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Better late than never, a dispatch on the visitation by Cheryl Strayed

May 30, 2012 by susannadonato

It’s been a month since Cheryl Strayed, author of, among other things, the memoir Wild—which has spent a couple of months on the best-seller list—dropped in at Lighthouse for its Fly-By Writers Project. I tweeted afterward that I felt like I’d had a visitation from an angel—not only because I’m a brown-noser who hoped Strayed would see the tweet, but because I felt she descended from some celestial place with just the advice I needed to throw my work into a tailspin, in what I hope will be a good way. (I know I’m not alone in granting her white fluttery wings, and maybe a baton, but humor me.)

That’s not an easel pad. Those are wings. Squint, why don’t ya.

Strayed’s April 15 session was titled “The Story You Have To Tell: Writing from the Urgent Place.” I signed up eagerly, because I’m writing stories I’ve told myself and sometimes others for years, stories I desperately want to get out. “Out” in the sense that I want others to hear them, to feel from them what I think they mean, and at this point, “out” as in, “the hell out of my head.” (This, I’ve found, is the hallmark of this stage of a project, where some chapters have passed the dozen-drafts phase.)

Before the craft session, I’d read Wild. It was a fast read, which could provide the deceptive sense that the book is simple. At one point, no pencil in hand while reading, I dog-eared a page to return to later. But when I went back to see what I’d admired, I couldn’t find the thing because it was all great, two pages thick with observation, metaphor, and craft. I can’t look up the piece I’m seeking as I write, because I’ve loaned my copy to a friend, but a fellow blogger called out the climactic paragraph of the same passage, which also involved a deer and a rest on a mountaintop:

I didn’t know my own father’s life. He was there, but invisible, a shadow beast in the woods; a fire so far away it’s nothing but smoke. That was my father: the man who hadn’t fathered me. It amazed me every time. Again and again and again. Of all the wild things, his failure to love me the way he should have had always been the wildest thing of all. But on that night as I gazed out over the darkening land fifty-some nights out on the PCT, it occurred to me that I didn’t have to be amazed by him anymore. There were so many other amazing things in this world.

The thing with Strayed is that she is amazed. She has a knack for looking around her and seeing what is so amazing, and then working it into something that lets us be amazed, too. And isn’t that why we write? To tell others, “Hey, check out this thing I noticed,” and get them to see it as we do, or as our characters do, and be struck by it too.

In Strayed’s craft session, she translated that sense of amazement into techniques, laid out rapid-fire: Here’s the idea. Write about it. OK, stop. Share. Take a new set of prompts and run.

Just what did she have to say? I’ll try to summarize here. (But if you’ve read enough, the nutshell was: Be brave. Go deeper.)

Things that feel scary or uncomfortable have the greatest power. Let yourself keep writing. Discomfort is a sign you’ve done something on the page. Find not the thing you set out to write, but what you do write. Allow your writing to take surprising turns.

Writing from the urgent place means writing the stuff you are compelled to share. What you have to share. These things have “heat” for you—meaning you are the most passionate and emotionally intelligent about them, and you’ll be most able to see them through. (Exercise: Make a list of what you want to write about urgently. Then pick one, and go.)

Get at the universality of your work by digging deep. Strayed outlined her particular method of shovel-wielding thus:

  • What is the core question at the heart of your work? (maybe it’s something like “Why did I love that person who was so wrong for me?” or “How can I pick up the pieces after fighting cancer?”)
  • What’s universal about your question? (striking around with a pickaxe might reveal “Why do people love something that isn’t good for them? What is the nature of love?” or “What is the relationship between our bodies and minds? What is illusionary about the things we think we must have or do?”)
  • What happened? (This can be straightforward, but after asking the two questions above, you might see it differently)
  • What’s the meaning of what happened? After clearing away a few shovelfuls of dirt with the questions above, the answer can be illuminating.

Don’t shy away from revelations. Embrace them. They don’t have to be cheesy. Indeed, revelations transform art into a higher level. Trust your writing to lead you to the revelation. Keep pushing on until you find it. To find that revelation and imbue it with metaphorical resonance, Strayed proposed this exercise: Put your character in a situation where s/he is experiencing the emotion, meaning or question you are trying to convey in your work. Start writing.

Get to know your characters by invading their privacy. That’s not how Strayed put it, but she advocates learning characters in a way that would make real-life acquaintances blush and tremble. Ask, she said, what are your character’s (a) ideal self (what did you think you were going to do?), (b) actual self (what did you do?), (c) code (and relationship to this code), and (d) talismans (physical objects that are important to characters).

