A letter was waiting for me when I got back from the conference: a poem of
mine is accepted for publication in an anthology by Sixteen Rivers Press! It's
the first poem I have sent out. I am thrilled. The 16 rivers in the press name
refers to the 16 rivers of the San Francisco Bay watershed.The book will contain about 100 poems, with an
introduction by Robert HassIt will be
out next spring. I learned of the contest via Ellen Bass' excellent email list of
opportunities for poets which she keeps remarkably up to date and useful.
“The best conference I’ve attended. The format allowed
indepth work and learning that spiraled and connected ideas.”
“Impeccably organized and extremely worthwhile.”
“I gained so much! Next time I’ll recruit my writing group
to attend.”
These enthusiastic comments are typical of the evaluations
received from the 2009 Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. We learned that MCWC
participants are committed writers. The
most important things they gained were good writing advice, a sense of being
part of a supportive community of writers, and encouragement for their work.
As we prepare for
the 2010 conference, we know that the words of this year’s participants, either
in person or through online social networks, will persuade others to come. By a
huge majority, participants came in 2009 because they, or someone they knew,
had a great experience at MCWC in a previous year. Participants particularly
liked MCWC’s program format. Meeting in a small group with the same faculty
member for three consecutive mornings built bonds of friendship, while
afternoons devoted to readings, panels and lectures offered variety. Our cool
climate and spectacular location were big draws too, as was the opportunity to work with outstanding teachers
such as Ellen Bass, Ben Percy and Sharman Apt Russell.
Mark your calendars:
dates for the 2010 Mendocino Coast Writers Conference are July 29
through July 31, 2010.
Why he wrote the last line: This last line is in fact the first line of the novel I’m working on, The Wilding.
Every time I boot up my computer and hunch over the keyboard for a long, bloody stretch of writing, I review what I wrote the day prior to buff away any scuff marks and plug in to the voice’s current. It’s my way of getting warmed up, the equivalent of cracking my knuckles.
Almost inevitably, my eyes wander to the most important line, the first line. I am obsessed with first lines. I rewrite them over and over. I collect them and carry them around in a pocket of my mind to withdraw every now and then and look at, like precious stones, a lucky feather, a Polaroid of my ex-girlfriend naked and straddling a motorcycle.
I like them epic: “I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice -- not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany” (John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany). I like them funny: “My mother believed that if you go out of your way to be friendly to people, they will take a liking to you, but this philosophy did not work for me, because I was a leper” (Garrison Keillor, “Buddy the Leper”). So do I like them mysterious and shocking and grotesque and sexy and lyrical and wise.
Sometimes I’m struck most by the authors who say the least. “Mother died today,” wrote Albert Camus in The Stranger. That one gets me every time. For a couple reasons. First of all, we’ve got a death, which means I’ve got a reason to pay attention. And then there’s that voice, so blunt and distanced, so stripped down. He doesn’t say Mom, he says Mother. He doesn’t say passed, he says died. Does this guy have a heart, I’m wondering? Already we have action and already we have characterization, the shadows of which hang over the book so forbiddingly.
I’m trying on a similar hat. My novel is, at its heart, about that old father-and-son thing. I’m talking about the pissing contests, the bruised egos, the bloody knuckles and crumpled beer cans and brutish campfire conversations that add up into a pained kind of love. I hope I’ve tapped into that here -- just as I hope I’ve made the reader lean forward and wonder what happens next. I’ve test-ridden a number of first lines, and I think this is the one I’m taking home. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow when I read it again.
About the author: Benjamin Percy is the author of two books of stories, Refresh, Refresh, due out this October from Graywolf, and The Language of Elk. His honors include the Plimpton Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and a John Gardner Fellowship from Breadloaf. His fiction has been read on NPR’s “Selected Shorts” and has been published in The Paris Review, Best American Short Stories, The Chicago Tribune, and Glimmer Train, among others.
Daddy's Got a Gun
Our question: What is the last sentence you wrote and why? Benjamin Percy, author of Language of Elk, gives us a last line that's also a first. Esquire Magazine July 17,2007
I haven’t finished reading Benjamin Percy’s Refresh, Refresh, a collection of short stories from Graywolf Press. The 2009 Mendocino Writers Conference gave me too many other things to read and think about, as usual. But after the first three stories, I can already urge you to get your hands on a copy.
Maybe you won’t lose yourself in the stories the way I did, staying up too late and feeling like hell the next morning. Maybe you won’t be fascinated by the young couple in “The Caves in Oregon” whose first home happens to be built over the mouth of a cave, but you just might be shocked by how tolerant Percy can make you for the fist fighting and other blood sports featured in the title story and in the hair-raising “The Woods,” which I read with the literary equivalent of my hand in front of my face, peeking through my fingers, afraid to look, incapable of turning away. Now that I know how these stories turn out, I’m going to have to read them for the utter gorgeousness of their language, to study how the measured cadence of each sentence makes music.
