tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82528658480640268072024-02-19T03:59:34.114-06:00Creating Van GoghIn this blog, I chronicle my progress on Yellow, a historical novel based on the life of Vincent Van Gogh. Along the way, I inform readers as to the many concerns, headaches, and joys that accompany one who takes up the challenge of writing historical fiction. I hope readers feel to comment on any topic I raise, that they will share their own insight and experience, thus only broadening the scope and usefulness of the blog.John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.comBlogger256125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-72608966790873494792015-03-17T07:00:00.000-05:002015-03-17T07:00:06.249-05:00Snow ends, tour begins<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfemoa0zg7L1gpTtnEPIkxZWF8WdSdSI0dXrskyW4XW1h8YDXn2WxFiVR17y5Ot2p2bx44IGKI_7fleJONd-P2e6RmrOoKtxZf4hE24gdhuJDPZBTyQLMx3m2bq1zGTv5QfURJB5bYAJ4/s1600/MBB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfemoa0zg7L1gpTtnEPIkxZWF8WdSdSI0dXrskyW4XW1h8YDXn2WxFiVR17y5Ot2p2bx44IGKI_7fleJONd-P2e6RmrOoKtxZf4hE24gdhuJDPZBTyQLMx3m2bq1zGTv5QfURJB5bYAJ4/s1600/MBB.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a>Boy, has it been a weird winter. Mid-January to early-February looked practically balmy here in Arkansas, and then we got slammed with three to four straights weeks of winter junk. Nothing like the northeast got, of course, but enough that it put a significant hit on local schools and events, including an evening at the <a href="http://bigrockreading.blogspot.com/">Big Rock Reading Series</a> (in Little Rock) that I was dearly looking foward to participating in. Two weeks later one day of our Arkatext Writers Festival had to be be canceled, the very day when a poet I was "in charge of" was supposed to speak.</div>
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The good news is that spring, at least in Arkansas, seems to have actually and truly arrived. (As I type this, it's 72 degrees outside.) And not a second too soon either, because starting this Thursday morning I'm heading eastward with my family in our minivan to visit relatives and do an <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Island-Fog-John-Vanderslice/dp/1935084410/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426556202&sr=1-1&keywords=Island+Fog">Island Fog</a></i> mini-tour. One has to arrange these dates a ridiculous amount of time in advance, so I'm keeping my fingers severely crossed that in the northeast, even if it's colder than here, the snow and sleet and slush are <i>done</i>. No more cancellations, please!</div>
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For anyone reading this blog who lives in or around upstate NY, here are the events I'm doing in the next ten days or so. (I'm leaving off one date with a book club in Auburn, NY, because that's private!)</div>
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<b>Saturday, March 21, 11a-1p: Book signing at <a href="http://bookhouse.indiebound.com/">Market Block Books</a> in Troy, NY.</b> A lovely, old fashioned bookstore in an historic building in a charming city just outside of Albany. [<i>That's Market Block in the picture above</i>.] My father-in-law and his wife will be there, along with several of their friends. Come join us!</div>
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<b><br /></b><b>Friday, March 27, 7p: Reading and book signing at the <a href="http://syracuse.ymca.org/dwc.html">Downtown Writer's Center</a> in Syracuse, NY</b>. This venue hosts an ambitious schedule of reading events every semester. As a visitor from faraway Arkansas, I'm honored to be on the program.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAtsFUzbP7smV4q2DwnEe-qVTf7sI3wjoPEQatOA-Th4rl42fXrqQn_kvD-wIN2yNmJUeYkAw7dtiQbHDVM_5fKuQQRHbgFyPsqj7XpX5k_XMIBZFSV5_-o7yWnoR4BzxNbVYEj9iBTdgI/s1600/Island+Fog+cover+for+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAtsFUzbP7smV4q2DwnEe-qVTf7sI3wjoPEQatOA-Th4rl42fXrqQn_kvD-wIN2yNmJUeYkAw7dtiQbHDVM_5fKuQQRHbgFyPsqj7XpX5k_XMIBZFSV5_-o7yWnoR4BzxNbVYEj9iBTdgI/s1600/Island+Fog+cover+for+web.jpg" height="200" style="cursor: move;" width="124" /></a>One thing that's thrilling to think about is that people in upstate New York are surely more familiar with Nantucket, Massachusetts--the setting for every story in <i>Island Fog--</i>than are people in the south, even people in a sweet upscale college town like Conway. So come on out, up-staters, and ask me whatever questions you can think of about that little island "away offshore."</div>
John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-46091707266307333572015-01-12T07:28:00.002-06:002015-01-12T07:36:04.810-06:00What's a virtual book tour?<br />
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[<i>I'm dual-listing this post with my other blog </i><a href="http://payperazzi.blogspot.com/">Payperazzi</a><i>. I wanted to post it here as a followup to a note about the blog tour that I added to my last </i>Creating Van Gogh<i> post. But as it deals with the</i></div>
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<i> writing life generally I thought it was appropriate for </i>Payperazzi <i>too.</i>]</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIxwv60OoQr2ur7f38Bta5mJlzMpaS_HNqKYQ18-GcW-4jH1AHAYr02DuLMRmVtUOQsS2mju45kC52hfFxbPMMsTVM7W37RgpZXjR0i-Mug0NdUR5Rwe065Fz8MkmE3nnVJ08R6csBkdU/s1600/images-28.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIxwv60OoQr2ur7f38Bta5mJlzMpaS_HNqKYQ18-GcW-4jH1AHAYr02DuLMRmVtUOQsS2mju45kC52hfFxbPMMsTVM7W37RgpZXjR0i-Mug0NdUR5Rwe065Fz8MkmE3nnVJ08R6csBkdU/s1600/images-28.jpeg" height="130" width="200" /></a>When the publicist I hired in the fall suggested an organized online book tour, I must admit I hesitated. Although I should have been, I wasn't aware of this phenomenon at the time. Of course I knew about book blogs--in fact I'd contacted dozens of them last summer trying to line up reviews and mentions--but a coordinated tour through several of them was a new form of marketing for me. The publicist suggested a particular tour company she knew and respected: <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/">TLC Book Tours</a>. Looking over their web site I saw that I could choose between a 10-blog tour and 20-blog tour; I also could, if I wanted, among other services, pay for advertisements in a newsletter the company puts out to its book club. All the different services offer by TLC seemed attractive and potentially valuable, but a 10-blog tour was what our budget allowed, so I went with that.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy75YsfwijpT_t7xIQgVSybwuuLDJlEagxAkfCDFNGTuAIaNzUZQjmQm077PGFcUsia_uA2VCYz-5Q5qtk7EpEjgKanhFTl-hPiXRU1xKOoLRhttLr23ocF_OZSAifJCE1RxKZzsqQSp8p/s1600/Island+Fog+cover+for+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy75YsfwijpT_t7xIQgVSybwuuLDJlEagxAkfCDFNGTuAIaNzUZQjmQm077PGFcUsia_uA2VCYz-5Q5qtk7EpEjgKanhFTl-hPiXRU1xKOoLRhttLr23ocF_OZSAifJCE1RxKZzsqQSp8p/s1600/Island+Fog+cover+for+web.jpg" height="200" style="cursor: move;" width="124" /></a>It took several weeks for the tour to get fully arranged--no way could I have coordinated this all on my own--and I must admit that there days when I wondered if TLC had forgotten about me. Ideally the tour happens very close to the official release date of your book, but since I was late to commit, the tour couldn't happen until <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Island-Fog-John-Vanderslice-ebook/dp/B00O47VUDG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421006695&sr=1-1&keywords=Island+Fog">my book <i>Island Fog</i></a> had been out for a couple months. I had my choice of December or January, and Trish Collins at TLC strongly recommended January, explaining that everyone is too distracted in December to pay much attention to bloggers. I took her word for it.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY6JBnAqtUUYTOKApUQy6wYIfV_59lZoCG0oUV4hXwHMmmP2GGFE4knid-IL6YkRwX_Ls7WLfCnMW4vRHbIzcerlWc1jiCkWD1aUFQZqhepUxj70Mwd0LXnplyLIYbFPoKFrekNT_UbPm0/s1600/cropped-img_15422.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY6JBnAqtUUYTOKApUQy6wYIfV_59lZoCG0oUV4hXwHMmmP2GGFE4knid-IL6YkRwX_Ls7WLfCnMW4vRHbIzcerlWc1jiCkWD1aUFQZqhepUxj70Mwd0LXnplyLIYbFPoKFrekNT_UbPm0/s1600/cropped-img_15422.jpg" height="88" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a>So--ta dah--January successfully (and coldly) arrived, and with it came the beginning of my blog tour. So far so good! I must admit that it's childishly thrilling to wake up and know that a given book blog is going to exclusively profile your that day. Thrilling, but anxious too, because you have no way of knowing what they will say. There's no contractual agreement that the blogs have to provide positive reviews. No, you just send each blog a copy of your book, stand back, and then simply wait for the results. I guess it's kind of like an actor in Broadway show who, the morning after the opening, rushes to look at his copy of the <i>Times</i> to see what the reviewer had to say, knowing how his day--to say nothing of the fate of the show--will hang on what's printed there. That same breathless thrill--and that same anxiety. Except that, weekends excluded, I get to experience it for ten days! (Actually eleven, as it turns out.) It's been great, though. Really fun. It helps that every review so far has been positive, and a couple have been overwhelmingly so. Ann Walters at <i><a href="http://booksonthetable.com/2015/01/07/island-fog-book-review-and-author-interview/">Books on the Table</a> </i>so liked the book after she read it that she shot me a series of questions to answer so that she could expand her review with an author interview. Very gladly! Thank you!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAoTci_l0FncmRiRND_R6CWmTLHEQnsA_uVD5xsRL4KJlWCLd5eTXk40JwoTnbTuYxTS4G8rGvIg64tKmQDy7_2qTOAjZ9XkjRBYFaQu3kUJj_NfscW0M6c7LvblyVODuU6l8_WEYVsrR9/s1600/logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAoTci_l0FncmRiRND_R6CWmTLHEQnsA_uVD5xsRL4KJlWCLd5eTXk40JwoTnbTuYxTS4G8rGvIg64tKmQDy7_2qTOAjZ9XkjRBYFaQu3kUJj_NfscW0M6c7LvblyVODuU6l8_WEYVsrR9/s1600/logo.png" style="cursor: move;" /></a>To make the week even sweeter, a long-since-completed interview I conducted with my colleague Garry Craig Powell finally found its way into <i><a href="ttp://fictionwritersreview.com/">Fiction Writers Review</a></i> on Thursday. How's that for timing? For the very attractive look of the interview I have to thank the kind attention, and conscientious editing, of <i>FWR</i> publisher Jeremy Chamberlin. Click <a href="http://fictionwritersreview.com/interview/literary-models-an-interview-with-john-vanderslice/">here</a> to read it.</div>
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As I've mentioned to a few people already, and said in the <i>Books on the Table</i> interview, I feel like publishing this book has taught me what to do the <i>ne</i><i>xt</i> time I publish a book. (Keeping my fingers crossed on that score.) That has been the real benefit of all these various marketing activities. And certainly one lesson is that a book blog tour is clearly worth it. In sales? I don't know yet. Maybe yes; maybe no. In exposure? Yes, certainly. In thrills? Absolutely. In fact, I would heartily recommend TLC to anyone who asked. That said, if anyone reading this has had a particular bad or useless experience with a book blog tour I'd be happy to hear about it. Below find links to the reviews that have been posted on the first five blogs on my tour. And then below that, links to the upcoming six. (TLC kindly arranged a lagniappe for me.) Cheers, everyone.<i></i></div>
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<b>Last week's stops on the <i>Island Fog</i> book blog tour:</b></div>
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Monday, January 5th: <a href="http://www.readingavidly.com/2015/01/island-fog-by-john-vanderslice.html" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;">The Year in Books</a></div>
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Tuesday, January 6th:<a href="http://sveta-randomblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/g524-book-review-of-island-fog-by-john.html" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;"> Svetlana’s Reads and Views</a></div>
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Wednesday, January 7th: <a href="http://booksonthetable.com/2015/01/07/island-fog-book-review-and-author-interview/" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;">Books on the Table</a></div>
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Thursday, January 8th: <a href="http://www.readingavidly.com/2015/01/island-fog-by-john-vanderslice.html" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;">Savvy Verse & Wit</a></div>
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Friday, January 9th: <a href="http://thebookbindersdaughter.com/2015/01/09/review-and-giveaway-island-fog-by-john-vanderslice/" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;">The Book Binder’s Daughter</a></div>
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<b>This week's stops: </b></div>
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Monday, January 12th: <a href="http://thediscerningreader.wordpress.com/" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;">The Discerning Reader</a></div>
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Tuesday, January 13th: <a href="http://nomoregrumpybookseller.blogspot.com/" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;">No More Grumpy Bookseller</a></div>
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Wednesday, January 14th: <a href="http://litandlife.blogspot.com/" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;">Lit and Life</a></div>
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Friday, January 16th: <a href="http://www.peekingbetweenthepages.com/" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;">Peeking Between the Pages</a></div>
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<b>The last two stops:</b></div>
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Tuesday, January 20th: <a href="http://www.bibliotica.com/" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;">Bibliotica</a></div>
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Thursday, January 22nd: <a href="http://abookgeek-llm.blogspot.com/" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;">A Book Geek</a></div>
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John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-71337084400391615572015-01-05T07:00:00.000-06:002015-01-05T07:00:11.056-06:00A great Hands On experience<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKp5yugSH6F6lN-WXXQBGrJ05-P68qNF9HFO2CY0ley36tX4XscXmQWWDyn-AFs2Mr1Lm3f3eYgtW-vFqXh3M-kgYXp0Dt3Su4GiIY954u8DWiTfXWhGsJai96w7JAmXoK4orq_06Up8s/s1600/redmaskgirl-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKp5yugSH6F6lN-WXXQBGrJ05-P68qNF9HFO2CY0ley36tX4XscXmQWWDyn-AFs2Mr1Lm3f3eYgtW-vFqXh3M-kgYXp0Dt3Su4GiIY954u8DWiTfXWhGsJai96w7JAmXoK4orq_06Up8s/s1600/redmaskgirl-1.jpg" height="165" width="400" /></a>I've discovered a new conference! And it's in a great city: New Orleans. I traveled down there shortly after Christmas for what, I found out, was only the second running of the <a href="http://burlesquepressllc.com/handsonball/">Hands On Literary Festival and Masquerade Ball</a>. It could not have been a more pleasant, more friendly, more genial event--aptly organized and warmly administered by New Orleans native Jennifer Stewart-Wallace--and I found it unusually nourishing. First of all, because the conference is only in its second year, it's still a very manageable size. Only two sessions to choose from for each time section, one being a craft talk and the other a reading, with plenty of time allowed, and occasions provided, for socializing and interacting with new colleagues. And not so many of them that you run into them only once and hurriedly in the hallway of some enormous conference center, or that you can't remember their names. No, no. The Hands On Festival is a much cozier affair. Many of the participants had past or present connections with either the <a href="http://www.uno.edu/">University of New Orleans</a> or <a href="http://www.lsu.edu/">Louisiana State University</a>; several of them knew each other already, which created a kind of lovely reunion atmosphere at the festival. But by no means was it an exclusive / "no new faces wanted" kind of affair. In fact, not only did I feel welcome, but I felt I made some important new professional friends.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEKzif0-8vlO1jV0-6tVww6qnCgXRPHP-uCPa7uTLPaC0qHuo-QdK0Qjhopmr-_1viua7hxQzNraikylhpZ5jA8NnJT-HH06QDDU8k97DpIKtvZSexMQG7D0VyaGxNioFLmeTKE9mGKu4/s1600/Lania-Knight-Author-2013-low-res-160x233.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEKzif0-8vlO1jV0-6tVww6qnCgXRPHP-uCPa7uTLPaC0qHuo-QdK0Qjhopmr-_1viua7hxQzNraikylhpZ5jA8NnJT-HH06QDDU8k97DpIKtvZSexMQG7D0VyaGxNioFLmeTKE9mGKu4/s1600/Lania-Knight-Author-2013-low-res-160x233.jpg" /></a>I also heard some excellent presentations. One in particular sticks in my memory and is relevant to this blog. The theme of the session was "Using Research in Long Form Writing." Not all of the comments related to historical fiction, but some of them did. One participant, <a href="http://www.laniaknight.com/">Lania Knight</a> of <a href="http://www.eiu.edu/">Eastern Illinois University</a> (pictured on the right), is currently working on a novel set one hundred years in the future, a period that in her novel has suffered through considerable ecological turmoil and vast social upheaval. What I found most interesting about Lania's presentation, however, is that nearly all of her comments were about the past and how writers understand that. One of Lania's credos is that if one is writing about the future it is supremely important "to get the past right." She's found in her own reading of futuristic novels that the authors' visions of the future are often drastically different, a difference she claims stems from their very different views of the past. It only makes sense that how one interprets the past will invariably affect how one perceives the future, but the thought had not crystalized for me until Lania said it during the session. Some authors, for instance, Lania explained, perceive the past purely through a white, European, neocolonial gaze; others perceive the past more broadly. She has been attempting, as best she can, to perceive the past comprehensively and accurately. So her research for the novel has not been only or even mostly a matter of reading a lot of futuristic science fiction (although she has done quite a bit of that) but reading nonfiction that explains the nature and history of the various ecological phenomena that play an important role in her novel. She stressed repeatedly that she "wants to get the past right" in order to make her vision of the future credible. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSdZwjb-qcOaCYiUQ-UEfrE8r0hyQ5qd2uJAVNZ1w72FMGkrDxBqdqZPfWRBYX1ouj54ApyOM9f_PEPBaeRw4ECYjXloTdfGY5sZkpvR8ryiAYp9FtJrGreJ3Skh06vYYtnvTr-933IBE/s1600/dwallace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSdZwjb-qcOaCYiUQ-UEfrE8r0hyQ5qd2uJAVNZ1w72FMGkrDxBqdqZPfWRBYX1ouj54ApyOM9f_PEPBaeRw4ECYjXloTdfGY5sZkpvR8ryiAYp9FtJrGreJ3Skh06vYYtnvTr-933IBE/s1600/dwallace.jpg" height="200" width="160" /></a>One of the other presenters was Daniel Wallace (pictured on left), fiction writer and Ph.D. candidate at the <a href="http://www.utk.edu/">University of Tennessee-Knoxville</a>. Daniel is working on a novel set in eighteenth-century Scotland. He outlined many issues he was having with how best to use the research he has carried out for the novel. But one concern seemed most pressing: that of spoken language. Daniel explained that at the time three separate languages would have been commonly spoken in the country: a less-than- modern-sounding version of English; Scots, a Germanic language variety only distantly related to English and spoken in the Lowlands; and Scottish Gaelic, spoken in the Highlands. If Daniel were to be completely faithful to the facts of history, his novel would need evidence speakers of all three types. He's worried that this could be quite confusing to contemporary readers, especially when he begins to represent these different dialects on the page. He was not at all happy about this prospect, yet he clearly did not feel entitled to ignore the facts of history. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiK3NlBMSl2_XoafTHNu_lo3AUZRNVw6qgdnJkxWcXn0jWPq40cOw-GhpvzW4CVXeOouZ3z61uOgdeZ4trnIZp3mMydIn6mUG6uWtr_WfsNM-jbip6Ix7Q-GmNNxQ5AkboyeP7c-yb9Fg/s1600/220px-Gwape_first_edition.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiK3NlBMSl2_XoafTHNu_lo3AUZRNVw6qgdnJkxWcXn0jWPq40cOw-GhpvzW4CVXeOouZ3z61uOgdeZ4trnIZp3mMydIn6mUG6uWtr_WfsNM-jbip6Ix7Q-GmNNxQ5AkboyeP7c-yb9Fg/s1600/220px-Gwape_first_edition.png" height="320" width="214" /></a>Of course, here again we are faced with one of the questions I've asked repeatedly on this blog: When and where is it appropriate to ignore or even alter history when writing a novel supposedly drawn from history? In regards to Daniel's case, other conference goers came to the same conclusion I did; i.e., unless he intends to market the novel solely to a society of linguists, Daniel cannot and should not attempt reproduce precisely how his characters in real life would have spoken. Understanding one alien dialect can be confusing enough for a reader--along with the ever-present risk that the dialect will render the character a caricature, that the reader will see only a dialect and not a person. But multipy that by three and you only have chaos. One possibility, given that Daniel's intended audience is native English speakers, is that he aim for a neutral form of English, one that a) is readable, b) comes across as natural for the characters, and c) is stripped of any giveaway slang or anachronistic cultural references. I remember years ago hearing <a href="http://www.tchevalier.com/">Tracy Chevalier</a>, author of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_with_a_Pearl_Earring_(novel)">The Girl with a Pearl Earring</a>, explain that this was her strategy for that novel. She didn't try to imitate seventeenth-century English just because her novel was set in the seventeenth-century (in Holland, though, not England), but instead she aimed for a brand of English that sounded believable to the modern ear yet was free of obvious anachronisms. Another possibility suggested to Daniel was that when he first introduce a character he suggest that character's language through a few choice phrases or words, thus putting the idea in the reader's mind that this character speaks in a given way, but then not to push it very much for the rest of the book. This sounded like a different but workable solution to the problem, and one in which the underlying strategy is similar to what I usually suggest: When writing a novel, what your <i>novel</i> needs is paramount, not what history needs, because a reader won't care about your novel's accuracy to history if he or she can't read it--or doesn't want to. Which is not to say--not at all--that history should always be jettisoned. Often, one gets the best, sharpest ideas for a novel from the historical record itself. But I've blogged about that fact in the past and I expect I will in the future too. So we'll save that discussion for another time!<br />
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Just one example of the interesting talk that went on at last week's Hands On Literary Festival. Can't wait to next year to go back.<br />
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<b> * * *</b><br />
<b>Blog tour starts! </b>My new book of short stories, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Island-Fog-John-Vanderslice-ebook/dp/B00O47VUDG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420458165&sr=1-1&keywords=Island+Fog">Island Fog</a></i>, has already been featured on several book blogs and websites, but today marks the start of my officially arranged "blog tour." Over the next eleven days, not counting weekends, eleven blogs will publish reviews of my book, one per day. It's an exciting and somewhat anxious prospect. I have no way of knowing if they're going to like it! But given that so far the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, I'm going to hope for the best. In my next post, I'll provide an update on how the tour is going, with links to the individual blogs. <br />
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<b>* * *</b><br />
<b>More thrills--my wife's book club! </b> Tomorrow night my wife's book club meets at our house to<br />
discuss--you got it--my book. Talk about pressure! Wisely I think, the club likes to pick books if they know they have special access to the author and thus will be able to ask the author questions. Sometimes they Skype with authors; in my case, I'll be sitting in the room with them. Again, I can't know in advance if they liked the book or what their questions will be, but it's sure to be a memorable evening. <br />
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<br />John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-40203754611879911732014-12-16T07:00:00.000-06:002014-12-16T07:00:04.112-06:00The students speak!<br />
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[<i>As</i> Creating Van Gogh <i>readers may have noticed, for most of this semester I have been dual-posting entries to </i>CVG <i>and my teaching-oriented blog </i><a href="http://payperazzi.blogspot.com/">Payperazzi</a><i>. This, of course, is because the Historical Fiction Workshop class I have been teaching relates to both blogs. Today's entry represents my last report on that class</i>. <i>(For now.)</i>]</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0RK38xJrG5g0X9Vp9rHsZgjwck5l89oBe4KP0SIUgerWAEvf05mrQubHaJP2mTjffKvW10fVi87VVK6TJp1X0WsV8kP6dJmOkxRo-LO9o4tFiBbDSS_tKK5CyUZJXV0mMecefpPd2Ac8/s1600/Vince_Lombardi.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0RK38xJrG5g0X9Vp9rHsZgjwck5l89oBe4KP0SIUgerWAEvf05mrQubHaJP2mTjffKvW10fVi87VVK6TJp1X0WsV8kP6dJmOkxRo-LO9o4tFiBbDSS_tKK5CyUZJXV0mMecefpPd2Ac8/s1600/Vince_Lombardi.png" /></a>In recent semesters I've been moving away from asking for the standard end-of-semester reflective papers that typically accompany my students' final portfolios. Now I ask for a paper the discusses a particular craft issue in a given genre, or analyzes a form within that genre. While I expect and encourage the students to mention their own creative work in the discussion I also insist that they quote, take support from, or contend with the model stories and novels we read, or articles they encountered, over the course of the semester. The point is to push the students toward end-of-the-semester pieces that are more academic in tone and, frankly, more probing. I did this with Historical Fiction Workshop class and received some very interesting responses in return.</div>
