Clifford Garstang's Blog, page 105

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SWAG Writers

I love going to literary events such as talks or readings by authors. They don't happen too often in my immediate area, so sometimes I drive down to Lexington to Washington & Lee University where they have readings several times a year. I'll drive to Charlottesville to readings at the University of Virginia or the Indie bookstore in town. Occasionally there will be a reading at another venue within driving distance, and I may get to those.

But there was very little of this happening in my own town of Staunton. (Book signings, yes, frequently by self-published authors, but that's less of an event than a reading; it's more about selling.)

So I started an organization: The Staunton-Waynesboro-Augusta Group of Writers (SWAG Writers), which is affiliated with the Blue Ridge Writers Chapter of the Virginia Writers Club. The mission was to promote the literary arts in Augusta County, and my idea was that I would invite writers from outside the area to come for readings, pairing them when I could with local writers, giving everyone some exposure. This has worked well. At some point, together with other "members" of SWAG Writers (we don't really have membership--anyone can participate), we decided to start a monthly social, which we call WriterDay, copied after Writer Wednesdays that James River Writers holds once a month. That was fun, but it didn't draw too many people, so we added an open mic component to WriterDay, and since we did that we've had steadily increasing attendance. WriterDay happens on the Second Wednesday of every month at The Darjeeling Café, 103 W. Beverley St., Staunton, VA. We meet at 6 and the open mic readings begin at 7pm (up to 5 minutes per reader).

But I still love the readings that we host, and I wanted a place to record the great posters that Curren Media Group has designed for those, as well as a few of the pictures from the events.

Our very first reading, on Bloomsday (June 16) 2010, featured novelist Domnica Radilescu, from Washington & Lee University, and local poet Alan Christy, at Irish Alley. (Very appropriate setting; we even had a short reading from Ulysses.)
In September 2010, our reading featured visiting poet Todd Davis and local poet and essayist Janet Lembke at the newly reopened Darjeeling Café.

In January 2011, we hosted novelist Sarah Collins Honenberger and poet Sam Taylor, our first visit to the beautiful Shenandoah Valley Art Center in Waynesboro.

We held our first Poetry Fest in April 2011, at the Darjeeling Café, and invited 8 area poets, including Sarah Kennedy, to read.

In September 2011, I shared the stage at the Darjeeling Café with novelist Michele Young-Stone.


In October 2011, we hosted two writers from North Carolina at the Shenandoah Valley Art Center: Marjorie Hudson and Val Nieman.



In February 2012, we invited fiction writer Chris Gavaler and Lesley Wheeler to come up from Washington & Lee University.

And, most recently, we hosted Charles Shields, the biographer of Kurt Vonnegut and Harper Lee, for a talk that was held at Mary Baldwin College.

In addition to all these readings, we also want to present some panels and talks to the public. So far we've only done one of those, on Self-Publishing.

New-to-me LitMag: Palooka

Until today, I'd never heard of Palooka. Or maybe I had but hadn't paid attention. But I had reason to visit their website and I'm intrigued.

Pictured here is Issue #2 (#3 is on the way, apparently), and it's been well reviewed recently in The Review Review and New Pages.

Sounds good to me.

Tips for Writers: Take a Hike!

It isn't writers' block exactly. It's more like writers' knot. Surely you know the feeling. You're working on something and you can't get a particular plot point right, or you aren't sure where the relationship between a couple of characters is going, or you can't decide whether . . . . You get the idea. You're tied up.

It happens to everyone. My favorite way of untying that knot is to take a walk. Now, I happen to live out in the country, so I don't have to go far to be walking through nature, where I can gaze at a rushing creek or listen to the rustling leaves. But I used to live a city, and I loved walking along city blocks just as much as I like walking through the overgrown field behind my house. (Probably more, given my hatred of ticks.)

Invariably, wherever it is that I'm walking, ideas start flowing inside my head. I've begun walks for this purpose where the answer came to me as soon as I was out the door. Other times it didn't come until I was almost home. But it almost always happens that the knot slips away when I'm actually not trying so hard to pull it apart.

Then the trick is to remember the answer that has come to you. I try to remember a notebook and pen for those occasions, so I can jot down whatever the revelation happened to be. I'm usually then keen to get back to the studio to get back to work.

