For All The Grrrrls Out There

A dear friend gave me this card as I was leaving Whidbey last week. It's a message worth sharing:

"I figure if a girl wants to be a legend, she should go ahead and be one." 

 

Calamity Jane

Underneath It All

When Crow Toes Quarterly (a deliciously macabre and playfully twisted magazine for kids) was laid to rest earlier this year, something dark and quirky rose from its ashes: Underneath the Juniper Tree. I've had the good fortune of being published in UTJT, once this past July and again this coming September, but that's not the only reason I love this little lit.

Underneath the Juniper Tree offers a refreshing break from fluffy bunnies with its dark and creepy fare, suitable for kids young and decrepitly old. Despite the uncertainties of publishing, it's not going away any time soon, thanks to its indefatigable efforts to generate an online exchange of ideas, through regular posts, contests and (most recently) a twitter challenge that produced some fabulously macabre 140 character story bites. The illustrations are gorgeous (in a delightfully disturbing way) and irresistibly inviting.

Most recently, UTJT posted advice on etiquette when submitting to an editor or agent. Check it out here.

Be on the look out for UTJT's site September issue. (Better yet, subscribe to twitter feeds here and here, as well as facebook.)

Elephants Teach, But Only to the Privileged

I'm taking a post-grad course in teaching creative writing. Here's one of the texts:

The title is the only exciting thing about it. From what I gather, it's a history of privileged white males teaching privileged white males how to subsist as writers. (Okay, so there are a couple of women in there, but one gives up her Bohemian lifestyle due to breast cancer and the other offs herself with a nasty dose of cyanide).

It's my long standing beef with writing in general that only those with means (or a spouse with means) can pursue it. How different the landscape would look if those who lack the privilege and self-esteem that comes with having a place in the world could speak. I might be going out on a limb here (not really), but I bet more people would read if more people were invited to write.

A writing life requires resources; but more than that, it requires a belief in oneself. I tried to explain once to some people of means what a difference it makes to grow up with the reality of possibility. Seeing people around you succeed makes success a matter of course; seeing the people around you crying over unpaid bills, or fighting and arguing about food and rent, makes success seem more like winning the lottery. The idea of it is just too overwhelming and fickle to risk going after.

I will say this, though: those who don't grow up surrounded by the privilege of possibility, and who succeed in spite of the odds, will blow everyone else out of the water. The strength it takes to overcome the barriers of society and education is unmatched by the limitations of society and education.

My interest in teaching is not to subsist (as the history of teaching creative writing suggests is one motivation), but to open the door just enough for those who are locked out, so that they may blast it off its hinges.

It's possible that could happen.

Against Blandification

Not many people know about the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts MFA program (aka Whidbey Writers Workshop). . . yet. Part of me would like to keep it that way, because there's nothing worse than blandifying something special with a deadening dose of popularity.

William Dietrich shares secrets of storytelling success

I learned the word blandifying, by the way, from someone who knows a lot about popularity—Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and NY Times bestselling author William Dietrich who generously shared his time and talent at our recent residency. (He wrote about his experience here.) I've long held the belief that artists with the greatest talent and longevity are often the most humble. (I know this from having been a maid to some legendary actors and performers when I lived in California. When you're cleaning someone's toilet or serving their Thanksgiving dinner, you learn a lot about character—yours and theirs).

Mr. Dietrich was clearly of sterling quality, and his unassuming brilliance was the perfect complement to our Whidbey family. All the visiting faculty were similarly stellar. Among them: Poet Julie Larios, whose sense of playfulness inspired me to introduce her evening reading in Is-Latin; poet/publisher Kate Gale, who gave our graduating class a three-day life-coaching session and reality check on publishing like no other; and author/playwright Marc Acito, whose genius electrified our graduation ceremony and afternoon sessions.

There's no doubt that we were blessed with the generosity of artists at the top of their game, but there was something more, something indefinable, that made it all so very Whidbey. It has to do with the character of the program, forged and shaped by Wayne Ude and a dedicated board of directors and faculty who worked hard to build a fully accredited, one of a kind, free-standing literary arts MFA program that will always remain in humble service to writing and writers.

I have a feeling Whidbey won't be flying under the radar much longer, but something tells me it will never suffer from blandification.

