Writer Series! Matt Bell, Steve Himmer, & Robert Kloss!

When Vinnie and I arrived at the MLK Room, we bumped into a nervous and pacing Professor Ramos. Beautiful as ever, but nervous and pacing. Concerned her first event was too disorganized, she fretted a bit about how it would all turn out. The turn out was spectacular. The pacing and cute fretting was all for naught. The room was filled to the brim with eager Salem Staters awaiting the words of these three talented and progressive writers. (Professor Ramos even created a "Balcony Section" out of thin air!)

Steve Himmer read first. He shared an excerpt out of his soon to be released novel The Bee-Loud Glade. As a person who's mind wanders even in the movies when I have a ginormous screen in my face, I found it telling that his voice and incredible wielding of words held my attention and led me through the scene where we meet Finch, main character. Incredible how I could see the whole setting as if before my eyes, I only can be anxious for the sale of his book in April so I can see what Himmer does with Finch and his surroundings as he becomes a Decorative Hermit (according to Himmer, an actual job in I believe the 1800s...a job I would totally rock, btw!)

Robert Kloss was our next visiting writer to share his work. Currently working on The Lost Bodies of Alligators, he read aloud in a dreamy, captivating voice 3 sections from this work, due out this year (Mudluscious Press). If it is possible to have in existence a lyric history, this is the corner market. Historical fiction, prose poetry, poetic history...beautiful, dark, sad and fantastical all at the same time. Kloss, upon meeting him, seems to be a soul of words. I could see them swarming above his head as he talked, as he thought, as he leaned against the wall in the MLK room, almost aloof. This man is about words. He is about words and what he can do to them: manipulate, grow, shrink, twirl, repeat, use, abuse, love, cherish, create...I believe he dreams in words (but this is only my personal assumption). Like the mist that our mouths emit when it is frigid outside, if you look closely enough at Kloss, you will see a soft mist of words emanate from his lips as he breaths. The poetic quality of his work, and his boundless imagery, simply what he does with his words places him in a quite progressive realm that as he tests the boundaries of futuristic fiction, still hearkens back to the origins. Incredible...and light years beyond where I could ever reach in my wildest dreams.

Matt Bell was the last to read, but I am sure I am not the only girl in the MLK room to have fallen in love as he read "The Cartographer's Girl." I already downloaded How They Were Found to my kindle, as well as his long short stories "A Long Walk with Only Chalk to Mark the Way" and "A Tree or A Person or A Wall" because I am an insta-addict! "The Cartographer's Girl" is a love story, but it is filled with images and a different emotional perspective than a traditional (i.e. boring) love story. I would have to say that Matt Bell is in touch with the depths and crevices of modern humanity and is able to portray it in his writing in a way that is uncommon (yet mildly reminiscent of Proust? perhaps...). Uncommon and beautiful. I hope he never stops writing.

All of these writers seem to be ahead of the curve. In my opinion, this is one thing that makes a great writer, well, a great writer. The ability to see current humanity for what it is and project on that with words that stretch us, grow us and bring us into a literary future that is sure to remain in the forefront of literary invention and to, yes, become emulated by those that follow...Kudos to Professor Ramos for bringing these guys to us! Many Thanks!

The Q & A that followed proved that these three men are not only incredibly talented but generous as well. They answered questions that picked at their brains, their roots, their home lives and writing lives. They were open and shared tips with those of us intent on honing in on their craft. The Q & A started slowly but got deeper and deeper entrenched in the inspirations and thoughts of these men. They allowed us to play in the mud with them. I for one am quite thankful for the opportunity to meet and listen to these writers. The experience heightened my desire to write. Their words of encouragement to budding writers lends an air of excitement to the embarking of a writing life.

Kloss says we write what we know. And all three men said that one of the biggest things that helped their writing was Time. Time and Reading.

Ohhh. That there could be more time for reading...
And as Professor Ramos says, "Write 'til you drop!"