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First, I'm happy to report that most of the students felt that exploring this form for a semester has helped their writing broadly. I know one grad student, without planning to, started working on the novel that will become his MFA thesis. Another grad student was able to make serious revisions on and new explorations into her (already first-drafted) historical novel. A third grad student, who previously wrote mostly flash fiction and nonfiction, found herself churning out 15 page historical stories before the semester ended. And that's a good thing, as she will be in my Novel Writing Workshop next semester! Many of the undergraduates reported satisfaction with being able to imagine and research time periods [e.g., the slavery era in the United States] or world events [e.g., a major battle in World War One; the voyage of the Titanic] or figures out of history [e.g., Joan of Arc, Maria Monk, Vince Lombardi (<i>pictured above</i>)] that they've always been intrigued by.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNeGpAidSQ-toxVEXCRWXde45clbidmLgwNP1gB9tsNenjOyNpo5MYKvleE4kp83_AMqfhS__5ZlhmPWfMmyzThoYrBYjraV8w6m_OGw0wilL7OYxrB-Sf5r_TxvP9H2QVsAPMAnVuzGMb/s1600/HC-mainslide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNeGpAidSQ-toxVEXCRWXde45clbidmLgwNP1gB9tsNenjOyNpo5MYKvleE4kp83_AMqfhS__5ZlhmPWfMmyzThoYrBYjraV8w6m_OGw0wilL7OYxrB-Sf5r_TxvP9H2QVsAPMAnVuzGMb/s1600/HC-mainslide.jpg" height="177" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a>But as I was hoping, the papers also raised many issues with and insights into historical fiction as a form; in some cases, issues and insights that had never come up despite a whole semester spent on the subject; issues and insights that I'm chagrined to say had never occurred to me. So I'm glad they raised them! For instance, two students--Isabella Evans and Rene Rains--discussed the issue of using historical fiction in an academic class in order to facilitate the understanding of an earlier period. It had never occurred to me that a history teacher would want to do that, but, as Rene explains, some teachers believe that fiction makes the individual in history more real than any textbook can. Fiction is much less likely to demonize or heroize an historical individual than to show that person as a rounded being. On the other hand, Isabella points to a statement she found on the website of <a href="http://teachinghistory.org/">teachinghistory.org</a> to show there are dangers in going to fiction for a clear picture of history: "When students read historical fiction, then, they are encouraged not to think of the past as just one thing after another but to look for patterns and sequences, for causes and consequences, for agents and their motivations." In other words, fiction is overdetermined by its authors; whereas real history, at least we hope, is not determined at all but a complex web of barely associated actualities stemming from myriad possibilities.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqsV-GJjLarUawH9G3NUiE1flpsNNTK8l5M1YAqCyM9qmLP3Ry7OzyAFK_2J09dM2RFeiLZ5ywtRNupX2lxMpZVrwSUXRWMM3dV23PU2VPMqHXNeXPpYobj9hwrrR8AVhQSRqR8u6qoBMH/s1600/220px-Brooklyn_Museum_-_Climbing_into_the_Promised_Land_Ellis_Island_-_Lewis_Wickes_Hine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqsV-GJjLarUawH9G3NUiE1flpsNNTK8l5M1YAqCyM9qmLP3Ry7OzyAFK_2J09dM2RFeiLZ5ywtRNupX2lxMpZVrwSUXRWMM3dV23PU2VPMqHXNeXPpYobj9hwrrR8AVhQSRqR8u6qoBMH/s1600/220px-Brooklyn_Museum_-_Climbing_into_the_Promised_Land_Ellis_Island_-_Lewis_Wickes_Hine.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>TJ Heffers coined the term "fictional autobiography" in his paper and considered the nature of writing history altogether for explaining why, in detailing with certain family stories, fictionalizing them is not just preferred but impossible to avoid: "T<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px;">here is no recorded history of people like my great-grandparents, who worked unimportant jobs and were generally just average people. History books are written about the big people, the Lincolns and the Charlemagnes and the Ramseses who have been powerful enough to shape the rise and fall of nations. What records we have of little people tends to be things like census reports, birth certificates, and records from Ellis Island, which gives us dates but no personality, no conflict, and no day-to-day narrative. Stories based simply on dates would barely be stories at all, and even with large amounts of documented facts would honestly be boring without dramatic techniques applied to them." Indeed, not just TJ but other writers in class used historical fiction as a means of getting close to aspects of their family's history that have been lost to the unrecorded past. [<i>Pictured on right: immigrants arrive at Ellis Island.</i>]</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px;">Lynne Landis surveyed how the different model authors we read over the course of the semester developed their characters, breaking with, or merely hiding from, history when necessary. In historical ficton, Lynne asserts, the writer's attention needs to be focused on characterization almost to the exclusion of all other concerns. Most people, she argues </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px;">(I think rightly), assume that the big challenge of historical fiction is researching and representing the external realities of a past period. But for Lynne it's the opposite: "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">If the characters are not special, somehow within and yet beyond their world, then all the facts in the world, all the detail and historical accuracy will not help you. Perhaps it’s simply because people are people, no matter the time or place, and that readers know and need that."</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Audrey Carroll, among others in class, tried to get to the nature of what makes historical fiction a separate genre from fiction in general. Audrey suggests that the case could be made for historical fiction being no different at all. But she had more fun with exploring the notion of a distinction between literary historical fiction (also known as "high end historical fiction," according to student Stacey Margaret Jones) and genre historical fiction. Audrey quotes commentator Sarah Johnson to offer a very canny distinction: "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">Johnson, who writes specifically about literary historical fiction, claims that it's distinguished by 'fiction set in the past but which emphasizes themes that pertain back to the present' where the writer 'simply use[s] the past as a vehicle of making their plot more believable.'" That's an important and eloquently rendered formation, I think. I said repeatedly in class that historical fiction, at least when it's done seriously, says more about the time period in which it was written than it can about the period depicted--whether or not the author means to--and it sounds like Johnson is more or less in agreement.</span></div>
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Students: Thanks to all of you for your insights and for your hard work. And most of all for your wonderful, original stories.</div>
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John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-52822019232593109252014-12-08T07:00:00.000-06:002014-12-08T07:00:01.066-06:00Historical fiction violence!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqq5mM_GRLNxTaA6Lfu_ZaGnNsGI7665_2mHP0bByRnFC3ujQNn3Kc6nGGhL1Sb9lNQnUooC32UHRugPVXwF2-UkvMVnjPbyCWkVPBaivymFKxHrJSXBPstrnfAEggdQ6aoK_9qAoohEE/s1600/300px-Jeanne_d'Arc_-_Panthe%CC%81on_II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqq5mM_GRLNxTaA6Lfu_ZaGnNsGI7665_2mHP0bByRnFC3ujQNn3Kc6nGGhL1Sb9lNQnUooC32UHRugPVXwF2-UkvMVnjPbyCWkVPBaivymFKxHrJSXBPstrnfAEggdQ6aoK_9qAoohEE/s1600/300px-Jeanne_d'Arc_-_Panthe%CC%81on_II.jpg" height="320" width="235" /></a>We finished workshopping last week in my historical fiction workshop class. This week I receive final portfolios that will include revisions of the creative work along with a paper on a particular aspect of the craft of historical fiction writing. I'm very much looking forward to those, and seeing what about historical fiction the students find either the most intriguing or the most debatable. In the meantime, though, I'm simply happy to report that in a very full semester, one in which I asked a lot of them and on top of that many of them--both grads and undergrads alike--were faced with various personal, professional, and departmental challenges, they produced a considerable amount of intriguing and promising work. With a few exceptions, none of the students had written historical fiction before; and, going in, just about none regarded it as a genre through which they eventually hoped to define themselves. They were amateurs, gamely trying, thrusting themselves into into historical eras they had not personally seen but somehow had to make real on the page for a reader. Not surprisingly, all but three of them chose twentieth-century subjects exclusively. And two of those three split their stories between twentieth-century and nineteenth-century subject matter. (The students were given a choice of writing three separate fictions or one long sustained fiction.) Only one student wrote a story set deep in the past; in this case in biblical times. And while I'm glad she did that, she was clearly motivated by a story she knew well (the standoff between Rachel, Leah, and Jacob) and that could provide her with several key details both for her plot and her setting. It's not as if she chose that era on a whim.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEQC3kHZfhT_tHk8ehIF5QSHJw8PbsCigQ2we9xG-B2E4Y2G6i8mztSS2G5AHzevTh-I3Yplpw-a7vthvqJ4CyfCybAWgxM2GH_fmzPg-AcK-3G7oG0aCkJn1C_bLM9GOBGks44YfN3ZWl/s1600/AustraliansAtTobruk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEQC3kHZfhT_tHk8ehIF5QSHJw8PbsCigQ2we9xG-B2E4Y2G6i8mztSS2G5AHzevTh-I3Yplpw-a7vthvqJ4CyfCybAWgxM2GH_fmzPg-AcK-3G7oG0aCkJn1C_bLM9GOBGks44YfN3ZWl/s1600/AustraliansAtTobruk.jpg" height="320" style="cursor: move;" width="313" /></a>Aside from the emphasis on twentieth-century stories, the most apparent thread between the stories was an emphasis on war or, more broadly, disaster. And again, this should have come as no surprise to me, even though I hardly predicted it before the semester began. After all, if one has only a cursory knowledge of a particular time period, the wars are what is likely to stand out. More to the point, wars, disasters, and violent conflicts are innately dramatic and can come fully embedded with countless side stories to engage a fiction writer's imagination. As I said half-jokingly to the class this semester, "Thank God for World War Two. There are so many stories to be found within that big huge story that we'll never run out." And I think that's true. It's impossible to count the number of fine stories, novels, plays, memoirs, movies, and television series that have already come from that conflict. And they keep coming! It's worth noting too that one of the model short stories we read--"Delicate Edible Birds" by <a href="http://www.laurengroff.com/">Lauren Groff</a>--was a World War Two story, set against the backdrop of the Nazi invasion of France; one of the model novels we read-- <i><a href="http://www.jamesmcbride.com/">The Good Lord Bird</a></i> by <a href="http://www.jamesmcbride.com/">James McBride</a>--told the story of John Brown's violent exploits as he tried, years before the Civil War, to single-handedly free the slave population. And another model novel--<i><a href="http://padmaviswanathan.com/">The Toss of a Lemon</a></i> by <a href="http://padmaviswanathan.com/">Padma Viswanathan</a>--referenced in its enormity both world wars as well as, more importantly, the explosive social and political climate in mid-century India as that country struggled to throw off first British rule and then its own inherited tradition of caste hierarchy. In other words, there was a lot of violence in what we read to stimulate violence in the students' own stories.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOeIJw5SgXHuz0W4rA2MAMKhbsSz9cTGKT0xhCoEy4lksD1qjOXJsXBz1gcuM12947ajHO9OBywtyubaXOgkzg-d67ZSEi5kCxzRA355Xggo9sjcOBAheM0tGT3-QmKc_W-0UdHp8oR1HN/s1600/crime_fiction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOeIJw5SgXHuz0W4rA2MAMKhbsSz9cTGKT0xhCoEy4lksD1qjOXJsXBz1gcuM12947ajHO9OBywtyubaXOgkzg-d67ZSEi5kCxzRA355Xggo9sjcOBAheM0tGT3-QmKc_W-0UdHp8oR1HN/s1600/crime_fiction.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>Here's the final tally on the war/disaster/violence front: one Vietnam story; four World War Two stories; two World War One stories; a story featuring ritualized cult killings; a story featuring a physically and sexually abusive husband; a story about a runaway teenager who almost certainly is dead (we don't know for sure); a story about a labor riot in the 30s; a story about the Titanic, a story about slavery; and a story about Joan of Arc and her call to arms. That's a lot of violence! And on the whole I'm quite impressed by the care the students took--given the short amount of time they had--to try to make sure the details of their stories historically accurate. Their research efforts ranged from interviews with relatives, little known books, archival film footage, television specials, history volumes, and, of course, the ever trusty (or untrusty) internet. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyiJtGUKYuqh3Aazxik6LHvsMtFn9Y1VQzoXehD3lqFkBHneAE64hAZ7NIPGUKalt1XnJjp5ouPe6z9mxrhee7cE6I5mC5oX2BZyA1xhy1L3JrczQVfysl9BYuNIz2yo7PsLXLCGOw6SX-/s1600/263px-Sto%CC%88wer_Titanic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyiJtGUKYuqh3Aazxik6LHvsMtFn9Y1VQzoXehD3lqFkBHneAE64hAZ7NIPGUKalt1XnJjp5ouPe6z9mxrhee7cE6I5mC5oX2BZyA1xhy1L3JrczQVfysl9BYuNIz2yo7PsLXLCGOw6SX-/s1600/263px-Sto%CC%88wer_Titanic.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>The most successful of their stories refrained from trying to portray events that are well known to the point of being overexposed, and instead approached their events from unexpected angles. For instance, one of the World War Two stories is all about the struggles of the family back home after it has learned that their father and husband has died; another of the World War Two stories explores the long term effect of any incident that happened before the husband even left to go to the war; the Vietnam story shows that war through the exploits of a young Associated Press photographer who has recently landed in country. The less successful stories replayed territory that felt very familiar already--e.g., the fall of Paris, the D-Day invasion, the sinking of the Titanic, the difficult lives of slaves in the American south prior to the Civil War. But I'm satisfied that through the workshop experience the writers of those stories received suggestions for how to make those stories feel new again. For instance, one student wisely counseled the writer of the Titanic story to begin her fiction, and not end it, with the ship sinking. With the fact of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_(1997_film)">James Cameron's movie</a> still too large in the collective consciousness, it seems pointless to try all over again to make the sinking of that ship seem dramatic, unexpected, tragic. The stories that have been told far less often are the stories of what came <i>next</i>. I'm embarrassed to say it did not occur to me to offer this piece of rather obvious advice. But someone in class did, so fortunately the lesson was transmitted.</div>
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For a class of newcomers to historical fiction, my group made several remarkable strides forward even if occasionally they descended into the cliched or outworn. Best of all, having tried historical fiction once, they can, and I expect will, try it again--maybe soon--and only do it better. </div>
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<b>Next week: The students speak!</b></div>
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John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-31696746704056795062014-11-17T07:00:00.000-06:002014-11-17T07:00:01.910-06:00Finally seeing what we're up to<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Y9NsTmuL9T9YDUjkhQX3Z9Xkz3B0QaLZL5wAEV8eCEKappnROvjv7knoHvCoF2JPeGBmwWkjedpxCf3dMlsJQNMa1F-e_xFxmXY0N1Zi6XdFrCueZuIDKxxb-MqsLU3oa0KUkGuI760/s1600/100_fictional_female_characters_by_julipy-d5czjfv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Y9NsTmuL9T9YDUjkhQX3Z9Xkz3B0QaLZL5wAEV8eCEKappnROvjv7knoHvCoF2JPeGBmwWkjedpxCf3dMlsJQNMa1F-e_xFxmXY0N1Zi6XdFrCueZuIDKxxb-MqsLU3oa0KUkGuI760/s1600/100_fictional_female_characters_by_julipy-d5czjfv.jpg" height="319" width="320" /></a>In historical fiction workshop class a couple weeks ago, one of my grad students expressed a lovely thought on his response paper to a novel we were reading <a href="ttp://padmaviswanathan.com/publication/the-toss-of-a-lemon/">(<i>The Toss of a Lemon</i></a> by <a href="http://padmaviswanathan.com/">Padma Viswanathan</a>). Noting that in one chapter the protagonist of the novel was living through the same year of the 20th century as the protagonst of his own novella, the student had a flash of recognition in which he saw all the different characters of the different stories his classmates were working on as inhabiting different eras of the same world. He said he couldn't wait to begin reading his classmates' stories to see which eras and which characters we'd all brought to life. Too see what different kinds of people might have been co-existing, if oceans part, in our class's fictional universe. (<i>On the left, a hundred different fictional characters.</i>)</div>
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It was a beautiful sentiment, and I was thrilled to read it, but for me, the teacher, it pointed to one (I think necessary) drawback in how I've formed the course this semester. Heading into November, the students remained unaware of what each other was doing, except for the one or two other students in their peer groups. Well, to be more exact, there is one person in class we knows what everyone is working on: me. And that's only because I decided not to place myself in a peer group, as I often do for my Novel Writing Workshop class. (Although I am working on my own historical piece too, currently up to 82 pages.)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_iqoLRX7Fo_uDu-SI_HGWR3LyyWQ4l_NVql8cAC3pNA6kUSsRFBw-QhJhk2fZ8Re84F9Yz_Tcwvdo2Hl4kW7Cd79Ga0pDEBtSkUE148Qg3oQpPujtbQE8Naf2NdSp3mRs89qaopjgBsYI/s1600/img_0010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_iqoLRX7Fo_uDu-SI_HGWR3LyyWQ4l_NVql8cAC3pNA6kUSsRFBw-QhJhk2fZ8Re84F9Yz_Tcwvdo2Hl4kW7Cd79Ga0pDEBtSkUE148Qg3oQpPujtbQE8Naf2NdSp3mRs89qaopjgBsYI/s1600/img_0010.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>Relying on peer groups rather than full-class workshops always feels to me like a tenuous arrangement. After all, who's to say that the two or three other students in your group are ultimately the best readers, or even decent readers, of your work? And what if one or more in your group simply decides to bail? What if there is open acrimony in a group? Full-class workshops provide students the richer response sample they need to ensure that at least a few readers get their story and can provide constructive and insightful feedback. And any acrimony can be more easily navigated. But since I was asking, as I usually do for a 4000 or higher level class, for three stories from each student, and there are fifteen students in the class, peer groups were the only way to ensure the students received feedback on each piece. (Unless I wanted to do nothing but workshop all semester.) And they have; and it hasn't been the worst possible solution. But as our legislated round of full-class workshops were set to begin, I recognized how late in the semester it was to for them to finally start reading each other's work. The good news about all this, however, is that students who have taken the option of making their three pieces all part of the same same longer story are sharing the full story with the class. They will be workshopped on their full story. (<i>Note: The writing workshop pictured above contains eight students and a teacher, close to a perfect arrangement.</i>)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKbUDIV71yKiXC4oIXNkfKb6Lroh5pZEDHjOJNjCez4KFynaJcUA9MMou6uJd8p1DZ39nwn0OEo_nbiinSu1QwErRZCwI1Vj1IbSsLN16hwnOm3TWIj7NSDVjgoEveUfVqvhWYW9iCDb0P/s1600/images-34.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKbUDIV71yKiXC4oIXNkfKb6Lroh5pZEDHjOJNjCez4KFynaJcUA9MMou6uJd8p1DZ39nwn0OEo_nbiinSu1QwErRZCwI1Vj1IbSsLN16hwnOm3TWIj7NSDVjgoEveUfVqvhWYW9iCDb0P/s1600/images-34.jpeg" height="123" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a>Fitting in sufficient amount of peer feedback has been only one of the pressing challenges I've encountered this semester. Most challenging of all has been finding that golden balance between wrting, reading, and commenting on peer work: all crucial components of a rounded writing class experience. Most historical fictions come in novel, rather than short story, form, so I've devoted a bit more time than usual (and maybe more than finally was practical) to pacing the class through two longish novels as well as two batches of stories. But with historical fiction there is an addtional joker in the room: the need for a writer to conduct research. (<i>When</i> you carry out the research and <i>how much</i> are open questions, answered differently by different writers, but <i>that</i> you must do so is never really debated.) I knew going in that my students would have to carry out research for the historical stories they committed themselves to. And I built in a loose research component; i.e., everytime they turned in a story, they would also have to turn in a two page statement about the research they conducted for that story. This, I figured, was better than no research requirement--and a few of my students have carried out quite original and quite extensive and very useful research--but one of the takeaways from the course has been the need, if I ever teach it again, to build in more "downtime" for student research.</div>
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Time. Time. Time. Isn't that always the way, though, with any course? How do we best utilize the limited number of sessions the semester provides us? Thing is, though, there never is or can be a perfect system, a perfect solution. Because the needs of every student are different. So you set it up the best you can and let it go. At least now we're getting to the semester's truly fun part. </div>
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Just in time.</div>
