An Inquiry of Place
The annual conference of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) is no joke. It’s the largest writers conference in the US, welcoming 12,000 or so attendees each year. If you have the good fortune to attend, you will find yourself in a sea of literary types–writers, publishers, editors, and more. Does that sound exciting, but also so overwhelming your stomach hurts and oh my God maybe you should cancel?
Here are some guidelines for making the most of this experience:
The poetry collection “Disinheritance” by John Sibley Williams (Apprentice House, 2016) carries a sense of weight and burden of many kinds but primarily of the private kind, of private memories, histories, families, of the past, present and the future.
I finally did it! I purchased my very own daily planner, and in late December 2016, I actually wrote in it.
As you can tell, I am proud of this moment. It may not seem like a huge feat to all, but for a disorganized mess like myself, it is certainly something to celebrate.
What do I think of when I think of equality? A good question, and, no doubt, one able to give us as many answers are there are people willing to answer it. “The multi-faceted issue of equality is ubiquitous and incredibly relevant,” writes editor Paul Alan Fahey in the introduction to “Equality, A Collection of 25 Personal Essays,” (Vine Leaves, 2017) which covers sexuality, age, race, gender and more.
We do judge books by covers and blurbs even though we are taught not to do so early in childhood. The blurb of Nada Faris’s new collection of poetry “Fountain of Youth” (Vine Leaves Press, 2016) introduces her as a poet from Kuwait and a person associated with Iowa University’s International Writing Program. My only introduction to Kuwait has been through the electronic music of Fatima Al Qadiri (in many ways a true contemporary to Faris). I had no clue what was in store.
After the presidential election, a friend and I packed our bags and headed out of Texas to New Orleans for the weekend. We would be staying with a friend’s friend, a generous and thoughtful Louisiana man who we’d meet on arrival.
Well, what a 2017 it has been.
Last minute gift ideas? You’ve come to the right place! I am no expert shopper, but if there’s anything I am an expert at it is being late. I am Last-Minute Megan, after all.
I understand gift-purchasing anxiety. I know the value of currency and time. I recognize that family and friends may be just be a little too honest. So I have compiled a list of suggestions to help me get it together. Maybe it will help you with gift shopping needs:
The release of “Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis” (on November 29, 2016, which downloaded onto your Kindle at midnight) reminds you of where you were for every step of this series. It’s the 12th book in the Vampire Chronicles, which makes you nostalgic and uncomfortable.
This series got weird, because its author did. Because most humans get weird, given enough time. And so did the ex who got you into these books in high school. The parallels are getting creepy. Don’t deny it: Anne Rice is the ex you need to de-friend on Facebook.
On the night of the 2016 US presidential election, I was in my dorm’s common room when my father called me. Before hanging up, he and I laughed at the idea of Trump as the victor of the night. I watched people rotate in and out of the common room. No one was in any panic because we all still saw Trump as more of a joke than reality. That all changed when he won Florida.
After this year’s Kolkata International Film Festival, the film that has stayed with me is a Greek film, Yannis Sakaridis’s “Amerikan Square.” The film covers a thorny political theme within the ambit of a genre film, roughly that of black comedy. In many ways, it’s a film that one could imagine Coen brothers to make if they were to explore the contemporary European political landscape.
Before we get started here, I’m going to make a confession. Prior to the nightmare of what-the-fuckery that began on November 8, I did exactly two things for the Clinton campaign: I made a single donation while sitting in bed in my pajamas, and I ordered a free Stop Bigotry sticker which I never actually got around to putting on my car.
Because of this, once the dust of post-election disbelief had settled, I felt the need to hit the ground running. While my friends reeled and grieved because they’d tried so hard for nothing, the shame of knowing I hadn’t tried at all moved me to throw myself into every cause I came across. I read every article. I signed every petition. I called my representatives. I made stacks of frantic to-do lists.
Fossil fuels are burning, the world is warming and storms are brewing. This we all know (apart from the most powerful man (-elect) in the free world and his posse, but that’s an argument for another time, namely, when we’re knee deep in seawater and our skin is crisping). So, if the truth of climate change is something most thinking people take as a given, why is it a topic so rarely tackled by contemporary novelists?
For the past five years, my standard response to the question, “Are you seeing anyone?” has been: New Brunswick is my boyfriend.
New Brunswick, New Jersey is a post-industrial small city in the center of my state. It’s where I was born and holds all of my hopes for the future.
The reverence and lyricism of devorah major’s poetry collection “and then we became” (City Lights, November 2015) is a gift to all readers as we move into the darkest days of the year.
I picked up an early copy of this collection at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, so it was a special treat for me to be able to match my own experiences with these sights and sounds with the scenes from the poem “brown lady in white”
i have seen her
scurrying down mission street
gusting through tenderloin
pushing past crowds on market
Sometimes one has the pleasure of feeling like a citizen of the world. Perhaps they felt like that on the day of the moon landing, when Armstrong told us what a leap our species had made. In 1920 women in the US were given the right to vote, and I’m sure many looked up at the sky that night and thought about how much closer they suddenly were to women worldwide. In 2008, Barack Obama was elected the most powerful man in the free world, and for eight years people believed not that anything was possible, but simply that we, as a species, were daring to look at one another without prejudice.
One strength of flash fiction is that it can transport you into a mood or state of mind in the time it takes to brush your teeth. One pitfall of flash fiction is that because of that brevity, it requires a certain diligence and attention to detail at a higher magnitude than short stories or novels. In this way, it’s more like poetry, except that flash fiction also requires a plot, where poetry usually doesn’t. Flash fiction has a beginning, middle, and end, just like a longer story. Something must happen, some turn must occur in the characters or the events.
Jack C. Buck’s flash fiction pieces in “Deer Michigan,” a collection coming out mid-November from Truth Serum Press, are different. They don’t adhere to a plot so much as they follow their own internal logic, a confessional “On the Road” style of unedited diaristic writing.
I traveled to New Orleans, LA from Newark, NJ during a rainstorm and worried the whole flight. Not so much about the turbulence in the air, but about the conference I was traveling for. I was to present and receive awards regarding urban youth projects I work on in New Jersey, and would have to wear formal and business wear. Would I look awkward, or uncomfortable, or worse still, phony?
It can’t just be me. There have got to be other people out there like me. I prepare and prepare for fall and one of the best holidays (Halloween!) in my favorite season, and I still manage to fail.
I fail at Halloween.
A robed clergyman hurries through the gated entrance, clutching a book to his chest. No points for guessing which one. His legs, spinning like an escaping Scooby Doo, take him through the flower patches and into the church. The church has a sign outside it which says, “Weight Watchers Meeting Tonight 6.30 pm.” But his visit is probably more business than leisure.