Christopher Linforth's Blog, page 3

100 Years Later: Which Writers Will We Still Be Reading?

Since I read this New Yorker essay I’ve wanted to write a post on the subject of posterity. In the literary world fame, of course, is fleeting, and quality is no guarantee of longevity. So many unknown factors manipulate someone’s place in the canon, or even just being in print. For me, a lover of short stories, here are my best guesses. They are all contemporary–and living–short story writers:

1. Alice Munro.

2. Stephen King.

3. Junot Diaz.

4. Joyce Carol Oates.

5. Steve Almond.

6. George Saunders.

7. Tobias Wolff.

8. Jhumpa Lahiri.

9. Nathan Englander.

10. Edith Pearlman.

Who do you think should be added? Add your comment below.

The Final Ten Months of the MFA

Cross-posted over at The Minnesota Review

August:

“So, you’ll be applying for a job, then?” my friend says to me.

I cough up a little beer as I process his words. I’m heading into the last year of my M.F.A., and have a few things to show for it: teaching experience, a handful of connections, a few publications here and there, an annoying sense there’s another thousand folks in the same position as me, researching the same jobs and fellowships.

“Sure, maybe. I don’t know,” I tell him and change the conversation, to something about the glossy beach volleyball pulsing on the TV.

“I thought you wanted to be a professor,” he says, a wry smile appearing on his face.

Draining the last of my Sam Adams, I consider the previous two years: multiple workshops, pedagogy classes, twice serving as Fiction Editor for The Minnesota Review, a journal with deep Marxist roots.

“Something like that,” I confess, “a writer really.”

He emits a skeptical huff and stares blankly into his pint glass. “So, how’s your book going?”

“Yeah, O.K., I guess.”

I’ve spent the summer editing my thesis—a collection of twenty-two stories, ranging in length from a single page to twenty-five—wondering how I’d let slip all those weak verbs (put, took, placed, looked) and nondescript nouns (food, car, tree) get by me. Even though some of the stories have been published, I’ve since detected gaping holes in some of the plots, and been transfixed at a couple of clichéd endings, and then late at night slapped my own forehead due to several “dramatic” conversations. For months, I’ve re-fashioned the stories, and recently I’ve been thinking Hey, this is pretty good. I like this. I’d buy this collection. Snap it up! Some days, though, I fear I’ve just been sticking Band-Aids over the vapid themes and the fudged lyrical sentences. In the next couple of weeks I have to hand in a draft to my advisor. Secretly, I hope she’s going to rip it apart, slap down the botched characterizations, and draw interrobangs next to the wooden dialogue. God knows it needs a reality check.

“Another?” I say to my friend, and try to catch the eye of the barman.

“Sure,” he says, grinning, “and then we can toast to your future success.”

Rejected Blurbs

A while ago I started fooling around with the blurb form and constructing them in terms of bad blurbs, that is the accosted established writer frolicking in his penned superiority (!). Praise be to the publishing gods that a couple have recently been released on the web:

“Rejected Blurb #23″ in Atticus Review and “Rejected Blurb #6″ in Metazen.

The MacGuffin

Another one of my thesis stories has just been published. This time in the latest issue of The MacGuffin. Here’s an excerpt:

Flyer

In the months leading up to my ninth birthday I bugged Father for a red wagon. He got me one, of course—a Radio Flyer with a green bow tied around the handle. That morning I didn’t wait to open my other presents. I just took the wagon onto the street and used it to move rocks from the neighbor’s pond to a narrow culvert that separated the neighborhood from the beach. We lived in a large Catholic section of Coney Island, a ten-minute walk from Steeplechase Park. From my bedroom window, I could see the metal tower of the Parachute Jump ride and the people screaming as long steel ropes hoisted them up and down.

A few days after my birthday, I asked Father at breakfast if I could go to work with him. “Sure, Samuel,” he said. “Just don’t cause trouble, like last time.” He ruffled my hair and smiled so widely I saw the toast still inside his mouth. I moved the scrambled eggs around my plate and thought about the candy bar in my room. Father drank the rest of his coffee and said, “If you’re finished, do the dishes.” He left the table and soon after I heard him talking to my cousin, Pam, in their bedroom. I left my plate where it was and went to the front door. I peered through the glass panel at the neat piles of orange and brown leaves in the neighbor’s garden and I felt an urge to kick the leaves, then bury them next to the pin oak that overlooked our house.

Pam called my name. But I ignored her. “Samuel,” she said again, this time louder. I turned to see Pam, hands on hips, her body inflated by a bubblegum-pink cardigan. She shook her head. Her brown hair framed her angular face, making her look older than she was. She hustled me to the hallway closet and made sure I put on my pencil-gray pea coat and thick woolen gloves.

Copyright © 2012 Christopher Linforth.