Phew. Can you believe all that happened in three hours? I wanted to stay all day, and also, I wanted to hurry away and write. I’m still contemplating adopting what Strayed describes as her “binge writing” methodology, where she locks herself in a hotel room for a couple days at a time and knocks out pages. But until I find an open space on my calendar for a binge, I’m continuing to nibble at the dirt that I found in Strayed’s workshop. Maybe that’s a mixed metaphor, or maybe it’s a new metaphor: writer as earthworm. I’ll dig into that later.

Meanwhile, a few lucky souls are going to be seeing Strayed in Denver again soon, as part of Lit Fest. Get the skinny on all things Lit Fest 2012 here. And the word on the street (“street” meaning “Lighthouse Facebook page“) is that the next Fly-By is already scheduled, featuring none other than the inimitable Steve Almond, on Sept. 29.

Posted in Member dispatches | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments »

Festivus for the rest of us

May 29, 2012 by Karen Palmer

Well, who knows what’s going on in this photograph. I wanted an image with children playing, one girl standing outside the circle staring longingly at the others. But this picture (found by searching “ring around the rosie”) was so delightfully weird, I couldn’t resist nabbing it. I’ll bet a couple of these young ladies grew up to be writers.

How sorry I am to be missing this year’s Lit Fest, Lighthouse’s first in their new digs. It sounds like a delicious lineup: a two-weekend intensive on memoir and novel structure with Erika Krouse; Bill Henderson’s famous Novel Bootcamp; Jennifer Davis’s “Creating Emotional Depth and Subtext”; Andrea Dupree’s “Find Your Material”; Jake Adam York’s “Say What You Don’t Mean”; Shari Caudron’s “Stories from the Road.” I could go on and on, but really, you should just have a look at the schedule, and see what classes might still be open.

Another regret. This year two of my favorite people are flying in: Robin Black, author of the fine story collection If I loved you, I would tell you this; and Cheryl Strayed, whose recently published memoir Wild is deservedly a sensation. Cheryl wrote one of my favorite novels, Torch, and she is, of course, also Dear Sugar (!), with tiny beautiful things, a collection of her advice columns in The Rumpus coming out in July. I envy anyone lucky enough to attend these talented women’s workshops. Please take notes.

I console myself with the knowledge that I’ll be seeing some of you in Grand Lake in July. Also consoling is the feeling of glorious martyrdom derived from staying home to work. I intend to keep my commitment to finish this draft of the memoir by Grand Lake. With each day that passes it looks increasingly plausible that I will.

So. Send dispatches, okay?

And take lots of pictures.

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Note from a reluctant blogger: Inner geek, take wing!

May 21, 2012 by andreadupree

Occasionally at Lighthouse I’ll target an innocent writer type with what seems, superficially, a reasonable request: Could you blog this and send it to me?  This is a way to ensure, quite unwittingly, that I’ll never hear from that person again, especially if they agree to do it. I exaggerate, yet I understand completely. It’s hard to “blog.” Even the name implies a kind of slapdash quality, an “I’m just logging the random flow of my brain, complete with witty hyperlinks!”  When you’re actually a word person, letting go of the process used to compose and tirelessly rework a piece of fiction, literary nonfiction, or poetry, allowing the product to be loose and even more imperfect than usual–that can rankle, even unconsciously. So I was thrilled the other day to open an e-mail and see a note from poet Theresé Wenham that began, “I finally wrote that blog you asked of me several years ago…”

After you enjoy this one, I think several more reluctant bloggers are chiming in this week. Can’t wait!

CONVERSATIONS WITH THE INNER GEEK by Theresé Wenham

Poet Theresé Wenham (right) chatting poetry with Lynn Wagner at the 6th Annual Lit Fest closing bash.

A couple of years ago Andrea Dupree asked me to write a little blog about a poetry workshop I was taking. I immediately replied, “Of course!” No big deal. The workshop was going well, but the absolute dread of writing prose mounted until I finally gave in. “Sorry Andrea, I can’t do it.” Then, the part of my mind which rationalizes all failures into logical explanations did it’s job perfectly, and I said, well, next time maybe I’ll know what to do.This blog is not at the request of Andrea, and has nothing to do with any workshop I’m currently taking. It’s about following through and it is about gratitude. Lit Fest is coming up, and as it approaches I am reminded of what brought me back to Lighthouse as a regular fixture at gatherings and workshops.

