Category: Writing

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The Literary Pyramid Scheme: A Few Thoughts on Book #1

A while ago, I posted a call for volunteers to step forward to help me with a literary experiment. I described a letter I received that invited me to become a member of an informal book club. It went on to outline a kind of literary pyramid scheme, whereby I would send out one book and six letters. In return, I could expect to receive a maximum of 36 previously read books selected by strangers from their very own shelves.

Well, my first book arrived! The package came with a Maryland postmark and inside I found a second-hand copy of Jeffrey Shaara’s Gods and Generals.

Lately, my husband and I have been talking about the benefits of e-books as compared to paper ones. One of the things that the arrival of Gods and Generals has reminded me of is that paper books come with traces of their former lives and readers. And Book #1 contains some interesting clues as to its history.

Trace number one: the former owner’s name (female, interestingly) on the first page.

Trace number two: the book sent contains a business card from the South Mountain State Battlefield in Middletown, Maryland that was likely used as a bookmark. A vestige of some kind of civil war pilgrimage? Did the reader/owner of this book take it on a trip to places it describes?

Trace number three: amazingly, this book has been signed by its author — the autograph is dated Sept. 1, 2002. Why, I wonder, would a reader send away an author-inscribed book to a complete stranger?

All of this reminds me of a 1990s Algerian raï song sung from the perspective of a beauty parlor chair that tells about all the beautiful women and behinds that have graced it. Or of François Girard‘s film The Red Violin that traces the life of an instrument as it is passed from hand to hand. Tracking the life of an object, it turns out, is another way of writing life.

Finally, though American Civil War history is far from a major interest of mine, I’m so thankful for this gift, whose conception is a beautiful gesture of love. Jeffrey Shaara wrote this book as a prequel to his father’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Killer Angels, that told the story of the Battle of Gettysburg. He wrote it after his father’s death, so the very text is a kind of conversation with the dead, an elegy, or maybe even a love letter.

Already new avenues for thinking about reading, writing and exchange have opened up for me with this first arrival. I hope more books will come, and with them fodder for a solid essay. If not — if months go by without another book — that will be something to write about too.

Keep reading. Keep writing. Happy Holidays!

[Photo: J Jakobson]

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Canada: Writers’ Symposium

The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC) is offering the Professional Development Symposium “Secure Footing in a Changing Literary Landscape” in Toronto, St. John’s, Montreal, Ottawa, Regina, Calgary, Vancouver and Victoria, in February and March of 2011. The symposiums take place from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm.

Authors Betsy Warland and Ross Laird will illuminate the new landscape of digital literature and publishing and discuss its impact on traditional modes of creation. Kelly Duffin, the Union’s executive director, will discuss authors’ contracts in the digital age.

This full-day event is designed to address the creative and financial questions that arise as writers navigate print-based and digital literary landscapes. The symposium also explores the importance of community and the need for writers to develop their own writing community.

The price of this symposium is $75.00 and covers costs, including lunch. For registration information on the city and date closest to you please go to www.writersunion.registration.pdf.

[Photo: Cwluc]

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Call for Submissions: Postcard Story Competition

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

12th ANNUAL POSTCARD STORY COMPETITION

$500 PRIZE

The Writers’ Union of Canada is pleased to announce that submissions are being accepted until February 14, 2011, for the 2011 POSTCARD STORY COMPETITION. The winning entry will be the best Canadian work of 250 words or less in the English language, fiction or nonfiction. Are you up for the challenge? Can you create a dynamic, lean, and efficient piece in only 250 words? You can use humour, poetry, dialogue… anything goes!

PRIZE

$500 for the winning entry. The winning entry will be published in Write, the magazine of The Writers’ Union of Canada. The winner agrees that The Writers’ Union of Canada will have non-exclusive publication rights to publish the winning entry in Write for publicity purposes. Any publication of the author’s story by The Writers’ Union of Canada will include an authorship credit and a copyright notice in the name of the author. Copyright of the winning postcard story remains with the writer.

JURY

Ray Hsu, Samuel Thomas Martin, and Edeet Ravel will serve as the jury.

ELIGIBILITY

This competition is open to all Canadian citizens and landed immigrants. Original and unpublished (English language) fiction or nonfiction, no more than 250 words.

HOW TO SUBMIT ENTRIES:

· Entries should be typed, double-spaced, in a clear twelve-point font, and the pages numbered on 8.5 x 11 paper, not stapled.

