Mississippi, and his latest one, which comes out this August, “The Realm of Last Chances,” takes a drastic leap from his distinctly Southern style of setting, but probably not the voice (I hope!). Here’s his website, with a photo that makes him look like an angry plumber: http://steveyarbrough.net. Trust me, he’s a fantastic writer. Just don’t let him handle any cutlery, and you’d probably be better off if you fixed that leaky faucet yourself. Read his books though.

All of the panels, without exception, sound great. There are three just on endings alone!  And Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger’s Wife, who I just started reading a couple weeks ago, has two panels that I’m definitely going to. One of them is on zombies and ghosts in literary fiction. Just my cuppa tea!

The last conference I went to was CLMP (Council of Literary Magazines and Presses) at the New School in NYC, which I thought was very insightful, especially the query writing clinic, agent discussion with Julia Barer, and the energetic Ira Silverberg – rock star of the NEA talking about funding and grants for writers (he will be giving a talk at AWP too). The CLMP conference was small, so very easily manageable, because most of the events were mostly in one place, with a couple here and there that were in the same time slot and you could just wing it, and decide on the spot which panel you’d rather go to. It was made even more manageable because the total in attendance wasn’t more than a couple hundred.

The Brooklyn Book Festival is something that needs planning, but still on a much smaller scale than AWP. AWP is a completely different beast with more than 10,000 people attending and what feels like hundreds of panels going at the same time. When I first took a look at the panels, I had to sit down because it’s really overwhelming just looking at the text; I can only imagine how overwhelming it will be trying to decide where to go on the spot. I’ve narrowed down the list of panels I think are interesting, which inevitably lead to having no breaks for lunch, so we’ll see how that goes. There are some panels, like the one on breaking into book reviews, food writing, and the art of the ending that I would kick myself if I opted to go roam around the book stalls, or grab lunch instead of attending. But there are others that I’d like to see, but I wouldn’t be that gutted if I missed it in favor of food.

Besides, I need to keep my energy going for the parrrrteeeee in the evenings with free beer and wine! To catch my live tweets, follow me on twitter @navdeep_dhillon under the hashtags #AWP2013, and hopefully I’ll see some of you at the #AWPTweetup on Friday. I’ll have other posts here on AWP, so keep checking back. See you in a few days!

Thursday

9:00-10:15am

R135. Words to Eat: The Challenge of Writing About Food. (Clara Silverstein, Kathryn Miles, Martha Bayne, Sherrie Flick) With elemental appeal, food writing has become an increasingly popular form of creative nonfiction. Yet, amid the sizzle and smoke, what constitutes literary quality? Drawing from contemporary examples, panelists explore the nexus between food and literature from the perspectives of journalism, blogging, teaching food literature, and cookbook publishing. They address the importance of applying principles of craft and narrative to a subject of interest to everyone. Room 209, Level 2.

10:30 – 11:45 am

R135. Keeping Track of Your Book. (Mary Kay Zuravleff, Hannah Tinti, Bich Minh Nguyen, Porter Shreve, Lan Samantha Chang) How do you chart plot and subplots, the passing of time, point of view, characters, and structure while working out a book? Participants reveal what methods they have devised, if any, to keep themselves on track. They will tell tales of the seven-foot outline, the illustrated injury map of a character, and other attempts to visualize the arc and architecture of a novel, memoir, or story collection. Room 109, Plaza Level.

12:00-1:15pm

R157. The Changing YA Landscape: A Reading with Jane Yolen and Ricki Thompson. (Anjali Sachdeva, Jane Yolen, Ricki Thompson) How has the world of YA literature changed over the last few decades, and what new challenges and opportunities face YA writers today? Jane Yolen is an award-winning author of over 300 books for children and adults, who has been publishing for over thirty years. Ricki Thompson is an emerging writer whose first book was published in 2010. Both authors will read from their work and engage in a short moderated discussion on changes in YA writing before answering audience questions. Room 101, Plaza Level.

1:30-2:45pm

R196. From Parts to a Whole: Turning a Bunch of Essays into a Unified Book. (David Giffels, Chuck Klosterman, Sean Manning, Chuck Klosterman, Meghan Daum) Why do some books of essays feel like collections of B-sides, outtakes and orphans, while others carry the thematic and narrative satisfaction of a good concept album? Drawing from their own experiences, this panel of successful authors discusses vital techniques for conceiving, organizing, developing, and enhancing a collection of creative nonfiction essays into a unified whole. We will address how to balance recurring themes, maintain voice and tone, how to build bridges, and other topics. Room 200, Level 2.

3:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m

R216. How Far the Journey: Immediacy versus Distance in Narrative Travel Writing. (Rachel Friedman, Rolf Potts, David Farley, Colleen Kinder, Sarah Menkedick) Travel writers take many different journeys: voyages of expectation and imagination, physical expeditions, and journeys of process once back at the desk. We strive to render a sense of place in vivid detail, sometimes while still enraptured by our latest locale. Yet rapture is a dangerous mode in which to write because of the risk of romanticizing without reflecting. How do travel writers negotiate the need for both immediacy and distance? Panelists will discuss their various experiences. Room 101, Plaza Level.

4:30-5:45pm

R270A. Southern Writers in Exile. (Michael Croley, Richard Bausch, Michael Griffith, Steve Yarbrough, Brad Watson) Writers who identify as southern don’t often stray far from home, but as some have moved into teaching positions, they find themselves now living all over the country, out of their comfort zones. This panel explores how that distance has affected each writer’s approach to their craft and teaching, as well as what it means to be a southern writer no longer living in the South, and what role regionalism plays in the landscape of American literature. Room 309, Level 3.