Monkeybicycle

Monkeybicycle 9 is released this week and includes the work of A. Anupama, Jeremy Aufrance, A.A. Balaskovits, Nathan Blake, Lisa J. Cihlar, J.P. Dancing Bear, Rory Douglas, James Freed, Jack Garrett, James Tate Hill, Derek Henderson, Dustin Hoffman, Jared Hohl, J.Z. Houlihan, Jane Keyler, Sandra Kolankiewicz, Marshall Lee, Jessica Levine, Christopher Linforth, Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, Colleen Maynard, Todd McKinney, Colleen Morrissey, Analisa Raya-Flores, Laurie Sewell, Kelsi Sexton, Jon Steinhagen, Richard Wolkomir, and Michael Wood.

“Door-to-Door”–one of the first stories written for my MFA–is included with many fine stories and poems. Here’s an excerpt:

In the car, the man packed his valise. He put his rubber gloves inside, next to the talcum powder and a tube of medicinal salve. He checked the salve’s instructions and rubbed a little on his palm. While he waited, he looked at the house in the late afternoon light. The front lawn was dried out and colored a muddy brown. Broken trellis lay on the garden path. The curtains were closed.

He turned the radio on and listened to a man talking. On his hand, bright-red hives appeared. With a pocket-handkerchief he wiped away the remaining salve. He took out his cigarettes and lit one, blowing the smoke through the open car window. He saw a light go on in the front room and the curtains twitch.

Short Stories and Literary Journals: The Resources

If you’re starting out and can’t tell your Chekhov from your Gogol, an excellent place to begin is to read a historical and taxonomical evaluation of the modern short story. Luckily for you, it’s dealt with in excellent detail in William Boyd’s article, “A Short History of the Short Story.”

Over the years, the books I’ve found to be helpful for fiction writing include Stephen King’s On Writing, Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, Charles Baxter’s Burning Down The House, E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction, Ann Charters’ The Story and its Writer, Alice LaPlante’s Method and Madness: The Making of a Story, and James Wood’s How Fiction Works. But more than reading about craft you must read, read, read: collections of short stories and literary journals. Some of my favorite collections are Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time, James Joyce’s Dubliners, Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find, Raymond Carver’s Cathedral, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, Benjamin Percy’s Refresh, Refresh, Ed Falco’s Burning Man, and Joyce Carol Oates’ High Lonesome. Top literary journals include One Story, Southern Review, The Paris Review, Tin House, and many others. See my articles here: sometime ago I made a list, and also attempted a hip journal list! And a compilation of midwest-focused journals.

Although of limited value, several literary journal rankings exist: Clifford Garstang’s list is based upon journals winning Pushcart Prizes. Bookfox also made a list. HTMLGIANT commenters also came up with a cool rundown. In terms of payment for short stories, see my recent entry “Pay and the Short Story.”

Now, after revising and line-editing your stories several times–whether in workshop, through peer assistance, or with the help of a mentor–don’t be perturbed by the weaknesses of your story or become deluded by its apparent greatness. Writing publishable fiction takes multiple drafts and months of work. A good tip is to put your story in a drawer for a month and then re-visit the piece with fresh eyes. Re-write your story again! When you finally do submit work to journals don’t expect to be published first time out. Rejection is part of the writer’s life. Acceptance rates for most journals are often less than 1%. Eventually when you’re ready to assess the marketplace and your story’s place within it, good starting points are the websites duotrope.com, New Pages, and Review Review.

At a reading last year, Tobias Wolff noted that he had not been the best writer at his school or displayed the most talent. Yet he’s the one who became a writing icon and one of America’s current best short story writers. Perseverance and a dedication to the craft kept him going while his peers migrated to other professions. So keep going, one day you may be that writer.

HTMLFAIL

One of my favorite literature blogs, HTMLGIANT, has erupted again this week over the work of Marie Calloway–a controversial writer who sprung onto the alt-lit scene this year with her story, “Adrien Brody.” Published by Tao Lin’s Muumuu House–noted for works often dubbed part of the “New Sincerity” movement–the story generated fierce discussion over its retelling of actual events and persons in a lightly disguised fictional guise. Moreover, as Calloway’s story contained descriptions of explicit sexual imagery–much of which could be considered dehumanizing and anti-feminist or equally, to some, pro-feminist and life-afirming–detractors and supporters entrenched their positions.

Two days ago, Blake Butler (a long-time HTMLGIANT editor) posted links to Calloway’s latest work on HTMLGIANT. With titles such as “Cybersex” and “Men” and executed in a collage style, the pieces contain naked imagery of Calloway and explicit Gchat and emails with a blacked-out male writer. An hour or so later, the male writer in question, Jimmy Chen, posted, apparently in revenge, the complete unedited transcripts of his and Calloway’s conversations.

As you can read in the comment section, the debate and infighting got heated and personal. Blake Butler later started a new thread–childlike in intent and tone, perhaps to divert the discussion and calm people down–titled “What’s your favorite color.” Few sane voices were heard in Calloway or Chen’s comment thread. Roxane Gay, as usual, was one of the few. Although, personally, I’m not a fan of Calloway’s work or her use, even deliberate manipulation, of men, the stories do push the boundaries of acceptiblity and promote debate on the nature and purpose of such work–particularly in terms of performance and feminism. I doubt it will be long before Marie Calloway publishes more of her work, and the commentors on HTMLGIANT have much more to say.