· Submissions will be accepted in hardcopy only.

· Include a separate cover letter with title of story, full name, address, phone number, e-mail address, word count, and number of pages of entry.

· The author’s name should not appear on the actual entry.

· Make cheque or money order, $5 per submission, payable to The Writers’ Union of Canada. Multiple entries can be submitted together and fees can be added and paid with one cheque or money order.

· Entries must be postmarked by February 14, 2011 to be eligible.

· Mail entries to: PCS Competition, The Writers’ Union of Canada, 90 Richmond Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, ON M5C 1P1.

Results will be posted at www.writersunion.ca in May 2011. Manuscripts will not be returned.

[Photo: Susan S]

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Life-blood: Desirae Matherly

Desirae Matherly, “The Denser of the Two.” Southern Humanities Review 43:2 (Spring 2009), 129-39.

It could be that this sickness of mine is a type of shout from my body. My body groans with the stretching ligaments, the pressure of building gas against my abdomen, the swelling of my uterus. My vessel creaks. We swell together and I am unsure which is the denser of the two — the container or its contents. (136)

An essayist friend sent me “The Denser of the Two,” because he thought I’d like it, and because he found echoes of my work in it. After reading it, I can see why.

The piece examines all my recent obsessions: morning sickness, the process of growing a body inside you, the strange sensation in pregnancy of being both one and two simultaneously, the weirdly solitary and communal experience of labour, and the ways in which birth and death are  separated only by a shadow.

Desirae Matherly’s essay is brave and sophisticated. Impressionistic, poetic and enigmatic, the text resists the temptation to spell out its connections between ships and bodies, morning sickness and the totality of human suffering, and survivors of an Antarctic expedition and a growing fetus. Instead, it raises questions quietly and almost slyly by juxtaposing images and fragments of Thomas Aquinas, Jean-Paul Sartre and classic Buddhist texts.

The author asks: Where does one soul end, and another begin? At what point does a baby stop being part of its mother? What should we make of human suffering? What is a body’s worth?

There’s nothing like morning sickness to make you appreciate how fantastic simply feeling normal feels. And there’s nothing like pregnancy to remind you that, like it or not, you are a physical being.  And this, at least in part, is what Matherly’s essay is about: coming to terms with an ever-changing, destined-to-die body that nevertheless wants to go on and on and on. “If discussion of death alarms those who enjoy their lives,” she writes, “then we have become too convinced of our temporary vitality” (138).

The most poignant moment of the essay, for me, is when Matherly admits: “When I studied philosophy long ago, my body began to repulse me. Before that time, in high school, my body felt like an enemy. I always resented being born female, even back into my early childhood” (134).

Matherly, it seems, learns to accept the body that is hers, in its change and instability and even decline. She learns to want to live, despite everything, including incomprehensible suffering, for as long as possible: “[My son’s] unfolding and unmapped future signals to me that my own journey is not over, but that I have only now become accustomed to the motion of life, its series which surrounds me, as vast and changeable as the sea.”

“The Denser of the Two” is not for the lazy student. It requires its readers to work, but it’s a rare pleasure to read something so daring and original on a theme too often diminished by cliché.

You can find this essay in any good academic library, or follow the link below to get to the homepage of the the Southern Humanities Review.

[Photo: Bonbon]

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Money for Women: A Call for Donations

Today I got my (I think) semiannual newsletter from Money for Women in the mail. Money for Women supports the work of female and feminist writers by giving relatively small grants for very specific purposes. One grantee this year was given funds to replace an old word processor with a laptop, and when I asked the organization for support a few years ago, I decided to be honest and tell them exactly what it would be used for: daycare for my son, so I could have the much-needed hours alone to finish my book manuscript. What writers need most to is time and some simple quality equipment. Money for Women understands this. They gave me the money, and I finished my book.

But that money did more than simply pay for daycare, it also affirmed my worth as a writer. It moved me deeply to know that a group of accomplished women looked at my work and said yes, this is worth funding.

The Money for Women fund is named for Barbara Deming, a feminist, lesbian, poet, writer and activist who died young of cancer. Below the signatures of the women who sit on the grant’s board, is a quote from Deming — it’s a kind of prayer to the universe, asking for help:

“Just back from an early morning swim. There was a tiny dog there, diving for stones — which she’d carefully bring back, one after another, to the shore. Wish they were new contributions for MFW. Little dog, find us an angel!” Barbara Deming, June 28, 1981.