Friday

9:00 – 10:15 am

F128. What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About War. (Catherine Parnell, George Kovach, Siobhan Fallon, Laura Harrington, Bob Shacochis) When writers address the subject of war, they face tough choices about what material to include and how to give voice to the unspeakable. The writer’s job, then, is to examine what drives nations into war and terrorism, and to focus on atrocities that are ignored or under-reported. This panel will discuss the roles that research, experience, and reportage play. It will ask how the choice of genre impacts the topic of war and what literature can achieve that journalism cannot. Room 309, Level 3.

10:30 – 11:45 am

F149. Art of the Ending. (Miles Harvey , Amy Hempel, Michele Morano, William Lychack, Scott Blackwood ) All writers struggle with endings—those heady, cumulative moments in which events, characters, and readers are ushered out the door, forever changed. This panel—which includes three fiction writers, an essayist, and a journalist—will look at pitfalls and possibilities of bringing a narrative to a successful conclusion. It will also explore the clash between the writer’s vision and the audience’s expectations about endings, and examine how ideas about narrative closure are continuing to change. Room 208, Level 2.

12:00-1:15pm

F176. No Way Out, Or Is There?: Innovations in Endings. (Elizabeth Poliner, David Huddle, Jean McGarry, Marjorie Sandor) The end of the story is often a problem for fiction writers. In our quest for the inevitable ending, for example, we don’t want to be predictable. By examining works of contemporary fiction, this panel will explore a variety of ways that writers such as Nabokov, Munro, and Taylor have avoided the problem of predictability by introducing innovative resolutions, including double endings and submersions and subversions of resolution. Room 206, Level 2.

1:30-2:45pm

F192. How to Break into Book Reviewing. (Stephen Burt, Dan Kois, Karen Long, Eric Lorberer, Parul Sehgal) Who gets to write book reviews, and where, and why? This panel of reviewers who are also editors will explain and demystify the ways that book reviews come into being. They’ll describe how established writers, new writers, editors, periodicals, and book publishers interact; how assignments get made; and who (if anyone) gets paid. They’ll consider what makes a review—and a reviewer—stand out, and how writers new to this kind of work might discover in it a vocation or even a profession. Room 103, Plaza Level.

430-5:45pm

F266. Bring Out Your Dead: Writing Ghosts (and Zombies) in Literary Fiction. (Rebecca Makkai, Tea Obreht, Lauren Groff, Tim Horvath, Alexi Zentner) The ghost story thrives in literary fiction as well as the oral tradition, defying genre. How do we keep these compelling tales fresh? How do we frighten without resorting to cheap tricks? How do we navigate the borders between spirituality, science, doubt, and a reliable narrative voice? And why are we drawn to these themes again and again? Five writers introduce you to their ghosts and tell you how they summoned them. Room 206, Level 2.

10:00 p.m. to 12:00 midnight

F287. AWP Public Reception & Dance Party, Sponsored by Columbia College Chicago Fiction Writing Department & Story Week. A dance party with music by DJ Neza. Free beer and wine from 10:00 to 11:00 p.m. Cash bar from 11:00 p.m. to midnight. Sheraton Boston Hotel, Constitution Ballroom, Level 2

Saturday

9:00 – 10:15 am

S109. Other Worlds: Writing Between Genres for Young Adults. (Liza Ketchum, Kelly Easton, Mark Peter Hughes, Swati Avasthi) When writers create a world, they include culture, language, politics, belief systems, and the historical aspects of the fictional time and place. They bring into being a cosmology and an ethos. This panel will explore the invention of what John Gardner termed a vivid continuous dream in fantasy, dystopian, historical, and realistic fiction written for young adults. We will analyze the plasticity of form and content, and we will explore the tools needed to create new worlds. Room 107, Plaza Level.

10:30 – 11:45 am

S150. If These Walls Could Talk… Oh Wait, They Do! (Eleanor Henderson, Stewart O’Nan, Tea Obreht) The whole world is a stage, but as fiction writers we get to choose where and when to set a story. That decision can influence everything else in the novel, for better or worse. Four novelists talk about the pressures that settings, both urban and rural, can place on our fiction, and how and why to make choices about landscape. Room 306, Level 3.

1:30-2:45pm

S206. Changing the Sheets: How Best to Get Sex on the Page. (Nicole Louise Reid, Michael Griffith, Melanie Abrams, Dean Paschal, Jim Grimsley) We all know (or think we know) what constitutes a bad sex scene, but what is a good one? What do we mean when we declare a sex scene good, and what are we looking for, as readers and as writers, from this maligned genre? Five fiction writers known for their often controversial and always riveting sex scenes will explore the special lures and perils of writing sex, and the work of some writers we think have succeeded at it. Room 310, Level 3.

4:30-5:45pm

S236. How to Keep a Story Alive When All Your Characters Are Dead: Finding the Contemporary in Historical Fiction for Young Adults. (Jacqueline Davies, Jeannine Atkins, Pat Lowery Collins, Sarah Lamstein, Padma Venkatraman) Are today’s teens interested in stories from 1710, 1867, 1911, 1918, and 1942? Five writers of historical fiction and narrative poetry discuss how they create stories that feel relevant in the 21st century without sacrificing accuracy in reporting true events. Following the panelists, a group of teenagers will share their thoughts on the books discussed, describing what feels real and current to them in these stories of the past. Room 101, Plaza Level.

10:00 p.m. to 12:00 midnight

S266. AWP Public Reception & Dance Party, Sponsored by Columbia College Chicago Fiction Writing Department & Story Week. A dance party with music by DJ Neza. Free beer and wine from 10:00 to 11:00 p.m. Cash bar from 11:00 p.m. to midnight. Sheraton Boston Hotel, Constitution Ballroom, Level 2

Short link: http://ow.ly/iiOhO

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Categories: Lit Life

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