The Penny Dreadful, Grub Street's official blog

Softball Department (brought to you by guest sportscaster, Becky Tuch)

2010-06-14T12:15:00.000-04:00

Word-Slingers 11, ConSultans of Swat, 8

ANDOVER-- On Sunday, Grub Street Word-Slingers went head to head against The ConSultans of Swat. Grub Street started fierce, with power hits and aggressive base running that instantly put the ConSultans on guard. Through the first few innings, Grub Street's hits remained strong and they worked their way through the short line-up, rounding base after base. On defense, their smaller-than-usual team (nine instead of the usual ten players) did not prevent them from catching pop-ups, calling flies, and staying tight and organized...Until players got tired. And the captain made a sloppy error at second. And one thing. Then another. And soon the ConSultans had caught up, closing in on Grub Street's lead...But losing? That is so 2008! The Word Slingers managed to rally their defensive mojo and in the end held their opponents at just a few runs below them. The game was won. The Word-Slingers, at last, exhaled.

Softball Department (brought to you by guest sportscaster, Clarence Lai)

2010-06-07T12:52:00.001-04:00

Necessary Roughness 11, Grub Street WordSlingers 2.

After winning two of two games thus far, the Grub Street WordSlingers were vanquished this Sunday by Necessary Roughness, ending hopes of a perfect season. Playing without a full squad, the Slingers fell behind early and were unable to claw back, despite clawing extremely hard. The hits and walks simply did not materalize for the Slingers. A sudden passing tornado threatened to literally blow the team away, suspending play for ten minutes. But fear not, true fans! The team has vowed to rise from defeat to sling words, strikeouts, and home runs as in their days of not-forgotten greatness.

Let's Just Forget About This One

2009-10-14T17:37:00.001-04:00

Java Junkies infinity-seven, Grub Street Word-Slingers one

By Matt Frederick

Fresh off a dominating victory the previous week, the Grub Street Word-Slingers took the diamond Sunday expecting big things. The big thing to emerge was an early deficit, as the orange-clad Java Junkies scored several billion times in the first inning to take the lead, several billion to zero. The Junkies added several dozen more dingers in the second and third innings to increase their lead to eleventy-twelve skillion to nothing, despite Matt Biewener's conscientous patrolling of Church Street beyond the left field fence.

Fueled by several swinging bunts, the Word-Slingers built a two-out threat in the bottom of the third, putting runners on first and second. But the rally died when Matt Frederick's drive toward the warning track in left was hauled in by the Junkies' pitcher a little bit in front of third base.

Jon Papernick relieved the starting pitcher in the top of the fourth and finally quieted the Junkies' attack with a variety of illegal pitches. Papernick then led the offense in the bottom of the fourth by singling and scampering all the way home on a double by someone or other; no one is sure who as we weren’t paying much attention by this point.

With the Word-Slingers prowess having been made apparent, the game was called by the umpire after the bottom of the fourth inning on account of it not resembling softball.

Oh What a Beautiful Morning

2009-10-14T17:36:00.000-04:00

Word-Slingers 19, Other Team 5.

While the rest of the world was cozily dozing on Sunday morning, Grub Street’s dedicated Word Slingers woke at the crack of dawn to stretch their hamstrings and pound their mitts into shape.
“It’s turning into a beautiful day,” team captain Becky Tuch observed, as the mist rose from wet grass and deep layers of mud dried around second base.
“Yeah,” agreed outfielder Matt Biewener, swilling from a bottle of Muscle Milk and wiping sleep from his eyes. “Beautiful.”
Plied with gusto and coffee and delicious farm-picked apples, it wasn’t long before the disappointment of the team’s early-season losses evaporated like dew. At third base, Ted Weesner—who has been studying ballet in his free time—was quick, organized and graceful. No ball got past him as he dove, jumped and hustled like a man—or ballerina—on fire.
But what would a third baseman be without a first baseman to receive his throws? At this post was medieval fantasy freak, Ethan Gilsdorf. Clad in chain mail, clutching his sword in one hand and his mitt in the other, Gilsdorf stopped many a gnome and woodland creature from arriving safe at the plate.
Notable infielders included Jon Papernick, who likes to wear stretchy white leggings, Wayne Feldman who donned the season’s latest hiking boots, and Mike Whose Last Name No One Actually Knows. These three fashion icons caught pop-ups, dug in for grounders, backed up the pitcher, and called out plays, all while giving George Clooney a run for his money as next GQ poster man.
Then there was the outfield. Cunning and sharp, these stalwarts knew how to stack the field. Engine Purring Matt Biewener, Motor Oil Matt Frederick, Elbow Grease Jeff Stern and This-Author-Wishes-She-Knew-More-About-Cars-Because-She’s-Out-of-Metaphors Clarence Lai, lined up in rows, spread apart like star clusters, and generally organized themselves into complex algorithms to safeguard against homerun hitters. It was like watching, well, a car. Run. Without making chugging noises.
And finally, Bestsy Lawson proved once again how vital she is to the team. Not only did she recruit the incredible Kristine YoungPerson, but she stepped right up to the mound and did an outstanding job, pitching a solid and consistent game that left the other team shuddering in their cleats and oversize tee shirts. She is a pitcher who can field, a fielder who can pitch, a mom who can coach, a coach who is a mom, an all around powerhouse.
Team Captain Becky Tuch is happy to report that, indeed, Sunday turned into a beautiful day. Final score: Word-Slingers 19, Other Team 5.

Two East Boston Seniors Meet Twenty East Boston Kids

2009-09-30T17:03:00.006-04:00

Here at Grub Street we have been truly impressed with all the unexpected journeys that the Memoir Project has taken since it began in 2006. Last Wednesday, the Boston Museum hosted an event at the East Boston Public Library where two seniors read their essays from My Legacy Is Simply This. The audience was twenty rowdy students from Umana Middle School Academy.

It was not a traditional reading. The seniors, Ann Papapietro and Alice Christopher, punctuated each paragraph of their essays with additional unwritten thoughts and comments, and the students responded with questions and comments of their own. The result was a dialogue on the past and present of East Boston - from the days before the tunnel when a ferry cost a single cent, to the food carts along Porter Street, and even a short talk about the importance of using cloth napkins and tablecloths.

After Mrs. Christopher read from her essay the focus changed from history to heritage. Her essay ‘A Nice American Girl’ is about being the youngest daughter of a large Italian family. And Mrs. Christopher wasn’t shy about how hard it was to be the only one in her family born in America, about having to translate for her parents, about never learning Italian, and about her childhood dislike of traditional Italian food. The same issues were presented to the students: Did they have parents and siblings who were born in another country? Did they ever have to translate for their parents? And for each question, more then half the students raised their hands.

Through the skill of the humanities teachers at Umana Middle School Academy and the foresight of the Boston Museum, several connections were made that day in the basement of the East Boston Public Library. The seniors were able to share the personal stories of their lives, but also add their perspective to East Boston history and the challenges of being an American immigrant. And in that quiet, fidgety way twenty middle school students learned something they didn’t know before- even if it was just that going to the movies used to cost ten cents.

-Whitney Ochoa

Top Ten Reasons Why The Word-Slingers Should Have Won Sunday’s Game

2009-09-21T16:20:00.003-04:00

1. The team played at Veteran’s Field, which is the most beautiful of all the North Boston fields, with a glistening lake just nearby and a pleasant atmosphere of dog-walkers, joggers and elderly sports fans.

2. Jen LaVin pitched like an ace, earning numerous strike-outs.

3. No ball was too high or too low for Brian Runk, whose uncannily long limbs make him a star first baseman.

4. Short-stop Jon Papernick didn’t let a single ball go past him. While many balls were stopped, he, himself was unstoppable.

5. Outfielders Betsy Lawson, Mike Last-Name-Unknown, Jeff Stern, Clarence Lai and Ethan Gilsdorf caught fly balls high and fast and deep, and they made it look as easy as reading an email.

6. The umpire had lovely blue eyes, a sturdy physique and a charming Boston accent, all of which did not go unnoticed by team captain, Becky Tuch.

7. A local park ranger came by to remind the team to clean up afterward. His orange tan and waxed chest did not go unnoticed by outfielder Matt Biewener and third-baseman Tom Meek.

8. Power-hitter Steve Rubman beat that ball into the clouds again and again.

9. Wayne Feldman.

10. Finally, while the other team was short a woman, the Grub Street team had just enough, including Kristen, who came from outer space.

Sadly, the game was a tie up until the very last inning, at which point the Team In Lime Green earned a final two runs, ending the game, 10-8. Next time, Word-Slingers. Next time.

Too Bad It's Not Preseason

2009-09-15T17:15:00.007-04:00

(Other Team 15, Grub Street Word-Slingers 11)

ANDOVER--While no rain fell on the Word-Slinger’s Sunday game, arbitrary rules and goose droppings spilled from the sky. To start things off, pitcher Jen LaVin was told to stand 600 feet from home plate.

“These are East Coast rules!” said Umpire Pouty McPoutface.

Adaptable as always, the Word-Slingers brought good spirits, high energy and a slew of valuable rookies to the field. New-timer Michelle Hoover hustled into home plate only to later fall victim to McPoutface’s willy-nilly One-And-One rule, which called her out after only two strikes. New-comer Steve Rubman also proved to be champion.

When asked about Rubman’s particular strengths on the field, fellow teammate, Clarence Lai said, “I don’t know. He got a hit.”

When not trying to make sense of the Inside-Outside-First-Base rule, the Sliding-Into-Home rule, the Game-Ends-After-1.25-Hours rule, and the horrendous Girls-Get-Their-Own-Rules rule, and when not sliding in goose droppings, other players proved outstanding as well. Betsy Lawson made vital outs in right field and hit the ball with gusto and grunts. In centerfield, Matt Biewener stared at his toes and wondered why the team was playing in P&G’s pharmaceutical office park, and if the goose droppings may not have in fact been clumps of toxic waste.

Meanwhile, Matt Frederick, Jon Papernick, Wayne Feldman, Brian Runk and Ted Weesner protected the infield with skill and panache, making numerous double plays that looked at once graceful and full of power, at once humble and mighty. In short, they are the voices of our generation.

Ultimately, the Word-Slingers couldn’t get much leverage on the other team’s pitcher. “He was a cheater,” says team Captain Becky Tuch. “Or at least, he was a diaper-wearing, Backstreet-Boys-loving goblin.”

Adds Clarence Lai, “There were a lot of goose droppings.”

Softball Department (brought to you by guest sportscaster, Matt Biewener)

2009-05-26T14:06:00.001-04:00

Grub Street Wordslingers 9 – Consultants of D. E. F. 10

ALLSTON--Armed with an off-season’s banquet of come-backs, one-liners, melodic-taunts, and go-get-em-cheers, the Wordslingers descended on the valley known as “Ringer’s Field” to take on the Consultants of D.E.F. Grub Street softball, in all its glory and tragedy, had returned – but the unfamiliar Allston terrain proved to be just as unknowable as the significance of their adversaries’ name.

Despite clouds circling ominously overhead, threatening to rain or at least make things more dramatic, baseballs were all that fell out of the sky. Jeff Stern stopped one potential homerun with his back to the fence but three more happened to land beyond his reach, beyond the concrete, and, actually, pretty far back in the woods. The Wordslingers, however, were unfazed. A sudden crack of the bat sent a rocket directly toward Ethan Gilsdorf who, pausing for a moment to consider the temptation to catch the ball with the side of his face, defused the threat easily – owing, in large part, to his perfect positioning, freshly oiled leather webbing, and fanatical nihilism.

But the moment that put a gasp in everyone’s throats was the moment when Wayne Feldman courageously (and perhaps unintentionally) collided with his teammate, his catcher, and his captain to save a run by tagging a runner coming home. Playing all three of these positions (and, at that point, still lying on the ground unconscious due to the aforementioned collision) was Becky Tuch, who returned the following inning to make two even more amazing plays: first, a Vari-fantas-tek shoe-string grab and, second, preventing the front leg of yet another runner coming home from touching the plate by stabbing it with the ball.

Down six runs to five in the bottom of the fourth, Betsy Lawson made her bat-boy (and future Wordslinger) son proud by sprinting her way down to first with a promising leadoff single. Unfortunately, the shift in momentum was only momentary as her dazzling display of determination was unreciprocated by her teammates who contributed three consecutive fly-outs to end the inning.

In the fifth, a Clarence Lai trademark hard grounder up the middle set the tone for the inning. A series of domino base hits even George Kennan couldn’t have predicted catapulted the Wordslingers into the lead by two runs. But that lead was short-lived. The valley’s violent vortex of wind robbed Amber DeFrancis yet again as it pushed her late sixth inning potential homerun back into the infield as a pop-fly.

Going into the seventh, the Wordslingers were down by only one run. Following two clutch singles, Jen Lavin produced one of her own, sending the base-runners gunning. But while Matt Frederick rounded third, the crowd’s cheers, the coach’s directions, and the well-audible shrieking from the bench’s least productive player (Matt Biewener) conflicted with the base-runner’s inner warrior instinct and he was tagged out on his way to home.

In the end, their strong showing in the middle innings, the glove of all-over-the outfield Tom Meek, and the conspicuous lack of any memory of last year’s season proved to be not enough as the Wordslingers lost by one run – 10 to 9.

YAWP! Read All About It!

2009-04-13T12:06:00.007-04:00

I walked into Grub Street early last Saturday in preparation for March’s YAWP. I filled out my little form, sat in a chair, and waited for the people to come in as usual, but usual wasn’t in the cards. Last month was what may have been the largest YAWP ever, and I’d be lying if I said that isn’t incredibly exciting.

Most of these new people must have taken the poetry or screenwriting workshop because fiction seemed no larger than usual. We all took our seats in the room and went around the circle, introducing ourselves, before getting down to business. Becky, the first teacher, gave us our prompt. “Write a situation in which one character slowly reveals information to another” and we were off. Thirty minutes later, those of us who wished were able to share their pieces, and the first part of the fiction class came to a close. And as it just so happens we began to talk revision.

For us, revision was an ugly topic, it seemed like the entire room had their own opinion of it which ended with “I really don’t do it that much” and this workshop dealt with it well, editing a small piece is much easier than a larger one. After we’d been at it for a little while, the metaphorical lunch bell metaphorically rang and we took the opportunity to stretch our legs and eat.

The poetry and screenwriting class had, I gathered from other students, been up to similar activities. Following the introductions, they were handed a packet of writing examples and, drawing from one in particular, started working on a piece. After 15 minutes they would share and continue in the same manner until lunch.

Lunch was, as lunch always is, a great time. If you don’t enjoy spending time with fantastically creative and intelligent people, then perhaps YAWP is not for you. Lunch is also short, but we didn’t mind, more writing was to come.

Returning to the fiction class, we had a new teacher, Nadine replacing Becky, and as is often the case she had us read the first bit of a book. After passing the book around, we drew from it, writing about a character that pretended to be something they were not. However, no sooner had we begun sharing the poetry class began to file in for the open mic, and the last chapter of YAWP began.

But now, with all of us sitting in a room, it began. One by one we walked up to the podium, introduced ourselves, and read. We heard tales of immortality, of Jewish grandmothers who change their name and move westward, of a birthday mistake and a loveably insane husband, and of everything else you can imagine. This open mic had a special attribute, as well; it was the first one I can remember that had to be cut short, because more people had read than we had time for. Now that it’s happened, however, I hope as much as possible that it continues.

-Michael McGurk
Grub Street's official YAWP Reporter

The Young Adult Writing Program (YAWP) meets one Saturday a month for writing workshops, food, and fun. For more information visit grubstreet.org.

Peek into Publishing

2008-11-05T13:03:00.002-05:00

Here's a recap of the November 1st chat with Elaine McArdle and Lane Zachary. Brought to you by Grub volunteer Val Maloof!

Today Elaine McArdle co-author of The Migraine Brain spoke about what it was like to co-author the book. Elaine is a journalist who teamed up with Dr. Carolyn Bernstein, a neurologist who had an idea to write an easy-to-understand book about migraines.

During the partnership, Dr. Bernstein would provide the medical knowledge and Elaine would simplify the medical terminology and conduct interviews. Elaine spoke about Dr. Bernstein as "the star." Because Dr. Bernstein had medical credentials she was the one going on the press tours and Elaine was mainly just in the background. And Elaine completely understood and accepted her position.

With her for this talk was her agent Lane Zachary of the Zachary, Shuster, Harmsworth Agency. One thing Lane advises writers to do is to get their work published. Agents are always reading different literary journals and magazines, so just by having work out there is a huge step in the right direction.

She also explained that an author's pay check is 15% of the list price of their book. For example, if a book sells for $30 then the author makes $4.50 per book.

When looking for an agent Lane suggests looking in the acknowledgment section of your favorite books-- it will usually state the agents name there. Both Lane and Elaine agreed on how crucial it is for a writer to have a strong positive connection with the agent.

Lane said that if you are to do a co-authorship with a "star," then the profits should always be split 50/50. And NEVER write for hire, according to Lane.

Contact Info:
Elaine McArdle
ElaineMcA at hotmail.com
www.elainemcardle.com

Lane Zachary
LZachary at zshliterary.com
www.zshliterary.com

Biddy Biddy Bop Bop

2008-10-23T14:43:00.002-04:00

Grub Street invites you to check out original drawings, doodles, and musings by 28 fabulous writers, including Tom Robbins, George Saunders, Robert Pinsky, Lois Lowry, Charles Baxter, Steve Almond, Susan Orlean, Chris Bohjalian, Ben Percy, Gregory Maguire, and Lee Martin. Welcome to our first-ever “From the Desk Of” postcard auction. Guess who made what!

We mailed each of these authors a blank, 5x7 inch postcard and asked each to create whatever they wanted with it. The creator of each postcard will remain anonymous until our upcoming fundraiser, A Taste of Grub. All details on how to bid on the postcards and come to the event are listed here. Online bidding will close promptly at 5:00pm on November 6th.

A Taste of Grub raises funds to support Grub Street’s community outreach programs, which bring creative writing workshops to senior citizens and at-risk youth throughout the greater Boston area. Plus, it's a chance for us to throw a great party and thank all of the wonderful supporters who make Grub Street possible.

Please spread the word to all your literary-minded friends, and bid, bid, bid! While you’re at it, check out our Literary Silent Auction as well.

Thanks, and cheers,
Sonya

Perfect Posture

2008-08-15T19:42:00.009-04:00

The spine is curved into a gracefully grotesque 'C.' The shoulders slouch sloppily. The stomach creases and fold, taking on the back's burden as it gives in and curls over.

The physical body is easily forgotten when in the clutch of a creative flow. While the body may suffer, hunched and gnarled, the writing is able to stretch, to bend and twist, to leap and twirl.

Eventually the streak fades and the body make itself known. Leaning back from the keyboard or placing the pen down, and one can hear each individual vertebra crack as it unfurls. The shoulders wince, the back may moan.

Yet a smile spreads over the writer's face as he or she reads over what has just been created, content to sacrifice the body when in an inspired state.

Literary Nomad

2008-04-04T04:20:00.007-04:00

Some spend a lifetime dreaming of the sacred trip to Mecca. My pilgrimage was to the original Grub Street in London, to kneel on its slummy sidewalk and pray to the God(s?) of writing.

Grub Street, today

When I decided to move to London last month I had few worries. My writing was about the only source of real anxiety. I pictured the tail of the plane’s fuel fumes and carbon emissions on the flight over and imagined each particle of my creativity vaporizing in that trail the whole way cross the Atlantic. I still felt rather safe as I stepped out into the bustling big city, yet I walked cautiously. Around any street corner some thug muse might mug me, snatching my whole handbag of writing ability.

Self-doubt can be a humbling spirit to an accomplished author, but as a young writer it is more of a menacing ghost. I love to write, I need to write and sometimes I’m even good at it. But consider it as a legitimate career? Only in my most bohemian dreams. I am the very hack who would have found a cozy home on Grub Street in the 18th century.

My concerns were somewhat practical. In Boston I was just beginning to establish myself as a freelance food writer, even had a base of editors and contacts I knew. Would I be able to do the same in London?

Finishing my prayers on the pavement, an omen appeared. A large, greasy man walked by eating a falafel out of a bright orange ‘Fish&Chips’ takeaway box. They eat here! In fact, people all over the world in all different countries eat. I bet some even read about it. Perhaps my future as a freelance writer isn't over.

That reassuring revelation taught me something important about my writing: I can do it anytime, anywhere. So, maybe I will.

. . . . even from a little London flat where I work out of my closet.

Sarah Leech-Black

F.Y.I. What once was Grub Street is now Milton Street and is right next to the Barbican Centre, London’s hub for arts and cultures.

The Antique Store Downstairs is a Netherworld Paradise

2008-03-28T13:54:00.004-04:00

Hey man. All I'm saying is there's a reason why the mannequin in front has one arm, and I swear it follows me with it's one eye.

Just so you know, Grub Street is located at 160 Boylston Street on the fourth floor, four stairs, four concrete slabs of construction protecting us feeble writers from the gangsters "antique" shop downstairs.

So here's my poem/letter to the old woman (in my mind, she's two-hundred and thirty-seven years old, six-foot seven with a big ol' rack, built like a Gorilla with chest hair thick like the perfect shag) who owns the store and the magic portal underneath it that transports her to whatever fifth-dimension she hails from:

Dear Gorilla-Woman,

I've seen the front of your store, explosively slipshod,
I've seen the dust powdered in dough-nut thick rings around your wares,
I've seen the hockey jersey slump next to the brass vase and poster
of an 80's hair-band,
but what I haven't seen makes me cross myself
before I cross that threshold.
shoulder
shoulder
forehead
chest.
and the way the teapot watches me
makes me tingle
way down
in my gibblets.

Oh yes, I'm on to you.
The dolls are your watchmen, the old clock with rat bites hides your portal,
(much like that movie "The Last Unicorn")
Oh yes, I've walked your floors and stooped at the sound of a quiet
'oof!'
What creatures do you hide underneath your living concrete grounds?
Where is your spaceship?
The laughter coming from inside sounds almost
human,
a rolling guffaw and toot,
but I don't believe you.

I thumb my nose,
a leg and a finger, at you.
You're not pulling no
fast one on me.

Not for a second.

But please,
keep the peace. What strange bargain you have with us
is fine enough
to me.
So I'll continue to ignore those slick eyes,
the strange lump-shaped
footprints
settling in the dust,
and I won't tread too hard on your floors.
But I worry about your obviousness,
obviously my genius
(coming from my powers as the unknown
Power Ranger Salmon)
betrayed your identity to me.

But I'll keep your secret if you keep mine.

Best wishes and luck,
xoxoxo,

Lillian.

JUST IN CASE:

Okay, this was really just a joke. I'm new to the blog thing and wanted to have a little fun, so that's all this is. There really isn't a giant man-eating octopus living in the basement of 160 Boylston, I swear. And to the people who actually own the charming shop downstairs: I'm sure your wares are very nice - and expensive. Please don't take offense, it was just a joke and I'm sure you're not towering chimps with big gazongas. But face it, don't lie, I saw the scotch-tape wrapped around the lid of that bronze jar.

In wary, weary dread,
with dreadful eyes,
dreading the people downstairs read this,

Lillian Ling

The Grub Street Rag, 3/24/08

2008-03-24T17:58:00.000-04:00

March 24th, 2008

In this issue
Concise Grub Gossip
Effulgent Grub Events
Spreading the Love
"Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short."

~ Thoreau

Grub Street Gossip

Welcome to the latest installment of the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday by the attack dogs at Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

The final fifty: get your Muse on soon!
Our Muse and the Marketplace literary conference is five weeks away, and is now 85% full. We have fewer than fifty spots left (out of 330) for the full weekend and/or Saturday or Sunday only. For those of you interested in meeting with an editor or agent in our Manuscript Mart, only two editors and two agents remain. The conference features craft seminars led by some of the most established authors, panels and one-on-one manuscript consultations, and a keynote address by Jonathan Franzen. Check out the details and we'll see you next month!

Grub's growing!

Guess what? We're hiring! Grub Street is seeking a part-time Outreach Coordinator to join us in our bustling non-profit office. The candidate (you?) will coordinate all elements of Grub Street’s outreach programs and provide strong administrative support for the Grub Street office. If you have excellent management, communication and organizational skills, work experience, and love creative writing, go to www.idealist.org to read the full description, and submit your resume by March 28th.

Department of Heraldic Trumpets
As always, we have lots of great news to report. First, we are thrilled to announce that longtime Grub instructor Jenna Blum's second novel, The Stormchasers, has been sold to Dutton, a Penguin imprint. For more information on the novel's publication--and to follow Jenna on her third research round of stormchasing this May--please visit her at www.jennablum.com. Second, new Grub instructor Sara Pennypacker, who will be teaching the Fiction for Children course on June 28-29th, just won the Golden Kite award (given by the society of children's book writers and illustrators) for best picture book text of 2007 for her book Pierre In Love. Grub Street member Dr. Susan A. Berger has been working with Grace Talusan as her editor to complete writing her book: The Five Identities of Grief: How the Death of a Loved One Transforms You. Susan began writing her book proposal in 2000 after taking a class in creative non-fiction with instructor, Michelle Seaton. Working with her agent, Susan received significant interest from many major publishing houses, 4 offers, and finally accepted Shambhala Publications’ generous offer. The book is expected to be in stores in the Summer 2009. Next, Karen Dempsey, a student in Alexis Rizzuto's Master Memoir class, wrote in to let us know she just had an excerpt of her memoir, Tethered Cord: Liddy's First Years, accepted for publication in Brain, Child magazine. Next up, our 2007 Fiction Book Prize Winner, Stray by Sheri Joseph, is now available in paperback and also is a finalist for a Lambda Award. And last but not least, Grubbie Matt Frederick's book, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School has been doing amazingly well. Since October (pub date September 30th) it's gone into three printings (37,500 copies to date, sold in six languages/territories, and just got on the Booksense bestseller list and is the number one architecture book at Amazon. Congratulations to all!

Cheers,
Whitney, Sonya and Chris

The P.S.: For all of you who signed up for the Manuscript Mart, this is a reminder to get your manuscript in by the deadline. Deadline? What deadline? That's April 2nd by 5pm. Don't forget!

Dirty Little (Book) Secrets

2008-03-21T09:13:00.004-04:00

Now, my fellow Grubbies, since most of you don’t know me from Adam, and since the rest of you probably have much more important things floating around in your skulls, I’m going to go ahead and divulge one of my dirty little secrets. Perhaps even my dirtiest, being that I talk a big game about reading only the best books.

I read everything. I mean it. I read magazines- Poets & Writers, Writers Chronicle, Fence, Dwell. I read informational brochures- real estate, natural beauty products, piddly writers’ conferences, new MFA programs. Personal blogs, Yahoo News, Bookslut.com, CNN.com, PerezHilton.com, Artjournal.com. And I read books. Of course I read books! Really, really good books.

But which books are good books? Granted, we all know who’s in the literary canon and that if you haven’t read The Brothers Karamazov, at least don’t admit it in a crowd of writers (or literature grad students. That can get really ugly). But what about the rest? Marilynne Robinson? Of course. Phillip Roth? Duh. Grace Paley. Oh yeah. Alice Munro? Yep. Now talk to me about Anne Rice. How about Anais Nin? Stephen King? I was once in attendance at a heated squabble where one side of the table argued red-faced that Sherman Alexie was the most important writer ever to come out of the northwest, while the other side brandished their beers and loudly yelled, “hack.” I have a friend in Chicago who swears that How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton changed her life. I read it. My life stayed exactly the same.

Alright, alright. What am I really talking about here? High art verses entertainment? I can almost hear the ripple of sighs wash across the Grubbie atmosphere. Enough already, you say. We’ve had it up to here with you spoiled, overeducated, elitist, academic literary writers.

But Halt! Do not cast that first stone!

Because I love it. I love it all! I’ve read nearly every Anne Rice book to ever hit a chain store shelf, even the ones released under her pen name, A.N. Roquelaure. Ditto for Stephen King (let me go on record right now and say that I don’t think Stephen King has ever gotten the credit he deserves). Love me some Anais Nin and Henry Miller. I’ve read oodles of authors you’ve never heard of (and never will, trust me) and I’ve even forayed into self-help(ever heard of Tony Robbins? That’s right.). On the other hand, I’ve read Wuthering Heights nine times, completely deconstructed it line by line, and have memorized most of it- for fun. Same thing with Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body. If Carole Maso and I met I could tell her exactly when The American Woman in the Chinese Hat should have definitely gone back to New York. Give me a little Faulkner and I swoon. John Updike, how can I express my love for thee?

So there you have it: I swing both ways. I won’t be giving up my book-snob public persona anytime soon, but you might come across me in some out of the way coffee shop, sunglasses on and hat pulled low, inhaling This ‘N That: The Memoirs of Betty Davis as fast as my mocha. There’s a difference between good books and bad books to be sure, but perhaps that difference relies largely on opinion. Maybe it doesn’t matter, as long as we’re all reading.

In All Dreadfulness,
Carla

Grub Street Rag, 3/17/08

2008-03-18T14:33:00.000-04:00

March 17th, 2008
In this issue

* Brimming Grub Gossip
* Fluent Grub Events
* Spreading the Love

"Poetry is going on all the time inside, an underground stream. One can let down one’s bucket and bring the poem up."

~ John Ashbery
Grub Street Gossip

Welcome to the latest installment of the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from the roadside lemonade stand at Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.
Spring schedule: as welcome as warm weather would be, if we had it

We are proud to announce our spring schedule, now online in all its springy glory on our website. We have a wonderful lineup of seminars, weekend workshops, 6- and 10--week workshops, and free events. We're also excited to be offering our first-ever class in Jamaica Plain (Fiction I), a six-week Travel Writing class, and our first online course, How to Get Freelance Work. Click here to view the entire schedule, and call us at 617.695.0075 to reserve your spot today.
Step up to the plate, Hoss: do your thing

It's time to take your cleats out of the closet, dust off your jerseys and wax your mitt. The Grub Street Wordslingers, Boston's one and only, all-time, relentlessly defeated softball team is kicking into gear. If you have not been with us for the past three years, you have been missing so much fun. We swing. We miss. We swing and miss again. And we have a great time. Please come play with us. We are like The Bad News Bears, but wittier and with more publishing credits. We need players! In particular, we need women! Interested players should email Grub Ambassador Becky Tuch at softballmania08@gmail.com.
Agent of good fortune

Grub Street founder Eve Bridburg, now a literary agent at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth, just brokered a huge book deal for Grub Street instructor and writer Michelle Seaton and Boston psychologist Dr. Anthony Rao. More than a dozen major publishing houses were vying for Rao and Seaton's book, Odd Boys Out: Protecting Our Youngest Boys From Today's Climate of Unfair Expectations, High Demands, Quick Diagnoses and Pills, but they accepted a 4th pre-empt deal from HarperCollins that they couldn't refuse and cancelled twelve meetings in NCY to go with the pre-empt. The book is expected to be in stores by fall 2009. Hats off to an exciting Grub success story!
Week in review

Oh, what a week! Last Tuesday, over 100 seniors, their families and guests celebrated the launch of our first-ever Memoir Project anthology, Born Before Plastic, at Borders Bookstore in Back Bay. Senior authors from the North End, South Boston and Roxbury autographed copies of the book and heard tips from Chris, who instructed them in the best way to sign books for adoring fans (hint: cross out your printed name and scrawl your signature above it). Then on Thursday, a lively group gathered at Porter Square Books to hear tips and inspiration from Grub board member Bret Anthony Johnston's new book of writing exercises, Naming the World. The book includes essays on writing and over three hundred exercises to get your creative juices flowing (freebie: "Spend fifteen minutes finishing a paragraph that begins 'George would never have guessed a coffin could hold so many marbles'"). After the reading, a crew of fearless and fabulous Grubbies joined Bret and Grub staff at Tavern at Porter Square, where inspiration continued to flow (almost) as fast as the drinks. If you missed these events, we hope to see you next time, and thanks for everyone who made the events so special.

* Cheers,
* Whitney, Sonya and Chris

The P.S.: The Penny Dreadful makes its triumphant return to the blogosphere! Check out stories of eraser-clapping and more.

Grub Events

In addition to our ongoing workshops, Grub Street offers numerous writing-related events around town. See our website for a long-term view of all we do. Ready to sign up? Call us at 617.695.0075 and we'll get you on the list.

