THE CREATIVE WRITING ALUMNI NEWSLETTER, SPRING 2004
A newsletter for CSU MFA in Creative Writing Alumni, Faculty, Students, and Friends
Please send any announcements (publications, awards, or other news) or corrections before June 1st to CathyAckerson.Rogers@Colostate.edu or June 1st to the new Assistant to the Director of the Creative Writing Program, Judea Franck at jdfranck@lamar.colostate.edu.
MFA ALUMs OFFER ADVICE ABOUT EDITING
SPOTLIGHT ALUM: JUSTIN HOCKING
ALUM WEB SITE “STILL” IN THE WORKS
2003–2004 READING SERIES RECAP and the FALL 2004 READING SERIES
MFA ALUMs OFFER ADVICE ABOUT EDITING
We asked several alumni the following questions:
1. Now that you're no longer in a writing program, whom do you turn to for editing?
2. Any discoveries to share with other alums and current students regarding your good or bad experiences?
We received some great advice and information, but our space was limited. Some answers were specific to prose or poetry editing information while others were more general. Thanks to everyone who responded. Feel free to continue to send us information that we can forward to other creative writers.
Click on each heading below to go directly to that area.
John Bradley writes: Writing is a solitary process, but at some point—if
you want to reach an audience other than yourself—I find that writing becomes
social. And for that to happen, a writer needs some sort of reader—or,
better yet, readers.
I've been very fortunate to be a member of a small group of writers here
in Dekalb (Joe Gastiger, Becky Parfitt, Ric Amesquita, Susan Porterfield,
and more recently, Dieter Zeschke). We meet about once a month and bring
drafts of work in progress. Just preparing the work for the group helps me
begin to see it through new eyes. We offer each other support, advice, not
to mention good red wine.
I also have other dear friends—unfortunately, they live many miles away—whom
I share work with and who generously offer me comments. And then there's
the scariest and most honest reader of all—my wife, Jana.
Of course, a writer must learn that trickiest of all maneuvers—to fight for
what you think is your best writing, all the while listening to those who
doubt and those who praise. And then sort it all out. A passage of time will
usually prove to the writer who is right. You think the writer? In my case,
I must admit—it's usually not me.
Jiro Adachi writes: I turn to my wife, Jaymie, agent, and editor for editing. Of the three,
I would say that each is critical at the times when each is needed.
I would be extremely careful about whom you share work with and why you want
to share it with them. Try to have a clear idea in mind as to why you want
to show work to a particular person. If you show it to too many people, work
can feel a bit diluted and you might lose the kernel that sparked a piece
of writing. It's most important to know why you like a piece of writing and
how to cultivate that in your own writing.
PROSE
Steven Church writes: Let's be honest. It's a bit lonely on the outside. First I turn to myself, discovering that workshops were pretty damn good for teaching me how to be my own critic. Second, I ask my wife to read my stuff—just because she has a very clear, unadulterated view of books and stories and can see things that I can't or won't see. She's my target audience. Last (but certainly not least) I turn to my fabulous and incredibly brilliant writers’ group, the Minions—which at the moment happens to be chock full of outstanding readers and writers. Our workshops are very "writer directed" and loose, but somehow more focused and productive than some other workshops. I've also been lucky enough to find, in the course of finishing my first book, an outstanding editor at Simon & Schuster. She has been immensely helpful in editing my work. She has a keen sense of the big picture and a vision for the book that strives at all times to remain true to my own vision, however poorly articulated that may be on my part.
I've discovered the obvious. The publishing world is a fickle and frustrating world full of contradictions and conundrums, risks and rewards, assholes and angels; but it's also an exciting, fabulous, heart-seizing, jaw-dropping world to experience. The very same book purchased and praised by Simon & Schuster as being "daring, original, and wildly imaginative" was rejected by a much smaller literary press for being "too straightforward" and not experimental enough. Crazy, huh? The trick seems to be finding people (agents, editors, etc.) who fit your vision, your style, and your technique. My agent and editor are both approximately the same age as I am. We have similar sensibilities and tastes, similar cultural contexts. What this is worth, I can't say for sure; but it seems important. I've also discovered that an MFA program is not necessarily the only way to understand what's happening today in the publishing world. In fact, it may not even be the best way. You need to know what's out there. You need to be able to compare your work with others’ and talk about why your book is different, important, exceptional, or otherwise worthy of attention. As hard as it is to do, you have to try to think about how to "market" what you write, while still staying true to your own vision.
