Hi,
Since my last letter David's 2nd book of poems came out. It's called
Always Danger. Check out the cool cover. (link)
My 6 Week Intensive Novel Writing Workshop goes from May 7th-June
11. It's going to be 6 weeks=60 Pages, so there will be a lot of
work for those involved—and for me too! Both reading and rereading
their work and writing my own. I'm asking the Sunday Writers to
read a big chunk of Jane Smiley's Thirteen Ways of Looking at
the Novel specifically from the beginning to pg. 280. I've
also given them a list of novels that they'll probably want to read
or at least check out before class begins. For those of you who
are interested, here's a condensed list: Angels, We Need to
Talk About Kevin, The Bee Season, Homeland, How the Light Gets In,
Torch, and Bright Angel Time. And there are several
novels by my bed that I'm going to read before suggesting them:
The Last of Her Kind, A Secret Word, The Best People in the
World. Also, I'm going to give Veronica another try.
I love Mary Gaitskill's stories and want to like this novel too.
In my CSULB fiction workshop, we listened to Junoz Diaz read his
story "How to Date a Black Girl, Brown Girl, White Girl, or
Halfie" on a New Yorker CD and it was great hearing
him read it, even though I've heard it several times. Still waiting
patiently for whatever Diaz does next.
I received a Writing Fellowship to The Civitella Rainier Center
(link) in
Italy, so I'll be out of the country most of the summer. David and
I leave for the trip on June 18. MM has been kind enough to offer
to housesit and take care of our mail. Here's a link to the castle.
Think of me there finishing up my new novel "The Nakeds"
(yes, plural).
Also, I was offered a tenure track position at CSULB and am very
happy about that.
David's website business is doing fine too. If you need a website
or know of anyone who does, check out www.jadedpaper.com. (link)
Here's a writing exercise for you...Read Miranda July's story "The
Shared Patio" in Zoetrope (link).
Write a fiction or creative nonfiction piece using a character or
person afflicted with an illness as your starting point.
I'll let you know how the 6 week class goes.
xo,
