Peeking at the Govs Bookshelves

Wordamour and her husband were recently incredibly fortunate to have received from an unknown benefector (ok, our incredibly gracious and generous Dean)  two ticket’s to the Porter Fund Literary Prize dinner at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion.   Roy Reed was the winner of the annual prize, with Arkansas poet Miller Williams winning a lifetime achievement award.  It was also the 25th anniversary of the award.  An exciting evening; lots of literary luminaries, a look at the Gov’s mansion and even at the bookshelves of his public study.  Of course, they were all books about Arkansas or by Arkansans.  I’m sure his private study is a little more varied.  Here’s a peek:

I’ll leave you with one of the poems Williams read, a famous one,

The Caterpillar

Miller Williams

Today on the lip of a bowl in the backyard
we watched a caterpillar caught in the circle
of his larvel assumptions
my daughter counted
27 times he went around
before rolling back and laughing
I’m a caterpillar, look
she left him
measuring out his slow green way to some place
there must have been a picture of inside him
After supper
coming from putting the car up
we stopped to look
figured he crossed the yard
once every hour
and left him
when we went to bed
wrinkling no closer to my landlord’s leaves
than when he somehow fell into his private circle
Later I followed
barefeet and doorclicks of my daughter
to the yard the bowl
a milkwhite moonlight eye
in the black grass
it died
I said honey they don’t live very long
In bed again
re-covered and re-kissed
she locked her arms and mumbling love to mine
until yawning she slipped
into the deep bone-bottomed dish of sleep
Stumbling drunk around the rim
I hold
the words she said to me across the dark
I think he thought he was
going in a straight line.

 

Bye y’all,
SV

Kansas City, MO- Bookstore City

We hit Kansas City, MO a few weeks ago, during fall break. One of our absolute favorite places, it’s so beautifully laid out. Especially gorgeous in the fall; there’s a reason why they call it the “Paris” of the Midwest.

Of course, we had to hit the bookstores. We were staying in the Westport District, where we got to check out Spivey’s Rare Books and the Halfprice Bookstore, both up the street. Wordamour discovered Halfprice Books, a chain of bookstores absolutely stocked to the gills with books and charm, last September in Berkeley. Believe me, anytime you’re in a city with a Halfprice Books, it’s worth the trip. Of course, we came out with a bagful.

But the highlights were Prospero’s Books, a gorgeous used and new bookstore in town and Reading Reptile, an absolutely magical world of a children’s bookstore in the Brookside shopping district. I’ve been to a lot of children’s bookstores and this has to have been one of the best. If you’re ever in KC, you’ve got to check these two out. Bye for now, y’all! SV
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Reading Reptile

Bonus photo of our new kitten,  Lucky, working with me.

Bye y’all,

SV

Three-Legged NaNoWriMo-A New Game!

While I was writing today, the right front leg from the chair I sit at (the white one in all the pictures from the previous post) suddenly just. . .fell off. I didn’t fall to the floor or anything but it did feel kind of odd.

But then I discovered that my own right front leg actually serves as a very good replacement. That is, I still feel pretty comfortable–not about to tip over or anything. Which just goes to show you that certain chair legs are better to lose than others–the back left one, for example. Don’t think that loss would work out so well.

So the next few days will be spent determining if I actually need to replace this chair before I start NaNoWriMo on Sunday. Speaking of which, you can now sponsor me in my novel writing endeavors. I’m aiming to raise $100 towards the organization and its efforts to support young writers.

If I finish, and someone say, sponsored me at say, a penny a word, that would only be 5.00. C’mon, consider it–what’s a fiver or a tenner when it comes to getting young kids writing?

You can sponsor me here.

Bye y’all,
SV

NaNoWriMo–Getting Ready to Roll

Yep, I’m doing NaNoWriMo this November.  At first I was just going to tell y’all that this blog was probably going to get quiet next month (not like it hasn’t happened before) but I’m going to try and lay in some posts in the draft box before Nov. 1 so I can pop a few up here and there as I go.  

This week has been all about getting ready.  Getting my work space ready, clearing a spot on my cluttered home desk (I may be the only person I know with five full pencil cups–anyone else want to fess up?) for the babyDell and the coffee.   

Honestly, the biggest bribe for this whole thing (besides the prospect of actually getting a draft done) may be that I will allow myself all the coffee I want.  Love the stuff; limit myself to two hearty mugs a day.  Usually.  Not this November.  I suspect it may be the sole thing getting me out of bed at 5:00 am. At first anyway. 