Mike Shay writes: The M.F.A. program got me into the habit of finding like-minded prose writers with a talent for editing, then turning over my work to them. I belong to a writing critique group in Cheyenne. We call it Cheyenne Area Writers Group, or CAWG. We meet every two weeks and critique each other's work. It's good constructive criticism with a tinge of brutal honesty. We all are published writers of fiction and creative nonfiction. CAWG is one of a half-dozen critique groups in Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska that put on the annual "Writer's Summit" at a former church camp in the Medicine Bow range between Cheyenne and Laramie. We spend the weekend reading and critiquing each other's work. It’s a stimulating retreat, and a chance to meet other writers from the region.
I also count on a good writing friend, who now lives in Maryland, to give me honest critiques. He is mainly an essayist and writes about themes in sociology and psychology. But we critique the work and trust each other's instincts. That doesn't mean we don't get a bit upset at times. But once that passes, the comments are usually revealed to be on-target. We usually exchange our writing via e-mail, and every couple years get together for an in-person critiquing extravaganza.
Another way to get instant editing advice is to read your stuff in public as often as possible. Pay attention to the audience response. If half the people are asleep by the end of the reading, you have some editing to do. In my early days, I was so petrified reading aloud that I often didn't even notice if people were in the room. Now I read at a steady pace, and keep a pen handy to note those places where I get a laugh or a groan, rapt attention or stupified boredom.
In the end, it is up to the writer to decide what to keep and what to trash. That's not always easy, but, over time, you learn to trust gut-level instincts about your own writing. John Pratt used to bug me about my tendency toward hyperbole. I then embarked on an anti-hyperbole crusade with good results, publishing-wise. Now I again indulge in my tragic flaw, but do it with confidence.
POETRY
Jen Dick writes: I continue to share poems with various poets I know here in Paris and
have also maintained other contacts via e-mail in the States, Canada, and
Belgium. I do not send all poems to each of these people, obviously, but,
for example, I have some one-poem-a-month exchanges with people abroad
and here I have had a writing group (or different varying ones over the
past few years) that I work with more regularly. I get a range of feedback
in this manner, some of it useful and other times less so. It does feel
inconsistent, as I rarely get a sense of someone knowing my work and how
it has progressed or is progressing week by week in the same way one does
in an MFA program. That said, I also don't have the same sense that I should
explain or be clearer so that every person in the MFA group can follow
what I am up to or so that it coincides with their aesthetic if their aesthetic
does not coincide with my own. So there are both drawbacks and advantages.
(In fact, by the end of the program, I felt I could give myself critiques
through the eyes of this or that writer in our group since we had gotten
so familiar with each other—their demands, desires of a poem, etc.—and
perhaps that is a good thing; it made me able to work as a reader for myself
in a variety of roles and through a variety of eyes, from a variety of
aesthetics.)
Beyond this, I do think it is important to have "older" or more "experienced" poets, or simply poets whose eyes and ears and opinions you respect, look through full-length manuscripts when you are ready. I have found this imperative and that it helped me see what was unnecessary in a book, how to order it better to bring the language out, and where individual poems simply needed more work to stay in the collection or where they had to go. For me, this reader has not always been the same person, as some writers I know have the luck of consistently feeling a connection to a single reader, yet I feel that the readers who have been kind enough to help me edit have been imperative in my growth (such as Laura Mullen, who did continue to read my work after I left CSU and helped me in many ways bring my first book to a state which was publishable, as did Lidia Torres, a young writer in NYC that I met at a residency, and others).
I suppose the two things people always talk about are publishing and writing
time, so here are my two cents on the matter, said most ineloquently,
but hey...!
1) Keep submitting work and submit everywhere. Don't get caught up, however,
in whether the work gets taken or not. It is like throwing the poems
out, and sometimes someone picks one out of your trash pile and that
is cool. The important thing is that you are writing other poems, so
that you are not obsessed or even emotionally affected at all by whether
or not the work is taken. Sending a TON of poems out all the time is
a good way to not feel hurt by the rejections and also a good way to
finally get some acceptances. I do think editors become familiar with
your work over time, so do send back to reviews you like when you have
more work you feel will fit their style. In general, if it is good, it
will eventually be taken—by a magazine or as part of a book in the end.
If it comes back a hundred times, perhaps it needs some more work. But
besides that, don't alter things for publication (as in try to write
something in a certain style that is not you because that seems hip or
printable at the moment) and don't let thinking about publication alter
you. In the realm of poetry, there is no money, no fame, no status to
get from publishing anyway—it is about the writing, time at the desk
with the notebook, and so stick there. But still, don't neglect the sending-out-the-work
side; it is also important.
