ASFA Nonfiction Workshop - Fall 2008

More Beitelmania: Profiles

2008-11-17T11:38:00.000-08:00

In 1000 to 1500 words (ballpark), profile your randomly selected CW junior.

Some examples:

Actress Kristin Scott Thomas in the Washington Post Style section.

Actor Michael Ashe in Vanity Fair.

High school football player Shayne Skov in Sports Illustrated.

The trick is to find the human interest angle. Write for a non-ASFA, non-Birmingham audience.

Specific strategies:

1. Sit down and talk with your partner at least twice.

2. Converse, don't survey.

3. Try, if at all possible, to observe your partner in a setting outside of school.

4. Think nouns and verbs: what people, places, and things does your partner associate with? What does your partner spend his/her precious time doing?

5. Sketch out your partner's average day, their average week. Ask questions about things you're interested in. Ask questions about things other (i.e., non-ASFA) people might be interested in.

6. This is a human interest story. Always ask yourself: why is this human interesting? If you can't find an answer, that's your fault, not theirs.

Turn it in on Tuesday, November 25.

Making a Difference, Creative Nonfiction Style

2008-11-12T11:31:00.000-08:00

Well, I threatened I might have you do it. Write your MAD experience. Make it good. Write for a non-ASFA, non-Birmingham audience. Try to focus on one particular aspect of the day. Be honest, authentic, and realistic. Think Wallace's "Consider the Lobster": he was assigned to an event that he wouldn't ordinarily go to on his own, and he let is imagination glom onto something. Do the same.

Aim for between 500 and 1000 words (rough ballpark) and turn it in by the end of the day tomorrow.

I Wrote a Letter to the President

2008-11-03T14:15:00.000-08:00

Or to the guy who lost.

Write an open letter in at least three separate sittings to either Barack Obama or John McCain. Start the letter before the election but continue it afterwards. It should reflect the full flow of events over the course of the next week. Turn it in on Friday.

Click here, here, here, and here for background.

A Veritable ICB Treasure Trove

2008-09-28T19:41:00.000-07:00

A newspaper in Kansas, the Lawrence Journal-World, did an ICB retrospective three years ago. Be forewarned: spoilers abound. It's not so much plot points that get spoiled. It's more...I don't know, it's just that the fourth wall gets broken. But it's fascinating to see other perspectives on the events and to find out what happened to some of the important players. Also there are a tone of interesting pictures. Finish the book then surf around this really useful site. We'll talk about all of it when we finish the book next Tuesday (Oct 7).

Essay #2 Options

2008-09-24T06:56:00.003-07:00

The In Cold Blood Option: Seek out and/or research an event or experience (as Truman Capote did with the Clutter murders, David Foster Wallace did with the Maine Lobster Festival, and John D'Agata did with the tour of Hoover Dam) and then write about it. It should go without saying -- but I'll say it anyway -- that the experience you seek should not put you or others in harm's way. A good barometer: If your parents wouldn't want you doing it, then don't do it. Use the above texts as models, especially when it comes to their methods of engaging in said experience. Here are just a few non-binding suggestions for seeking out area "experiences":

Sidewalk
Activeculture.info
Jones Valley Urban Farm
ASFA Open House

But you should choose something that's interesting to you. Or -- actually -- maybe not. It can be argued in at least the latter two cases (Wallace and D'Agata) that the actual event/experience kind of bored the writer...but he still found something to write about.

At any rate, in all three cases, the writers used the event/experience as a springboard to write about larger cultural issues that they cared about. You are more than welcome -- in fact, encouraged -- to do the same.

_____

The Running in the Family Option: Use your family history as the source material for an essay. Pick an aspect of your family's history that you don't know a lot about. Dig into it. In this essay, you're writing as much about yourself -- and your discovery of your place as an individual in the context of your family -- as you are about the particular events you choose. A word of caution: don't feel like you have to write your family's entire history. Pick something specific. Perhaps you want to delve into the circumstances that led to your family coming to Alabama. Or maybe you want to write about your parents' courtship. Whatever it is, pick something that gives you a plethora of source material: pictures, interviews, places to visit, books to pore over.

