Category — On Reading

Today I’m thrilled to be featured on Kristin Bair O’Keefe’s Writerhead, a fabulous blog in which she interviews writers about the state of “writerhead” and what it means to them and their process. I loved answering her thought-provoking questions … not to mention reading writerhead stories about all the other wonderful writers she has featured.

Stop by Kristin’s blog and check out not only Writerhead but all her fabulous tips, links, and writing news … you’ll love it.

In my continuing coverage of awesome indie bookstores, I’d like you to meet Bloomsbury Books of Ashland, Oregon.

This lovely bookstore is in the center of town, and as well as offering a great selection of books and magazines, Bloomsbury is also a wonderful gift shop, with cards, games, and (very important) Theo Chocolate, among other delights. The staff is friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful, and the store features frequent author events (I’ll be reading there on Thursday, May 12, at 7 p.m., if you happen to be in town).

Yet another thing to love about Bloomsbury is the cafe upstairs, with its organic selections, gigantic comfy chairs, and a gorgeous outdoor patio and garden (the cafe has a “no cell phone policy” of which I am a huge fan). I’ve spent much of the winter there on writing dates with my writing buddy, and now that the weather is nice enough to write outside, I’m hoping to spend most of the summer here as well.

In honor of Short Story Month and the Short Story Month Collection Giveaway Project, I’m turning to short stories for inspiration for this week’s writing exercise:

1. Pull one of your favorite short story collections off the shelf.

2. Open to a random page.

3. Write down the first line on that page. (For example, I’ve just picked up Lori Ostlund’s The Bigness of the World, and my random line is: “They had not expected the desert to be like this…”)

4. Write a story of your own based on this one line — erase the original story’s context from your mind, start over, and have fun.

Welcome to Short Story Month!

UPDATE, 6/1: Congratulations to the winners — Tommy, Ed, and Susan — who now have some amazing summer reading material on the way. And thanks to all of you who participated in the giveaway and for all that you do to keep short stories alive and well!

This year, I am happy to be joining other bloggers in the annual Fiction Writers Review Collection Giveaway Project, a community effort by lit bloggers to raise attention for short story collections. FWR Contributing Editor Erika Dreifus suggested FWR as a home for this project last year and will not only be participating on her own blog, but will also be helping FWR run the project. And those of you who are fiction bloggers yourselves, click here for information on how you can participate as well.

The only difficult part about this for me has been choosing a collection to give away…but I’ve finally narrowed it down. To three.

First, I’m happy to be giving away Erika‘s own collection, Quiet Americans, out this year and well worth the long wait! I first met Erika in a bookstore outside Boston, where we did a reading together as finalists for a short story award. So I’ve enjoyed her work for many years and was thrilled to have a whole collection of her haunting and thought-provoking stories to curl up with this winter. From a high-ranking Nazi’s wife and a Jewish doctor in prewar Berlin to a refugee returning to Europe as terrorists massacre Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, the characters and conflicts that emerge in Quiet Americans reframe familiar questions about what is right and wrong, remembered and repressed, resolved and unending.

I’m also happy to be giving away Becky Hagenston‘s collection Strange Weather, which received the 2009 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction and was published by the fabulous Press 53. As with Erika, I’d already been acquainted with Becky’s work and with some of these stories through the many literary magazines they’ve appeared in, and I loved having the chance to overdose on them with this collection, which is nearly impossible to put down. From the visceral tension in the mother-daughter relationship in “Trafalgar” to the wonderfully witty ghost story “Anthony,” these stories offer us a delightful mix of magic and reality, while never losing their grip on the truths that draw us to stories in the first place.

And finally, I’m delighted to offer the wonderful collection The Bigness of the World by Lori Ostlund, now out in paperback. Winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, this beautiful book introduces us to characters venturing out into a world in hopes of escaping their troubles, only to find that life remains as complicated as it was before they left. You may have already read “All Boy” in Best American Short Stories 2010 (two additional stories from the collection, “Bed Death” and “Talking Fowl with My Father,” are on the list of Other Distinguished Stories) — and if you’ve already read Lori’s work, you’ll only want to read more.