I took my first workshop (it was terrifying) in 2001 with Mike Henry. Every couple of years, I’d take another one. Eight years later, I attended my first Lit Fest, mostly as an opportunity to socialize outside of my regular mother/wife roles, where my identity is inextricably shared with others. I attended the free opening party, a couple of salons, the readings, the Henry/Ransick poetry weekend intensive workshop, and the closing party at Jay K. and Emily S.’s beautiful home.

At the opening party I felt reserved, yet hopeful, as I trolled the unfamiliar crowd for the literary connections I craved. I fell into a conversation in the Ferril kitchen with a writer that changed everything. We talked about craft, projects, inspiration, and backgrounds, moving between topics effortlessly as though we were both bursting to share our literary lives with another empathetic listener.

I went home and told my husband I had spent the whole evening talking about writing, and no one had wanted to change the subject. This was mind-blowing, a total game-changer. I’d found out something I didn’t actually know about myself: I liked to talk, a lot, as it turned out, about writing. This writer turned out to be Cara Lopez Lee, and her book, They Only Eat Their Husbands, was picked up at the end of that Lit Fest.

Yesterday I listened to Ira Glass’s This American Life episode on “Conventions.” People behave differently when they are in large groups with admittedly similar interests. Not all behavior that emerges from these settings is desirable, but often conventions present an opportunity to let the inner geek shine, to speak openly open things most people find boring, to elaborate into the minutiae about things (such as syllables and scansion, in my case), and to have the kind of audience that isn’t being introduced to a new concept and instead has a conversation about it.

This is what happened with Cara, and what happens every single time I am at Lighthouse. The identities of mother and wife become secondary to the poet. I love letting my inner geek shine. Every time I’m allowed to experience another aspect of poetry, through workshops, guests like Thomas Lux and Mary Karr, Draft Reading Shows, fellow poets, salons or conversations, my love grows deeper and wider. I love talking to my fellow writers. I love social gatherings focused on literary accomplishments. I love being supportive. I’m so grateful for the people at Lighthouse who allow writing, literature, poetry, expression, and creation to fill their precious time–because we all benefit.

Now when I go to a Lighthouse party, I can’t turn around without knowing someone to talk to. Yet, I often end up meeting someone new, who’s new to Lighthouse, and they are just as eager as I was to let out their inner word geek. They don’t know it yet, but it’s who they are. I’ve gotten so brazen in my literary skin, I’ll even attempt to write prose.

Thanks for this, Theresé! Please don’t be reluctant to join us at the seventh annual Lit Fest, June 1 to 16. There are still some workshops open, but the readings are free and open to all comers, and we’d love to see you there.

Posted in Cool Events, Delusions, LitFest, Member dispatches, Parties | 2 Comments »

Watch Them Bow

May 17, 2012 by megnix

As many of you know, the 11 members of the Lighthouse Teen Council have been hard at work on a collaboration with the young choreographers at Ballet Nouveau Colorado. In the Along, our collaboration, is similar to Mike Henry and Garrett Ammon’s Intersection; the writers wrote, then the dancers spun these vignettes into short pieces for the stage.

Since we began working with BNC last fall, we’ve gone through many drafts and cheese blocks and Ritz crackers at the Lighthouse tables. We’ve learned a lot about the winding roads of Broomfield and which ones don’t lead to BNC. Most importantly, we’ve learned a little bit more about the awkward, self-acknowledging work of being writers.

Lighthouse Teen Council member and East High School sophomore, Aubin Fefley, shares her experience below. We hope you’ll be there to see the show! Performances are this Sunday, May 20 at 1:00 PM and 5:00 PM at the Broomfield Auditorium (tickets are $10 for adults, $7 for children, and can be purchased online here or at the door).

My sister is a dancer.  She is two and a half years my junior, all graceful lean muscle and no hips.  She is poised, and strong, and flexible.  Elegant.  She does not stand how I do, with one hip cocked and one knee bent to downplay my height, or perhaps make myself seem more approachable.  And so as she embraced that world of fluid physical movement, perfectly at home in a leotard, working her pointe shoes to tatters until the pink satin turned gray, I turned away from it completely.  My definition of dance left the stage, only to reveal itself in cowboy boots, stompin’ across the floor of the Grizzly Rose to the twang of a banjo, or pajama-clad, binge-eating junk food, and stepping left arrow, left arrow, front, back, cross, high score!

When my sister admitted she wouldn’t particularly mind my absence at her various performances, I stopped going.  No hard feelings.  Nothing else said.  Writing is my thing.  Well, that and some largely failed athletics that aren’t important.  But writing does not require upper body strength, or a toned physique, or even coordination beyond what is needed to apply pen to paper.  So naturally, it was writing that brought dance back into my life.