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John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-23352652392687336172014-11-10T07:00:00.000-06:002014-11-10T07:00:02.137-06:00It's weird out there!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">I've often heard that it's an education to be a writer with a book making the rounds, trying to garner a little attention in a very crowded field. I'm going through that now with my new book of stories <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Island-Fog-John-Vanderslice/dp/1935084410/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8">Island</a></i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Island-Fog-John-Vanderslice/dp/1935084410/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8"> </a><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Island-Fog-John-Vanderslice/dp/1935084410/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8">Fog</a></i>, as I set up and then carry out various literary events. Without a doubt, it's exciting work--especially because I believe in the book I'm bringing to the public--but the extent to which it's an uphill battle becomes more clear to me everyday. I had a great launch here in Conway a couple weeks ago, reading to a large group of friends and allies who truly blessed me with their presence and their interest. It was as successful as any book launch could be, and I still carry around so many good feelings from that night. But a book launch is, in a way, an artificial environment. You invite your best friends and other people you know well; you hold it at a convenient, welcoming spot; you create a festive celebratory atmosphere. It can't help but go well. The real lesson is when you start taking the book outside your own community and into others. Since the launch, I've done two book signings in Little Rock, the nearest large city, as well as a book signing at a <a href="http://www.gohastings.com/" style="-webkit-transition-delay: initial; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.3s; -webkit-transition-property: color; -webkit-transition-timing-function: initial; color: #009eb8; display: inline; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">Hastings</a> in Conway, and I've carried out a reading and signing at a bookstore in Fayetteville: three hours away and the home of the University of Arkansas. Mixed results and odd reports!<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaJq__rEYLLCSj_2z-b8K3K4k84cm_90I81zWJ8Wp3ELX_gSVsUosUPdMDke3TVL4nsnEz8_9e1GrCuQOHWkIu5tKlu6HXnnhu6MAGowzfYgcIMvL1-m9EYrK0yZWYhv-d33VkhyphenhyphenQAQ394/s1600/WoWo_Logo_for_Website_reduced.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="-webkit-transition-delay: initial; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.3s; -webkit-transition-property: color; -webkit-transition-timing-function: initial; clear: right; color: #009eb8; display: inline; float: right; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaJq__rEYLLCSj_2z-b8K3K4k84cm_90I81zWJ8Wp3ELX_gSVsUosUPdMDke3TVL4nsnEz8_9e1GrCuQOHWkIu5tKlu6HXnnhu6MAGowzfYgcIMvL1-m9EYrK0yZWYhv-d33VkhyphenhyphenQAQ394/s1600/WoWo_Logo_for_Website_reduced.jpg" style="-webkit-border-image: url(data:image/png; -webkit-box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 9px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 9px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 9px; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 9px; border-width: initial; border-width: initial; display: inline-block; height: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 100%; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a>The first Little Rock signing took place at <a href="http://www.wordsworthar.com/" style="-webkit-transition-delay: initial; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.3s; -webkit-transition-property: color; -webkit-transition-timing-function: initial; color: #009eb8; display: inline; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">WordsWorth Books</a>, a legendary local store, a wonderful place to browse, check out the recommended readings, and visit with the staff. WordsWorth has a deservedly warm reputation and a devoted following among West Little Rock bibliophiles. And I have to say, I couldn't ask for easier people to work with. Unfortunately, my signing took place on the same afternoon as an Arkansas Razorbacks football game; and not just any game, but a game held in Little Rock itself, a once-per-season happening. As always happens on Little Rock game days, traffic throughout the downtown area was a mess, and foot traffic into Wordsworth was quite paltry. For the first two hours, I sold two books, both to people who I know personally and who knew I would be at the store. It was great of them to come, but only two books on the afternoon? I was packing up to go when a young woman came into the store clearly just looking to browse. <i>Would you be interested in a short story collection? </i>I asked her. Turns out, she was! And she even was familiar with Nantucket from reading historian <a href="http://nathanielphilbrick.com/" style="-webkit-transition-delay: initial; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.3s; -webkit-transition-property: color; -webkit-transition-timing-function: initial; color: #009eb8; display: inline; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">Nathaniel Philbrick</a>'s wonderful <a href="http://nathanielphilbrick.com/books/in-the-heart-of-the-sea/" style="-webkit-transition-delay: initial; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.3s; -webkit-transition-property: color; -webkit-transition-timing-function: initial; color: #009eb8; display: inline; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">In the Heart of the Sea</a>,<i> </i>an account of the sinking of the whale ship Essex, the captain and much of the crew of which originated from Nantucket. Indeed, she was reading <i>In the Heart of the Sea</i> that very day! And, yes, she said, she'd love to buy my fiction collection about Nantucket. So at the last minute I garnered a third sale and left the store feel a lot better about the afternoon, especially when the store's owner told me that my sales had significantly helped their daily total! </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br />The second signing in Little Rock, at a Barnes & Noble, was a little stranger. Rather than sitting by myself near the front I was together with five other central Arkansas authors, all jammed together at a couple tables in a little alcove near the children's section. Though the store was fairly busy that day, we didn't get a lot of traffic passing by our tables, and thus we authors spent most of the time just chatting among ourselves and learning about each other's books. No complaints about that--they were all very nice people--but it wasn't exactly what I signed up for. And after two hours sitting elbow to elbow I needed some air! Again I sold three books, one of which to one of the other authors in the group, who as it turned out does a regular feature for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette called "Arkansas' Postcard Past," a feature I've always enjoyed. The other sale was to a family friend who saw a Facebook post by my wife announcing the signing. The last sale was to a friend of my wife's who happened to be in the store that afternoon and heard my name announced on the loud speaker.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs8I95YRBvt_F5k9X1pzEGtMSOBxV5Rdoh0G42ExnUZbJaBIj8WU3XuIAPMdTvg4kdkFAC87pOZ0jMNccYWrfnyzV3Cyu3Mpn2Gi3pmf3Jr3KtQopm8xUKBNuyyxBbrYtzqfqDqdc4Fmh3/s1600/images-8.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="-webkit-transition-delay: initial; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.3s; -webkit-transition-property: color; -webkit-transition-timing-function: initial; clear: left; color: #009eb8; display: inline; float: left; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 1em; margin-top: 0px !important; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="88" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs8I95YRBvt_F5k9X1pzEGtMSOBxV5Rdoh0G42ExnUZbJaBIj8WU3XuIAPMdTvg4kdkFAC87pOZ0jMNccYWrfnyzV3Cyu3Mpn2Gi3pmf3Jr3KtQopm8xUKBNuyyxBbrYtzqfqDqdc4Fmh3/s1600/images-8.jpeg" style="-webkit-border-image: url(data:image/png; -webkit-box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 9px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 9px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 9px; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 9px; border-width: initial; border-width: initial; display: inline-block; height: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 100%; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px; position: relative;" width="200" /></a>My Hastings signing was, weirdly enough, on the same day as the Barnes & Noble one, so I had to hustle back to Conway and get set up right away at the store. This time I was alone at a table near the front door; so I saw lots of people coming through. I sat there for three hours as afternoon became nighttime; and while I still sold just three books I have to say I really enjoyed the experience. Only one sale was to a person I knew. The other two came to strangers who wandered in and, seeing my display, felt like talking to me. They both had their own interesting stories to tell, especially the guy who a year ago was clinically dead after a terrible fall and had to be resuscitated--and that was only the beginning of his troubles! We chatted for a long time; he bought my book and asked me to sign it this way: "To a man who was dead and has come back to life." Gladly. Most people who entered tried not to catch my eye, but a few did, and those tended to come over, and they seemed to enjoy hearing about <i>Island Fo</i>g, even if they didn't buy. One fellow came in wearing a big ostentatious cowboy hat. "Not book buyer,"I thought and didn't even attempt to get his attention. But sure enough, over he came. He poked around at my table, asked me a lot of curious questions, and seemed right on the edge of purchasing a copy until we were interrupted by an enthusiastic friend of mine. Then he smiled, waved, and headed off deeper into the store. Ah well. Such is sales. I had an even longer, but equally pleasant, discussion with one young woman: a UCA student and a committed reader who was genuinely interested in finding out about how a person manages to get a book published these days. So I told her my story. A biology major, she nevertheless enjoys the idea of writing, so I encouraged her to take a class. She grabbed one of my author postcards and said she would think about the class as well as the book. I left wishing I had sold more copies, but I'm glad I gave over the three hours. It was a lot of fun, at least when people came over to chat.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTArlmbAhEqww_bJqhyphenhyphenSe4hDCn9Ef_aw_2twC1bqcF8mPzzgxFSQFJ_GBN1UiKCo-YioaTEIF91YoaE586rKFdGLaxENE-AmEyEz2B6DL0-xr63irWlmxeMJgqu7te72W968nEPGSpdQde/s1600/images-2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="-webkit-transition-delay: initial; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.3s; -webkit-transition-property: color; -webkit-transition-timing-function: initial; clear: right; color: #009eb8; display: inline; float: right; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTArlmbAhEqww_bJqhyphenhyphenSe4hDCn9Ef_aw_2twC1bqcF8mPzzgxFSQFJ_GBN1UiKCo-YioaTEIF91YoaE586rKFdGLaxENE-AmEyEz2B6DL0-xr63irWlmxeMJgqu7te72W968nEPGSpdQde/s1600/images-2.jpeg" style="-webkit-border-image: url(data:image/png; -webkit-box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 9px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 9px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 9px; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 9px; border-width: initial; border-width: initial; display: inline-block; height: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 100%; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px; position: relative;" /></a>My most recent event, last Thursday, was the reading up in Fayetteville. It was held at a famous independent bookstore, one that every Arkansas author reads at sooner or later. I must say they did a great job of quickly getting a Facebook Event page established as soon as we finalized the date. And, pretty quickly, 30 people indicated they were coming. I was stoked! One odd thing though: a few days after the Event page was established, featuring the cover image from my book, someone in charge adjusted the image so as to cover up my name as well as the enthusiastic blurb at the top of the cover written by my friend and colleague <a href="http://www.garrycraigpowell.com/" style="-webkit-transition-delay: initial; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.3s; -webkit-transition-property: color; -webkit-transition-timing-function: initial; color: #009eb8; display: inline; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">Garry Craig Powell</a>. The cover image was so doctored you could barely make out what it was. Huh??? I can't begin to tell you why they did that. And I guess I should have asked them. Still, I was excited on the day of the reading. I drove up to the Fayetteville area, specifically to the house of my brother Jerry, who lives in nearby Lowell. With Jerry and his wife, we drove to the store, where I hoped to see 30 or more people eager for a reading. We were early, so it didn't really bother me that in fact, except for us and a couple staff members, <i>no one</i> was there. I was a little miffed that the owner of the store, with whom I'd carried out all the planning for the reading, was absent, as well as a guy I know who works at that store and who my department brought down as a visiting author last spring. Hmmm. Well, we waited. We waited fifteen minutes past the announced start time of the reading, when we couldn't really wait any longer. At that point we'd gathered an audience of about 10, including my brother and his wife, the guy who was set to play music once the reading was over, a friend of his who was there to hear him play, two friends of my brother's wife who she had encouraged to come, one oddly behaving man who turned out to be legendary Fayetteville schizophrenic who just happened to wander in, as well as two people who were really there just for the sake of my reading. The reading went fine, the questions afterward were good, and I sold and signed five copies. (No, the schizophrenic gentlemen did not buy one.) While I'm glad I went, the whole night left an odd taste in my mouth. Where were the 30 people who were "definitely going"? Where were the store employees I actually knew? And what the heck happened to that cover image on my Event page? Questions, questions, questions.<br /><br />Odd people, curious conversations, and as many disappointments as laughs and sales. That's the life of an author on the road, I suppose. Other authors have known it forever. I'm just starting to find out.<br /><br />But, trust me, I'd rather have all these experiences than none at all.<br /><b><br /></b><b> * * *</b><br /><br />I'm so excited! <i>Island Fog</i> was named by <i>Library Journal</i> as one of the Top 15 Indie Fiction books for 2014! What an unexpected honor. I'm floored. You can check out the whole list <a href="http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/2014/10/books/fiction/top-indie-fiction-15-key-titles-beyond-the-best-sellers-list-for-fall-2014/" style="-webkit-transition-delay: initial; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.3s; -webkit-transition-property: color; -webkit-transition-timing-function: initial; color: #009eb8; display: inline; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">here</a>.</span>
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It's an incredible resource: a better, fairer, clearer view into the mind and world of Van Gogh than any biography or novel (shhhh) or recollection "by those who knew him" (which are often marred by how little they really knew him). Exacting descriptions of place he has visited; despair about his artwork and exultation about the same; resentment toward his brother and exhortations to him; disputes with his father; chatty discussions about (now long forgotten) artists or art dealers or paint supply store owners; opinions about the (countless) books he read; revelations about the women he loves and about love itself; depictions of the depressingly, growingly hopeless life at St. Paul's asylum in Saint Rémy--it's all there, along with so much more. A whole adult life documented with a fantaticism of detail that is just about one of a kind, really. As I say so often, I think surely it must be these letters--and Van Gogh's roadside eloquence--that accounts for our continued fascination with the man, just as much as his beautiful paintings and a life that was marked with so much tragedy, idealism, and stubbornness. The one drawback to such a thorough recored, of course, is its necessary length. The <i>Complete Letters</i> runs to something like 1800 pages. Not a weekend read! And while it's useful to watch the arc of the man's life play out over these hundreds of missives, long and short, profound and mundane, energized and bored and despairing, it's also true that not every letter is crucial to understanding Van Gogh, his time, and his milieau. Or not crucial in the same way. <br />
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So it's welcome news that in December a new selected edition of Van Gogh's letters will be published by Yale University Press, one with the beguiling title <i><a href="http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300209471">Ever Yours: The Essential Letters of Vincent Van Gogh</a></i>. You might have read <a href="http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/10/02/just-slap-something-on-it/#.VEEtKAFiXxE.facebook">Dan Piepenbring's early glimpse into the volume</a>, published recently in <i><a href="http://www.theparisreview.org/">Paris Review</a>.</i> It certainly does sound like a promising new book: almost 800 pages in length, with 265 out of the extant 820 letters included, along with family photographs and 87 pages worth of reproductions from the actual handwritten letters. At $50 it doesn't come cheap, but for a Van Gogh lover--or anyone simply curious about learning more about this fascinating person--it looks to me like money well spent. Of course, which letters you finally deem "essential" will depend on who you are and what you are trying to learn about the painter, but without yet having had the chance to review the collection I can take a pretty fair guess at some of the letters regarded as "musts": the letters written to Theo in the period of abject despair and loss of identity after being removed from his position as lay minister to miners in the Borinage region of Belgium; the letters to Theo explaining why the "no" delivered to Vincent by his cousin K was not really a "no," and why even in the turbulent state of his emotions it was better by far to feel such a powerful love than none at all; the letters to Theo glorifying the peaceful home life he enjoyed with his new life partner Sien and why, despite her being a former prostitute, Vincent regarded her as his wife and insisted the family do as well; letters describing his almost manic level of energy and the resulting "high yellow note" that marked his painting in that fitful, historic, crucial summer in Arles in 1888; the heartbreaking letter from St. Paul's in which he describes the painting he has just made in honor of the birth of his nephew (named after him) and his desire to bring it to the boy in person. Interesting man, yes? And let's face it, 800 pages--while hardly an inconsequential entry into Van Gogh's life and writing--is a much quicker read than 1800 pages. This sounds like the perfect introduction to the other Van Gogh: the riveting literary artist.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg40CplC-1yU1WB4fezRN-uWcjhBV06WQxLqRs2tpRToCQvzUsXxdP4uB6dSIFul0YFCpF6hUVJ7VVJUdo3XS-Mex9YZL-3NnlXDhpdKZSPQy1YyQy6QsQfUAm2a8wK5CNVKfJlpQBkN14/s1600/Island+Fog+cover+for+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg40CplC-1yU1WB4fezRN-uWcjhBV06WQxLqRs2tpRToCQvzUsXxdP4uB6dSIFul0YFCpF6hUVJ7VVJUdo3XS-Mex9YZL-3NnlXDhpdKZSPQy1YyQy6QsQfUAm2a8wK5CNVKfJlpQBkN14/s1600/Island+Fog+cover+for+web.jpg" height="200" width="124" /></a>Not to blow my own horn, but I am amazed and humbled by the fine reception my story collection <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_10?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=island+fog+john+vanderslice&sprefix=island+fog%2Cstripbooks%2C497">Island Fog</a></i> is receiving from book bloggers and other reviewers. Here are two I found out about just yesterday: one comes from the book blog <a href="http://hello-booklover.tumblr.com/post/100411977520/my-thoughts-on-island-fog-by-john-vanderslice"><i>Books Are Love</i></a>; the other from the Australian book blog <i><a href="http://thebookshelfgargoyle.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/an-adult-fiction-reading-round-up-indie-edition/">The Bookshelft Garogyle</a></i>. (Great title, huh?) Then there's the really <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-vanderslice/island-fog-vanderslice/">positive one I got from Kirkus</a>.You just write the stories and try to make them the best you can; then they go out there and you can't ever really (really) know if they are as good as you hope, not until such kind words come back to you. I can't say how grateful I am. And a little amazed.<br />
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<br />John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-13528185432345191472014-10-13T07:00:00.000-05:002014-10-13T07:00:05.595-05:00Changing history, refining character, winning the story<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg22l0uEwqJtPoXmhFwr4z2yObEwXC0JTEfO3R_33mI8sgngyfLrVWqdlohpIeAV6O9G9hlsq79Oizf8tBHAyo5ZZn_oaJ5cdyJqlScN4PDRrd4bySdHkDCZOnYGB2LJQH6tx8wlo9oj-U/s1600/images-25.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg22l0uEwqJtPoXmhFwr4z2yObEwXC0JTEfO3R_33mI8sgngyfLrVWqdlohpIeAV6O9G9hlsq79Oizf8tBHAyo5ZZn_oaJ5cdyJqlScN4PDRrd4bySdHkDCZOnYGB2LJQH6tx8wlo9oj-U/s1600/images-25.jpeg" /></a>Last week in my historical fiction workshop class we were discussing the second half of one of the model novels I assigned them: <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Lord_Bird">The Good Lord Bird</a></i> by <a href="http://www.jamesmcbride.com/">James McBride</a>. Virtually to a person, the class loved the book: its narrator, his dialect, the humorous situations, the seeming fidelity to the time period, the insight into crucial historical figures (e.g., <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)">John Brown</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass">Frederick Douglass</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman">Harriet Tubman</a>) and an event (the raid on Harper's Ferry) that proved to be one of the most significant catalysts for the Civil War. But what proved especially interesting to the class, and significant to me as a writer, is the extent to which McBride gently--or not so gently--toyed with historical facts in order to reinforce the characterizations that he was consciously trying to establish.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKAxqCeKwT-P7UraWdBuitZp5zFzfvFmLMBT1Cifod4NS2NIDzPJIvaoaQvwh7T-ZrZZPi1BTtCNQcUxNUnb-HNbrVZ458oqYeIQDqE3E3b5VbMsp6rX4uC1ugJf_WDYkL07z23rcYxwMr/s1600/images-27.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKAxqCeKwT-P7UraWdBuitZp5zFzfvFmLMBT1Cifod4NS2NIDzPJIvaoaQvwh7T-ZrZZPi1BTtCNQcUxNUnb-HNbrVZ458oqYeIQDqE3E3b5VbMsp6rX4uC1ugJf_WDYkL07z23rcYxwMr/s1600/images-27.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>Before we begin, the obvious needs to stated: John Brown's reputation has been pretty low for a pretty long time. There have been some recent efforts to revise our inherited notions about him and his raid, but--and the comments of my students bore this out--our general understanding of the man is that he was violent, self-righteous, and humorless; a religious zealot on the order of a terrorist; and that his plan to take the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry and lead a slave rebellion was the height of lunacy. Guaranteed to fail. It's safe to say that James McBride doesn't--and never did--see Brown this way. In fact, he dedicates the book to the man and to all who have helped keep Brown's memory alive. In interviews, McBride is not afraid to admit that he regards John Brown as one of his personal heroes.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMdj6p5eQglLu_JJr9bmpRSjKdLlyPMb2ZpEJV4ZIi0sZb-7_Dp9nNk6TNTwIOPZPBcMYgWv6csrgzqDn_5bhPfSinlvtDCefLROmNHoTw0jGdq45aP0Kj4aTNBp3uLHQAeFxS5u6cXh_C/s1600/images-26.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMdj6p5eQglLu_JJr9bmpRSjKdLlyPMb2ZpEJV4ZIi0sZb-7_Dp9nNk6TNTwIOPZPBcMYgWv6csrgzqDn_5bhPfSinlvtDCefLROmNHoTw0jGdq45aP0Kj4aTNBp3uLHQAeFxS5u6cXh_C/s1600/images-26.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>The challenge for McBride as an historical novelist, therefore, is to show John Brown and his failed raid in a way that does not repel a reader inclined to be suspicious of the man. The challenge is to find a way to lead such a reader into the narrative and keep him there. One immediately apparent way is his choice of a narrator. McBride doesn't even consider having Brown tell his own story. Instead, the job of narrating falls to Henry Shackleford. Henry is a fictional creation, a character who when he knew Brown and was drawn into the events at Harper's Ferry was a young boy, barely an adolescent. (He ages from roughly 12 to 15 over the course of the novel.) Henry, or "Onion" as Brown calls him, is funny, honest, and salty. He's a fantastic narrator, one whose living situation--he is made to dress like a girl and tries to fool everyone, white and black alike, about his real gender--is not exactly original but is handled in a thoroughly entertaining manner by McBride. With the Onion narrating one can't help but listen to the story of John Brown. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLBkjDe_GWZQAgV14EyvLKAYcIA2BGrTeXveTmMQR7RSpge3tTcRJ_LBpv8PQ2y-2ajBsQ16Y0xajsIhVdTtd8pTMb4Q9_QA5zYiqf1DjaUVYQF6qIP3Uygc2bXli4CMDNp6reHf-V6_PG/s1600/images-28.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLBkjDe_GWZQAgV14EyvLKAYcIA2BGrTeXveTmMQR7RSpge3tTcRJ_LBpv8PQ2y-2ajBsQ16Y0xajsIhVdTtd8pTMb4Q9_QA5zYiqf1DjaUVYQF6qIP3Uygc2bXli4CMDNp6reHf-V6_PG/s1600/images-28.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>But what's more revealing, and more instructive, are the many subtle and not so subtle ways that McBride alters the historical record in order to make Brown more sympathetic, his character more in keeping with the gruff and loopy but good-hearted and uniquely likeable "Old Man" that McBride tries to establish. Whereas in real life, Brown was the one making decisions and making mistakes, in the novel Brown is seen in many separate instances as the victim of others' wrongheaded choices or lapses in duty or outright criminality. In the book he trusts people too much and seems convinced people will do the right thing when given the choice to. One can't help but admire and even love a person like that, even as his trust and high opinion of others leads him into personal disaster. Without doubt, Onion loves John Brown by book's end, he would do practically anything for the old coot. But, again, this depiction is the result of some very cagy nudging of and yanking on the historical record. For instance, in one riveting chapter, Brown, after many weeks of exhausting fundraising among abolitionists groups on the east coast, turns over all the money he has raised to an Englishman named Hugh Forbes. Forbes promises to meet up with Brown in Iowa, where Brown's army is quartered, and train Brown's men as only a professional soldier can. Brown is ecstatic at this development, on fire with optimism, convinced that Forbe's aid will be the difference between his men being a ragged militia and an effective, fighting army. In the novel, Forbes walks off with Brown's money and never shows up in Iowa. <i>Poor Brown</i>, one thinks, <i>how could he have been so trusting, and what is he going to do for money now?</i> Well, in real life too there was an Englishman named Hugh Forbes who Brown enlisted to train his men. That Forbes did go to Iowa, and did try to train the men. In fact he stayed on the job for three months. He only left because Brown was not paying him his promised salary and Brown was also meddling with Forbes's efforts.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEF0bK6Ta_nfvjHztlLOG4soGG9sMXd_u_vqcePo3Nj_ITDS3Wn16Fbb37jeuzmUrIzOuWCLuGNO0az0vXlDQ9Ggrji_doAio8Q97F1DI5KNX6y0tQK2TpudH0s2YsZtAqxyFFsQdbYbi9/s1600/images-29.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEF0bK6Ta_nfvjHztlLOG4soGG9sMXd_u_vqcePo3Nj_ITDS3Wn16Fbb37jeuzmUrIzOuWCLuGNO0az0vXlDQ9Ggrji_doAio8Q97F1DI5KNX6y0tQK2TpudH0s2YsZtAqxyFFsQdbYbi9/s1600/images-29.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>In the book Brown sends one of his men ahead to Harpers Ferry to rent a large house for his army. This man, Cook, is a complete ne'er-do-well, a womanizer who will put his own desires above the needs of a group at any time. Brown knows this, he's warned of it, and yet he believes in Cook enough to give him the important job anyway. He also sends along Onion to keep an eye on Cook and, more importantly, recruit blacks for the rebellion. As the reader expects, Cook royally botches his responsibilty, renting a house that is in such a terrible location (in order to be near a buxom working girl) that the essential plan is compromised and must be critically altered. Onion, meanwhile, mostly fails in his recruitment efforts and then also fails in what proves to be his singlemost important duty: to pass on a secret password to Brown's men, a password that will tell a large contingent of blacks, arriving on a train from Baltimore, that the attack is on. Because Brown's men never receive the password, and thus have none to give, the blacks turn away (as Onion had been warned they would). They don't join the rebellion, leaving Brown and his men to face the army of the U.S. government alone. In real life, Brown rented the house himself, and the failure to recruit a sufficient number of black men for his army lay in the unfeasibility of the plan itself. </div>