To be entered to win, leave a comment on this post any time from now to midnight (Pacific time!) on Tuesday, May 31, 2011, at which time I’ll use a random number generator to select three lucky winners.

Happy Short Story Month! Go forth, read stories, and celebrate.

I have to admit, I walked right past this bookstore (perhaps I was a little obsessed with the Bovine Bakery next door) — the sign is pretty nondescript, and the bakery does have that sugary fragrance going for it. But I was very glad to have stopped in to Point Reyes Books, a little treasure in this tiny Bay Area town.

The bookstore is cozy, its staff friendly, and I found it a great source not only of books but of work by local artists (in fact, in the upper right of this photo is an installation by a local artist of books by authors hosted by the store). And speaking of events, Point Reyes Books has an impressive list of visiting authors — and one of its owners, Kate Levinson, is an author herself. If you’re ever in the area — Point Reyes Station is only an hour or so north of San Francisco — I highly recommend stopping by. And don’t forget about that bakery next door.

I’m delighted to be a guest today at Word Love by Randy Susan Meyers — a fantastic blog about writing and all aspects of the writing life. In addition to hosting this terrific blog, Randy is the internationally bestselling author of The Murderer’s Daughters; visit her web site to learn more and to read all the fabulous reviews.

Come join us at Word Love to learn a few tips on how to create a book trailer, to watch a few great ones, and to read the behind-the-scenes story about my own effort, Love in the Time of Amazon.com.

I imagine most writers are bookstore geeks like me — this is probably how it all started for us. I still remember the indie bookstore in the town where I grew up, one of my favorite places ever. Sadly, it closed, and a Barnes & Noble opened up in a mall on the other side of town — but, as we all know (as both readers and writers), a big chain bookstore is never quite the same. Bookstores, for me, need to have creaky hardwood floors, narrow aisles, non-florescent lighting, bookstore cats. It needs to have aisles that end suddenly, aisles that meander until you forget where you are. And of course it’ll have staff members who are fellow book geeks.

I’ve taken my geekiness to a new level by photographing bookstores I find. Below is one in which I recently escaped an icy rain — Eureka Books in Eureka, California.

As you can see, it’s a gorgeous bookstore, housed in a Victorian dating from 1879 (and it’s right off the 101, if you’re ever passing through). The store has a wonderful collection of regional books and literature, and it’s right in the heart of downtown, along with many other lovely shops, not to mention the Lost Coast Brewing Company (which I also highly recommend).

Today I’m thrilled to be a guest on the fabulous Savvy Verse & Wit blog, where I share some thoughts about my writing space (complete with before and after photos!). We’re also doing a Forgetting English giveaway, so come visit and enter to win a copy of the book.

Many thanks to Serena for hosting me today — and in addition to her blog, you can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.

Today I’m delighted to be a guest on Erika Dreifus’s popular and invaluable blog, Practicing Writing, to which I’ve been addicted for many years. Erika is a contributing editor for The Writer magazine and Fiction Writers Review and an advisory board member for J Journal: New Writing on Justice. Her beautiful story collection, Quiet Americans, was published earlier this year.

With thanks to Erika for hosting me, today I’m offering Ten Tips for a Writing Life, a few things that I find helpful to keep in mind as a working writer. I’d love to hear your tips as well, so stop by and share!

I’m so happy to be over at Elizabeth’ Austen’s blog today, writing about Thinking Like a Writer (a nice reminder for those of us who can’t manage to sit down to write as often as we’d like).

Elizabeth is a poet, teacher, and performer whose most recent collection, Every Dress a Decision, has just been released by Blue Begonia Press. Check out the trailer here — and listen to Elizabeth chat about poetry with Billy Collins here.

I look forward to seeing you at Elizabeth’s today!

