1, Read "Araby" and blog about it.
2, Read "Appropriations of Culture," by Percival Everett. Blog.
3, Revise "memory" piece once again, and hand in.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
On Writing: E.L. Doctorow, from The Paris Review
"We’re supposed to be able to get into other skins. We’re supposed to be able to render experiences not our own and warrant times and places we haven’t seen. That’s one justification for art, isn’t it: to distribute the suffering? Writing teachers invariably tell students, Write about what you know. That’s, of course, what you have to do, but on the other hand, how do you know what you know until you’ve written it? Writing is knowing. What did Kafka know? The insurance business? So that kind of advice is foolish, because it presumes that you have to go out to a war to be able to do war. Well, some do and some don’t. I’ve had very little experience in my life. In fact, I try to avoid experience if I can. Most experience is bad."
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Homework for Thursday, February 24th
1, Read Araby (in Norton) and post comments. Come to class prepared.
2, Bring Memory or Family story to class.
2, Bring Memory or Family story to class.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Tapka - Due tomorrow, not Thursday!
Joel kindly pointed out that I posted that "Tapka" and the rewrite of your personal story were due on Thursday, but that was a mistake. Since it's my mistake, you can have until Thursday for the rewrite but please try and have "Tapka" read for tomorrow.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Homework for Febraury 24, 2011
1, Read "Tapka." Discuss character, voice, pace, point of view on your blog.
2, Rewrite your personal story. Remember to show (using action, dialogue) AND tell (using narrative) about your characters. Remember that the reader of your story is a stranger and doesn't know what you know about the characters.
4 - 10 pages
2, Rewrite your personal story. Remember to show (using action, dialogue) AND tell (using narrative) about your characters. Remember that the reader of your story is a stranger and doesn't know what you know about the characters.
4 - 10 pages
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Homework for Feb 17 !
As I mentioned in class today, many of you are not keeping up with the blog, and this will reflect in your grade, unless you keep up.
1, Write a story from either the store of your family lore, or something you remember from your own experience. THIS IS GOING TO BE A LONGER STORY. 5 - 10 PAGES, but if you don't get that far you can bring 2 to 3 pages on Thursday and we'll workshop the stories. I'm sure that you've felt held back with so few pages required of the stories so far.
2, Read "Gogol" and "Wall of Fire Rising" if you haven't yet, and blog about them. Be prepared to talk about the stories in class. Think about voice, setting, personal history, language, etc.
1, Write a story from either the store of your family lore, or something you remember from your own experience. THIS IS GOING TO BE A LONGER STORY. 5 - 10 PAGES, but if you don't get that far you can bring 2 to 3 pages on Thursday and we'll workshop the stories. I'm sure that you've felt held back with so few pages required of the stories so far.
2, Read "Gogol" and "Wall of Fire Rising" if you haven't yet, and blog about them. Be prepared to talk about the stories in class. Think about voice, setting, personal history, language, etc.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Happy Valentine's day!
Nicole Krauss (author of The Great House), comment about our culture, click here to read full article
On a long book tour of the US, Krauss was taken aback to find that one of the things she heard most frequently from readers was: "this book is difficult". "I was so surprised," she says. "I realise that it's challenging, that it refuses to come together too easily, but I didn't think of it as a difficult read." So how to explain it? Krauss believes – or at least, she worries – that in the west, we are moving towards the end of effort. "We've arrived at this place where we just thoughtlessly plunge towards whatever the thing is that will allow us to make less of an effort. We know we're diminishing experience. We know that it was richer to walk to the store, talk to the bookseller, maybe meet your neighbour than it is to click online. But we can't stop ourselves. We're programmed to do the 'easier' thing. That's why people have Kindles. It's easier not to have to turn the page. All that's left of turning is this bizarre little sound to remind us of it. People no longer have the concentration to finish things; we skim along on the surface, and it's miserable."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/13/nicole-krauss-great-house-interview
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/13/nicole-krauss-great-house-interview
Thursday, February 10, 2011
SNOW DAY: Feb 10, 2011... So what's next
Hi Everyone,
I was so looking forward to talking about the Allan Girganus visit while it was still so fresh! The reading and the interview were just brilliant. For those of you who were at either, please come to class with something to say about it, what struck you about his reading, his experiences or comments.
I was mesmerized by his honesty!
We'll talk more in class.
For Tuesday:
1, I will collect your "pocket" exercise.
2,
Read and blog about "Interpreter of Maladies," by Jhumpa Lahiri.
We'll discuss it and Edwidge Dandicat's "A Wall of Fire Rising." You should have already posted about Dandicat's, right? Take it as a given, if we're reading a story, I want you to blog about it. Note: All writing makes you a better writer.
3, Writing assignment: Gurganus suggested that as writers, we think not in terms of "I" but in terms of "we." What he means is that our stories are not just our own, but all the people that came before us, parents, grandparents, and so on, and in some way it is our duty to preserve them, to make sure these stories continue on.
The writing assignment is to tell me a story from your family, a story that was told to you, that you've heard many times before. When you're writing it, if the story takes on its own life (away from the truth of it), let it, that's how a lot of good fiction begins. If you don't have a story you can remember or think of, make it up.
Due Date: Thursday, Feb 17.
I was so looking forward to talking about the Allan Girganus visit while it was still so fresh! The reading and the interview were just brilliant. For those of you who were at either, please come to class with something to say about it, what struck you about his reading, his experiences or comments.
I was mesmerized by his honesty!
We'll talk more in class.
For Tuesday:
1, I will collect your "pocket" exercise.
2,
Read and blog about "Interpreter of Maladies," by Jhumpa Lahiri.