_____

The Last American Man Option: Profile an interesting person who has a unique story. This may be someone you know well, or it may be a friend or relative of a friend (as was the case with Eustace Conway and Elizabeth Gilbert). The key here is in how you define "interesting" and "unique." For instance, all ASFA students would (IMHO) fit the bill simply because they attend a unique school in an interesting context. In that example, you might end up writing as much about ASFA and Birmingham and Alabama as you write about your interesting person -- as Gilbert ends up writing as much about American history and ideology and the idea of manliness as she does about Eustace Conway.

_____

As always, these are broad guidelines. If you're really excited about an idea for an essay that doesn't fit this mold, run it by me. I'm almost surely going to say yes, and I might have some suggestions and advice on how to proceed.

The other possibility is that you combine features of the different options into one essay project -- it strikes me that the above options are not at all mutually exclusive.

Aim for between 2000 - 3000 words. Probably not less, perhaps a little more.

Keep all three toolbelts in mind.

Please note your conference draft due date under "Second Quarter Conference Draft Due Dates" in the right hand column. Oct 17 is the first due date...not too far away.

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FYI: This Is a Cornell Box

2008-09-17T11:59:00.001-07:00

Brenda Miller makes the connection between lyric essays and Cornell boxes, so here's an example of one. And here's his biography, with links to some other examples of his work, on the Guggenheim Museum site. Remember: "It's art, so stop calling it nonfiction."

Or is it (and should we really)?

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DFW: Commencement High Notes

2008-09-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've re-read the DFW Kenyon commencement, and now I really think you all need to read it. Not only does it speak to the art of being human, it is the road map to being a writer. In an effort to entice you to read the thing in its entirety, here are just a few highlights:

___

On Being Just a Little Less Arrogant:

"The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will, too."

___

On Not Being Totally Hosed:

"As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed."

___

There Are Other Options:

"If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down."

___

On Real Freedom:

"This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't.…The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day….That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing."

___

On Staying Conscious and Alive in the Adult World Day In and Day Out:

"It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now.

I wish you way more than luck."

___

That last part goes double for being a writer because trying to stay "conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out" is exactly what it means to be a writer.

If you're at all interested in Wallace, check out this article he wrote for the NY Times. It's germane to nonfiction because it's, well, nonfiction. It's about Roger Federer, but that's not the point. The point is, Wallace is using all the toolbelts and applying them to something for which he has a visceral, intense love: tennis. And, of course, he's doing so in a love-it-or-hate-it Voice that is uniquely his own.

So, yeah. I think there's a lot to learn from David Foster Wallace, both exemplary and cautionary.

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Some Thoughts About The So-Called Writing Life

2008-09-16T05:25:00.000-07:00

From the Department of "Yes, Yes...What He Said" -- not to mention the Department of "Do As He Says, Not As He Does/Did" -- here is a commencement speech that David Foster Wallace gave to the newly minted graduates of Kenyon College a couple of years ago. Wallace is on my mind for obvious and sad reasons. His wisdom holds up regardless of recent events. Also this little Note-to-Self-and-Others-Who-Care-to-Listen (which he effectively states in the speech): being a famous-genius-writer-guy/gal is not the key to the City of Health & Happiness.

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Who the Heck Does John D'Agata Think He Is?!

2008-09-14T17:51:00.001-07:00

Here's a little write up on "Round Trip" and John D'Agata, apologist numero uno for Ye Olde Lyric Essay in contemporary American belles lettres. Here's something on what he thinks a lyric essay is. (Money quote: "It's art, so stop calling it nonfiction.")

By the by: Tell me he doesn't look at least a little like he might be Vincent D'Onofrio's long-lost younger brother (and they both do that little D' thing with their last names, so I think that means they must be related or something. D' = Italian for "long-lost brother")...

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Life Interrupts

2008-09-14T17:47:00.001-07:00

A programming note. I'm going to miss class on Monday afternoon; I have to go to a funeral. This will push things back a bit, but I think we can adjust. I'll conference with Abby and Ella on Tuesday afternoon. If there's time that day, we'll talk about D'Agata, Miller, and Lyric Essays afterwards. If not, we'll fit it in on Wednesday and/or Thursday after critiquing place essays by Allison and Anna.