SEMINAR: Monday, March 24th, 2008, Two For One: Writing Fiction and Non-fiction
Join author Lynne Griffin for a discussion of how to nurture the fiction and nonfiction writer in you. She’ll take you through the process of identifying genre elements of each, creating environments conducive to accurate research as well as offer tips for navigating the marketplace. Lynne is the author of Negotiation Generation: Take Back Your Parental Authority Without Punishment and her novel, Life Without Summer, will be published next year. Read more on our website.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Monday, March 24th, 2008, Tears of Laughter
In this seminar taught by Sonya Larson, we’ll explore the special function of humor in fiction, in its power both to rivet a reader and give unnerving and surprising edge to a story’s emotions. Learn how humor can strengthen voice, energize dialogue, drive a scene, and complexify a character. Read more on our website.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Monday, March 24th, 2008, Cortiscrawl: Writing With the Brain in Mind
In this class, taught by Tim Horvath, we'll see how understanding a bit more about the brain can boost our own writing. We'll revisit staple topics like detail, description and character, learn how we can tap into the dreaming brain for inspiration, and even look at writer's block and hypergraphia (the compulsion to write) from this new vantage point. Read more on our website.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Monday, March 24th, 2008, The Art of the Scene
This seminar, taught by Amy Marcott, will focus on the elements of scene writing in fiction: pacing, choreography, dialogue, subtext, description, character and theme development, and more. We'll look at the techniques various authors use, then practice these with in-class writing exercises designed to inspire and elevate your own writing. Read more on our website.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

LUNCHTIME COURSE: Tuesday, March 25th, 12:30–1:15PM, Brown Bag Lunch Series
Bring your lunch and come on over to Grub Street for a Brown Bag Writing Workshop – a series recently profiled in the Boston Globe. For 45 minutes, you’ll meet fellow writers and get your creative juices flowing with some cool writing exercises. Led by one of our award-winning instructors or ambassadors. Best of all, you’ll leave lunch with some new ideas to ponder for the rest of your day, and beyond. Maximum of 15 students. To sign up, email sonya@grubstreet.org or call 617.695.0075.
FREE, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Wednesday, April 2nd, 7-10pm, Who Told You You Were a Writer?
Co-sponsored by The Writers' Room of Boston with panelists Anita Shreve, Mameve Medwed and Stephen McCauley
Who supported you as a child, teen, and emerging adult, in the pursuit of becoming a writer? Who didn't support you? For many writers, this issue is core, speaking to what we've internalized, not always consciously. It can affect not only our ability to write, but our ability to perceive of ourselves as writers. Our moderator will offer a psychological framework for these issues; our three super-illustrious writers will describe their own journeys. NOTE: The final hour of the seminar will be a meet-and-greet downstairs at Remington’s, which includes a drink and complimentary appetizers.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Wednesday, April 2nd, 7-10pm, Writers' Paradise: The Truth About Residencies
In this seminar, Jamie Cat Callan will guide you through researching the residency that's right for you, how to write a winning project description, the secrets to being accepted and how to get the most out of your time in paradise. The final hour of the seminar will be a meet-and-greet downstairs at Remington’s, which includes a drink and complimentary appetizers. Read more on our website.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Wednesday, April 2nd, 7-10pm, Out of the Slush Pile and Into Print (Non-Fiction)
Do you have a book proposal or memoir that agents have passed over? Do some of your essays strike out at literary magazines? In this class, we'll discuss strategies to help you catch the attention of editors and agents. The instructor, Pagan Kennedy, has been working as a writing coach for over ten years and will share with you many of the tricks that have helped her clients leap into print. Read more on our website.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

Be sure to check out our events calendar for a comprehensive view of upcoming events.
Spreading the Love

Grub Street wants to promote YOU!!! Please send events for consideration to whitney@grubstreet.org. Our apologies in advance if we cannot fit you in.

--SEMINAR: Saturday, March 22, from 3-4:30pm, "Yoga for Writers"
Yoga for Writers is an all-levels class designed to address practical concerns to writers (wrist, shoulder, low-back issues) and to explore the creative process of writing and how yoga can enhance this process. You don't need to be a writer to participate. All are welcome--especially those new to yoga! South Boston Yoga is on the Red Line (Broadway stop). Cost is $15/$10 for students. on at the South Boston Yoga Studio.

--READING: Monday, March 2nd, Blacksmith House Poetry Series presents Linda Pastan and Rachel Pastan
Linda Pastan reads from her new poetry collection, Queen of a Rainy Country, with Rachel Pastan, author of the novel Lady of the Snakes. The Blacksmith House Poetry Series was founded in 1973 by poet Gail Mazur and is sponsored by CCAE.
$3, Blacksmith House, 56 Brattle Street, Harvard Square.

--JOB OPPORTUNITY: Copywriter positions at Grand Circle
Responsibilities: Conceptualize and write promotional copy for direct mail catalogs, letter packages and collateral communications; update and edit existing copy from various sources according to project specifications, marketing directives, and new product information; review circulated copy and implement changes and edits as necessary; serve as freelance liaison as needed. Position Requirements & qualifications: B.A. in English or journalism preferred; Strong writing skills with 2-5 years direct mail experience (or other professional travel-related writing), catalog, letter, and "advertorial" experience a plus; passion for travel and knowledge of faraway cultures; must be deadline-oriented; able to manage multiple projects simultaneously. Salary: $43,815 - $65,196. Application deadline: 03/19/2008. Send cover letters and resumes to Laura Vater at lvater@gct.com.

--CALL FOR INTERNS: Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency
Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary and Entertainment Agency is looking for candidates for its summer internship program. Intern duties consist of both clerical and project development work specifically including phones, filing, computer research, proofreading, evaluating manuscripts and developmental editing. Candidates must be motivated, dependable, energetic, cheerful and possess standard computer skills. Please contact Mary Beth Chappell at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth via email at mchappell@zshliterary.com.

Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like a fool with a pot of gold, we offer you the chance to win a prize. Writer a limerick about Boston and St. Patrick's Day. Best limerick, as judged by Master Limerick Judger Whitney, wins. E-mail your answers to Whitney. First correct answer wins a gift certificate to any local J.P. Licks.

Answer to last week's quiz: On March 4th, 1952, Ernest Hemingway wrote a letter to his publisher, telling him that he'd finished his latest novel, The Old Man and the Sea. He was working on a huge novel that he called The Sea Book, and The Old Man and the Sea was originally written as an epilogue to the novel, but he thought it was good enough to publish by itself. In the letter to his publisher, Wallace Meyer, Hemingway wrote, "I know that it is the best I can write ever, for all of my life I think. . . . [It's] an epilogue to all my writing and what I have learned, or tried to learn, while writing and trying to live." Winner: No one.

Clap On.

2008-03-14T10:26:00.003-04:00

This is my final semester in college, and my English department advisor told me that I should get an internship, and countless real, live grownups have told me they’re useful. So I applied to a bunch, interviewed at a bunch, and liked Grub the best. I like the idea of “classes” being held there, so that if I ever decide to enroll, I can have new notebooks and hand in homework and stuff. It’s kind of like school, minus the lunch ladies and loudspeakers. Grub Street seems to encourage this nostalgia, because it has the one thing that I will miss most about being a kid- a real, live, dusty blackboard.

When I saw it, I was jolted back to the first grade, where my two favorite jobs were to empty the pencil sharpener and clap the blackboard erasers. The pencil sharpener was done on an as-needed basis; so careful monitoring and a little luck on my part were necessary. But the erasers, that was a job assigned to one incredibly lucky, enthusiastic student. Like the line-leader, hot-lunch counter and the gym class ball-gatherer, the eraser-clapper got a few moments to herself each Wednesday and Friday to consider the world without the interruption of the less fortunate first graders, who only had lunch and recess as time for themselves.

This job afforded me the opportunity to skip show and tell. I hated show and tell. I didn’t (and still do not) care about Caitlin’s Mickey ears or Dave’s new skateboard. So I got to skip out on that, leave through the side door of the classroom- a forbidden portal for anyone without my authority- and shook the chalk dust from the erasers. I always stole the show, coming back in during the middle of a showing and telling, covered in a fine white powder, like Tony Montana in a navy blue jumper.

It gave me a sense of purpose, this little job. I never missed school on Wednesdays or Fridays, and for special occasions, would wipe down the chalkboard with a blue sponge. I like to think of it as my first internship, really. While it didn’t necessarily give me “real-world” experience, I was earning my stripes through grunt work, toward the eventual goal of a great recommendation (hopefully to next year’s teacher, “Marie is a diligent clapper.”).

Unfortunately, this is no longer a classroom job. There are unemployed elementary schoolers, now, kids who do not know chalky snot, dusty corduroys, and the piece-of-chalk-in-the-eraser prank that I used to thwart! My job was outsourced to the low-dust dry-erase marker. Who wants their lessons in color? Black and white is as simple as it gets. There are no teachers with comical chalk lines on their butts from leaning on the ledge at the bottom of the blackboard anymore, either. There was nothing more endearing than that look, I’ll tell you. It said something about what you did, like the grease under the nails of a mechanic.

I loved clapping the erasers. I loved pounding my name out in eraser marks on the brick wall of the cafeteria. Tattooing the building was my way of staying there, giving next year’s students an idea to do the same. It gave us presence, a little bit of our energy left in the walls of the school, and now it’s washed away with the dust.

It’s a comforting feeling that, as I approach the final days of my formal education, there is that last vestige of my dusty childhood schoolhouse manifested in this hip, urban writer’s workshop. I like to think that it sort of represents where I’ve been and where I’m going.

-Marie McIntosh

The Grub Street Rag, 3/10/08

2008-03-10T14:11:00.001-04:00

March 10th, 2008
In this issue

* Cordial Grub Gossip
* Convivial Grub Events
* Spreading the Love

"The short story is like an old friend who calls whenever he is in town. We are happy to hear from it; we casually fan the embers of past intimacies, and buy it lunch."

~ R. Z. Sheppard
Grub Street Gossip

Welcome to the latest installment of the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday by the marshmallow-toasters around the woodburning stove at Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.
Born Before Plastic debuts at Borders Books

Come celebrate Born Before Plastic, the first anthology of the Memoir Project. Seniors whose work is featured in the anthology will be celebrating with friends and family and signing copies of the book. Mayor Menino and our favorite Artistic Director, Chris, will introduce the book and The Memoir Project, which brings writing workshops to elderly seniors in Boston neighborhoods. Born Before Plastic celebrates a generation’s unique histories and gives voice to stories that have been undocumented until now. Details below.
Department of horn-tooting

Grubbies are winners! The 2007 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Awards were just announced, and not one but TWO Grubbies have won awards, which are given annually to New England authors for books with New England settings. Former Grub student and Grub board member, Rishi Reddi, was the fiction award winner for Karma and Other Stories, and Ann Killough was the poetry winner for Beloved Idea. Huge congratulations to both of these wonderful writers! Next up, a Grubbie publishing success story: Grub instructor Ethan Gilsdorf was a student in agent Sorche Fairbank's "The Hook and The Book: How To Snare An Agent With Your Query And First Five Pages " weekend workshop last February. Based on some random memoir chapters, he wrote a proposal, and she signed him as a client. One year later, she sold his memoir-travelogue Escape Artists: Travels through the Worlds of Role Playing Freaks, Online Gaming Geeks, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms to Lyons Press, to be published fall 2009. Ethan says: "Now I've just gotta write it. . . Were it not for Grub, this never would have happened. . ." Hurrah to Ethan--we are so psyched for you! Also, for all you would-be writers, Sorche will be attending the Muse and the Marketplace and participating in the Manuscript Mart, so get a spot with her while you can.
Thanks for sticking

A huge thank-you to Lillian Ling, Alyssa Mazzarella, Sunny Davidson, and Mo Hanley for helping us send out our postcard mailing last week. Thanks also to the many people who offered to help later in the week once we were (happily) done with the mailing. Don't worry, we'll have many more opportunties to volunteer coming up.
O spring schedule, where art thou?

As our winter classes wrap up, many of you are calling and emailing wondering when you can get your next Grub fix. Rest easy: the spring schedule, in all its springy glory, will be online by the end of the week. Check it out and give us a call to register or get advice on what class might be right for you.

* Cheers,
* Whitney, Sonya and Chris

The P.S.: The Penny Dreadful makes its triumphant return to the blogosphere! After a hiatus based solely on our staff being too busy to blog, the Dreadful returns with more tales of literary life in Boston and beyond. Check it out.

Grub Events

In addition to our ongoing workshops, Grub Street offers numerous writing-related events around town. See our website for a long-term view of all we do. Ready to sign up? Call us at 617.695.0075 and we'll get you on the list.

BOOK SIGNING: Tuesday, March 11th, 6:00 - 7:30pm, Born Before Plastic book signing
Come celebrate the release of the Memoir Project’s first anthology of true stories written by forty seniors from three of Boston’s most vibrant and enduring neighborhoods: the North End, South Boston, and Roxbury. These stories vividly bring to life the individual and collective experiences of a generation, as well as a city’s history. Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Christopher Castellani will introduce the program and the book. The evening will close with food, refreshments, and conversation among the seniors, their families and guests, readers, and anyone who wants to learn more about the book and speak with the authors.
Borders Books in Back Bay, 511 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

BOOK PARTY: Thursday, March 13th, 2008, 7-9pm, Naming The World
Come celebrate the publication of Naming the World: And Other Exercises for the Fiction Writer, an exciting new anthology edited by acclaimed author (and Grub Street board member) Bret Anthony Johnston. The book features exercises by the country’s most eminent writers and is an irresistible interactive guide to the craft of narrative writing. At this event, we’ll hear some examples from some of our favorite local writers who’ve contributed to the book, and try some of the exercises on-the-spot. Followed by drinks and appetizers at a local bar and restaurant.
FREE, Porter Square Books.

TEENS: Saturday, March 15th, 12-4pm, YAWP! (Young Adult Writers Program)
Do you like to write poems, lyrics, stories, novels or screenplays? Come to YAWP, a free monthly teen writing workshop for Boston-area high schoolers like you. YAWP provides writing exercises in small groups, feedback from experienced writers, pizza and inspiration. You provide the energy to write, share your work, and try new things. Please sign up in advance by emailing yawp@grubstreet.org or calling 617.695.0075.
FREE (includes lunch), Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Monday, March 24th, 2008, Two For One: Writing Fiction and Non-fiction
Join author Lynne Griffin for a discussion of how to nurture the fiction and nonfiction writer in you. She’ll take you through the process of identifying genre elements of each, creating environments conducive to accurate research as well as offer tips for navigating the marketplace. Lynne is the author of Negotiation Generation: Take Back Your Parental Authority Without Punishment and her novel, Life Without Summer, will be published next year. Read more on our website.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Monday, March 24th, 2008, Tears of Laughter
In this seminar taught by Sonya Larson, we’ll explore the special function of humor in fiction, in its power both to rivet a reader and give unnerving and surprising edge to a story’s emotions. Learn how humor can strengthen voice, energize dialogue, drive a scene, and complexify a character. Read more on our website.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Monday, March 24th, 2008, Cortiscrawl: Writing With the Brain in Mind
In this class, we'll see how understanding a bit more about the brain can boost our own writing. We'll revisit staple topics like detail, description and character, learn how we can tap into the dreaming brain for inspiration, and even look at writer's block and hypergraphia (the compulsion to write) from this new vantage point. Read more on our website.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Monday, March 24th, 2008, The Art of the Scene
This seminar, taught by Amy Marcott, will focus on the elements of scene writing in fiction: pacing, choreography, dialogue, subtext, description, character and theme development, and more. We'll look at the techniques various authors use, then practice these with in-class writing exercises designed to inspire and elevate your own writing. Read more on our website.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

Be sure to check out our events calendar for a comprehensive view of upcoming events.
Spreading the Love

Grub Street wants to promote YOU!!! Please send events for consideration to whitney@grubstreet.org. Our apologies in advance if we cannot fit you in.

--CALL FOR WRITERS: Can you review?
Grubbie Becky Tuch is looking for writers for The Review Review, her new website dedicated to reviewing contemporary literary magazines. Reviewers will choose or be assigned a lit mag to review. This is a chance to have your writing read by editors around the country, while also familiarizing yourself with the style and culture of various lit mags. If you are interested, please send two 700-word writing samples to Becky Tuch, along with a brief bio. Your bio shouldn’t be a list of publications but rather something that shows who you are and why you’re interested. Please paste your writing into the email text or send as an attachment to 99review@gmail.com.

--LECTURE: Tuesday, March 11th, 7PM, Janice Pieroni, founder of Story Arts Management
In this relaxed and informative event, literary manager/agent, writer, editor, and consultant Janice Pieroni guides experienced and novice writers through the steps of creating a marketable book proposal. In addition, Janice will provide tips for finding representation, discuss strategies for proceeding once a book proposal is finished, and suggest ways of building an audience for a book even before it is published. She also will note important industry trends. (Fun trivia: Janice is also Martin Scorcese's former assistant.) Newtonville Lecture Series. www.newtonvillebooks.com.

--READING AND PARTY: Sunday, March 16, 2008, 7pm, The Dirty Water Reading Series presents "Get Lucky"
"Get Lucky" is a St. Patty's-themed reading at Grub Street Headquarters, featuring mad-libs of famous Irish writers and short readings by Sommer Browning, Steve Himmer, Nina MacLaughlin, and Felicia C. Sullivan. Organized by local journals Quick Fiction, Redivider, and Fringe, along with Black Ocean Press. Free food and drinks, plus door prizes. Come on down and have a pint!
FREE, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like the aroma of despair, we offer you the chance to win a prize. On this day in history, a writer wrote a letter saying he had finished a new book. He considered the book an epilogue to everything he had ever written. Name the author, the title of the book, and who the letter was addressed to. E-mail your answers to Whitney. First correct answer wins a gift certificate to any local J.P. Licks.

Answer to last week's quiz: No one has guessed correctly yet, so we're trying again. I guess Google has failed you at last. Mwah ha ha ha ha! Winner: Not Google.

The thing that writing does

2008-03-07T11:54:00.003-05:00

"Some magazine was asking writers what they would have become if they hadn't become a writer, and I said that I would have been stabbed to death in the parking lot outside a bar in Florida at 24, or something like that. I really believe that, actually. I think writing saved my life." -- Russell Banks

What is it about writing that heals us? How does it not only fix our ailments, but make us think better? As a student who has worked across the fields of medicine, policy, youth programming, and not least of all, creative writing, I'm interested in the intersection point of these areas, and I hope I'm not forcing them together. Yet I can't help but notice the similarities in writers' experiences with writing, and patients with mood disorders who have improved health outcomes after writing. In Tal Ben-Shahar's Positive Psychology at Harvard College, which consistently attracts hundreds of students, he argues that the act of writing down our negative perceptions of reality will improve emotional well-being. He emphasizes that writing, not talking or thinking, will cause one to be more realistic and objective. A large part of the class is based on research papers that validate the theory, which is also the backbone for some of the most effective therapies out there. This writing that patients do is often done through some kind of psychological intervention, whether it is journaling, individual therapy, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT actually seems the most akin to writing to me, as the premise is that we will distort our perceptions of reality all the way until we actually write the event down. It is once we have the event on paper that we can stand back objectively and avoid magnifying the errors we've made, and learn to view reality head on. Writing sets us free, but how? The mechanism, or as epidemiologists would call it, the "black box," remains elusive. One revered writer said of her reasons, "I don't know why, and I hope I never find out."

So who cares? Why is academic thesis on a grub street blog? Along with nearly a dozen other dedicated writers, I help run Grub Street's Young Adult Writer's Program (YAWP), whose mission is to recruit high schoolers from all over Massachusetts, regardless of race, income, or ethnicity, to come together once a month and write and share work for 4 hours. Our alums have gone on to publish columns and short stories, while others go onto creative writing programs at Brandeis and Sarah Lawrence. Concurrent to this mission is to have our teachers come into schools and teach kids about the transformative power of creative writing. We wouldn't have used the term "transformative" if we didn't mean it. Recruiting students from nearly a hundred different high schools all over New England, I've seen kids from some tough neighborhoods come in and treat YAWP as though it were a sanctuary, and it kind of is. I know that the act of writing makes these kids feel better, but I can't run a randomized control trial to prove it. Hopefully, though, more evidence on the positive effects of writing will accumulate (what is the cost versus benefit of being more thoughtful about yourself?), more caregivers and community leaders will notice it, and hopefully we will see even more writers reach out to the ailing.

--William Rafelson

Read, Enjoy, Love?

2008-03-06T18:07:00.005-05:00

For months, I've been seeing people reading Eat, Pray, Love on the subway. Many people. Like one day--no exaggeration--there were four women in the same car as me, all reading this book. I like Elizabeth Gilbert (if you haven't read her short story collection, Pilgrims, I highly recommend it), so even though I'm not so into journeys of self-discovery, or memoirs of any stripe for that matter, I decided to give it a try.

Here's my general reaction: Huh.

I just can't quite see what all the fuss is about. It's fine. Gilbert is a great writer, so there are moments that are beautiful, funny, sad. But for the most part, I felt like it's just a book where someone kvetches about the things that are wrong in her life, and then kvetches about how hard it is to change her life and fix all the things that are wrong.

I probably should admit this, but I often find this to be true with memoirs, and that's why I don't read as many of them as the general populace. I don't mean this to just be a post that rags on Gilbert--instead, I put this out there to all of you, o readers of memoir: Lead me to a memoir that was so good it changed your life! Show me how good memoir can be!

And thanks.

In dread,

Whitney Scharer

The Grub Street Rag

2008-03-04T18:01:00.002-05:00

March 4th, 2008
In this issue
--Helter-skelter Grub Gossip
--Orderly Grub Events
--Spreading the Love
"I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry: that is, prose = words in their best order; poetry = the best words in the best order."

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Grub Street Gossip

Welcome to the latest installment of the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday (except when we are handing in a Mass Cultural Council grant application) from the meditation cave at Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

Mansion of Congratulations
We have so much great news to report, we've built a beautiful mansion to house it in! First up on our tour, in the expansive gourmet kitchen, is Grub Street Free Press managing editor Ron MacLean, whose short story “Last Seen, Hank’s Grille” will be reprinted this spring in Chautauqua magazine’s 20th anniversary issue. We also can't wait to read Ron's short story collection, Why the Long Face, out this August from Swank Books. Next up, in the East Wing, is longtime Grubbie (and great comic writer) Matthew Sandel, who won a contest you saw advertised right here in the Rag! Matthew's short story, "A Fistful of Goobers," won the Love & Dumpsters Writing Contest, which was a tie-in to an anthology of true stories, Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me, presented by Harvard Book Store. Read Matthew's prizewinner at http://harvard.com/events/thingsivelearned.html. Next, in the gazebo on the manion's grounds, Grub instructor Michelle Seaton just got word that her essay, "How To Work a Locker Room," first written for Ron MacLean's Structure of Short Fiction class last year, has been accepted by The Pinch. In the library and trophy room, we find Linda Mazurek, whose 10th article in the past 13 months just appeared in Heart of New Hampshire Magazine. Lounging in the parlor, Grub member Rose MacDowell has a hardcover novel due out from Random House/Bantam Dell on March 25th. Called Turning Tables, Rose wrote it with her identical twin, Heather, and you can read about it at www.turning-tables.com. Marea Beeman has a short story appearing this week in Meeting House, an on-line publication. In the 13th guest bedroom, we'll find Katherine Ozment, who has an essay in the March edition of Skirt! magazine. Annie Weatherwax has a story coming out in the Carolina Quarterly and in Quarterly West, and she says that "the story coming out in Quarterly West is being published in part because of the excellent feedback I got in a Grub Street class." In the ballroom, Nina MacLaughlin had a short-short accepted to Issue 12 of Quick Fiction. And last but never least, relaxing in the billiard room is Randy Susan Meyers, whose novel excerpt, "Mixed Prayers," was published in the Fog City Review. Congratulations to all!

Muse and the Marketplace 2008: filling fast!
You like it, you really really like it! We are surprised and pleased at how quickly our conference is filling up this year. Maybe it's the amazing author lineup, maybe it's the first-ever Agent Idol, or maybe it's the sure-to-be-inspiring keynote address by Jonathan Franzen. Whatever the reason, spots are filling fast, so if you're planning on attending we recommend registering sooner rather than later. This is especially true if you are interested in participating in the optional Manuscript Mart (which is already halfway sold out!)

Help stick stamps on postcards at your favorite non-profit
The Grub Street staff and interns are hard at work mailing out our Muse and the Marketplace postcards. If you'd like to stop by and help us this week, we would LOVE to have you, and will treat you to the Starbucks beverage of your choice as a small thank-you. Hours for the mailing are Wednesday - Friday, 10-6pm. Please email whitney@grubstreet.org to let us know when you'll be coming, and thanks!

Cheers,
Whitney, Sonya and Chris
Grub Events

In addition to our ongoing workshops, Grub Street offers numerous writing-related events around town. See our website for a long-term view of all we do. Ready to sign up? Call us at 617.695.0075 and we'll get you on the list.

*RESCHEDULED* ALL-DAY SEMINAR, Saturday, March 8th, 2008, 9AM – 4PM, Creative Problem Solving for Novels In Progress
Instructor: Crystal King
This workshop will help you learn how to use new and practical creativity exercises – unlike any of those usually taught in writing workshops – to expand and enhance your existing ideas for your novel. Limited to 15 Novelists In Progress--read more on our website.
$95/$85 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston.

BOOK SIGNING: Tuesday, March 11th, 6:30 pm, Born Before Plastic book signing
Come celebrate the release of the Memoir Project’s first anthology of true stories written by forty seniors from three of Boston’s most vibrant and enduring neighborhoods: the North End, South Boston, and Roxbury. These stories vividly bring to life the individual and collective experiences of a generation, as well as a city’s history. Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Christopher Castellani will introduce the program and the book. The evening will close with food, refreshments, and conversation among the seniors, their families and guests, readers, and anyone who wants to learn more about the book and speak with the authors.
Borders Books in Back Bay, 511 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

BOOK PARTY: Thursday, March 13th, 2008, 7-9pm, Naming The World
Come celebrate the publication of Naming the World: And Other Exercises for the Fiction Writer, an exciting new anthology edited by acclaimed author (and Grub Street board member) Bret Anthony Johnston. The book features exercises by the country’s most eminent writers and is an irresistible interactive guide to the craft of narrative writing. At this event, we’ll hear some examples from some of our favorite local writers who’ve contributed to the book, and try some of the exercises on-the-spot. Followed by drinks and appetizers at a local bar and restaurant.
FREE, Porter Square Books.

SEMINAR: Monday, March 24th, 2008, Two For One: Writing Fiction and Non-fiction
Join author Lynne Griffin for a discussion of how to nurture the fiction and nonfiction writer in you. She’ll take you through the process of identifying genre elements of each, creating environments conducive to accurate research as well as offer tips for navigating the marketplace. Lynne is the author of Negotiation Generation: Take Back Your Parental Authority Without Punishment and her novel, Life Without Summer, will be published next year. Read more on our website.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Monday, March 24th, 2008, Tears of Laughter
In this seminar taught by Sonya Larson, we’ll explore the special function of humor in fiction, in its power both to rivet a reader and give unnerving and surprising edge to a story’s emotions. Learn how humor can strengthen voice, energize dialogue, drive a scene, and complexify a character. Read more on our website.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Monday, March 24th, 2008, Cortiscrawl: Writing With the Brain in Mind
In this class, we'll see how understanding a bit more about the brain can boost our own writing. We'll revisit staple topics like detail, description and character, learn how we can tap into the dreaming brain for inspiration, and even look at writer's block and hypergraphia (the compulsion to write) from this new vantage point. Read more on our website.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Monday, March 24th, 2008, The Art of the Scene
This seminar, taught by Amy Marcott, will focus on the elements of scene writing in fiction: pacing, choreography, dialogue, subtext, description, character and theme development, and more. We'll look at the techniques various authors use, then practice these with in-class writing exercises designed to inspire and elevate your own writing. Read more on our website.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

Be sure to check out our events calendar for a comprehensive view of upcoming events.

Spreading the Love

Grub Street wants to promote YOU!!! Please send events for consideration to whitney@grubstreet.org. Our apologies in advance if we cannot fit you in.

--READING: Tuesday, March 4th, 7pm, Scott Heim
Scott Heim reads from his riveting new novel, We Disappear. Check out the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8Xl3TKx7mw. Or, check out an article about the book in Time Out.
Brookline Booksmith, 247 Harvard Street, Brookline.

--EVENT/FUNDRAISER: Saturday, March 8th, 7-9pm, 826 Boston Announces Greater Boston Research Institute’s Product Testing Seminar
826 Boston invites all curious and non-litigious literati to register for the upcoming Product Testing Seminar at the Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Institute on Saturday, March 8, 2008, from 7-9 PM. Reservations are required ($50 per person) and can be made online only at www.826Boston.org. All participants will receive a first-run GBBRI t-shirt and the inimitable GBBRI Wilderness Survival Bundle. Wine and beer will be served. All proceeds from this memorable product testing seminar help support 826 Boston’s free writing and tutoring programs for local youth. Questions, call 617-442-5400 or email info@826Boston.org. Be you a Bigfoot believer or Sasquatch skeptic, be warned: be there.
3035 Washington Street, Egleston Square, Roxbury, MA 02119. See www.826Boston.org for detailed directions.

--CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Howl Press (Deadline is March 27th)
Howl Press is looking for topical essays or short stories (800-900 words) that are stimulating and thought provoking. Our audience is 35+, in the top 10% of earners and includes politicians, entertainers and CEO’s. This is a very unique, captive audience. Recyclable material is accepted. Pay - $200 - $250. Contact Lisa at lrehfuss@hotmail.com. Please include your submission in the email instead of as an attachment.

--WRITERS' RETREAT, JUNE 22-27 2008, Wakefield New Hampshire Retreat
Private room in historic house, mornings for writing, afternoons for technique class--teachers published writers and university teachers--and MSS workshop. Catered community dinner in restored barn. $500 fee includes room and board and classes. 8-10 serious writers. Please submit statement of purpose and 15-20 pages of your work to elizbarrett@gmail.com or 3 Downing Court Exeter, NH 03833 prior to April 1. Rolling admissions.
Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like a giraffe with a crick in his neck, we offer you the chance to win a prize. On this day in history, a writer wrote a letter saying he had finished a new book. He considered the book an epilogue to everything he had ever written. Name the author, the title of the book, and who the letter was addressed to. E-mail your answers to Whitney. First correct answer wins a gift certificate to any local J.P. Licks.

Answer to last week's quiz: The Pulitzer Prize was established with a fortune derived from yellow journalism. Winner: Jon Woodward.

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Too many novelists in the office spoils the non-profit?

2008-02-28T16:02:00.005-05:00

As you'll notice, our blog has taken a bit of a hiatus. Okay, more than a hiatus. A hibernation, if you will. Are the Grub Street staff fat and warm in their caves, sleeping their way through to spring? Hardly. We have a million excuses for not writing (my favorite is "we just take the blog TOO seriously"), but whatever the excuse, the fact remains that we're not writing on the good 'ole Penny Dreadful. And that's, well, dreadful.

So now, at the busiest time of our year, I am attempting to get the ball rolling again. This post, and possibly my future posts, are going to be a bit more chatty, a little less crafted. Because isn't that the point?

I haven't been writing blog posts, but I have been working on my first novel, as well as taking a Grub Street class called Novel in Progress. I'm proud to say that my novel is indeed in progress, though I find I'm writing at a frightfully slow pace. Slow as in 13 pages in 6 weeks. That's pretty slow. But I started the novel 6 weeks ago, and by that I mean I literally solidified the idea and started thinking in earnest about the characters, so my page count doesn't equal the amount of time I've spent thinking and scheming about the book.

I'm a deadline-driven gal, so my N.i.P. class is perfect for me: write 5 pages a week (okay, so being "driven" by deadlines doesn't mean you meet them), do some exercises, come to class and critique other people's work. No outside reading of others' manuscripts, which is fantastic because that's normally how I procrastinate away the hours I'm supposed to spend on my own book. Now that we're more than halfway done, I'm wondering what to do in that interim before the next term begins. I don't want to lose momentum, and I don't trust myself to set my own deadlines, sadly.

What I want is something I probably can't have: an incredibly dedicated writing group that only meets once a month and writes as slowly as I do. A group of insanely talented writers whose work I'm so impressed by I can't wait to read the next bit. That's what I want, but I've found that most writing groups meet too frequently for me--or the opposite: they just use the group as an excuse to drink wine and hang out. (Nothing wrong with that, but it's not going to help with the deadline problem). If anyone out there has any tips on making a writing group work for someone as simultaneously lazy and dedicated as me (is that even possible?), let me know.

One group that does a great, great job is The Writers' Group. If you haven't seen their much-more-updated-than-ours site, check it out. Or read about their successes on the Boston Globe site.

I hope everyone else is working hard on their creative writing, too! I'm proud that all three Grub staff members are all writing novels right now. I hope we keep it up.

Feeling good being dreadful,
Whitney

Scenes From a Notebook

2007-12-14T16:54:00.000-05:00

Michelle Seaton is a nonfiction writer who currently teaches the "6 Weeks, 6 Essays" workshop at Grub Street.

Here are few paragraphs from the notebook I carry around with me, pretty much unedited. (Hey, it’s a blog. The hallmark of a blog is this: no editor.) Be patient. At the end is a writing prompt.

So, the other night I was putting out toothbrushes for the kids and listening to them giggle in the next room. Then I heard one of them say to the other one, "OK, now you smell my butt." I rounded the corner to find pretty much what you'd expect: both of them naked and bent over, one presenting and the other inhaling.

