Inlandia - Bound

Next week I'm heading south to do a series of very cool events in the Inland Empire (and of course, to celebrate Mother's Day with Mom.)  If you're in the area, it would be wonderful to see you.






Wednesday, May 8 at Riverside City College
Room AD 122  7 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
RCC campus map

Reading and signing.

I'll be reading from Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus and hopefully showing a few slides (do we still say "slides"?) from my research visits to Tallahassee as well as some historical photos courtesy of the Florida State Archives.  I've been revisiting my research notes in preparation for the trip, and the test ride story still gives me chills.  I'm eager to share the stories. 

Friday, May 10 at the Cellar Door Bookstore in Riverside at 6:30 p.m.
http://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/

Reading with the fine essayist, Riverside's own Jo Scott Coe

I plan to read from my most recently published book Potluck as well as sample brand new work from my most recently completed essay collection, The Hole in the Snow.   I'm not sure I can read about snow in Riverside in May with a straight face, so I'll find a summer-themed snippet or two.

The event is sponsored by the Inlandia Institute who maintain a fine blog co-sponsored by the local newspaper The Press Enterprise.  Check it out:  http://localauthors.pe.com/

Then on Saturday, May 11 at Claremont Craft Ales 12 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.  hosted by the incomparable
Yi Shun Lai

Memoir Writing Workshop

Everyone has a story worth telling from the poignant to the humorous, from the sprawling family saga to the chance encounter at the check stand.  But how do you craft your story for the page in a way that readerswill find compelling?  Join Ana Maria to try out an easy step-by-step approach for aspiring writers at any stage.  

Bring a pen-and-paper or a laptop.  The workshop will last two hours.  
$20 cost includes instruction, sandwich and chips, and one beverage.
RSVP to AMS (e-address on the website)

On Mortenson, memoir, victims, whiners, and the sometimes sickening truth

The undeserving casualties of the recent fracas over Greg Mortenson’s exaggerations in his bestselling memoirs are many: the people that donated money to his schools in Afghanistan and the schools themselves – guaranteed now to be shorter on funds than before – and the girls who attend them. Then there are readers, even the non-donators, and attendees of Mortenson’s speaking engagements who believed a story and now feel duped. But not least among them are memoirists everywhere who have taken yet another blow to their credibility.

Credibility that has long been suspect. The root of the accusations is familiar: how can any writer remember all the details? Memoirists, the naysayers point out, compress time and make-up dialogue and details. True enough. But most readers are cool with that. The truth is, often enough, the eye-rolling exasperation has less to do with how the story is told – how true exactly – than with what kind of story it is. Memoir is the genre of victimization, say the eye-rollers. The realm of whiners.

I should know. I taught memoir writing online for several years to hundreds of writers – new writers, experienced writers, rich writers and poor, good writers and bad, women and, occasionally, men – and among the shocks I had to face was exactly how widespread childhood trauma, especially family trauma, is. Not verbal abuse, but horrid physical and sexual abuse. I recoiled. I didn’t want to read it, not once and certainly not dozens of times a day, but I was awed and humbled by the guts it took for writers to relive the trauma, and it did not take me long to realize that these stories must be told. The sheer number of them makes them impossible to ignore. Victimization is not an attitude that’s gone viral. It’s a reality that’s been shoved under the carpet. Because we want it there. We want to change the subject.

Oddly enough, it’s rarely the (mostly female) victims of horrific crimes who exaggerate or lie in memoir – I’ve never heard of a documented case – but the (mostly male) perpetrators of minor ones. James Frey lied about his the extent of his drug dealing. Ditto Malcolm X according to a new biography. Greg Mortenson apparently not only exaggerated his commitment to the village schools, but also the extent of his trespass into enemy territory and his subsequent kidnapping. Let’s face it: bad guy dramas, packed with danger and daring, tend toward excess. Whether and how to punish or prevent such excess is, I suppose, a discussion worth having.

But let’s not change the subject.

Let’s not allow courageous writers who were once victims become victims (again) by letting “Did this really happen?” morph into “Are these stories really worth telling (again)?” They are. And the most important ones may not be packed with misdeeds-turned-bravado – the street thug turned civil rights hero, the climber turned philanthropist – but with pathos and cold hard, sometimes sickening, truth.

Books, books, books

For the past few weeks, as I've been planning ahead for the courses I get to teach in the Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA program next Spring, I've felt the same anxiety I've felt since I was a kid whenever someone gave me a gift certificate to a book or record store, my favorite gift bar none. I obsess over the options and worry that I will make a poor choice. I wring my hands. I wander the aisles or keep updating my cart online. Finally I click to buy and hope for the best.


So now I get to choose not one or two books, but several. Not just for myself but for my students. Two courses: Craft of Nonfiction and Directed Readings in Contemporary Memoir. It's like the ultimate gift certificate. Should I choose forty books or eighty? The lists beside my desk on scrap paper kept accumulating. I emailed friends for advice, and then promptly ignored it. I honed the list over and over until it occurred to me, yesterday, that I had other work that probably needed doing, most notably firewood splitting and putting the garden to bed, but also teaching my current classes.

Anyway here's the final list for The Contemporary Memoir. Now that it's finalized, please let me know what you think so that I can start the inevitable regretting.

Two craft books for reference:

The Art of Time in Memoir: Then, Again by Sven Birkerts
Fearless Confessions by Sue William Silverman

Ten fine books:

Brother I’m Dying Edwidge Danticat
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City Nick Flynn
Lit Mary Karr
Autobiography of a Face Lucy Grealy
Somehow Form a Family Tony Earley
Boyhood J.M Coetzee
The Tender Land Kathleen Finneran
I’ve Heard the Vultures Singing Lucia Perillo
Jarhead Anthony Swofford
Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood Melissa Hart

With apologies to the many also-rans: Mark Doty, Alexandra Fuller, Judith Barrington, Michael Ondaatje, Danielle Trussoni, Frank McCourt, Maxine Hong Kingston, Thomas Merton. I don't suspect it bothers them to have missed the cut. But good lord does it bother me. Next time. Next time.

PS - For my most recent CD purchase, in spring, I was stuck between Clem Snide and Fruit Bats, nearly paralyzed for weeks. Finally, I bought both. Big splurge. No regrets. I'll take this as an omen.