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ICB Epigraph

2008-09-08T13:03:00.000-07:00

Freres humains qui après nous vivez,
N'ayez les cuers contre nous endurcis,
Car, se pitié de nous povres avez,
Dieu en aura plus tost de vous mercis.

This translates into English as:

Brothers, men who live after us,
Let not your hearts be hardened against us,
Because, if you have pity for us poor men,
God will have more mercy toward you.

It's from a Francois Villon poem called (spoiler alert!!) "Ballade des pendus."

How does that color your idea of Capote's intentions?

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Some Shared Vocab

2008-09-08T07:05:00.000-07:00

Seems that some folks aren't quite sure how to talk about creative nonfiction in a critique setting. Is it "speaker" or "narrator" or "character"? Do we pretend this never happened? Can we talk about the people in the essay as if they don't exist? Do we call this an essay or a story or...what?

Dicey questions, all.

First, a few quick executive decisions:

1. These are essays, not stories or anything else. That's what we'll call them.

2. No, we don't have to pretend this is fiction. In fact, let's not.

3. How to talk about the voice of the essay? By doing just that--talking about the voice. If we need to address the writer as a presence in the action of the essay, let's just do that directly. Using the generic title of "speaker" and "narrator" feels odd to me.

4. Tone is always important, but it's crucial in this particular workshop. ALWAYS err on the side of empathy and diplomacy.

5. On the flipside, as writers you need to remember that everything you submit for critique must be fit for public consumption. If you cringe at the idea of sitting through thirty minutes of discussion about the issues in the essay, you need to submit something else for critique.

6. In responding to your peers' essays, don't worry about whether they fulfill the "assignment." I'm more interested in whether an essay fulfills its intentions.

Next, I want to re-re-direct you to the elements of narrative writing. Not all will apply in every case, but they still provide the most general tools for both writing and talking about creative nonfiction. Some highlights:

We are still and always interested in Beginnings and Endings, a.k.a. how things start and finish. The former needs to propel a reader into the work and the latter needs to provide a combined sense of closure and resonance.

Sensory details matter. Sensory details = Nouns and Verbs.

All writing has some structure, some organization. Narrative writing is plotted. Is this plotted? Are there scenes? If not, how can we describe the architecture here -- the way things are structured?

Characters, real or made-up, can still be rendered as round or flat. We can still talk about those renderings, how the serve the essay as is, and how they could serve it better. We can also still talk about conflict between and within the principal players in the essay even if they're real.

And, again, we will always be dancing with the issue of voice because I think it's the essential element of creative nonfiction. Voice, as I define it, exists on the level of the language (word choices, sentence constructions, tone, pace) and on the level of the ideas (how does this writer observe the world and what are his/her peculiar obsessions).

Finally, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I think a reconsideration of our toolbelt metaphor is appropriate and useful.

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A Few Words about Intention

2008-09-05T07:51:00.000-07:00

In reviewing our first week of critiquing nonfiction, I have some observations and suggestions:

Seems to me the difference between reading like a reader and reading like a writer has everything to do with the extent to which we take the writer's intentions into account. A reader isn't too worried about what the writer intended, whereas a writer begins her reading experience with just that question in mind -- What's the writer up to here?

Of course, it's interesting and sometimes even helpful to get a reader's perspective.

The trouble is reading is an inherently subjective experience. Tastes vary. Widely. A reader is always reading on his own terms. From his own perspective. With his own blind-spots and personal experiences close to the surface. The fundamental question for a reader is this: Do I like this or do I not like it?

We'd all like to be liked. To be recognized as the geniuses we are. Unfortunately, with something as subjective as "art," 100% approval (or anything like it) is impossible.

So -- in a critique setting -- whether you, as a reader, "approved" is incidental. We can agree that all the things we read will be up some people's alley and not others'. Some people will "get it" (and here I don't mean "get it" as synonymous with "understand" -- I mean it as something akin to "striking a chord") and some won't.