This is how I found myself standing in my own home, shouting "No Butt Sniffing" with great vehemence. My two children cocked their heads at me, bemused. Smiles twitched at the corners of their mouths. Mommy is so funny when the veins stick out in her neck. They are three and five and already they have the upper hand. "No butt sniffing." I said it again, like it might be less absurd, more serious the second time. "It's a rule."

That really is the bottom of the barrel, in parenting terms. Announcing that something's a rule. That's what I do all day; I make up rules. Don't pee on your sister. No fingers in the butt. Don't break that, don't throw that, don't touch that, don't lick that. (An admonition that is always, invariably followed by: STOP licking that.) Sometimes I hear a commotion in the next room and I start shouting KNOCK IT OFF and waving my arms in the air, even though I can't see what's going on. I run toward them yelling, NO, NO, NO, and secretly I'm steeling myself. How grossed out am I prepared to be right now? How much wine is left in the fridge? And then when I find them spitting down the necks of the dolls they've beheaded, and I yank the toys away, the kids are truly mystified. Sammie, who is three, rolls her eyes at me and says, "Oh, all wite," just like Elmer Fudd.

Yep, that's my job around here, bringing the party down.

YOUR PROMPT: Describe the last time you were really angry. (Even if you think you never get angry. Even if you think you’re at one with the universe.) Better if it’s extreme anger or frustration over something petty. I always give this prompt at the start of a memoir classes as a warm-up. People hate it. They give me that look. Yeah. That look. And then they start, and then I pretty much have to take the pen away from them, I mean yank it away, after fifteen minutes so we can start class. Anger has energy, fuel for work. It’s good to describe the event as a straight scene, and dive into the details. Better if you can morph it into something else. Play it for laughs. Make it sad or wry. Fiction types can distort it, make it happen to someone else.

~Michelle Seaton

Grub Street Rag, 11/19/07

2007-11-19T16:08:00.000-05:00

*Heavenly Grub gossip
*Dastardly Grub events
*Donate to our YAWP program

"The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell, together, as quickly as possible."

--Mark Twain

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from the back alley speakeasy at Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

Urgent! Help us Raise $5000 for YAWP by 12/31
YAWP, our writing program for teens, is an entirely FREE program for students age 13-18 that teaches them the craft of creative writing. If we can raise $5000 by the end of the year, a donor will match that with an additional $5000. Your dollars go twice as far, and every dollar counts. Click here to donate NOW.

The Young Adult Writers Program is dedicated to helping students age 13-18 with creative writing in and out of the classroom. Our program is based on the understanding that a love of writing is fostered through creative work, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future academic success. Schools around the nation no longer have the resources to focus on creative work, and students with an interest in poetry or fiction have to look beyond their schools' curricula to find support in their creative endeavors.

Every dollar helps, so please, donate today. We look forward to building on the success of our teen programming and helping shape the creative voices of tomorrow.

Institution of Congratulations
Grubbie and children's book author Sarah Lamstein just published a new book called Letter on the Wind, a retelling of a Jewish folk tale. Read more about her and the book at http://www.sarahlamstein.com/letter.html. Former Grub instructors Jami Brandli and Brian Polak, who now live in Los Angeles, wrote to tell us they are finalists for the ABC Disney Writers Fellowship. If thy're picked, they get $50,000 each for 2008, a mentorship with a seasoned TV writer, and TV writing jobs. There were over 1,000 applicants this year and they're currently in the top twenty. After Thanksgiving, they go through the interview process: a short intro to ABC Disney, a cocktail mixer with the
other finalists, and then a panel interview. All of us in Boston have our fingers crossed--good luck! Congratulations to all of you Grubbies, and keep sending us your great news.

Grub-"sponsored" NaNoWriMo get together
Tonight, Monday, November 19th at 6:30pm, a crew of Grubbies who are also NaNoWriMo-ers are all getting together at Remington's bar, (124 Boylston Street), just a few doors down from Grub Street. They'll be talking novels, sipping beverages, and connecting with one another. If you've been slaving away during National Novel Writing Month, now is the time to come talk to some other brave souls who've been doing the same. See you there!

Cheers,
Whitney, Sonya, and Chris (from Pennsylvania)

In addition to our ongoing workshops, Grub Street offers numerous writing-related events around town. See our website for a long-term view of all we do. Here is a sample of what's on the horizon:

LUNCHTIME COURSE: Brown Bag Lunch Series
Tuesday, November 27th, 12:30–1:15PM
Do you work downtown and want to fit some writing into your day? Or do you have a schedule that gives you free afternoons instead of evenings? Bring your lunch and come on over to Grub Street for a Brown Bag Writing Workshop – a series recently profiled in the Boston Globe. For 45 minutes, you’ll meet fellow writers and get your creative juices flowing with some cool writing exercises. Led by the fabulous Sonya Larson. Best of all, you’ll leave lunch with some new ideas to ponder for the rest of your day, and beyond. Maximum of 15 students. To sign up, email sonya@grubstreet.org or call 617.695.0075.
FREE, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

Writing For Radio
December 1-2nd, 2007, 9-4pm each day (includes an hour for lunch)
Instructor: Jennifer Mattson
*Sold out.
$195/ $170 for members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

The Story Details
December 1-2nd, 2007, 9-4pm each day (includes an hour for lunch)
Instructor: Rosie Sultan
Asked for advice on how to move stories and novels forward, Charles Baxter has said, "Don't orphan your details." Concrete, specific details work to give a story life, and they are often what make them stand out in the publishing world. In this workshop, we will look at short examples from Baxter, Chekhov, Flaubert, and Ishiguro and examine how these authors create lively details of sight, sense, taste, touch, action and thoughts as springboards to further their plots. Using Baxter's The Feast of Love, an excerpt from Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day and Flaubert's Madame Bovary, we will "borrow" their techniques as models to craft our own details of plot and character. By the end of the two days, we will hopefully have developed some tools to see our stories through to their best possible endings. A reprise of this summer’s highly-praised workshop!
$195/ $170 for members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

Finding Your Voice
December 1-2nd, 2007, 9-4pm each day (includes an hour for lunch)
Instructors: Jennifer Elmore and Becky Tuch
What makes your creative voice unique? Do your characters‚ voices embody the charisma and eccentricity of real life? Do your poems speak with authority? If you’re looking to jumpstart your fiction or poetry, or if either or both are feeling flat, join fiction writer Becky Tuch and poet Jennifer Elmore for a mixed-genre weekend workshop on the art of voice. Over the two days, we will explore our own creative voices - with particular attention to the details of diction. Come prepared to workshop current projects and participate in writing exercises. An expanded version of this summer’s popular one-night seminar!
$195/ $170 for members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

Grub Street wants to promote YOU!! Please send events for consideration to whitney@grubstreet.org. Our apologies if we can't fit you in.

--READING: Tuesday, November 27th, 7pm, How to Spell Chanukah: 18 Writers Celebrate 8 Nights of Lights
Steve Almond, Emily Franklin, Tova Mirvis, Josh Neumann, Mameve Medwed, and others are included in this collection of funny, poignant essays, and will be holding a reading and talk at Union Street. Sponsored by Heeb Magazine and Newtonville Books.
FREE, 107R Union Street, Newton Centre, MA.

--READING: Tuesday, November 27th, 7pm, The Writers' Room of Boston 2007 Annual Reading
Featuring the following authors: Mary Bonina - poetry, Eric Grunwald - fiction, Cynthia Staples - nonfiction, CD Collins - fiction, Katrin Schumann - fiction, Brian Kaufman - screenplay, Maureen Rogers - non-fiction, Tracy Geary - fiction.
FREE, The Poetry Center, Mildred F. Sawyer Library, Suffolk University, 73 Tremont Street, Boston.

--Writers’ Room Offers Fellowships for Free Workspace
The Writers’ Room of Boston, Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides affordable, quiet, and secure workspace in downtown Boston for area writers, is now accepting applications for three fellowships for 2008. The fellowships award use of the Writers’ Room at no cost for one year. The submission deadline for applications is November 30, 2007. Residencies will begin in early 2008. For an application, visit www.writersroomofboston.org. Further questions? Contact Administrator Eric Maxson at 617-523-0566 or info@writersroomofboston.org.

--OPEN MIC: Saturday, December 1st, 1:30 - 4pm, NaNoWriMo Open Mic and Celebration
Meeting House, a journal of New England fiction, is having a reading in celebration of National Novel Writing Month, and you should come! Saturday, December 1, from 1:30 to 4:00, we'll be at the Burren in Davis Square, Somerville. Come and share what you've written during November. You don't have to have completed the herculean task of writing a novel in 30 days, but let us know how far you got. If you didn't take part in NaNoWriMo but have something you want to share anyway, that's cool, too! Just email meetinghouse@newenglandfiction.com by Thursday, November 29th, and let us know you want in and what you plan on reading. And don't forget to check out www.newenglandfiction.com/meetinghouse each week for a new story by a New England writer.
FREE, The Burren, 247 Elm Street, Davis Square, Somerville.

--READING: Monday, December 3rd, 7-9pm, Four Stories Boston
This month is the fall season finale of Four Stories Boston, with the them: "The Bitter End: Stories of loss, endings, and final acts." Featuring: Jeremiah Healey, creator of the John Francis Cuddy private-investigator series and (under the pseudonym Terry Devane) and author of eighteen novels and over sixty short stories; Drew Johnson, author of stories from Harper's, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and StoryQuarterly; Julia Glass, author of the novels Three Junes, winner of the 2002 National Book Award, and The Whole World Over, as well as a forthcoming story collection; Joan Wickersham, writer of fiction from The Hudson Review, Story, Glimmer Train, Ploughshares, and The Best American Short Stories, and author of the novel The Paper Anniversary and the forthcoming memoir The Suicide Index. Plus tunes from guest DJ Michael-Borum!
Free, The Enormous Room, 567 Massachusetts Ave, Central Square.

Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like an ox at a sock hop, we offer you the chance to win a prize. In D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, which of the Morel children dies when Paul Morel is a young boy, and of what cause? Email your answer to Whitney. Winner receives a certificate for ice cream at J.P. Licks.

Answer to last week's quiz: Here's the Taste of Grub "beginnings" quote from author Bret Anthony Johnston: "When Augustus came out on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake--not a very big one." The quote is from Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove. WINNER: William Rafelson.

© 2007 grub street, inc.

160 boylston st. / boston, ma 02116 / 617.695.0075

Any writing's good writing, right?

2007-11-15T15:59:00.000-05:00

I have three best friends from high school--I may have mentioned them before in this blog, because they're the women I'm closest to in the world. Sadly, we all live in different cities, and only get to see each other one or two times a year. A few years ago, once we got too busy in our lives and careers to send around the "mass emails" we used to write every few days, the four of us started a rotating journal that we mail back and forth across the country. Like Fight Club, the journal has rules (except that we're allowed to talk about the journal, unlike FC). The journal can only be in the hands of one woman for three weeks. If we keep the journal longer than that, we have to buy a round of beers for the rest of the women.

Three weeks. Not hard. Anyone can write one journal entry in three weeks, especially if one styles herself a writer, right? Well, let's put it this way: at this point, two years into the journal, I am buying my friends a frat party's worth of beers.

I stepped outside myself and watched my behavior on this round, in the hopes of figuring out why I procrastinate on the journal. It's not for lack of interest--I LOVE reading the journal, I love writing in the journal, and I love popping it in the mail and picturing my friend Julie opening the package. Here's what I found out: Every time that I thought about writing in the journal, I would think, "Oh god, I haven't worked on my fiction. I should really do that before I write in the journal." But then I wouldn't actually work on my fiction, I would feel bad about not writing, and I wouldn't want to write in the journal because it would be an admission of defeat. And before I knew it, the three weeks were up and then I was depressed because that meant I hadn't done ANY writing of ANY kind for three whole weeks (or more).

So... yesterday, I got up early, trucked on down to Diesel Cafe and wrote in the journal. I wrote non-stop for an hour and a half and filled 9 pages. Gossipy, blathery stuff that no one but my friends would ever care about and I'll probably be embarrassed to read 6 months from now. And you know what? It felt great. It wasn't fiction, but maybe I'll try that tomorrow.

In dread,
Whitney Scharer

Gangsta Toms

2007-10-25T11:50:00.001-04:00

Sometimes an article comes along in the news that just SCREAMS to be turned into a short story. This week's winner: 4-foot tall, 20-lb. wild turkeys that are roaming through Brookline and biting people. These turkeys are big, mean, and unpredictable. Not only that, they travel in packs. According to NPR, "Neighbors would laugh watching the lawyer or pediatrician who lived next door being chased by a gobbling mob of birds."

Truly, my fellow writers, how can we not turn this into a short story? It's perfect material! If my job wasn't keeping me so busy, I'd write it myself, but instead I give the idea to you in all its glory. Just make sure that you're writing it indoors--you don't want to be attacked. If you are, the Brookline Police recommends "shooing the grumpy birds away with your purse."

In dread,
Whitney Scharer

Grub Street Rag, 10/22/07

2007-10-22T16:03:00.001-04:00

the grub street rag. (Re)writing Boston since 1997.

* Electric Grub gossip
* Juiced Grub events
* Bid online in our silent auction

"A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning."

-- James Dickey

grub street gossip.

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday by the relief pitchers at Grub Street's bullpen (er. . . world headquarters). As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

Grub Street Book Prize winner announced!
We are thrilled to announce that Susan Richards Shreve has won the 2007 Grub Street Book Prize, in Non-Fiction for her memoir WARM SPRINGS: TRACES OF A CHILDHOOD AT FDR'S POLIO HAVEN (Houghton Mifflin, 2007). Steve Almond was the final judge. Shreve will receive a cash award of $1000 and be brought to Grub Street for a reading, booksigning and reception in early 2008. The next day, Shreve will lead a 2-hour seminar for Grub Street members on the craft of memoir writing. Shreve is the author of thirteen novels, and WARM SPRINGS is her first memoir. Congratulations, Susan! We look forward to meeting you in '08.

Taste of Grub is Friday, November 2nd
Not that we're counting or anything, but A Taste of Grub is coming up soon, and space is limited. If you'd like to attend, or want to support Grub Street with a donation, please click here: www.grubstreet.org/getinvolved/tasteofgrub.html. Also be sure to check out the fantastic items at our second-ever silent auction. The Literary Silent Auction will take place at A Taste of Grub on November 2nd, but you don't have to attend the event in order to win: online bidding is happening NOW. Check out our website for all the details on A Taste of Grub and the Literary Auction.

Grub Gone... NaNoWriMo?
Got a great idea for a novel? Having trouble getting it down on paper? Like many of us, you might need a kickstart. National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. And the best part is, there are lots of other Grubbies participating too! If you'd like to know who else in the Grub community is writing a lot of words very quickly this November, send an email to whitney@grubstreet.org. If there's enough interested, Grub will host a meet and greet for Nanowrimo-ers later this month. Good luck!

Deadlines extended
Ch-ch-ch-changes! We've extended the deadline for our Master Poetry class to October 26th (class begins November 6th and runs for 6 weeks; cost is $275/$250 members). Please send 10 pages of your poetry to sonya@grubstreet.org. Also, there's still time to sign up for our Young Adult Fiction class, which has morphed into a 6-week course and begins November 7th, costing you a cool $275/$250 members. Ring us at 617.695.0075 to sign up!

Cheers,
Whitney, Sonya, and Chris (from Pennsylvania)

grub events calendar.

In addition to our ongoing workshops, Grub Street offers numerous writing-related events around town. See our website for a long-term view of all we do. Here is a sample of what's on the horizon:

Novel Writing Weekend
October 27-28th, 2007, 9-4pm each day
Instructor: Jacqueline Sheehan
Our favorite novels let us step fully into the characters and experience their world through all of our senses, and keep turning the pages long into the night. This fiction-writing course will take participants through a series of exercises and discussions that will focus on strong character development, create specific details that will highlight motivation, amplify sensory images, and use dialogue to crank up the tension. Jacqueline Sheehan is also a psychologist and will teach participants how to pull from the world of psychology to add depth to your characters. Come to class with several pages of your novel, or with a summary of the novel that you are dreaming of writing. Plan to leave with expanded characters, clarified conflicts, and strong dialogue. $195/$170 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

The Freelancing Payoff
October 27-28th, 2007, 9-4pm each day
Instructor: Eric Butterman
Freelance isn’t just a way to make extra income—it could one day be your income. Join Eric Butterman, who has written for Glamour, ESPN.com, and numerous other publications, as he shows you how to turn one assignment into many and how to expand your horizons from field to field. “There’s many misconception in this business—like that you can’t follow up with phone calls after you send out a magazine pitch,” Butterman says. “Half my business is directly attributed to the phone and we’ll drill through phone calls together so I can show you how to do them correctly.” But before you ever pick up the phone, you need to pick your brain for the right magazine idea. “From sources to use, to a snappy headline, to making your pitch into the voice of the magazine, the pitch needs to be done just right or you just won’t get assignments. We’ll come up with them together on the spot so you can see how the mindset works.” Students in Butterman's 5-week courses have landed $1,000-and-up assignments from Stuff, B'nai B'rith and more, all while the class was still going on!
$195/$170 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

Point of View in Fiction
October 27-28th, 2007, 9-4pm each day
Instructor: Adam Stumacher
Point of view is, in the words of Henry James, the “central intelligence” of story. In this workshop, we will explore this crucial and fascinating element of craft. Through in-class exercises, discussion, and an array of readings – from Joyce to Eugenides, Borges to Z.Z. Packer – we will examine the wide range of point of view choices, from the conventional to the experimental. By the end of the weekend, we will be not only have gained an appreciation for the ways authors use these choices to astonish readers, but we will also be well on our way towards using point of view to breathe life into our own fiction.
$195/$170 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

Score in Sportswriting
Sunday, October 28th, 2007, Special Time: 5pm – 10pm (with dinner break)
Instructor: Eric Butterman
Many people think you have to cover a sports beat at a small-time newspaper for 10 years to become a successful sportswriter, but if you craft a strong pitch and have a unique style, you could score quickly. Eric Butterman, writer for ESPN.com and the Sporting News, will show you how to get in with the top sports places by finding their needs and crafting pitches and a portfolio to match them. He'll teach you the art of filing a story just after the sporting event ends and help you figure out ways to land sports pieces in magazines which don’t normally come to mind. A perfect way for a sports lover to spend a Sunday night--especially in World Series season!
$95/$85 members, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

LUNCHTIME COURSE: Tuesday, October 30th, 12:30–1:15PM, Brown Bag Lunch Series
Do you work downtown and want to fit some writing into your day? Or do you have a schedule that gives you free afternoons instead of evenings? Bring your lunch and come on over to Grub Street for a Brown Bag Writing Workshop – a series recently profiled in the Boston Globe. For 45 minutes, you’ll meet fellow writers and get your creative juices flowing with some cool writing exercises. Led by one of our award-winning instructors or ambassadors. Best of all, you’ll leave lunch with some new ideas to ponder for the rest of your day, and beyond. Maximum of 15 students. To sign up, email sonya@grubstreet.org or call 617.695.0075.
FREE, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

On the Horizon:
Friday, November 2nd, 2007: A Taste of Grub
Sunday, November 4th, 2007: You Have What it Takes to Write a Teen Novel
Sunday, November 4th, 2007: Reality 101

spreading the love.

Grub Street wants to promote YOU!! Please send events for consideration to whitney@grubstreet.org. Our apologies if we can't fit you in.

--CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Boston’s Poet Laureate
Mayor Thomas M. Menino has approved the creation of a Poet Laureate position for the City of Boston. “[The purpose of] poetry ... is ... to teach and delight.” – Sir Philip Sidney (1554 – 1586). Applications are invited from poets who are currently residing in the City of Boston, and have been published or have been recognized for notable literary contributions at any stage in their career. Deadline is approaching: Friday, October 26th. For more information, visit the Mayor's Office of Arts, Tourism & Special Events website at http://www.cityofboston.gov/news/default.aspx?id=3602.

--READING: Wednesday, October 24, 7:00p.m, Author and Radio Host Bill Littlefield
The Blue Hills Writing Institute at Curry College welcomes author, radio host, and professor of English Bill Littlefield to read from his recently published book Only a Game. Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, Littlefield’s take on the games people play is as refreshing as it is enlightening. From baseball hall of famers, to pickup soccer games among misfit high-schoolers, to the advances women have made in sports, to the most obscure nicknames and unusual mascots in college sports, the book collects memorable commentaries from Littlefield’s popular NPR sports show as well as previously published magazine essays. No matter the topic, Littlefield illuminates the dark corners and unlikely angles of sports with wry good humor and a lightly worn expertise that lets nothing pass. Refreshments will be served after the presentation and the Curry College Bookstore will have Littlefield’s book available for purchase. FREE, Parents’ Lounge in the Hafer Academic Building, Curry College, 1071 Blue Hill Avenue, Milton. For additional information, call 617-333-2346. For directions, please visit www.curry.edu/About+Us/Directions/

--READING: Thursday, October 25th, 2007, 7pm, Margo Rabb and Steve Almond
Margo Rabb will read from her novel, Cures for Heartbreak, at Newtonville Books with Steve Almond, the author of Not That You Asked and Candyfreak, who promises to read lots of dirty stuff. More info on the authors can be found at www.margorabb.com and www.stevenalmond.com. FREE, Newtonville Books, 296 Walton St Newton, MA.

--GRUB STREET NORTH AT CORNERSTONE BOOKS: Sunday October 28th, 3pm, Grub Street North: Hank Phillippi Ryan on First Novels
It's not ALL about ghouls and goblins! Join beloved investigative journalist and new fiction author Hank Phillippi Ryan as she gives us the scoop on first novels: what every author should know, but probably won't be told (except by Hank!!) Hank has just endured the first novel process with her Charlie McNally mystery (and Boston Globe bestseller) Prime Time, and its sequel Face Time is out this month. Come find out the real deal, and enjoy a free cup of coffee on us for driving to Salem in October! FREE, Cornerstone Books, 45 Lafayette Street, Salem.

--GRUB STREET SOUTH AT BUTTONWOOD BOOKS: Tuesday, October 30th, 7pm, Grub Street South at Buttonwood present Claire Cook on Finding the Muse
This month at the Scituate Library! How to start, and actually finish, the book only you can write. Since her first novel was published in 2000, Claire Cook has learned a lot about writing and the writing life, and she’s happy to share it all with you! What’s special about you, and how can you turn that unique perspective into a great hook for a book? And once you do that, how will you write the rest of it? And then what do you do when you finish? Practical strategies for living through it all, plus a chance to connect with other writers and pull together your own support group. And, of course, lots of fun stories from Claire! Claire Cook is the national bestselling author of four novels, Ready To Fall, Must Love Dogs, Multiple Choice and Life’s A Beach. To reserve, call the Scituate Library at 1-781-545-8727.

Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like a man with a plan for a canal, we offer you the chance to win a prize. What story in this year's Best American Short Stories features the lines "Mouth shut" and "Shoes on feet"? Email your answer to Whitney. Winner receives a certificate for ice cream at J.P. Licks.

Answer to last week's quiz: "It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it," wrote Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre. The novel was originally published under the pseudonum Currer Bell on October 9th, 1847. WINNER: Stephanie Gayle.

On The Line

2007-09-27T08:04:00.000-04:00

As many Grubbies have probably noticed, Grub Street doesn't have online registration. Instead, like some sort of Little House on the Prairie rerun, our registration process forces potential students to trek five miles through waist-high blizzard drifts, their chalkboards slung around their necks and hot potatoes stuck in their muffs to keep their hands from freezing off. Okay, maybe it's not that bad. But it does require them to--gasp!--CALL AN ACTUAL PERSON ON THE PHONE in order to sign up for a course.

You might think that I'm about to launch into a blog about the evils of technology and how in our modern world, isn't it great to be able to make a connection with another human, even if it's just their disembodied voice on the line? Don't worry, I won't do that to you. Frankly, if I didn't work at Grub and wanted to sign up for a Grub Street class, I'm sure I would be SO OVER the inconvenience of having to call during business hours. Get with the program, Grub, I would be thinking, if I can order a Starbucks latte online and then go pick it up in my car at the drive-thru window, I should be able to sign up for Novel in Progress over the internet. But I do work at Grub Street, and here's the sick, sick truth: I think we aren't all that concerned about online services because we LIKE having to talk to people on the phone. Maybe it's a power thing: You want to sign up for a class but you can't do it without my help. Maybe we enjoy the occasional call from someone truly batty, like the guy who called the other day and wanted us to publish his novel, and when we told him we're not a publishing house said (and I quote): "What I want to know is, is Grub Street just another chickenshit operation?" (The answer to that, if you're wondering, is yes. Yes we are.) But more likely, it's that we all love to talk to other writers, find out where they are in their processes, and help them choose the classes that will be the right fits for them. Obviously, we don't always get this right, but we really do enjoy offering advice, and--not to toot our own horns or anything--we know what we're talking about. Since we're such a small organization (only three staff members), by default we HAVE to have our fingers in all the pies. We all help choose the programming, we all meet all (or most) of the instructors, and we take Grub Street workshops ourselves. So call us!

This quarter, for the first time, we've listed on our website which classes are sold out for the fall. We did this because MANY of our classes are already sold out, and we got tired of disappointing people when they called in. But we did it with trepidation, because we're worried that it might stop people from calling and signing up for a different course--a class that might end up being as good (or better) than their initial selection. So, as fall term registration comes to a close (classes begin October 9th), here are some tips , advice, and not-so-secret secrets about choosing a class.

1. The teacher is the most important thing about the class. Level one, level two, ten weeks of stories or six, in the end it doesn't really make that much of a difference if the instructor's good.
2. The other students in the class are the second most important thing. While we can't control who takes our courses, most of the students who take Grub classes are truly dedicated to their work--and their dedication will help to make the class productive and inspiring for everyone.
3. Be sure you're really committed to the six or ten weeks of work before you sign up. Grub classes are demanding, and in most of them you'll find yourself reading anywhere from 30-60 pages of classmates' work, writing critiques, and working on your own stories each week. That's a big time commitment. If you're strapped for time, take a few seminars or a weekend class instead.
4. If you've taken a few Grub classes in the past, try something totally new. This term, for instance, we're offering something called "How to Edit Yourself," taught by an editor at Beacon Press. It might not seem like "fun" to focus on revision for six weeks, but we can guarantee that this class will take your writing to a new level.
5. Please, please do not assume you'll be the best writer in the class. Do not say things like: "Is there a level higher than the master level, because I'm a really, really good writer" or "I'm worried that having to read all the schlock other people turn in is just going to bore me, because I'm a really, really good writer." We're sure you are a good writer. But so are LOTS of other people who take Grub classes, and the point of the class is to learn something (see Michelle Seaton's great blog post from a few weeks ago for more on this).
6. Sign up soon! We've got lots of great classes that still have space in them, but they are filling fast.

In dread and on the phone,
Whitney Scharer

Week Three

2007-09-19T16:48:00.000-04:00

Some bad advice I used to give my Fiction II students at Grub is now coming back to haunt me.

I liked to share my half-baked theory that every writer needed one indulgence. I'd say, glibly: "Maybe you drink a lot. Or watch too much TV. Or overeat. That's fine! Go for it! Live it up! But you get only ONE of these indulgences. For everything else, moderation rules. Every day, you have to write a little, eat a little, exercise a little, read a little, make a little love, and sleep a little - not necessarily in that order. And somewhere in there, you find time to binge on your indulgence."

It made sense at the time. I must have been reading Ben Franklin or something, and thought how perfect that man would have been if he'd admitted to at least one of his vices in his *Autobiography.*

My vice at the time? Can't remember. Honestly. But since then I've learned that, in order for me to get *anything* done, I can't succumb to the big indulgence. Once I do, I get greedy. If it's baseball, I want to watch 6 hours of it. If it's food, I want to eat an entire pan of lasagna. The baseball cuts into my writing time; the lasagna cuts into my exercise time; soon, the entire regimen falls apart. I can only thrive when, like Franklin, I build my indulgences into that regimen. I will watch 2 hours of baseball; I will eat a small slice of lasagna and chase it with a handful of carrot sticks; I will read for 2 hours; I will answer emails and surf the web for 1 hour, etc.

For my first two weeks here, you see, I stuck to this regimen. Every day, it was a little this, a little that. And it worked beautifully. Balance. Order. It was gorgeous! I was renewed! It was like writing an excellent sestina -- art within order. Then I allowed myself to relax a bit. I took the day off from the gym. Instead of writing my 1000 words, I watched a day baseball game. Now I'm playing catch up -- I have to write 3000 words tomorrow, which means I'm setting myself up to fail -- and everything's out of whack.

I think this is especially true when you live alone, or have a career that forces you to be solitary. You have to be hard on yourself. No one's there to hold you to your schedule and your goals. And let's face it: writers thrive on self-sacrifice, martyrdom, etc., so we really should be able to handle this.

- Christopher Castellani

Week Two

2007-09-11T21:17:00.000-04:00

This week on campus:

There's an article in the student newspaper about how blogs are "the end of writing as we know it" partly because "it's impossible to have an original voice." Seems to me, though, that, given how new blogging is, there are greater opportunities for original voices in blogs than in any other literary medium. Nevertheless, I feel accused.

On Wednesday I taught my first workhsop, accompanied by the usual feeling that I've had pig's blood poured on my head and the entire room is laughing at me. My students are sweet and polite, though, and would never do such a thing. They're also excellent writers. We did the exercise where I call out 6 random words -- 1 per minute -- and they have to use them in the same scene. They read these scenes aloud, and I was very impressed by their imaginations, clarity and range of voices.

Among other texts, we're reading a chapter from Charles Baxter's *The Feast of Love* for next week, and also the first couple chapters of Francine Prose's wonderful *Reading Like A Writer.* Then, the week after, the actual workshopping begins.

I spent some time with my parents at the house where I grew up, also known as the Land of a Thousand Sadnesses. My mother had a bad reaction to her most recent medication, and spent most of Saturday night in tears and intense stomach pain. I spent the rest of my days there dealing with doctors and pharmacists and doing internet research and hearing stories about all my parents' friends who are dying. At the same time, I started reading Robert Ferro's novel The Family of Max Desir, which was recommended to me. It's beautifully written, but turns out it's about a gay Italian guy and his sick mother, so I've set it aside. Not sure if I'll ever be able to read it.

I've also done some writing when possible, and, after five sessions, I have 4600 new words. That's huge production for me, so, for that, I'm grateful.

-Christopher Castellani

Back to School

2007-09-07T15:49:00.000-04:00

At the beginning of the summer term at Grub Street, I ran into fiction I instructor Mike Heppner in the hallway at Grub HQ. We’d met once at a staff meeting, so we stopped to chat. Mike started with the usual question.
“What are you teaching?”
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m taking a class.”
“Cool. Whose?”
“Yours.”
Mike blanched at this news, and I felt for him. No one likes a surprise.
I’ve been teaching memoir and nonfiction classes at Grub Street for seven years. Before that, I taught a sophomore survey course at Boston University. Then last fall I took my teaching notes, my handouts and threw most of them away. The rest went into storage. I didn’t want to teach anymore. In fact, I wasn’t sure I wanted to write anymore. Instead, I wanted what a lot of new Grub Street students want, a sense of renewal, a sense of adventure that comes from trying something new. So I stepped outside my role as teacher and signed up for a fiction class. Then another, and another. These are not easy classes, and becoming a student has given me a few insights. So here they are: the four things I learned as a Grub Street student.

1. Like everyone else, I’m afraid to suck. Every instructor has seen this. Someone comes into class with a lot of writing experience, or several clips, and they are all smiles during the introductions. By week two they sit in stiff silence, unable to read anything aloud or write anything in class. By week three, they’ve gone AWOL, claiming illness or work issues, and they never return. By contrast, the folks who come to class with a sense of humor about themselves, regardless of their levels of experience, write reams of stories, forge intense friendships, and have a rip-roarin’ good time. For seven years, I’ve been telling students to loosen up, and this was excellent advice—until I had to take it myself. There I was, sitting in Ron MacLean’s wonderful Structure of Short Fiction class, forcing myself to read out loud, with my hands shaking so hard I couldn’t see the words on the page.

2. Deadlines are erotic. I took Stace Budzko’s class 10 Weeks, 10 Stories. Doesn’t everyone? I spent the spring in a panic, plotting as fast as I could type. The housewife has to run away with the mailman. The son has to drive his father to the asylum. The girl has to dance with the ghost of George Washington. All this has to happen in writing by 5 p.m., at which point I can print it out, load the kids in the car, tear over to Staples to make 12 copies, and then hand the kids off to my husband before barreling down the Pike to get to class on time. Look at those dirty dishes, the unpaid bills, the piles of unfolded laundry, and the blinking light on my phone—some message from an angry editor. Where is my story? I’ve been awake since 3 a.m., out of bed since 4, typing, typing. I am awash in shame over the important things I have neglected to do all week. I vibrate with the fear that this story is horribly, laughably bad. And, yes, I’m also a little turned on.

