Colson Whitehead : January 15th, 2008

Portland Arts & Lectures

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 7:30 p.m.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m., box office opens at 6:00 p.m.

Colson Whitehead’s novels explore a world fractured by consumerism and racism. His first work, The Intuitionist (1999), followed an elevator inspector who sensed malfunctions with keen extrasensory perception. Whitehead’s next book, John Henry Days (2001) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Other works include The Colossus of New York (2003), a post-9/11 meditation on the hope and resilience of New York City, and his latest, Apex Hides the Hurt (2006), about a “nomenclature” consultant hired to re-name a city.

Whitehead received a 2002 MacArthur “genius grant,” and the foundation called him “a bold experimental writer whose social and philosophical themes speak to the heart of American society.” Whitehead’s articles about music and television have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Spin and Village Voice.

Underwritten by Catlin Gabel School.

Photo credit: Mark Lacy, University of Houston

Back Again!

I took a long break from posting here for several reasons. The end of the semester colliding with my hard drive crashing was no piece of cake. Luckily, I had some of my files backed up and a lot of printed copies, but still it was just a pain in the ass. Somehow I pulled through and even got everything in at deadline. Plus my sweet mother and step-father gave me the best holiday gift ever... a new computer, and if that's not a silver-lining I don't know what is.

Along with this, I had to read through over thirty new short stories for Silk Road, which wasn't a huge chore because the writing is very good, but still time consuming. We are reaching deadline for the next issue and all the editors have to really put their butts in gear.

I've started to work full time at the day job and began an internship at Literary Arts. Everyone at Literary Arts has been so welcoming, it's a pleasure to be there helping out. I've been working on small projects for grants and marketing. The other day I was invited to attend a private poetry reading of John Morrison's new book Heaven of the Moment and following that I was asked to transcribe poet Naomi Shihab Nye's inspiring opening speech at the Oregon Book Awards. Not a bad day, I must say.

It's also a fairly prolific time for me in terms of writing. I've gotten back to writing two-four hours everyday and my short stories are chugging along. I'm also starting to work on my thesis essay for school. Right now, and this might change, it has to do with subtlety.

Oh, sorry, is that too vague? How about this...

Amy Hempel says, "A lot of times what's not reported in your work is more important than what actually appears on the page. Frequently the emotional focus of the story is some underlying event that may not be described or even referred to in the story." Through the work of Stuart Dybek, Amy Hempel, David Long, Charles Baxter, Lorrie Moore and philosophical essays on literature by Jean-Paul Sarte, I will be exploring this subtlety, show how authors hint, framing the empty space enough to give the reader a faint understanding of something deeper.

Still too vague? Well, too bad. I guess you'll just have to read the thing when I'm done.

Anyway, these posts might be a bit sporadic, but I'll still work to keep them coming. Thanks for reading!!

Illustration "Alissa" by Elijah J. Brubaker

Take Two

Well, my second semester at Pacific University has flown by. But, looking back, I guess there were a lot of accomplishments. Say what you want about MFA programs, this whole school thing is really paying off for me.

In the last five months I completed twelve two-page commentaries from the twenty-five books I read (some of the better commentaries I posted on this site). I learned a lot about subtlety from Stuart Dybek and David Long. Charles Baxter taught me how to uniquely use tension and I just devoured Mark Helprin's lyricism in Ellis Island and Other Stories. I enjoyed reading Borges' Labyrinths because it pushed me to thinking more about the inner-working of stories, the deeper questions about what it means to be a writer and enjoyed re-reading Kafka's Metamorphosis, this time looking at how setting can create and alter mood. Alice Munro and John Updike taught me a bit about the good type of telling with their narratives and I learned one thing that really irks me about Tobias Wolff is how he uses irony to mask emotion.

All of these authors, of course, influenced my own short fiction, though I'm not sure if I fully understand how yet. I can see a lot of Dybek peaking through. I completed about sixty pages worth of writing: twenty-seven pages of new work and thirty-three pages of revisions. Three new short stories and three major revisions that I think are pretty well on their way.

I learned a lot about my process this semester. Before I started the program I was growing bored with my stories and needed something to shake them up a bit. I started to write stories I wouldn't normally write, stories that I found weird but that shook me up and made me excited. This semester I started out writing stories that dealt with fear. I enjoyed writing these weird, scary stories and learned a lot from them in the process but I have to say, looking back, they just simply aren't up to the standards I set for myself. They're not my best work. However, towards the middle of the semester I strayed from this path and received encouragement from my peers and my adviser about these new stories. I guess I learned that sometimes it's wise to follow my instincts, but not cement myself to them.

I also learned a lot about self-editing and revision this term. I now know how long I need before I should pick up a story and revise, which has been extremely important for me. It’s been great working with Pete Fromm. His comments were invaluable: very honest, frank and specific. His suggestions were always so good. It felt like cheating sometimes, but not really because when I tried his route the story would open up for me and I have to take it from there. Pete had the instinct to know when to tell me a story is suffering, to tell me to let go the leads and follow where the characters want to go. He also had great advice on writing groups and process. He pushed me and my writing to the point where I was physically strangling and hugging the pages. It was a good semester!

Now to work on prepping for my exciting essay semester, yikes, I better get cracking.

Wordstock for Teachers Report

I attended five different workshops at Wordstock for Teachers this year. Wordstock for Teachers is a two-day accredited writing workshop designed to provide teachers with strategies for the classroom as well as inspiration and tricks to improve their own writing. I'm not teaching yet, but the tickets were a gift and I was glad to attend the workshops and soak up all sorts of information to use for the future.

This year Wordstock was kind enough to post a link to all the session handouts, so if you already teach or plan to teach writing to grades K-12 these handouts may be good resources. My favorite workshops, held by Peter Sears and Larry Colton, unfortunately don't have session handouts posted, but it's best to work with those guys directly (contact Community of Writers). Do check out Erin Ergenbright's "The Blank Page" session handouts, they were a great help to me.