That's why I want us to read, primarily, as writers. I want to focus on four very specific questions:

1. What intentions (preoccupations, concerns, obsessions) does the essay convey?

2. Where, specifically, does the essay convey those intentions most successfully?

3. Where, specifically, could it convey those intentions more successfully?

And finally the real kicker:

4. I think writerly intentions are often overrated. What you think your essay (story, poem...) is about and what it really is about (or should be about) are not always the same thing. So the $64,000 question is this:

Are there potential intentions -- perhaps unintended intentions -- lurking at or near the surface of the essay, and could/should they be exploited more than they are right now?

That's all I'm worried about. And that's the order I want to go in every single time we talk about an essay draft in critique.

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Why 'Why' Is Important

2008-09-05T07:26:00.000-07:00

Again we get to subjectivity -- which is very much a larger conceptual concern of this class.

Above I make a distinction between reading as a reader and reading as a writer. Much of our critiquing should come from the latter place.

Here's the caveat: a readerly response can be helpful if -- and only if -- there's justification attached to it. "Love it!" or "AWK" or "This part annoys me" don't engage the writer with empathy. To say nothing of tone, they emphasize the divide between reader and writer.

The best critiques are those that have engaged the work on its own terms, and the best critiquers adopt those terms as their own. The above statements reflect a reader who is reading on his own terms.

Does that mean you won't have those sorts of reactions if you read an essay on its own terms? Of course not. You will. But if your goal is empathy and engagement in this writer's process -- and, I'm here to tell you, that's the only worthwhile goal in a critique setting -- you will provide not just what you felt but why you felt it. What about the essay made you feel that way?

Ultimately that reflects a genuine -- and appropriately humble -- understanding that yours is but one subjective reading. You articulate it, justify it, and leave it up to the writer to decide if it helps her better understand the essay and the process of making it.

In a nutshell, there's one keyword to remember: because.

Use it early and often in your critique responses.

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Truman Capote

2008-09-02T12:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a little bit on Truman Capote. The money quote regarding IN COLD BLOOD:

"This book was an important event for me. While writing it, I realized I just might have found a solution to what had always been my greatest creative quandary. I wanted to produce a journalistic novel, something on a large scale that would have the credibility of fact, the immediacy of film, the depth and freedom of prose, and the precision of poetry."

We can talk about whether, at first blush, you think he's achieved that. (And need I point out that he's got four toolbelts, not just three?!) Have the first section read by next Tuesday -- but, again, just keep on slogging through. We'll talk about a pretty big chunk (sections II and III) two weeks later, on Sep 23.

PS...Please do keep in mind: this is Dill we're talking about here.

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I Don't Know Who Came Up with the Toolbelt Idea, but...

2008-08-26T12:04:00.000-07:00

...he was basically a genius.

Upon further review, I'm loving the metaphor. I'd like to tweak it a little, though:

Still three belts but I'm changing the names. Journalistic. Narrative. Lyrical.

All adjectives and, therefore, fruitfully more vague.

I also think Narrative works better because it isn't so fraught with connotation as the term Fiction. It's more a mode of organization with less potential for moralistic implications. It's not about Truth and Lies. It's about stories and how you tell them.

The Narrative Tool Belt is the most general one. You can use it to go in either direction--to present objective facts and/or to fashion subjective art. You can use it in nonfiction. You can use it in poems. (And, obviously, it applies to the F-word too: Fiction.) In short, this is where you find the Phillips-head and other oft-used tools like it. When I think of the "tools" of narrative, I think of the list I'm wont to slap up on a whiteboard near you. Click here for a quick rundown/refresher.

The farther you go to either end of my (admittedly artificial) continuum, the more specific your tools need to be. You could write a lyric poem with the Narrative Tool Belt, but it would be like pruning your bushes with a chainsaw. I mean, it kinda-sorta works, but...

That's where you move to one end of the continuum and grab your Lyrical Tool Belt, in which you'll find a heightened attention to language, rhythm, form, image. Narrative and logic gives way to intuitive leaps, resonant juxtapositions of words and images.

And then, on the other end of the continuum, there's the tool belt that we don't don as much as we should. The Journalistic Tool Belt. These tools help you get things down as you see them with at least some semblance of objectivity. There's a feeling that events as they happen resonate by themselves and a subjective interpretation would just get in the way. The specific tools--oft underutilized in the "literary" world--are those of reporting: interviews, research, seeking out interesting or unusual experiences with the express intention of writing about them. Narrative and language take a backseat to an accurate accounting of (so-called) real life.