3. I fear praise. Once, I asked an editor what he thought of my work, and he said, “I wipe my ass with this.” What’s worse, he took the paper and rubbed it against the seat of his pants in the universal ass-wiping gesture. One of my editors routinely returns my stories to me with parenthetical queries after each paragraph. (I don’t get it.) (This is stupid.) (You’re putting me to sleep here). His comments are in all-caps. And red. Every writer deals with an avalanche of criticism. As a result, writers who teach strive to create a classroom environment that guards against the raw pettiness we’ve faced. I always worked to praise every story, every effort before pointing out a few little things that might need work. As an instructor, I prided myself on my ability to praise and encourage everyone. As a student, encouragement scares me. My efforts as a fiction writer are uneven at best. The stories meander, the characters are clichés sent in from central casting. My narratives often wander off cliffs and drop into the abyss. I know this, and I’m petrified to face a revision armed only with vague admiration. I’m not alone. In one class, we sat around praising a fellow student’s story. We went on and on about the lyrical language, the beautiful imagery, all of which was true. We neatly skirted the fact that we had no idea what the story was about. None. Finally, the writer stopped us. “Enough,” she said. “Don’t tell me how great it is. Tell me what to do with it. I need help.” We were so relieved. We ponied up the advice, some of it off-point and mistaken, and she was thrilled to get it all.

4. Hierarchy is self-imposed. I used to like identifying myself as an instructor at Grub parties, at readings, at the Muse. What do you do? I teach here. Not anymore. Last week Mike Heppner moved our Fiction I class to the Brookline Booksmith where we watched Joshua Furst read from his new novel The Sabotage Cafe. He arrived a bit late, and looked bewildered, just like a writer. Then he opened his book and nailed us to our seats for 25 minutes. Afterward, we had class in the basement of the bookstore. We worked on our stories, surrounded by books, and by people shopping for books. As a working writer, I worry constantly about the hierarchy of success. Who has better clips? Who has more time to work? Who is younger and more talented? As an instructor I worry about being good enough to teach. As a student, none of that matters. Effort alone matters, effort and showing up on time.

Michelle Seaton

Be careful what you wish for...

2007-09-06T09:18:00.000-04:00

Ever since Grub Street moved into our office in 2005, six windows on the east wall have been bricked over, ostensibly to save us from any construction site mishaps as Emerson built the behemoth dorm next door (sadly, this is not a joking matter: there WAS an accident, which sent a crane falling 8 stories and killed three people: a bystander and two construction workers. We were at work when it happened, and I'm sure none of us will ever forget the terrible accident scene).

Construction was completed last summer, in time for fall 2006 classes, but the bricks stayed up. Over last year, our feisty 84-year-old landlord would periodically appear on our floor, shouting to us from the hallway that the construction workers told her it would be next week, three weeks, mid-March, July, or some other date that the bricks would be removed. At first, we believed her (and them). Mid-March, we thought. Perfect! Just in time for our spring classes. But alas, the months dragged on and soon we forgot that those big black squares were windows at all. We got used to the interrogation-room quality of our small classroom, where the mixture of sunny yellow paint and lack of natural light made everyone appear a little jaundiced, as if after a long sea voyage. We went to IKEA and bought more floor lamps, decided that mood lighting was something that Grub Street could be known for.

Rumors abounded. The building that had been torn down to make way for dorm space had been a mafia building. Bodies were buried in the walls, and that's why they had to brick over our windows--as they tore into the structure, they didn't want us to see the ancient skulls and phalanges flying through the air. They had promised to leave eight feet of space between our building and theirs, so that light would still get to our floor, but we were convinced they hadn't: take down the bricks, and all we'd see was the concrete slab of Emerson, pressed as tight against 160 Boylston as a lover.

Finally, our building manager told us they were really coming to tear things down. We got ready, shuttling printers and papers to the hallway and generally reducing our office to even more of a mess than ever. And only one year and 2 weeks late, the construction workers really did arrive. Their method, which we have now been assessing for a full week, is for one man to chip at a brick with a pick and hammer while another man watches. When the brick is removed, it's dropped four stories down to a courtyard below, where another man is waiting to catch it. Luckily, a second man also stands below, watching the man waiting to catch the brick. As you might imagine, this is not a fast process. By the end of day one (which was supposed to be the only day), they had finished one window in the back room.

But o, what a difference it made! Even just that one window sends a flood of new light across the space, and the room appears to be twice as big as it used to be. Sonya and I kept walking back there, just to see it. We were ecstatic. Our space, which we have always loved, was about to become a million times better. Buh-bye, IKEA lamps, I thought happily.

Last night, they finished the yellow classroom, and like the back room, the difference is unbelievable. It's suddenly a place you want to hang out in, so hang out we did, standing next to our brand new view and occasionally poking our head outside to stare at the 8-foot-wide courtyard far below. As day turned into night, though, and the lights came on in the Emerson dorm rooms, we realized one thing that we hadn't really considered until then. 8 feet is not very much space, and those Emerson students are very, very close to us. As we looked out the window, we realized we were surrounded by activity. Personal, intimate activity, taking place in personal, intimate spaces. One woman had many bottles of Clorox wipes and a full-size plush statue of E.T. Another window revealed two girls in low-cut tops, ostensibly getting ready to go clubbing. A third had posters of beer girls and huge printouts taped to the glass that spell "508" (his room number?) When two shirtless boys stared back at us, and then one of them made some kind of lewd gesture, laughing, we went back to our desks, in our office where the bricks have yet to be removed.

And it was then that the other downside became clear: bricks are terrific sound insulators. Typing away at our keyboards, we heard noises unlike anything we've heard before. Whooping, cawing, that strange ululation people sometimes make in step aerobics classes, and this all at 5:30pm! We can only imagine what we'll hear when the parties begin.

All in all, natural light is worth any amount of leering shirtless boys and whooping underage drinkers. Our space is back to what it's supposed to look like, and we couldn't be happier. We think. We'll keep you posted.

In dread,
Whitney Scharer

The Real World, Part I

2007-09-05T12:56:00.000-04:00

This is the true 14-part story of one writer's return to his alma mater to teach a fiction workshop, finish his third novel, keep up with the Grub community, maintain his long-distance marriage, and spend quality time with his elderly but vibrant immigrant parents, who live a mere 20 miles from the college. It's *The Real World: Swarthmore* minus the hardbodies and gratuitous sex (though possibly not the binge drinking).

Highlights of the first 5 days:

-- SATURDAY (Day One): Having copied the wrong address for my new apartment, Michael and I (with the help of the Swarthmore Police Dept) spend an hour roaming the dark leafy streets on foot trying to find it. Finally the landlord, History professor Marge Murphy (who initiated and runs the amazing War News Radio) appears in the driveway and ushers us into my new digs: three *enormous* air-conditioned rooms, including a walk-in closet and bathroom with jacuzzi tub. I share a kitchen and common area with two undergraduates, one of whom has already baked me a little cake.

-- SUNDAY (Day Two): Professor Murphy informs me that she has recently installed cable TV, including the MLB package. I resist the urge to throw my arms around her. Michael and I set up my room, then hit the King of Prussia mall, have a drink at a snazzy Manayunk bar and El Vez in the Center City Gayborhood. Back at the apartment, we install and test webcams and sign up for Skype. Fears of loneliness and isolation begin to ebb.

--MONDAY (Day Three): M & I make our first trip to the lush and majestic Swarthmore campus. Classes have started, and we gaze at the students as if at a zoo. ("Look how they check their mailboxes; isn't that cute?") I thought I'd identify more with them than the professors -- that I'd feel the 13 years since I graduated slip away -- but it turns out that the students all look twelve, and I am as fresh and vibrant as Methuselah. We hang out for a while in the English Department, and then make the inevitable trip to the airport. As M and I hug goodbye outside the AirTran terminal, the fears of loneliness and isolation resurge, and it occurs to me that webcams are tragically poor substitutes for human contact. I drive directly from the airport to my parents' house in Wilmington, where I am in charge of bartending and grilling for a 12-guest barbecue. After skimming half a martini per guest for myself, I soon pass out in my old twin bed.

--TUESDAY (Day Four): My dad fell last week, and now suffers from sharp pain in his leg that keeps him from walking comfortably for more than a few minutes at a time. Still he cleans out my car, fills it with gas, and makes me three days of meals -- all before I wake up (at 10:30). My mother is taking three different sets of pills for an illness she won't specify (all she and my dad will say is, "it's nothing serious. It's not cancer, so don't worry") and has to sleep most of the day. Still, she insists I drive her to Costco, where she buys me more food and other staples (i.e. a big jug of Bushmills) and, when I get home, sets me up with a new set of sheets, a comforter, and a coffeemaker. I head back to Swarthmore mid-afternoon and leave them standing in the driveway in their pajamas, waving.

The rest of my time has been spent preparing for my first workshop, which is Wednesday night (tonight!) from 7pm - 10pm, much like a Grub class. We're doing a writing exercise, introductions, and close-close-reading a short-short story. I'm eager to meet my 10 students, any of whom could be sitting among me at the bustling Kohlberg Coffee Bar, where I'm writing this. (Note: there was no coffee bar in this spot in 1994, just a cramped and creaky old building called the Annex, where I can guarantee no one ever lingered over a latte).

This is, of course, the best part of the semester. We're all optimistic. We're going to do our best work, write amazing stuff, attend lectures (even those in different departments!), and jog daily through the Crum Woods. We are our best selves, full of promise(s), eager and (gasp!) confident.

You can tell I haven't started working on my novel yet.

--Christopher Castellani

The Grub Street Rag, 9/4/2007

2007-09-04T14:09:00.001-04:00

"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore."

-- Andre Gide

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday (except when we take a respite from our labors) from the double-black-diamond-rated water slide at Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

As Heidi Klum would say, "Auf Wiedersehen"
First, the good news. We're delighted to report that Grub's own Artistic Director, Chris, will be a Visiting Professor at Swarthmore College this fall, where he will be teaching an Advanced Fiction workshop for ten lucky students. Now, the bad news: Isn't Swarthmore, um, not in Boston? Yes, it's true, Chris will be on sabbatical this autumn, making only brief, glittering cameo appearances in the Grub office, like some sort of exotic butterfly. Thankfully, he'll still be working for Grub Street remotely, and will be back for good in January. Look for the rare Artisticum Directoria Castellanae at Adaptations, A Taste of Grub, and on the web at the Penny Dreadful on Tuesdays. We'll miss you more than we can say, Chris, but we're so proud of you and excited to hear how your teaching goes.

Coming soon to a theater near you
On Thursday, October 11th, join us at the Coolidge Corner Theatre for our second "Adaptations" event. This year, acclaimed authors Arthur Golden, Russell Banks, Alice Hoffman and Scott Heim will read short excerpts from their novels, show the corresponding scenes from the film versions, and discuss the “translation” from page to screen. Films discussed include Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha, Banks’s The Sweet Hereafter, Hoffman’s Practical Magic, and Heim’s Mysterious Skin. Sure to be a lively, fun, informative and inspiring evening. Sign up early – tickets for the 2004 version sold out quickly, and seating is limited. Visit www.coolidge.org to reserve your ticket today.

A literary feast
Save the date: November 2nd, 2007, when Grub Street holds our third annual fundraising feast, A Taste of Grub. This year, we return to the beautiful and swanky Parkman House on Beacon Hill for a night of delicious nibbles, delectable sips from BRIX Wine Shop and Magic Hat, and provocative "beginnings and endings" from authors including Anita Diamant (The Red Tent). Tickets are available now, and more information is available on our website or by calling Whitney or Sonya at 617.695.0075.

The fall schedule is large and in charge
Our fall schedule is up on our website, and it's looking like this will be our biggest, best term yet. Some highlights: Christine Cipriani joins us from Beacon Press for the new How to Edit Yourself, Nick Mamatas instructs us on the ins and outs of Popular Fiction, and our sell-out Six Weeks, Six Stories spawns a non-fiction spinoff with Michelle Seaton's Six Weeks, Six Essays. Of course, old favorites abound as well, including Novel in Progress, Memoir I, Ten Weeks Ten Poems, and much much more! Check out the full schedule online and call us at 617.695.0075 to sign up today. Fall is always our busiest term, so don't wait until the last minute and lose your slot.

Cheers,

Whitney, Sonya, and Chris (from Pennsylvania)

The P.S. Grub Street's looking for a quality printing shop to print our fundraising invitations. If you have any recommendations--particularly somewhere that might give discounts or special rates to non-profits--please let us know! You can email whitney@grubstreet.org with ideas.

Wood & Wood & Mortar & Wood... — by Daniel Pritchard

2007-08-31T09:13:00.000-04:00

I've recently been indulging myself in high-end theory: Marxist criticism by way of Jameson's Late Capitalism. Reading Marxist criticism is something akin to hearing a person speak English with a thick accent, when you have just taken a percocet — "can you say that again? I'm sorry I don't understand the words you are speaking; can you repeat yourself more slowly? no, that didn't help..." It goes on like this, until you become accustomed to the patterns and the context, sort of like getting used to dissidence in orchestral music.

Late Capitalism is a book I've been meaning to re-read for a while, although I could not have told you why. Something in the brief section I'd read while at University struck a chord. Even in rereading the book I wondered whether I was really getting anything out of it. And then I came across a gem, a shockingly true paragraph-length labyrinth sentence. Jameson is analyzing the Marxist thinker Adorno's critical writing on aesthetics, and writes that late capitalist economics is obliterating "possibility and creative novelty by intensified repetition and sameness."

Commercials. Branding. Starbucks. Sitcoms. Chick-lit. Ironic-hipster authors. Harry Potter. Barnes & Nobles. Conglomerate news.

And then a question occurred to me: is this being dealt with in any meaningful way in modern literature? There are poets whose work is specifically Marxist coming out of the small presses, such as Mark Levine, but not very many. Novelists? Not to my knowledge. It made me think of James Wood, and how much he hates "hysterical realism." It has been claimed (in a recent Boston Globe article) that Wood doesn't "get" America because "a messy, sprawling country demands comparable novels." Hysterical realists and other author / novels Wood has lambasted would apparently provide that mimetic literary content.

But that is only relevant if you really believe that America is all those things. If you agree with Jameson / Adorno (or really, just open your eyes to any strip mall) then "hysterical realism" is no longer mimetic, no longer the voice and image of the country, and the novels are, in many ways, plasticized versions of those mid-century sprawling "great American" novels such as The Adventures of Augie March & On the Road. I love these novels, but also recognize that they have as much in common with my daily existence as Jules Verne.

Wood argues against the mimicry of America's "weirdness." But maybe that isn't what misses the mark with him. What he calls for is that authors deal with the universal-social / biological of being human, to step away from trying to mimic weirdness. Wood isn't a Marxist in any way shape or form, but that doesn't mean that Jameson's criticism is not on the mark and the situation isn't affecting the current literary output.

Is it possible that what Wood really finds appalling in the novels he derides is the sense that the authors are writing about an America that only exists in marketing campaign slogans? Is that why the best new novels seem to mostly be set in alternate, fantasy & futuristic worlds — because there is no model for how to write about the repetitive sameness that obliterates possibility?

Discuss amongst yourselves. Comment as necessary.

Liked this post? Read more from Dan Pritchard at The Wooden Spoon.

Sentimental Journey

2007-08-29T16:18:00.000-04:00

I'm in denial of many things (mortality, finishing my PhD, the percentage of my income that goes to area restaurants) but one of them is about to become all too real: for the next four months, I will be living away from Boston, and Grub Street, and my husband, and my friends, and the gorgeous New England fall. This denial has kept me from sharing this news officially with the Grub community, though most of you know by now, and those who don't are probably wondering why they should care. (The answer: you shouldn't, really; Grub will be in Whitney and Sonya's expert hands).

I have no burning desire to leave Boston, you see, but I was given an offer I couldn't refuse: a visiting professorship for one advanced fiction writing workshop at Swarthmore College, where I graduated in 1994, and, with it, the time to finish a draft of a new book. It will be a nostalgic, sometimes lonely, but (fingers crossed) productive semester, and I am honored to have been given the opportunity. I look forward to working with 12 talented college students, who will, I'm sure, teach me a lot and spark hundreds of compelling debates about writing. I'm also looking forward to being a half-hour's drive from my parents, who have promised to (a) fill my fridge with lasagnas, (b) do my laundry and (c) fix my car. If they could give me back my curly hair and metabolism, I'd truly feel 18 again...

Anyway, I still plan to post here as much as possible, and, with any luck, I'll have some anecdotes (and maybe even a few pearls of wisdom) to share from the workshops. In the meantime, I wish you all a joyful and inspiring fall here in Boston, and encourage you to take advantage of the many great events, seminars, parties, readings, courses, etc. going on at Grub. I will see you when I'm back in town for Adaptations on October 11th, and also at Taste of Grub on November 2nd!

Fondly,
Chris Castellani

Vacation / Get Inspired

2007-08-24T11:48:00.000-04:00

By:

Michael Graves

As writers, we all possess the colossal urge to be expressive. It sometimes feels as though this urge can never be squelched. Currently, I am engrossed in the concoction of my first novel, Parade. This piece has been simply pouring onto the page (I give thanks to Buddha and Trim Spa). Because of my non-stop creative burst, I have ignored sleep, housewifery, messages and shitty television. I cannot stop writing! It’s a fantastic feeling! And I’m rather proud of the work that I have completed. Yet still, it’s time for a miniature mental vacation from my prose.
We all spend a great deal of time secluded in cafes, bedrooms, libraries, etc. We all take Grub Street classes or seminars. We all attend readings, book parties and other literary events. Living inside the writer’s world can become some sort of a one way street. We’re all zooming in the same direction (agent, book deal, sex tape scandal!) and, along our journey, we stop for tune-ups (conferences, writing groups, etc.). At certain junctures, though, it is in the best interest of the writer, and his or her work, to take a break. If one exists, solely in the writing world, one won’t have very much to write about. Tomfoolery, naughtiness and random acts of horseplay feed an artist’s work immensely.
As the conclusion of yet another summer approaches, I propose that we all nab just one afternoon or evening (an entire day?) and goof off. Attempt something new! Jump into an adventure. Who knows? Maybe this will help to inspire you creatively and otherwise.
Below, find fifteen ideas. Remember: Relax and let your brain roam free. Also remember: Don’t be a smartass and get arrested or anything.

1. Venture out to Davis Square and lick something at J.P. Licks (www.jplicks.com). After, sit in the bustling courtyard where you can listen to local musicians or just people watch.
2. Head over to the Coolidge Corner Theatre and see a classic flick. Some Like it Hot or Tron. Be sure to investigate the late night screenings offered too (www.coolidge.org).
3. Take part in a New England tradition. Candlepin bowling! Visit Milky Way Lounge and Lanes and roll your balls around (www.milkywayjp.com). With a cool atmosphere and wall-to-wall scenesters, you’re sure to have fun.
4. Shag all day, be nasty. I don’t need to offer suggestions here.
5. Rent a pair of skates and try not to land on your ass. Visit Chez-Vous for their Sunday evening adult skate. It only costs ten bucks and, maybe, you can hold someone’s hand during a slow song (www.czvousskate.com).
6. Jump on the T (any color line will do) and take a trip to a place you’ve never been before. Go to Wonderland or Revere Beach. You never know what you’ll discover (www.mbta.com).
7. With a friend (or someone you like like), swap lunches. Ask he or she to make you a brown-bagged meal and you do the same. But keep it a secret. Trek over to the Boston Common, open up your surprise feast and enjoy (hopefully you don’t get something crappy like an egg salad sandwich).
8. Hit up CVS or your local drug store. Purchase some low-priced facial masks (don’t freak out fellas, beauty knows no gender). Slather up, following the directions carefully. Then, relax and listen to some jazz on 89.7 FM (www.wgbh.org).
9. Dress up in something classy and prance into the Ritz Carlton. Have a delicious drink at their JER-NE Restaurant and Bar. Try a flute of the Champagne Ritz Brut…because luxury always nurtures the soul (www.ritzcarlton.com).
10. Drop by the Animal Rescue League of Boston and volunteer. Support the wonderful work that they do by lending a hand. Maybe you could walk a puppy or pet some kitty cats. Any critter would love your attention (www.arlboston.org)!
11. Get wild with the working ladies! Stop by Centerfolds and take in the dancing sights. Tuesday is Amateur Night where the winner receives $1000! Awesome! Again, don’t get arrested (www.centerfoldsboston.com).
12. Invigorate your mind by touring the Mills Gallery at the Boston Center for the Arts. The work is contemporary, fresh and stunning. Give them a look (www.baconline.org).
13. Create a mix CD for a friend or lover. This shit never goes out of style. And it’s a fitting way to show whomever that you’re thinking of them. Consider old school Chaka Khan and Cameo. Think about Steve Miller Band, Pink Floyd and Stevie Nicks.
14. Clean your room! Dig through your closet and drawers and collect whatever you don’t need/use. Throw a swap bash with friends! Donate your findings to Salvation Armani.
15. Give yourself a hug. Or give yourself more. You deserve a break and you shouldn’t beat yourself up about that fact. Give you and your writing time…all will be terrific.

Hopefully, these suggestions are useful and, hopefully, they infuse your creative soul with joy and enthusiasm. Keep writing!
If interested, you may find me at the local roller skating rink, at Centerfolds or at www.michaelgraves.blogspot.com.
Remember: Please continue to support Grub Street, Inc. The classes available this fall are going to be amazing!.

Modernist, Schmodernist: What makes a book a good book?

2007-08-23T09:23:00.001-04:00

It's Friday night. Ryan and I are at the Jolly Trolley, in Westfield, NJ, waiting for his sister to come home and let us into her house, where we're staying for the weekend. The Yankees are on TV, and I make the mistake of jokingly shouting "Yankeeeeeees suckkkkkk!!!!" before remembering that I'm in a land where this will get me lynched. "Ha ha, just kidding!" I murmur weakly, as three beefy men turn to stare at me from behind their Budweisers, which suddenly gleam in the neon light like imminent weapons.

Ryan's having a Dead Guy Ale (fitting, no?) and I'm having an Amstel Light. We don't fit in with the general vibe, which is more "Eat-this-stale-snack-mix-they-have-sitting-on-the-bar-in-refilled-
Mason-jars-and-stare-blindly-at-the-telly" than "slowly-sip-low-cal-beer-and-blather-about-how-much-you-don't-
remember-about-the-Modernists" -- which happens to be what we are doing. We don't do this all the time -- thank God -- but we went to the same college, both majored in English, and sometimes like to reflect back to the old days when we sat around and read books all day because We Were Required To. We started down this conversational track because I asked Ryan to name his top five favorite books. You'd think I'd know his top five favorite books, since we've known each other for a decade and spend a more-than-average amount of time talking about literature, but I don't.

R: I really don't know what my top five are.
W. You have to know. Just think about it.
R: [surly] I mean, it's an impossible question.
W: [condescending] Well, I just think of which five books I've re-read over the past ten years, and figure those must be my favorites. Are they the best books ever written? No. But they're MY favorites, and that's what I'm asking you.
R: Yeah, but it's a category mistake to lump Crime and Punishment and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy into the same top five list.
W: [as to a child] Not if those are your favorites.
R: I always thought that the Modernists were my favorite writers, but all I can think of is Joyce and Woolf, and neither of them would be in my top five.

This led us into a discussion of the Modernists. Who are they? Ryan was insisting Faulkner was a Modernist, I was disagreeing. Predictably, though, I was not able to refute his argument with actual fact, and just began mumbling that Pound and Eliot were the only Modernists I knew.

The Trolley was not the place to wrap up this discussion, and now that I'm back at a computer, I'm happy to report that Conrad, Rhys, Mansfield and Lawrence are Modernists, Faulkner is not, and we don't NEED to remember what we spent hours learning in college because we have Google to do it for us. Phew.

The more lingering question is what puts a book on someone's top 5 list? Is re-readability a useful criteria? How about recommendability? If a book's ability to be enjoyed when recommended is the top criterion to rate its worth, then I'd put Donna Tartt's The Secret History at the top of my list. If it was quotability, Hitchhiker's Guide would be at the top of Ryan's. Or what about a book that when you read it, you can feel a writer's entire soul wrapped up in it? If that's part of the scale, then let's put Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson or The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt on there.

For what it's worth, here are my five, in no particular order:

1. On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
2. Crossing to Safety, Wallace Stegner
3. Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
4. Feast of Love, Charles Baxter
5. Possession, A.S. Byatt

Ryan's still working on his. How about you?

In dread,
Whitney Scharer

Grub Street Rag, 8/20/07

2007-08-20T12:55:00.000-04:00

* Pent-up Grub gossip
* Roomy Grub events
* Daytime writing

"A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words."
-- Samuel Butler

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from the Mandatory Napping Room at Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

Our neighbors at Ploughshares
We love Ploughshares magazine, and not only because they're our neighbors. Their fall fiction issue looks particularly great, and is guest-edited by novelist and short story writer Andrea Barrett (if you don't know Andrea's work, be sure to check out her collection Servants of the Map. It's amazing!) The twelve-story issue of the magazine includes many of our favorite authors--some of whom even teach at Grub--including Bret Anthony Johnston, Paul Yoon, Jill Gilbreth, Ellen Litman and Peter Orner. It's on sale now online and in bookstores.

Podcastin'
Grub instructor and novelist Jon Papernick (you may know him through his 1001 Book Project) is posting online podcasts of his new novel, Who By Fire, Who By Blood. Take a look at jonpapernick.blogspot.com/, or preorder the novel at Amazon.com.

Department of Congratulations: Student and Teacher Edition
Grace Talusan, who just taught our Jumpstart Your Writing weekend, has a short story called "The Book of Life and Death," in Tufts Magazine. It's available online at http://www.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/summer2007/features/life.html. Also, Grace's Jumpstart student, Lisa Braxton, is publishing her "novelette" as a serial in BostonNOW.
Read the first installments online and follow the story during your morning commute: http://bostonnow.com/search/tag/lisa+braxton/. Hurrah to both of you!

Cheers,

Whitney, Chris, and Sonya

The P.S. Rev up your engines, because our fall schedule will be online NEXT WEEK!

The Art of the Interview

2007-08-17T13:48:00.000-04:00

Hello Penny Dreadful Readers,

Greetings from my blog AreYouOutsidetheLines! I’m Christopher Hennessy, a poet, book reviewer, interviewer. I’m pleased to be today’s guest blogger.

One of my passions as a reader and a writer is the art of the interview (check out some great links below). I authored a book of twelve interviews with some of today’s foremost poets, and in the process I learned a great deal about contemporary poetry, my own aesthetic and literary inquiry itself. As I told my students in the Grub Street Forms of Poetry course I’m currently teaching, “If you ever want to learn a lot about writing, lock yourself in a room with an author for a few hours with a tape recorder on.” Of course, it’s not that simple, but nevertheless, I do believe in the power of the interview as a vehicle for learning.

The art of the interview (hmm…sounds like a possible Grub Street course, no?) is one that, like any writing form, takes practice, study, a certain level of skill and hard work. My interview questions are drawn up by a close and thorough examination of an author’s work, as I believe is proper, and considerations of context, the author’s ‘project’, and how he or she has been influenced and influences others.

The worst question you can ask is the question that has been asked before. And the best question is the question that will elicit from the author the statement, “I’ve never thought about my writing in the light before, but I’m glad you asked” or something similar. Interviews should be neither fault-finding nor praise-giving. They should be investigations, shared journeys between the interviewer and his subject and following the map provided by the subject’s work.

Last year in the Guardian Review, Pico Iyer complained about decline of the literary interview because interviewers, he explained, had given their research over to Google rather that immersing themselves in their subject’s work. The article is certainly worth reading (and taking to heart), but I also enjoyed how he views the interview. He writes:

Interviews used to be one of the (occasional) perks of the writing life. A keen, or at least hard-working reader would approach you, after you'd written a book, and tell you things about yourself you didn't know.

At least in theory, and at least sometimes, interviews could prove a heightened form of conversation; as soon as the tape recorder's little red light came on, people paid attention, rose to the more eloquent side of themselves and talked with a care and intensity they would seldom muster in life. Text and interview circled round one another, and the latter served as a handy postscript (or complement at least) to the extended enquiry of the former.

My thoughts exactly!

A good question is always better than an answer.

Interview Links

The Paris Review interviews are often seen as the gold standard of interviews.

Check out the BBC’s many audio interviews.

Powells.com has a healthy repository of interviews.

The Academy of American Poets only have seven interviews, but they are with some of the most well-known contemporary poets. Their site, poets.org, also contains amazing resources, from bios to essays and of course lots of poems.

I just discovered this wonderful site, Identity Theory, which includes many interviews. I think this is my new favorite site.

Philly’s Kelly Writer House has archived a bunch of their interviews.

The PEN American Center is full of links, some of author discussions.

The Library of Congress offers up some audio programs.

Writers on Writing is a weekly radio program hosted by journalist and author Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

I can’t vouch for these poetry-centered podcasts (they are A LOT of them), but some of them indicate they have interviews.

Need a laugh. Check out this tongue-in-cheek interview from the Poetry Foundation’s dispatches.

You Complete Me, and You Read

2007-08-15T11:49:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to write about writers and booze, and why the two seem to love each other. You wouldn't believe all the studies and theories and experiments around this topic, including one that involved putting writers on a diet of whiskey and gin.

But there have also been quizzical studies like the one below, which suggests that fiction-readers are more socially able and empathetic than nonfiction-readers, and that nonfiction-readers may even be uniquely disadvantaged in this way.

I know plenty of nonfiction readers who would disagree. But doesn't it make sense?

"A study published in the Journal of Research in Personality and led by Raymond Mar, a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of Toronto, found that people who read narrative fiction often have improved social abilities, while for those who read non-fiction, the opposite holds true.

"All stories are about people and their interactions -- romance, tragedy, conflict," says Mar. "Stories often force us to empathize with characters who are quite different from us, and this ability could help us better understand the many kinds of people we come across in the real world."

...The participants were asked to identify fiction and non-fiction authors from a long list of names (which included non-authors). Research has shown that the more authors a person identifies, the more the person reads.

They were then tested on measures of social awareness and empathy (such as recognizing a person's emotions from seeing only a picture of the person's eyes). The study found that:

People who frequently read narrative fiction scored higher on tests of both empathy (the ability to understand and identify with another person's feelings) and social acumen (the ability to make quick judgments of people and situations).
Frequent reading of non-fiction was associated with poorer empathy and social acumen.

A follow-up study found similar results. Those who read a short story from the New Yorker performed better on a social-reasoning task that followed than those who read an essay.

"In general, fiction print-exposure positively predicted measures of social ability, while non-fiction print-exposure was a negative predictor. The tendency to become absorbed in a story also predicted empathy scores," the researchers wrote.

Read the whole thing!

~Sonya Larson

Grub Street Rag, 8/13/07

2007-08-13T18:12:00.000-04:00

* Incisive Grub gossip
* Salubrious Grub events
* Daytime writing

"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books."
-- Franz Kafka

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from recently excavated ancient ruins at Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

You might not have asked, but we're still going tell you
We're excited to announce that Grub Advisory Council member Steve Almond has a new essay collection out called (Not That You Asked). It features a televised brawl with Sean Hannity, love letters to Oprah Winfrey, a lot of naughty oversharing, one amazing lobster pad thai recipe, and tributes to Kurt Vonnegut and insufferable Red Sox fans. You can read excerpts and check out the fall tour schedule at Steve's website, www.stevenalmond.com. Here's what Kirkus had to say: "Almond scores big in every chapter of this must-have collection. Biting humor, honesty, smarts and heart: Vonnegut himself would have been proud."

New rules
Since release in early June, Grubbie David Scott's book The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to use news releases, blogs, podcasts, viral marketing and online media to reach your buyers directly has enjoyed terrific success. It scored a Publishers Weekly starred review, has been the number one bestselling marketing and PR book since release, and translation rights have been sold in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Finnish, Czech, and Portuguese with more to come. David will be teaching a seminar on promotion and publicity this fall, which we're sure will be just as informative as his book. Congratulations, Dave!

Money, honey
Many of you know instructor Kris Frieswick from her popular Humor Writing classes at Grub, or from her awesome reading at our "Grub Gone..Silly" party. Now, Kris's MSN.com multi-media series is live and online. Click the link below to check out "Buy Me Love," which explores the issues that arise when money and relationships meet. http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/

Cheers,
Whitney, Chris, and Sonya

Meta-Meta Blogging

2007-08-10T01:46:00.000-04:00

Migration

Chris Castellani,
Says,
No meta-blogging,
Blogging about blogging is a pet-peeve,
Of mine,
Yet,
I disregard his wisdom,
The reckless intern,
I blog on,
Blogging not about blogging,
But blogging about blogging about blogging,
Meta-Meta Blogging.

Into the slipstream of cyber-garble,
Honking like a flock of Canada Geese,
On their way,
To Mexico,
For vacation,
I blog on,
And on,
Blogging like,
An injured raccoon,
To the break of dawn.

