Category Archives: Uncategorized

James L. Haley’s “Wolf: The Lives of Jack London,” reviewed by Wendy Smith:

At the peak of his popularity in the first decade of the 20th century, Jack London was the very model of a modern major writer. A two-fisted exponent of naturalism in fiction, he drew on his experiences as a cannery worker, sailor, hobo and gold prospector to blast American literature out of genteel decorum with novels such as “The Sea-Wolf,” a 1904 bestseller.

Along with Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London really made an impression on me as a young reader. I think it’s because of their influences (and a general attraction to kinetic storytelling) that I’ve come to prefer stories in which action (in the classical sense) reveals character over those narratives that dwell primarily in internal landscapes. There are exceptions of course, but I’ve always tended to side with the notion that what we do defines who we are, that intention and motivation are less relevant or revealing than the deed itself. Reading Camus in college really crystallized this for me but the inclination towards action was seeded much earlier by books like Call of the Wild, Treasure Island, and White Fang.

I saw Cat Rambo at this year’s NORWESCON and, in addition to being an interesting writer, she has an insider’s view of what SF magazines are looking for and how best to approach selling your short fiction.

From Redstone Science Fiction:

“Be persistent. It’s not enough to write, you have to get the stories out and in front of editors. Research markets and find the places that list new ones. Don’t take rejections personally, but get the story right back out there.Work on your craft. Read good stuff and try to figure out what makes it good. Experiment. Get a good writing group where you’re not the most talented one there and learn from critiquing and being critiqued.”

Cat Rambo’s story, The Mermaids Singing Each to Each, is online at Clarkesworld Magazine.

From the New York Times:

Mr. Merwin moved there [Hawaii] in the mid-1970s to study Zen Buddhism, and now lives with his wife, Paula. He said he has cultivated more than 700 endangered species of indigenous plants on the formerly denuded plantation, including the hyophorbe indica, a palm tree he helped save from extinction.

A poem printed in a companion article:

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day

When the last fires will wave to me

And the silence will set out

Tireless traveller

Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer

Find myself in life as in a strange garment

Surprised at the earth

And the love of one woman

And the shamelessness of men

As today writing after three days of rain

Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease

And bowing not knowing to what

After ten days spent immersed in craft talks and readings, surrounded by folks absolutely committed to their writing, returning to everyday life and everyday concerns can be disconcerting. I mentioned a sense of isolation that is a part of the low-residency model and, for me at least, this feeling is most acute in the days immediately following Residency. Like being adrift, unmoored.

Fortunately this feeling passes after a day or two, especially when you realize the sheer amount of work ahead in the next six months. I’m in my essay semester and I’ve just started doing research for my paper on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, The Unconsoled. It’s a dense novel and will be a real challenge to write about. Fortunately, it’s also a novel I greatly admire. One thing that’s helped a lot is Pacific University’s account with Jstor, an online resource that lets you access a huge amount of articles and scholarly essays from a myriad of academic journals. It’s an incredibly useful resource that students can access through Pacific’s library website.

I’ll be at Clarion West next summer. From the frying pan into the fire, etc. etc. If you have any questions about the MFA at Pacific University, especially regarding wheelchair access, feel free to contact me.

From a recent article in the New York Times–

…the emphasis on futurity misses an essential truth about fiction writers: They often compose their best and most lasting work when they are young. “There’s something very misleading about the literary culture that looks at writers in their 30s and calls them ‘budding’ or ‘promising,’ when in fact they’re peaking,” Kazuo Ishiguro told an interviewer last year. Ishiguro (54 when he said this) added that since the age of 30 he had been haunted by the realization that most of the great novels had been written by authors under 40.

With the death of Jose Saramago, it should be noted that he first published Baltasar and Blimunda, his break-through work, when he was 60 years old. And today, The Guardian reports that an 82-year-old lands first book deal | UK news | guardian.co.uk.

