Ravi Mangla's Blog, page 14
January 24, 2015
"On the Stories (Or Lack Thereof) of Joe Brainard" at Electric Literature
Over at Electric Literature I wrote about the artist and writer Joe Brainard.
- “On the Stories (Or Lack Thereof) of Joe Brainard”
January 23, 2015
Interview at Fictionaut
I was interviewed by Heather Fowler for her Writers on Craft series at Fictionaut.
How has your perception of what you “do” with your work changed as you have continued to write?
Recently I’ve started to think of writing as a collective endeavor as opposed to an individual one. For a while I was dealing with this crisis of faith, wondering if the work I did was selfish, and whether I had anything to truly contribute to the literary arts. I probably quit writing half a dozen times (as close—and infinitely patient—friends can attest). Then I asked myself two questions that helped to clarify the situation: Do you believe the writing you create has value? And my natural response was no. The follow-up question: Do you believe that literature as a whole has value? That I answered with a resounding yes. Literature can initiate social and political change, foster deeper feelings of compassion, and open the mind to new channels of thought and inquiry. Once I stopped thinking of myself as an individual entity, fighting for recognition in an overcrowded field, and imagined myself instead as part of a larger constellation of writers, all aiming to put beautiful things into the world, I was able to relax and get back to work.
Read the full interview here
January 22, 2015
January 21, 2015
"Secondhand Brawlers" at The Billfold
To the fiercer among us, these book sales resemble gladiatorial sport (sans lion). The early moments of a sale teeter precipitously between order and abject chaos. It wouldn’t take much to descend into outright looting. Each successive aisle presents a unique series of obstacles: parked strollers, motorized scooters, sinister twins in blue dresses. Standing room is at a premium, and I have learned to take light meals in order to draw in my gut. Yet for all the inadvertent skin contact, the sales have a decidedly celibate air. Chalk it up to the sleepy libidos of inveterate readers. (Our pheromones are slow swimmers.) We have come here with a solitary objective: to pillage and plunder. Fortune favors the nimble-fingered. Those unwilling to act swiftly and with a certain measure of abandon go home with coffee-stained Jodi Picoult or spineless Paul Reiser.
- “Secondhand Brawlers" at The Billfold
January 20, 2015
January 16, 2015
"Grave Exhortations" by Evan Lavender-Smith
DOLL (PASTED TO HAIR)
I pray that the prospect of my premature burial will cause a stir among the reader’s thoughts such to motivate her brief visitation with my corpse, upon which time she should verify for herself, using any means available, that I have, indeed, gone to a better place. If there’s a shovel or some other gardening implement lying around nearby to my corpse, grasp it in your hand, reader, and with no concern whatsoever for the sanctity of my former body, use it.
“Grave Exhortations" by Evan Lavender-Smith at The Collagist
January 8, 2015
January 5, 2015
"Torture Report from White-Collar Inmate at Minimum Security Vermont Prison" at Queen Mob's Teahouse
I have a short humor piece up at Queen Mob’s Teahouse. (Well, more like a list, I guess…)
- “Torture Report from White-Collar Inmate at Minimum Security Vermont Prison" at Queen Mob’s Teahouse
January 4, 2015
"What Will Happen to All of That Beauty?" by Ayana Mathis
For many years I was a lion. I answered to no one, really. And I was free. There were periods in which my freedom was a terror, as though I were untethered and floating off into the high thin air. And there were times my freedom made me ferocious and strong. I have lived, for the most part, as I wanted to and I have had the liberty to attempt, always failing, to become a person I admired. I am not sure what this has cost me. I am not sure now of what I mean by freedom. I do know that I have doggedly refused to belong—to a community, to a family, to a religion. It seems to me now that this is naïve and foolhardy, the idea that I could somehow outwit the nature of being alive.
- Ayana Mathis’s incredible meditation on faith at Guernica
December 29, 2014
Leslie Jamison
If you could change one thing about the literary world, what would it be?
I would want the literary world to curate more actively the voices of people who don’t have power or money or access to literary prestige. How can we create an environment where these stories are heard? It’s not an easy question to answer, but it’s an important imperative. Some examples come to mind; there are plenty more out there: I mentor for the PEN Prison Writing program, which pairs up incarcerated writers with mentors who work with them by correspondence. This poet named Mark Nowak did a program with NYC taxi drivers where he had them write their own stories and then hosted a reading. So I think there are all kinds of means by which we can try to create a space for hearing voices that don’t usually get heard. It brings to mind questions about equal representation in media, and disparities in how voices get compensated. Julia Wong has written some powerful and provocative pieces for The Nation about people of color in media, and how voices on Twitter can get appropriated for other peoples’ stories.
But thinking about making access for voices from various margins — that’s certainly where my mind goes when I think about how I’d want the literary world to be different: What stories are getting told, and what stories should be getting told, and who should we be listening to, and who aren’t we listening to.
- Leslie Jamison interviewed by Michele Filgate at Salon