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These are just a couple examples of the many historical alterations rendered by McBride. I should say that in several matters McBride does stay true to what events happened and when; also to the names of principal historical figures. It's not like he's just rewriting history out of whole cloth. No, he's far more strategic and artful than that: bending facts here and there to color impressions. One more example, this involving Frederick Douglass. The renowned abolitionist spokesman and former slave was of course the most respected and listened to black voice at the time. And Brown did indeed know Frederick Douglass and tried to enlist his moral support for the Harpers Ferry raid. In the book, as in real life, Douglass does not support the raid. He thinks it is suicidal and says so. But what in real life comes across as a cautious and reasonable--if not exactly heroic--calculation, is presented in the novel as an act of betrayal by a hypocritical, thin-skinned, dandified man who has forgotten where he came from. Douglass is presented as having two wives at the same time--one white, one black--as well as shown trying to loosen up the young Onion with alcohol so he can have his way with "her," in his own house, with his wives only rooms away.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8gyhLEv7dz_3o1xPFs68hyphenhyphenoNtUCDFVrzKD8HlKlSYNvQN5N9GlMyrpV7krsEjAoNpiRjHwK2oS_23h3XhiYFTbXjAV8qCQEjK_lor3qMv965US0XsrsfZ54UcuHB4gvoABs5Fh_nGaPLG/s1600/images-30.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8gyhLEv7dz_3o1xPFs68hyphenhyphenoNtUCDFVrzKD8HlKlSYNvQN5N9GlMyrpV7krsEjAoNpiRjHwK2oS_23h3XhiYFTbXjAV8qCQEjK_lor3qMv965US0XsrsfZ54UcuHB4gvoABs5Fh_nGaPLG/s1600/images-30.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>As several students pointed out, despite Douglass's idealistic fervor in support of freeing the Negro, in the novel he has no trouble "enslaving" women to his desires, keeping them essentially as chattel. Crucially, in <i>The Good Lord Bird</i> only slaves-- both men and women--are able to see immediately into Onion's true nature. It's the whites and fancy, free negroes who are fooled (constantly) by his dress and by his smooth, young, mulatto face. The fact that Douglass cannot tell that Onion is really a boy tells you exactly on which side of the divide McBride wants to set the great orator. (In contrast, at novel's end we find out that Brown knew all along that Onion was a boy.) Through the voice of Onion, McBride ridicules Douglass as a man who just likes to hear himself talk, who won't ever really risk anything, even for the sake of the Negro, and who so can't handle liquor that he gets drunk under the table by a 14-year-old. In real life, Douglass was never married to two woman at the same time. He took a second wife only after his first died (as many widowers do). He was actually an impassioned advocate for women's suffrage, speaking at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_Falls_Convention">Seneca Falls Convention</a> and at one point even serving as the running mate of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Woodhull">Victoria Woodhull</a>, the presidential nominee of the Equal Rights Party ticket. And since Onion is a complete fiction, we can't say whether or not Douglass was able to recognize 14 year-old-boys disguised as girls. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB3YQ19jVXJAdqtL_QqOEiBJ7WQ4cl1fL-pwJBgBVzz1DGeG2LxgcyX_s0UE0NM5u0GVuE_flURnSqtSXXYmMVFHb7E1RPUEP88yS6t21jYm9-lD8_ZkqJYpgNmi7jlqDLCMGWkQkFgoJw/s1600/images-31.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB3YQ19jVXJAdqtL_QqOEiBJ7WQ4cl1fL-pwJBgBVzz1DGeG2LxgcyX_s0UE0NM5u0GVuE_flURnSqtSXXYmMVFHb7E1RPUEP88yS6t21jYm9-lD8_ZkqJYpgNmi7jlqDLCMGWkQkFgoJw/s1600/images-31.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>I hope this discussion does not make it sound like I'm criticizing McBride. Far from it. Instead I am trying to suggest (once again) the difference between writing history and writing historical fiction. The latter uses history--as faithfully as possible--but finally the historical fiction must be committed to story and character above all else. If it wants to succeed in the eyes of a reader, that is; if it wants to earn a reader's love and admiration. Even if that means winking at the historical record and giving that record a conscious, cagy twist. </div>
John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-5781014795061944992014-10-06T07:00:00.000-05:002014-10-06T07:00:05.743-05:00The burden of the opinionator<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmlkdIc7UUpGtxvbO4BaXF4MR9ThGEqTRFGdM5rWa_8Ft-XS_vOwgo-0Zdkit-j8tVPOAc-nRywlAdDNLfsIF6ZX4y1QWFBuvYn5TSaa5Qv2-TE3XBvORFCn20kBRu5VoQFY5ZXtRKXTg/s1600/images-19.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmlkdIc7UUpGtxvbO4BaXF4MR9ThGEqTRFGdM5rWa_8Ft-XS_vOwgo-0Zdkit-j8tVPOAc-nRywlAdDNLfsIF6ZX4y1QWFBuvYn5TSaa5Qv2-TE3XBvORFCn20kBRu5VoQFY5ZXtRKXTg/s1600/images-19.jpeg" height="133" width="200" /></a>I return to my writing classes tomorrow after canceling for a week to allow my students to attend the many different writing-related activities that went on during UCA's LGBT History Month celebration. (See <a href="http://payperazzi.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-necessary-week.html">last's week's post</a>.) I'm grateful to return to the classroom, and eager to hear the students' impressions of the writers who came to campus, but there's one aspect of the teaching business that I won't exactly welcome back with open arms. And that is the necessity of always having an opinion. For a long time, but especially the last few years, this has increasingly been the single aspect of my job that I've struggled with. One hears now and again about teacher burnout. Usually what's evoked is misbehaving students; or meddlesome, government-enforced testing requirements; or ill-informed administrators; or a lack of financial support for important educational initiatives; or a widespread lack of respect in the community. And I'm sure that for K-12 teachers those factors are extremely prominent. But for a university writing teacher, especially a creative writing teacher, I thinkwhat burdens them more often is simply the matter of having to constantly deliver opinions about student writing.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXAWuLg03uA3RFcf6RygjkUeK3Rv8cBegr-badJTFpgBIzIYG3mUD4lRi9lhFy0boq5Uf8UZFdoOhqr6mcMvfUyQiovfKVg3qRPAgfAFRTMJUgK0Kk9K1UsrnbMA7Zn4XYQ6GV66RyvjLP/s1600/images-20.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXAWuLg03uA3RFcf6RygjkUeK3Rv8cBegr-badJTFpgBIzIYG3mUD4lRi9lhFy0boq5Uf8UZFdoOhqr6mcMvfUyQiovfKVg3qRPAgfAFRTMJUgK0Kk9K1UsrnbMA7Zn4XYQ6GV66RyvjLP/s1600/images-20.jpeg" height="133" width="200" /></a>Don't get me wrong. I'm <i>not</i> talking about the burden of reading student writing. I am thrilled to see what my students come up with. Sure, not all of it is world-changing, but to see what ideas and approaches they employ can be insipring. Just this semester, for example, the different stories my students are working on in historical fiction workshop class make a study in the variety of human curiosity: a young mother goes missing in Kansas in the 30s, a teenager goes missing in New York City in the 70s, the son of a musician struggles to cope in German-occupied Paris, Canadian soldiers battle on the front lines in World War I, a nineteenth-century woman invents a lurid, bestselling tale about sexual abuse in a convent, a miner in the 20s falls for a woman he can't have, a patient in a dubious mental asylum in the 60s resists authority, Leah (from the bibilcal account) expresses her secret resentment of Rachel, workers riot in the 30s. Reading these stories is never a burden. But having to constantly lay down judgements about them, and advice for them, can be exhausting. Not because I don't think I have good advice to offer--at least part of the time I certainly do--and not because my opinion-making is restricting the students' access to others' opinions. (There are several possible mechanisms for feedback in a workshop course.) But because reading with the idea that I will have to present at least one typed page of feedback on the story--and the student is waiting impatiently for such feedback--is a very different and demanding reading experience from any other reading experience in daily life.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioOMpWRX8GquVAHKNFag_owt7Y6ljAjG1yGKQlY538u9as9njH3qYZHElRxILURDX26GPpIcR6mKW_1RZ62Q64cTXyexIL3aQGWFlF7nEx8xD6It3Fzr4BDBmaTvTNQRHdn7RRqwoEOtoC/s1600/images-21.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioOMpWRX8GquVAHKNFag_owt7Y6ljAjG1yGKQlY538u9as9njH3qYZHElRxILURDX26GPpIcR6mKW_1RZ62Q64cTXyexIL3aQGWFlF7nEx8xD6It3Fzr4BDBmaTvTNQRHdn7RRqwoEOtoC/s1600/images-21.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>When I read an author for pleasure, I tend to read rather forgivingly. This is not to say that I do not notice weaknesses in some of the books and stories I read, or that I won't finally grow testy about those weaknesses, but that I tend to grant the author the benefit of the doubt for a good long time. I tend to give a book a chance to prove itself to me on its own terms; to withhold judgement until I have a better sense of what the book is "about," what it's up to, how it's put together. In short, I tend to read with an open mind. But when reading in order to give opinions one must read with considerable more ferocity. Sometimes that's a good thing, because it means you are also reading with a great deal more attention. But many times it just feels more draining. Having to be the expert, the one with all the answers, can indeed be a burden. Sometimes you just feel like saying, "This looks pretty good. Keep going." (And occasionally this is, more or less, what I say.) But I tend to think that if that's all I say too often, the students will feel cheated of their tuition money. And they would be right. Indeed, the weird truth of the matter is that I am paid to have opinions. So I do the best I can, sometimes stating what is working and what isn't with more absolutism than I actually feel. (Other times, however, those determinations seem perfectly obvious.)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpA7Erxbnz9dNesXUANamDDd15uf3uizBXt_hlUirfZ9oG_48bPlMEaskqff4-CXyUOfQ58XWxjDNhb2Kl2IgXHkDVnOx81EeMUV4kUq-n0BaMbY7izq1w6qssv4AIVE0JYiibfWJXWwDV/s1600/images-24.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpA7Erxbnz9dNesXUANamDDd15uf3uizBXt_hlUirfZ9oG_48bPlMEaskqff4-CXyUOfQ58XWxjDNhb2Kl2IgXHkDVnOx81EeMUV4kUq-n0BaMbY7izq1w6qssv4AIVE0JYiibfWJXWwDV/s1600/images-24.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>I say a second time, don't get me wrong. I feel extremely fortunate to have the job I do and to work where I do. Most days at most hours I am content, even quietly blissful. But even good jobs have their tough parts; that is, the parts that don't match up so well with one's personality. I think the fundamental problem is that creative writing--especially in the heady first draft stage--is almost entirely a matter of opening yourself up, flipping the switch so the current flows and keeps flowing. It's not about being critical or doubting or judgmental. It's getting started, letting yourself go, and forgiving all the temporary lapses. It feels great, it's absolutely crucial, and I'm convinced it's what hooks so many people so early on creative writing. And it's what keeps us there. Reading in order to have an opinion about what's wrong is the exact opposite mental condition. It's like having to hold one huge muscle in my mind in abeyance while stressing another entirely, even unnaturally, almost to the point of taxation. And it's not exactly soul-satisfying. I don't know if this comes as a surprise to anyone or not. I suspect that most students think they're professors are enthralled by the idea of being the expert, the one at the front, the one with all the answers. I suppose some professors do feel that way. But I believe that more probably feel like I do: that being the expert can be an awful pain in the rear. As well as being at odds with who you are and what you do. Being an expert isn't how I get any story started. Being an amateur explorer, a dubious risk-taker, and a weekend cliff diver <i>is</i>. That way the education comes to you from the writing itself. And so too does all the fun.</div>
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<b><br /></b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE2sxYXKPmSaJc_3vzGxRd7eF1Kbal9A-Dws1oxijoH_qaM_Q9gxqc-XiEZ90C9WbciPJJj4CqET_oVbSlh-urSxT9lSBP_v5SV9tG6FfjBuycEDqD5QQPOZ3wg59vam2wt-p5__5iRxZ_/s1600/Island+Fog+cover+for+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE2sxYXKPmSaJc_3vzGxRd7eF1Kbal9A-Dws1oxijoH_qaM_Q9gxqc-XiEZ90C9WbciPJJj4CqET_oVbSlh-urSxT9lSBP_v5SV9tG6FfjBuycEDqD5QQPOZ3wg59vam2wt-p5__5iRxZ_/s1600/Island+Fog+cover+for+web.jpg" height="200" style="cursor: move;" width="124" /></a><b>More book news! </b>(Please excuse the self-promotion.) <i>Island Fog</i> is fully out! The paperback can be purchased through <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Island-Fog-John-Vanderslice/dp/1935084410/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412512650&sr=8-1&keywords=island+fog+by+john+vanderslice">Amazon</a>, <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/island-fog-john-vanderslice/1120429855?ean=9781935084419">bn.com</a>, and <a href="http://www.lavenderink.org/content/link/222">lavenderink.org</a>. Meanwhile, a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Island-Fog-John-Vanderslice-ebook/dp/B00O47VUDG/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1412512728&sr=8-1&keywords=island+fog+by+john+vanderslice">Kindle e-book version is available through Amazon</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Island-Fog-John-Vanderslice-ebook/dp/B00O47VUDG/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412512876&sr=1-3&keywords=john+vanderslice">Amazon.co.uk</a>. If you do read it, please put up a review on Goodreads and/or Amazon and/or bn.com, etc. I'd love to know how it struck you.</div>
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<b><br /></b><b>Goodreads giveaway winners! </b>The Goodreads giveaway contest was a lot of fun. Thanks to author/blogger <a href="http://www.erikadreifus.com/2014/10/sunday-sentence-52/">Erika Dreifus</a> for insisting that I get it started. In the end, 873 people signed up, and three of them won free books: Melanie Ciaccio of Brandon, Florida; Ken Gilmour of Petersborough, Ontario; and Tasha Mellins-cohen of Bristol, England. Congrats to Melanie, Ken, and Tasha.</div>
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<b><br /></b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEl4LBD_ZnIADeWgvoxBG62l3MwLlpuBhLAc-mA76KUT1zTnWhyLLgm6xW82e1Qb6K0qGY4jvs4i-Mc7RFOAcOCKXV9xbvsCrSESVd5d7vcqWUbZHJNi9jBSgWAOrF20psqDAzeW6SoqPp/s1600/images-23.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEl4LBD_ZnIADeWgvoxBG62l3MwLlpuBhLAc-mA76KUT1zTnWhyLLgm6xW82e1Qb6K0qGY4jvs4i-Mc7RFOAcOCKXV9xbvsCrSESVd5d7vcqWUbZHJNi9jBSgWAOrF20psqDAzeW6SoqPp/s1600/images-23.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a><b>I'll be on the radio today! </b>An interview I completed with KUAF radio in Fayetteville, Arkansas will be broadcast today (Oct. 6, 2014) at noon and 7 pm (central time, USA) as part of their daily <i>Ozarks at Large</i> program. You can listen live via the internet at <a href="http://kuaf.com/programs/ozarks-large">www.kuaf.com</a>. If you miss the live broadcast, an archived version should be avaiable soon. Happy listening!</div>
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<b>My new website!</b> Dang, I've forgotten to tell blog readers about my new website, gorgeously designed by UCA MFA-er Rebecca Hawkins. Go to <a href="http://johnvanderslicebooks.com/">johnvanderslicebooks.com</a> to get the latest news on appearances and or reviews.</div>
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John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-46325810166275820022014-09-29T07:00:00.000-05:002014-09-29T07:00:00.166-05:00A necessary week<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAPIXE9eIQ90mOZif45Q4iRh8VCFzNIYi48BTl1uFE9v9GbRt_6OK6AjoTX1_1mtVgcyxlphQ-LD2FeUHJ2JWfgDm8y19mVfvh5P9FklnC0nocsJKr7Ul2HT6-jk3TxTsOCg6k97R15Ak/s1600/cooper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAPIXE9eIQ90mOZif45Q4iRh8VCFzNIYi48BTl1uFE9v9GbRt_6OK6AjoTX1_1mtVgcyxlphQ-LD2FeUHJ2JWfgDm8y19mVfvh5P9FklnC0nocsJKr7Ul2HT6-jk3TxTsOCg6k97R15Ak/s1600/cooper.jpg" height="200" width="198" /></a>Starting today and running through Saturday, October 4, <a href="http://uca.edu/cfac/">UCA's College of Fine Arts and Communication</a> (CFAC) will present a series of events meant to recognize and celebrate LGBT culture. You may or may not realize that October is designated as National Diversity Awareness Month; and on my campus we have an Office of Diversity and Community which each year around this time plans a few events to recognize LGBT culture and history. This year CFAC just decided to up the ante. It started with the Writing Department deciding to invite to campus two authors, <a href="ttp://barclayagency.com/cooper.html">Bernard Cooper</a> (pictured left) and <a href="http://www.jerichobrown.com/">Jericho Brown</a> (pictured immediately below), who happen to be gay men. From there we took the idea to CFAC--which foots the bill for all artists in residence--to bring Brown and Cooper to campus during the same week and create an LGBT weeklong festival.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLS-wJPvoki1SyfzsJJ3a4ynxs_zNX9FvbTgVSe-fhtys8CmY_OrCAIkj9RSnbUMm5ltF98T0Zo_49EKuTMqWlBqHbWm7azzvUkft9eewm7xTnWtcYvdREAVNHoZfWMGm9bLpTJKoqyflZ/s1600/JerichoBrown_NewBioImage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLS-wJPvoki1SyfzsJJ3a4ynxs_zNX9FvbTgVSe-fhtys8CmY_OrCAIkj9RSnbUMm5ltF98T0Zo_49EKuTMqWlBqHbWm7azzvUkft9eewm7xTnWtcYvdREAVNHoZfWMGm9bLpTJKoqyflZ/s1600/JerichoBrown_NewBioImage.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>And from there everything fell into place. I mentioned some of the events in my post last week. In addition to readings by Cooper and Brown, there will be a talk given by <a href="http://conwaypride.com/about-us/">John Schenk and Robert Loyd</a> (pictured below), warriors in the cause of gay marriage in Arkansas and founders of the <a href="http://conwaypride.com/">Conway Pride Parade</a>; a lecture by Dr. Raymond Frontain on the Arkansas-born writer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_McGehee">Peter McGehee</a>; a weeklong exhibition of a segment of the AIDS Memorial Quilt; a miniature film festival featuring the LGBT documentaries <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Is_Burning_(film)">Paris is Burning</a></i> (1990) and <i><a href="http://www.newblackfilm.com/">The New Black</a></i> (2013); a reading presented by <a href="http://orgs.uca.edu/prism/">PRISM</a>, our LGBTQA student organization; and a reading presented by <a href="http://siblingrivalrypress.com/">Sibling Rivalry Press</a>, a publishing house located just outside Little Rock that does so much to promote gay and lesbian writers. Click <a href="http://uca.edu/cfac/files/2011/09/LGBT-Week-copy.pdf">here</a> for a detailed schedule of festival events sponsored by UCA's College of Fine Arts and Communication.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Rbp9eO-S5Uvviqe55U06-Z3tDI9hjr6Fg7DOGAkBLXeJCpY2lY9A2xuydpI7Yxz_D1Rsd13qg2Hn8PBmJ8yfVwXoycZNiQsXUptoq7jvakg4j8EhK7YDnvbminmRJTnqX7BnY2g3c0Eo/s1600/@mx_595.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Rbp9eO-S5Uvviqe55U06-Z3tDI9hjr6Fg7DOGAkBLXeJCpY2lY9A2xuydpI7Yxz_D1Rsd13qg2Hn8PBmJ8yfVwXoycZNiQsXUptoq7jvakg4j8EhK7YDnvbminmRJTnqX7BnY2g3c0Eo/s1600/@mx_595.jpeg" height="226" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a>Of course a festival, any festival, especially a new one, needs promoting. And some of the reactions have been curious if not disheartening. Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of students, and not just our LGBT students, who are happy for this festival, students who feel it's more than overdue. Others see it as no big deal, a "So what?" But at the same time, I'm surprised at the extent to which the local media regards the idea of an LGBT festival as something radical, advant-garde, even dangerous. It is? I guess I'm naive--and I guess I'm not from around here--but that reaction strikes me as a little drastic. After all, the idea of celebrating LGBT history during National Diversity Awareness Month has been around for years. Neither UCA nor the CFAC invented it. But to listen to local reactions, you'd think the president of my university woke up one morning and just decided to "give" LGBT people a month. (I can <i>guarantee</i> you that he had nothing to do with it.) Literally within hours of a press release going out from CFAC about the festival, I was called by a Little Rock television station. They wanted to come to campus, film me, film our students, and discuss this "controversy." Days later a second Little Rock television came to campus to do the same. The resulting story they broadcast was fine, but I was both shocked and amused to hear the comments of one older gentleman they found who declared he could not support UCA's funding "public acts of unchastity." Unchastity? These are poetry and fiction readings; lectures by community organizers and professors of English literature. This is a quilt! Where exactly does the unchastity come in? From his biased brain and its inherited stereotypes; that's where.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkkFLVILYAWpguLGbyU80rLC8gwoCUc9Im88lzaSEpEubhFH9WMjtiDV8U1RmsSSVy42oK-v-zfCbpnR5tpRNM1I0NZSDl1p_Chpz9jv4yPCXoYN7j0WSVxkVi4K-tUx0GOGCSncKeu_1M/s1600/images-14.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkkFLVILYAWpguLGbyU80rLC8gwoCUc9Im88lzaSEpEubhFH9WMjtiDV8U1RmsSSVy42oK-v-zfCbpnR5tpRNM1I0NZSDl1p_Chpz9jv4yPCXoYN7j0WSVxkVi4K-tUx0GOGCSncKeu_1M/s1600/images-14.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>And since I've been promoting the festival and talking to others about it, I've heard equally disheartening stories: a student worker afraid to install posters around campus advertising the festival for fear she will be labeled as gay; an email from an angry local citizen who insists that LGBT people don't deserve a history month "any more than black people do"; anecdotes about how, even now, even in the second decade of the twenty-first century, gay, lesbian, and trans teenagers are chased away from churches, illegally discriminated against in the regional school systems, expelled from their homes by their parents and left to live on the streets. Parents who have somehow convinced </div>
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themselves--who are allowed to convince themselves by their own toxic support systems--that they are acting righteously. Righteously? I'm a parent, and I can't imagine more inhumane, unnatural, and ungodly behavior than to toss my child into the streets and all that awaits him there. I can't imagine a greater violation of the parental bond or of simple human decency. Both for my wife and I--and I think for most parents--such behavior is literally unthinkable. That it still goes on in Arkansas and elsewhere is even more unthinkable. Thus the need, apprently, for this festival at UCA. And another. And another. And another. Until our collective humanity can overhwelm the madness.</div>
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<b><br /></b><b><br /></b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4f3-iPKEoVFYwkzl2UiPqPTnIool9iS7WpsoDNA7JhpaAYQtTDMjRpQ9nUYp6lew1zK_65mzem6uUSz3Nk6_CHWlaGlHv9ngrO8XnESELNCsONfV9F3S4Fd3PiF1ZaPo8u7unEZa8CMgA/s1600/Island+Fog+cover+for+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4f3-iPKEoVFYwkzl2UiPqPTnIool9iS7WpsoDNA7JhpaAYQtTDMjRpQ9nUYp6lew1zK_65mzem6uUSz3Nk6_CHWlaGlHv9ngrO8XnESELNCsONfV9F3S4Fd3PiF1ZaPo8u7unEZa8CMgA/s1600/Island+Fog+cover+for+web.jpg" height="200" style="cursor: move;" width="124" /></a><b>LAST CHANCE FOR THE GIVEAWAY!!! </b> Since I've started the Goodreads Giveaway contest for my short story collection <i>Island Fog</i>, over 430 people have signed up for it. I'm thrilled. Well, we are almost at the end of the giveaway. Wednesday, October 1 will be the very last day to enter. On Thursday October 2, the contest will be over, and Goodreads will tell me who won. You can always purchase the book (see late-breaking news below), but why not enter the giveaway contest while you still have the chance? Just <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/103102-island-fog">click on this link</a>. Good luck!! </div>
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<b>THE BOOK IS OUT!!! </b>Just found out from my publisher, Lavender Ink, that </div>
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<i>Island Fog</i> is now <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Island-Fog-John-Vanderslice/dp/1935084410/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411985233&sr=1-1&keywords=Vanderslice+island+fog">available for purchase in paperback on Amazon</a>. You can also <a href="http://www.lavenderink.org/content/link/222">order it through Lavender Ink's website</a>, lavenderink.org. If you're a fan of e-readers, don't fret. A Kindle version is forthcoming in a few weeks. For readers in the UK, it should be available very soon on Amazon.co.uk.</div>
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John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-34006075609204028092014-09-22T07:00:00.000-05:002014-09-22T07:00:01.298-05:00Suspense builds!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNUYB2DJVKd0S5fDN2N9K3Wb7tC0xgSkqr98Z0qdgOgApomY2BIApsA35nnO9o6y0aEgy7TlHg9GN7jvoiW1lM3-c03f1uDX2FoQZdM24sxiATLGwdxWscKL6Pn0Bu4vbmVGfAyikdFfU/s1600/jury-duty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNUYB2DJVKd0S5fDN2N9K3Wb7tC0xgSkqr98Z0qdgOgApomY2BIApsA35nnO9o6y0aEgy7TlHg9GN7jvoiW1lM3-c03f1uDX2FoQZdM24sxiATLGwdxWscKL6Pn0Bu4vbmVGfAyikdFfU/s1600/jury-duty.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a>In an odd conflation of life events, jury duty on the federal court in Little Rock, Arkansas beckons just as my book's big release is set to become a reality. As I write this, it's Sunday, September 21, and in a few hours I make a call to a Little Rock number to find out if I must show up for duty on Monday morning. If so, let's hope it's a quick and easy case! In the meantime, I eagerly anticipate <i>Island Fog</i> becoming available to order on Amazon any day now. The official release date is, and has been, October 1, but my publisher Lavender Ink will likely make it available this week to satisfy demands for early ordering. (In any case, one can already <a href="http://www.lavenderink.org/content/link/222">order the book through the Lavender Ink website</a>.) To top it all off, in the week of September 28-October 4 my university hosts two major visiting authors as well as a host of other speakers as we launch our first ever festivities in honor of National Diversity Awareness Month. I am one of the co-organizers--and thus co-administrators--of the festivities. Talk about a lot on your plate! It's all good, but it's all huge too.</div>