Popeye learns to polish his pitch in morning grad class

Life on the Other Side

For the past three years, I've been toiling over the craft of writing in pursuit of my MFA in creative writing for children and young adults. Finally, after inquiring about a cash-out option and being turned down, the powers that be caved in to common sense (and probably fatigue), proclaiming that I had learned my lesson and was fit for graduation.

I thought I'd be able to rattle off a quick run down of the final residency and graduation-palooza, but nothing's ever as simple as that. It turns out that, at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts (aka Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA), they want all graduates to get every last drop of learning on the menu. In the case of my graduating class, this meant 27 hours of life-coaching, query-writing, pitch-polishing, soul-searching labor (in addition to afternoon presentations, evening readings and homework).

Because the Whidbey program encourages breadth of learning, as well as depth in one's own genre, our morning grad sessions were led by three strong, empowering women from different corners of the writing world:

Kate Gale, Managing Editor of Red Hen Press

Andrea Brown of Andrea Brown Literary Agency

Andrea Hurst of Andrea Hurst & Associates Literary Agency

By the time we walked the plank aisle to receive our graduate hoods and walking sticks, I wasn't really feeling all that different. What's the saying? Before enlightenment, I was depressed. After enlightenment, I am still depressed. Well, I wasn't depressed, but I wasn't feeling all that enlightened either. I think that's because it's been such a long, gradual process of learning the craft of writing and crafting a writing life that there's no sensation of having been transformed into anything other than more of who I am. It's been happening all along and I didn't even notice it. In the end, I received my diploma and did what's been ground into my bones: honing, polishing and going to class.

There were lots of special moments during this final residency, but I think what happened after the ceremony is one I will hold most dear: spending time with friends and mentors who, without their support, I would not have found my way through the exit door. They include:

Kirby Larson and Popeye

Bonny Becker and Carmen T. Bernier Grand

Not pictured (because she lives on the other coast), but someone who I have a lot to be grateful for, is Barbara O'Connor, who read my thesis manuscript and did not die from the experience. Thank you, Barbara! Your encouragement kept me going to the finish line.

And now, for my next trick...sleep, perchance to write.

Morning and Moon Over Whidbey

Last Night

 

This Morning

Peculiarity Pays Off

MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN
by Ransom Riggs
Quirk Books (2011)
Young Adult

I love risk takers—in life and in art—so when I caught sight of Quirk Books' latest novel novel by Ransom Riggs, I cheered. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children tells the reality-bending tale of a teen in search of the monsters of his grandfather's WWII youth, thanks in large part to antique photographs that ground this odd fiction in reality.

The story is told by Jacob, a privileged teen living in Florida who tries to make sense of his grandfather's childhood tales of living in a home for children with strange gifts, protected from monsters "by a bird who smokes a pipe." The tales are supported by pictures of children with peculiar abilities (a boy who has bees living inside him, a girl who levitates, another who eats out of the back of her head). When Jacob was a small child, he believed the tales and the pictures. As a teen, however, he sees the photographic tricks and comes to understand the monsters as symbolic of the Nazis who killed his grandfather's family—until his grandfather is murdered, that is, and Jacob sees the deadly monster with his own eyes.

His experience is treated as a stress reaction. The solution: visit the remote island off the coast of Wales where his grandfather took refuge during the war. Jacob plunges into the proverbial rabbit hole when he not only finds the home, but the children themselves—looking and behaving just like they did in his grandfather's pictures.

Hip hip hooray to Riggs for effortlessly blending the seemingly incongruous—an ordinary world tainted by the extraordinary—and sustaining this uncomfortable balance long enough to pull the reader in. To this end, the pictures work magic.

I think if I weren't a children's writer, I might have been able to stay the course. Unfortunately, the narration kept throwing me—part teen, part Rick Yancey (think Monstrumologist). It's the downside, I think, of a writer who hasn't been marinating in children's literature. Voice is everything. As the story progresses, it also tends to get younger in tone, maybe a result of introducing a cast of young children for this teen to interact with. The end result is a mixed bag of intriguing genius and slightly unfocused children's/YA craft. Stronger emotional/character development would have gone a long way as well.

I wanted to love this book, but I like it well enough to recommend it for an interesting read and study of well-executed liminal fantasy. No doubt, we will be hearing more from Riggs and his most peculiar children.

Source: I purchased my copy at Orca Books.

About my reviews:
My comments and reactions to the books I read reflect my experience of the story as a writer studying the craft. I write them to examine what makes a story work, rather than sheer reader appeal.