And when,
The flock descends,
On the sandy beach,
To order Anejo Tequila or,
Banana Daiquiris,
From Manuel,
The man known to friends,
As “El Guapo Pescador,”
He says “No, you only get cerveza … Canadiens.”

And the geese sigh,
“Oh Canada,
Oh blogging,
Oh hell,
We are Canada Geese,
Not Canadiens,
Those guys play hockey.”

“Serve us dear Manuel,
As we deserve after,
Our long journey,”
And Manuel laughs,
And pours Anejo,
And puts the bananas,
In the Blender,
And warns,

“No blogging about blogging exhausted Canadian Sirs,
Drink your drinks and fly home,
To the land of ice and snow.”

Advice received,
Manuel,
Chris Castellani,
Correct,
A wise man,
And consummate,
Bartender,
Fisherman,
Visionary leader,
And friend.

Note: This is the author's first attempt at poetry since his 8th grade epic haiku, "Mental Hospital," which sparked a teacher /parent conference in which he was proclaimed "intellectually dull." The author has not taken "Forms of Poetry" or received any instruction in poetry at Grub Street ever ... obviously.

All apologies,
Jonathan Sisler

The Power and the Glory

2007-08-07T16:13:00.001-04:00

For its 10th birthday, Jane Roper gave Grub Street a lovely gift: a well-worn copy of The Glory of Grub Street: Impressions of Contemporary Authors, edited by A. St. John Adcock and E. O. Hoppe, published in 1928.

I was enchanted by Adcock's preface, which extols the pleasures of the struggling and hard-working writer -- the hack who lives "in Grub Street," that metaphor for struggle itself -- and suggests what we all might secretly know: that the tumultuous journey (the uncertainty, the labored revisions, the thirst for something greater in ourselves, the solidarity with fellow hackers) might really be the most satisfying aspect of the writer's life after all.

So here's the first part of the Preface, which mostly speaks for itself. I did want to point out, though, how it takes Adcock no time to at all to announce his own faults and failings as a writer. A true Grubbie! Enjoy --

"The title of this second volume of The Gods of Modern Grub Street was originally given to it for the comfort of my publishers and would have been altered if, before going to press, I could have thought of a better one. It is not intended to suggest that every author once lived in Grub Street, nor that those who did were not glad to get out; it is intended to suggest that the Grub Street tradition has grown and put forth branches until it is no longer a mere street but a whole literary world of many-coloured romance which seems to be as fascinating to the artistic temperament as webs are to flies, so that one almost may say of it, as Chaucer said of the married state, that 'They who are in would fain get out,/And they who are out would fain get in.'

Anyhow, you find the author who formerly dwelt in Grub Street, but has become prosperous and changed his address, will confess that, looking back from the affluence and tame security of the present, he realises that when he lived in the Street, and everything seemed possible and nothing sure, those early days were more stimulating, richer in excitement, adventure, even in happiness, than he was aware of at the time, and he has wistful feelings that if he could return there something of the freedom and enthusiasm he lost with his youth might be restored to him. On the other hand, authors who fortunately (or unfortunately) had no initial difficulties to overcome but walked or were handsomely carried to success along paths strewn with roses and other soft things, have unsettling suspicions that they have missed something and often take to Bohemian haunts and habits under the impression that they are thus breaking "their birth's invidious bar" and doing the thing properly; and of course they are, if they sufficiently think they are.

So, in a sense, you may say that all authors belong to Grub Street, and the glory that was Grub Street belongs to all authors, so long as they have left the place behind them or never lodged in it...When the Pilgrim Fathers emigrated they evidently took their share of the Grub Street tradition with them and planted it in that soil, and, from information received, it is flourishing there sturdily. "

~Christopher Castellani

Grub Street Rag, 8/6/07

2007-08-06T17:41:00.000-04:00

* Fresh and clean Grub gossip
* Scrub-a-dubbed Grub events
* Manuscript Matchup

"A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions (of which its author had quite probably never heard). It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness."

-- Edith Wharton

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from the rooftop viewing deck at Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

Department of Congratulations
When it rains, it pours. We've got tons of great Grubbie news to report. First up, Jennifer Elmore won the prestigious 2007 Gulf Coast Prize for Poetry for her poem, "Incoherent Flash of Panorama." The judge was Terrance Hayes and the poem will appear in the next issue of Gulf Coast, due out in October. Next up, Lisa Genova's new novel, Still Alice, was just published to rave reviews. You can find the book now at www.StillAlice.com or on Amazon, and Lisa will be donating up to $3.00 per book to Alzheimer's care and research.New member Anthony Donahoe just had an article published in the "Modern Love" section of the New York Times. It's called "I Made Him What He Is, but Who Is He?" and you can check it out by clicking here: select.nytimes.com. Next, Cool Plums published a short fiction piece Ericka Tavares wrote called "Easy Money." Find it on their website: coolplums.com. And last but certainly not least, Dave Demerjian has been accepted for a month-long residency at The Byrdcliffe Art Colony. Congrats to all.

National Department of Congratulations
A hearty Grub shout-out to Charles Simic, who has just been appointed as the Library of Congress's 15th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. Simic succeeds Donald Hall as Poet Laureate and joins a long line of distinguished poets who have served in the position, including most recently Ted Kooser, Louise Glück, Billy Collins, Stanley Kunitz, Robert Pinsky, Robert Hass and Rita Dove. The laureate generally serves a one- or two-year term. Simic is the author of 18 books of poetry. He is also an essayist, translator, editor and professor emeritus of creative writing and literature at the University of New Hampshire, where he has taught for 34 years.

Memoir II & Forms of Poetry morph into a new 6-week courses
Our Memoir II and Forms of Poetry classes have changed their lengths, prices and start dates. They are now 6-week classes that start next week, and cost $275 ($250 for members). Click on the class titles for all the details, and call us at 617.695.0075 to sign up.

Cheers,
Whitney, Chris, and Sonya

Grub Turns Ten

2007-08-04T15:39:00.001-04:00

Darci Klein and Artistic Director Chris Castellani
Originally uploaded by Grub Street

We got some great photos from a generous freelance Globe photographer who covered our party. Check them all out at Flickr!

We were really happy to see so many friends and fellow Grubbies at our "Grub Turns Ten" birthday bash on July 27th. If you weren't there, here's a small sampling of what you missed out on: perfectly replicated grub logos painted on people's faces, stellar readings from Hacks, 10 pounds of pulled pork and a variety of other scrumptious barbecue, 2 really heavy birthday cakes (see the rest of the Flickr photos for a visual), a fill-in-your-own-Grub-history 23-foot timeline, a smorgasbord of beer including the oh-so-quaffable NattyLight, 10-minute tarot readings, 8 kinds of wine donated by Newport Vineyards, temperatures in the high 80s that kept most of the partying indoors, indoor temperatures that weren't far from the high 80s by the end of the night, overly-loud music from 1997, over 200 guests, many adorable Grub babies, and an all-around amazing time!

And we're already planning Grub's Sweet Sixteen...

In dread,
Whitney Scharer

>On Night

2007-08-03T01:17:00.001-04:00

Wind slipping through the leaves of the maple tree. A dog passing by my apartment, metal tags jingling from its collar. (Is it pooping on my lawn again? The worry dissipates.) A neighbor slamming a car door, the alarm’s “wheep wheep” telling the owner, “OK, all is safe.” Lulling us all into safety, at least for one night.

Inside, the fan humming on the desk. A sax solo --- discordant, staccato --- burbling from the stereo. The sound of the computer whirring its mind. I turn them all off to hear --- or, rather, to NOT hear --- the well of night, its absolute silence.

It’s 2 am. The time of night I most revere. Especially now, summer, as the dark cool of the outside leaks slowly inside my office, by osmosis, replacing the apartment air stagnant and thick from today’s 87 degree day.

Night. The world is asleep. No one calls. No one sends me email (unless this “Penny Madison” and her ilk and messages such as “re: hot teein suycking double fuukd & faciall” count).

There is no one. And I need no one.

That is the lie I tell myself, anyway, as I click and clack, my fingers making love to my keyboard, and the last lighted rectangle of window from my visible neighbors winks out. Two am becomes 3, becomes 4. And I am still going.

Writers are told --- lo, the cliché is shoved down our throats --- that the act of writing is the ultimate solo act, an expression of “oneness,” a primal state of loneliness. No one craves and despises solitude more than writers. At 4 am, this myth feels most true, I think. I believe it. I’m seduced by its me-against-creation heroism, me alone plucking words from the stratosphere, me in tune with the croon of the cosmos --- even when I know it’s partly hogwash.

I’m getting a reputation for these late night writing marathons that turn into all-nighters. I work on deadline, and I leave the deadline to the absolute zero of the last moment. 1,200 words will be due on my editor’s virtual desktop at 10 am, and at midnight I’ll have not even started. I’ll take a bath. I’ll make myself some scrambled eggs and toast. I’ll have some chocolate, a beer or brew up a Bodum-ful of coffee. I’ll eat my eggs in the tub, read a newspaper from two weeks ago. I'll hear the faint murmurings of a late Red Sox game from my left-hand neighbor’s open window. Ah, someone is alive out there. But I will outlast him. He will sleep, and I will stay awake.

Still in the tub, I take a nap. I wake. My eyes readjust to the lighted bathroom. An idea comes to me --- a lead, a line, a kicker, a string of words for a poem I’ll never finish. This idea has come from the night. Issued from it, from the place where thoughts are born, the tunnels of the cerebellum, from the black sieve of stars and restless moon pensive in their transit over Somerville and every dark corner of the world.

Night. Who needs the sun? A new day? I prefer to struggle with the old one, to wring from it every last drop of wisdom and procrastination.

Back to my desk. To work. To race the arrival of dawn. To fight the bluish and birdish cacophony of tomorrow.

--- Ethan Gilsdorf

The Grub Street Rag, 7/30/07

2007-07-31T10:11:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from the balloon and party hat recycling station at Grub Street's world headquarters.
As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to
the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

And now, onward to puberty

We've turned ten, and we couldn't have done it without you. We're thrilled to report that over two hundred friends and fans of Grub gathered in our offices last Friday to hear readings from Hacks (our anthology), get our faces painted, nosh on Redbones barbecue, eat birthday cake, and fill in our personal histories on the big Grub timeline on the wall. We hope you all had as much fun as we did. We're already looking forward to Grub's Sweet Sixteen!

And now, a thank-you to our sponsors and donors
We know you're asking: How did Grub pull off such a snazzy, stylish birthday party? We owe a lot to our staff, volunteers, and interns, but the party wouldn't have been SUCH a party if it weren't for our event sponsors and donors. HUGE thanks to Redbones for providing barbecue, enormous thanks to Newport Vineyards for providing wine, and big thanks to Blanchard's for donating a portion of the night's beer. We'd also like to thank all of the party-goers who made a contribution at our Donation Station: in total, you donated $188, which helps defray the costs of the evening's festivities. If you attended the party but missed the donation station, or couldn't make it to the party but would like to help us out, we'll gladly take donations online. Please click on http://www.grubstreet.org/getinvolve d/donations.html to pony up.

Memoir II morphs into a new 6-week course
Our Memoir II class has changed its length, price and start date. It's now a 6-week class that runs from August 13th to September 17th, and costs $275 ($250 for members). The objective of the course stays the same: to give more experienced writers intensive review and analysis of their creative nonfiction, and to write and revise one or two nonfiction pieces or book chapters. Call us at 617.695.0075 to sign up.

Grub Street all over the Globe
There have been two Grub-related writeups in the Boston Globe in as many days. First, check out the article about one of our favorite instructors, Lisa Borders, by clicking http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2007/07/29/for_her_fames_not_name_of_writing_game/. Lisa teaches our Novel In Progress course, and her writing is just as beautiful as this article says. Grub Turns Ten also got a mention in the "Names" section of today's paper. The text is online at http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2007/07/30/fun_and_game_plan/?page=2.

SOFTBALL DEPARTMENT (Brought to you by regular sportscaster, Chris Castellani)

DENOUEMENT
Grub Street Word-Slingers 15 BSSC Indies 16

ANDOVER - Leave it to a bunch of writers to save their most compelling drama for the final act. Leave it to the Word-Slingers to avoid the cliche of getting pummeled in the playoffs. Such a predictable end would have been savaged in workshop.

What we had instead, sports fans, was an old-fashioned thrilla.

It started with a ball that bounced out of Ben Patterson's glove into the glove of newcomer Mark Beckytuchsfriend, preventing at least two runs. Indies up 3-2. Then, at the top of the third, the Slingers took the lead with five runs, four of which were awarded as bonuses because the Indies were woman-deficient. For once, the draconian/chauvenist BSSC rules benefited Grub, who'd drafted reserves Anna Stern nee Goldsmith, Nicole Patterson and Lyssa Marksgirlfriend.

But those four runs, like free Redbones BBQ, disappeared quickly. The Indies got 7 at the bottom of the third thanks to three throwing errors and chaos on the basepaths.

By the top of the seventh, the Indies were up 13-12 after Beckytuchsfriend tied it, Jen "RBI Machine" Dupee knocked in two and Wayne Feldman provided some fireworks with a bases-loaded single that notched two more. The Slingers needed one run to stay alive, and then, miraculously, a Patterson walk sent Becky Tuch trotting gleefully home. Indies don't score again. Game tied 13-13. Extra innings. History in the making. Weak knees.

At this point, the Indies starting pitcher -- a coltish, huffy Amazon with a dash of crazy -- was ready to strangle the umpire, whose breath reeked of whiskey, and who liked to call her balls and strikes before they reached the plate. The Indies brought in their closer for the eighth, and the Slingers scored, this time on a bloop hit by power first-baseman Michael Borum, who scored five-tooled star and expert center-fielder Jeff Stern. Anchor outfielder Tom Meek and infielder Brian Runk called a team meeting to pump everybody up and strategize defensive positions in the next half-inning. Brian was still fuming from being called out at third after a brave slide, and wanted revenge. But the Indies scored anyway, and the game was tied again.

Top of the ninth. Skies darkening. Mosquitoes attacking. The Slingers don't score. Game still tied 15-15. Dead silence as pitcher Chris Castellani serves up a triple. Man on third, no outs. Then the next batter hits a line drive into center field, the man on third scores, and the game is over.

Maybe the Word-Slingers have sought over three seasons to experience all the nuances of loss. Maybe they fear the bourgeois trappings of success, the sappy losers-will-triumph happy ending. Maybe they glory in the flames licking their backs as they swan-dive from the heights each and every Sunday. In any case, they're writers. Their skin is thick, and they will fight on.

See you next year!

Cheers,
Whitney, Chris and Sonya

Two Book Reviews

2007-07-27T07:20:00.000-04:00

Dan Pritchard here as the guest blogger. If you like my post today, I have a less-formal daily literary blog The Wooden Spoon [danpritch.blogspot.com] you can read when I'm not "The Penny Dreadful." A quick disclaimer, I work for David R. Godine, Publisher, who is doing In the Blood—suffice to say I would not write about it if I didn't really enjoy the book (my review options become limited as I read mostly galleys, haha). Thanks!

McSweeney's Book of Poets Picking Poets
(McSweeney's, 2007)

is somewhat more organized than Dadaism. I mean, it could have been truly random. The curator, Dominic Luxford & company, could have begun by scattering slips of papers torn from an anthology around the room at random with poems on them and then tossed lawn darts, blindfolded, to chose which poems would go in the book. Instead they began with a whim. Ten poems by ten poets that they liked. Luxford says, in the "About This Book" foreword, "we tried to stay entirely out of the way, letting the poems in this book pick themselves."

Each poet chosen then was asked to choose one more of his/her own poems, and another poem by another living poet, and so on. The result is an extraordinary and revealing selection of contemporary poets, established and burgeoning, that spans movements, cultures, and languages.

Some of the choices make so much sense that you wonder how you didn't see it coming, as with an M. Night Shyamalan film—the twist just barely inventive enough to be concealed. Like James Tate choosing his poem "The Radish," one of his more popular poems and one he has taken to reading when he does appearances, and then bringing the reader to "The Devils" by Paris Review editor Charles Simic. Simic's poem goes, "We drank gin / And made love in the afternoon." Of course James Tate – the literary world's Keith Richards – would take us here. Of course! And both writers are so distinctive, so individual, their poetic voices making those kinds of complex native sounds no other poet could. It's like Bert picking a poem by Ernie.

Tomaz Salamun picks a poem by the student Thomas Kane and you think How did he find this Kane? but then you discover that Kane is translating Salamun's poems into English as part of his MFA candidacy. Michael Ondaatje chooses "[Untitled]" by Lisa Robertson and all at once, like a moment of grace, you realize that they speak in the same rhythms, their syntax overlaps in ways that no one could have guessed. One begins to see a community of poets in the world that ignores the normal boundaries of gender and race.

The book is not without its criticism. There are sections that are not as strong as others,– one mediocre poem quickly becomes four or five before the cycle is broken – and poems (mostly those chosen by the author from their own work) that may not have been included if there were a more dictatoriam editor. The collection avoids any extremes of avante-gard, or classicism, and in doing so a whole sub-culture of writers is exempt. But these peccadilloes exist with any collection—this or that poet was snubbed, etc., etc.

For all its inventive approach, for all the wonderful connections you see, the best part of this collection is the feeling that these poets are recommending each other to you. By getting out of the way, Luxford has washed his hands of that job. It is no stuffy editor or academic, trying too hard with indexes and anthologies. Here, each author says to you, you should read this, take it home, tear this page from the book, – you'll like it, I think – fold it in your pocket, take it. When will you ever have this chance again?

The Back-way Glance
Andrew Motion's In the Blood

The role of American Poet Laureate is not one of clearly defined powers and responsibilities. They are often chosen in recognition of their careers from blank page to verse. Beyond that, a laureate's role is defined by each individual poet. Donald Hall, for instance, tends to his garden in New Hampshire. Louise Glück insisted on the umlaut. Billy Collins picked arguments with undergrads. William Carlos Williams furrowed his brow at beautiful women, who passed with asphodels in their hair. Essentially they did—whatever it was they always did before, and added a line to their resumes.

Not so in Britain. A Royal Poet Laureate of Great Britain is required to write occasional verse (for special occasions, mind you, not poetry some of the time). The poet must versify – to the best of his or her ability – state affairs, moments of national triumph, hours of mourning, and everyday occurrences. The reigning British laureate Andrew Motion sums his duties up in his forthcoming memoir, In the Blood. The part of the poet laureate is played by mum. Andrew plays England, in all his slumbering glory.

"Mum doesn't knock, she just whisks open my bedroom door, crosses straight to the curtains, tears them apart, and flaps one hand in front of her face. 'What a fug!' "

Motion is well known for his fondness of meter and rhyme, and established verse forms such as iambic pentameter—he is an unadulterated lover of his national literary heritage, of which he has made himself very familiar. His acclaimed biographies of Phillip Larkin and John Keats reveal his poetic genealogy, but despite the use of classic verse forms, Motion's poetry is clear and often very personal. He is, in that respect, as much a descendant of Robert Lowell's "confessional" writing as he is of Larkin's impersonal but more colloquial style. He is very well suited for the royal position he holds—a poet capable of expressing the personal in traditional verse forms, making a connection between individual perception and feeling, and the grand historical moment.

"The best poems are those which speak to us about the important things in our lives in a way that we never forget," Motion told the BBC. One could argue just the inverse of Motion's work. His poetry is very much informed by the central themes of his early life: the premature death of his mother, and his childhood in the ever-dwindling English countryside.

Motion's memoir In the Blood (Godine, 2007) is a masterful, lyrical work of autobiography. It centers on the young poet's relationship with his mother, opening with the hunting accident that would – after a long coma – tragically take her life. Their bond is intricately drawn over the course of the book, without being focused too tightly, so that it still exists in the context of a family that is full, and fully drawn. The story is crafted so naturally that it seems almost like a novel—though few modern novelists outside of Colm Toibin would dare attempt to depict so simple and human a story.

It was from his mother that Motion was first taught the power of words. In the most middle-class, domestic way, she teaches young Andrew to use words such as "looking-glass" for "mirror," and "perfume" for "scent," because they "always have done." Their conversation is comical –nearly absurd – for its stereotypical preoccupation with propriety, however two of Motion's great strengths as a poet can be traced back to this scene. The first is his complex relationship with slang, colloquial, and working-class diction. Motion is the rare poet who is able to choose a diction that matches the occasion and themes of the poem without overwhelming them. There is a balance to be found between ideas and the words used to express them, when a poem conveys theme and mood clearly, easily, and beautifully.

The second strength is Motion's reverence for tradition. It is clear from In the Blood that the Motion clan is only recently middle-class, and no class of people since the French Revolution are more concerned with tradition and propriety than the recently elevated. In the wrong hands this reverence becomes stale language and out-dated verse forms, poems rife with dead metaphors. Motion, on the other hand, feels his place in the long line of British poets as a eminent challenge. They stand over his shoulder, they point out his naivete and flaws with the blank faces of their collected works, and he is able to use or break tradition masterfully with their expert guidance.

Throughout the memoir the importance of scenes such as this becomes clear only in relation to the first chapter, depicting his mother's injury. Thus Motion is able to affect the same layered construction of his life that is so central to the experience of being a child, and of looking back at one's childhood. Hindsight gives the quiet moments between poet and mother an emotional weight that the author-as-child has obviously not developed enough to perceive. The poet's relationship with his mother is the central event of his self-construction, and imbues him with an ability to see the true value of the present.

There are times when this book is so domestic, and so much a picture of life, that the going becomes slow—happenings are infrequent, and the world in which he grew up in England is unlike any in America, and likely has disappeared there as well. The greatest enjoyment I found was with the craft and care Motion took in his writing. He has the rare ability to draw a visage that is full of subtext, delineating a hidden life beneath the surface.

Motion was seen very much as a "safe" choice for the position of laureate, but that description belies his complicated relationship to the past, and his gift for seeing the present with a kind of immediate hindsight. This gift allows him to see his own poems in relation to the past, to the future poets of Britain who will seek their own lineage, and now to his family, on display quite beautifully in his memoir In the Blood.

Grub Street: A Romance

2007-07-26T08:48:00.001-04:00

In honor of Grub's 10th anniversary celebration this Friday, I wanted to share a love story with you. It's a simple tale, filled with lucky coincidences, temporary break-ups and gushing praise, and has--as all good love stories do--a happy ending.

And who, you may ask, is the object of my affection? Dear reader, in this post it's Grub Street. Perhaps you'll find this love a bit unconventional: Woman and Organization, some hot female-on-nonprofit action. But bear with me, it's not as sordid as you might think (and if you were actually hoping for sordidness, sorry to disappoint).

The story begins with me, fresh out of college, my shiny new liberal arts degree hanging on the wall of my rat-trap apartment bedroom, which I was sharing with a friend and subletting for $250 a month. (In Davis Square. 5 minutes from the T. Just to give you some idea of the level of rat-trap-itude.) The moment I graduated I became one of those lost souls, the kind of person who sees adulthood stretching out in front of them as one long uninterrupted stream of mundane desk jobs, broken only by the possibility of paid vacation time increasing from 2 weeks to 3 when you hit your mid-thirties. I missed, more than you might imagine, the rhythm of the semester system, the promise in a new course catalog, the excitement of a fresh stack of textbooks. As I mail-merged and reformatted, I could actually feel my creative energy drying up inside of me. Like Tantalus, my thirst for knowledge seemed permanently thwarted.

But living in Davis Square put me in close proximity to Grub Street's first (and short-lived) plastic advertising kiosks, which were set up next to the T station and filled with shiny workshop brochures. Here, I realized the first time I picked up a brochure, was my salvation: 10-week-long courses in fiction, offered in the evenings at the end of the workday. One semester out of school, I signed up for my first Grub Street class, taught by Chris Castellani and held in Brookline's Temple Sinai, where we sat at diminutive desks and wrote and wrote and wrote. It was heaven, and Chris remains--after countless courses and two years in an MFA program--one of the best teachers I have ever had. I still have the two single-spaced pages of typed comments he wrote on one of my stories, and marvel at the dedication he showed as an instructor.

Over the next few years, I took a few workshops, all of them great, volunteered a bit and became acquainted with the Lady Behind It All, Eve Bridburg. I went to her apartment in Somerville, out of which she ran Grub Street for many years, and felt as if I was peering in at some secret club of cool, hip writers. (Part of why I felt this way was how cool Eve was. Even her apartment oozed with cool: the guest bathroom on the first floor had a clawfoot bathtub in which she had laid a mannequin's arm. Just lying there in the tub, like some sort of avant garde art installation. How awesome is that?)

My fantastic Grub Street teachers wrote recommendations for me when I decided to apply to an MFA program, and in the personal statement portion of my application, I wrote that I planned to move to Denver after I graduated to start a non-profit literary center--modeled on Grub, of course. While in school, I subscribed to the early days of the Grub Street Rag, and read it hungrily--and with a bit of jealousy and nostalgia--each week. As graduation loomed, and the same panic overtook me that I felt when I left college, I responded to a posting in the Rag for a grants intern. The director at the time, Jamie Hook, took a chance on an unknown gal from Seattle who promised to be there in July after driving her possessions across the country, and I started as an intern in Grub's old office space, a converted toilet paper factory outside of Union Square, Somerville. Then a new executive director started, Ron MacLean, who hired me on as a full-time administrator. For the first year, there were only the two of us, set up at rickety old folding tables with an odd sticky scrim covering them (I refuse to acknowledge that this substance could be anything other than the adhesive residue from Scotch tape). We had a photocopier that was so old you had to bang it to turn it on, which sat--for some unknown reason--UNDER a desk, so that when you wanted to copy something you had to sit down with the dustbunnies and old chewed pen caps on the floor, bumping your head on the desk above.

Those days are gone, and now here I sit, over three years later, in Grub's swanky digs at 160 Boylston, at a desk I assembled myself after a long and arduous trip to IKEA. How Grub has grown over the years! As I type, a few members are scattered around the space working on their writing, our summer interns are hard at work (thank you guys!), and Grub's--gasp-- multiple other employees are cranking out all the great work they do that makes Grub as special as it is.

It may seem weird to be in love with an organization, but that's what it boils down to for me. I love all of the people I've met here. I love Grub's scrappy history, its irreverent attitude towards all things that smack of stodge (if that's a word). I love everyone who works here and how we sit in the same room and interrupt each other every five seconds yet still manage to get TONS of stuff done. I love that we work hard because all of us Absolutely Love What We Do. I even love that we all talk about "making time for our writing a priority" but have trouble making it happen because there's so much good stuff to get done in the office. And most of all, I love that Grub Street is a place of happy coincidences, a place where a student and volunteer has found a place that feels as much like a home as any workplace ever could.

Oh, and the vacation time's not that bad either.

In dread,
Whitney Scharer

P.S. See you at Grub Turns Ten on Friday, right? Right?
P.P.S. I promised you "temporary break-ups" in the first sentence of this post. For that piece of my not-so-illustrious Grub history, send me an email and I'll give you the scoop.

The Grub Street Rag, 7/23/07

2007-07-23T16:19:00.000-04:00

the grub street rag. (Re)writing Boston since 1997.

* Resourceful Grub gossip
* Dexterous Grub events
* And then, Grub was ten.

"The story is always better than your ability to write it. My belief about this is that if you ever get to the point that you think you’ve done a story justice, you’re in the wrong business."

-- Robin McKinley

grub street gossip.

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from the lakeside snack bar at Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

And then Grub was ten
THIS FRIDAY, Grub turns ten years old! Join us on the lawn outside Grub Street's headquarters (and inside our office) for barbecue, beer, word games, music, birthday games even a 10-year old would love, face painting, ten-minute tarot, and a reading extravaganza from our 10-year anthology, Hacks. Click here for more info--if you sign up in advance, your name will be listed on our website and entered into a raffle for free seminars and Grub memberships. Full details and the program will be posted later this week.

Darci Klein's reading--featured in this week's Globe Sidekick
At the 2005 Muse and the Marketplace, Grubbie Darci Klein participated in the Manuscript Mart and met literary agent Sorche Fairbank, who loved her (then-unfinished) memoir so much she signed her on as a client. This Tuesday (as in tomorrow, folks) we're celebrating the recent publication of Darci's dazzling memoir, To Full Term: A Mother's Triumph Over Miscarriage, with a reading and book party at Porter Square Books. Join us for the reading and head over to Christopher's afterwards to raise a glass to Darci's success!

(The Varied) Forms of Poetry
As chimerical as its subject matter, our Forms of Poetry class has changed its length, price and start date. It's now a 6-week class that runs from August 15th to September 19th, and costs $275. The subject matter stays the same: each week, students will examine and practice a different form of poetry. Taught with brio by the inimitable Chris Hennessy.

SOFTBALL DEPARTMENT (Brought to you by regular sportscaster, Chris Castellani)
FOUL PLAY
Grub Street Word-Slingers 1 The U's 22 22
MEDFORD – It took three years, eighteen heartbreaking losses, a handful of crabby and self-important umpires, as many obnoxious opposing teams, a few injuries, countless dropped balls, umpteen groundouts, and some occasional bickering, but today it finally happened: the Grub Street Word-Slingers stopped having fun.

Yes, the offense sputtered: the lone RBI came from rookie sensation Jen Dupee, who brought in Gold Glove outfielder Tom Champoux. Yes, the pitching was shameful: did Castellani think this was Home Run Derby? But the crowd (more specifically, Ben Patterson's wife and infant child) was used to that. They'd seen the Word-Slingers struggle week after week and still emerge all smiles. And on a day that saw some great defense – a spectacular Champoux catch in deep right, some top-quality dirt-dog play from shortstop Jon Papernick, a nifty hot-corner tag-out from Patterson, Glenn Morris's solid first base coverage, and tremendous assists from rover Jeff Stern – that fan and a half really might have witnessed something special.

Instead they smelled a skunk. First, an actual skunk that sprayed the field in the third inning. Then the smarmy self-satisfaction and frat- like bullying of the Unexpectables, which reeked like, well, a lot more skunks.

"They're making fun of us," beloved newcomer Brian Runk informed the team during the game. "Whenever we muff a play, they laugh and talk sh*t."

"That's not cool," said captain/catcher Becky Tuch, words that meant a lot to her Word-Slingers, who knew how hungover she was. In comfort, center fielder Michael Borum added, "they're douchebags."

Up 22-1 in the fifth inning, the U's played like it was a one-run game, which would almost have been admirable if this were, say, the major leagues. They quibbled over the score. They took extra bases and cheered every single like it was a walk-off home run. In the bottom half, they actually called a meeting on the mound. And worst of all, they derided the Word-Slingers' self-deprecating humor, which, in the end, was all they had left.

Only their catcher seemed like a decent person. "I know how they feel," she said in a post-game conference. "The team I was on lost every game last season. But now I'm on a good team."

Congratulations, U's! You trounced the worst team in the league and stomped all over their hearts. Enjoy that T-shirt you'll get if you win the tournament. If there's any justice in the world, you're all terrible writers.

Playoffs start next Sunday, July 29th, at a time and location TBD.

Cheers,
Whitney, Chris, Paige and Sonya

Memories of Syracuse

2007-07-20T08:52:00.000-04:00

I am one of those lucky people who loved her MFA program. I say lucky, because compared to others, I’d done preciously little research prior to applying. I made some foolish choices, too. I applied to Columbia, which I could never afford. I applied to Brown, even though I barely knew at the time what “experimental” was. But I did one thing right: I applied to Syracuse.

Now, whenever I end up on MFA-related panels, I start gushing. I gush about the generosity and talent of the teachers, who cared about our writing as much as their own. I gush about the abundance of writing time. About full funding. About Salt Hill journal. About the Living Writers Reading Series. About receptions, and parties, and the coffee hour every Friday afternoon. (I don’t gush about Syracuse itself, which is a grim little town that every winter drove me to the edge of insanity. But hey, you’ve got to sacrifice something for your art. )

The best testimony to an MFA program, though, is the work of its students, and lately I’ve been reading a lot of “Syracuse” books, which I am here to tell you about. You see, if Grub Street was my first writing-home, Syracuse MFA was the second one, and I’ve always wanted to bring the two together somehow (Grub Street, meet Syracuse! Syracuse, meet Grub Street!)

So, without much further ado, the first book on my list is American Youth by Phil LaMarche. Phil was a class ahead of me at Syracuse, but the classes were small, we all knew one another well, and we spent many evenings on Phil’s porch drinking beers and forties – I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but yes, my Syracuse gang introduced me to forties! -- talking about the state of contemporary literature, and predicting brilliant literary future for one another. And what do you know, for Phil it all came true. His novel is a huge success -- published by Random House and praised in every review. It is about a teenage boy in New Hampshire who is implicated in a shooting accident (he loads a gun, his classmate fires it, another kid gets killed). The boy is then “adopted” by a conservative youth group called American Youth. It’s a great story, and the best part about it is, it makes you forget your politics. In fact, no matter what your politics are, you’ll end up caring about the boy and his parents. Not just understand where they’re coming from, but root for them and care. Just think – we’re all writers here -- how much talent it takes to tackle an issue as loaded (excuse the pun) as gun control and to transcend the politics. But it’s more than talent. It’s also hard work, and Phil was always among the most dedicated writers I’d known. No matter what else was going on in his life (a kayaking trip, a damaged vertebrae), writing always came first. The rest of us would still be finishing our beers on that porch, and Phil would already be heading off to bed, so that bright and early next morning he could get to work on his novel again. Whenever I start slacking off in my own writing, I still think of that.

