Pima Writers' Workshop

I flew into Los Angeles from London on Wednesday at 10:00 PM. On Thursday at 11:00 AM, I flew into Tucson, AZ for the Pima Writers' Workshop, where I was to teach. This schedule was impossible to adjust, or I would have adjusted it, but I was pretty jet-lagged till Sunday, and still have the cold that descended on my last day in London.

The workshop was founded by two writing professors from Pima College, both of whom I'd known since I was a kid as one was a friend of my mother's and had encouraged me to write when I was eleven. (That's the "Nancy" from All the Fishes Come Home to Roost) I attended the very first Pima Writers' Workshop when I was thirteen, as the youngest participant, and back then it was so small that all the writers were staying in Nancy's house.

That year the poet was Judson Jerome, who tortured us all by doing a public reading of a very embarassing and explicit poem about his menage a trois (this was so long ago, I think it was before that was called polyamory) that went on and on and on, for years it seemed. I attended the workshop every year till I went away to college, and JJ became the first example of Rachel's Law of Conservation of Annoying People: In any formal group, such as a workshop, workplace, or dojo, there will be one person who is annoying. If that person leaves, either another annoying person will join, or one person who wasn't annoying before will become annoying.

This year I was invited to teach at the workshop, nineteen years after I attended its first year as a student and my first time teaching ever, and thus it all comes full circle.

Jet-lagged and at 9:00 AM, I gave an hour-long talk on "The Craft and Ethics of the Memoir." This went over amazingly well, all things considered. I spoke off of eight pages of single-spaced notes, and am thinking of making them into an essay. Any thoughts on markets that might want a lengthy essay on the subject?

I also read and did individual consultations on twelve manuscript excerpts of 20 pages each, and did a group writing exercise on evoking and rewriting memories. Then the writers all did a concluding panel on writing in general, at which one writer who shall remain nameless (I'd never heard of him before) said something which annoyed me very much. He was trying to make the point that you have to finish manuscripts or you can never sell them-- a very similar point to what I'd said about ten minutes before he began to speak, which is that you have to write before you can rewrite, ie, "you can't fix nothing."

However, this is how he phrased it: "I'm gonna give you tough love now. The difference between us up here on the stage and you down there is that us up here finish what we start. That's the difference between us and you." Etc.

My hackles went up and stayed up. I didn't want to get into the "us and you" thing, since that would immediately hijack the entire panel (although that was the main part that ticked me off), but the instant he shut up I grabbed the mike and said, "I'd like to add something to that. I absolutely agree that you can't publish anything that's not finished, but the fact is, a lot of professional writers don't begin one project, finish it, sell it, then move on to the next one. I spent seven years writing a novel that I still haven't finished. I know lots of writers who start something, set it aside, and go back to it fifteen years later and finish it then. So you do eventually have to finish things, but not finishing them is something that most writers do at times whether they've sold things already or not, and if it's a bad habit for you, it's one that you can get over."

I hope people got the subtext, which was "That us and you stuff is bullshit."

Tucson was hot (102 Fahrenheit) but pretty, with low adobe buildings in between stretches of sand, brilliant orange-and-red Indian paintbrush, and saguaros. The mountains, sculptural chunks of bare rock with green matchstick saguaros below, are like a Georgia O'Keeffe painting come to life.

Anyway, I had a great time, and I'm thinking that I'd like to do more workshops. Anyone have any suggestions for ones that pay an honorarium as well as board and transportation (or else I can't afford to do them) and preferably are located in interesting areas and attract interesting guests?

( Also, I bought some books )

Pima Writers' Workshop

I flew into Los Angeles from London on Wednesday at 10:00 PM. On Thursday at 11:00 AM, I flew into Tucson, AZ for the Pima Writers' Workshop, where I was to teach. This schedule was impossible to adjust, or I would have adjusted it, but I was pretty jet-lagged till Sunday, and still have the cold that descended on my last day in London.

The workshop was founded by two writing professors from Pima College, both of whom I'd known since I was a kid as one was a friend of my mother's and had encouraged me to write when I was eleven. (That's the "Nancy" from All the Fishes Come Home to Roost) I attended the very first Pima Writers' Workshop when I was thirteen, as the youngest participant, and back then it was so small that all the writers were staying in Nancy's house.