2) Write all the time. If you get 7-am-to-midnight job and that's the rap,
then write on the metro or bus or lunch hour or whatever. I get sick
of hearing people say, "I don't have time to write." We never
will be given time, so write anyway, and apply like crazy for grants
and residencies; after all, they are giving someone the time and space
and money to just write, and I figure that that might be me someday,
and perhaps it is you. This said, a lot of people get wrapped up in competitiveness
and jealousy. It is a good way to make art ugly and reduce it to marketing.
Just write—don't worry about what others are or are not writing; focus
on where your journey is taking you and engage in good discussions with
people about books and words. If you really do have a job that gives
you no time, make up exercises that you can do in five to ten minutes
and do those. For poetry, there are a million, but for fiction perhaps
just write a sentence every break, or a paragraph, or decide to write
a lot of "flash fiction" and then perhaps start writing them
in strings and see if these five-minute jots can become a story—pour
quoi pas?
Jacqueline Lyons writes: As for editing, I'm fortunate to be married to a poet
(Christopher Arigo, MFA Poetry 2000), so he's my main editor. Early drafts
get left on the kitchen table by the coffee for his reading pleasure.
Other things to share: I'd been witness and participant to so much talk about
the writing business for a while, how hard it is to publish, etc., and had
to remind myself that the writing itself is the most important part. A writer
has to trust that after doing her best and original work, the rest will follow.
April really was poetry month in Salt Lake City, in that I had the chance
to visit with and attend readings by Alice Notley and Anne Waldman. They
were wonderful influences as far as keeping the art and excitement of poetry
in the forefront of one's mind. And, as Andy Hoffmann, former student of
Anne Waldman's and co-founder of Elik Press says, "It's all about the
poetry, man."
SPOTLIGHT ALUM: JUSTIN HOCKING
Justin is living in Brooklyn and loving it. He lives in the hip Williamsburg neighborhood and enjoys working a few days a week at Kensington Publishing Company as a “Freelance Reader." He says, “They pay me to sit around and read schlocky genre fiction—a lot of mystery and thrillers, but every now and again I get to read a good contemporary fiction manuscript (but of course they never want to publish those).” Justin has a contract to write six nonfiction children's books about skateboarding for Rosen Publishing. He’s currently working on the fifth book right now.
More importantly, Life
and Limb, a skateboard anthology, comes out this month from Soft
Skull Press (click on the “check out what’s coming soon” section on www.softskull.com).
Justin edited this book along with fellow CSU alum Jeffrey Knutson (B.A.,
2001), and Jared Jacang Maher. It also includes an essay by another CSU
graduate, Steven Church (2003), from his upcoming Simon & Schuster
release. They are doing a nationwide book tour, including a reading at
the Tattered Cover on July 23, 2004, at 7:00 pm.
Justin says, “The book turned out really well. . . .we're super excited about it. We think it will appeal both to skaters and to literary fiction fans.” Life and Limb is a collection of writing about the art, science, lust, and culture of skateboarding. The fiction and essays in the collection highlight the energy, verve, drive, and wildness that are a part of the culture of skating. Connected to punk and other subcultures, Life and Limb is not only about what it means to live on the fringes, but also to step right off the precipice of experience.
Some of the narratives deal directly with the subject of skateboarding; others are about completely unrelated subjects such as tree-eating, the historical and cultural significance of boulders, and setting fire to cemeteries. Although the pieces are diverse in subject and voice, they all express certain aesthetics common to skateboarders everywhere.
You can find Life and Limb at www.amazon.com or check with your local bookstore.
Laura Mullen arrived at CSU in fall of 1994 and since then has taught various courses in creative writing and literature. Toward the end of May, Laura will move to Baton Rouge and teach there as Associate Professor at Louisiana State University. Her colleagues will include Rodger Kamenetz, Andre Codrescu, Moira Crone, and Jim Wilcox. The journals published at LSU include the Southern Review and Exquisite Corpse. (She notes that LSU gives everyone three days off for Mardi Gras!) We wish her well.
ALUM WEB SITE “STILL” IN THE WORKS
We are still working on a site connected with the English Department’s website where you can log on and update your personal, career, and publication information. Once this is available, you will receive an e-mail asking you to visit the site and add your information. This is just so we can send you our newsletter and other information about CSU’s English graduate programs. Any information you supply us will be used only to show the success of the program. Your personal information will never be sold or used for outside solicitation purposes. Watch for an announcement about this in the fall.
