THE MAGAZINE OF THE PIPER CENTER FOR CREATIVE WRITING

ART SPIEGELMAN COMIX RENEGADE LISA DAVIS ON THIS WRITER’S LIFE AN INTERVIEW WITH NAOMI SHIHAB NYE NEW BOOKS BY ASU’S CREATIVE WRITING FACULTY ON GENRE: SCIENCE WRITING | TRANSLATION

ALSOINSIDE ELIZABETHSEARLE AARONSHURIN INDUSUDARESAN DAVIDL.ULIN IN THIS ISSUE

VOL 2, ISS 2 SPRING 2005 FEATURES EDITOR COMIX WITHOUT SPANDEX ...... 4 Charles Jensen W. Todd Kaneko explains why Art Spiegelman’s work should be required reading and looks back at how his work has infl uenced a growing interest in “comix.” COPYEDITOR Elizabyth Hiscox HOMECOMING ROYALTY ...... 7 Tina Hammerton recounts the triumphant returns of ASU Alums Jorn Ake, Kevin Haworth, CONTRIBUTORS Ruth Ellen Kocher, and Richard Yañez for a special Homecoming event. Lisa Davis Patricia Sanders Matthew Gavin Frank Elizabeth Searle THE SCIENCE OF WRITING ...... 10 Michael Green Aaron Shurin Matthew Gavin Frank explores a burgeoning genre combining the aesthetic of art with the Tina Hammerton Indu Sudaresan exploration of science. Elizabyth Hiscox Greg Thielen Douglas S. Jones David L. Ulin W. Todd Kaneko TRUE TALES OF AN ASU GRAD ...... 13 Molly Meneely Michael Green talks with ASU graduate and autobiographical essayist Laurie Notaro. Naomi Shihab Nye BOOKS IN BLOOM ...... 15 Patricia Sanders profi les new books by ASU Creative Writing faculty members. PIPER CENTER STAFF Jewell Parker Rhodes, Artistic Director Jaime Dempsey, Program Manager “I MUST HAVE EATEN...” ...... 18 Salima Keegan, Editor/Publisher Tina Hammerton recounts a visit with Kathleen Fraser, founding editor of the groundbreaking Sean Nevin, Outreach Coordinator journal of women’s writing HOW(ever). Charles Jensen, Community & Adult Enrichment Paul Morris, MLSt Program Director TRANSLATIONS OF THE POSSIBLE ...... 22 Kriste Peoples, Graphic Designer Matthew Gavin Frank and Elizabyth Hiscox discuss issues in and approaches to the art of poetry in translation.

PIPER CENTER BLURRING THE LINES ...... 25 ADVISORY COUNCIL Matthew Gavin Frank recaps Lee Gutkind’s storied career in creative nonfi ction and gives a Ben Bova Janaki Ram quick snapshot of the genre today. Billy Collins Raye Thomas, chair Harold Dorenbecher Theresa Wilhoit THE DEEP HEART OF POETRY: NAOMI SHIHAB NYE ...... 31 Dana Jamison, chair George Witte Greg Thielen interviews Naomi Shihab Nye about writing, perserverance, and margaritas. Simi Juneja C. D. Wright Jo Krueger Kathleen Laskowski POETRY VEERS OFF THE PAGE ...... 35 Maxine Marshall Elizabyth Hiscox checks in with our friends at Royal Holloway University in London, where Naomi Shihab Nye poetic practice and the page are forming new relationships. Barbara Peters, ex oficio EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE ...... 38 Michael Green shares Russell Banks’s thoughts on contemporary fi ction writing. COVER ART © Art Spiegelman DEPARTMENTS LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR ...... 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS PHOTO THIS WRITER’S LIFE: LISA SELIN DAVIS ...... 27 Geoffrey Gray Q & A: SEARLE, SHURIN, SUDARESAN, ULIN ...... 41 ALUMNI LINER NOTES ...... 49 PRINTED IN CANADA CONTRIBUTORS ...... 50 2 FROM THE DIRECTOR

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

Dear Friends,

My heartfelt thanks to all of you who have joined the Piper Friends community. Your contribution helps support the many activities of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, housed in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Our goal is to foster an inclusive community of writers and readers and to celebrate the power of language to enrich our lives and to create a more civil and enlightened society. For those of you who have yet to join Piper Friends, please consider doing so today. Your contribution helps support our many activities, ranging from literary readings, writing workshops, craft and publishing lectures, and publications such as Hayden’s Ferry Review and Marginalia.

