On Writing Archives - Page 15 of 21

Readings for Writers

The Kenyon Review has just published a new anthology of work culled from the magazine over the past seventy years. Editor David Lynn writes:

Readings for Writers is a very different creature from your usual anthology…A different principle of selection comes into play: choosing stories, poems, and essays from across the decades to provoke lively responses from writers today, to inspire and challenge…the selections here are intended to inspire active response—pen to paper, fingers to keyboard.”

All in all, it looks like a terrific volume for teachers of writing, not to mention anyone who is engaged in the practice of writing short stories, essays, and poems. Contributions are arranged chronologically, beginning with Randall Jarrell, Allen Tate, and Dylan Thomas–all published in the magazine’s first year, 1939–and ending with Cara Blue Adams, whose essay appeared in 2009. Along the way areworks by the likes of Flannery O’Connor, Thomas Pynchon, Sylvia Plath, Nadine Gordimer, V.S. Naipul, Don DeLillo, Robert Haas, Annie Dillard, Billy Collins, Virgil Suarez, Czeslaw Milosz, Pablo Neruda, W.S. Merwin, and many others–82 selections in all.

I was browsing the contents page when, quite by surprise, I came upon “A Life in Pods,” an essay of mine which appeared in the magazine in 2008. I’m thrilled to be included in such amazing company, and can’t wait to get my copy and dig in.

You can order the issue here.

Two From the World of Ink

I met Georges and Anne Borchardt at Sewanee Writers’ Conference in 2003. The couple co-founded their literary agency in 1967, and are known for introducing American audiences to the work of Roland Barthes, Samuel Beckett, Pierre Bourdieu, Marguerite Duras, Franz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Eugene Ionesco, Jacques Lacan, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Elie Wiesel.

When we met, I’d just had my first novel published with San Francisco independent MacAdam/Cage (sans agent) and was looking for representation. Jill McCorkle, a faculty member at the conference, read a chapter of the novel I was working on and set up a meeting. Many of the other fellows were going spelunking, but I skipped the cave trip and met the Borchardts on the little patio behind the apartment where they were staying. We talked for a while–about books, writing, my background and interests, my novel-in-progress. I immediately felt a connection with them. I liked their calmness, their magnetic presence. One had the feeling of being in the company of extraordinarily sharp and sensitive literary minds …

How Much Honesty Is Too Much?

Over at right-reading, Tom Christensen shares a letter he received from a writer who says he met Tom years ago, and that Tom’s response to his work was so devastating that he stopped sharing his work for ten years. The letter-writer admits that he may have gotten Tom confused with someone else, and that, even if Tom was the editor he met with, his response might not have been as harsh as the writer remembers. Kind of makes me think of the hundreds of writing workshop sessions I’ve led, and what I said. As teacher and editors, we’re supposed to present the truth as we see it, no matter how harsh it might be, but it’s easy to forget that the person on the other side of the criticism might take our words too much to heart. While it’s important to point out strengths where they exist, and to be as encouraging as is possible in an honest way, the teacher or editor does no one any favors by heaping on undeserved praise.

The question, then: how much honesty is too much?

Yes, Christine, you can begin writing at 60!

A few days ago, a reader named Christine emailed me the following question: Do you think a person can begin being a writer at age 60? You’re so young and have such a solid educational background in literature. I know I want to write, and have a folder of snippets, unrelated, but think I’m crazy to start at this age!

Well, I should admit, first off, that I’m not really that young. I grew up in the South, where a lady is never supposed to reveal her age, but since the publisher of my first novel decided to put my birthdate on the title page, it’s pretty much out there. Matters of youthfulness or lack thereof aside, I get a lot of questions from aspiring writers, frequently about publishing, sometimes of the “I want to write a book, and I’m sure it will be a bestseller if you introduce me to your agent” variety. I found Christine’s question particularly refreshing, because it wasn’t about the business of writing, but the process of writing, and, more specifically, the beginning of writing–you know, that thing you actually have to do before you go out in search of literary fame and fortune. So I thought I’d share my response here: …