Today I’d like to thank Susan Rich, author of three beautiful books of poetry (the most recent of which, The Alchemist’s Kitchen, is a finalist for the Poetry Book of the Year award), for hosting me on her blog today. Today’s topic is Writing About Place, and I offer a few tips for how all writers — from poets to novelists — can best write about place.

So join me over at The Alchemist’s Kitchen blog. It’s a place you’ll want to visit over and over again.

I’m thrilled today to be blogging at Seattle’s Crab Creek Review, one of my favorite literary magazines, about putting time and space between yourself and a piece of writing (it’s true: absence really does make the heart grow fonder).

Join me at the Crab Creek Review blog — and be sure to check out the magazine and all the latest news here. Thanks so much to editors Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy for hosting me!

Happy April, writers!

In honor of National Poetry Month, I’m happy to offer this week’s writing prompt by Seattle poet Susan Rich. Susan is the author of three books of poetry: The Cartographer’s Tongue, Cures Include Travel, and, most recently, The Alchemist’s Kitchen. She has received awards from PEN USA, The Times Literary Supplement, and Peace Corps Writers. Her fellowships include an Artist Trust Fellowship from Washington State and a Fulbright Fellowship in South Africa. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, among them the Antioch Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Christian Science Monitor, Harvard Review, Gettysburg Review, New England Review, Northwest Review, Poetry International and The Southern Review. Susan teaches at Highline Community College, where she runs the reading series Highline Listens: Writers Read Their Work. Be sure to visit Susan’s blog this month — for National Poetry Month, she’ll be posting a Poetry Giveaway on her blog that will include a copy of The Alchemist’s Kitchen! And do check out her web site as well.

I love that Susan has chosen an exercise on interviewing — one of a writer’s greatest skills, right along with listening. Susan’s exercise is inspired in part by her interviews with new Somali citizens for the Somali Voices project (these poems appear in her second book, Cures Include Travel).

Enjoy — and don’t miss Susan’s lovely poem “Interview,” which appears after the exercise.

Applying Creative Research

Recently I’ve discovered a new love: interviewing. I think the type of deep listening required in the role of interviewer is something many writers – many people crave. StoryCorps is an independent non-profit which has made interviewing a part of the national conversation examining what makes us human.

In my work as a poet, a human rights worker and now as a teacher, asking good questions is key to understanding the woman (or man) who sits right in front of me. I love the feeling when the interviewee makes a discovery about their life prompted by my question. In some cases, I can see the flicker of awareness literally alter my guest’s expression. Isn’t this what we, as writers, want our work to do? Don’t we want to prompt our readers, our listeners into understanding their lives anew?

So here’s your mission should you choose to accept it: Begin by interviewing someone you know. Or someone you would like to know. Draw up a varied set of interview questions. I’m often surprised by which question prompts the best response. Once the conversation is moving, feel free to follow it wherever it goes. I’d suggest taping the interview (with permission) as well as jotting down notes. After you listen to the tape and look over your notes, write out the passages that resonate. Your final piece will be a mix of words directly from the interview as well as words of your own.

In my work, I often use phrases from the original interview, but then pour the words into a different form – a villanelle, a sonnet, or a two-lined call and response in order to take the interview somewhere new. The end goal is not to be a journalist but instead use the interview as a jumping off point for a poem or a story. Here’s a villanelle I wrote based on an interview with a young woman from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Just out of high school,  “Lara” had been an ambulance dispatcher at the beginning of the Bosnian war. The facts in the poem are all true – the words are a mix of Lara’s and mine. Fans of the villanelle will notice I broke the form to leave the story unfinished – the final line of the form has been removed.

Interview
~ for Lara

In her mind, she needs to cross the boundary
navigate clear water, sleep again, be whole ~
she’ll erase her Muslim name, forget life’s memory.

Why not Bavaria? Why not the travel remedy?
Study without the Sarajevo Rose.*
Her mind a boat; she floats across the boundary.

Everyone said, the conflict? only temporary ~
She’ll call her family often; keep close by telephone;
pour the past away, skip the shit of memory.