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Pre-release reviews and other online activity seem to pop up every day or so. At the end of last week I was notified of <a href="http://generalbookreviews.blogspot.com/2014/09/island-fog-by-john-vanderslice-book.html">a review on the Oh My Bookness blog</a> as well as the publication of <a href="http://wewantedtobewriters.com/2014/09/books-by-john-vanderslices-bed/">a short "Books by the Bed" segment</a> I was kindly asked by writer Cheryl Olsen to submit to the website <a href="http://wewantedtobewriters.com/"><i>We Wanted To Be Writers</i>.</a> (The idea is to talk about what books are next to your bed or just were or will be shortly.) She has also kindly agreed to review my book in the next couple of weeks. Thank you so much, Cheryl.</div>
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Forgive another obnoxious reminder--maybe my last one!--that a Goodreads giveaway contest for <i>Island Fog</i> is still ongoing. The end of the contest is imminent, however. You only have until the last day of the month to enter. Click <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/103102-island-fog">this link</a> for a chance to win one of three giveaway copies.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi51Nt9rp7XNt4iikDEp9wgew2mx4ViJvQZgTVvTFphhQvenALoeVV6zKkcwFVLWipmWW9vyxf4LRIhPcbEj8vT9LkPXeg8XTRN5S6RDteugDHKnCe9spS0xp4sF6BYbDajzrn-R3fWp04N/s1600/220px-PIB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi51Nt9rp7XNt4iikDEp9wgew2mx4ViJvQZgTVvTFphhQvenALoeVV6zKkcwFVLWipmWW9vyxf4LRIhPcbEj8vT9LkPXeg8XTRN5S6RDteugDHKnCe9spS0xp4sF6BYbDajzrn-R3fWp04N/s1600/220px-PIB.jpg" height="320" style="cursor: move;" width="219" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-vnhU3bPAm_EkLALOfbqeK7Al7dCKSk7dkXNAz3dDYAWi0ouYuMmKYH0UTqBHOYRjYNEcAJZtZSaJt2bTQmlQEDObmAaNnOt6AUaJf-6D9XPnV37JTKASBMJJPoNAwINL7I_aEyZADXFT/s1600/images-16.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-vnhU3bPAm_EkLALOfbqeK7Al7dCKSk7dkXNAz3dDYAWi0ouYuMmKYH0UTqBHOYRjYNEcAJZtZSaJt2bTQmlQEDObmAaNnOt6AUaJf-6D9XPnV37JTKASBMJJPoNAwINL7I_aEyZADXFT/s1600/images-16.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>I can't know what jury service will look like or how long it will last, but I hope to write you next week with more details about <a href="http://uca.edu/cfac/files/2011/09/LGBT-Week-copy.pdf">UCA's weeklong festival</a> in honor of <a href="http://icma.org/en/icma/knowledge_network/blogs/blogpost/454/National_Diversity_Awareness_Month">National Diversity Awareness month</a>. The bad news is that both the idea of a Diversity Awareness month and our on-campus activites are long overdue. The good news is that we have a fantastic lineup planned. This lineup includes world-class creative talents like fiction and nonfiction writer <a href="http://barclayagency.com/cooper.html">Bernard Cooper</a> (<i>The Bill from My Father</i>, <i>Guess</i> <i>Again</i>, <i>Truth Serum</i>) and poet <a href="http://www.jerichobrown.com/">Jericho Brown</a> (<i>The New Testament</i>, <i>Please</i>); also, the exhibition of a segment of the AIDS Memorial Quilt; a lecture on the origin and turbulent history of Conway, Arkansas's Pride Parade; artifacts from and a lecture on the late gay novelist Peter McGehee and his dark comedies of manners; the screening of two landmark documentaries about LGBT culture: <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Is_Burning_(film)">Paris is Burning</a></i> (1990) and <i><a href="http://www.newblackfilm.com/">The New Black</a></i> (2013); a first ever reading put on by members our campus's LGBT organization, <a href="http://orgs.uca.edu/prism/">Prism</a>; and a reading organized by <a href="http://siblingrivalrypress.com/">Sibling Rivalry Press</a>, a renowned and deeply respected publisher--located right here in central Arkansas, by the way--of many gay and lesbian writers. If you're in the area the week of September 28-Oct 4, check it out! If you're just interested in finding out more, contact Dr. Gayle Seymour (GayleS@uca.edu) or Joshua Miller (JDMiller@uca.edu) in the office of the Dean of the <a href="http://uca.edu/cfac/">College of Fine Arts and Communication, University of Central Arkansas</a>.</div>
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John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-18125919242068995452014-09-15T07:00:00.000-05:002014-09-15T07:00:00.252-05:00The fictional fine line<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLmtyXweiIYhPksoCMGmGpSH8Wkk75u-AHPv8oMVc0UoAvLbCgy_7uzKG-c219NyQk9IBUAr3G303nrXodZEtRPFjMT2X8wI_WmvwlXO3kt1Ff3HgMH6fX1RGiOh_H54BvVnovz_yjZYU/s1600/images-8.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLmtyXweiIYhPksoCMGmGpSH8Wkk75u-AHPv8oMVc0UoAvLbCgy_7uzKG-c219NyQk9IBUAr3G303nrXodZEtRPFjMT2X8wI_WmvwlXO3kt1Ff3HgMH6fX1RGiOh_H54BvVnovz_yjZYU/s1600/images-8.jpeg" height="200" width="131" /></a>For my historical fiction workshop class last Wednesday, the group read <a href="http://www.tcboyle.com/">T.C. Boyle</a>'s novella <i>Wild Child </i>(from the 2010 collection <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Child-And-Other-Stories/dp/0143118641">Wild Child and other Stories</a></i>) based on the famous true life case of the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_of_Aveyron">Wild Boy of Aveyron</a>." To summarize the true life case in brief: In 1800, in France, a boy was found living feral in the woods, naked. No one knew for certain when he went in or for how long he'd lived there, but based on earlier reported sightings authorities estimated that he had lived for seven years or more in that environment, alone. The boy seemed to have no knowledge of any language and did not react to any sounds. It was assumed at first that he was a deaf-mute. When it was discovered that he could in fact hear, a determined young doctor named Icard tried to civilize him, the hardest work of which was to try to teach him to understand and even speak the French language. Icard also chose the name Victor for the boy. After years of fantastic effort, Icard had to give up his experiment. Victor simply was not progressing in his language acquisition, and in some ways he seemed to be regressing. He was henceforth allowed to live out his life in the home of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Madame Guérin--Icard's housekeeper--</span></span>serving as <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">Guérin's</span> houseboy. Victor did not cause the woman any undue trouble, but neither did he seem terribly happy. To say the least, the attempt to turn the "savage" into a civilized man was deemed by all to have been a terrible failure.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTRiq4_GNYSQUgYIxVWSFR7tMAAR57CvCS-3KHox3MEol2aFEf6TWOb3MEltQoyD14SOuPHsbfL3qp0ylPt8hVT1zK6elK13oV4AD_Eogqp4myMoCAzdAMJk3tL0Idk1GyKQwHWiM4qsdu/s1600/Picture+1-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTRiq4_GNYSQUgYIxVWSFR7tMAAR57CvCS-3KHox3MEol2aFEf6TWOb3MEltQoyD14SOuPHsbfL3qp0ylPt8hVT1zK6elK13oV4AD_Eogqp4myMoCAzdAMJk3tL0Idk1GyKQwHWiM4qsdu/s1600/Picture+1-1.png" height="246" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a>From what I knew about Victor of Aveyron, and from what my students could tell, Boyle seemed to be sticking very closely to the known facts of the case. Many of them also described the tone of the narration to be distant, clinical, impassionate, observing rather than participating. (Perhaps this is what led one of them to call Boyle's style "stodgy.") What Boyle <i>appeared</i> to be doing with the story was taking the facts of the case and lining them up inside a fluid, readable narrative. I use italics on <i>appeared</i> because neither I nor my students knew enough about Boyle's intentions or his method of working to speak conclusively. I had tried to find an interview with Boyle or an article about him in which he discussed the novella and his research in detail, but I wasn't successful. The way the discussion was going I wished I had tried a little harder. One student wondered aloud what made the novella fiction since Boyle's apparent <i>modus operandi </i>could describe a great deal of narrative nonfiction, including some very celebrated examples of such. I have to admit the question stumped me. I was completely unprepared for it. (I'm much more ready to respond to those who attack a work of historical fiction for playing too loosely with the facts. Fiction writers are rarely if ever questioned for being <i>too</i> faithful to the historical record.) I said that since it was published in a collection of fiction I just accepted it as such, which is true but not a terribly convincing argument. And I offered my apology for not finding out what Boyle himself had to say. A pretty meager response.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt-TE_p466AiOjrw_nQfVpTE6yaAjoRbs_DMsbmig-PmCHbw-3IeSFVIFXvWsM4km5pgPLDKRj2bHP3ggvivcBL0rEEBxGiC3lh8nZA5eaH4OBYBjPU67jZc7QWtYN0hj_yTTcIC5RUc55/s1600/images-13.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt-TE_p466AiOjrw_nQfVpTE6yaAjoRbs_DMsbmig-PmCHbw-3IeSFVIFXvWsM4km5pgPLDKRj2bHP3ggvivcBL0rEEBxGiC3lh8nZA5eaH4OBYBjPU67jZc7QWtYN0hj_yTTcIC5RUc55/s1600/images-13.jpeg" height="200" style="cursor: move;" width="169" /></a>Later, after I'd had time to think about it, I realized there were aspects of the book I could and should have pointed to in order to nudge it, in my students' minds, clearly to the side of fiction. First, despite the complaints about the distant and clinical narration, the novel isn't written in third person objective; Boyle doesn't narrate, not completely, from the stance of the neutral historian. Instead, he shows the perspectives of a variety of the book's characters, most importantly, Icard, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">Madame Guérin</span>, and Victor himself, especially in one especially fraught scene when Victor flees from Icard's control to find himself lost and and at a loss on the streets of Paris. Given how shut out from Victor's mind the people around him felt, this scene certainly represents a leap of the imagination for the author. A leap based partly on the facts of the case, of course, but even more on Boyle's intuition. And too,while the novella's narrator demonstrates more powerful control over what we know and find out and believe and interpret than is typically the case with contemporary fiction--in which scene is primary--it's not like <i>Wild Child</i> is without scenes or without dialogue. As I frequently say to people who like to discuss research vs imagination as if they are strict writerly dichotomies, just because you know Mr. Brown had a conversation with Mrs. Smith at French restaurant in New York in 1931, and you even know the subject of their conversation, there is little to no chance you know what the <i>actual words</i> were that they used in that conversation. And even if somehow you know the actual words, you don't know what the sky looked like outside the window; or what oddities marked the appearnce of the passersby; you don't know the state of the tablecloth on their table or how dingy was the lighting; you don't know who was sitting at the tables nearby and whether their conversation might have made it hard for Mr. Brown and Mrs. Smith to concentrate; you don't know if Mr. Brown and Mrs. Smith's conversation became a distraction for them. These are just a fraction of the possible details that could potentially make up a scene in story, and they are details that the historical fiction writer must often create with his or her imagination. Yes, that's right. Must. Those details are certainly evident in Boyle's story, even as he also relates a tremendous amount of factual information about the Wild Boy's behavior, the other principals and their backgrounds, and the philosophical debates of the time that made Victor such a crucial test case.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd0DAcPHTrlx0lsjXECpCdwWNnM_5mFP3MTHw1ablY-9MSRzV6huRJ6ipseGRQCmhQ1zif8g8mVtMBKcwURlWCBX-5BCSihR9_LPqByYDKJI7gj30NBxpuuv12PZj1P48LoSXC1wmfUIDI/s1600/tcboyle_16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd0DAcPHTrlx0lsjXECpCdwWNnM_5mFP3MTHw1ablY-9MSRzV6huRJ6ipseGRQCmhQ1zif8g8mVtMBKcwURlWCBX-5BCSihR9_LPqByYDKJI7gj30NBxpuuv12PZj1P48LoSXC1wmfUIDI/s1600/tcboyle_16.jpg" height="213" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a>Meanwhile, a strict writer of narrative nonfiction would forbid himself or herself from risking such a liberal assertion of the the imagination. I remember once hearing a radio interview with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Junger">Sebastian Junger</a> in which he claimed that every single detail in <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perfect_Storm_(book)">The Perfect Storm</a></i>, even conversations between the principals,<i> </i>was derived through research, whether that meant through reading or by talking with knowledgeable people, including the families and friends of the men who died in the storm. Junger refused to allow himself to speculate about how a person involved <i>might have</i> felt or <i>might have</i> thought or <i>might have</i> perceived something. If he could not derive a detail convincingly from research, even if that detail might have made his narrative more vivid, he left it out. Clearly, this is not the way of the fiction writer. And I think it's safe to say it wasn't Boyle's way in writing <i>Wild Child</i>. Perhaps he came as close to the fiction/creative nonfiction line as any writer of historical fiction dares, but I'm not willing to write him off as not being among us. He is T.C. Boyle, after all. Don't you want him in your corner?</div>
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(<i>Pictured on right: Boyle, in our corner</i>.)</div>
John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-64407425172135051652014-09-01T07:05:00.000-05:002014-09-01T07:05:00.302-05:00At long last--the historical fiction class<br />
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[<i>This post is being dual-posted on my other blog, </i><a href="http://payperazzi.blogspot.com/">Payperazzi</a><i>. For weekly reflections on writing, teaching writing, publishing, and the writing life, check out </i>Payperazzi<i>.</i>]</div>
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For years at <a href="http://uca.edu/writing/">UCA</a> we've talked about it: running a workshop class solely devoted to historical fiction. There seemed to be a pressing need. After all, as I've written about repeatedly on my other blog <i><a href="http://creatingvangogh.blogspot.com/">Creating Van Gogh</a></i>, historical fiction is enjoying an especially fruitful time right now: as popular as it's ever been in terms of mass market sales, while at the same time its writers routinely win or make the short lists for prestigious prizes like the <a href="http://www.themanbookerprize.com/">Man Booker</a>, the <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/">Pulitzer</a>, and the <a href="http://www.nationalbook.org/">National Book Award</a>. Most importantly, the students want to try the form out. They want to focus on it. They want to study it. So really it's about time. And, yes, now it's happening, and I'm honored to be the instructor allowed to teach it. The crop of students in the class--a nice mix of graduate students and undergrads--are all genuinely interested in the form and eager to throw themselves into at least one, if not three different, past times in order to write a story or stories. (I've given them the option of writing three separate fictions or one longer one.) One of the undergrads is a history major. Another is a business major/writing minor with an interest in the form that dates back several years, when I first had him in workshop. Then he was writing about medieval Japan; now he's interested in Joan of Arc. One of the graduate students is working on an historical novel for her MFA thesis; another wants to explore family stories from out of Kansas. They're excited. I'm excited.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ-eMUXgUY8r5SgwUAx9gRa5emZAE0Wm6b3HLIzXIvBu_fqGgKZm0_DXhCKl41PAlXl-_zxbBDQJnLdVN49tw1-517hBxQgC-F2x1AZQQq5fLwzmpf_HtK7uDroWAWCmUPdoOaLcqLptNP/s1600/images-12.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ-eMUXgUY8r5SgwUAx9gRa5emZAE0Wm6b3HLIzXIvBu_fqGgKZm0_DXhCKl41PAlXl-_zxbBDQJnLdVN49tw1-517hBxQgC-F2x1AZQQq5fLwzmpf_HtK7uDroWAWCmUPdoOaLcqLptNP/s1600/images-12.jpeg" height="150" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a>Because the course was created under our Topics in Creative Writing rubric, for now it's a one-time shot. Let's hope the class succeeds, which means the students like what they read and, more crucially, what they write. And because it's a brand new course, it's an utter experiment, as any brand new course is--making it, from the teacher's standpoint, both thrilling and anxious at the same time. I'm giving the students quite a mixed bag of work to do: required readings in historical fiction (including two longish novels), presentations on articles about historical fiction as a craft, the original fictions that they compose, in-class journal writings and reflections, peer group meetings, and, later in the semester, full class workshops. It will be a full room of fifteen people and, as is usually the case with any workshop course, trying to figure how to balance all the different elements within the time alloted will be the biggest test.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimc6JLnRU7nsSeny1Kg1Vec1sIlwRwaBFfgsh1UAF2cyDkD_wNUeRAmCbqRpqRKsqC07ejqjn24Ck2BO_65dLe2Zr4y5xkIcu9qZnbQR3Pd2QIT7MxNdJenrXnnRBVFClh0gyYGJvZOc6y/s1600/images-11.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimc6JLnRU7nsSeny1Kg1Vec1sIlwRwaBFfgsh1UAF2cyDkD_wNUeRAmCbqRpqRKsqC07ejqjn24Ck2BO_65dLe2Zr4y5xkIcu9qZnbQR3Pd2QIT7MxNdJenrXnnRBVFClh0gyYGJvZOc6y/s1600/images-11.jpeg" height="187" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a>I got the ball rolling last Wednesday with a short presentation on some of the issues surrounding the form. First of all: What is historical fiction anyway? Opinions definitely vary. (Does historical fantasy count? What about alternative histories?) And: What are the "rules" of writing it? Here opinions vary even more widely. I was hardly trying to lay down the rules myself but instead trying to suggest some of the areas of most sensitive and commited disagreement. For instance, when employing an actual person out of history in your story, can you make things up that you know never happened? When setting the story in a much earlier period is the writer required to describe in detail the physical setting of that period? How closely should you--or even can you--try to mimick the way people spoke in the time period? And what if the language they would have spoken is medieval French or Turkish or Russian, and you're writing in English for an English language audience? How do you approximate one language through the other? I do have my own measured opinions on these questions. Opinions I'll certainly share with the students. But I'm hoping and expecting that as the students write their own fictions and research what others have to say about the form, they'll uncover lots of different opinions about such questions as well as plenty of questions that I haven't yet brought before them. It seems true, in the end, that what the governing rules are for historical fiction is something that each writer of historical fiction has to decide for himself or herself, just as the governing rules of any novel have to be determined by that novel itself. So in the end what rules my students choose for themselves will likely be as varied as the projects they are working on. But we're only at the beginning now; the ending is quite far off indeed. I'm excited and anxious to see how this ride goes.</div>
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<b>Giveaway reminder: </b> Just another reminder that through <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/">Goodreads </a>I'm running a giveaway promotion (on three continents!) for <i>Island Fog</i>, my forthcoming book of linked short stories. The book is half historical fictions, one of which my class is reading for this coming Wednesday. Let's hope they like it! And if you haven't yet, let's hope you sign up for the giveaway. Just <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/103102-island-fog">follow this link</a>. The promotion ends on Oct. 1, which is the official release date for the book.</div>
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John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-71012020135636523492014-08-07T07:00:00.000-05:002014-08-07T07:00:00.513-05:00Island Fog giveaway starts today!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7YdR4Zfrr5TT5AN_n22l5PSt0IJh9frLIm7V-Q8Od-MHTqvZialKh77zGDZ3gTWHpIQa3xmWYtJdC47-MFdTvRikE-xIr4ZKG5ofRa__s3raU30m7H04KlMUeg9C8MbAXNBRwmPoExUo/s1600/Island+Fog+cover+for+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7YdR4Zfrr5TT5AN_n22l5PSt0IJh9frLIm7V-Q8Od-MHTqvZialKh77zGDZ3gTWHpIQa3xmWYtJdC47-MFdTvRikE-xIr4ZKG5ofRa__s3raU30m7H04KlMUeg9C8MbAXNBRwmPoExUo/s1600/Island+Fog+cover+for+web.jpg" height="320" width="199" /></a>The official countdown for the October 1 release of my linked story collection <i>Island Fog, </i>published by <a href="http://www.lavenderink.org/content/">Lavender Ink</a> in New Orleans<i>, </i>starts today! Beginning today and continuing until the release date, I am running a giveaway promotion on <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/">Goodreads</a>. Shortly thereafter I will be mailing free copies of the book to three lucky Goodreads users. If you aren't a member of Goodreads already, you really need to be. (Because if you read this blog I know you're a book lover.) Unlike some social networking sites, I find myself coming back to Goodreads over and over. </div>
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<b>So how do I enter the giveaway?</b> Easy. Just follow <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/103102-island-fog">this link</a>, and you'll be there. Click on the "Enter to Win" button, provide your contact information, and you are officially entered! </div>
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I'm excited, not just for my book, which I am deeply proud of, but for this chance to get it into the hands of someone who's curious about it and wants to dive in. Or just into the hands of someone who loves books! </div>
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Good luck to everybody who enters. I'm eager to see who wins! </div>
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John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-11302168210679245412014-08-04T07:00:00.000-05:002014-08-04T07:00:01.764-05:00Two years later . . . <br />
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<i>[This post originated on my newer blog </i><a href="http://payperazzi.blogspot.com/">Payperazzi</a><i>. Check out that blog for my latest musings on writing, the writing life, and teaching writing. I'm publishing it here too on </i>Creating Van Gogh<i> because I first mentioned this subject (briefly) in a </i>CVG <a href="http://creatingvangogh.blogspot.com/2012/08/strange-days-indeed.html" style="font-style: italic;">post</a><i> a couple years back. Consider this an update and a coda.]</i></div>
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Two years ago, I was all set to go into the movie business. Well, sort of. Here's what happened. Early in the summer of 2012 I was contacted by an actress in London, one with reasonably serious stage and screen credits to her name. In between acting jobs this actress had been serving as an assistant producer on some films. Now she wanted to produce a film of her own, a short. And she wanted to base that short on my story "<a href="http://www.literarymama.com/fiction/archives/2012/06/my-word.html">My Word</a>," which she had just read in the online journal <i><a href="http://www.literarymama.com/">Literary Mama</a></i>. What's more, if all went will with the short film, she wanted to expand the short into a feature. You can imagine my surprise and delight. A film? Of my story? Maybe a feature?! This opportunity felt like it had dropped out of heaven and into my lap. The whole thing was as bizarre and amazing and exhilerating as it was unexpected. After all, although I have a strong and abiding interesting in writing plays--and in the entire art of stagecraft--I've never, unlike so many of my undergraduate students, had the least interest in writing a screenplay or getting involved in the business of putting a movie together. And yet here was this movie-making opportunity; from a credible, connected source. I wasn't about to say no. And I didn't.</div>
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Due to various delays--some unavoidable; some which struck me as quite avoidable--it took two months before the actress had a contract to show me. But finally in early August she faxed it to me, and I signed it. The contract would cover a period of two years. And it would only apply to the short. I wouldn't be paid for my story, but I would receive co-producer credit on the film, and my specified duties would include reviewing and commenting on the screenplay, which she was determined to write herself. (I had asked around to various people in the know, and what I heard was that with a short film the writer usually just gives the story away for the sake of publicity. "But," the same gurus said, "if she does decide to make a feature you need a new contract, one that pays you actual money. Because if it's a feature there's going to be more money involved.") After the delays in getting the contract finalized it looked like the project was finally about to take off. The actress was begining a three week vacation (in America, ironically), and she had decided that it was to be a writing vacation. In a phone call from her vacation spot, she told me that she would have a screenplay ready to show me in a week. And she was certain that the film would not only be started but in the can in no more than a year. Sounded great.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB6STob48X-OF7wneNPp9Afmf9w3nsGajGCBdg4JYyGpP_kg9HAV2F7QRn6FZbxsrQoiY6Wzrs4T3Ax5MoCvFgc1ehM2kf7MVeOcWMhY7N3pQsRxyr1qcFrR0LbKtTwbfhSWoRa4NOx90k/s1600/images-4.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB6STob48X-OF7wneNPp9Afmf9w3nsGajGCBdg4JYyGpP_kg9HAV2F7QRn6FZbxsrQoiY6Wzrs4T3Ax5MoCvFgc1ehM2kf7MVeOcWMhY7N3pQsRxyr1qcFrR0LbKtTwbfhSWoRa4NOx90k/s1600/images-4.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>I checked in with her via email after a week, only to be told that she hadn't actually started writing yet. But she was about to, she said; I should give her another week. When I checked in the next week, however, she said she had encountered some problems in the writing and had decided to read a novel by John Steinbeck to give her some ideas on structure. Hmmm. Okay. When I emailed her a week after that I received no reply. At some point she must have shut down her vacation and flown back to England, but she did so without sending any further word about the supposedly imminent screenplay. That fall I emailed her semi-regularly--just light, friendly messages--hoping for good news. I didn't actually ask about the screenplay; I just wanted to keep lines of communication open. Mostly she didn't respond to my messages, but sometimes she did. She only addressed the screenplay once. She said she still hoped to get to it, but she had two or three other projects to get to first. Oh. Eventually she stopped responding to my emails altogether, so I just let it go. If she really did want to do this movie, I figured, she would contact me. But she didn't.</div>