Continuing with the New Hampshire theme, my next recommendation is Twenty Grand and Other Tales of Love and Money by Rebecca Curtis. I met Becky on my first trip to Syracuse, shortly after I’d been accepted. Denis Johnson was on campus that day doing a reading and q & a, and afterwards there was a dinner and then a reception. I remember George Saunders introducing me to Becky and basically telling me what a star she was. He was right. That summer one of her stories appeared in the New Yorker. Since then, she’s had two more stories in the New Yorker, two in Harpers, one in O. Henry Awards, not to mention StoryQuarterly, McSweeney’s, Fence, and many others. And now her book is finally out. The stories in the collection are set either in small New Hampshire towns, or else in strange unidentified locations where monsters appear at your door, wolves ask for your phone number, and married upper-middle-class couples adopt something called “cute-sters.” One of the things I love about Syracuse MFA is its stylistic diversity, a healthy mix of experimental and realistic writing. Neither style is considered superior, and students are encouraged to practice either, or, as in Becky’s case, both. I can’t think of another short-story collection that dares to combine two styles of writing the way Twenty Grand does. And Becky totally pulls it off. What makes it work, I think, is that thematically the stories sort of bounce off one another. Their heroines are young women who don’t quite fit in the world around them. They are lonely. They struggle financially. And they’re frequently betrayed by their families. To me, the family betrayals are the most haunting theme in the book, and it’s the more surreal stories that really bring these betrayals to the surface.

I read somewhere, years ago, that if a fiction writer wants to write beautiful sentences, he or she must read poetry. I think it’s a great advice. I don’t do it as much or as often as I should, but I try. Luckily, I happen to have met some fabulous poets along the way – many of them at Syracuse – and it’s their collections that I usually read. The latest one is Filibuster to Delay a Kiss by Courtney Queeney. It’s published by Random House. How many poetry collections get published by Random House? The answer is, not many. Especially not by newcomers. But Courtney is amazing. She’s already been compared to Louise Gluck and Sylvia Plath, except unlike Plath’s, Courtney’s poems are haunted not by “daddy, you bustard” but by a Mother. Mother as a force of nature. Destructive mother. Unstable mother. Mother who attempts endless suicides but never dies. But the heroine of the book -- or as Courtney names her, The Anti-Leading Lady -- is the daughter, a young woman trying to piece her life together, a survivor and insomniac. Also there is love (or anti-love), sex, and Syracuse. Where would we be without Syracuse! (In fact, it’s kind of tempting to try guessing which incident might have inspired a particular poem.) What I love about poetry – and what I believe fiction should do as well -- is that it finds the most unusual and brilliant ways to express things. And Courtney is a master at that. To quote:
"Then I heard a cello and thought,
Oh. That’s how you say it."

Finally, getting back to fiction, the book I’m reading and loving right now is Better Ways of Being Dead by Christian TeBordo. If you love experimental fiction, this is your book. If you don’t love experimental fiction, this is still your book. If you love panda bears, this is most definitely your book. It’s playful. It’s sad. It’s got a love story and a mystery. And its narrator is hugely compelling. He’s a student at a university, somewhere in Cincinnati, who has to wear long-sleeved clothes because his skin sometimes breaks out in lesions. He’s in love with an agoraphobic girl who lives in the tunnels underneath the university. They are both enrolled in “Advanced Recomposition” class, held in a janitor’s closet and taught by a creepy professor everybody calls “I.” The thing about tags such as “experimental fiction” is, they scare people. But a good novel, experimental or not, will break your heart and make you forget about silly tags. And Better Ways of Being Dead does just that. Back in Syracuse, Christian lived in a tiny studio filled with books, most of which I wanted to borrow. He’s incredibly well-read, but he never flaunted it. You could talk to him about anything. Even in the midst of a Syracuse winter, when everyone else got a little wonky. Especially in the midst of a Syracuse winter. Talking to Christian would keep you sane. He used to ask me if there were panda bears at the Pittsburgh Zoo, and I kept telling him I didn’t know. I would offer to check, and he would tell me not to – because it was fiction, it was better not to know. In the end, Pittsburgh didn’t make it into the novel. But panda bears did.

Ellen Litman
http://lastchicken.blogspot.com/

The Grub Street Hotel

2007-07-19T11:39:00.000-04:00

Today is a special day for me. It is the one-year anniversary of the night I slept in the Grub Street office. I had been celebrating a friend’s birthday down the street, finally grumbling into an overpriced taxi at 2:30am, and as we drove under Grub’s darkened windows I yelled, “Stop the cab!” I unlocked that elevator and I rode to the top. Frightfully, I turned on every light. I made myself a little “bed” on the long red couch, spreading my windbreaker over my legs and propping my purse under my head as a pillow. There. For some minutes I laid there, wide-eyed, devising how to make sure Chris and Whitney never found out. Then I fell asleep, the lamplights glowing red through my eyelids, me snoring to the sighs of the industrial air conditioner.

Five months later I was outed at a party (Chris: “We’re so devoted to Grub Street, we practically sleep there.” My friend: “Oh! Like Sonya did!”), but today that memory has me thinking about work and sleep. Writers seem to balance the two in any number of ways.

Some write no later than sundown— their creativity needs a full night’s rest. e.e. cummings was one of these, claiming to be capable of only 4 hours of writing each day, followed by a rigorous swim and evening aperitif. I admire these people. Probably they glow with good health, whiling their days eating leafy greens, composing poetry, and having great skin.

Then there’s me. I stumble into the other category: those writers who seem to thrive off of little-, no-, deprived-, sporadic-, or caffeine-compromised sleep. These are the Jack Kerouac’s, the Lucy Grealy’s, the Edgar Allen Poe’s, and all other delirious and half-mad writers for whom others feel concern. We know that staying up, and staying stimulated, is a true skill.

My desk is littered with gum wrappers, leftover from my notion that chewing keeps you awake. So does glasses and glasses of water, which lie discarded on my floor like shotgun shells. In this environment I work in deadly silence, save for a lonely ticking clock. I know what hour the birds start chirping outside my window (four o’clock), and what hour it turns to squawking (five).

It sounds disorganized and unhealthy, but the habit, I think, can be magical. Nighttime— in all its privacy and stillness— can help conjure ideas more imaginative than those of normal daylight hours. Maybe I’m making excuses. But for better or for worse, I'm not alone. A Very Famous Writer once told me, in response to complaints of my strained writing time, “You know, Sonya, there are these little pills you can take...” Apparently we No-Sleepers are more common than we feel.

Atop my head is a sprout of premature gray hairs, which should be called my “writing hairs” instead. And if I can’t find a better name before nightfall, there’s always the Grub couch to sleep on.

~Sonya Larson

Grub Street Rag, 7/16/07 (posted late!)

2007-07-18T17:44:00.000-04:00

the grub street rag. (Re)writing Boston since 1997.

* Transformable Grub gossip
* Fluid Grub events
* Summer workshops begin this week

"The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon."

-- Robert Cromier

grub street gossip.
Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday by the life-size wax figures at Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

6- and 10-week workshops begin this week
This is it, people. Our 6- and 10-week workshops begin this week, and a few of them still have spots available. If you're itchin' to be scribblin' this summer, check out the descriptions for Memoir II, Fiction I, Forms of Poetry, Not Now I'm Writing or our Daytime Exer-Series courses. View the whole schedule, and call us at 617.695.0075 and get yourself registered before time runs out.

And then Grub was ten
On July 27th, join us on the lawn outside Grub Street's headquarters (and inside our office) for barbecue, beer, word games, music, birthday games even a 10-year old would love, face painting, ten-minute tarot, and a reading extravaganza from our 10-year anthology, Hacks. Click here for all the details--if you sign up in advance, your name will be listed on our website and entered into a raffle for free seminars and Grub memberships.

Join us to celebrate Darci Klein's new book
At the 2005 Muse and the Marketplace, Grubbie Darci Klein participated in the Manuscript Mart and met literary agent Sorche Fairbank, who loved her (then-unfinished) memoir so much she signed her on as a client. Now, we're celebrating the recent publication of Darci's dazzling memoir, To Full Term: A Mother's Triumph Over Miscarriage, with a reading and book party at Porter Square Books. Join us for the reading and head over to Christopher's afterwards to raise a glass to Darci's success!

SOFTBALL DEPARTMENT (Brought to you by regular sportscaster, Chris Castellani)
Thunderstruck
Grub Street Word-Slingers 8 TSL Marketing 19

MEDFORD - It was a dark and stormy day at Tufts Park, but for once a ray of hope shined through for the Word-Slingers: they had finally encountered a team as bad as they were. Their opponent's starting pitcher, Some Girl Named Jess, was pulled in the first inning after loading the bases on three walks. Sure outs sailed between the legs of the shortstop or were thrown over the head of the first baseman. By the end of a very long first, Grub was in the lead, and the rain was passing them by.

Either the poor play of TSL inspired the Word-Slingers, or they bloomed at just the right time. Strange things happened - like a home run (from Some Guy Named Dan, who joined the Word-Slingers for one game because they were short a player) and the team's very first double-play. They had a swagger. The Jens (Dupee and LaVin) hit screaming line drives into the outfield, able first baseman Michael Borum went 4-4, shortstop Tom Champoux Jeter-ly gobbled up grounders, pitcher Chris Castellani recorded two strikeouts (one swinging, one looking), and Diana Beaudoin reached base twice.

In the dugout at the bottom of the fifth, the Word-Slingers up 8-5, captain and left-fielder Becky Tuch smiled upon her team with pride. She was about to witness their first victory.

Then the wilting began. First a walk to Some Girl Named Megan. Then balls popping in and out of Word-Slingers' gloves, both at home plate and in the outfield. Then longball after longball after longball from TSL. They got seven runs in the fifth. Seven more in the 7th. The swagger defected, and the Word-Slingers hung their heads in despairing disbelief. They never scored again.

After the game, as TSL gathered on the mound for an exuberant team photo, someone suggested that Grub Street change their name to the Expletives. That sounds about right.

Next game is Sunday, 7/22 at 6pm at Tufts Park vs. The Unexpectables. And because you never know what can happen, expect the - oh, forget it.

Cheers,
Whitney, Chris, Paige and Sonya

Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like a flamingo in stilettos, we offer you the chance to win a prize. This week, we're setting ourselves apart by NOT having a quiz question about The-Book-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. Instead, here's a chance to wow me with your memories: What book did you read as a child (fantasy or not) that had the biggest impact on you, and why? I will arbitrarily choose my favorite response. Email your answer to Whitney. Winner receives a gift certificate for ice cream at J.P. Licks.

Answer to last week's quiz: Inman Square is featured in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. Winner: Filip Tufvesson.

Friday the 13th Debunked Just a Bit

2007-07-13T12:54:00.000-04:00

I decided to use “Wikipedia” for some inspiration on the theme for today, despite its recent flack received from Bowdoin college professors who found it to be fraught with possible misinformation that research students were citing in their papers as fact. Based on that academic caution, I will temper any references here up front – they may be inaccurate in places in general and possibly due to horror movie fans who have decided to pepper the website’s pages on “Friday the 13th’ with bunk I may not catch.

At least you can take comfort in knowing that I did not use “Wikepedia.org”, which is really frightfully unfair of someone to register, don’t you think? I was quick enough to redirect and change websites when the bogus “Wikepedia (with two “e’s”) asked me “Are you Johnny Depp?” (I’m not, but he is one of my wife’s “boyfriends”, a term of affection that she uses for actors she likes.) I redirected to the true Wikipedia site (with three “i’s”) ready to absorb the history of today’s fateful Friday, which has gone on to be a 10 sequel franchise (if you count “Freddy vs. Jason.”)

Thankfully, if you want to read more on your own, I can say the aforementioned
horror movie is oddly nowhere to be found in any sort of material way. I do find it interesting that today has its own phobia – Paraskavedekatriaphobia - but then again, these days, what doesn’t?

So he we are with me posting and you reading about a day of superstition founded in…does anybody know?

Can someone tell me why parents always instilled a sense of dread whenever the 13th day of the month landed on what is most kid’s favorite day of the week? (after Saturday and Sunday of course.) I mean, come on, it’s Friday…no school tomorrow…Saturday morning cartoon marathon with unlimited cereal bowl refills…perhaps even something special like French toast since it’s the weekend and if you’re good.

Friday typically means pizza for lunch at school and in some cases like my house, for dinner (since I always said to my parents school lunch was fish sticks so I’d be assured of two pizza meals.)

Friday was the exhale after the afternoon’s very last minute of school, which seemed to last forever, each second counting as ten. What could parents possibly be talking about by being extra careful and worried about on a Friday?

Actually in my house, they never said a word. This absence of addressing what seems to be a very suspicious almost holiday was not so much based on parental myth-busting efforts by my folks but rather circumstance.

My dad had not yet started his 27 years of sobriety (and actually didn’t until right before I moved to college) so there was that. He was just more of absent of paternal participation in general and not just jumping over parental warnings about jinxes and curses.

My mom had another reason for being well, mum, about the date and she never spoke of it.

It was up to my grandfather to enlighten me as he did about a great many things. He reminded me every time the date came around, which is one to three times a year by the way. Grampy assured me that Friday the 13th being unlucky was just something that I shouldn’t believe, not in the least.

My mother, his daughter and his only child, was in a horrific car accident, which left her in a coma for 6 weeks when she was 19. She woke from it quite unexpectedly on a Friday the 13th, apparently in defiance of any superstition. The 13th card of the Tarot is Death, which also means rebirth according to the gypsy woman, so perhaps mom doing just that – defying the death they thought she was heading for.

My grandfather, despite being 100% Italian and prone to some amount of belief in the supernatural because of that, could never again believe the date to have any sort dark relevance. In fact, whenever a Friday the 13th rolled around, he got excited about what good fortune may follow the family. Although the extra lottery tickets never did pan out, I always invest a couple bucks in his memory just in case.

My mom doesn’t say much about it because, well, she doesn’t remember much about the accident: having it, waking up or sadly my grandfather’s overwhelming joy at having her back. Her memory still trips on itself here and there and we’ve just learned to be patient and give big hugs. It’s just one of those family things that we know about and like a lot of family history, dance around in conversation.

I was going to suggest that if you’re looking for a reason to simply treat this like any other day, just enjoy your Friday pizza as I plan to do with no worries. Maybe you can share this tale with your kids instead of telling them to look today up on the internet where they will undoubtedly search for more information on the Vorhees family movie franchise instead of any of the interesting historical references that I decided not to include here after all. Hey, you can visit Wikipedia any time you want, I’m only blogging today.

Yes, I was going to tell you to just move on and enjoy the day like any other TGIF - thirteen, schmirteen.

Then a frustrating and true thing happened. I wanted to post this much earlier today (some folks like to start the day off with their horoscope, yours truly included.)

Since I am the world’s worst proof-reader of my own work (I’m sure today is no exception), I was doing some last minute editing and…well…my laptop, which is only 2 months old, froze for the first time since I bought it. My edits were not recovered as they have been in the past on a Word document.

Perhaps it was just fate suggesting that I not be so cavalier about the prevalent creepiness surrounding today. Despite my mom’s story, perhaps you should do the same after all – just be aware. A crashed computer is nothing tragic, just a bit of a nuisance and maybe it’ll just help to double check today (or save your document along the way…)

But then again, I'm confident this finished piece is better than the one I lost so, there is that for you to consider as you proceed with caution.

And just remember, as I do when I imagine my mom opening her eyes for my grandfather almost 50 years ago, great things can still happen. I’m buying a lottery ticket or two in case my grandfather is watching out, right after I call my mother.

John LaFleur

Off the Shelves, part two

2007-07-12T19:25:00.000-04:00

First, let me say this: I am not proud of what I'm about to disclose to you.

Here goes: I don't like used things. I don't like to shop at vintage stores or thrift stores. I am skeptical about the idea of buying a used car, even though I am well aware that new cars are a terrible investment. I use Craigslist only to get rid of my own used items, and am always surprised when people want what I am selling. I hardly ever remember to eat leftovers, and have an embarrassing habit of throwing away Tupperware containers because the contents is visibly--i.e. through the plastic--too alien to merit further exploration. And, most shameful of all, I'm not so into used books. I like the idea of them: the musty bookstore, the frisson-inducing experience of finding a hidden gem, the surly bookseller climbing a rickety ladder to show you a first edition of Gatsby. But the reality? The reality is me, harassed and impatient, flipping through a dusty table of cast-offs and despairing of ever finding the one book I can remember having on my list to buy. I am not a thrill-of-the-hunt kind of shopper.

But new bookstores? Oh, let me sing of ye, new bookstores*, let me tell tales of your glory, of the hours I've spent running my gaze over the uncreased spines of your fiction, the afternoons I've whiled away in your comfy chairs, breathing in the scent of your untouched inky pages, the anticipation I've felt choosing tomes from your perfectly alphabetized shelves.

(*a note so that you don't all think I'm irretrievably lame, just fiscally irresponsible: I am speaking here of INDEPENDENT bookstores. Your WaldenBooks, your B. Daltons, your Borders(es), fill me with despondency, the sterile familiarity of the store layouts, the generally unhelpful staff, the selling of CDs at seventeen bucks a pop while the books are buy-two-get-one-free. I will gladly pay more to shop at an independent bookstore, and do so as often as I possibly can.)

I love you, new bookstores. I love you so much that I often indulge in that terrible sin, gluttony, and purchase not only the one book I intended to buy, but a nice juicy stack of books, which I then set on my nightstand and stare at with the manic glee of someone with a behavioral problem.

If this wasn't bad enough already, here is the part that I feel really bad about revealing: Out of this new stack of books, these delicious novels and story collections I was so excited to purchase, I will probably only read, on average, 3/4 of them. Why, you might ask, would I only read 3/4 of the books I was so excited to buy that I paid full price for them? The only explanation I have is that after a few months go by, these books cease to be new. Their shiny covers fail to entice. Like a secret crush nursed for so long that, when finally requited, the make-out sessions leave you wondering what's on the telly, these books bore me before I even begin their first chapters. The books sit on my nightstand, their pages yellowing with the passing of the seasons, and where am I? The new bookstore, of course, buying newer books to place on the dais of their forgotten forebears.

And so, this week, a mea culpa to the orphans of my bookshelves, the Forgotten Ones. I am sorry, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, my husband read you first and by the time he was done I lost interest in you. My apologies, The Collected Letters of E.B. White, you had such a great staff recommendation at Porter Square Books, but you proved too heavy to carry on the T. I hope to make amends, First Light by Charles Baxter, I loved your author so much that I bought five of his books at one time and then became temporarily Baxtered-out. I confess, Nothing But Blue Skies by Thomas Mcguane, I have a terrible habit of buying books about the vast plains of the American West and then never reading them. And lastly, I seek redress, Sons and Lovers and everything else ever written by D.H. Lawrence, I always buy your books when I am deep into a Henry James novel and then never end up reading you. To all of you, and all the other Forgotten Ones who are so forgotten I can't even remember who you are right now, I am sorry. I want to read you, really I do. Maybe this August? Or maybe September... there are a lot of new books coming out in paperback that I might want to check out.

In dread,
Whitney Scharer

Thanks For Not Writing

2007-07-11T12:03:00.000-04:00

Ask most authors for their best writing advice and most will hand you the old saw, "You must write every day." They say that even when it seems impossible -- your only spare time is from 4-5am, you're hopelessly blocked, you're having brain surgery -- you must write something. Anything! And if you don't write every day, then clearly you're not committed or passionate enough. I've given this advice countless times and, for many years, actually taken it.

A friend of mine, a fellow author & teacher, once told me he didn't believe in this truism. After a few glasses of wine, he came out about the fact that he was on an extended break from writing, and that, despite some intermittent guilt, he'd never felt more creative, inspired or happy. He was alive again! Instead of straining his eyes at his computer, he was spending his time reading, taking walks, re-connecting with his family, and, every so often, working through plots and characters in his head. He was looking forward to a returning to his work one day, but until then he was "recharging." He argued that this recharging was crucial for his imagination and would ultimately make him a better writer.

My response: "Interesting theory." What I was really thinking: "So, he's not a *real* writer after all." And, feeling superior about my daily regimen of eye-straining and hand-wringing at my computer, I offered to pay for the wine.

Now, having not written a word of my novel for close to two months -- and even slacking on my blog responsibilities -- I am starting to see what my friend meant. My left-behind characters, who'd seemed stagnant and thin in April -- are beckoning me back, siren-like. I long to spend time with them, but instead of indulging that desire I daydream about what they might do and say. I'm back to what is most fun about writing: that sense of play and possibility. And though I could find some time these days if I tried, I might play hard to get with my book for a while. After all, that tactic does work in most other spheres of life.

Of course I could just be lazy. Or not a real writer after all. But my friend ended up writing two novels after his "recharging" period, so he's my new hero. And my new best excuse.

***

Just a few days ago I learned that one of my favorite poets, William Meredith, died on May 30th at the age of 88. I had the honor of meeting him a few times and hearing him read, and I am deeply saddened by his passing. He was an elegant, generous and accomplished man who will be missed by many.

I read a Meredith poem, "Crossing Over" at a friend's wedding last weekend, but here is another of my favorites:

The Illiterate

Touching your goodness, I am like a man
Who turns a letter over in his hand
And you might think that this was because the hand
Was unfamiliar but, truth is, the man
Has never had a letter from anyone;
And now he is both afraid of what it means
And ashamed because he has no other means
To find out what it says than to ask someone.

His uncle could have left the farm to him,
Or his parents died before he sent them word,
Or the dark girl changed and want him for beloved.
Afraid and letter-proud, he keeps it with him.
What would you call his feeling for the words
that keep him rich and orphaned and beloved?

--1958

~Christopher Castellani

The Grub Street Rag, 7/9/07

2007-07-09T17:15:00.000-04:00

* Alacritous Grub gossip
* Lissome Grub events
* Last week to register for a summer workshop

"If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster."

-- Isaac Asimov

grub street gossip.

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from the Boston Harbor Island satellite office of Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

Last week to sign up for summer 6- and 10-week workshops
Have a desire for a daytime class? A passion for poetry in all its forms? A craving for creative non-fiction? This week is your last chance to sign up for our 10- and 6-week workshops, which begin next week. View the whole schedule, and call us at 617.695.0075 and get yourself registered before time (and availability--several are already full) run out.

Find us a Cambridge space, take TWO FREE Grub Street classes
Grub Street seeks 4-5 classrooms in the Cambridge/Somerville area to hold our fall classes. All the rooms must be at the same location, and big enough to fit 13 adults comfortably. Parking and T-accessibility are key. We would need the rooms on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday nights from 7-10pm for ten weeks starting in October. Please let us know of any leads--if we end up renting from your tip, you'll get two free Grub Street classes to take yourself or give as gifts. Email whitney@grubstreet.org with ideas (or for more info on what we need).

Grub Turns Ten
Join us July 27th for our 10-year anniversary celebration, with readings from Hacks, our new anthology. Click here for all the details and to sign up.

Softball Department (brought to you by guest sportscaster, Dan Pritchard)
Double-Digits on the Horizon
Grub Street Wordslingers 9 – MannyOrtez 20

It had all the makings of a great day at the park. With two outs in the first inning, your Grub Street Wordslingers put 4 runs on the board for one of the best starts of the season. Two-out hits and timely walks were the key to our production. It sure was hot on the diamond, but so were our bats. Dan, Jen, Jeff and Becky had especially good turns at the plate today. It all seemed to be coming together for this ragtag group of authors-come-ballplayers.

The opposition – MannyOrtez – was stiff, and brought home 6 of their own in the bottom of the first. Their defense held the Slingers scoreless through the second, while doubling their own tally to make it 12-4. The Slingdogs kept it close with an epic effort, rallying to add 5 more runs in the third, but ManyO kept the pace and stayed true to their name, adding 4 runs in the third and then 4 more in the fourth. We tried to get it going in the fifth, but a tag-out on some great, aggressive base running ended the game.

Looking back, we learned a lot that hot day in July, together out there on the field. We learned that an umpire can really affect the complexion of a game. We learned that wooden bats are questionable. In the third inning we learned that MannyOrtez's left fielder was not up for a golden glove, and did our best to capitalize. I learned to throw it to the base, not the person — sorry Jen. We learned that walking a boy to strike out a girl is unfair, and wished we could apply that rule to Julio Lugo. But most of all we learned that the most important thing is family, so try not to hit the kids with errant flies.

The un-unbeaten streak remains unbroken. Still think we could beat the Pirates though.

Cheers,
Whitney, Chris, Paige and Sonya

The P.S. There was an error on our website, which incorrectly listed a Riot Act taking place tonight. There is NO Riot Act tonight (July 9th). Sorry for the confusion!

The Happy Camper by Becky Tuch

2007-07-06T09:41:00.001-04:00

It’s a Wednesday afternoon, and I am in a bar. I am drinking white wine, staring at a horrifically garish electonic red eyeball on the top floor of Charlie’s Kitchen in Harvard Square. I’m with a friend who is flirting with the bartender. Aside from the three of us, there is no one else in here. The air conditioning is on full blast, so cold my gums are freezing and I wish I had a winter coat, though it’s the end of June.

After about an hour, I leave the bar and get on the T to meet my ride. Tonight, I am going to a potluck hosted by the director of my new summer camp. Yes, I am to begin work at a day camp on Monday. How I will pull this off is still a mystery. I am drunk in the middle of the afternoon and I am lonely, frightened and more confused about the direction of my life than I have ever been. My roommate and I have been fighting. My boyfriend and I are “on a break.” I need to find a new apartment. I am absolutely fed up with waiting tables and don’t know what to do next. The novel I’ve been working on for the past three years is going nowhere.

Yet by Monday morning, I will be expected to smile and encourage budding young minds to write stories, to create characters, to participate in this fiction workshop. How, I wonder, can I even feign pleasure over writing when I feel so heartbroken and downtrodden over the whole enterprise of writing--of living--altogether?

My ride comes to meet me in front of the Somerville theater. She is a soft-featured attractive brunette with a bright smile. Somehow, I feel even drunker at this moment, and suddenly more exhausted.

“I’m Kate,” she says. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“I’m 27 and I’m terrified,” I want to say. But I don’t, of course. We shake hands and she starts driving.

“Are you excited about orientation tomorrow?” she asks.

“Orientation,” I repeat. I had not remembered anything about orientation. All I could think was that camp would start on Monday. But that’s right, we have a two-day orientation tomorrow and Friday. I can’t believe I’ve forgotten this. What kind of counselor will I be? What kind of human being am I? How could I begin this new job at a summer camp and not even get the dates right? How could I be drunk for my first meeting with all the other counselors and camp staff? No wonder I’m aimless and adrift.

“Yeah,” I say, plucking at the strap of my seatbelt. “I’m totally excited.”

**

There are moments in life when I just glide along, and the fact that I’m alive and doing things does not occur to me. That’s how it should be. I work, I cook, I get lost in each moment of bustling activity.

But then there are the days when I’m aware of every moment, every second as it stickily clicks past. And I don’t know how I’ll get from this second to the next. It all seems so terrifying. Not knowing where to work, where to live, whether I’ll succeed or fail at the things I want to do most, whether the people I love will really love me back. I feel too young and feisty to ask for help, but too old to still believe I can do everything my own way.

I manage to survive the car ride, and then I survive the dinner too, drinking a little more wine and spending as much time chewing as possible. Conversation is stiff and tense, but I do survive.

I even survive the first couple hours of orientation the next day. The camp director’s voice travels in and out of my ears as I struggle to hang on to the basics. This is the art room. And the computer lab. There is the courtyard. Don’t mind the construction. You’ll have to make sure your campers are with you at all times on the way to the pool. Each computer has internet access. This is the auditorium. That is the cafeteria. The soda machines don’t work. There is always a salad bar at lunch.

But later that day, the camp director places the counselors in random classes so we can each get a taste of what other people are teaching. I am placed into a class that could not be farther from who I am or what I’m about: Afro-Caribbean Dance.

I would laugh with ironic self-deprecation if my legs didn’t actually feel so stiff and heavy, my brain so dense and thick. They want me to dance?

I spend the entire fifty minutes of the class thinking of excuses for why I should stop dancing. I have bad knees. My ankle hurts. I have my period. My father is very sick (which he’s not.) I’m “on a break.”
But meanwhile, I’m still dancing. Or, to be more accurate, I’m lifting my feet up and putting them down and lifting my hands and dropping them one beat or two around the time that everyone else does the same.

Then I learn that tomorrow we will be performing our dance routine on stage. Ha! I almost cry. But it’s not a joke. Not only do I have to endure this torture of being forced to dance now, but tomorrow I will do it in front of an audience. Then, on Monday, when camp starts, I will have to perform again, this time in front of the entire camp.

“Believe me,” the dance teacher assures us. “The campers are more afraid to be here than you are to be performing.”

“No,” I think. “I’m not quire sure that’s possible.”

**

But then something happens. Monday. The campers come. And I just start faking it. But no, that’s not right. I’m not quite faking it. I am genuinely happy to see them. Children. Little people. Shy small creatures. Mini-humans.

They come spilling out of their cars and their school buses and they are looking so scared, so I put on my biggest smile to show them that I am not scared. I can’t be scared. I am their counselor. Suddenly, it’s not about me and everything I’m afraid of. It’s about them, and being confident and enthusiastic for them. It occurs to me that this must be the feat that parents pull off all the time, putting their own personal grievances aside in order to ask Callie if she remembered her tennis racket today and to make sure Betty got into the classes she wanted and to find out if Janie likes to bring her lunch or buy it in the cafeteria--the little questions that become so petty to adults but so, so meaningful to these curious, shy little people.

Each counselor is assigned to a group. Or, as the camp calls it, a “Groupie Group.” I have the good fortune of getting all girls, and they’re all around ten years old. I make fast friends with a camper named Enid.

“Do you like to write, Enid?”

“Yes!” she says. “I love love love love love love to write. I write poetry and I write stories and I’m writing a novel.”

“Wow!” I say.

I’m not even jealous. How could I possibly feel writer-envy for this kid? She loves to write. I hope she writes a billion novels. I hope she publishes everything she writes. I’m simply happy that she has a hobby, that she happens to have the same hobby I had when I was her age.

“Are you writing a novel now?” I ask.

“Yes! It’s about gypsies. There are lower-class gypsies and middle-class gypsies and upper-class gypsies…”

Now a small laugh slips out. A ten-year-old with class consciousness. This is going to be a very special camp.

“Does your book take place in Eastern Europe?” I ask, toeing the line a bit further, to see how rigorous her little mind can be. “That’s where gypsies are originally from.”

“No,” she says. “Not there. But in this kingdom that I made. But the kingdom is really part of this trilogy that I’ve been working on.”

“Cool,” is all I say. “A trilogy.”

**

The image that keeps returning to my mind is of an egg cracking open. I know it’s their brains that are supposed to be the eggs, nurtured and cared for to one day crack open into fine young adult minds. But that’s not how it is. I am the eggshell cracking open. Little by little, these kids are teaching me about everything I forgot.

In my Writing and Illustration class, I tell them to choose a character to be the subject of our story. One group comes up with Maria the Dolphin, who is distraught because she’s trapped in a cage too small for her. Another group comes up with Bob the Bulletin Board, miserable because he spends his life being continually stuck with pushpins. That is to say nothing of the Imaginary Penguin, or The Frozen Dragon who battles the mighty “Sir Land Sir Lot.”

They care about animals and they care about the environment. The older kids care a great deal about the upcoming presidential election. The younger kids care about the small things that happen every day, in all their classes, to their friends, to their counselors, to the environment and to our country.

Naturally, these are special kids. They come from good homes and most of them go to private schools during the year and they are lucky.

But I am the lucky one for getting to be around them everyday.

I tell all the girls in my “Groupie Group” that I will be getting on stage to perform. Not only will I be performing, but I will be dancing.

“I am a terrible dancer,” I tell them. “They made me take Afro-Caribbean dance and now I have to perform the number. You’re all going to laugh at me.”

Enid is sitting right next to me. She pats my arm and looks earnestly into my face. “Oh,” she says. “We won’t laugh at you! We’ll say, ‘That’s great! You tried!’”

I laugh. She asks me what’s funny. I tell her nothing.

But it’s everything.

Hey! That’s great! You tried!

Becky Tuch
July 5, 2007

Toilets and Literature

2007-07-04T12:37:00.000-04:00

I was using a friend’s toilet last week when I pleasantly discovered a book of Alice Munro stories propped up on the tank. Brilliant! I thought. Toilets and literature. Finally I was reading “Visitors,” and if it wouldn’t have caused my friend some nervous concern, I could have stayed in that bathroom and gotten to “The Moons of Jupiter.”