Lining up all the books I’ve been using to research my subject.  From what I understand, I’ll be writing so fast, I might not be able to do much more than glance at them, maybe touch them if I’m lucky.  But it’s good to know they’ll be there, waiting for me to delve into after it’s all over, when I’m revising.

What’s in this black box?  Yes, well, wouldn’t you like to know?  It’s related to the novel, but its contents are secret right now.  Another reassuring presence.  Besides, secrets can be very motivating.

According to NaNoWriMo’s founder, Craig Baty, one should not have a bed visible in one’s writing space–nor a cat (see upper corner) demonstrating its benefits.  Unfortunately, my writing space is also a guest bedroom/daybed I normally purpose for reading and napping.  I should be able to resist it, though.  I know going near it would be a disaster.  If resisting turns out to be a problem, I could always cover it with tacks or something.

And the picture wouldn’t be complete without Garfield, our older cat, quite bereft these days now that we have acquired a kitten. Normally Garfield isn’t interested in attention from anyone but my husband but he’s become very needy lately, even asking me for some lovin’.

I feel lucky, I have had plenty of 2008 winner Monda Fason’s advice to shore me up and let me know what’s what.  Nervous but hopeful. That’s me. 

Bye y’all,
SV

Tomorrow’s the Big Day

The National Day of Writing when the National Gallery of writing goes LIVE, October 20, 2009.

It’s not too late to add a piece of your own writing and make history!  Give them anything, ANYTHING!

Grocery lists, poems, homilies, essays, stories, blog posts. . .the possibilities are endless!

Check it out here.

Go, go, go. Time’s a wastin’!

Bye y’all,
SV

The Higher Power of Lucky**, or, Narrative Rules

**With apologies to Susan Patron’s Caldecott-winning novel of the same name.

So Wordamour and her husband had a brief junket to Eureka Springs Friday and Saturday, a charming, fall-perfect town in the Ozarks, at a conference where Wordamour’s husband was giving the debut reading of his Van Gogh novel–Wordamour hasn’t even heard it yet. And just before his turn came, Wordamour’s cell phone rang. Oops, she’d forgotten to turn it off. She glanced at it before she cut the juice and saw two key things 1. it was Wordamour’s mother who was picking her kids up for the weekend and 2. it was precisely during the appointed school dismissal time. Uh oh. She was going to have to take this one. She ran out of the session to discover that, none of her kids were missing or had been swept away by the floodwaters that had risen during the torrential rain of the previous evening. No, the first thing she heard out of ther mother’s mouth was,

“Will found a kitten. It ran out from under a truck. What do you want me to do?”

Wow. Okay. No true emergency here, really, sort of, and Wordamour’s husband was about to start reading.
Well, yes, alright, let’s see. Wordamour is not about to tell her mother to just “throw it back,” at the moment. “Let me call you back as soon as John is finished reading.”

Wordamour’s husband debuted two scenes from the novel to a warm reception. Wordamour was especially taken by the playfully homoerotic scene between Van Gogh and another artist, who had agreed to sit for him as a model (VG found this a good way to get to know people especially other artists). Then she left to take a brief nap–she’d slept little the night before, dozing between episodes of Say Yes to the Dress, a surprisingly entertaining reality show about life at famous New York bridal outfitter–Kleinfeld’s. Either that or Wordamour just finds that the Flushing accents sound like, well, home.

Then a cat commercial came on and Wordamour suddenly remembered her promise and scanned the cell phone. 7 messages; oops. Turns out on top of the kitten acquisition, her mother had accidentally set off the home alarm system.

By the time Wordamour reached her mother, the alarm situation had faded into the background (three squad cars later) and the kitten regained center stage. Nana and her grandsons were in fact, at Petsmart at that very moment laying in kitten supplies.
“Here,” Wordamour’s mother handed the phone to our young kitten savior, “tell Mommy what happened.”

“Well, I was standing there waiting for Nana to pick me up and I saw him under this truck. And then the truck started and he just ran out, and Mom, he ran right to me! So I picked him up. His name is Lucky.”
“Really. You named him?”
“Well, first I thought he was a Max but Mackenzie said I should call him Lucky, because he’s lucky I saved him.”
“Why didn’t Mackenzie want him?”
“Her father doesn’t allow pets.”
“He’s so cute! Can we keep him? Please, can we keep him? We have to keep him. I saved his life. He ran right to me.”