If you're writing a straight news article for the front page of the New York Times, you'll make a mess for yourself if you use anything but the Journalistic Tool Belt.

Likewise, if you're writing a pure lyric poem, all the interviews in the world won't do you much good. (Neither will an exquisite insight into character, for that matter.)

So here's the takeaway:

In creative nonfiction, you have access to--and use for--every single tool in each of the belts. At all times.

The trick is knowing which ones to use when.

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This Week in Nonfiction Workshop: Aug 25-29

2008-08-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

Lots happening this week:

Monday we'll talk about your autobiographical essays and we'll decide the critique order.

Tuesday I'll conference with the first two critique-ees, whose critique drafts will be due by the end of third period on Tuesday, Sep 2. (Yikes.)

Wednesday we'll talk about these essays.

Thursday is "Studio Time." Not to be confused with Study Hall, of course.

Place Essay conference drafts are due from [3] & [4] by the end of third on Friday.

Then we crank up the Critique Machine next week. Whee!

Looking further afield, there's also some reading you need to do. We'll talk about Section I of In Cold Blood on Tuesday, Sep 9.

We're probably not going to get to the D'Agata and Miller essays until Sep 16, but I want you to have them in advance.

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Dude, What Day Is It?

2008-08-21T10:36:00.000-07:00

I have a new appreciation for what you guys do. Bread Loaf is not unlike ASFA. Imagine instead that everybody is a creative writer and they're all twenty, thirty, even fifty years older than you are now. All the same things apply, though--not least mental exhaustion. In eleven days or so we've done the work of half a semester. Today we had a workshop in which we discussed three 25-page stories. In 45 minutes, I'm going to a class on line-by-line editing. This morning there was a lecture on Shakespeare. Tomorrow is a class on plotting a novel, and we'll talk about three more stories in my workshop--only one of which I've read, much less commented on--on Friday morning. And, of course, there are readings, readings, and more readings.

ASFA-CW on steroids. But older.

In all, it's been pretty awesome, and I'm looking forward to getting back to apply some of my newfound perspective.

Workers of the world, unite!

Speaking of work: don't forget what you're supposed to be doing.

And don't forget to vote about the crazy apples! Polls have the seed-route way out in front, but that can change in a nanosecond...

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Robert Frost's Apples

2008-08-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

I've been hoping I'd have some experience up here that would relate to nonfiction somehow, but nothing has cropped up. So I'll just give you a slice of Bread Loaf life, as seen through the exceedingly subjective lens of one Thomas Allen Jason Beitelman.

Today it's cold and extremely windy. Yesterday it was hot(ish) and everybody went to Robert Frost's farmhouse just down the road. Frost was instrumental in the start of the conference. And he was, like, a writer or something. So to commemorate the occasion, I took a couple of apples that had fallen from some apple trees on his property. They're kind of wormy but they smell great. Just like an apple. These apples smell almost too much like an apple.

At this moment, they are part of a little impromptu sculpture sitting on the bedside table in my room. I also pulled some rocks from a very cold stream when I went on a hike the other day, and they too are part of the sculpture. They're arranged, these apples and stones, in an order I can't explain. The order isn't even especially artful. But it is an arrangement, and I like to look at how the objects go together. This all makes me think of lyric essays, which we'll start to talk about when I get back.

Anyway, now I don't know what to do with these apples. That's where you come in. Respond to the poll to the right before the close of business on Friday. Seriously. How else am I going to be able to make this momentous decision?

What You're Supposed to Be Doing

2008-08-12T06:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick summation of your tasks while I'm away:

Write a short autobiography and bring it to class, ready to read, on Monday, Aug 25.
Start drafting your Place essay. Two of you will submit conference drafts at the end of 8th period on Monday, Aug 25. Do the best you can. Don't worry. Just write. You'll have half the period on Monday to work on it, but don't wait until then to start.
Read these essays. We'll talk about them on Wednesday, Aug 27.

I'll slap up a few blog posts while I'm in Vermont, just so you know I haven't fled the country. It's the least I can do, really...