Since visiting other uncultured toilets, with many sighs of disappointment, I’ve wondered why not every household toilet has a Best American Short Stories propped up on the tank. Why don’t people read stories on the subway, or in line at the bank, instead of the novel they complain to have been reading since 1998? In short, why aren’t short stories more popular?

Cultural observers love to point at my generation and at modern America in general, noting our shorter attentions spans, high distractibility, and impatience with expression. Sometimes I’d like to break their fingers, but they have a point. More than ever, art and entertainment seem best absorbed in brief, easily ingestible chunks, whether as music videos or mp3s or favorite Sopranos episodes that can be skipped to on a DVD. Short stories, it seems, ought to be the hit singles of the literary world.

But perhaps I’m wrong to characterize short stories in this way. Good stories are “brief,” yes, but they’re not necessarily “easily ingestible chunks.” The best ones are actually robust as brick, and reading them requires the patience and appreciation of reading novels.

Filmmakers are realizing this truth. Recently a number of short stories have been adapted into full-length films, including Annie Proux’s “Brokeback Mountain,” Raymond Carver’s “So Much Water So Close to Home” (with the film title Jindabyne), and Alice Munro’s “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” (film title Away From Her). Perhaps the short story’s rise in popular culture will be driven by film.

I was hoping that while writing this post I’d conjure some huge and brilliant theory as to why short stories aren’t as popular as novels. I haven’t. So in the meantime I’ll be on the toilet, fantasizing about how to get short stories in every bus depot and waiting room in America. Missing Munro too? Her books look great against porcelain.

~Sonya Larson

Grub Street Rag, 7/2/07

2007-07-02T17:07:00.000-04:00

"Characters take on life sometimes by luck, but I suspect it is when you can write more entirely out of yourself, inside the skin, heart, mind, and soul of a person who is not yourself, that a character becomes in his own right another human being on the page."

-- Eudora Welty

grub street gossip.

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from the granite outcropping at Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

Poetry Book Prize Winner Announced
We are thrilled to announce that Linda Gregg has won the first Grub Street
Book Prize in Poetry for her collection In the Middle Distance (Graywolf Press, 2006). Gregg is the author of five previous poetry collections, including Things and Flesh and Too Bright To See. A poet of international acclaim, Linda Gregg has taught at the University of Iowa, Columbia University, and the University of California at Berkeley. She currently lives in New York and teaches at Princeton University.

You will have two opportunities to meet and learn in person from Linda Gregg. The first is on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 7:00 PM, when she will be reading from her work at Grub Street. The reading will be followed by a Q&A and a reception. The next morning, Saturday, December 8th, from 10AM -12PM, she will lead a free craft class on poetry writing for Grub Street members. Do not miss this extraordinary opportunity to work with one of the country's most accomplished poets.

This year's contest attracted many excellent and worthy submissions, and we were honored to read so much great and varied work. We would also like to congratulate our two wonderful finalists: G. C. Waldrep for Disclamor (BOA Editions, Fall 2007) and Peter Pereira's What's Written on the Body (Copper Canyon, 2006).

The New York Times Book Review
We just discovered this cool underground literary publication and thought you might want to check it out. Kidding! But... you should take a look at the article in the July 1st edition by amazing writer (and Grub friend) Martha Southgate. It’s an essay about the apparent scarcity of African-American writers of literary fiction, and you can find it in the paper issue or at this link (along with a podcast with editors Sam Tanenhaus and Jennifer Schuessler and a short list of little-known African-American writers): http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/books/review/Southgate-t.html?ref=review . Read it and forward it on to anyone you think would be interested.

Softball Department (brought to you by guest sportscaster, Tom Champoux)
MEDFORD –This week’s “Softball in a word”: Abnegation.
Yes, it’s true. The road-weary, perhaps ill-prepared Word-Slingers took their game to Medford, and, while tossing practice balls and stretching our quads, we somehow managed to lose. Yes, sadly, the ratio of Word-Slingers in vs. out of Medford was quite large, and we did not have the required eight players to field a team.

But mercy asked, mercy found. Two gracious opponents – Mike and Sara – offered to take their place next to the Word-Slingers and the game was on. Since the game was officially ruled a forfeiture, score was not kept, making the day a whole lot more fun for everyone.

And fun it was. Becky and Kate both continue to exhibit ferocious power at the plate. Brian put on a third base clinic and Tom again pitched a beauty of a game. Such a resplendent site did we make that a random spectator named Anthony left his girlfriend sitting on a rock so he too could join the ranks of Word-Slingers.

The highlight of the game, at least for me, came in the form of my very own long, rolling homerun. And as I rounded third I glimpsed my two young kids, Abby and Eli, shrieking and jumping with delight for their huffing, red-faced dad. What pleasure it is to experience the complete and utter joy of softball through the eyes of two proud and enthusiastic tots. True Word-Slingers in the making.

As for the loss? Remember, that which does not kill us makes us better writers.

Cheers,
Whitney, Chris, Paige and Sonya

Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like the manliest manatee, we offer you the chance to win a prize. Rudyard Kipling wrote a series of stories to entertain his daughter, Josephine. Though British-born, Kipling knew much about American geography, and included what list of Massachusetts landmarks in one of these stories? Please name the title of the collection of stories, as well as the list of Massachusetts landmarks. Email your answer to Whitney. Winner receives a gift certificate for ice cream at J.P. Licks.

Answer to last week's quiz: Ian McEwan has been convicted of a crime. While writing On Chesil Beach, McEwan pilfered stones from Chesil Beach and was ordered to return them by the British authorities. Winner: Judy Salzman.

What You'll Never Write

2007-06-29T15:39:00.000-04:00

Today's blog is from guest contributor Bob LaVallee, writer and long-time Grubbie, who's been keeping a list of in-class writing exercises "that will never be used." You'll soon seen why. Add your own to Bob's list, or if you really want trouble, post your responses.

Thanks, Bob!

Unused Writing Exercises

1.) Put your thinking cap on and list forty synonyms for "potato."

2.) Picture your instructor. Now describe how you would make hot monkey love to him or her.

3.) Pretty little bunnies: Why do they scare you so much?

4.) 47 down.

5.) Describe why you are a better writer than the other people in your class, especially Julie.

6.) Pick any two words from the list below and write a novel based on those words.

Whale
White

7.) In 100 words or less, write something really good for a change, ok?

Off the shelves, part one

2007-06-28T15:10:00.000-04:00

I fancy myself to be quite the bookworm. Since I was five, and was able to actually read books instead of pretending to read them but really just reciting them from memory, I carried a book with me everywhere. I never went out to dinner with my family without lugging a tome along with me to pass the time. Granted, my family's entire dining repertoire consisted of trips to various Chili's restaurants throughout the greater Denver area, so a book was more crucial than you might think.

Of course, my parents were thrilled by how smart and nerdy I appeared, and I was thrilled too. How cool to be allowed to escape into other worlds at the dinner table! But once I was old enough to realize that it was not, in fact, cool to read Gone With the Wind while eating one's Rojo Burger, I tried to tone down the outward displays of dorkdom. Narnia might be cool, but having a social life was probably pretty cool too. Privately, though, I still devoured books, and remained the kind of child, and then teen, who would rather spend a Saturday reading than out with a crowd. By the time I reached college, I was thankful for how many books I had read, as they gave me a leg up in the hyper-intellectual atmosphere of my school.

You can imagine my disappointment, then, in the following scene: I have just started my MFA program. I invite my fellow writers over to my apartment for a party. One of the guys, also from Colorado and seemingly a kindred spirit despite his penchant for wearing Man Clogs and talking incessantly about the Denver Broncos, walks into my bedroom and starts perusing the bookshelves. The large, built-in, overstuffed bookshelves. He looks at the books for a while, long enough for me to prepare myself for the scintillating conversation ahead, the comparing of favorite authors, the bonding over short story collections. After a while, he glances at me and says, "So... where's the literature?" I stare first at him, and then at my shelves. Names leap off at me: Faulkner, Hurston, Baxter, James, McEwan, Stegner, Dillard, Coover, Cheever, a veritable canon of my literary life. I have no idea what to say. Finally, moments past the comfortable response time, I decide to be breezy. "Ha ha ha," I say, "So funny."

NOT so funny. Two things transpired from this moment. First, Man Clog man and I never, ever became friends. Second, I developed a new and incredibly tedious insecurity about what I've read and what I'm reading, stemming partly from the realization that much of my self-confidence comes from thinking of myself as a reader. To make fun of my bookshelves is, sadly, to make fun of me. And whether or not you'd look at my shelves and think they were filled with trash, they do tell you a lot about me. I like well-written books. I like sentences that sing. I also like a really good plot. The Other Boleyn by Phillipa Gregory? Loved it. Loved it so much I've now read her entire ouevre, including what turned out to be her abysmal Wideacre series (incest? No thanks).

The reason the title of this post is "part one" is that I haven't actually made it to the topic I was originally planning to write about. Stay tuned next Thursday for what I was intending to say--I'm off to read The Whole World Over by Julia Glass, which even Clog Man might think is a really good book.

In dread and books,
Whitney Scharer

The Grub Street Rag, 6/25/07

2007-06-25T12:47:00.000-04:00

"Language is the dress of thought."

--Samuel Johnson

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from the couture fashion atelier in the back room of Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

Selling books, old-school style
F.O.G. (Friend of Grub) and local author, Jon Papernick, and Back Pages Books in Waltham, have teamed to create the 1001 Book Project, which was written up yesterday in the Boston Globe. The project aims to sell 1001 copies of Jon's amazing new novel, Who By Fire, Who By Blood, and gain the interest of a U.S. publisher by creating buzz at the community level. We're huge supporters of both Jon and Back Pages, and urge you to check out the article, the bookstore, and Jon's dazzling novel.

All of Grub's your stage
Did you take a writing workshop at Grub Street this spring? Or do you have a 5-minute long piece you've been dying to read at an open mike night? Then Grub's the place to be this Wednesday night, when Grub students, instructors, and community members have a chance to show off their scribbled stylins' at our Spring Season Showcase.

Softball Department (brought to you by guest sportscaster, Tom Champoux)
ANDOVER –This week’s “Softball in a word”: Audacitude. Part audacity, part incertitude. The dauntless, plucky gang of Word-Slingers took on the Channel 4 news crew in Andover. Our beloved team put on quite an impressive display at the plate, spraying singles and doubles around the field.

The leather, too, flew wildly, if not always on target, and the team put up an impressive 5 quick runs. But, unfortunately, the Channel 4 news crew displayed a not-so-surprisingly fair aptitude for the sport themselves, quelling the Word-Slingers valiant effort. The final score isn’t really as important as, say, feeding hungry children or curing cancer, but suffice it to say we didn’t even cover the spread. The team did stage a late, smallish rally that included Laura's head-first, dust-generating slide.

Tom Meek showed off some great stuff and on the pitcher’s mound and Becky Tuch beat out a wicked throw for an infield single. Ethan Gilsdorf scored twice and Jon Papernick scooped up everything hit his way. No bumps or blood, and the only bruising afflicted our collective egos.

Great to see new players on the field and we hope lots of other folks are inspired to show up and root, root, root, for the home team. Alright, for those of you who just can’t squelch that yearning to know, the game ended with the fairly ugly score of 19-7.

Cheers,
Whitney, Chris, Paige and Sonya

Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like a bicycle built for forty-eight, we offer you the chance to win a prize. This week it's another question about Whitney's favorite author. Has Ian McEwan ever been convicted of a crime, and if so, what is it? Email your answer to Whitney. Winner receives a gift certificate for ice cream at J.P. Licks.

Answer to last week's quiz: In Ian McEwan's astoundingly good novella, On Chesil Beach, Florence plays in the Ennismore quartet. Winner: Sandra Pianin. �

Get Your NEAT On

2007-06-22T18:46:00.001-04:00

Okay, you probably didn't think you'd get lifestyle advice here at the The Penny Dreadful, but Whitney told me I could write about anything at all and I've been working on a nonfiction proposal about NEAT (to be explained later) all week long and it's on my mind. And I might add, it's a very relevant topic for you because I'm assuming you (like me) spend the majority of your waking hours parked on your bum in front of your computer.

You (like me) are probably sitting at this very moment.

Well the NEAT book I'm helping birth is by a scientist named Jim Levine who runs a lab out of the Mayo clinic and he's been studying obesity and metabolism since he was nine. Yes, nine. He was (it might be obvious) a very curious young boy and luckily his parents left him alone to build an aquarium for snails. He wanted to know whether snails moved in a straight lines or whether they zig zagged, so he woke himself up every half an hour all night long to chart their progress. He did this for months. I can't remember whether they went straight or zig zagged and it doesn't really matter. What matters is that Jim was obsessed with how living creatures move. He kept obsessing about movement into his teen years, through a PHd and an MD and right up until now. And lately he's been in the news because he's got a very simple and elegant and yet revolutionary theory about why we are all so damn heavy, sluggish and depressed (how many people do you know on Prozac?).

It turns out that it all boils down to NEAT - Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis. Now this is just a fancy word all of our movements large and small throughout the day. It's about how many calories we burn just living - climbing stairs, chewing gum, tapping our toes, necking (love that word), etc. It doesn't include exercise. Jim argues that in the past generation or two, we've lost 1000 calories of NEAT per day which equals pounds and pounds of fat every year. In earlier generations, people stayed effortlessly lean by just living! But now we're literary chained to our desks and it's killing us.

Jim argues that it's in our DNA to move, we evolved to move, our brains literally get high off of movement. Einstein thought up his theory of relativity while riding his bike. I'm sure more than one of you has come up with the perfect ending to your latest story while taking a walk. This is no accident. The brain creates while the body moves. One of the most striking images in Jim's book is an MRI of the brain of a sitting person verses a standing person. When a person simply stands, his or her brain lights up. It's there on the MRI in black and white.

Through very cool experiments using specially designed underwear which tracked the every movement and twitch of the people in the study, Jim has discovered the difference between the lean and the fat among us. It's not food. It's not exercise. It's NEAT. The difference between heavy Harry and lean Lawrence is about two and a half hours of NEAT per day. This is good news for all of us because it means if we can figure out a way to be more active for two and a half hours per day, we can stay lean. He's not talking about going to the gym or going on a diet. He's simply talking about moving more within the framework of your day. I love this because I loathe the gym. I pay every month. I never go. And I love eating, too.

Still, how do we do this? Well, he's got a lot of ideas, but one of the neatest ideas (and this will sound crazy at first) is a walking desk he designed. Tired of his own sendentary life, Jim decided to create his own desk. He went out and bought a treadmill, then he fashioned a desk on top of it. He does all of his email and phone calls now while walking a mile per hour. When he first tried it, he thought that he would be exhausted at the end of the day, but, in fact, he had more energy than ever. Since then, he's piloted versions of this desk at Fortune 500 companies and found that the people who try it, never want to go back to sitting. These desks are being mass produced and launched this summer.

In any case, it's food for thought. Since working with Jim, I find myself saying to my kids or my husband "let's get our NEAT in." I'm trying to make myself more NEAT by gardening, doing house projects I've been dreading, walking at least an hour a day and so on. Before I cram a donut into my pie hole, I ask myself if I've moved enough to earn it. And, I have to say, I do feel much better. My friend Judy, a professor at MIT, has been living this way all of her life (she thinks nothing of walking from Belmont to MIT, for example). She shrugs her shoulders and tells me that this is all common sense. I know she's right. But we are so far out of whack, we have so competely lost sight of how our bodies are meant to function (it's like we're trying to heat a house with an air conditioner), that this feels like a revolution to me. As soon as Jim's walking desks are on the market, I'll be in line (assuming I can cough up the dough - I have no idea what the cost will be), so if you call me, you might well hear the slight buzz of my treadmill as we talk...

That's all my proselytizing for tonight. I'll just end by saying: It's Friday night! Get off your ass and go dancing:)

Eve Bridburg

A Good Bingo

2007-06-21T12:49:00.000-04:00

If, like me, you've never played Bingo before--real Bingo, as the smokers told my sister outside the church--I highly recommend a trip to a bingo hall like St. Joseph's in Malden, which hosts Bingo each Wednesday night year round. Had you decided to go last night, you would have found the Grub Street staff (plus various husbands and family members), huddled around a long table, its surface dimpled and puckered with waterstains resembling an embarrassing skin ailment, frantically daubing at cheap paper bingo cards. Here are a few things you would have learned:

1. Bingo at St. Joseph's is a wicked bah-gain. For the timid (Whitney and Sonya), there are 9-game cards for $5--and that's for the whole night. For the experienced and slightly cocky (Chris) there are 12- or 15-game cards. Bingo does not take long to master, and by the end of the night we all wished we had been cocky.

2. Bingo builds up an appetite. Luckily, Saran-wrapped donuts, Klondike bars, congealed pizza and watery lemonade are all a buck or under.

3. Bingo games have beautiful patterns. On the brown board we make kites. On purple we make butterflys. On olive green we make crazy Ls, Ls that stand tall and Ls that loll lethargically, like drunks huddled against the walls of our bingo squares.

4. Bingo is not a noisy game. Quite possibly, this is because it's such an intense activity, but more likely it's because many of the players are hard of hearing and don't want to miss the calls. Much attention has been paid to creating a calming atmosphere: the potentially-concentration-killing shriek of the folding chairs' metal on dull linoleum has been craftily eliminated by shoeing the chair's feet with cut tennis balls, which also lend the room a sporty vibe, as if we're all playing bingo in a romper room. The bingo caller's voice is robotic, the timing between placing the number on the screen and calling it out perfectly synchronized, and as the games begin, the only sounds are of daubers thumped on pulpy paper, the click and slide of plastic bingo coins laid down on the more professional players' boards.

5. Bingo simultaneously soothes and exhilarates. Games may begin in silence, but as more and more numbers are called, murmurs build, a storm of muttering, tension rising, daubers thumped more assuredly or poised agonizingly above the board when numbers can't find their match. "Why isn't he calling any Bs?" someone stage whispers. "I17, I17, I17" the elderly woman next to us chants, rubbing the blank space on her board with a gnarled finger. And then, from a corner of the hall, a nonchalant "Bingo," the winner too cool and self-assured to shout it out with glee. A collective groan, a pause as the numbers are run through the computer, and then the caller says "That's a good bingo," and like a choreagraphed troupe, the entire room rips their bingo cards off and throws them away. A good bingo for one, a bad, bad bingo for everyone else.

6. The Grub Street staff is not a lucky staff. No one got close to getting bingo. We did, however, reminisce about a favorite short story: "After the Denim," by Raymond Carver. We drank the root beer and ate the Klondike bars. We learned our favorite bingo patterns (Sonya's is COVERALL). We chatted with the woman sitting next to us, there alone, her many daubers toted lovingly in a quilted carrier, who propped up a photo of her grandson, Elijah, and a cedar charm carved in the shape of an elephant. She helped us learn the rules of the game and waved goodbye when everything was over. Win or lose, THAT's a good bingo.

In dread (and bingo),
Whitney Scharer

The Great Pretender

2007-06-21T02:26:00.000-04:00

When I was seventeen I stalked a music writer in Minneapolis. He spent his time attending punk shows, writing reviews for our local newspaper, and responding, wearily, to my emails. “For the last time,” he’d say, “what do you want to write about?”

“Punk shows,” I’d say. “In Minneapolis!”

Years have passed but I’m the same: still wanting to write what others have already written. I find myself imitating. I may have good ideas, but never as good as that real genius over there. So I copy the geniuses, watching and nodding and mimicking their every gesture, just as an aerobics teacher is watched by her most desperate and sweating student.

It’s for this reason that people warn against reading while writing, but I can’t help it. I read Raymond Carver and suddenly all my characters become alcoholic and mean to their wives. A little Jane Austen turns them back into women. My flip-flopping is obvious and predictable. If Lorrie Moore writes about triplets, I want to write about triplets. If she writes about sheepdogs romping through Iceland— I, too, want to know such sheepdogs.

More disturbing is my impulse to copy other writers’ styles, aside from their content. After Amy Hempel I write dense sentences; after Dickens they’re pages long. Once, while studying “The Bible as Literature,” I began using the word “shall” in a story, frequently and without irony. Robert knows, I wrote, that he shall see her later, that she shall be wearing sandals. At these times I feel like a spineless writer. How can other literature influence me so easily?

Admiration, I think, is the problem. When you love a story, when a voice haunts and dazzles you, it takes up residence in your brain. It’s easy to go knocking on that residence when you’re unsure about your writing's direction or style, even though those borrowed ideas may be flagrantly inappropriate for the piece at hand. Imitating other work can also-- however falsely-- seem easier, since it means gliding on the details of an already-imagined world, rather than imagining it yourself.

Writers often talk about “finding your voice,” which means, I've realized, reaching a level of confidence in your writing interests that can withstand the torrent of reading wonderful—and very different—voices.

To counteract my Great Pretending, I have a little trick, which until now only Whitney has known. My trick is to read crap. A poor essay, a garbage story, a thoughtless poem. It’s shameful but true. Somehow scanning just a page of something I don’t like, that I don’t admire, makes me want to write something different and better. I forget chasing someone else's genius, and my own voice gets pushed into motion. In short: I stop pretending.

~Sonya Larson

Grub Street Rag, 6/18/07

2007-06-18T16:31:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from a picnic blanket in the Public Garden, near the world headquarters of Grub Street. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to
the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

Department of Congratulations

It's only fitting that we use our email newsletter to trumpet our enthusiastic congratulations for Grubbie David Scott, who published his third book this year. Called The New Rules of Marketing & PR, it's the #1 PR book on Amazon.com right now, and in the top 1000 books overall! David got his start as a novelist in a Grub Street workshop with Jenna Blum, and we've been proud to watch his growing success over the years. To read more about his book, check out http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/index.htm. Hurrah also to Grub supporter Hank Phillippi Ryan, whose first novel Prime Time was published last week. She has some great readings scheduled in the next weeks, including one at Porter Square Books tomorrow. We're also hoping to see you all at Redbones to celebrate the publication of Grub-Master-Fiction-er Stephanie Gayle's My Summer Of Southern Discomfort. All details below.

A writing whirlwind this week at Grub

We've got a LOT going on this week and next: seminars tonight (sold out, unfortunately for all you procrastinators out there), a film tomorrow night, weekend workshops, the Spring Season showcase next week, and much more. Though we wish we could talk about all of it, we'd like to put in special plugs for two fantastic events: the Boston premiere of the Out of the Book film series featuring Ian McEwan, and stellar Grub instructor Jamie Cat Callan's "Writers' Toolbox" workshop this weekend. Details for both are below, and these are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities here at Grub.

Softball Department (brought to you by guest sportscaster, Jen LaVin)

Grub Street Word-Slingers 5 Big Blue Moxie 8

NEWTON – Despite a full contingent, a handful of fans, and nice, if muggy, weather, The Word-Slingers just couldn’t bring forth enough of their own moxie to beat Big Blue Moxie at Forte Park in Newton this Father’s Day Sunday. In the end, it was Big Blue Moxie 8, Word-Slingers, 5.

But the team gave their all, with Captain Becky Tuch taking one on the shin, shortstop Jon Papernick taking in one in the chest, Ethan Gilsdorf straining his quad in the first inning, and Anna Goldsmith sidelined with a nasty case of carpel tunnel.

With most of Moxie’s runs coming from balls hit further than anyone thought a softball could be hit, The Word-Slingers put up a good defense Sunday. In his Word-Slingers debut, Matt Baker snagged some tough balls at second base and veteran Tom Meek filled in admirably as pitcher, also going 3 for 3 at bat.

But with the outstanding fielding skills of Moxie preventing the Word-Slingers from converting their many well hit balls into runs (including Diana Beaudoin’s first hit!), it was determined some batting practice is in order. So with batting cages booked, a positive attitude, and time to heal wounds and bruises, it will definitely be the battle of the media this Sunday, when The Word-Slingers take on word-slingers of the different kind, the Channel 4 News Team, at P&G field in Andover at 11 am.

Cheers,

Whitney, Chris, Paige and Sonya

Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like a kangaroo wearing a fanny pack, we offer you the chance to win a prize. In Ian McEwan's astoundingly good novella, On Chesil Beach, what is the name of Florence's quartet? Email your answer to Whitney. Winner receives a gift certificate for ice cream at J.P. Licks.

Answer to last week's quiz: In Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics, the narrator, Blue Van Meer, calls the two gossips Dee and Dum. Winner: Stephanie Erber.

Forget Moleskin

2007-06-13T14:34:00.000-04:00

I once knew a guy whose mom accidentally “threw out his novel,” which he later revealed had been scribbled on a pile of post-it notes. Idiot! I thought, but perhaps his writing method wasn’t so ridiculous.

Plenty of writers have preceded him. Borges, an obsessive-compulsive, wrote on accounting paper. Hemingway drafted on napkins. Famously, Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road on one continuous scroll, and Abraham Lincoln scrawled The Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope in a train car. What is it about humble materials that can produce great writing?

An old boyfriend once gave me a beautiful leather-bound blank book. “Oooh,” I’d said, and reached for it as I might a newborn child. It was from Italy. It smelled good. The pages were thick as cotton, cut rough around the edges, and I kept opening and closing the binding to hear it crack. Finally: an appropriate receptacle for my literary genius.

Weeks passed. “You’re not writing in the book,” said the boyfriend. “Go away,” I said. “I am too.” The truth was I had hidden it in a drawer. Was it possible to be scared of a pretty stack of paper?

Days later I pulled open the drawer and laid the book on my desk. I watched it. Then I spent several minutes selecting the best variety of pen— perhaps a ballpoint, or a blue felt tip. The luxury of the whole thing, the expectations of it, stalled me. Like an antique arm chair lined in velvet and silk, it was a beautiful thing to behold-- but you’d never want to use it.

The best stories, I often think, begin on napkins and in the margins of receipts. Not because that image is somehow more struggling or romantic, but because it more closely follows the distraction of one’s own writing ideas. If a story is going well, you may continue “writing” it while in the shower, or while falling asleep, or while pulling carrots from the garbage disposal. In such moments, who has time to find their leather-bound beauty? Scrawl it on your hand and keep pulling.

But more importantly, makeshift materials and beaten-up desks may better serve the goals of writing itself. If a writer’s job is to discover the odd details of life, to find what’s unlikely and unique and surprising— then it helps to be in such settings yourself. If your writing life is too comfortable, if it's not gritty enough, you may find yourself losing the intrigue that spawns stories in the first place. Or, I should say, I do.

So forget moleskin, and fountain pens crafted by French artisans. Artists need something to work against. They need friction. Embrace your dank basement desk, your crumpled legal pad, and your “studio time” on the city bus. Your means are not predictable— and your writing won’t be, either.

~Sonya Larson

Grub Street Rag, 6/11/2007

2007-06-11T16:55:00.000-04:00

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."

--Jack London

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday by the impatient impatiens planters at the world headquarters of Grub Street. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

At Laaaaaaaast!
The summer workshop calendar has arrived. Every year we say something like "man, we're going to take it easy this summer and have fewer classes," but somehow we always end up scheduling a huge menu of workhops, complete with many we haven't offered before. This summer, check out new amuse-bouches like Reading Like a Writer, The Middle of the Story, and Forms of Poetry; delectable aperitifs like Novel in Progress, Memoirs I and II and Writing & Producing the Short Film; and decadent palate cleansers like The Structure of Short Fiction and Master Ten Weeks Ten Poems. Hungry for more? We've also got nine weekend courses, four daytime workshops and seminars, and ten tasty seminars. No matter what you pick, we know you'll be satisfied.

Go forth and save
Grub Street Benefit Days at all Massachusetts Borders locations is this Thursday and Friday, June 14th and 15th. You'll get 10% off your purchases at all Borders stores, and 10% of the net sales will go to your favorite non-profit: Grub! Click here to download the PDF coupon: http://www.grubstreet.org/email/EventCoupon.pdf.

Softball Department (brought to you by guest sportscaster, Jen LaVin)
Grub Street Word-Slinger 5, Irish Cannolis 14
SOMERVILLE – Sunday, The Word-Slingers successfully defended their record-breaking non-winning streak, losing to the Irish Cannolis 5 to 14 at Trum field.

Going into this latest game, the team assumed their black-colored shirts would provide significant intimidation. But you know what they say about assuming… And unfortunately, the team soon discovered that it was no match for the pale pink of the Irish Cannolis, who served them up their second loss of the season. Seems black shirts are just plain hot on a nice sunny day.

Despite the score, the game proved to boost the spirits of The Word-Slingers immensely, who turned out in record numbers. With fans in the stands and subs on the bench, the team enjoyed some memorable moments, with Chris Castellani’s handful of strikeouts, including one of the other team’s heavy hitters (which drew cheers from both teams), and Jeff Stern’s impressive catches in center field, including one sliding on his knees that ultimately drew blood.

New players and rookies alike agreed that, given the quality of the play and the fun that was had, the score should have been much closer. As a result, The Word-Slingers look forward to taking on Big Blue Moxie in Newton on Father’s Day, June 17, and bringing the losing streak to its long overdue end.

Cheers,

Whitney, Chris, Paige and Sonya

In addition to our ongoing workshops, Grub Street offers numerous writing-related events around town. See our website for a long-term view of all we do. Here is a sample of what's on the horizon:

FREE LUNCHTIME COURSE: Tuesday, June 12th, 12:30-1:15, Brown Bag Lunch Series Do you work downtown and want to fit some writing into your day? Or do you have a schedule that gives you free afternoons instead of evenings? Bring your lunch and come on over to Grub Street for a Brown Bag Writing Workshop. In 45 jam-packed minutes, you'll meet fellow writers and get your creative juices flowing with some great writing exercises. Led by one of our award-winning instructors or ambassadors. Best of all, you'll leave lunch with some new ideas to ponder for the rest of your day, and beyond. Taught by instructor Sonya Larson. These workshops are free and open to the public. Max. 15 students, email sonya@grubstreet.org to RSVP or call us at 617.695.0075.FREE, 160 Bolyston Street, Boston MA.

Tuesday, June 19th, 7pm, Harvard Book Store and Grub Street present The Boston Premiere of Out of the Book
Harvard Bookstore, with help from Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Oregon and Grub Street Writers of Boston, presents the Boston premiere of Out of the Book – a new series of short films about notable authors. Join us on June 19 for a special evening featuring readings, music, and a new film featuring bestselling novelist Ian McEwan. McEwan’s new novel, On Chesil Beach, focuses on the first night between a young married couple. What better way to celebrate the debut of this film than a group of talented writers talking about other “first nights”? Grub Street’s own Pamela Painter, Jon Papernick, and Elizabeth Benedict will read their own short pieces about wedding nights. Directed by Doug Biro (Herbie Hancock: Possibilities) and shot over four days in England and the United States, the film includes interviews with McEwan in London, on location footage from Chesil Beach and Oxford, and original soundtrack, commentary from peers and critics, one perplexing glimpse at British media, and more.$7 Grub members (show your card at the bookstore); $10 non-members. Tickets are available at the store or over the phone with a credit card at 617-661-1515. Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Harvard Square.