Whether you feel more like an angel or a dog, it’s a worthy cause. If you are in a position to help Money for Women continue to support the work of emerging female writers, they would be very happy to receive a cheque from you. And if you live the US, it’s tax-deductible.

Send what you can. Here’s the address:

Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Inc.
P.O. Box 309
Wilton, New Hampshire 03086
USA

[Photo: [noone]]

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On the Dying Tradition of Letter-writing

I’ve been working with letters as literary artifacts for just over a decade now. As a graduate student, my attraction to letters was instant. The very first time I sat down with stack of yellowing missives, I was hooked, and never looked back.

I work with letters because I like the intimacy they afford. Piecing a story together through an unexamined correspondence is a way to tap into untold stories and to break new ground. Reading letters also gives me a glimpse into the ways in which people meld writing and life and make sense of their time on earth. And I’m interested in the ways the big and small combine in letters — how, for example, a letter can give a ground-level view of historical events.

But as we increasingly eschew handwritten letters on paper for electronic correspondence, the materials I use for my research are becoming a bit of dinosaur. I myself have boxes of love letters written on lined notebook paper from when I was a teenager, but mine may be the last generation to be able to say this.

And as I embark on the writing of my third book — my second to use letters as a primary resource — I realize that it’s time to start reflecting not only on what letters say, but on what they are.

I’ve never really cared all that much about physical objects in my work. Whether I read a second-hand copy, a library copy, or a first edition of Gertrude Stein’s Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, as long as all the pages are intact, it’s all the same to me. It’s why I could never be an art historian, because the value of objects that interest me has little to do with money, or physical uniqueness.

But now I see that it is no longer enough simply to consider the content of the letters I work with. Because letters are on their way out as a cultural practice, I will inevitably have to start reflecting more seriously on their physical form, the way they travel from sender to recipient, and how the process of letter-writing differs from or in some ways resembles the way we communicate today.

National Public Radio has kick-started this thinking process for me. It’s currently doing a series on the United States Postal System, which is apparently in deep crisis. As part of its Postal series, NPR has curated an on-line exhibit of interesting pieces of mail, called “Mailed Memories: Your Cherished Letters.”

The exhibit includes images of an annual cake-package sent by post, a posthumous birthday card, and a postcard sent to a kid by Allen Ginsburg that was originally addressed to John and Yoko. The last piece in the exhibit is my contribution: a 1947 postcard sent from Siberia to the US by my grandmother. Its tagline: “Finally, a letter from mom.”

It is indeed a cherished piece of mail, and I’m honoured to have it used as part of the piece. You can see the exhibit here.

I rarely write letters anymore myself, and wonder if others do. Share your letter-writing and -receiving stories with me through in the comments section. I’m interested to know about your writing life.

[Photo: Sea Dream Studio]

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Places for Writers: Calls for Submissions

If you don’t know Places for Writers, do take a look. It’s a Canadian site that links to publishers and writers’ resources. It also lists calls for submissions by journals, magazines, and other publications. Some pay, some don’t. Some are prestigious, some are emerging. But visiting the site might give you hope on a day when you feel like you’re writing for no one and for no purpose. It may remind you that, even in your solitude in front of your notebook or computer screen, you are still part of a literary community.

Here’s a sampling of recent calls (with upcoming deadlines) for essays and creative nonfiction:

CALYX A Journal of Art and Literature by Women (US) is accepting submissions of poetry, short fiction, and creative non-fiction. Deadline: December 31, 2010.

Paragon, Memorial University’s student-run literary press, is accepting submissions for their fourth issue. Publishes poetry (max 3) and fiction/creative nonfiction (2000 words max). Deadline: January 1, 2011.

Vox Humana Literary Journal, an international literary venue, is accepting short fiction, poetry, and critical essay submissions for its Spring 2011 issue. Favours work related to the Middle-East — particularly Israel and Palestine.

Happy writing, happy submitting.

[Photo: duluoz cats]

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Writing in a Time of Pestilence and Pain: A Few Thoughts in Anticipation of American Thanksgiving

La varicelle, as it’s called around these parts, or chicken pox to us English speakers. Our doctor confirmed it this morning. Despite my son’s vaccine against it, the virus has taken hold, though perhaps not as firmly as it might have otherwise.

As I write, my red-spotted boy colours beside me with his new markers, picked up at the pharmacy with his prescription. There’s nothing like sickness to make you appreciate your good health and the time you have to work under more normal circumstances. The coughing and sneezing of the past few weeks have been a good reminder to me that, when the body fails, a life of the mind is hard to sustain.