But it’s not like I freaked out or anything.  I could do poetry.  I could do words.  Those twins that come as such a nuisance to a portion of the population held my full confidence.  I was fairly sure that I would be able to sit back and enjoy as “my dancer,” Megan (God bless her for putting up with me), turned my careful phrases into something visually appealing.

And so time passed.  Pieces were revised.  Music and costume-based disagreements were resolved amicably and professionally.  And now, with the performance a mere four days away (and counting) I can say with some certainty (and an element of pride) that I only felt uncomfortable once.

I had to bow.

It seems simple.  Raised arms, and a bend at the waist.  But mentally, there was so much more.

I pictured my sister, at the end of her most recent performance.  Eyes bright and cheeks rouged to pop under the harsh lights, she had been grinning like the unnatural movement was second nature to her.  And maybe it was.  But not to me.  Some are born for the spotlight, and I do not count myself among that lucky few.

When people read good writing, they appreciate the words.  If it is read to them, they like the way it sounds.  There is grammar.  There is sentence structure.  And on another level entirely, there are the characters, the plot, and the intricacies of dialogue.  The author, in a sense, can seem secondary. And to me that’s okay.  If people are reading my writing, if it is making them think in any small way, my name in a small-type subheading is all the recognition I need.

It was only rehearsal.  I was facing a crowd of maybe fifteen, all familiar faces, but bowing still felt presumptuous.  Pretentious.  I had not contorted my body in unbelievable ways or amazed anyone with my limitless grace and beauty.  What was I bowing for?  So face flaming, I did as told and returned to my seat.  And then I started thinking.

Maybe I really deserve this recognition.  Maybe next time, standing up there in my thrift store outfit, pen in hand, I can appreciate the applause.  I trip over my own feet, but I can be graceful.  This is not my world, but in all my self-consciousness, my poetry is a side of me few people see.  It all fits.  Next time, I will spill forth confidence and imagine my waist encircled in layers of dreamy tulle.  I will share my sister’s grace, and I will know how it feels.  Maybe now I’m getting ahead of myself.  Maybe I’m getting preachy.  But I am a writer.

Watch me bow.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The Kind of Adult Who Can Handle Things…Or Not

May 16, 2012 by tqtyson

Recently I was privy to this exchange between two fifth grade girls.

Girl 1: Shhhh, stop!

Girl 2: It’s okay, she’s the kind of adult who can handle things.

I was the adult in question and was more than a little surprised to be deemed the type of person who can handle things. I wanted to tell the girls that they had me all wrong, that I couldn’t handle things at all, that things left me generally wrung out and exhausted. I’d spent the day writing, a rare luxury that I couldn’t really afford. I felt good about my progress until I walked away from the pages and began to experience crushing doubt. This is the normal cycle of my writing life: steady concentration followed by bouts of euphoric output followed by a downward spiral of self-doubt and loathing. From what I can gather, the trajectory is eerily similar to the path of the average drug addict.

But back to those girls. They, too, are writers. One of them approached me to explain that her story wasn’t a happy one. She said someone would die, someone would be killed, and it wasn’t going to have a happy ending. She worried that it wouldn’t be okay. I assured her that it was fine, shared my own opinion that happy endings were overrated. She sighed in the dramatic way that only a 10-year-old girl can sigh. I hate happy endings, she told me. I understood. Life doesn’t serve up many happy endings, so why should literature? Happy endings are best left to the movies.

There is a story by Maile Meloy in the May 21 edition of The New Yorker. “The Proxy Marriage” follows a boy and girl as they serve as stand-ins for couples separated by war. The boy loves the girl, but doesn’t tell her; the girl doesn’t know her own heart. Everyone around them can see that they belong together. The story ends on an optimistic note and my first thought was, meh. But then I allowed myself to imagine the future of the seemingly happy couple. It was possible that the boy would never be enough for the girl. It was possible that the girl could never live up to the boy’s imagination. It was also possible that they would marry and have children and grow old together. In other words, it wasn’t an ending at all. It was a beginning, full of all the questions that beginnings pose.

Lately,  I have been struggling with closure in my own writing. Which threads should I tie off and which ones should I leave unraveled? There don’t seem to be any easy answers. It’s the type of thing where I might welcome a formula. It would be nice if I could just know that points A, B, and C must be brought to conclusion, while points X and Y are allowed to dangle. Alas, I fear I am on my own here.