One of the Piper Center’s most successful programs is the four-day Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference. This conference offers superb writers who are also skilled in the art of teaching. All of our conference authors are re- quired to focus on “teachable moments”—moments that provide not only inspiration but tangible and useful knowledge on how to create and shape better prose and poetry and how to become a better artist. Unlike many writing confer- ences and festivals, Desert Nights, Rising Stars is committed to providing a superb and intimate learning environment. For our 2006 conference, our faculty-student ratio is 1:5. Fifty faculty for two hundred and fifty participants! Is it any wonder that our conference fills to capacity year after year? Is it any wonder that participants rave about what they’ve learned, how much they’ve enjoyed the readings and panels, and about how useful the small classes are for receiving quality feedback on their writing?

The Piper Center’s commitment to teaching echoes the educational commitment of ASU’s nationally ranked creative writing program. To be a writer, you need to write. To become a better writer, you need skilled teachers who can help you with your journey. The Piper Writer’s Studio Workshops provide another opportunity for learning in a nurturing setting. Unlike the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference, the Piper Writer’s Studio provides eight week writing classes year ‘round. Why not join us? If you’ve been postponing your dream of becoming a better writer, stop. Come to the Writers Conference. Take a Piper Writer’s Studio class. The Piper Center’s commitment to teaching never wavers. Our faith in the beauty, the good, and the enlightening potential of language never flags.

We believe in you. Believe in us by joining the Piper Friends community.

Warmest Best Wishes,

Jewell

3 FEATURES NADJA SPIEGELMAN

COMIX WITHOUT SPANDEX

WHY ART SPIEGELMAN’S WORK IS ESSENTIAL READING BY W. TODD KANEKO

When most of us think about comics, we are generally inventing comics as an adult artform. reminded of images from childhood fantasies. We might Spiegelman prefers the term “comix,” which under- picture Superman flying through Metropolis to save Lois scores the co-mingling of visual and textual narration as Lane, or we might imagine Spiderman battling Doctor well as an association with the socially critical American Doom in downtown Manhattan. We might envision Betty counterculture. His work throughout the sixties and early and Veronica fighting over who will go for a ride in Archie’s seventies led to his co-founding of the comic revue Ar- jalopy in a strange, perpetual re-enactment of romance cade with Bill Griffith in 1975, and in 1980, he started the comics from the 1950s. But for Art Spiegelman, comics avant-garde comics magazine RAW with his wife, Fran- are more than pre-adolescent entertainment—throughout cois Mouly—these two magazines have been influential his career as a cartoonist, he has been instrumental in re- to the success of many American cartoonists like Robert

4 FEATURES

Crumb, Drew Friedman, and Dan Clowes. Moreover, the Tide in 1976. Will Eisner’s Contract With God followed two socially conscious cartoons in RAW and Arcade remain years later, and since then, the genre has exploded as car- distinct from Spiegelman and Mouly’s series for children, toonists work toward a legitimization of comics as some- Little Lit, in which they often turn to writers and artists thing more than fare for children—for most graphic nov- like Lemony Snicket and Maurice Sendak, whose work elists, comics blend the power of visual storytelling with is otherwise outside of the comics field. In this sense, the the complex structure and seriousness of literature. work Spiegelman has done over the course of his career The sophisticated storylines that are portrayed in graph- has brought a great deal of artistic legitimacy to comics. ic novels take advantage of the visual aspect of comics, but Spiegelman is perhaps best known for his work on lack the superpowered melodrama of mainstream comics. Maus, a two-volume graphic novel for which he won the Instead, Dan Clowes’ Ghost World gives us two teen-aged Pulitzer Prize in 1992. In Maus, Spiegelman uses mice girls coming to terms with adulthood and Eric Drooker’s and cats as cartoon stand-ins for Jews and Nazis during Flood portrays the wordless ruin of a man in a succession the Holocaust, but the books are more than just a comic- of eerie black-and-white panels. A young girl comes of age book version of the Holocaust—they are an illustrated re- enactment of the life and survival of Spiegelman’s father in Hitler’s Germany, as well as the story of the cartoonist’s ART SPIEGELMAN conflict-filled relationship with his aging father. The por- A BIBLIOGRAPHY trayal of Jews as mice and Poles as pigs visually echo the Maus (1986) way the Nazis referred to Jews and Poles as vermin and Maus II (1992) swine respectively, and the stark black-and-white lines im- Open Me...I’m a Dog! (1997) bue his panels with an eerie savagery as Spiegelman takes Little Lit: It Was a Dark and Silly Night (1998) us into the realms of both personal tragedy and world Little Lit (2000) catastrophe. Jack Cole and Plastic Man (2001) Similarly, Spiegelman’s most recent book, In the Shadow Strange Stories for Strange Kids (2001) of No Towers, is a reaction to the plane crashes and subse- In the Shadow of No Towers (2004) quent collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11. Marvel Com- Legal Action Comics (2005) ics’s tribute to 9/11 came in the form of Heroes, a comic in Legal Action Comics Volume 2 (2005) which costumed superheroes recognize and valorize New York City policemen and firemen—the result is a book GRAPHIC NOVELS that is well-intentioned, but ultimately melodramatic and SUGGESTED READING sentimental. Spiegelman’s book, however, draws on the in- Ghost World, Daniel Clowes fluence of classic newspaper comics like Krazy Kat and Road to Perdition, Max Allan Collins Katzenjammer Kids as the cartoonist explores his own un- Flood, Eric Drucker derstanding of the event as he searches for his daughter The Sandman Volume 1: Preludes near Ground Zero. The book sports a palette of angry & Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman oranges and deep reds as the story unfolds intermingled Signal to Noise, Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean with macabre images of children in gas masks and George Fax from Sarajevo, Joe Kubert W. Bush astride a terrified American eagle. In Maus and A History of Violence, Vince Locke & John Wagner In the Shadow of No Towers, Spiegelman interposes his Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud personal stories with world events, and the result is that The Hard Goodbye: Sin City, Book 1, Frank Miller his comics more closely resemble literature than they do V for Vendetta, Alan Moore mainstream comics. Arkham Asylum, Grant Morrison & Dave McKean While book-length adventure comics have been around Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi for decades, the first graphic novel was Jim Steranko’s Red