I’m going to include a few examples of Percy’s fine writing here, but how to choose? Every page teems with great sentences, and the accumulated effect is part of the dazzle.
Here are a few, selected almost at random from those first stories:
“In this waterless stillness, you could hear every chipmunk within a square acre, rustling for pine nuts, and when the breeze rose into a cold wind, the forest became a giant whisper.” (from “Refresh, Refresh”)
“Sometimes he imagines a rotten spot inside her, like a bruised bit of peach he wants to carve away with a knife.” (from “The Caves in Oregon”)
“Once we entered the forest the pines put a black color on things, and through their branches dropped a wet wind that carried with it the smell of the nearby mountains.” (from “The Woods”)
OK, so maybe the guy used up his rock-solid, totally believable characters and irresistible situations in the first three stories. And maybe by the end of the book I won’t feel as if I’ve come closer to understanding and appreciating Eastern Oregon, a geography that’s generally considered pretty much unlovable. But I doubt it.
The innovative new publisher "Bannock Street Books" presents the artbook/chapbook MOTEL: a short story by Stefanie Freele paired with color photography contributed by Sarah Black.
In the meantime, signed copies of MOTEL are available from the author:
$7 and $2 ship.
Paypal: Babingas@aol.com
Check:
Stefanie Freele
1083 Vine St. #352
Healdsburg, Ca 95448 www.stefaniefreele.com
Exciting news: Maureen Eppstein's new poetry collection, Rogue Wave at Glass Beach, has
arrived.
Gallery Bookshop is partnering with Open Door Arts to host a book launch reading at
Odd Fellows Hall, at the corner of Ukiah and Kasten Streets in Mendocino, on Saturday,
August 15, from 3 to 6 pm.
Reading will start about 3:30 pm. Copies of the book will be
available at the event. Please come--all are invited.
Christie of Gallery Bookshop will be serving wine and cheese.
The reading is part of Open Door Art's "Naturally Inspired" art show, which benefits several
local nonprofits working on environmental issues in our community. Forty-six local artists,
including Tony and Maureen Eppstein, have contributed works with a nature theme. It's a
beautiful show; You are all encouraged to come in and take a look. It's on now, 10 am to 6
pm daily, and runs through August 16.
When I roast a chicken or a turkey and there's the possibility of gravy, I feel the spirit of my deceased father-in-law, Homer, hovering over my shoulder.Homer loved gravy; on meat, on potatoes, on biscuits, on anything.He was a kind man who loved deeply and he had the greatest smile you can imagine, albeit with store-bought teeth.Started out as a poor Oklahoma white/Cherokee kid who never graduated from high school, went into the public works program during the Great Depression, was a veteran of WWII who mustered out with skills as a mechanic, married a woman of such beauty that he shivered at the sight of her, provided for her two kids, became a Dad of one son and then beloved Grandpa to my kid.Anyone who thinks I fret needlessly about the gravy doesn't know what it means to me.
Here I am at the conference showing a committee member how to start a blog post. The conference is in its second day and is wonderful so far. We had an inspiring talk by Ellen Bass and tonight is the event at which Luis Rodriguez is the featured speaker.
Luis Rodriguez will speak at Cotton Auditorium in Fort Bragg, Friday, July 31, 6:30 p.m.. It's free, but tickets required.
Tickets are available at Leaves of Grass (Willits) Super Chavez Market (Ukiah), Mendocino Book Company (Ukiah) La Bamba (Fort Bragg), Cheshire Books (Fort Bragg), Gallery Bookshop (Mendocino), College of the Redwoods, (Fort Bragg) and All That Good Stuff (Boonville). Tickets will be available at the conference too. More information:http://www.mcwc.org
A Little Shout About The Los Angeles Review Stefanie Freele
Because I am the Fiction Editor of the Los Angeles Review, I choose to only mention fiction here. Because I am the NEW Fiction Editor, I am very jazzed about the forthcoming issue, the first issue with the new Los Angeles Review editorial team. And, because the issue is so amazingly full of fantastic stories, I feel compelled to shout about it before the issue is even printed.
Here is what one can expect: Lydia Davis, Ray Vukcevich, Steve Almond, Michael Czyzniejewski, Tess Holthe, Ravi Mangla, Brian Doyle, Naseem Rakha, Tania Hershman, and a bunch more amazing authors totaling 26 super pieces of fiction. 26! When? November 1. And, submissions open September 1 for the next issue that is planned to be out and available for AWP.
I’ll give the Poetry and NonFiction editor a chance to yell about their contributors, in the meantime, look out of for the forthcoming issue. It is a big fat YES.
ONLY 3 MORE DAYS TO REGISTER FOR THE MENDOCINO COAST WRITERS CONFERENCE-WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR???
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