A Typical Week

2008-08-11T13:47:00.000-07:00

Monday: Studio Time* / Conferences / Receive Critique Drafts

Tuesday: Studio Time* / Discuss Assigned Readings (if any)

Wednesday: Critique

Thursday: Critique

Conference Drafts Due: End of specialty period on Friday.

Critique Drafts Due: End of third period on Monday.

Submit drafts to my ASFA e-mail account -- tjbeitelman(at)asfa.k12.al.us -- using your own ASFA e-mail account.

* Appropriate uses of "Studio Time," in order:

1. Write/Read for this class.

2. Write/Read for your third period class.

3. Write/Read for yourself. The creative, mindful (as opposed to "destructive, mindless") kind of writing/reading. Those are admittedly subjective terms, so if you are unsure of what I mean, just ask. I'm going to err on your side, though, because I believe that the most important work you do as a student of writing, especially as you segue into more advanced stages, is the stuff that's self-directed.

4. Other homework -- to be honest, this is my least favorite "appropriate" use of "Studio Time." I understand it's the nature of the beast around here, but I want you to strike a balance. The common excuse is that you'll do your creative writing work at another (presumably better) time and place. Okay. But your ASFA creative writing assignments are really only a gateway to your writing life. That whole vast world is yours to make alone, and this (here, now) is such a golden opportunity to really make some headway in that endeavor. See #3 above.

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Where's Beitelman At?

2008-08-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

To heck with this "start of school" business: I'm going to Vermont.

From Aug 13 through Aug 24, I'll be attending the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Eleven days of workshops, craft lectures, and readings by a range of well-known writers in all genres. Indeed, timing could be better and I apologize for the disruption, but I'm looking forward to getting back on the other side of the workshop table, so to speak. I'm prepared to be humbled and inspired. And, yeah, I hold out hope for a little validation. All necessary conditions for any life-long student of writing. I'll let you know how it goes. I'll slap a few blog posts up here just to let you know I'm still among the land of the living, and maybe to give you an insider's look at some of that fresh-baked Bread Loavian goodness.

So what does all that mean for you? Means I'm basically out of your hair until Aug 25, and you'll have plenty of time to read, write, and think in the interim.

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A Note About Grading Criteria

2008-08-07T18:48:00.000-07:00

I'll evaluate you in each of the three categories to the above-right (TCOB [see below], Essay Drafts, and Critiques) twice each quarter. That effectively gives you six grades each nine-weeks, all weighted evenly. I'll also provide you a narrative assessment at each progress report and at the end of each nine-weeks.

In grading your essay drafts, here's what I'm looking for:

Conference Draft: Your conference draft should be a completed draft. I'm not a word-counter, per se, but you should be in shouting distance of the minimum requirement. With some semblance of an ending. Maybe not the ending, but an ending. I don't expect conference drafts to be perfect, but you do need to show me you've made a good faith effort. If you do all that, you'll get full credit (100 points).
Critique Draft: Your critique draft should show progress from your conference draft. I see myself as an editor in this process. I give you my educated opinion, and you do the hard work of sifting through it for whatever nuggets of wisdom you can find. The process is organic. I can't tell you exactly what I mean by "progress" because it's different for different pieces. Show me that you've really gotten back in under the hood. Also, critique drafts should be basically free of grammatical errors and typos. I'm not a freak about that, but it does save you the tedium of sifting through a million comments pointing out the same surface-level error. Plus it's a mark of self-respect to show some care in the work you present to your peers. You have a right, then, to expect that very same level of care and respect in return. Do all that and, again, you'll get full credit (100 points).

We'll talk specifically about what I'm looking for in your critiques right after I get back from Vermont, but you know the deal here. Written and oral components. In both cases, I want an insightful, articulate account of your reading experience. Two other adjectives: honest, authentic. And a noun: empathy.

Then, of course, your final portfolio will count for 20% of your final semester grade. The portfolio will consist of a revised, fully polished version of one (1) of your critique essays and a mystery assignment I will reveal later in the semester.

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TCOB?