If I want my mind to function, I have to honour my body.

I’ve always had a bad back, and if I write for too long without taking the time to go to my yoga classes, it isn’t long before the pain takes over and saps all my attention. I learned this the hard way some ten years ago, when I sat at my desk from dawn till dusk, seven days a week, five weeks in a row, to finish my dissertation. By the end of it, I could barely walk. Poor me.

But recently, I’ve been trying to think about my back pain differently. I’ve started thinking of it as a gift.

I inherited my bad back from my father, who in turn got it from his mother. And when I speak to my cousins and aunts, we are all surprised hear that we have the same issue. Back pain binds us together in the present, but it also gives us a link to the past – to the grandmother who connects us all, and who inevitably had a whole different relationship to pain.

The fact is that my back pain is but a shadow of what my grandmother went through. Whereas I have the luxury of taking a break and heading to yoga class when I feel my muscles acting up, my grandmother had no such choice. Whereas I have the time to think about this pain, to manage it, and to turn it into a text if I can find the right words, my grandmother had to grit her teeth and keep going.

There were calves to feed, cows to milk, logs to chop, and there was no rest for her aching back. On the farm where she worked (for nothing), in a place she had been exiled to against her will, back pain would have meant something very different to her: pure suffering and an external manifestation of what must have been happening inside her.

This coming weekend (as long as the pox allow – our doctor is hopeful), my son and I will travel to meet with my cousins, their children, and my aunt. Darius, who travelled with me to Siberia to find my grandmother’s village, will come up from San Francisco to meet us on his holiday weekend, and has planned a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner for the occasion.

As I raise my glass to toast the harvest and the gathering of my grandmother’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren for the purpose of hearing stories about and looking at pictures of the place she was exiled, I will remember my minor annoyances. And I will be thankful for the pox and the pain.

Because my trials are so small, I know I am blessed. In this troublesome back of mine, I will always carry of piece of my grandmother.

[Photo: Sara Björk]

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Banff Centre – Self-Directed Residency Deadline

As you know, several years ago I spent a month at the Banff Centre for the Arts. I took part in its Literary Journalism program, and the experience continues to resonate with me today. It’s where I conceived of my recent essay, Pregnant Pause.

I’m a huge supporter of the Centre and encourage artists and writers to consider taking part in their programming in any capacity. Below is a link to the Centre’s self-directed residency for any of you who need a place to begin, make headway on, or finish that piece of writing that needs a final push to make its way off your desk.

The deadline’s coming up fast:

Self-directed Writing Residency (Winter)
www.banffcentre.ca/programs/residency
Program dates: Minimum of three days between January 4 and March 31, 2011
Application deadline: November 26, 2010

[Photo: Heather]

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Litvak Studies Institute Contest: East European Roots

The Summer Literary Seminars-Litvak Studies Institute Jewish Lithuania/Litvak Experiences Program announce a new non-fiction contest: East-European Roots: New Writing on the Old World, held this year in affiliation with Tablet Magazine, the leading online magazine providing a “new take on Jewish life,” and judged by Philip Lopate. The theme for the contest is Eastern European Histories: People’s Roots and Ancestral Heritage. The contest is open to everyone.

The contest winner will have their work prominently featured online in Tablet Magazine. Additionally, the winner will receive free airfare, tuition, and housing to our 2011 SLS/LSI Jewish Lithuania/Litvak Experiences Program. Second-place winners will receive a full tuition waiver for the 2011 SLS/LSI Jewish Lithuania/Litvak Experiences Program, and third-place winners will receive a 50% tuition discount.

A number of select contest participants, based on the overall strength of their work, will be offered tuition scholarships, as well, applicable to the 2011 SLS/LSI Jewish Lithuania/Litvak Experiences Program. Read the full guidelines below.
Details here.

Litvak Studies Institute (LSI) and Summer Literary Seminars announce their joint 2011 Jewish Lithuania program in Vilnius.

It will take place July 31-August 13. Core faculty includes: Regina Kopilevich, Vytautas Toleikis, Efraim Zuroff, and a number of other distinguished individuals (TBA). The program will be held in parallel with the SLS-Lithuania program, and will share with SLS such eminent writers-in-residence as Ed Hirsch, Robin Hemley, Joseph Kertes, and Rebecca Seiferle.

[Photo: ~Liliana]



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