But each night she pays, this is not her country.
The thoughts shoot back and forth, a mental palindrome.
Her mind: ocean without boundary.

Other students stare in disbelief as she leaves, quietly~
a homing instinct, streams; she charts the map alone.
Is the past no more than present memory?

For one moment, her return is almost celebratory.
Mortar rounds and shelling, a kind of pleasure dome.
Her mind circles round blue boundaries.

* The Sarajevo Rose is the pattern made by a mortar shell exploding; specifically, it is the imprint left on the tarmac.

Published originally in Harvard Review and republished in The Alchemist’s Kitchen, White Pine Press, 2010.

Photo of the author by Rosanne Olson.

I’m thrilled this week to present a guest prompt by the amazing Elizabeth Austen. Elizabeth’s poetry is always a joy to read — and even better is to hear her perform her work live (if you’re in the Pacific Northwest, scroll down for Elizabeth’s upcoming events). I love the way she inspires us to pay attention to language, whether we’re reading or listening, and I always find myself reading each of Elizabeth’s poems many times over to capture the depth of the worlds that each of them contains.

A poet, performer, and teacher, Elizabeth is the author of the poetry collection Every Dress a Decision, forthcoming from Blue Begonia Press next month, and the chapbooks The Girl Who Goes Alone (Floating Bridge Press, 2010) and Where Currents Meet (part of the 2010 Toadlily Press quartet Sightline). She is a dynamic performer of her own and others’ poems and frequently teaches the art of poetry aloud. For more than 10 years, she has produced literary programming for KUOW, 94.9, one of Seattle’s NPR affiliates, introducing recordings of Pacific Northwest literary events and interviewing local and national poets, and she has received grants from Artist Trust, 4Culture, and the City of Seattle.

This prompt is perfect for all writers — enjoy!

Cultivating Opposites
One of my favorite starting places for poems involves working with opposites – or, as the poet Marie Howe put it in a recent workshop, “contraries.” Whatever our background, we all have stories that we’ve carried around so long we can’t even remember a time before we knew them. These may be stories about our own family or romantic history, stories handed down by our church or religion, etc. Telling these stories in the usual way can lead us into predictable territory –  “I have my point of view, and I’m sticking to it” – and into clichés of thought or feeling. But what about entertaining the opposite point of view, or taking a contrary position to the one we’ve always held (or always been told)?

So, here’s your starting point:  pick a familiar story. Now, pivot your frame of reference 180 degrees, and re-tell that story from another – an opposite, a contrary – point of view. This works equally well for any genre. (And on a side note, this can be a very potent tool for revision. Take a poem or story that just isn’t working, and either write the whole thing from a completely opposing point of view – reversing all the details – or inject a contrary voice. See where that takes you – at the very least, it’s sure to give your draft new energy.)

Here’s a poem from my collection Every Dress a Decision that takes a contrarian view of story from Genesis:

It Didn’t Happen That Way

Unless the apple itself, longing
to be known, can be blamed
for the light bent
across its skin
for the mid-day heat
transforming sugar to scent.

And him? She didn’t say
a word to him. He found
her, slack-jawed
skin flushed and damp
as if he had lain on her
pressed into her—

he found her, swallow by swallow
savoring the taste of knowledge
her eyes fixed, focused

somewhere beyond him
as if he no longer existed.
And one more thing—
she didn’t tempt him. In fact
she never offered it.

He pried the fruit
from her hand, desperate
to follow, and bit.

If you’re in the Pacific Northwest, be sure to mark your calendar to attend at least one of Elizabeth’s readings:

- Saturday, April 2, at the Silverton Poetry Festival

- Sunday, April 10, at 7 p..m at the Doe Bay Cafe on Orcas Island (part of the SPLAB series)

-  Thursday, April 28, at 7 p.m. at Cheap Wine and Poetry at Richard Hugo House

- Friday, April 29, 7 p.m. at Bellingham’s Village Books