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And she hasn't.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP6UDdkZIxu088A3sXLKIHHLWXpWp8lciH2dhJVtd-RGUHbzphLLklE4pPJghno4T_PSZr4d3chHNcSexni58i2Ik1KIJq_G0wDVK-MbcA2NzTecxPQllCdRE38cp6kwvWcNsAPmvs56yS/s1600/images-6.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP6UDdkZIxu088A3sXLKIHHLWXpWp8lciH2dhJVtd-RGUHbzphLLklE4pPJghno4T_PSZr4d3chHNcSexni58i2Ik1KIJq_G0wDVK-MbcA2NzTecxPQllCdRE38cp6kwvWcNsAPmvs56yS/s1600/images-6.jpeg" height="65" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a>Now, two years later, the movie project based on my short story appears to have been long since scuttled without ever having been launched. And now that the contract has expired there's little to no chance of the project being resurrected. Every now and then I check the actress's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/">IMDb</a> resume of acting and producing gigs, in hopes of noticing some reference to our film. But nothing's been added to her resume in over a year, so I have to wonder if she's even in the business anymore. I guess so far this post makes me sound bitter. Maybe I am; just a little. But, honestly, not that much. Even when it appeared that all systems were go and my story was about to generate a movie, the project didn't feel real to me. It felt instead like some kind of pretend amendment to my life. To my actual life--the one with my family--but also, just as importantly, to my writing life: which is about composing fictions. (Btw, that August, while I was waiting on the screenplay that never came, I did reconfigure "<a href="http://www.foliateoak.com/john-vanderslice.html">My Word" as a one-act play</a>. I wanted to be able to imagine it as words and movements only, in order to be better prepared to "consult" when the time came. I didn't really write it in order to be performed, but I did publish it last year in the online journal <i><a href="http://www.foliateoak.com/">Foliate Oak</a></i>.)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejWWika9TYTq4fAwhv3SSCvFwP9jNsVE-45c6Tn8HxNAsQi3DGWQb9os_qEDi_YPNZVr1VQDIDsNZ4HzWc7cNn7gVZZtgh2KSJiQ4toELh1PI29iTBOb0C3o3Q7b_cRNtChceIn9HtCYD/s1600/cover500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejWWika9TYTq4fAwhv3SSCvFwP9jNsVE-45c6Tn8HxNAsQi3DGWQb9os_qEDi_YPNZVr1VQDIDsNZ4HzWc7cNn7gVZZtgh2KSJiQ4toELh1PI29iTBOb0C3o3Q7b_cRNtChceIn9HtCYD/s1600/cover500.jpg" height="320" style="cursor: move;" width="199" /></a>Looking back on this curious episode, I'm tempted to try to draw some lesson from it. But the only lesson I can draw is one I already knew at the time. That is: Know who you are and keep doing what you do. After all, it's the only thing that's really yours; the only thing you can control. Even as I emailed and phone conferenced with the actress, even as I hoped for and looked forward to her screenplay, even as I prepared myself to help with it, even as I was disappointed that it never came, I kept working on stories. I wrote new stories; I revised previous ones. It's who I was. It's who I am. It's what I do. Now, two years later, I have a book of short stories called <i>Island Fog</i> forthcoming from <a href="http://www.lavenderink.org/content/">Lavender Ink</a> press in New Orleans, and I couldn't be happier. Lavender Ink is clearly serious about the project. Lavender Ink has promotional plans. Heck, Lavender Ink answers my emails! And still, even as I busy myself this summer with marketing work on the book--lining up reviews in magazines and on blogs, drawing up plans for a late fall book tour, consulting with the woman who will be designing my website--I'm composing new stories. It's who I am. It's what I do. Any life and any career will encounter setbacks. This includes a writing career. And with a writing career the best way--the only way, I think--to handle any setback is to <i>keep writing</i>. It's hard to concentrate on, or even remember, bitterness from a lost opportunity when you're engaged in creating a new story with new characters and all new oppoertunites. The story of your last story falls away and all you see is the story of the new one: the potential there and the pleasure. Suddenly you're thinking not about the recent past but the future, the future of this story. After all, in two years who knows where it could be?</div>
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John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-35479772041641839162014-07-14T06:28:00.003-05:002014-07-14T06:30:42.795-05:00Why we write together[<i>This post originated in my newish blog </i><a href="https://payperazzi.blogspot.com/">Payperazzi</a><i>. I crosslist it here on </i>Creating Van Gogh<i>, for the sake of CVG readers and also because I provide some news about my forthcoming book </i>Island Fog<i>, half of which is made up of historical fictions.</i>]<br />
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In <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/07/writing-alone-together/">a recent commentary in <i>The New York Times</i></a>, <a href="http://www.bonnietsui.com/">Bonnie Tsui </a>discusses her lifelong difficulties writing around other people and her recent breakthroughs doing just that. (Thanks, by the way, to <a href="http://www.erikadreifus.com/">Erika Dreifus</a> for another great reading recommendation.) Interestingly, one of Tsui's discoveries stems from the fact that when she is around other people she talks more than she writes. But that, it turns out, is a good thing. The talking lets her flesh out various possibilities in a piece and thus decide what it is a right path and what a false trail without wasting several hours of writing before coming to the same conclusion. (I'm not sure if, for a fictionist, any writing is truly wasted--but that's a discussion for another day.) More intriguing is Tsui's past reasons for resisting writing in groups and the fact that despite these reservations she finally found value in it. Some of the reasons--e.g., fear that someone will steal one of her ideas--seem almost amateurishly overblown (nothing is more commonplace than an idea); other reasons--such as the fear of distraction--strike me as more realistic. The bottom line, though, is that Tsui has discovered a generous, supportive community that not only gives her important feedback on her work but informs her about, and connects her to, many important aspects of the writing world that lay beyond her narrow personal focus: readings, conferences, classes, etc. Tsui has discovered that writing is both solitary and social; that the two aspects can and do feed each other.</div>
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Since in just about every class I teach I make my students spend at least some in-class time generating new material, I was heartened by Tsui's essay. I can't remember when I first started making my students produce original work in class--I was never made to do this myself as an undergrad or a grad--but it has come to seem essential to me. This is especially so in a forms class, in which I lead the students through a series of specifc fictional or non-fictional or poetic forms, and I want to make sure that they actively try every form we cover. But no matter what the class, I always set aside in-class writing time. In my mind, it's as central to a creative writing class as workshopping. After all, if one takes a class in painting or dancing or acting or playing the piano, one expects to paint, dance, act, or play the piano in class. One would feel cheated if denied the chance to do so. So why should it be any different for a writing class? Just as with painting or dancing, it's a matter of working on one's craft. A minute spent practicing writing is about the best minute a writer can hope for, and the minute in which the writer learns the most. And if one does that writing in the company of others and then shares that work with others--or at least hears about it from others--one learns not only about his or her own work but about someone else's and about the genre at large. The learning is multiplied.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNsDk2bKWLRoowWwctmoB3Y6XPvoURS_0o0yoAPp5imrs5IruymonqaSc0hyphenhyphen0_VS7bJe432JWK_qhP7niCXufWD6j8CJwGQVlhmGGQTFOzayRFUy5eDfsHi-lRZwhpbltlwsbymz5v80GY/s1600/DownloadedFile-23.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNsDk2bKWLRoowWwctmoB3Y6XPvoURS_0o0yoAPp5imrs5IruymonqaSc0hyphenhyphen0_VS7bJe432JWK_qhP7niCXufWD6j8CJwGQVlhmGGQTFOzayRFUy5eDfsHi-lRZwhpbltlwsbymz5v80GY/s1600/DownloadedFile-23.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>I always write along with my students, and I look forward to those days more than any other on the schedule. First, as anyone who has taken a creative writing class can tell you, doing nothing but workshopping each other's stories or essays or poems all semester long can wear you out and finally even sap your creativity (because you're exercising your analytical and not your creative self). Meanwhile, doing nothing but reading the work of masters, while an extremely valuable activity, turns the class into a literature course. Having the element of on-site creativity affords a crucial pedogogical element of pause, of rest, of reenergizing, of rediscovery. And far from being "just crap"or "just writing," what my students generate in class often becomes what they work on for their formal assignments. Often what I write in class leads to a finished and published story. I can't tell you how valuable that time has been for my career.</div>
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Over the years, nearly all my students have appreciated this in-class writing time, even my graduate students (and never more than when I teach Novel Writing Workshop). But of course this is not always the case. Most years there is a student or two who turn their noses up at the practice, as if they are too good to waste precious time wrting in the presence of plebes. Yes, as you can tell from my description, these students don't simply not want to write in class but, almost to a man--and they are always men--believe that they are <i>better than that</i>. They glance around the room, at the other students and me--our heads bent over notebooks or laptops--with a caustic smile on their face, as if we are all dupes, or beginners carrying out grade school games. Their writing time, you see--unlike everybody else's apparently--is special, holy, inviolate. It must be done entirely in priviate--like some cultic religious function--or it can't get done. In fact, again, to a man, that's what they tell me when I question them about their in-class inactivity: <i>I have to write alone</i>. I became so quickly tired of this attitude that years ago I installed in my syllabus a warning (yes, I felt I had to warn them) that--gasp--we would <i>actually be writing</i> in this <i>writing </i>course. I would remind them that my department existed in a <a href="http://uca.edu/cfac/">College of Fine Arts</a>, an arm of the university where creativity was routinely expected in classroom settings (painting, playing, dancing, etc.) and no excuses were afforded. Finally, I felt I obliged to add this sentence: "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px;">Being writers, this prospect ought to excite not discourage you." </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSh5OrEFXND7ufkzTmS28523st4DaokRHhVBFJCsKTok7Qjff4-ob8ByYN_rW4BWWvVHh90mU_aw4mkV-l5OqKoBlRzbnuDdupk9d0534PTI3Dw1YFlxJTJX4e3hGtcQ9xUVedc3XjgVwO/s1600/images-12.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSh5OrEFXND7ufkzTmS28523st4DaokRHhVBFJCsKTok7Qjff4-ob8ByYN_rW4BWWvVHh90mU_aw4mkV-l5OqKoBlRzbnuDdupk9d0534PTI3Dw1YFlxJTJX4e3hGtcQ9xUVedc3XjgVwO/s1600/images-12.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px;">And that's really what it comes down to for me. Of course writing is a solitary activity. And I am someone who typically tries to keep distractions to a minimum when I write. I don't write to music (although the vast majority of my students do); I don't write with the television or talk radio on; I don't try to write and text at the same time; I even like to keep the internet out of the way, unless I need to quick research a point directly related to what I'm working on. I am by nature quite the solitary person. But I learned easily enough, as soon as I started asking my students to, to compose while in the company of twenty or more people. You do that by not being so much into yourself and about yourself and your holy rituals as into and about the <i>work at hand</i>. You let the work at hand take you away. And that can happen anywhere, in any company, no matter how large or small in number. Finally--finally--you need to get over yourself. That's what it's about. For the good of your own writing, your own development, you need to. And that includes the attitude the you can't ever learn from the people sitting in class with you; and the attitude that you can never learn a new way of composing. To me, the writer who can't summon the necessary power of concentration to be compose--and I mean compose meaningfully--in a group of others is not more of a writer but less of one. He is not able to do what others clear <i>can</i> do, and even enjoy doing. His proud resistance is revealed to be less that of a genius than that of a misanthrope. And perhaps, for all his haught, an insecure one at that. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px;">Fortunately, with every year I see fewer of these types of students. Perhaps initiatives like <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/">NaNoWriMo</a>, with its big fat group writing parties, has shown young people the value of writing together. Or perhaps this generation of students has just been been better taught how to work in a collaborative fashion, or at least in group settings. But so far there are still the tenacious holdouts. God bless them, I hope for their own sakes they leave aside the tiresome role of lone wolf, roaming the woods at night in search of inspiration, and allow themselves a step into the sunshine of immediate generation.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw3fFsQGJbo7-o8691dzur5PvOC93D2OAar_u-OXJFnGXivJYy8Qlwtzm1ShjV6qOq-Af9_DYFKhYoIVXgp9fbe4OtZpM-5mvf6iqol9-1IBjMJk_c0n4TSCM67H8LqkYKHgegMMR2e91u/s1600/images-14.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw3fFsQGJbo7-o8691dzur5PvOC93D2OAar_u-OXJFnGXivJYy8Qlwtzm1ShjV6qOq-Af9_DYFKhYoIVXgp9fbe4OtZpM-5mvf6iqol9-1IBjMJk_c0n4TSCM67H8LqkYKHgegMMR2e91u/s1600/images-14.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px;"><b>Quick personal note:</b> I had a wonderful vacation last week in South Dakota, specifically in <a href="http://gfp.sd.gov/state-parks/directory/custer/">Custer State Park</a> in the middle of the Black Hills region. I'd never been to the Black Hills, or even to the state, before. And now I won't ever forget it. (Trying to figure how we can import buffalo herds down here to Arkansas.) </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px;"><b>Follow-up to my book marketing post: </b> Several<b> </b>weeks ago I put up <a href="http://payperazzi.blogspot.com/2014/06/marketing-my-new-book-field-report.html">a post that highighted all the marketing and promotion work</a> I'd taken on for the sake of my book of linked stories, called <i>Island Fog</i>, which will be out in October from <a href="http://www.lavenderink.org/content/">Lavender Ink</a> press. The last few weeks, thanks to a great reference book my wife gave me, I've been researching hundreds of book bloggers, national and international. (Yes, I am pleased to report, there are hundreds of them out there.) As a result, I contacted 65 or so to ask if they wanted to read and review <i>Island Fog</i>. To date, 25 of these bloggers have said yes! This is better than I could have anticipated, and now I can't wait to see the results. A few of them are ready to go right away and I have to tell them, "Wait, it's not available for sale until October!" So I talk them down to September. I'm so glad I'm doing this all in advance. (And I have to thank my publisher for the timely kick in the pants to get going.) Hopefully <i>Island Fog</i> will be blogged galore come fall. I'll let you all know. </span></div>
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John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-17087365156178213632014-03-16T09:38:00.000-05:002014-03-16T09:38:39.500-05:00Requiem for Joanna<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRwORTA9tlLYz4pSKYuBBH9v3SDVCvyaaSm3dHz0jQTJtr0yN34eud0amPhr4NuufpF6-eIeibBRYVw-4_WEe6e3KLVyY2DbtWtarQ1AVo5Hw_SLV7U-5CHFdzBnS8yCW1wLGsWPF6JWg/s1600/photo11824.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRwORTA9tlLYz4pSKYuBBH9v3SDVCvyaaSm3dHz0jQTJtr0yN34eud0amPhr4NuufpF6-eIeibBRYVw-4_WEe6e3KLVyY2DbtWtarQ1AVo5Hw_SLV7U-5CHFdzBnS8yCW1wLGsWPF6JWg/s1600/photo11824.jpeg" /></a>The <a href="http://uca.edu/">University of Central Arkansas</a>, and most especially its <a href="http://uca.edu/writing/">Writing Department</a>, suffered a terribly keen loss last week with the passing of our colleague <a href="http://uca.edu/writing/facultystaff/joanna-castner-post/">Dr. Joanna Castner-Post</a>. Joanna was way too young, way too energetic, and way too loved for us to believe she's gone, but there it is. And Joanna wasn't only loved, she was needed. If you spend a lot time in higher education, whether as a student or professor (or both), you come to recognize a certain kind of undying, mid-level hubris that exists there. After all, you're talking about people who have been lionized their whole lives for being <i>smart</i>--and they usually are, and they have the degrees to prove it. And they are determined to prove it.</div>
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Joanna wasn't like that. She was a supportive and enthusiastic colleague, a colleague who tried to see the best in the people around her and encourage the best in those people. She did not act out of any closeted agendas. If she told she believed something, you knew it was so. Instead of shooting down new ideas and explaining why they couldn't work, she exulted over them and encouraged us to try to make them work. She was that rare human being in academia: someone you could trust completely. Even rarer: She was an optimist. And she worked really hard. It was for these reasons that she was so incredibly beloved at UCA. Not only by her colleagues, but by her students and by the many classes of tutors she helped train at the UCA Writing Center when she served as its director. For a week before her death, Joanna was in the Critical Care Unit at Conway Regional Hospitial in a chemically induced coma. You never saw such a steady stream of people visiting a patient. There were literally lines of people waiting to see her, to offer her their prayers and encouragement, and, in the end, to say goodbye to her one last time. Not a soul was there because they had to be, only because they wanted and needed to. One young man, a former Writing Center tutor, flew in from Utah just to see Joanna and say goodbye. He then proceeded to fly right back. At one point seven of her former tutors surrounded her bed, not wanting, any of them, to leave. Several of her former students visited as well, many in tears. It was a very very difficult week, but also an astonishing one. Astonishing for the amount of love and respect one person could engender. But then again, we're talking about Joanna. </div>
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I remember when we first hired her in the Writing Department. For some reason, which now I can't fathom, we did not receive the usual excessive number of applications in response to our job ad. Some of us were unhappy with the pool of candidates <i>en masse</i>. We talked about how we should go about our next job search to make sure we got a bigger pool. I'll never forget what our (then) department chair Dave Harvey said in response: "Yes, it would have been nice to have a bigger pool of candidates, but the bottom line is that if you've hired Joanna Castner-Post, you just had a very successful job search." Of course Dave was right. Something Joanna kept showing and showing as the years went on. In fact, it might have been our best job search ever. </div>
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Within hours of her passing last Friday morning, some former tutors of UCA's Writing Center established a Heifer Project "Send a Girl to School" fund in Joanna's honor. The goal of the fund was to raise $275, as this is the amount that guarantees that one otherwise underprivileged girl can go to school in the developing world. As of this writing, only two days later, the fund has raised several times that amount. Indeed, it's headed toward $2000. What a testament to Joanna. She may end up sending five or six girls to school--maybe more! I mention this only as an example of the great love Joanna inspired in the UCA Community and beyond, not to try to trick you into opening your wallet. But if you think you'd like to donate to the fund, you can do so by following <a href="http://teamheifer.heifer.org/forjoanna">this link</a>. </div>
John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-1026599430802838422014-02-10T05:44:00.001-06:002014-02-10T05:44:40.817-06:00Who pays?[<i>This is a post I generated for my other blog </i><a href="http://payperazzi.blogspot.com/">Payperazzi</a><i>, for which it's admittedly better suited, but I'm cross-posting it here in the hopes of hearing as many different stories as I can</i>.]<div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuxpmnUjCZU3CrqngPRT_QDKfxzA8DIuitSN0W9saeA9JN1NCV8kSS1f0tDg4eCZysi5CXNDo0R_wesPZWBGq6CY6O_f9UY_Gak6FkykYgoq-g9fbyomdMpBcm8xRAjMrzhjNz_5Ttppw/s1600/DownloadedFile-17.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuxpmnUjCZU3CrqngPRT_QDKfxzA8DIuitSN0W9saeA9JN1NCV8kSS1f0tDg4eCZysi5CXNDo0R_wesPZWBGq6CY6O_f9UY_Gak6FkykYgoq-g9fbyomdMpBcm8xRAjMrzhjNz_5Ttppw/s1600/DownloadedFile-17.jpeg" /></a>It's been my experience, and it's also perfectly natural, that the majority of students who trek through a MFA in creative writing program--along with several students who study creative writing as undergraduates--hope to someday, in some capacity, work in higher education, preferably teaching writing and preferably full-time. This isn't surprising, and I can tell them that on the whole I've been rather happy with my choice of profession. Indeed, knowing myself, and looking back over my job history, it's hard for me to imagine I would have stayed satisified in the different careers I tried when I was younger. That said, there are all sorts of practical details of a full-time higher education job that no one considers when they are in graduate school but probably they should be warned about. For instance, there's that messy little business of job-mandated dinner appointments, appointments for which one is rarely if ever reimbursed. All things considered this is a minor matter in one's life as a college professor, but it's a matter that comes up time and again, year after year, like a pebble buried in the heal of one's running shoe, as job candidate after job candidate comes to your university and you are simply required to pay up, out of your own pocket, in order to host them.</div>
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Sometimes one willingly and eagerly pays to help host a visitor. For instance, when the creative writers at my school invite a writer to campus I am often so happy to have the chance to break bread with the writer that I don't mind paying for the privilege. Such meals aren't burdens but opportunities, opportunities that we creative writers gave ourselves when we decided to invite those specific people to our school. But some dinner appointments are much less interesting while at the same time mandated. This is typically the case when a job applicant come to town for an interview and you are on the hiring committee that reviewed his or her folder. I understand that a school must feed a person who's on campus for a job interview. What I don't understand is legislating that the meal is the only way the committee gets to interact with the job candidate (this <i>does</i> happen), meaning that not a soul on the committee has the option to skip the meal, even if his or her bank account has no funds with which to pay for it. I don't imagine that when managers at Wal*Mart or IBM or Exxon or _______ (insert name of familiar corporation here) take a job candidate to dinner, those managers are paying for their own meals. Perhaps they do, but I'd be surprised. In higher education, faculty are required to do this <i>all the time</i>.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVZui2jb6RNgyR4oWstGzonlMJAHztAKvpljIxhlpIdC-C9CQ9FUbgjx0OUmCUMoPOHEWwUvciqesKLxp5ZVxTkRFgamU88821cNBc62K74mK98i3WqDynVRVROmZslRv7lHJo9GbXWqiI/s1600/DownloadedFile-18.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVZui2jb6RNgyR4oWstGzonlMJAHztAKvpljIxhlpIdC-C9CQ9FUbgjx0OUmCUMoPOHEWwUvciqesKLxp5ZVxTkRFgamU88821cNBc62K74mK98i3WqDynVRVROmZslRv7lHJo9GbXWqiI/s1600/DownloadedFile-18.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>And one dirty little secret of academia is that there are drastic discrepancies in faculty pay. I don't just mean from region to region, state to state, and university to university. Those can almost be anticipated. (And they make meaningless any figure cited as a "national average" for college professors.) But even within a given university, faculty of equal rank, seniority, and accomplishment often receive vastly different salaries. By "vast" I mean <i>vast</i>. By the way, did I say that discrepencies are <i>vast</i>? They are. They're vast. This has nothing to do with the amount of hours one logs on the job, how well one is teaching one's students, what service work one is performing for one's college, how much one is publishing, or whether or not one has a national reputation in one's field. It simply has to do with what discipline you're lucky, or unlucky, enough to excel at, and how highly the university regards that discipline. In certain disciplines you're driving sports cars; in other disciplines you're wondering how you are going to make it to the end of the week. But no matter what the discipline, if you're on a hiring committee you're expected to take the candidate to dinner and pay for your dinner yourself.</div>