Writing Your Life's Stories: The Many Routes to Memoir

I'm very excited to be a guest speaker (along with Sandra Beasley and Art Taylor) at Dianne Hennessy King's workshop: Writing Your Life's Stories: The Many Routes to Memoir. The symposium will be Thursday, May 3, from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm at the Vienna Community Center (Vienna, Virginia). For more information about the program, go here.

The New Yorker: "The Porn Critic" by Jonathan Lethem

April 9,2012: "ThePorn Critic" by Jonathan Lethem
Q&Awith Jonathan Lethem
This onedoes nothing for me. Fortunately, because the story is available online foranyone to read, I don't have to summarize it. You can read it for yourself. I'll just say that it's the 90sand the main character, Kromer, works in sex shop. Among his duties isreviewing porn for the store's newsletter and, consequently, his home is filledwith VHS tapes. He's got some friends who come over . . .
Did anythinghappen in this story?

Tips for Writers: Read Poetry

With Poetry Month just around the corner, I thought this would be a timely tip for fiction writers: Read Poetry.

Seriously. While plot is the foundation of fiction, it is language that makes it truly distinctive. Read the great poets to get a feel for imagery, concision, sound, rhythm--all elements that make prose stand out.

But don't just read it. Memorize it. One of my favorite teachers in my MFA program, Elizabeth Strout, advises fiction writers to memorize a few poems. Stuck in traffic or driving down the highway, recite those poems, Keep that beautiful language in your head, and it will subtly influence the language you put on the page when you're writing.

I have a few poems in my repertoire, but my absolute favorite--partly because it was challenging to learn--is Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens. I've even used some of the imagery from this poem in a story ("Savage Source" from my linked story collection, In an Uncharted Country). If you see me stopped at a light and I appear to be talking to someone, chances are I'm reciting. "Complacencies of the peignoir . . ."

Forthcoming Books: The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan

I found this trailer for Deborah Copaken Kogan's novel The Red Book (Hyperion, April 2012) quite by accident. I'm possibly not the target audience for this novel, but I like the concept anyway. It's about a group of women who graduated from Harvard and now, in anticipation of a reunion, they have to share their accomplishments for The Red Book--true or otherwise.

The New Yorker: "P.E." by Victor Lodato

April 2,2012: "P.E."by Victor Lodato
Thestory is amusing at times. But there's definitely more to it than that.We learn from the Q&Awith Victor Lodato that the author began with the voice of the narrator,Freddy, which is credible, as that's the most noticeable element of the story.Freddy is the child of junkies and has been out of contact with his father formany years. Now, though, the father is arriving in Tucson for a visit, whichnaturally leads to great tension, and also some funny dialogue.
As ithappens, Freddy is a proponent of Parallel Energetics, a belief that we areliving several simultaneous existences. We don't get too much of the PEdynamics in the early part of the story, but as the conversation with hisfather becomes more difficult, the PE comes out and Freddy even considerscalling Salvatore, his PE mentor.
But wait!Something's not quite right here. (Read the Q&A to hear about the author'snotion of the "reversal" that happens toward the end of the story.)
Not only isthe story filled with wonderful conflict—estranged father comes to town—but Freddyhimself is full of contradictions: he was once skinny, but now he's fat, forexample. And his choice to flee reality by escaping into what he believes arethese parallel existences suggests that Freddy's got some problems, and theydon't all have to do with his father.
Aninteresting story from a writer I'd not previously heard of.  

Virginia Festival of the Book: Day 3

Friday was a busy day, so I'm only just now getting around to writing about Day 3 of the Virginia Festival of the Book.

I met about 25 writers for lunch at Bashir's Taverna, which was fun--lots of people I knew and some I did not. Then I headed over to the Library for a panel sponsored by WriterHouse: Readers and Social Media: New Ways to Communicate. I had heard much of what was said, but I learned that maybe I need to look into Pinterest. I've been resisting.

I stayed on at the Library for another WriterHouse panel, this one on Retelling the Tales--three novels that are retellings or reimaginings of familiar stories. The panel featured Margot Livesy, Sharyn McCrumb, and Hillary Jordan.

And then I had to run out to the Barnes & Noble for the panel I was moderating: Reconstructions ("novels of war, man-made destruction, and their aftermaths") featuring Casey Clabough, Taylor Polites, and Joe Samuel Starnes. I thought the panel went really well. All three authors presented their work clearly and read relatively brief sections, and then did a great job of answering questions--mostly posed by me, since I'd read their books.

By the time the panel was over I felt guilty about leaving the dog alone so long so I rushed home. Saturday is another day.[image error]