5 FEATURES

amidst the 1979 Iran-Iraq war about the amusing foibles of the in Marjane Satrape’s Persepolis. upper middle class, intercut with Books like these, along with succulent dessert recipes. Unfor- Spiegelman’s Maus, are more tunately, I seem to have a rather akin to literature than Spider- grotesque muse.” This is why man ever could be, regardless Spiegelman matters. He isn’t in- of the great responsibility that terested in pre-adolescent power comes with great power. fantasies—he doesn’t write about Still, the realm of graphic bulletproof chests or mutant su- novels doesn’t exclude super- pergroups. This is why Art Spie- heroes. Since the publication of gelman matters. His work takes a Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight medium with which most of us Returns in 1986, superhero revi- can identify on some level, wheth- sionism has become fashionable er we recognize it as sequential art as popular characters are rewrit- or sentimentalize it as a reminder ten for unfamiliar settings like of our childhoods, and he uses seventeenth century London or that brief moment of recogni- Feudal Japan. In many graphic tion to provoke us into thinking novels, like Alan Moore’s Watch- about the world in which we live. men, heroes come to terms with In choosing comix as his medium, the consequences of living as Spiegelman reminds us all that the costumed vigilantes as their world is a far crazier place than © ART SPIEGELMAN lives as heroes threaten their any of us can imagine. ✦ abilities to satisfy their basic human needs. These revisionist superhero stories attempt to bring superheroes into the world of the graphic nov- el—a world in which being a superhero can be serious lit- erary fare as old characters are reinvented with new socio- UPCOMING VISITING WRITERS cultural and literary themes. In the comics world, graphic FALL 2006 novels are full of serious work, spandex or no spandex. On February 2, 2006, the Virginia G. Piper Center for BEN BOVA Creative Writing and the Office of the Vice President and Author of 100+ futuristic novels & scientific nonfiction Provost of the Downtown Phoenix Campus welcome Art Spiegelman to the Valley of the Sun. In a lecture to be MICHAEL CHABON delivered at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Phoenix, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist promises to give us “Comix 101”—a chronological tour of the evolution of comics and an explanation of why comics EDITH GROSSMAN are important in our postliterate culture. The audience for Translator of the Cervantes classic Don Quixote this lecture can likely expect Spiegelman to live up to his reputation as a champion for the legitimacy of comix. For more information on these and other upcoming events, In a New York Times interview last year, Spiegelman please visit our website at www.asu.edu/piper or join our commented about the ideas and events that inspire him mailing list by calling (480) 965-6018. to sit at the drawing table. He says, “I’m kind of hoping that my next work will be a humorous bedroom farce

6 EVENTS TINA HAMMERTON

HOMECOMING ROYALTY

MFA ALUMNI SHARE THEIR WORK AND SUCCESSES BY TINA HAMMERTON

What’s better than fried Snickers bars at the state fair? books, others having published many volumes and reading Try the “Fightin’ Writin’” Alumni at the Piper Center on from their latest experimental projects. Many were generous Homecoming Day. Several esteemed Arizona State Univer- enough with their short time between readings and book sity MFA graduates took time from their packed schedules of signings to give us a view of “this alumni’s life.” book promotions and/or full-time teaching positions at ma- Jorn Ake, a poet, received his MFA in 1999. Several of his jor universities across the country to visit their alma mater. key mentors—Norman Dubie, Beckian Fritz Goldberg, and They returned to read to an intimate audience that rivaled Jeannine Savard—are still here at the university and contin- the most loyal of football fanatics as well as new students ue to inspire students today. Jorn had great success with the eager to become familiar with their work and find out how publication of his first book, Asleep in the Lightening Fields, by they achieved their success. The work they read included po- Texas Review Press in 2002 and being awarded a residency etry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, some reading from first at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in January of

