News: 'Experiments in Narrative Ekphrasis' Workshop at The Loft

I am really looking forward to being a teaching artist at The Loft in March. My class is six weeks, purely generative, all online, asynchronous, and open for adult writers of all levels of experience. It is part of The Loft’s new Sense of Adventure course series.

Description:

Gallery View—Experiments in Narrative Ekphrasis

Ekphrasis—the literary response to visual art—often takes the form of poetry, but this class will be geared toward generating narrative prose and/or hybrid texts. Participants will receive prompts in the form of specific artworks (to be viewed online) and methods for translating the art into fiction, memoir, or other narrative forms. These exercises will be followed by analysis of writing by John Keene, A.S. Byatt, Don DeLillo, Tyehimba Jess, or Ali Smith, all created in response to the same artworks. Techniques might include imagining an instance of seeing the work, imagining the life of the work’s subject or artist, or letting the work trigger associations and memories.

All levels of experience are welcome; the goal is to think like a beginner, take risks, and discover new approaches to the page. Sharing creative work with the class is optional; the teaching artist will offer private, supportive feedback on all exercises, with an emphasis on the uniqueness of each writer.

Time commitment will be 40% writing/rewriting, 30% reading, and 30% analysis and (asynchronous) discussion. There will be a week-long break March 8–14.

Click here for enrollment info.

Here’s a YouTube interview with Savannah Brooks at The Loft where I discuss the class, my idea of adventure in COVID times, budget travel, armchair travel, and virtual galleries and museums.

News: 'Flexing the Sentence' Workshop at A Public Space

I’m delighted to announce I’ll be teaching a four-week Zoom workshop via A Public Space Academy in February. Would love to see you there!

Course description:

Workshop: Flexing the Sentence

Online Sundays Feb 7-28 3:00-5:00PM Eastern

The sentence is an infinitely elastic instrument containing thousands of microdecisions. So which decisions make your sentences become your sentences? This class will examine virtuosic sentences—from Herman Melville to Toni Morrison—exploring what these sentences might have been in the hands of another writer, exposing what makes them unique. We will look at syntax, diction, and sonic elements, as well as attitude and subtext. We’ll read theories of the sentence as well, applying them to our own sentences to push them deeper into singularity, sharing our discoveries and revisions. Part bootcamp, part yoga—all on the page, of course—this workshop will focus on strength and flexibility in the prose line, building confidence in composition and revision. Homework will be light reading and small-scale writing.

Click here for enrollment info.

Resource: Stacey D'Erasmo on Intimacy and the Subconscious

Stacey D'Erasmo on the writing moment when your project falls apart:

"Your conscious plan dissolves...and the reason it is dissolving is that your subconscious is beginning to take over, and to shove your conscious out of the way...and your subconscious is certainly smarter than you are."

D'Erasmo's little book, The Art of Intimacy: The Space Between is a resource I highly recommend for writers of narrative.  In it, she analyzes ways to create connection between characters, between characters and reader, between author and reader, riffing on the advice of EM Forster: "only connect."  The connections she cites are familial and romantic, of course, but also the sharing of secrets, and the commitment of violence, and the culpability of standing by while others act.  In other words, the intimacy she presents is not the intimacy one thinks of immediately upon hearing the word.

She addresses, among other things, the problem of cliche and stereotype in written love, in a pop-culture environment where intimacy is practically a commodity, stating,  "It's all too easy to throw a little intimacy, especially damaged intimacy, at a narrative to get it to seem serious and literary.  Like corn syrup, it fills stuff out and makes it tasty."  The problem is one of creating distance from our faith in intimacy as it has been sold to us.  In her words, "piety of any kind is never especially good for art.  Characters can, and should, believe in all kinds of things, passionately and with brilliant wrongheadedness, but the book is, generally speaking, up to something else, something broader, something less sure of itself."

She uses as inspiration not only works of literature, but also visual art, most notably the photos of Nan Goldin, whose intimate gaze is always a heavy presence:  "Goldin invites us to see the men and women she loves as she sees them, to occupy her position as loving eye...We feel, perhaps, closer to, or attracted to, these subjects, but we probably feel closest psychically to Goldin; we understand what her desire feels like to her."

D'Erasmo's book is part of the wonderful Graywolf Press series, The Art of, edited by Charles Baxter, each of which explores a single aspect of craft.

Resource: For Lovers of Small Books

Speaking of Marvels is a frequently-updated blog highlighting poetry chapbooks and novellas. What I love about both is that no one can mistake them for a commercial enterprise.  In the nineties I ran a chapbook imprint, Big Fat Press, publishing poetry and experimental/performance texts.  In my case, it was a purely homegrown venture.  I printed linoleum block covers, did all the editorial work myself, and printed the guts of the books on the sly at my Wall Street day job.  Binding the books was a painstaking sewing and/or gluing project, long hours in front of the TV.  The authors distributed the books at their readings, giving them a little beer money on the road.  The only limitations were time and my ability to stay awake.  

I'm not the only one to take on this kind of project.  Now, with the advent of e-readers, the options are bigger.  The power is with the people.  And often, at this smaller scale, we are able to witness the early, beautifully-wrought efforts of emerging writers, before the world and the marketplace hears of their work.

Speaking of Marvels interviewed me late last year, for my novella, The Beginning of the End of the Beginning, published for Kindle by Ploughshares Solos.  I was grateful that they approached me, which introduced me to an awesome resource, profiling the likes of Anders Carlson-Wee, Meg Pokrass, and Molly Gaudry.