Intriguing article at The Guardian–

The way the books industry is interacting with digital media is developing faster than many had foreseen, with the latest example an attempt to offer fans of author Iain M Banks exclusive unseen chapters, his original notes and commentary for his latest novel.

Still groggy and tired so this will be a short post. Yesterday, after a final craft talk by poet Kwame Dawes, I spent the day cleaning my room and getting ready to leave– there was a party planned after the graduation ceremony but I decided to skip it and go home rather than spend another night in the dorm. Got back around 9:30 PM and gratefully went to sleep in my own bed.

The grad ceremony itself was very moving with the procession of faculty and grads being led into the hall by a bagpiper.

To give prospective students an idea of a typical day at Residency, below is the schedule for Monday, June 21 (full names of students have been removed).

Monday, June 21
7:30 – 8:30 a.m. – Breakfast on your own

9:00 – 10:00 a.m. – Craft Talk by Kellie Wells, “The ‘Skirls and Screaks’ of ‘the Deserving Dead,’ Stanley Elkin’s Death-Defying Maximalism”

10:15 a.m. – Noon – Workshop #3, Cycle One

Noon – 1:00 p.m. – LUNCH  TOGETHER

1:30 – 2:30 p.m. – Craft Talk/Reading by John Rember, Nocturne: The Story and Its Process

2:45 – 3:45 p.m. – Guest Craft Talk/Reading by Mark Spragg, “Beginner’s Mind”

4:00 – 5:00 p.m. – Graduate Reading: Poetry
Ryan — with critical introduction
Johnnie — with critical introduction

4:00 – 5:00 p.m. – Graduate Reading: Nonfiction
Sarah — with critical introduction
Mary Anne — with critical introduction

5:00 and 5:30  p.m. – Shopping trip to grocery store

5:00 – 6:00 p.m. – Dinner on your own

7:30 p.m. – Reading and Book Signing by Claire Davis, Craig Lesley & Peter Sears

9:00 p.m. – Student Reading

I’ll post some final thoughts on the Residency tomorrow.

The Residency is winding down and the pace has slowed a bit. What’s great about the last few days here is that you get to attend presentations and readings given by the graduating students. The talent in this MFA program is impressive and I find myself trying to make mental notes of the names of those students that I suspect will be getting published soon.

Personally I am eager to finish up and get home. Have completed all the reviews and paperwork so I’ll be leaving campus with no assignments hanging over my head. These ten days are stimulating (maybe too much so) and it’s a great atmosphere but nothing can beat your own bed, your family, etc. etc. I’m also eager to get cracking on my essay so I can refocus on writing short stories. Already have a few ideas bubbling in my skull…

Final craft talks in the morning then the graduation ceremony tomorrow night, with a dinner and party to follow, one last night in this tiny dorm room, then back to the Puget Sound on what promises to be a warm Sunday afternoon. Looking forward to wrestling with my Leo again!

Visually impaired dog plays ‘Fetch’

I’m constantly amazed at how accessible the faculty are at Pacific. This morning I went to Maggie’s Buns, a neat cafe right across the street from campus. Inside I chatted with a faculty I had worked with in 2009 while I waited for my adviser from last semester to arrive. When she did, we spent about an hour sitting outside having coffee and talking about writing and the writing life. Really a great way to start the day and a microcosm of what the MFA Residency is all about.

Right now most of the students I talk too are a bit fuzzy-headed from the busy schedule we’ve all kept the last week. Personally, I’m looking forward to getting home and relaxing for a day or to before tackling my first correspondence packet. Since the third semester is the “essay semester”, I’ll be focusing on writing a critical essay on (at this point) the unreliable narrators of Kazuo Ishiguro. Thinking of examining Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled and perhaps When We Were Orphans. Will settle on a topic after I talk with my adviser– I’d like to get this essay out of the way as quickly as possible and get back to focusing on my short stories.

Looking forward to Barry Lopez‘s guest craft talk and book signing tomorrow afternoon.