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Like I said when I opened this post, this is a relatively minor aspect of one's day-to-day life as a higher education professional. It's one of the down sides to a career choice that has many ups. But it does grate. It just seems to me that if the university is mandating that one attend a given dinner for the sake of university business, the university should foot the bill. Obviously, a person who is not on the hiring committee, and therefore does not have to attend the dinner, should pay his or her own way if he or she chooses to dine. But if you're <i>made</i> to be there, the body that is making you owes it to you to cover your expense. This strikes me as only commonsensical. But it's just another example of an unfortunate phenomenon I've noted in recent years. Universities will often hail the virtues of the "corporate model" if doing so means they can spend less on and for faculty. But those same universities will ignore the corporate model in situations where corporations are actually more generous toward their employees than the university wants to be. In certain universities one has the uncomfortable feeling that the administration would prefer to actually spend nothing at all on faculty, despite the obvious fact that gathering students and teaching them is the <i>entire point</i> of higher education. It's the reason why the university exists at all. It's why those pretty brick buildings were built. It's why administrators have the jobs they do.</div>
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Oh well, if I get started down that road I could go on forever. So, tell me, who pays at your university for mandated dinners? Am I wrong about the corporate world? Does anyone have a better system and a happier story?</div>
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John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-82647125189241965442014-01-27T11:11:00.000-06:002014-01-27T14:54:04.377-06:00A Van Gogh opportunity!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSkukSfrulQ80vlIPOheTF3Hv6N4QpN7nSzHJ9bq9ATfQvXJSUx9KCdLX9bLP3QfSnuY950ZRdr0OGLEt3OG958IqZSX2oTZqlH0z-GP6bp1TPbbbj0dAjTZlg9TNxSUxYf5RXpsqu6Rk/s1600/Vincent+movie+image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSkukSfrulQ80vlIPOheTF3Hv6N4QpN7nSzHJ9bq9ATfQvXJSUx9KCdLX9bLP3QfSnuY950ZRdr0OGLEt3OG958IqZSX2oTZqlH0z-GP6bp1TPbbbj0dAjTZlg9TNxSUxYf5RXpsqu6Rk/s1600/Vincent+movie+image.jpg" height="171" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">Several interesting items came to me in the past few days, via Facebook and email<b>. </b>With this post I'd like to share them with you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Van Gogh Talking Painting Movie Project:</b> UCA Honors College student Taylor Lea Hicks sent me a curious link, one that I just have to share with <i>Creating Van Gogh</i> readers. It's an opportunity from Kick Starter not only to find out about a fascinating Van Gogh-themed movie project but to get involved yourself as a minor investor. The plan for the movie is to tell Van Gogh's life story by having his paintings and drawings "come alive" and talk to the viewer. Cool! If you click on <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/438026311/loving-vincent-bringing-van-goghs-paintings-to-lif">this link</a> and watch the short video, you'll see an example of what the producers mean. Sounds like an exciting and extremely innovative project.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>The "Van Gogh" photograph. Could it be real after all?</b> Several months back I first started posting about a controversial photograph, one that the historian of photography Joseph Buberger is convinced depicts the adult Vincent Van Gogh. In a <a href="http://creatingvangogh.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-photo-plot-thickens.html">previous post</a>, I passed on some evidence that suggests pretty strongly that the photograph was taken in Quebec, Canada by a Canadian photographer, making it unlikely that the photograph's subject could be Van Gogh, who never traveled outside of Europe. But Joseph is still convinced and still seeks evidence to support his claim. Last week he sent me two emails containing curious links. Click on <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/181481059955113043/">this link</a> to see a colorized version of the photograph. Very compelling. The <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/news-video/blogs/all-blogs/sothebys-at-auction/2014/01/rediscovering-van-gogh.html">second link</a> takes you to an article about Van Gogh in which Joseph's photograph is used, without comment, to show the reader what Van Gogh looked like. Joseph's photo, despite the questions that surround it, certainly manages to stay in circulation!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Shameless plug/free stuff opportunity:</b> <i>Redacted Story</i>,
a just released, pleasantly perverse anthology from publisher KY Story,
can be downloaded to your Kindle for FREE if you do so soon. Click on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Redacted-Story-misc-authors-ebook/dp/B00HY0C5VG/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390822137&sr=1-1&keywords=Redacted+story">this link</a>
to get the free download. The 5-day free download deal began last
Friday, which means there are only two days left! Act soon! As you
probably guessed, the anthology includes a story of mine: a comic--even
silly--sci-fi story about dogs on Pluto. Yeah, that's right. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Less shameless plug:</b> On my other blog, <i>Payperazzi</i>, I've been carrying out a discussion about the 5 star rating system that is so often used to rate books. The discussion has generated some Facebook and Goodreads discussion. Click on <a href="http://payperazzi.blogspot.com/2014/01/should-book-reviewers-lie.html">this link</a> to see my first post from last week and <a href="http://payperazzi.blogspot.com/2014/01/rating-system-reactions.html">this link</a> to see my followup post, featuring comments from reader Doug Luman. </span></span>John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-56202679485312455632014-01-13T06:00:00.000-06:002014-01-13T12:43:18.012-06:00The right way and the wrong way<br />
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[<i>This is a post I originated for my other blog </i><a href="http://payperazzi.blogspot.com/">Payperazzi</a>,<i> but I think might be of interest to </i>Creating Van Gogh<i> readers as well.</i>]</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyw90Dqjdiahl4ZE7guJNPSK3oFVC4j2gxi5K39JT3CvDoWIzgEWkmJQ2SYM2PdbBw4LOfEd7I0FGTRBPgKXxz1zJ6GFbGtIrC3dsAc_CB3uQdv-Jc6uxkt8indHemGhiw-FslH3znXRo/s1600/DownloadedFile-2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyw90Dqjdiahl4ZE7guJNPSK3oFVC4j2gxi5K39JT3CvDoWIzgEWkmJQ2SYM2PdbBw4LOfEd7I0FGTRBPgKXxz1zJ6GFbGtIrC3dsAc_CB3uQdv-Jc6uxkt8indHemGhiw-FslH3znXRo/s1600/DownloadedFile-2.jpeg" /></a>If you stay in the creative writing game long enough you accumulate plenty of quirky, sad, disheartening, and even enraging publication stories. Maybe about things that happened to you; maybe about things that happened to your friends. But they happened. In the unfortunate if inevitable tussles between writers, agents, editors, and publishers (take any combination of those four) sometimes things just go wrong--or they don't go at all. In a previous blog post I mentioned that once I'd had a short story accepted for a themed anthology planned by a press who specialized in such, but that five years after the acceptance I was still waiting for the book to appear--until it became 100% clear, rather than merely 99% clear, that the book was never coming out. Then I deleted the "publication" from my resume. I'm going through something similiar now, except that it's taken a lot less than 5 years. In Oct. 2012 I had a story--actually a short chapter from my Van Gogh novel--accepted for an anthology called <i>The Man-Date: 15 Bromances</i> which was being assembled by Prime Mincer Press, publisher of <i>Prime Mincer</i> literary journal. The bromance thing seemed like a cute, trendy idea, one that might catch a lot of attention, make for a series of fun promotional readings, and hopefully generate some sales. Although my piece was fairly serious--a picture of Theo and Vincent Van Gogh living together in a Paris apartment that was never intended for occupaton by two single men--I envisioned a series of comedic but literary, and maybe even moving, buddy stories. The acceptance email I got from Prime Mincer made it clear they were proud of what they'd put together, so I eagerly anticipated the book, scheduled for release in "early 2013."</div>
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Well, the busy fall semester ended and a few weeks later the busy spring semester started. I received no further communication from Prime Mincer, although I had no particular reason to be concerned. In fact, at the 2013 <a href="https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/">AWP conference</a> in Boston (last March) I spied Prime Mincer's table in the great big conference bookfair room, so I went over to introduce myself as one of the contributors to their bromance anthology. The guy at the table was reasonably friendly, shook my hand, and informed me there had been some delays with publishing the book but that it would come out "soon." No problem, I told him, and walked away, not doubting that what he said was true. Turns out that would be the very last time I would ever hear a single word from anyone associated with Prime Mincer Press. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVNvk07SgxuByfTv7f-mVZjS4sPAZ-AgMTOTDbeKdfFdtkuqBPYG2VL28k2dZZAA81lx1s0dx3DZhgg-a-xOTNTIt1TAEFtFYrqJN9iX_qr7Yrd4FHJCGoTTMHhqVyT0_FPNRObeXVY8wi/s1600/DownloadedFile-16.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVNvk07SgxuByfTv7f-mVZjS4sPAZ-AgMTOTDbeKdfFdtkuqBPYG2VL28k2dZZAA81lx1s0dx3DZhgg-a-xOTNTIt1TAEFtFYrqJN9iX_qr7Yrd4FHJCGoTTMHhqVyT0_FPNRObeXVY8wi/s1600/DownloadedFile-16.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>Spring turned to summer; I started teaching a summer class, and then I took a trip abroad with my brother and his family. I got back home to Arkansas and started preparing for the fall semester. Fall semester began and things got busy and . . . You get the picture. It wasn't until several months after the March AWP conference that it occurred to me to wonder, <i>So where is that bromance anthology, anyway? </i>First thing I did was go to Amazon to see if maybe it had been released already and I just hadn't heard (not likely), or if there was a future release date listed. Nope. No mention of the book at all. It did not exist, according to Amazon. I went to the press's web site and was more concerned when all I found there was the original call for submissions, with the same old damning information that it would appear "in early 2013." We were well into the second half of 2013--about a year since submissions to the book were closed and all the acceptance notifications sent--and they hadn't thought to pull down the call for submissions from their web site? I immediately emailed the managing editor of the press, just asking after the latest news. I thought (or at least hoped) I might get an apologetic reply, with an explanation that the publishing schedule had changed again and the book would have to be out in late 2013 or early 2014. But what I got was nothing. Total silence. This, of course, was bad. Having one's emails ignored by someone in a professional setting is never a good sign--it's also completely inexcusable and the sure sign of someone with no real notion of what being professional means.</div>
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You know the end of the story. When the semester was over, and I had time to breathe again, I did some more research on the anthology and the press. This time I found not more information but less. Prime Mincer's web site, rather than showing outdated information, had been pulled down completely. It was gone. Evaporated. Meanwhile, the Facebook page for Prime Mincer, which previously had featured regular and enthusiastic news about the book, had not been updated since October 2012, around the time I received my acceptance email. The web site for Prime Mincer's literary journal still existed, but it was advertising the last 2012 issue, long out of date by this time. With nothing to lose I emailed the managing editor again as well as a different person who at one time--and I hoped still was--associated with the journal. "What's up?" I basically asked. Neither person responded.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9FnTUTYmNg5lm0aBCelsKnFHxkV23qIGdvC_jv0eB261cHnmQLxWDZ9N33yPBG2QHz9c2Pj70LuV_MPOYectTEHzhO2yF_mseyzRutmez1y2fXBWI3Y6VHVy-RqhpsCYl5_ZghpsqkBZB/s1600/images-8.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9FnTUTYmNg5lm0aBCelsKnFHxkV23qIGdvC_jv0eB261cHnmQLxWDZ9N33yPBG2QHz9c2Pj70LuV_MPOYectTEHzhO2yF_mseyzRutmez1y2fXBWI3Y6VHVy-RqhpsCYl5_ZghpsqkBZB/s1600/images-8.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>So this appears to be the situation: Prime Mincer Press closed its doors, scuttled its <i>very public</i> plans for an anthology--and then didn't tell anybody! And to this day they still refuse to tell anybody. That is exactly the wrong way to handle an unfortunate turn of events. Everybody knows things happen with small presses. While they do great work, and serve an overriding need in the publishing industry, it's a struggle for them to survive. Sooner or later many of them go belly up. That is no cause for shame. What <i>is</i> cause for shame is ignoring the very writers who helped you assemble your books. What <i>is</i> a cause for shame is acting as if they don't exist or aren't worth even a two-second email. What <i>is</i> a cause for shame is not taking responsibility for the project that <i>you</i> started. And by taking responsbility I mean explaining to all involved what is going on. I would never expect, don't need, and don't deserve a detailed explanation of the troubles that brought your press down. What I do expect and deserve is a statement clarifying that your press no longer exists, that your book is not coming out, and mabye you feel sorry about it. That's all.</div>
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<i><br /></i><i>That's not asking too much. </i></div>
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In fact, that's asking for the bare minimum. And yet too many publishers, like Prime Mincer, don't even do that. What people need to understand is that writers, while being naturally disappointed by such a message, will appreciate being told, will appreciate being valued enough to be told. Being told nothing--in fact, having one's attempts at communication ignored--isn't just disappointing. It's maddening; it's infuriating. It's utterly unprofessional and it doesn't make the situation better for anyone; it makes the situation <i>worse</i>. (I happen to know, from my net-wide scrambling for info, that several writers who'd been accepted into the anthology put up excited posts to their blogs and web sites. It's not just me who is being ignored but at least a dozen contributors, some of them highly established authors.)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfLn7TK_yqmtbda645964EJO1LaYcOnOsCNKmx_kQFzmKyn1xI0G6_q83R31Z3uD6GSUXTyQpawBIcgc7X8E5Cj5AInL9zy7te7OW0aqu7wTbcRZkJC58OXdnSZ2qzU_65tj-TewklJZxY/s1600/DownloadedFile-9.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfLn7TK_yqmtbda645964EJO1LaYcOnOsCNKmx_kQFzmKyn1xI0G6_q83R31Z3uD6GSUXTyQpawBIcgc7X8E5Cj5AInL9zy7te7OW0aqu7wTbcRZkJC58OXdnSZ2qzU_65tj-TewklJZxY/s1600/DownloadedFile-9.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>I'd love to hear that the behavior of Prime Mincer is the exception when it comes to a failed press handling its lingering responsibilities, but I'm pretty sure it's not. I'm pretty sure most presses, to say nothing of most businesses, handle their various demises exactly the same way: that is, by tucking in their tails and running, instead of owning up to the mess they left behind. If you have a heartwarming story of a small press going down with dignity and taking care of its own, please share it! It would make me feel a lot better. And don't get me wrong, I've had fantastic relationships with many small presses in the past. A great small press--<a href="http://www.lavenderink.org/content/">Lavender Ink/Dialogos</a> in New Orleans--is bringing out my short story collection <i>Island Fog</i> this year, and I couldn't be more pleased with how things are going. Another small press--<a href="http://kystory.net/">KY Story</a> in Kentucky--is soon bringing out an anthology called <i>Redacted</i> that features, among several other pleasantly perverse submissions, a sci-fi story of mine about dogs being discovered on Pluto. I've had nothing but frequent and open communcation with Ashley Parker Owens, the founder and chief editor of KY Story. She's running KY Story exactly the right way. So while I adore small presses--they are usually run by writers and out of a devotion not to profit but to the word--it's a simple fact that sometimes a small press fails; and thus a ballyhooed book by that press won't ever appear. That's a real life situation. Then the question for the press becomes: Are you going to handle it the right way or the wrong way? I wish the correct answer was as obvious to others as it is to me.</div>
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John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-55434122648797707462014-01-06T06:00:00.000-06:002014-01-06T06:00:10.774-06:002013: Historical year for historical fiction<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgto_IIONb6_VuLifjZ-ZtXgGZ_ygskvdaAXktK49lAU3bhg_OILNT27xcBLR10F94HM3KxwKfYY3E2NyZtl8qEWw337TzYBM9lsSn5C6376oGasIpZoA6yvKu58v_YuiKzrZ4Atc1Vmko/s1600/images-11.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgto_IIONb6_VuLifjZ-ZtXgGZ_ygskvdaAXktK49lAU3bhg_OILNT27xcBLR10F94HM3KxwKfYY3E2NyZtl8qEWw337TzYBM9lsSn5C6376oGasIpZoA6yvKu58v_YuiKzrZ4Atc1Vmko/s1600/images-11.jpeg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I've been thinking for several years now that we are living through a golden age for historical fiction. Of course I realize that almost since novels have been written writers have played with the idea of setting their stories in earlier historical periods. But I can't think of an era in which the ambition to do so is as widely embraced by solid, literary writers--even young literary writers--as it is now. Again, I'm talking about literary historical fiction, not historical romance novels or historical mysteries, which have been popular for decades and will continue to be so. I'm referring to literary fiction written by mainstream contemporary authors, authors who aspire to write serious, realistic books regardless of the era their books are set in, but who happen more and more to be setting their novels in the past. And there may be no more evident proof for this trend than the awards-giving season just passed. Four of the six books shortlisted for the <a href="http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/man-booker-shortlist-2013">2013 Man-Booker Prize</a> are historical fictions (including the eventual winner). At least two of the five finalists for our own <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/10/16/235507175/the-shortlist-see-the-finalists-for-the-2013-national-book-awards">2013 National Book Award</a> are historical fictions (including the eventual winner). And if you are of the ilk (as many are) to argue that historical fiction isn't just a matter of an author writing about a period of time before he or she was born but writing about an era of special historical interest (even if the author lived through it) or a period far enough in the past that it must be approached as an historical period not merely "the way we live now," then we should also count <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/04/08/130408crbo_books_wood">Rachel Kushner's <i>The Flamethrowers</i></a> (set in 70s New York) as historical fiction, bringing the total for National Book Award finalist up to 3 out of 5. Furthermore, just last week I was listening to the radio show <i><a href="http://hereandnow.wbur.org/">Here and Now</a></i> on NPR while book reviewer <a href="http://www.npr.org/people/2100948/lynn-neary">Lynn Neary</a> offered up her unranked recommendations for the <a href="http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2013/12/31/best-books-2013">best fictional reading of 2013</a>. Neary named seven books in all, six of which--that's right six out of seven--qualify as historical fictions. And she didn't even include two of the more prominent historical novels from 2013: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17262100-the-lowland">Jhumpa Lahiri's <i>The Lowland</i></a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/books/eleanor-cattons-luminaries-man-booker-prize-winner.html?_r=0">Eleanor Catton's <i>The Luminaries</i></a>. Both of those are quite accomplished books, with <i>The Luminaries</i>, in my opinion, ranking as completely spectacular, one of the most memorable reading experiences I've had in a long time. (Soon to come on this blog will be my own proselytizing review of the book.) </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjon95c6SjnC_XadMBe2CQfyahZPSf0JYChvtk7dKyJycZAPqY0k9VvyLRQwkm71aeZQXPnhNAiAL8geq1p9qn2kdM59_qEVXH68cZepQEN61mLCBDjy79rIsZu_YTlFQXRrUZOHaqA6Ak/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjon95c6SjnC_XadMBe2CQfyahZPSf0JYChvtk7dKyJycZAPqY0k9VvyLRQwkm71aeZQXPnhNAiAL8geq1p9qn2kdM59_qEVXH68cZepQEN61mLCBDjy79rIsZu_YTlFQXRrUZOHaqA6Ak/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">So what's going on? Accepting my premise that we're living through a golden age of literary historical fiction, naturally leads to the question of Why. Why are so many literary writers, both the young and the established, turning to previous eras for inspiration? One obvious reason is implicit encouragement from publishers. Just as, in the years following the astonishing success of the <i>Harry Potter</i> series and then the <i>Twilight</i> series, many writers thought to try their hand at YA--and, by the way, in college writing programs these days it's not uncommon to meet student writers seeking to specialize exclusively in YA, an unknown trend when I was a student in a college writing program--as publishers let go their prejudice against historical fiction as a merely a matter of pretty costumes and exotic houses, as more of these books get published and earn acclaim for their authors, up-and-coming authors become increasingly influenced by and enthusiastic about the genre. This simply must be the core reason. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">But it's not the only reason. One can be successful (or not) and earn acclaim (or not) with almost any kind of book. I think just as important a compulsion is the sense that writing historical fiction marks one as a writer who likes to take on serious, ambitious, even lofty challenges. Every good literary novel will be serious, of course, but there's something about a historical novel that strikes readers, rightly or wrongly, as especially serious, and writers can't help but be influenced by this realization. Perhaps it's all the research that typically accompanies the writing of a historical novel; perhaps it's the challenge of using that research to credibly represent the past; perhaps it's the challenge of turning that research into story. For whatever reason, writing a historical novel is a special pleasure for those who do so. It touches on so many different parts of our imaginative and intellectual and even academic selves. Every fiction one writes is (or can be) a source of pleasure, but the satisfaction of composing a good, successful historical fiction is unique. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdEYwoZSzyTF_8nDsWLnWpwKEO583ntd8tJ9TrHlahYHoc1f9SRfNDLfiRNLyNWX6Jh40JRPwEj-GMCM1aRKiFJN1MN1pYJjeSZiJb_Jc1eWGWVqojOD-0Jt5iO-1HHHzpiPGec_DbGGw/s1600/images-2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdEYwoZSzyTF_8nDsWLnWpwKEO583ntd8tJ9TrHlahYHoc1f9SRfNDLfiRNLyNWX6Jh40JRPwEj-GMCM1aRKiFJN1MN1pYJjeSZiJb_Jc1eWGWVqojOD-0Jt5iO-1HHHzpiPGec_DbGGw/s1600/images-2.jpeg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">And I think maybe this leads to a final reason for historical fiction's emergence, a reason that ties back to the first I mentioned. In an era in which--as agents and publishers have been telling us for too many </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">years--the reading of literary fiction is on the decline and the selling of literary fiction is as hard as it's ever been, having a historical premise for a story sets it apart, makes it seem unique, gives it a recognizable and extremely useful identity: to agents, to publishers, to marketers, to booksellers, and to readers. Finally, it might just be that historical fiction not only is a unique satisfaction for the one who writes it but makes for a more unique, sexy novel on the bookstore shelf. As a lover of the genre, if this </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">means an increase in the number of good, commercially viable literary historical novels, I'm all for it. After all, it's lead us to this current Golden Age, and I couldn't be happier. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Sidelight:</b> In case anyone reading this blog is a fan of sonnets as well as of historical fiction, you should check out my other blog, <i>Payperazzi</i>, in which I am currently providing <a href="http://payperazzi.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-sonnet-class-speaks.html">a report</a> on last semester's Sonnet Writing Workshop class, including the <a href="http://issuu.com/johnvander/docs/celebrating_the_sonnet">e-anthology</a> we put together. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"></span>John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-11255519932534181382013-12-04T06:00:00.000-06:002013-12-04T06:00:01.722-06:00The Circuitous Tale of a (finally) Successful Book (Part 2)[<i>Readers: This is a continuation of a post I started last week in which I tell the tale of how a short story collection was finally accepted by a publisher, something like twelve or thirteen years after it was begun.