2008-08-07T18:20:00.000-07:00

TCOB: It was Elvis's motto, and if it's good enough for The King, it's good enough for me. It stands for "Taking Care of Business." For our purposes, it's "Class Participation" on steroids. The trouble with your everyday, garden-variety "Class Participation" is it sort of implies that if you just do your work and don't make somebody cry, you'll get full credit for it. Yes, I want you to do your work. No, I don't want you to make anybody cry. But that's an exceedingly low bar, is it not?

What I really want is for you to be a writer:

Writers show up to do the work.
Writers engage. Ideas. The human experience. The world.
Writers have empathy for anyone brave enough to stake a claim to what she/he thinks.
Writer's know they don't know everything. Not knowing is the fun part.
Writers pay attention.
Writers are curious.
Writers read.
Writers listen.
Writers think.
Writers write. A lot.

Okay, maybe not all writers do all those things. But if you're doing all those things, then you, my friend, are definitely TCOB as far as I'm concerned.

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Your Mission (Part I): Read

2008-08-05T20:11:00.001-07:00

Read this from A Public Space.

Read this from Brevity.

Read this from The Believer.

There's not gonna be a test or anything obnoxious like that. ("Dude goes to Vermont and gives us a test when he gets back?!") All I really want you to do is read these and let them stew a little bit. Mostly I want us to start thinking about the idea of subjects and subjectivity. "What do I write about?" and "How (when/where/why) do I write about it?"

Also be able to talk in general terms about which of these (if any) you like and which of these (if any) you don't like. And (because this is the ASFA Creative Writing department, doggone it!) be able to say why.

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Your Mission (Part II): Write

2008-08-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

This one has two parts:

Part the First

'Member when you applied to ASFA? We asked you to write an "autobiography" -- though, for some reason, we asked you to do it in third person. (?)

If you were like 96.37% of all applicants, it started something like this:

"On [fill in your birthdate], [fill in your name] was born in [fill in place of birth], and [fill in gender appropriate possessive pronoun] parents were very happy..."

Give or take.

Redeem yourself. At the very least, revise (i.e., re-see) yourself, lo these many years later.

500 - 750 words -- no less, no more -- of well-crafted nonfiction prose that says something fundamental (i.e., True, Essential) about who you are in the here-and-now. No other rules. (It doesn't even have to be in third person!)

Be ready to read it aloud when I get back on Monday, Aug 25. Like, in front of other people. In this room.

Part the Second

You will submit two essays for critique this semester. One shorter (1000 - 1500 words) and one longer (2000 - 3000 words). We'll critique the shorter essays in the first nine weeks and the longer ones in the second nine weeks. So take this opportunity to get started on your first conference draft. Other than the 1000 - 1500 word requirement, here are the parameters:

1. It should be in first person. Actually use "I."

2. The concept of Place should be important to the essay. Allow me to make a few nonbinding suggestions: here, perhaps? Or here? How about -- dare I even say it? -- here! Whatever place you choose, I strongly suggest A) you pick a place you have strong feelings about, one way or another, and B) you spend some time there before/during the writing process. If it's a place far away, do the best you can. Talk to people who are living there. Look at old pictures. Eat food native to the place. And, if all else fails, I guess you could Google it or something.

3. The rest is up to you.

All of you will use some version of this essay for your first conference draft. Two of you lucky souls will submit your conference drafts to my ASFA e-mail account by the close of business on Monday, Aug 25.

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Your Mission (Part III): Think

2008-08-05T10:58:00.000-07:00

Fat. Linear. Sense.

Put "non" in front of any of those words and you make their opposites: Nonfat frozen yogurt has no fat in it. Nonlinear means no line, at least not a straight one. And nonsense makes no sense.

By that logic, then, nonfiction is the opposite of fiction.

Run that idea through your noodle for a little bit. Is that statement fundamentally true or false? Can you think of examples that support your stance on the matter? Use your noodlings to start staking out your own definitions of those two terms (fiction and nonfiction) and, just as important, the troubled and/or fertile territory between them.

Think you got it sorted out? Okay, read this. And, while you're at it, also this.

Tomorrow (Tuesday, Aug 12) I want to have a discussion about what we mean by nonfiction. And, while we're at it, we might talk about the BIG IDEA of TRUTH (and its kissin' cousin, REALITY).

(JUSTICE and THE AMERICAN WAY will have to wait, but we'll get to them too...)

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