And so it goes.  One tiny part-siamese kitten runs out from under a truck and into  family legend.

It happens like this every day in families all over the world, this hewing to the power of narrative.

And that’s the story of how we got lucky.
Indeed.

Monda to the rescue

While we were working on the template for John’s blog, my friend and blogger extraordinaire went ahead and designed him a beaut. The font in the masthead is actually Van Gogh’s handwriting! Check it out!
www.creatingvangogh.blogspot.com

Blogging: It Runs in the Family

Announcing a new blog worthy of your reading time: CreatingVanGogh.blogspot.com

Written by none other than my husband, writer John Vanderslice (no, NOT the indie singer, for the millionth time), who is currently wrestling a novel loosely based on Van Gogh into being. I can’t say any more than that because I don’t KNOW any more than that–he’s kept this work pretty close for as long as he’s been writing it (going on several years now)–although I understand that the time when I will be allowed to see it is nearing.

Anyway, who’s complaining–I’ve gotten more than a few trips to Provence out of his interest obsession.

The upshot is lately he’s also been blogging a lot about the process of creating the fictional Van Gogh, and it’s pretty interesting imho. Not that I’m biased or anything.

And if you’re not crazy about the template or lack of paintings, hang in there, we’re working on that.

Check it out. Bye y’all,
SV

What should MFA students demand from their programs, part 2.

So, what would I add to Niles’ list?

1. Teachers who read their students work.
This might sound like a no-brainer, but one might be suspicious of teachers who always want their students to read their work out loud to them. It might be a sign they don’t want to do too much reading beforehand, preferring the “off the cuff” method of verbal critique that not coincidentally significantly reduces their paper load and/or workload outside of class.
I’m not exaggerating about this, folks. I’ve been in sessions with teachers bluffing their way through a student’s work; occasionally it was even my own.

To wit, I once read a lengthy tribute to the beloved George Garrett in which the admirer fondly recalled listening to Garrett hold forth about a student’s work even when, well, ahem. . . uh, it became clear that Garrett hadn’t actually read it.

Apparently, it was enough just to be in the legendary writer’s presence.

Garrett’s volume of work and service to the field is also legendary and I have no intention of dimming the light that shines upon it. But it doesn’t make not reading a student’s work and then critiquing it as part of one’s employment responsibilities any more acceptable, especially when one considers that Garrett himself was an enormous influence, as a teacher, on other teachers of creative writing.

2. Programs that promote practice and purpose, not personality. Along with the star system, the cult of personality has a tendency to reign supreme in MFA programs. See #1.

I could write much more about this subject, and have, actually, here on this blog and elsewhere, but some of this is going to be in my book, currently titled Rethinking Creative Writing in Higher Education: Programs and Practices that Work. I don’t want to give it all away. Buying cows and free milk and all that.

Bye y’all,
SV

What should MFA students demand from their programs? Part 1

Erika Dreifus, over at the esteemed Practicing Writing (seriously, writers, if you don’t read her blog regularly, you need to, she’s on my blogroll ) has drawn my attention to Robert Niles’ post, Eight things that journalism students should demand from their journalism schools. Of course, fellow MFA alum Dreifus wondered aloud “What should MFA students demand from their programs?” and then asked her readers to comment.

Well, Erika, here’s my response:

First of all, anyone seriously interested in this subject should read Niles’ post carefully and not just go by my summary because his arguments are lucid, pointed and convincing. They also demonstrate that despite the fact that MFA students ply their trade in the literary realm, their needs are really not very different from aspiring journalists:

Mentors, check.
Employment contacts, check.
A place to hack, that is, to try out emerging media such as blogging and other forms of digitial writing. Check.
Work contacts, not just internships but work outside the field ( go read what he says about this). Check.
Deep knowledge of a field other than journalism. Check. In journalism, this is known as a “beat field.” In creative writing, it’s known as a niche.

Opportunities to “get your name out there.” Check.
Passion for the field and for teaching it to the next generation. Check.

Those are all things that MFA programs should be doing for their students. And if you’re considering spending several years in such a program, you need to find one that recognizes its responsibilities to its students in the 21st century.

Of course, there are a few things I might add, which are in the next post, “What should MFA students demand from their programs, part 2.”
See y’all over there,
SV