That year the poet was Judson Jerome, who tortured us all by doing a public reading of a very embarassing and explicit poem about his menage a trois (this was so long ago, I think it was before that was called polyamory) that went on and on and on, for years it seemed. I attended the workshop every year till I went away to college, and JJ became the first example of Rachel's Law of Conservation of Annoying People: In any formal group, such as a workshop, workplace, or dojo, there will be one person who is annoying. If that person leaves, either another annoying person will join, or one person who wasn't annoying before will become annoying.

This year I was invited to teach at the workshop, nineteen years after I attended its first year as a student and my first time teaching ever, and thus it all comes full circle.

Jet-lagged and at 9:00 AM, I gave an hour-long talk on "The Craft and Ethics of the Memoir." This went over amazingly well, all things considered. I spoke off of eight pages of single-spaced notes, and am thinking of making them into an essay. Any thoughts on markets that might want a lengthy essay on the subject?

I also read and did individual consultations on twelve manuscript excerpts of 20 pages each, and did a group writing exercise on evoking and rewriting memories. Then the writers all did a concluding panel on writing in general, at which one writer who shall remain nameless (I'd never heard of him before) said something which annoyed me very much. He was trying to make the point that you have to finish manuscripts or you can never sell them-- a very similar point to what I'd said about ten minutes before he began to speak, which is that you have to write before you can rewrite, ie, "you can't fix nothing."

However, this is how he phrased it: "I'm gonna give you tough love now. The difference between us up here on the stage and you down there is that us up here finish what we start. That's the difference between us and you." Etc.

My hackles went up and stayed up. I didn't want to get into the "us and you" thing, since that would immediately hijack the entire panel (although that was the main part that ticked me off), but the instant he shut up I grabbed the mike and said, "I'd like to add something to that. I absolutely agree that you can't publish anything that's not finished, but the fact is, a lot of professional writers don't begin one project, finish it, sell it, then move on to the next one. I spent seven years writing a novel that I still haven't finished. I know lots of writers who start something, set it aside, and go back to it fifteen years later and finish it then. So you do eventually have to finish things, but not finishing them is something that most writers do at times whether they've sold things already or not, and if it's a bad habit for you, it's one that you can get over."

I hope people got the subtext, which was "That us and you stuff is bullshit."

Tucson was hot (102 Fahrenheit) but pretty, with low adobe buildings in between stretches of sand, brilliant orange-and-red Indian paintbrush, and saguaros. The mountains, sculptural chunks of bare rock with green matchstick saguaros below, are like a Georgia O'Keeffe painting come to life.

Anyway, I had a great time, and I'm thinking that I'd like to do more workshops. Anyone have any suggestions for ones that pay an honorarium as well as board and transportation (or else I can't afford to do them) and preferably are located in interesting areas and attract interesting guests?

( Also, I bought some books )

Farmer's market

I am now the proud owner of six brown eggs, two leeks, three candy beets (striped red and white on the inside) with leaves the guy said I can steam or stir-fry, Yukon gold potatoes, purple potatoes, two bunches of ha choi, two heads of garlic, some huge shallots, a bag of peas, two doughnut peaches, two pluots, an orange, and a bag of red and yellow cherries, many of which are double or otherwise mutant.

I will eat the fruit raw and intend to use some of the vegetables for twenty-garlic chicken and stir-fries, and to cook the peas according to Oyce (olive oil, dried parsley, and salt and pepper in a frying pan till they turn bright green) but does anyone have any other recipe suggestions?

Farmer's market

I am now the proud owner of six brown eggs, two leeks, three candy beets (striped red and white on the inside) with leaves the guy said I can steam or stir-fry, Yukon gold potatoes, purple potatoes, two bunches of ha choi, two heads of garlic, some huge shallots, a bag of peas, two doughnut peaches, two pluots, an orange, and a bag of red and yellow cherries, many of which are double or otherwise mutant.

I will eat the fruit raw and intend to use some of the vegetables for twenty-garlic chicken and stir-fries, and to cook the peas according to Oyce (olive oil, dried parsley, and salt and pepper in a frying pan till they turn bright green) but does anyone have any other recipe suggestions?