</i>]<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi65PbIFVeLPpiMttLUS8gkJSY5FB5SqzfgTQ8PO-0sH9-_qB_y6Ky7QsU_5ZHg7AlVakbLzNMJUMhPwpgzkxrJmtCVHE4SwMi63P4XHhwvHKKkLdPC-bS8MFjsD8531SVVjjQlgsC6J6M/s1600/success.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw7nuZpKlb-Eq7YzA38fvZZtiUcKnUOY3JL_hJwcP3lMtsin4zs6MjvpBoI35kkuyF_41zkxsrq1LFxPmWU81Mmz4cS9V0T9Vk_nrRzwyBBg6rFV9VqGf5QNrgMFyPDWQ9b91VZ3Ao5L0/s1600/rejected+man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw7nuZpKlb-Eq7YzA38fvZZtiUcKnUOY3JL_hJwcP3lMtsin4zs6MjvpBoI35kkuyF_41zkxsrq1LFxPmWU81Mmz4cS9V0T9Vk_nrRzwyBBg6rFV9VqGf5QNrgMFyPDWQ9b91VZ3Ao5L0/s320/rejected+man.jpg" width="320" /></a>The hardest part of the writing life is not the writing itself. Not that the writing is easy. It certainly isn't, but it's also uniquely entertaining and deeply nourishing. Writing really is its own reward--which is why so many people are called to do it, even in our supposedly post-literate society--even if it's not done perfectly well, but especially when it <i>is</i> done perfectly well. No, the hardest part of the writing life is not the writing but all the infernal roadblocks between what you've written and the audience it might move. The hardest part is knowing that what you've produced is solid, very solid, as solid as you are capable of making writing be, and yet you still hear a seeming unending series of "no"s from publishers, editors, and agents. To be honest, often times, those "no"s end up being terrifically helpful. They force you back to a project and make you reexamine a project, and as a result you realize weaknesses you just didn't see the first time around. Now having seen them, you can properly address them. Reexamining your work and making it better is almost always a valuable expenditure of time. But then there are the occasions when you've already spent so much time on a project, months or years or even decades, when you've already reexamined it a hundred or a thousand times over, when you finally say to yourself: <i>No, this is how the manuscript must be; this is how it should be published</i>. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfU_p3npGj3-9t7Eiz4N68XsWgEO-VDS5TCDkNQREqOchR9icn8gCZo41Qh6mEbU0v3O9MP8XlXC9jwAw6g3aKraZBWc96IDsHTu35XS75kFTRKTSlBjE1oORABCSxmxZ04VXqt5TwCkY/s1600/fowles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfU_p3npGj3-9t7Eiz4N68XsWgEO-VDS5TCDkNQREqOchR9icn8gCZo41Qh6mEbU0v3O9MP8XlXC9jwAw6g3aKraZBWc96IDsHTu35XS75kFTRKTSlBjE1oORABCSxmxZ04VXqt5TwCkY/s1600/fowles.jpg" /></a>I reached that point with the manuscript of <i>Island Fog</i> a year ago. An earlier version of the book (see my last post) I had circulated among small presses and entered into contests, all to no avail. But now I knew why. That earlier book was never the real book. This one was. It had a lot going for it: Its stride spanned four different centuries of Nantucket history, realistically (I think) evoking those different periods; it had engaging dramas; and it contained some of the best writing I've ever produced, including my favorite piece of fiction I've ever written, the novella that is the title story of the collection. That story is set on 21st century Nantucket and is introduced as a realistic story with a realistic setting, but it quickly spins into something else, something I won't call magical--because it isn't--but is certainly mysterious and probably indebted to <a href="http://www.fowlesbooks.com/">John Fowles</a>'s spectacularly disorienting novel <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magus_(novel)">The Magus</a>. </i> Its smoke and mirrors effects, its purposeful air of mystery, its thoroughly confused young protagonist, its borderline inexplicable and never exactly explained developments might remind one of Fowles's 1966 masterwork. An editor at a magazine I once submitted it to wondered if the story was science fiction, which at the time astounded me because at no point during the creative process did I have science fiction in mind. I guess she took literally a comment the narrator makes that the protagonist Doug had entered a kind of alternative Nantucket entirely cut off from the other, more familiar Nantucket he once knew, even more cut off from the familiar world of his college life and his family. No, it's not sci-fi; it's just weird.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSJweC_McqEoBQ4-A5Se0XC5Xo01PGCPsKTpv7BLR8p5esQTBQB_AcxNlIz1PPfJUu3u20DIa9iYi_jhCl8R0RHmLDcRDHD2M1hRmLA_GP38C7kYiO4OSKpMJUUY8GqJKwlb3OYSLoiJU/s1600/accept+it.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSJweC_McqEoBQ4-A5Se0XC5Xo01PGCPsKTpv7BLR8p5esQTBQB_AcxNlIz1PPfJUu3u20DIa9iYi_jhCl8R0RHmLDcRDHD2M1hRmLA_GP38C7kYiO4OSKpMJUUY8GqJKwlb3OYSLoiJU/s1600/accept+it.jpg" /></a>While still trying (and succeeding) to publish individual pieces of the collection, and reading from the stories at two different international writing conferences, I also tried to find a home for the book as a whole. I got very serious at the last <a href="https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/overview">AWP</a>, circulating among the tables rented by various small presses, describing the book and inquiring about their submission policies. I also consulted some extremely helpful databases, the most helpful being the <i>Poets & Writers</i> database of small and alternative presses. In that way, I educated myself on the small presses that publish fiction in this country, and I began to sort out which ones might be good fits for my book. I submitted to several included in the <i>P and W</i> database as well as to a few that I learned about at AWP. It's a great feeling to place your manuscript directly into the hands of someone who can make a decision about it, independent of an agent. One frustration for the literary fiction writer, however, when dealing with small presses is that they tend to emphasize poetry and academic nonfiction, because these genres are largely ignored by mainstream publishers. "You fiction writers always get those huge deals from the New York presses," I've had said to me by small press editors on several different occasions. Huge deals? Who are you talking about? Most fiction writers are lucky if a person at a NYC press actually reads a single page of his book much less offers him a "huge deal." No, the truth is that for many literary fiction writers the small press is just as much the inevitable fit as for poets and critics. Because as with poetry and criticism, that's where the best, most daring work gets done. <br />
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I received many positive comments about the collection from various presses. I got very very close with one, but finally they wanted the stories to be linked even more they are, linked in the manner of a novel-in-stories, which my book isn't and can't be. With palpable regret they declined taking on the manuscript, but they did encourage me to try again another time with another book. (I probably will.) The positive responses I was getting told me I was on to something, that this new version of <i>Island Fog </i>was<i> </i>holding its own, bearing weight, if you will. I just needed to keep trying. One of the presses I tried at was <a href="http://www.lavenderink.org/content/">Dialogos/Lavender Ink</a>, run by <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Lavender/e/B003G2SRY0">Bill Lavender</a>, a man I'd met two or three times at readings and at AWP, but no one I could say I actually knew. I followed the same protocol everyone else must who submits to his press and I hoped for the best. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi65PbIFVeLPpiMttLUS8gkJSY5FB5SqzfgTQ8PO-0sH9-_qB_y6Ky7QsU_5ZHg7AlVakbLzNMJUMhPwpgzkxrJmtCVHE4SwMi63P4XHhwvHKKkLdPC-bS8MFjsD8531SVVjjQlgsC6J6M/s1600/success.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi65PbIFVeLPpiMttLUS8gkJSY5FB5SqzfgTQ8PO-0sH9-_qB_y6Ky7QsU_5ZHg7AlVakbLzNMJUMhPwpgzkxrJmtCVHE4SwMi63P4XHhwvHKKkLdPC-bS8MFjsD8531SVVjjQlgsC6J6M/s1600/success.jpg" /></a>And then it happened. Bill sent me a tidy little email one morning in late September, about six months after I'd submitted, inquiring if the book was still available. Because his press was considering publishing it. I responded immediately: <i>Yes, it is still available; thank you for your interest</i>. Another month or two went by as I busied myself with all the usual activities of my writing and teaching and family life and tried not to wonder too much what Dialogos/Lavender Ink was thinking. Finally, in mid-November I shot an email to Bill asking him if the press was still interested in my book. I didn't expect an immediate reply. And I had several errands to run just then. As it turned out, I didn't check back on my email until the next day. When I did check I saw that Bill had replied within an hour of my emailing him. His reply: Yes, we want it. And in a followup message he had sent me a contractual agreement. Just like that, early on a Saturday morning, sitting on my living room couch, the wait was over. <i>Island Fog</i> the book was no longer an idea but an actuality--not a potential project anymore but a real one with an established publisher.<br />
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<b>Afterword:</b> At the moment I am seriously editing each of the stories in the collection. (Bill needs the final version by February.) This is crucial and very satisfying work. You have no idea how good it feels just to worry about the writing itself and not selling the writing. Of course, all that other kind of work awaits me when I put my next book on the market. : ) <br />
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<br />John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-2054945936221903002013-11-30T06:00:00.000-06:002013-11-30T06:00:01.636-06:00The Circuitous Tale of a (Finally) Successful Book, Part 1<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirrxWgLCPgHQNU59cfy_tWil0MsUgGSI9w35iyVPwXqJtEZTsJmqAYc0GdvPXn2dMjHdsEa7xZlR-vRFcr-57x5e9dR2s_phCaKE_Wee78S71NyzIoLTy2kvAW6h4NC6rLzKWuGWEkqto/s1600/lavender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirrxWgLCPgHQNU59cfy_tWil0MsUgGSI9w35iyVPwXqJtEZTsJmqAYc0GdvPXn2dMjHdsEa7xZlR-vRFcr-57x5e9dR2s_phCaKE_Wee78S71NyzIoLTy2kvAW6h4NC6rLzKWuGWEkqto/s1600/lavender.jpg" /></a>I've mentioned here and there on this blog that I've created a collection of stories--half historical in nature--all set on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. I received the wonderful news not long ago that the book has been accepted for publication by <a href="http://www.lavenderink.org/content/">Dialogos/Lavender Ink</a>, a press run by the legendary poet and novelist <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Lavender/e/B003G2SRY0">Bill Lavender</a>, who worked for so long for the University of New Orleans press. (Yes, that's him in the picture.) As a general rule I hesitate to say that everything happens when it's supposed to--because that's kind of like saying everything happens according to God's will (which is a lie)--but in the case of <i>Island Fog</i> being accepted for publication, I have to say that I am glad it's happening now rather than, say, five years ago. And thus begins my tale of how this collection came to be. I'm going to break it into two parts, because the tale will take some time.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpnVjW8aV_QS0BYk-5REFJS-eS3MXwAU3wMmAJZGE9TDaHhtCpdYG_nUe9f5lbLI5SX6s02u1XmwQOv4hyphenhyphenDZjEYjicXiIhxJHUbALJkxFmroAM3tSj3PR7WI4xMrgKbDQNz_nKoL_Sm_4/s1600/nantucket+shore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpnVjW8aV_QS0BYk-5REFJS-eS3MXwAU3wMmAJZGE9TDaHhtCpdYG_nUe9f5lbLI5SX6s02u1XmwQOv4hyphenhyphenDZjEYjicXiIhxJHUbALJkxFmroAM3tSj3PR7WI4xMrgKbDQNz_nKoL_Sm_4/s1600/nantucket+shore.jpg" /></a>I started several of the stories in <i>Island Fog</i> perhaps twelve or thirteen years ago--during a trip I made with my family to Nantucket. As is my wont, I was up before everyone else each day, trying to get a little writing done along with downing some come-alive coffee. I hadn't planned on writing about Nantucket before I went, but ideas for stories just started coming to me. In fact, I had so many story ideas--and was so afraid I might lose them--that I did something I've never done before: I started a brand new story each day of that vacation, writing as far into a story as I could before the family awoke and then leaving that story behind to begin a new story the next day. In this fashion I laid down the tracks for the stories that now make up the second half of my present book. But I hardly thought of them as a book back then. They were just stories I wanted to nail in place in order to get back to later. And I did, struggling mightily to read my atrocious handwriting, which turns from ordinary small/bad to illegible during the fury of engaged composing. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiejUTL0HDXGZYT9nc7_BSMXjVR2FgOVxc0owQFm-mCBODcrN7ftjSBgwZ_Fngi26MFbqUd-zg-gaWPiLa5Hl6jvCMOYB_7yaAaJlwKTyarI91TxQvdYRMqhQuByyB7fCT01oZr0j208Pw/s1600/seattle+review.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiejUTL0HDXGZYT9nc7_BSMXjVR2FgOVxc0owQFm-mCBODcrN7ftjSBgwZ_Fngi26MFbqUd-zg-gaWPiLa5Hl6jvCMOYB_7yaAaJlwKTyarI91TxQvdYRMqhQuByyB7fCT01oZr0j208Pw/s1600/seattle+review.jpg" /></a>Eventually, I finished every one of those stories and in the years that followed I edited them mercilessly, revised a few significantly, and kept sending them out to various magazines. A few were accepted and were long ago published (but not the title story, one of my favorites, which is one of the many reasons I'm so happy the book will appear). A story about a plumber who hears some painful facts about his wife's death during a breakfast at a diner was published in 2005 in the now defunct <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Dana Literary Society Online Journal</i>; a</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"> story about a couple struggling through the emotional fallout of several failed pregnancies was published in the journal </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">Oasis,</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"> also</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"> in 2005; a</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> story about a ghost tour leader haunted by his former male lover was accepted by </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://depts.washington.edu/seaview/">Seattle Review</a></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and, after a wait of </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">numerous</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> years, finally appeared in 2009. </span><br />
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It wasn't too long after the Nantucket stories began to be accepted by journals that it occurred to me I had a neat little set that could form a solid portion of a story collection. Not enough pages to make a whole collection, but perhaps a half. So I gathered together some non-Nanucket stories I thought worked all right together and combined them with the Nantucket stories to make a book I called--tah-dah!--<i>Island Fog</i>. To the non-Nantucket stories I added the section header "Off-Island"--using stories that I thought had an enhanced sense of place--and the Nantucket stories were given the section header "On-Island." Very clever, I thought. The headers, and the organizational strategy they highlighted, would make this disparate group of fictions seem to belong together. Well, in truth they didn't. At least not enough to convince me or any of the many contests and small presses I submitted the book to. Not knowing what to do, deciding the collection was a misft, I finally put it aside. I didn't do anything with it for a long time except to occasionally submit one of the Nantucket pieces to a seemingly appropriate journal. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQGAICw6hkkovZEe0oK7hou18f21E6dsckQGmfBV-gdOpkRgkP0H-pGvHYkLsJNztHnwM-pEhBufS8ICC8v-Pw9S0eI1Twdgk3mBnNmOycDrJ-lY8X7By4uCa18-paAqiZQjJsw-GLwew/s1600/whaling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQGAICw6hkkovZEe0oK7hou18f21E6dsckQGmfBV-gdOpkRgkP0H-pGvHYkLsJNztHnwM-pEhBufS8ICC8v-Pw9S0eI1Twdgk3mBnNmOycDrJ-lY8X7By4uCa18-paAqiZQjJsw-GLwew/s1600/whaling.jpg" /></a></div>
Well, what should happen except that I returned to Nantucket in 2011--for the first time in several years--having more or less finished my Van Gogh novel, having started this blog, and suddenly having historical fiction on the brain. Lots of new ideas for Nantucket stories came to me, except this time all of them were historical in nature. Like the first time, I started as many of the stories as I could while I was on the island, but I think I only managed to get three underway. Later I drafted a fourth and, still later, a fifth. Certain characters I just could not get out of my head. I had to write them: a retired whale ship captain who long ago was stranded at sea and forced into cannibalism (inspired, I know, by the real life story of George Pollard, commander of the <i>Essex</i>); a whaling widow who feels the first inklings of lesbianism; an African-American schoolteacher walking through some mid-island streets on a foggy afternoon, early in the twentieth century; a self-satisfied twelve year old, the son of a sheep farmer, who has befriended a half-Indian boy early in the nineteenth century. I fleshed out these characters' stories, having a ball with them, and at some point--I can't remember when-- it occurred to me: I've got a new <i>Island Fog</i> book now. The real <i>Island Fog</i>. <br />
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<b>Next post</b>: The process of getting done, getting it out, and getting it accepted.John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252865848064026807.post-23532283602308569422013-11-18T06:00:00.000-06:002013-11-18T06:00:11.580-06:00Echols visit affects[Hey <i>Creating Van Gogh</i> readers. Like last week, I am dual posting this entry on <i>Creating Van Gogh</i> and my new blog <i><a href="http://payperazzi.blogspot.com/">Payperazzi</a></i>. That's because the post continues, and concludes, a string of posts I started last summer on <i>CVG</i> regarding Damien Echols and his visit to UCA. In the future, I'll restrict this blog to what you would expect to hear about: historical fiction. <i>Payperazzi, </i>meanwhile,<i> </i>will continue to embrace subjects related to the writing life generally and the teaching of creative writing.]<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJHaFwYklty7szZnf-IkAOT11ANABQuNF9u-XXPbWwhE0OBXHyHWaEBAFAB7cZF3trvFbAIC19VVPZvSJRSYFEE087eyCOu5Mx8e-YXfbqCoh9yVAX3F773seDBDF2CIUWwt0kpqXWpzY/s1600/echols+and+davis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJHaFwYklty7szZnf-IkAOT11ANABQuNF9u-XXPbWwhE0OBXHyHWaEBAFAB7cZF3trvFbAIC19VVPZvSJRSYFEE087eyCOu5Mx8e-YXfbqCoh9yVAX3F773seDBDF2CIUWwt0kpqXWpzY/s320/echols+and+davis.jpg" width="199" /></a>In my lifetime I've been to scores, maybe even hundreds, of writer events: readings and craft lectures and question-and-answer sessions and presentations of all sorts. To be frank, not all of these events prove to be worth the time and effort. Sometimes the writers are dull; sometimes they are distracted; sometimes they are borderline jerky. Other times, of course, the writers are on point, engaged, animated, excellent. Attending those events proves to be quite a valuable investment. But--again, just to be frank--I can't really claim that even the most excellent of writer events is actually life-changing. Not for me; not for the writer; not for the audience. Until now. Having attended and participated in a two-hour long Q & A last Monday featuring <a href="http://damienechols.com/">Damien Echols</a> and about fifty <a href="http://uca.edu/writing/">UCA Writing</a> students, and then, later that evening, helping to moderate his public appearance at the <a href="http://uca.edu/publicappearances/">Reynolds Performance Hall</a>, I can tell you that lives were most certainly changed by Echols's visit, especially his own.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidarevp_0fyQVOxzV82C1g0bLqsaZCGPyve4Z4EulGtzbltF_3y5ncN47DSli19ecC-jF2d5phndSll30jVCfUNIG7tXInzfOdyYrBJk_gU0tH-0xZUjEjo0n953zSO2ELxpT9eydY3i8Z/s1600/images-8.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidarevp_0fyQVOxzV82C1g0bLqsaZCGPyve4Z4EulGtzbltF_3y5ncN47DSli19ecC-jF2d5phndSll30jVCfUNIG7tXInzfOdyYrBJk_gU0tH-0xZUjEjo0n953zSO2ELxpT9eydY3i8Z/s1600/images-8.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>When Echols was released from death row in August, 2011 he and his wife <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4698085/">Lorri Davis</a> immediately left Arkansas, crossing the river into Memphis where they spent a night in a hotel celebrating with friends. The next morning they boarded a private plane for Seattle, where they passed a weekend and then traveled to New York, moving into an apartment that a friend graciously lent to them. There they lived for a year until problems with the building forced all its occupants out; then Echols and Davis moved to eastern Massachusetts, where they still live. Not once during this two year period did Echols consider returning to his home state, even for a brief visit. He was all but certain he never wanted to return. And who can blame him. As his puts it now, because it's literally true, "the state of Arkansas tried to murder me." (For a crime, I remind everyone, he did not commit.) During his visit to our campus he admitted that not until just a couple months ago was he sure that he'd actually be able to go through with his agreed upon gig as artist-in-residence at UCA.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrIZBm8zzP99l_h-xsmwYDMXlt18-hP-egMjpfPDduOcK7JEjWKQ2n7OFppVS0gghpJEw5V9xQSc_j912K4BZU5gF0tTtROVzXpqmEYiJUy9k-haNs5nDMH_BKJKDIBs0JN3HAjs1MkVA3/s1600/images-9.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrIZBm8zzP99l_h-xsmwYDMXlt18-hP-egMjpfPDduOcK7JEjWKQ2n7OFppVS0gghpJEw5V9xQSc_j912K4BZU5gF0tTtROVzXpqmEYiJUy9k-haNs5nDMH_BKJKDIBs0JN3HAjs1MkVA3/s1600/images-9.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>I am so glad he did. He talked eloquently and graphically about the brutal beatings he endured in prison, especially early in his tenure, when no one was paying much attention to him and his case. Guards beat him so badly he pissed blood. Except for the fact that another prisoner mentioned the beatings to a Roman Catholic deacon in the habit of visiting the prison, and the fact that this deacon warned the prison authorities he would squeal to the public if the beatings did not stop, Echols would have died there. Already on death row, awaiting execution, his life held no value for anyone at the prison except to serve as a punching bag. He also talked eloquently about the challenge of keeping up a literary life behind bars: denied access to pen and paper except for gifts given to him from those on the outside; having to writing lying in bed--a concrete slab with a wafer thin pad stretched across it--because of the absence of any chairs; forced by guards to write only with the narrow ink-filled plastic tube on the inside of a pen because they removed the pen's hard outer shell; wrapping the tube with wadded toilet paper to give himself a firmer grip on it. Of course these were not the only challenges. He talked of others: the fact that prison lights are almost never extinguished; the facts of rats and crickets and mosquitoes as one's constant companions; the fact of almost unending screams, requiring him to keep a small tv on constantly as white noise; the lack of basic nutrition and medical care; the absence of physical contact with other people and the world at large. Echols related that one visitor to his cell told him that conditions there did not even meet the basic requirements of the Geneva Convention for housing prisoners of war.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk8unpUVqfPNwIjclU4_0J7rKaxIGfRvLGw2YZhbE2MfVRteFF3RBW1DwcvwExqmeyOrCqeJKBxjEhh4YKG_wwgtk-RI8o8ssxaVvSXc28g9SCNxqzeHUp55gXRps5OeQeRqB0kcySZigj/s1600/DownloadedFile-18.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk8unpUVqfPNwIjclU4_0J7rKaxIGfRvLGw2YZhbE2MfVRteFF3RBW1DwcvwExqmeyOrCqeJKBxjEhh4YKG_wwgtk-RI8o8ssxaVvSXc28g9SCNxqzeHUp55gXRps5OeQeRqB0kcySZigj/s1600/DownloadedFile-18.jpeg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>The students and the evening audience at the Reynolds were spellbound and immensely supportive. At the Reynolds, Echols received standing ovations both at the begininng and end of his talk. Reading the reaction papers my students wrote in the days following I could tell how deeply affected they'd been. This was not just mere appreciation for a celebrated visting writer who said some smart things. This was respect and even awe for a man who lived through hell and survived, even flourished, as an artist. I think it's safe to say that none of the students in attendance felt they wasted their time; and none of them will soon forget Echols's visit. I know I won't. But even more gratifying was an e-mail I received on Wednesday from <a href="http://www.davidjauss.com/">David Jauss</a>, a writer and teacher who lives in Little Rock and who for years has been an adamant agitator on the behalf of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Memphis_Three">West Memphis Three</a>. That's David on the right. (I learned on Monday night that David was the one who transcribed the thousands of pages of Damien's journal writing that Lorri managed to smuggle out of prison for him.) David and a few other advocates had dinner in Little Rock with Damien and Lorri last Tuesday night. David told me that at the dinner Damien repeatedly mentioned how moved he'd been by his reception at UCA, how glad he was that he'd decided to come. Echoing something he said to the Reynolds audience on Monday night, Damien told the dinner group that he would remember the visit for the rest of his life. That alone made me feel fantastic, assured me that we'd done a good job hosting and interviewing him. But then David said something even more important: Damien and Lorri now want to make regular visits to Arkansas. It is difficult to overstate what a profound psychological shift that is for Damien Echols and what an important step it can be for his healing, for his resurrection as a whole person, and for the cause--ongoing--of legally exonerating the West Memphis Three. As David said to end his email, "And that's all thanks to UCA." Well, it's thanks to a lot of people: to everyone who came and listened and asked and applauded. But it's also proof that sometimes literary events can matter as much as life itself.</div>
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John Vanderslicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312030415504335029noreply@blogger.com0