The End of the MFA

As I slide into my third–and final–year of my MFA in Creative Writing at Virginia Tech, it’s time for the last few years work to come to something. Namely, a book. For my thesis, I’m writing a collection of short stories, which vary between the short-short (two pages) and the traditional length story (fifteen to twenty pages). So far, I’ve been assembling my work from over the last two years and I have around 100+ pages finished and about 30 or so pages still to refine and polish. Though, in terms of publication, I need 150 pages minimum. For thesis purposes, the length only has to be around 125 pages. Phew. So, wow, yes I’m on track. Some of my fellow MFA-ers are writing novels, and have a much harder task ahead of them. They’re looking at 200-300 page projects. Undoubtly, though, it will pay off. Novels are several magntitudes more sellable than short story collections. That’s why then I have a back-up plan! Over the past year, I’ve been slogging away on a novel, albeit one of the mystery/thriller sort. Today I passed the 53,000 word mark, leaving some 27,000 words to go (my aim to have the first draft finished by Christmas). Doubtless, if it ever gets published, it will be under a pen name–a useful tool to separate my two possible careers: literary writer/professor, and genre buff. Although one of my professors, Ed Falco, author of the recent Godfather prequel (The Family Corleone)–a New York Times bestseller–chose to write his foray into commerical publishing under his own name, I can’t see myself doing the same thing. The two forms of writing–and the expected audience–will be quite distinct. Well, anyway, let’s hope the dream of publishing a book-length project, or two, materializes into something concrete. Say, a 6×9, one-inch thick object available in stores, and the dreaded Amazon, everywhere.

The Minnesota Review

These past few months, I’ve been editing The Minnesota Review. As Fiction Editor–along with Jamie Rand and our small group of readers–we’ve read 374 stories, (incidentally, the poets read over 280 packets of poetry, and the nonfiction team almost 30 essays) and are now in the final stages of selecting the final fiction pieces. The last rounds entail heated debates over the remaining twenty or so stories and the limited space we have for them. You see, as The Minnesota Review is also a critical studies journal, we have only sixty pages for the creative work. Accordingly, we have around thirty pages available for fiction. Usually, then, this means we accept two to five stories per issue, depending on story lengths. In addition, this also means our acceptance rate is very low, often less than 1%, and it is often the case, therefore, that we have to turn down publishable work.

The funnest thing this semester has been interviewing writers and writing for The Minnesota Review‘s blog. I’ve completed interviews with Mike Dockins, Katie Fallon, Jazzy Danzinger, Rachel Ida Buff, and hope to do a few more in the coming months. I’ve also written on VIDA and AWP, and responded to some insightful feedback from our readers.

As summer lurches its way toward Virginia, the journal will shut down for a few months (although the blog will still be updated) and the submissions will pile up for next semester’s readers and editors to parse, debate, argue, groan, and enjoy. The seasonal life of The Minnesota Review continues, refreshed and engaged.

AWP Recap: Look Me In The Eyes, Not The Nametag!

This piece is cross-posted over at blog.

Near the conference hotel, a lakefront Hilton, in a line for coffee at the Dunkin' Donuts, a young woman stares at my nametag. For what seems like a minute, her eyes are fixated on my name. She thinks: Is he a writer? Somebody I should know? Or want to know? Can he get my story/poem/manifesto published? Can he get me a six-figure book deal? Or point me to someone who is able? I blush and tuck my nametag under my shirt. Sure, I've had a few things published in my time, but I'm still a bottom feeder, lowest on the rung: the plaid-wearing M.F.A. student.

The hotel bar is where AWP veterans, publishing bigwigs, established poets and

writers congregate on the padded leather couches. These people have made it.

You can tell by the absence of a nametag. They've been put away. Buried in their

tote bag underneath a free pile of swag. Together—in a swirling mass of ten-dollar Budweiser, warm Chardonnay, and half-hidden hip flasks—the "made-its" laugh and hug, tell stories and gossip: Is that Tao Lin in the corner? What hair product does Michael Martone use? What do you mean Poet X won the Ruth Lily?! Don't you owe me a beer from D.C.?

I vandalize my nametag. At the McSweeney's booth, using a No. 2 pencil, I

write "Tony Morrison" above my name. I tell people: I'm the other Toni Morrison. The one with a Y; the one who didn't attend Cornell; the one who didn't write Beloved; the one who didn't win the Nobel Prize; the one who didn't teach at Princeton; the one who didn't get paid less than Snooki; the one who didn't avoid this conference like the plague. I'm him. Tony. You know, the one stared at by a woman in Dunkin' Donuts; the one picking up free literary journals; the one talking to hungover editors; the one attending panels; the one hoping for insights into the machinations of the publishing world; the one flailing in the hotel bar; the one trying to marry Sandra Beasley; the one plagued by a Y. A question he's desperately attempting to answer.