As to those girls and the private discussion they worried I’d overhear but felt I could handle,  I have no idea what they were whispering about as I walked in the room. I was once a fifth grade girl myself and I believe they have a right to some secrets, some privacy. I am left to wonder, satisfyingly sans closure.

 

Posted in Uncategorized, Writing | 5 Comments »

“I am a little obfuscated”

May 15, 2012 by Nick Arvin

Here is an e-mail I recently received:

I read your piece (knock knock joke) in Robert Swartwood’s anthology
Be honest, I don’t expect find many feat in this book but I do.
And this cause a little obsession about understanding meaning of stories (I’m a English learner)
I am a little obfuscated:
is “she loves” means lover of his mother?
what was happening in the sink?
and what mean finish that joke with saying exactly?
Tanks

Although the grammar, word choices, and spelling here are a little comical, the writer seems earnest, and his questions are interesting because they point to the surprising number of cultural assumptions can be embedded in a piece of writing, even in an extremely short piece of writing (maybe especially in an extremely short piece of writing). So I ended up writing a lengthy response, which I have pasted below.

The piece we are talking about here is a 25-word bit of fiction titled “Knock Knock Joke,” which I wrote for the Hint Fiction Anthology, edited by Robert Swartwood. You can read the story here.

My response:

Dear XXXX,

Thanks for writing to me about my story, “Knock Knock Joke,” and thanks for taking the time to consider and think about the story. You asked three specific questions…

(1) Is “she loves” means lover of his mother?

The basis of your question is that the antecedent of “she” is unclear. In the same way, the antecedent of “his” in your question is also unclear. I think that probably you are assuming that the narrator is male, and, if I can rephrase your question, I think you mean: ”Does the ‘she’ in ‘she loves’ refer to the narrator’s mother?”

Indeed, as I first began developing the story, I did think “she loves” referred to the narrator’s mother. I also think most readers will assume as much. Unless told otherwise, readers tend to assume that a fictional narrator is of the same gender as the author. And when a man with a child talks about love, readers will often assume that he is talking about his wife, and that his wife is the child’s mother. However, in order to meet the strict 25-word requirement for this story, any context making such connections explicit had to be stripped out. As a result, alternate interpretations are possible, which is a feature of the story that pleases me. The alternate interpretations are not incorrect. For example, it could be that the narrator is female, and “she loves” refers to the narrator’s love. A one minute film version of this story was made by a filmmaker named Patrick Sheridan, which takes this interpretation. You can see the film here.

(2) What was happening in the sink?

I actually adapted the beginning of my story from the opening lines of a wonderful novel, Season of Water and Ice, by Donald Lystra. That novel begins, “Standing at the kitchen sink with his hands in soapy dishwater, the sleeves of his white shirt turned up above his elbows, [my father] would ask me to explain the principles of science…” I liked the image of a man standing at a kitchen sink, washing dishes, with the sleeves of his work shirt rolled, because in the usual order of gender roles (although these things are beginning to break down in the United States, thank goodness), men do not do dishes. Consequently, the image implies that perhaps something has gone wrong within the family. Many different scenarios can be created out of that single image.

In my mind, washing dishes is what people usually do when standing at the sink with sleeves rolled. To be honest, until I received your question it didn’t even occur to me that something else might be happening in the sink. But the story does not say what is in the sink — it could be anything. The father might be washing his pet monkey. He might be stuffing body parts into the garbage disposal. These possibilities are interesting to consider.

(3) What mean finish that joke with saying exactly?

I’m not sure if knock-knock jokes are a part of the cultural currency in your country. Wikipedia says that “knock-knock jokes are well entrenched in the UK, US, Ireland, France, Belgium, Australia, Canada, South Africa and Philippines,” but they are not widely known in other countries.

A knock-knock joke is a traditional “call and answer” joke format. It is often used with children, which may explain why the father uses it in the story.

In this case, the father uses the knock-knock joke format as a device for causing his child express the father’s own thoughts. I can see how the use of the word “exactly” here might be confusing to someone learning English, but it is a common conversational usage. “Exactly” affirms whatever the other person has said. So, when the father says, “Exactly,” he is communicating something like, “You have just asked exactly the question that is in my own mind.” As a result, the knock-knock joke is no longer a joke at all.

But there are probably other ways to interpret the word, and those interpretations are not incorrect. This is part of the magic of fiction, and the intense compression of a 25-word story makes it even more important. Such a story, I believe, must create a large space in which the imagination of the reader can work. Because a 25-word story, if it were limited to only what can be conveyed explicitly in so few words, would be a very small story indeed.