2004–2005 READING SERIES RECAP and the FALL 2004 READING SERIES
CSU Creative Writing Program’s Reading Series for spring 2004 was packed with current and former CSU students. The following MFA candidates read this spring: Rebecca Davidson McGoldrick, Cathy Ackerson Rogers, Jen Lamb, Lesa Alison, Neil Hastings, Crawford Frazer, Nicole Backens, Kerry Lawrynovicz, Trevor Jackson, Margo Paraska, Janell Cress, and Kathleen Willard.
In April, Jiro Adachi visited CSU to read and lead a lecture with graduate students. The Island of Bicycle Dancers was released in February (St. Martin’s Press). This reading was part of the Crow/Tremblay Alumni Readers Series Fund.
Jiro Adachi reads from The Island of Bicycle Dancers in the Hatton Gallery on April 1, 2004.
The Reading Series for 2004–2005 brings some great visiting authors and another great class of MFA candidates. Mark your calendar for these exciting fall events. All readings take place at 7:30 pm in the Hatton Gallery unless otherwise noted.
Thursday, September 16
MFA Reading
Sara Cartmel, Rosa Salazar, & Sylwia Michnicka DeLeon
Thursday, September 30
Chris Offutt
Thursday, October 28
Donald Revell and Claudia Keelan
Thursday, November 11
CSU Alum Jennifer Dick
Thursday, December 2
MFA Reading
Matt Myers, Bonnie Emerick, & Brice Particelli
7:30 pm in the Natural Resources Building, Room 113
Also, we are planning a special Writers’ Harvest event with CSU Creative Writing faculty reading along with Kent Haruf. It’s tentatively scheduled for Friday, November 5, location and time TBA. Check the English Department web site (http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/English/) in August for more on this.
The spring 2005 lineup includes Sandra Meek, another great CSU alum, as part of the Crow/Tremblay Alumni Readers Series, Eleni Sikelianos, Laird Hunt, Ron Carlson, and MFA candidates Judea Franck, Stephanie Stickney, Juliette Guilmette, Jenna McWilliams, Marcus Pickett, and Katie Arnsteen.
Christopher Arigo’s (2000) collection of poems Lit Interim has been published by Pavement Saw Press.
Nicole Backens’s (2004) story “Radio Waves” was chosen by the fiction faculty as a nominee for the Best New American Voices 2006 short story competition.
Leslee Becker’s story “The Yellow House” has been accepted for publication by the Vermont College literary journal Hunger Mountain.
Logan Burns’s (2006) poem “At the Drive-in with the Reciprocal Rib” has been accepted by Conjunctions. His poem “Your Person” was selected as second place winner of the Academy of American Poetry Prize judged by Eleni Sikelianos.
Gary Chang (2001) has had a book of poems, Nowhere Near Moloka’i, published by Bear Star Press. He currently lives in Hawaii and hopes to visit Fort Collins in June 2004.
Matthew Cooperman has recently had poems accepted in Pleiades (“Iowa”), 1913 (“Still: Arcades,” “Still: will not be televised”), and Free Verse (“Chorality,” “Pyrrhony,” and “Ruefulsome”). His essays “The Color of Dust” and “A Raft of Blues” have been awarded the O. Marvin Lewis Award for the best essays published in Weber Studies for 2002.
Jennifer K. Dick’s (1999) collection Fluorescence was selected for publication by the University of Georgia Press’s Contemporary Poetry Series and is forthcoming in October 2004. She also has poems forthcoming in VOLT, Canary River, and Tears in the Fence (UK), and other poems have recently appeared in Barrowstreet, Colorado Review, La Traductière (in French and English), Gargoyle, Stand (UK), Pharos, and Van Gogh’s Ear. Her interview of Marilyn Hacker is also on the Perihelion and the eScene (selections from the web, thus linking back to Perihelion) web sites. She’ll be visiting CSU as part of the 2004–2005 Creative Writing Program’s Reading Series on Thursday, November 11 at 7:30 pm in the Hatton Gallery.
Bonnie Emerick (2005) has had two poems, “[the inlet]” and “Living Near,” accepted for publication by Curbside Review. Her poems “Body Crystal” and “You Can’t Read This” have been accepted for publication in Rive Gauche, a literary magazine published in New Orleans, and are slated to appear in the fall 2004 issue. Another poem, “These Things Happen,” will appear in the summer/fall issue of So to Speak.
Aryn Kyle’s (B.A., 2001) story “Foaling Season” is in the May issue of the Atlantic. Aryn was an English major with a concentration in Creative Writing. As an undergraduate, she won a Creative & Performing Arts Scholarship and an award at the annual Undergraduate Creativity and Research Symposium.