SEMINAR: Monday, June 18th, 7pm – 10pm, What We Talk About When We Talk About Voice

What is "voice," and what do writers and critics mean when they discuss it? How does voice differ from other literary elements like point of view, tone and style? In this one night-seminar, fiction writer Becky Tuch and poet Jennifer Elmore will lead you through this discussion as well as writing exercises that will examine the complex concept of voice. You will explore issues of voice in well- known novels, short stories and poems, as well as in your own works- in-progress. Experimenting with voice is a productive way to stretch your writing skills and/or end your writer's block! Come prepared for writing exercises and to leave with new ideas for your own work. Instructors: Becky Tuch and Jennifer Elmore.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street Headquarters, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Monday, June 18th, 7pm – 10pm, Travel Writing
Ever thought travel writing would be a great way to make a living? Dashing off a few pages on your last vacation experience can seem easy, but can you shape the story into a form that is original, well-written and most importantly, saleable? In this highly informative seminar taught by a freelance travel writer for The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler and The Washington Post, students will receive a comprehensive overview of the travel writing field: the types of stories, the markets available to freelancers, how to shape stories and write pitch letters, what publications actually pay, plus more esoteric craft matters such as what makes a good travel memoir. Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
$45/$40 members, Grub Street Headquarters, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Monday, June 18th, 7pm – 10pm, Truth In Fiction
Fiction relies heavily on a writer's creativity and imagination, but generally there are kernels of truth and personal, human experience in even the most outlandish stories. In this seminar we will examine the way that our daily lives, our experiences, our feelings, even our darkest secrets and most emotional days can color our un-truths, and can yield vibrant and emotive writing that will have readers asking, "Did this really happen to you?" The key here is finding the balance between drawing on the key elements of your experiences, and using key emotions and elements to create new characters and new situations. We'll begin by free-writing, and then examine some passages from popular books--some that work, and some that don't work as well--and then we'll spend the rest of the time working on putting pieces of the experiences of our lives into another language: fiction. (Be prepared to share your work with others). Instructor: Brian Sousa. $45/$40 members, Grub Street Headquarters, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

WEEKEND COURSE: Saturday-Sunday, 6.23.07 – 6.24.07, 9-4pm each day (includes one hour for lunch) Weekend Workout For Novelists
If you want to work on a novel but can't find the time for a 10-week workshop, this intensive weekend class will give you the tools you need to get started. Through a combination of in-class exercises, readings, discussions of craft and an overnight assignment, you'll learn how to get your novel started, as well as how to keep the story moving 100 pages in. Come to class with a short summary of the novel you'd like to write, or a first page; leave with an opening scene or even a first chapter, as well as strategies to keep the writing flowing come Monday morning. Note: This workshop was recently the subject of a Boston Globe article, which praised Lisa Borders for creating an inspiring and productive workshop.
$195/$170 members, Grub Street Headquarters, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

WEEKEND COURSE: Saturday-Sunday, 6.23.07 – 6.24.07, 9-4pm each day (includes one hour for lunch) The Writers' Toolbox
Spend the weekend with one of our most inspiring and entertaining instructors as she leads you through exercises from her recently published how-to book, The Writers Toolbox: Creative Games and Exercises For Inspiring the 'Write' Side of Your Brain (Chronicle, April 2007). The exercises – with names like "First Sentences," "Non Sequiturs," and "Last Straws" – are meant to be fun, generative and also applicable to any piece of writing on which you're currently working. Best yet; Jamie Cat Callan is an expert at giving on-the-spot feedback on the scenes and descriptions you'll be generating. $195/$170 members, Grub Street Headquarters, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

WEEKEND COURSE: Saturday-Sunday, 6.23.07 – 6.24.07, 9-4pm each day (includes one hour for lunch) Screenplay Lab
If you want thoughtful feedback on your complete or near-complete screenplay, this is the workshop for you. Spend the weekend transforming your screenplay from a good first draft to a more compelling, more marketable revised version. You will also get advice on how to get your screenplay to the right contests or agencies.
$195/$170 members, Grub Street Headquarters, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

On the Horizon:

6/25: The Dialogue-Driven Story

6/25: Rejection, Rejection: Why It's Happening to You, and How to Avoid It

6/25: You’re Writing A Memoir: So What?

6/25: Words and Images

7/21-7/22: The Story Details

7/21-7/22: Travel Writing

7/21-7/22: Surviving the Slush Pile

****Events Around Town****

--READING: Tuesday, June 12, 2007, 7:00 PM Julia Glass, The Whole World Over
Says Kirkus Reviews: "Readers who love quirky characters and a gentle wit that breathes affection even as it skewers human foolishness and frailty will follow [Glass] anywhere." Julia Glass is the author of the National Book Award winning novel The Three Junes. She is a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and winner of three Nelson Algren Awards and the Tobias Wolff Award. She lives in Massachusetts with her family.
FREE, Porter Square Books, Porter Square Shopping Center, 25 White Street, Cambridge.

--READING: Thursday, June 14th, 7pm, Jacqueline Sheehan reading from Lost and Found
Grub member and weekend workshop instructor Jacqueline Sheehan reads from her novel Lost and Found, published by Avon/Harper Collins in April 2007. "Jacqueline Sheehan is a New England psychologist noted for her essays and the critically acclaimed novel, Truth,
based on the life of abolitionist Sojourner Truth. This new trade fiction original is a stunning, shattering work that gently probes the human psyche to unveil a measure of what it takes to find oneself in a time of loss." Oh, and there's a dog, a gorgeous dog who completely steals the show. FREE, Central Square Branch Library, 45 Pearl Street, Cambridge.

--READING: June 17 – 23, 2007, 7:30pm each night, Solstice Summer Writers' Conference
Sunday, June 17: Pulitzer Prize Finalist and National Book Award Finalist for poetry Cornelius Eady, Newbery Honor and Christopher Medal recipient Norma Fox Mazer, and MA Book Award winner Roland Merullo. Monday, June 18: Pushcart Prize nominee & Theodore Goodman Award for Fiction winner Lee Hope, Los Angeles Times Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award Winner Randall Kenan, and Oprah Book Club/best-selling novelist Andre Dubus III. Tuesday, June 19: Borders and Amazon’s “Best of 2004” novelist Sarah Micklem, award-winning poet Naomi Ayala, and, from Pine Manor’s MFA Program faculty: award-winning novelist Dennis Lehane. Wednesday, June 20: Poet, translator, and anthologist Kurt Brown, award-winning fiction writer/program assistant Tanya Whiton, and best-selling novelist & creator of the first African American female detective, Valerie Wilson Wesley. See website for complete schedule. The readings are free and open to the public. Copies of the authors’ books will be available for sale and signing during the cash-bar receptions following the readings. Free, Founder’s Room of Pine Manor College, located at 400 Heath Street in Chestnut Hill.

--READING: Sunday, June 24th, 7:30pm, Grace Paley and Mark Doty
One of the most acclaimed short story writers of our time, Grace Paley’s collections include The Little Disturbances of Man, Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, and The Collected Poems. Mark Doty is the author of seven books of poems, including School of the Arts, and three volumes of nonfiction prose. This reading is part of the Juniper Summer Writing Institute's reading series at UMass. FREE, Bezanson Recital Hall, Fine Arts Center, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like grandma panties under lowrider jeans, we offer you the chance to win a prize. In Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics, what are the nicknames the narrator gives to the two main high school gossips? Email your answer to Whitney. Winner receives a gift certificate for ice cream at J.P. Licks.

Answer to last week's quiz: On June 4th, Raymond Carver would be celebrating 30 years of sobriety; he reportedly took his last drink in June 1977 after joining Alcoholics Anonymous. Winner: Anne Stuart.

Guest Blog: Jane Roper's Baby Squared

2007-06-09T10:01:00.000-04:00

For our very first guest blog, I am excited to recommend the work of one of our favorite Grubbies: Jane Roper. Jane was a student in the very first fiction course I taught at Grub Street back in January of 2000. It was also Jane's first fiction workshop at Grub, though she was a writer by profession at one of Boston's most prominent advertising agencies.

Thanks in large part to my inspiration (ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a little), Jane went on to write great fiction and a beautiful novel, work that eventually landed her in the Iowa Writers Workshop. We don't acknowledge this often enough, but Jane was also one of the founders of "The Muse and the Marketplace" conference - in fact, it was Jane who named it!

She returned to Boston a couple years ago, and is now an instructor at Grub as well as a mother of twins. Jane is an excellent writer, which you'll see when you check out Baby Squared, which she promises to update about 3 times a week. Enjoy!

Jane says: "If you're not already familiar with it, Babble.com is a cool new parenting site from the folks at Nerve.com. It's aimed primarily at urban-dwelling / Gen-X parents, and has parenting advice, essays, forums, articles, etc. all with a bit of an irreverent twist. (It's also got a lot of ads for upscale baby products, which, like me, you can choose to ignore). One of my favorite guilty pleasures on the site is Fame Crawler -- the celebrity baby blog."

Thank you, Jane, for all you've done for Grub Street and for your wonderful writing. We look forward to following you on this latest adventure.

~Chris Castellani

Dreaming big, but will fiction follow?

2007-06-07T11:45:00.000-04:00

I know that everyone says not to start stories with dreams, but last night I had a strange one. It involved me "accidentally" marrying the wrong person (a common theme in my dreams, oddly) and not knowing what to do. At the end of the dream, I was standing on a frozen river, and when I started walking, my feet kept punching through the snowy crust and getting stuck in the current below. I walked this way for a while, and then came to the edge of a canyon. I stood on the canyon's rim, and looked over at the opposite rim, where my (accidental) husband was standing close to the edge. I called to him to get his attention, and when I did, he shouted with surprise and fell, plunging quickly into the depths of the canyon. The dream was a vivid one, and I watched him fall with a heady mix of emotions: sadness, fear, and most of all a deep relief that I would no longer have to be married to him.

The oddest thing about this dream was how literary it was. Instead of just unfolding, dreamlike, it was as if there was a sort of narrator, voicing over everything. I dreamt the words "punched through the snowy crust" and "deep relief," felt them AND heard them.

As I lay there, somewhat awake, I kept thinking that I had to get up and write it all down, that THIS was a story worth telling. But I've never been smart enough to keep a journal next to my bed, and the few times when I've had something to write on when I wake up in the morning, I'm
always disgusted when I read over my "amazing" nighttime ideas. And of course, by the time I was in the shower this morning, the dream seemed utterly absurd, silly and improbable; certainly not the stuff of good fiction.

But it got me thinking about where good ideas DO come from. While my dreams have never turned into good stories, I've found that I do my best writing in the morning, when my brain is still teetering between sleeping and waking. I think it's a flexibility thing--as soon as my Outlook calendar is open and my day is blocked off into checkboxes on a task list, I have a lot more trouble being creative.

I'm curious if other people have had luck using ideas that come from dreams, and how those ideas are remembered--just as flashes of images, or whole narratives? Has anyone written a successful story that came from a dream? Feel free to comment. I'd love to know what you think.

GRUB NEWS: We're all psyched about the Night of Debuts tomorrow night, June 8th, at 7:30pm. The event features readings by authors Jennifer McMahon, Tish Cohen and Patry Francis. Jennifer's book, PROMISE NOT TO TELL, was mentioned on NBC’s Today Show Saturday morning as one of ten “sizzling beach reads” for this summer and scored a 4-star review in People, while Tish Cohen's book sold out on Amazon the day it debuted, and Patry's book The Liar's Diary has gained a huge national following. The lovely Porter Square Books will be manning the book table, and we'll all sip champagne and nosh on chocolate treats. If you'd like to come, RSVP, please: 617.695.0075 or sonya@grubstreet.org. See you there!

In dread,
Whitney Scharer

Never Enough: The Elusiveness of "Meaning" In the Writer's Life

2007-06-05T22:41:00.000-04:00

A cool thing happened today. I was self-Googling, that unseemly but mostly harmless habit all writers have but seldom discuss, when I came upon a hit I hadn't seen the day before. Finally -- a new mention to either stroke or slap my ego! It had been a while.

Apparently someone was presenting a paper about my second novel at an MLA-affiliated conference. The abstract of the paper articulated a thesis about the "unspoken" in Italian American culture, which I had dramatized via my traditional characters. Having researched and written numerous papers like this in grad school, I harrumphed at the PC subject matter (multi-culturalism, the canon, "authentic voice"); I chuckled at the tell-tale use of the colon in the title; I winced at the memory of my own feeble efforts to say something new and important about the work of authors like Whitman, Coleridge and Eliot. Then it struck me: this person wasn't writing about some nineteenth-century classic. S/he was writing about my book! S/he may have even highlighted her copy. Notecards may have been involved.

I found myself blushing, flattered. I re-read the abstract many times. When Whitney and Sonya walked by, I quickly closed the tab, as if I were looking at porn. (Of course, in a way, I was...)

As far as I know, my books have never been written about or presented in this way before. In fact, despite a decent track record, I am always astonished when someone tells me they've heard of me, let alone read or enjoyed my work. Some of my writer friends expect to be studied; I expect to be ignored, then forgotten. If people do show admiration, I immediately question their taste.

I used to look forward to a time when I didn't have such dreary expectations. I once envied the so-called established writer -- that distinguished gentleman who published a substantial body of work, won awards, gave lectures, and had his work dissected at MLA. I thought, how confident I'll be! Surely I'll sit around each night reading my own books, delighting in every perfectly-placed word, taking bets on who might honor me next.

But I will never be that writer. Not necessarily because I won't be able to establish myself, but because, even if I do, no honor or award - no sustained success - will ever convince me I am truly worth a reader's time. (Even you now, reading this, don't you have anything better to do?) I wonder how many so-called established writers share this other unseemly habit of mine, the one that compels me to question the judgment of my admirers.

It all goes back to my belief that one of main reasons we write, and want so desperately to publish, is that we want to make a permanent and meaningful mark on the world -- something that will ultimately -- finally! -- convince us that we matter. I find it a cruel and yet strangely comforting irony that nothing can convince us of this along the way, and that constant dissatisfaction and uncertainty are actually what keep us going. Keats had something to say about this; so did Wilde; I imagine it's nothing new.

I imagine it's also why so many of us drink.

~Chris Castellani

Grub Street Rag, 6/4/2007

2007-06-04T16:41:00.000-04:00

"Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it." --Colette

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday by the slug salters at the world headquarters of Grub Street. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

Hooray of the day
Do we have news to report or what? Grub member Matthew Sandel's 10-minute play, "Hugs and Kisses," was a finalist for the recent Boston Theater Marathon 2007. Master Class novelists Iris Gomez and Randy Meyers have both been chosen as semi-finalists for the 2007 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Novel-In-Progress competition. Instructor Mike Heppner has a new story on Nerve.com , and exhorts us to "go now while it's still free." And last but not least, Grubbie Tom Meek's "Quin Quimby" is a finalist in the 48 Hour Film Contest. Congratulations to all--what an inspiration you are!

Debut News
We're so excited about our Night of Debuts this Friday, June 8th at 7:30pm, featuring authors Jennifer McMahon, Tish Cohen and Patry Francis. Jennifer's book, PROMISE NOT TO TELL, was mentioned on NBC’s Today Show Saturday morning as one of ten “sizzling beach reads” for this summer and scored a 4-star review in People, while Tish Cohen's book sold out on Amazon the day it debuted, and Patry's book The Liar's Diary has gained a huge national following. More details below. If you'd like to come, RSVP, please: 617.695.0075 or sonya@grubstreet.org.

Softball Department
RETURN TO MUDVILLE
Grub Street Word-Slingers 5 CFKAIBT 31
ANDOVER – The name of the field has changed (from Gillette to Proctor & Gamble), but it remains a house of horrors for the Grub Street Word-Slingers, who were defeated in Sunday’s home opener before a soggy crowd of one.

“You know it’s bad when you’re down 6-0 before the game starts,” said veteran infielder Jeff Stern, referring to the stiff penalties incurred by the team when only one of the four required female players – bemused rookie Diana Beaudoin – showed up. For each of the missing women, the CFKAIBT were awarded two runs. Worse: the Word-Slingers got an out every time one of the missing women came up in the batting order. If they’d managed to mount any rallies, these outs would have been total rally-killers.

After three scoreless innings, the sleeping beasts of the CFKAIBT roared awake in the fourth, adding six runs. The Word-Slingers chipped away inning by inning with a run or two, but by the sixth, as the rain turned to mist, so did any hope of an Opening Day Miracle. The CFKAIBT hit so many home runs that the official scorer lost track, which means that 31 is a fairly conservative estimate.

Worst: these CFKAIBT were a surly, humorless bunch – inscrutable and off-putting as their name. “If you’re going to trounce us, at least laugh at our self-deprecating jokes,” said doused flamethrower Chris Castellani, whose attempts at gallows humor between pitches fell continually flat. It was obvious that the CFKAIBT did not belong in the Recreational League. Less obvious is where the Word-Slingers belong.

Next game is Sunday, June 10th, 12PM at Trum Field (Somerville) vs. the Irish Cannolis. Will they cream the Word-Slingers, or be devoured?

Cheers,
Whitney, Chris, Paige and Sonya

In addition to our ongoing workshops, Grub Street offers numerous writing-related events around town. See our website for a long-term view of all we do. Here is a sample of what's on the horizon:

Reading/Book Party: Friday, June 8th, 7:30pm, A Night of Debuts
Come hear the work of Jennifer McMahon, Tish Cohen and Patry Francis.We'll have champagne and a selection of desserts, and the event will also feature a fun contest. Tish, Jen, and Patry will each pick one name from a hat, and the winner will receive a free consultation with the author on their query letter and first manuscript page. This is an excellent opportunity to hear three great readers and get feedback from authors who have achieved huge success.
FREE (donations accepted and appreciated) Grub Street Headquarters, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA. RSVP, please: 617.695.0075 or sonya@grubstreet.org.

Saturday Serial: Saturday, June 9th, 10AM – Noon, Metaphor Mastery
What makes a metaphor memorable? When does it enrich a moment, enlighten a character, and when is it just awkward or distracting? Learn how great writers have freshened images through some powerful and unlikely associations, and try your hand at new ways of likening a truck, a village, or a human heart. Coffee and donuts await you!
FREE (donations accepted and appreciated) Grub Street Headquarters, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA. RSVP, please: 617.695.0075 or sonya@grubstreet.org.

Tuesday, June 19th, 7pm, Harvard Book Store and Grub Street present The Boston Premiere of Out of the Book
Harvard Book Store, with help from Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Oregon and Grub Street Writers of Boston, presents the Boston premiere of Out of the Book – a new series of short films about notable authors. Join us on June 19 for a special evening featuring readings, music, and a new film featuring bestselling novelist Ian McEwan. McEwan’s new novel, On Chesil Beach, focuses on the first night between a young married couple. What better way to celebrate the debut of this film than a group of talented writers talking about other “first nights”? Grub Street’s own Pamela Painter, Jon Papernick, and Elizabeth Benedict will read their own short pieces about wedding nights. Directed by Doug Biro (Herbie Hancock: Possibilities) and shot over four days in England and the United States, the film includes interviews with McEwan in London, on location footage from Chesil Beach and Oxford, and original soundtrack, commentary from peers and critics, one perplexing glimpse at British media, and more.
$7 Grub members (show your card at the bookstore); $10 non-members. Tickets are available at the store or over the phone with a credit card at 617-661-1515. Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Harvard Square.

SEMINAR: Monday, June 18th, 7pm – 10pm, What We Talk About When We Talk About Voice
What is "voice," and what do writers and critics mean when they discuss it? How does voice differ from other literary elements like point of view, tone and style? In this one night-seminar, fiction writer Becky Tuch and poet Jennifer Elmore will lead you through this discussion as well as writing exercises that will examine the complex concept of voice. You will explore issues of voice in well- known novels, short stories and poems, as well as in your own works- in-progress. Experimenting with voice is a productive way to stretch your writing skills and/or end your writer's block! Come prepared for writing exercises and to leave with new ideas for your own work. Instructors: Becky Tuch and Jennifer Elmore.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street Headquarters, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Monday, June 18th, 7pm – 10pm, Travel Writing
Ever thought travel writing would be a great way to make a living? Dashing off a few pages on your last vacation experience can seem easy, but can you shape the story into a form that is original, well-written and most importantly, saleable? In this highly informative seminar taught by a freelance travel writer for The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler and The Washington Post, students will receive a comprehensive overview of the travel writing field: the types of stories, the markets available to freelancers, how to shape stories and write pitch letters, what publications actually pay, plus more esoteric craft matters such as what makes a good travel memoir. Instructor: Ethan Gilsdorf
$45/$40 members, Grub Street Headquarters, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

SEMINAR: Monday, June 18th, 7pm – 10pm, Truth In Fiction
Fiction relies heavily on a writer's creativity and imagination, but generally there are kernels of truth and personal, human experience in even the most outlandish stories. In this seminar we will examine the way that our daily lives, our experiences, our feelings, even our darkest secrets and most emotional days can color our un-truths, and can yield vibrant and emotive writing that will have readers asking, "Did this really happen to you?" The key here is finding the balance between drawing on the key elements of your experiences, and using key emotions and elements to create new characters and new situations. We'll begin by free-writing, and then examine some passages from popular books--some that work, and some that don't work as well--and then we'll spend the rest of the time working on putting pieces of the experiences of our lives into another language: fiction. (Be prepared to share your work with others). Instructor: Brian Sousa.
$45/$40 members, Grub Street Headquarters, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

On the Horizon:
6/23: Writing Workout for Novelists
6/23: The Writers' Toolbox
6/23: Screenplay Lab
6/25: Nuts and Bolts of Journalism
6/25: The Dialogue-Driven Story
6/25: Words and Images

Grub Street wants to promote YOU!!! Please send events for consideration to whitney@grubstreet.org. Our apologies if we can't fit you in.

--SEEKING SUBMISSIONS:
Meeting House, the new online journal of New England Fiction, is accepting submissions for its first issue. We want to highlight the best fiction from New England writers, and we're looking for stories of any genre. Send your best to meetinghouse@newenglandfiction.com. For more information, visit our website, www.newenglandfiction.com, or email info@newenglandfiction.com.

--JOB OPPORTUNITY: Temporary Copywriter at Oxfam America
Work for a great organization, and have fun too: Check out http://www.idealist.org/

--READING: Monday, June 11th, 6:30pm, ANNE FADIMAN reads from At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays
Harvard Book Store is delighted to host Anne Fadiman at a reading of her new collection: At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays, a book that Publishers Weekly is calling "a perfectly faceted little gem." In At Large and At Small, Anne Fadiman returns to one of her favorite genres, the familiar essay—a beloved and hallowed literary tradition recognized for both its intellectual breadth and its miniaturist focus on everyday experiences. With the combination of humor and erudition that has distinguished her as one of our finest essayists, Fadiman draws us into twelve of her personal obsessions: from her slightly sinister childhood enthusiasm for catching butterflies to her monumental crush on Charles Lamb, from her wistfulness for the days of letter-writing to the challenges and rewards of moving from the city to the country.
FREE, Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge.

--READING: Tuesday, June 12, 2007, 7:00 PM Julia Glass, The Whole World Over
Says Kirkus Reviews: "Readers who love quirky characters and a gentle wit that breathes affection even as it skewers human foolishness and frailty will follow [Glass] anywhere." Julia Glass is the author of the National Book Award winning novel The Three Junes. She is a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and winner of three Nelson Algren Awards and the Tobias Wolff Award. She lives in Massachusetts with her family.
FREE, Porter Square Books, Porter Square Shopping Center, 25 White Street, Cambridge.

Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like a cyclops with an eye patch, we offer you the chance to win a prize. If Raymond Carver were still alive, what would he be celebrating today, June 4th? Email your answer to Whitney. Winner receives a gift certificate for ice cream at J.P. Licks.

Answer to last week's quiz: In Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, John Logan, a doctor, dies trying to save someone in a hot air balloon. Winner: Joel Murphy.

The Long and Short of It

2007-06-01T17:31:00.000-04:00

Weeks back, Whitney and I began a long-desired task: Project Novel. We’d both write one, leaving our usual short story voices behind. But even on page one, that voice was pestering me.

For years I’ve worked to make my short fiction sharper, cleaner, and punchier. Like Picasso’s sketches, it seemed that 3 precisely drawn lines were better than a hundred so-so ones. So I learned to make cuts. I snipped anything that felt redundant or irrelevant. I gave myself assignments in efficiency: Define a character in 7 words or less. Tell a house’s history in one paragraph. I like to believe it helped: my scenes popped to life, my verbs became stronger, my dialogue more honest and interesting.

Then came this novel. How different could it be? Writing a novel, I figured, looked like writing a short story except you didn't stop. I gathered my story collections around my desk, like a swarm of loyal cats, and flexed my writing hand. Here we go! Project Novel! I typed a first page in my practiced short story style. A character in 7 words? Done. A house in 3 sentences? Done and done.

After a break I read over my remarkably efficient first page, and frowned. Rather than roll beautifully, my prose clunked. It felt choppy and frantic. I began to wonder if my preferred short fiction style felt a bit like walking in stillettos. It was deliberate, swift, and maybe even thrilling, but you wouldn’t want to shlep like this all day.

And days, I’m realizing, is what novels require. Weeks, and even months. In asking readers to spend so much time reading, a writer must learn not to exhaust them. Readers need relief. They need comfortable— though not boring— shoes.

So what makes some voices work for novels, and others not?

The answer may lie in rhythm and pacing. Short fiction puts emphasis on the sentence, since there are so few of them, and a good one will reveal character, advance plot, set the scene, and establish voice— all at once. This speeds the story’s momentum and escalates readers toward the fast-approaching end. But such sentences in a novel may feel hurried or even out-of-touch. Novels have space to stretch out, so why not stretch? If a novel doesn’t do this, readers may actually feel cheated out of rich and available details.

The novel form turns my idea of efficiency on its head. Redundancies in short fiction become emphasis in a novel; irrelevancies become digressions. There’s just way more room to run around.

I'm not suggesting that a successful novel style is somehow more admirable. On the contrary, a great short story can contain more life and truth than 300 pages of a novel! Below are some invaluable writers known much better for their stories than for their novels. When I'm procrastinating on this novel, I like to think about what makes their writing work better in a shorter form.

Jorge Luis Borges
Raymond Carver
Lorrie Moore
Amy Hempel
Pamela Painter
Denis Johnson
Flannery O’Connor
Anton Chekhov
Andre Dubus
O. Henry

...and please, add your own!

Of course, good writing is good writing-- whatever form it comes in. That’s the long and short of it.

~Sonya Larson

Reality 2, Fantasy 0

2007-05-31T15:15:00.000-04:00

The fantasy: It's 6am on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. I'm just outside of Portland, OR, the morning after my best friend's wedding. I wake easily, the smallest glimmer of sunrise pulling me from bed. Softly, so as not to wake Ryan, I slip on flipflops, grab a journal, and head out to an Adirondack chair on the hotel's sloping front porch. Everyone else is still sleeping, and I have time to write 3, 5, 22 pages of my book before the hubbub of the hotel coming to life saps my concentration.

The reality: 11am, I am huddled over a cup of coffee I can't drink, attempting to eat a slice of dry toast, wondering where I left my glasses. I have spent the last half hour stumbling around my hotel room, squinting at piles of clothing and picking up objects at random in the hopes that they might be obscuring my spectacles. Did I put them under the alarm clock? Between the pages of the Gideon? Behind the toilet?

The fantasy: Monday morning of Memorial Day, I wake before all my friends and brew a pot of coffee in the house we've rented for the post-wedding weekend. The house is quiet, calm. A gentle ocean breeze blows through the window. I take my journal and sit at the rough-hewn dining table, the coffee cold and forgotten next to me as I cruise through 6, 12, 18 more pages of my book.

The reality: Ryan slams the bedroom door on the way back from the bathroom at 10:30. "Gotta pack," he says.
I groan, flinging an arm over my eyes as he flings open the curtains.
"Crap, it's 10:30? I thought I'd get up early and write today," I say, all earnestness.
Ryan stares down at my prone form with a pitying expression.
"Who ARE you?" he asks. "Blanche DuBois? 'Oh, ah'm a southern belle.'"

He has a point. Even New Dedicated Me is not going to get up at 6am on a holiday weekend with friends to work on my book. New Dedicated Me is a bit loonybins to even THINK that I would be able to do this. And yet... and yet... at the end of the vacation, I find myself feeling a little sad that I didn't write anything.

I'm what you would call a skeptical creature of habit. I frown at claims that humans love schedules and routines, yet admit that without a routine, I wouldn't accomplish anything. The only time I can go to the gym is if I'm in a pattern of going to the gym--somehow, the thought of squandering all the previous weeks' hard work on a lie-in and a doughnut is enough to get me up and swathed in Lycra. The same holds true for writing: all that thinking and scribbling I've been doing every morning is going to lose momentum and sputter to a stop if I don't keep at it each day.

So: reality may have won out over fantasy this past weekend, but as of tomorrow I'll be back into my usual morning routine. And I'll probably keep falling off the wagon, but hopefully each time, I'll get back on just a little bit quicker than the time before.

In dread,
Whitney Scharer

What Your Friends Are Reading

2007-05-30T17:24:00.000-04:00

Stalking people is fun, but stalking their books is better. Since I learned of GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/, I've felt an obsession coming like a bad rash. And here: I'm passing it to you!

The site lets you list and track your favorite books and those of your friends, instructors, and attractive strangers. You can rate books and write blurbs, and click on someone's profile to see what they love and how to get your hands on it. Find Steinbeck fans in Somerville or Marquez fans in Mattapan. You can even label books as "currently reading" or "to-read," which should help clowns like me, whose "to-read" list is long and embarrassing.

Who's that stud who loves Anagrams? Who'd take a bullet for Revolutionary Road? It's the literary way to fall in love.

~Sonya Larson

Where I'm Writing From

2007-05-25T14:07:00.000-04:00

Today's blog is from guest contributor Raymond Carver, who was born on this day in 1938 in Clatskanie, Oregon.

Today’s my birthday, and I’m at a desk at Grub Street. I’ve been here before. What’s to say? I’m back.

Some birthdays ago, I moved to Boston and married a woman. We had a kid. I wrote a couple things, nothing special. I was happy with the way things were going. I had a wife and kid I loved, and an okay delivery job. I was living in the city I wanted to live in. But for some reason— who knows why we do what we do?-- my writing picks up. I begin missing some dinners. Or else I’d show up but I wouldn’t want anything to eat. I’d filled up on snacks at the bar. Sometimes I’d walk in the door and for no good reason throw my lunch pail across the living room. When my wife yelled at me, I’d turn around and go out again.

I did janitorial work and more deliveries. I kept writing. Poems, sometimes a fiction story. There was a part of me that wanted to keep doing deliveries. But there was another part.

I had heard of Grub Street. The barman said something. I’d like to know what on earth this place was. In their headquarters there was this supposed library and some rooms for workshops. The staff, they were all-right-looking, too.

Anyway, these headquarters I went to. It was in a building on Boylston Street. You could see it had tall windows. I walked in this building and up an elevator to the top floor, walked around, saw through those windows overlooking a green park. So okay. I’m saying it felt different in there. There were books and tables, and a long red couch. So much writing so close to home, where had I been? I knew I was inside an office. But it didn’t feel like I was inside anything.

I signed up for a workshop, with other writers and a teacher. Here’s how it went. You'd write something and fix it up, then fix it again, finally show it to your friend or your barman, your wife even. Your wife and your barman would say, Alright, a nice pile of words. But what did they know? They weren't your teacher.

This teacher read my story. It was nighttime when she read it, along with people in the workshop. We sat around one of those tables with plastic cups of water. They talked about my story, they liked reading it. They could read and read. I felt funny. The teacher liked the story-- a small, good thing, she said— but I’d have to fix it. Fix it again! Too much, I said. I got stormy but later I went through the pages and she was right. I got these notions forming.

As for the deliveries, they were alright. I felt I had a different job. Later my wife would call, and she’d ask me where I’m calling from, and I’d have to tell her. I’m at Grub Street, on Boylston Street. It’s not the first time.

If this sounds like a story of success, okay.

The Penny Dreadful, Grub Street's official blog

Softball Department (brought to you by guest sportscaster, Becky Tuch)

Softball Department (brought to you by guest sportscaster, Clarence Lai)

Let's Just Forget About This One

Oh What a Beautiful Morning

Two East Boston Seniors Meet Twenty East Boston Kids

Top Ten Reasons Why The Word-Slingers Should Have Won Sunday’s Game

Too Bad It's Not Preseason

Softball Department (brought to you by guest sportscaster, Matt Biewener)

YAWP! Read All About It!

Peek into Publishing

Biddy Biddy Bop Bop

Perfect Posture

Literary Nomad

The Antique Store Downstairs is a Netherworld Paradise

The Grub Street Rag, 3/24/08

Dirty Little (Book) Secrets

Grub Street Rag, 3/17/08

Clap On.

The Grub Street Rag, 3/10/08

The thing that writing does

Read, Enjoy, Love?

The Grub Street Rag

Too many novelists in the office spoils the non-profit?

Scenes From a Notebook

Grub Street Rag, 11/19/07

Any writing's good writing, right?

Gangsta Toms

Grub Street Rag, 10/22/07

On The Line

Week Three

Week Two

Back to School

Be careful what you wish for...

The Real World, Part I

The Grub Street Rag, 9/4/2007

Wood & Wood & Mortar & Wood... — by Daniel Pritchard

Sentimental Journey

Vacation / Get Inspired

Modernist, Schmodernist: What makes a book a good book?

Grub Street Rag, 8/20/07

The Art of the Interview

You Complete Me, and You Read

Grub Street Rag, 8/13/07

Meta-Meta Blogging

The Power and the Glory

Grub Street Rag, 8/6/07

Grub Turns Ten

>On Night

The Grub Street Rag, 7/30/07

Two Book Reviews

Grub Street: A Romance

The Grub Street Rag, 7/23/07

Memories of Syracuse

The Grub Street Hotel

Grub Street Rag, 7/16/07 (posted late!)

Friday the 13th Debunked Just a Bit

Off the Shelves, part two

Thanks For Not Writing

The Grub Street Rag, 7/9/07

The Happy Camper by Becky Tuch

Toilets and Literature

Grub Street Rag, 7/2/07

What You'll Never Write

Off the shelves, part one

The Grub Street Rag, 6/25/07

Get Your NEAT On

A Good Bingo

The Great Pretender

Grub Street Rag, 6/18/07

Forget Moleskin

Grub Street Rag, 6/11/2007

Guest Blog: Jane Roper's *Baby Squared*

Dreaming big, but will fiction follow?

Never Enough: The Elusiveness of "Meaning" In the Writer's Life

Grub Street Rag, 6/4/2007

The Long and Short of It

Reality 2, Fantasy 0

What Your Friends Are Reading

Where I'm Writing From

Guest Blog: Jane Roper's Baby Squared