Actually, one interpretation of the story’s last word, “exactly,” might be that it is an ironic comment on the nature of the story itself. Because nothing in the story is exact. Everything is subject to the observer’s interpretation. As it is in life, too.

Tanks,

Nick Arvin

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

The very true tale of Lit Fest success: redux

May 14, 2012 by andreadupree

Every year there are stories to tell about the writers who are part of this crazy-flourishing community, and it’s always a pleasure to do so. This month we feature Lighthouse workshopper (and occasional pinch-hit faculty, current board member, former volunteer coordinator, current volunteer, and the Lighthouser who most looks like Rick Bayless) Gary Schanbacher. You’ve probably met him at one of our events, or sat in on his reading back when Migration Patterns, his PEN/Hemingway finalist collection of short stories, hit the shelves. Maybe you were lucky enough to be in the advanced short story workshop during the years he was submitting the stories to the workshop? I was the lucky one teaching the class, but most people thought Gary was the instructor. Including me.

If Gary can’t get an author photo together, he can use this…

Last summer at Lit Fest, Gary signed up to meet with an agent from Carlson, Lerner, and Dunow, who matched him with one of the partners. Now, under the guidance of Jennifer Carlson, Gary’s novel, Crossing Purgatory, has been acquired by Pegasus Books.  Naturally, we had to get Gary to answer a few questions about the journey.  We’ll keep you posted on release dates, parties, and general cheers as they become available.

1. Can you give us the tiniest of previews of your novel, Crossing Purgatory? It sounds biblical in scope.

As you can guess from the title, it’s a  lighthearted romantic comedy about….wait….that’s my current project.  Crossing Purgatory is a bit more heavyhearted.  But in a good way. I hope.  In the spring of 1858, following a family tragedy, Thompson Grey abandons his farm in Indiana in the attempt to escape the guilt and remorse that haunt him.  His encounters on the trail west force him to assess his values and  slowly reawaken his connection with humanity.  The story’s overarching themes deal with questions of unbridled ambition, guilt, and the price for atonement.  It may be slotted as “historical fiction,” but I’d rather it be considered “fiction set in history,” since it is in essence a novel of relationships rather than events, of human frailties, and the struggle for redemption. At least, that’s my take on it.

2. How’d you manage to make the leap from short stories to a really long story?  Please give away all your secrets.

With great trepidation, many false starts, and lots of self-doubt.  But, that pretty much sums up my approach to writing in general, be it short form or long.  Really, I think many of the same stylistic elements apply–both require tension, urgency, arc, and so on.  I think with the long story, I had to learn to let things be, to avoid forcing resolution before its time.  I also had to learn to juggle more balls, to weave in subplots and remember to have them eventually converge.  The long form also requires a great deal of patience.  When I work on a short story, I usually know within a few months if I have anything worth pushing to completion.  With the novel, I was years into the project and still had no sense of comfort about it. Plus, it’s tough to maintain a consistent voice and tone for that long a period.  Finally, with both short and long fiction, I tend to do a lot of deconstruction of stories I admire (and even those I dislike), and to apply what I come up with to my own writing.

3. Anything about the journey from idea to book contract that you can dangle, carrot-like, in front of the rest of us?

I can’t offer much about the current journey because I’m just beginning it.  Questions of editing, layout, even the title are still open.  But in general (and regarding my first book) I think of the journey as moving from a unilateral to a collaborative enterprise.  At the beginning, we own it all–the idea, the research, the initial drafts.  Eventually, we seek feedback (trusted readers, workshops, agents and editors) and ultimately we cede ownership once the story is in the hands of the reader.  There is no denying the rush of excitement from seeing your story progress from concept to actual publication.  I wish that for everyone.  But at the same time, at least for me, there is also a sense of great good fortune.  It absolutely baffles me why some stories are chosen by the “industry” and others not.  I think it’s our responsibility as writers to concentrate on producing the very best work we can, to practice due diligence in seeking out compatible agents and editors, and then to get back to the writing desk.  Luckily, that’s where we own it all.

This is Gary Schanbacher’s second time on our Lit Fest success page–Migration Patterns, which won the Colorado Book Award, was pitched at our first annual Lit Fest in 2006 to Fulcrum, who ultimately published it. This year’s Lit Fest is June 1 to 16, and we truly hope to see you there! More information here, or by downloading this pdf of the brochure.

Posted in Good Books, LitFest, The Scoop | 2 Comments »

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