Weekly Response: Ana Castillo's The Mixquiahuala Letters

                Ana Castillo makes me want to write. She makes me want to be a writer. To be honest, I am definitely reading as a reader. I have always read as a reader. I am pretty passive in my reading as well. I am also fairly easy to please. I love books. I love to read. Children’s books, YA Lit, fiction, non-fiction, self-help, instructions, recipes…seriously, I only wish I had more time to read read read! For this class, we are supposed to read as writers and I guess the fact that I have never really considered myself a writer might be getting in the way of that. I have always felt that people would probably not be interested in what I have to say. Or perhaps I am just not creative enough.  I am hoping to change that view of myself, and this class was the first step in that direction. I am very good at getting lost in books. I am easily brought to empathize with characters I meet. What I have not learned to be very good at is extracting craft from the work. I am not very good at figuring out how the author drew me in and made me empathize with those characters. The subtleties and layers that I know reside within the pages remain within the pages. I am not a very good detective.

                When I read Teresa’s letters to Alicia, it is like I’m there (or at least I enviously wish I was). I feel the words as I read them as though the scene is unfolding before me. The letters make me nostalgic for a nostalgia that was never even mine, wistful for memories I’ve never even had. However interesting I think the recounted history of travels is, it is the complex relationship between the women that makes me wish I was a part of their experiences. The torment and joys of growing into women, traveling unprotected, living unapologetically, one with the other, sounds so beautiful when recounted through Teresa’s poems and lyrical prose. Through this form, Ana Castillo makes the most average, the most frightening, the most horrendous experiences all seem beautiful. The young women’s experiences may not have all been wonderful, but they were all part of a learning journey that arrived them at the destination of themselves. If I could learn to steal one thing from Castillo, it would be her ability to turn even a bad experience into poetry. I don’t know if it is the tone she manages to find or the pure quality of her language and word choices. Perhaps it is both, and more. 

                Her language is honest and raw. I wish I could achieve that quality in my own writing without sounding contrived or vulgar. To be honest and raw yet still poetic and beautiful seems a wonderful trick to me, a gift I hope to achieve as I try my own hand at writing.

Weekly Response: Lorrie Moore's Bird's of America

                Lorrie Moore’s quirky, birdy characters in Birds of America  remind me of the characters in Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio. Portrayed in a real-to-life, nobody’s really normal type of way, I appreciate the characters in this book so much more than most of the completely normal or completely abnormal characters  I often come across in, say, TV shows and movies. Too often, characters fall under one extreme or the other, but I enjoyed the intricacies and complexities of these characters.

                I might be over-sharing when I say I could identify with almost all of these characters. (My particular favorite is Ruth in “Real Estate.” I think that’s my favorite piece in the collection, but I enjoyed them all).  Like the critics on the book jacket say, Moore seems to really focus on characterization. She hits on what it’s like to live in America in this modern era with precision and wit. The stories grow organically from her characters. I imagine she had a clear picture of who the story was about before she knew what the story was about. This is just a guess though. Thinking of characterization in such a focal way does have implications for my own writing though, because I have always assumed an author needed a story. Perhaps all she needs is a character to start with. This offers me a new perspective from which to view possibilities for future writing.

                I think the work is about, first and foremost, people…what the human experience brings and how alike yet different and weird we all are. There are weird families, weird individuals, weird relationships in this collection and in life. When you get right down to it, we all try to put a “normal” foot forward yet we all carry our own set of quirks and eccentricities. We are indeed like birds, putting on a show, or aerial-like dance to impress or capture the attention of others. And most of us are searching for something (what that something is, anyone’s guess is good enough). Like Moore’s characters, we “migrate” and move around, try other people’s nests, circle back again. The problem is sometimes that we take our insecurities and loneliness with us. The unrest and malcontent just follow along, like saddlebags (or love handles, what-have-you). Your lot is your lot and your baggage is your baggage…whether we choose to try to leave it behind when we migrate, it will find a way to pop up again. Like Ruth, we’ve just got to puff out our breasts and settle into our nests best we can.