We'll discuss it and Edwidge Dandicat's "A Wall of Fire Rising." You should have already posted about Dandicat's, right? Take it as a given, if we're reading a story, I want you to blog about it. Note: All writing makes you a better writer.
3, Writing assignment: Gurganus suggested that as writers, we think not in terms of "I" but in terms of "we." What he means is that our stories are not just our own, but all the people that came before us, parents, grandparents, and so on, and in some way it is our duty to preserve them, to make sure these stories continue on.
The writing assignment is to tell me a story from your family, a story that was told to you, that you've heard many times before. When you're writing it, if the story takes on its own life (away from the truth of it), let it, that's how a lot of good fiction begins. If you don't have a story you can remember or think of, make it up.
Due Date: Thursday, Feb 17.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
See you next Thursday! But before then...
1, Please come to Alan Gurganus's reading on Monday evening, at 8 p.m. in the University Center Bluff Room or the grad student interview Feb. 8 at 10:30 a.m. in Patterson Hall, Room 456. Both events are free and open to the public.
Here's more about it.
http://www.memphis.edu/mediaroom/releases/jan11/gurganus.htm
2, There will not be class, Feb. 8.
For next class, Feb. 10:
1, Writing Exercise:
Pockets: Imagine your character (or you) are going through the pockets of someone close to them, maybe it’s someone they’ve lost, or they're redying their clothes for a donation; or it’s a spouse’s pockets—misplaced car keys or a credit card; or it’s the pockets of a child as they prepare their clothes for the laundry … Imagine you or your character are emptying the pockets of a loved one; look at each item you find. What does it tell you about the person? Write. 2 -3 pages. Then rewrite them, and rewrite them again.
2, Read the story, Edwidge Danticat, "A Wall of Fire Rising" pg. 417 in the Norton
Blog about style, pacing, characters.
Here's more about it.
http://www.memphis.edu/mediaroom/releases/jan11/gurganus.htm
2, There will not be class, Feb. 8.
For next class, Feb. 10:
1, Writing Exercise:
Pockets: Imagine your character (or you) are going through the pockets of someone close to them, maybe it’s someone they’ve lost, or they're redying their clothes for a donation; or it’s a spouse’s pockets—misplaced car keys or a credit card; or it’s the pockets of a child as they prepare their clothes for the laundry … Imagine you or your character are emptying the pockets of a loved one; look at each item you find. What does it tell you about the person? Write. 2 -3 pages. Then rewrite them, and rewrite them again.
2, Read the story, Edwidge Danticat, "A Wall of Fire Rising" pg. 417 in the Norton
Blog about style, pacing, characters.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Midnight in Dostoevsky
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/11/30/091130fi_fiction_delillo
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
What to prepare for next class: February 3, 2011
1,
Hope some of the story-generating ideas helped. I'd love to know where you get your ideas from or how you get inspired to write. Post a blog about it if you want to share.
2, DIALOGUE
Listen to dialogue in your every day life. Hear how it sounds, and the particulars of word choice, repetition of certain words, the way questions aren't asked or answered direectly.
* Did hearing your story read aloud help??? Hope your listening partner was kind and constructive? asked questions? etc. We'll discuss the process of Thursday.
Dialogue is very difficult to write well, the hardest I think, so don't get too freaked out about it.
Read your work aloud again. Think about every line, does it need to be there, is it adding to the story and also shaping the character?
* Note: This is how to use quotes, gramatically speaking:
"What should we drink?" the girl asked.
"It's pretty hot," the man said.
* Look at good dialogue. Read, "Hills Like White Elephants."
Study the line, "And if I do it you'll be happy and things will be like they were and you'll love me?"
Listen to the desperation in the voice, the emotion, and the uncertainty about what it seems she needs to do in order for him to love her, to keep things going as before, as if she were not pregnant.
* I will post other examples of stories with good dialogue under stories at left.
REWRITE YOUR DIALOGUE and hand them in on Thursday.
3, Read "Nativity, Caucasion," and post comments in regard to character, style, plot, etc. We'll discuss the story on Thursday.
Hope some of the story-generating ideas helped. I'd love to know where you get your ideas from or how you get inspired to write. Post a blog about it if you want to share.
2, DIALOGUE
Listen to dialogue in your every day life. Hear how it sounds, and the particulars of word choice, repetition of certain words, the way questions aren't asked or answered direectly.
* Did hearing your story read aloud help??? Hope your listening partner was kind and constructive? asked questions? etc. We'll discuss the process of Thursday.
Dialogue is very difficult to write well, the hardest I think, so don't get too freaked out about it.
Read your work aloud again. Think about every line, does it need to be there, is it adding to the story and also shaping the character?
* Note: This is how to use quotes, gramatically speaking:
"What should we drink?" the girl asked.
"It's pretty hot," the man said.
* Look at good dialogue. Read, "Hills Like White Elephants."
Study the line, "And if I do it you'll be happy and things will be like they were and you'll love me?"
Listen to the desperation in the voice, the emotion, and the uncertainty about what it seems she needs to do in order for him to love her, to keep things going as before, as if she were not pregnant.
* I will post other examples of stories with good dialogue under stories at left.
REWRITE YOUR DIALOGUE and hand them in on Thursday.
3, Read "Nativity, Caucasion," and post comments in regard to character, style, plot, etc. We'll discuss the story on Thursday.
Where do ideas come from: Allan Gurganus on writing
I know the man who cleans my Workshop office. I know all about his cockatiel’s game of taking this fellow’s cell-phone from his pocket during naps. The bird loves to poke phone buttons, trying to make sounds, all while chewing off the cell’s plastic numerals. We are sometimes so busy inventing clever issues and synthetic characters, we miss the person who all but shares our office. Chekhov insists that, on and off the page, no one must ever be humiliated.
www.allangurganus.com
www.allangurganus.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)