Jen Lamb’s (2004) poems “A Theory of Thermodynamics” and “A Theory of Domesticity” have been accepted by Chicago Review and Denver Quarterly respectively.
Jacqueline Lyons’s (1999) first book of poetry, The Way They Say Yes Here, is now available from Hanging Loose Press. You can check it out by going to www.hangingloosepress.com and clicking on New Titles. It’s also available from Small Press Distribution and Amazon. She’ll be graduating with her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing this May.
Rebecca McGoldrick’s (2004) poem “Goggle” has been accepted by Poetry Motel and her poem “The Mother Goes Out for Monistat, Dandelions and a Box Fan” by Phoebe.
Aaryn Richard’s (2004) poem “An Oligarchy In Our Chest” was selected as first place winner of the Academy of American Poetry Prize judged by Eleni Sikelianos.
Carrie Frasier Roethe (1994) is living outside of Los Angeles, working as a communications manager for an education finance company. She telecommutes full-time from her home office and moves every three years or so as her husband is a test pilot in the Air Force. She is also a new mommy—Ava Sky was born August 13, 2003.
Rosa Salazar’s (2005) manuscript has been selected to forward to the national competition for the Ruth Lilly Fellowship. In addition, her poem “Inversion” won the Poetry in Motion competition. This poem will be displayed along with elementary school artwork on Fort Collins city buses.
Bonny Barry Sanders (1989) has had her first collection of poems, Touching Shadows, accepted for publication by Val Verde Press. It should be available either at the end of 2004 or the beginning of 2005.
Steven Schwartz’s essay “Walking the Line between Fact and Fiction” will be featured on Poets & Writers Magazine’s web site in May and June. You can access the essay through this link: http://www.pw.org/mag/teachersguide/indexloun.html
Michael Shay (1992) was co-editor of “Deep West: A Literary Tour of Wyoming,” published by Pronghorn Press and released in September 2003. The book, a project of the Wyoming Center for the Book, features the work of nineteen writers with Wyoming ties. Each writer is represented by a sample of his/her work, along with an original essay about living and working in Wyoming. Contributors include Annie Proulx, Dainis Hazners, Page Lambert, Charles Levendosky, Linda Hasselstrom, Tim Sandlin, and others. Michael’s co-editors were poet David Romtvedt and Linn Rounds, director of the Wyoming Center for the Book. Get more information at http://wyoarts.state.wy.us/litdeepwest.html. Michael, literature program manager at the Wyoming Arts Council in Cheyenne, also edits a free weekly e-mail newsletter, “wyolitmail.” To get on the mailing list, e-mail mshay@state.wy.us.
Bill Tremblay’s screenplay Burning Judas is a semi-finalist for the Moondance Film Festival feature-length film script contest in Boulder. His poem “Skies” will appear in the spring issue of Double Room.
Ian Tyson’s (2006) poem “Juice on the Cruel Tooth” won honorable mention in the Academy of American Poetry Prize judged by Eleni Sikelianos.
Thom Ward’s (1992) third collection of poetry, Various Orbits, was released by Carnegie Mellon University Press in January 2004. Copies of the book may be obtained by calling CUPS services at 1-800-666-2211 or Carnegie Mellon University Press at 412-268-2861 or by visiting amazon.com.
Jennifer Wortman’s (2002) story “Seminar” has been accepted by the Massachusetts Review.
Emily Wortman-Wunder’s (2003) short story “Home Improvements” won second place in the North American Review’s Kurt Vonnegut Fiction Prize. She was a resident at Hedgebrook Writer’s Colony in Washington for two weeks in November 2003. She’s had fiction published or forthcoming in the Laurel Review (“Gustav and Vera”) and the MacGuffin (“Otters”). She’s had nonfiction published in Brain, Child (from work she did on cohousing for John Calderazzo’s class) and Montana Outdoors.
Brenna Yovanoff’s (2006) story “Bodies” was chosen by the fiction faculty as a nominee for the Best New American Voices 2006 short story competition.
We hope the newsletter will help alumni of our writing program—we’ve had the MFA degree for nineteen years now—keep in touch with each other, renew old connections, and provide networking to further your writing career. If you have any announcements, accomplishments, or news items you would like included in the newsletter, such as publications, jobs, marriages, births, awards, fellowships, residencies, or just updates on your life since graduate school—please send an e-mail to jdfranck@lamar.colostate.edu with that information. We thank you for helping us extend the boundaries of our writing community.