7 EVENTS

2005. Invigorated by these hard-won accomplishments, Jorn Gigan consists of sixteen lines, includes five couplets and two put himself on a strict diet of writing poetry and filling out tercets, with line one repeating as line eleven and line six grant applications. When asked how he keeps up with all the repeating as line twelve. While some people find working in deadlines, Jorn admits that he doesn’t rely on a rigid sched- forms restricting, Kocher says that for her it has been liber- ule or an early wake-up time, but instead on a new technol- ating “because you know what you have to do, you can just ogy. “I have a calendar program in my computer...deadlines think about the language.” She says that this makes it easier pop up forty-five days before they’re due,” he says. How to to think less about the subject or the politics of what she is fight distractions? While some people just give up carbs, Jorn writing about, allowing surprising things to come into the took more drastic measures: “I got rid of my television.” He poems she may not have seen otherwise. What started out says that even one hour a day as an intention to write only ate up too much time. What three poems in this new in- about the news, you ask? vented form has turned into a He’d rather stay informed much bigger project for Ko- with print sources that offer cher. As of June 18, she had another good excuse for just written six of them; at the what writers never seem to Alumni Reading she told us have time to do enough of: she had just completed num- reading. ber thirty-three. Ake has had his share of Upcoming surprises from tough, hands-on work to Kocher include a new book, inspire his poems with both The First Gods, and probably uniquely tactile experiences another book that includes and relations with human more of the Gigans, which beings from all walks of life. she is still working on. Ko- He has worked in construc- RICHARD YAÑEZ TALKS WITH JAIME DEMPSEY AFTER HIS READING. cher was among the very first tion, bicycle and Volkswagen of any MFA graduates to pur- repair, and the veterinary field, just to name a few. He also sue a PhD in Literature. She received both degrees from ASU. credits the experiences he had as a teaching assistant at ASU Kocher is the author of One Girl Babylon, When the Moon for giving him fresh perspectives. He recalls that one student, Knows You’re Wandering, and Desdemona’s Fire. She is winner when he took the class on a “field trip” to the ASU Art Mu- of the Green Rose Prize in Poetry and the Naomi Long seum to prompt writing ideas, told him “I didn’t know we Madgett Poetry Award. She teaches literature and writing at were allowed to come here.” Jorn was moved by the young the University of Missouri at St. Louis. man’s admission that he felt unwelcomed in what some still When I heard the word “Athens” I knew I was going to perceive as an “off limits” environment . . . arts and culture. like Kevin Haworth. While Haworth visited his alma ma- Ake’s new book, The Circle Line, will be available in 2006 ter, we traded stories about Ohio University, where he now from Red Hen Press. teaches and where I used to study. His is the quiet, relaxed Ruth Ellen Kocher likes Godzilla movies. She was so in- nature of someone who spends hours walking down original spired by one particular movie, Godzilla vs. Gigan, that she brick streets among buildings restored to their 19th century decided to invent her own form. Gigan, Ruth explains, is a beauty, in a town where the population of about 30,000 is low-bugdet monster that was made out of the pieces of pre- made up primarily of students. But Haworth doesn’t have vious unlucky opponents from other movies, with patches much time for strolling the grounds. He is busy traveling and of metal all over him and a buzz saw in his stomach. And so, reading from his new book, The Discontinuity of Small Things, the new poetic form Gigan was born. Ruth mentions in her a historical novel set in Denmark during World War II. weblog that some of the inspiration for the project is from Haworth spent several weeks in Europe to research the Beckian Fritz Goldberg’s invented form, the “shuffle.” The novel, but his original inspiration came from right here on

8 EVENTS

campus. While taking Melissa Pritchard’s fiction workshop, in this sports-crazed desert? It must be special readings and where he had been assigned to come up with one new idea events like this one that keep our school spirits up. Here’s each week for a novel, he paid a visit to a photo exhibit at the one last round of applause for all the returning writers who Memorial Union. The photographs were of contemporary encouraged us to keep going.✦ Denmark, taken fifty years after WWII, but that was enough for Haworth to wonder, “What happened here?” He brought the required three pages about his new topic back to the class 2006 DESERT NIGHTS, RISING STARS and received an enthusiastic response, enough to propel him WRITERS CONFERENCE to continue the project. In addition to teaching in beautiful Athens, Ohio, where COURSE TOPICS INCLUDE he received the Intra-Fraternity Council’s Teacher’s Award The Personal Story and the Public Story in Creative Nonfiction in 2003, Haworth does freelance grant writing for the Jew- Getting Your Manuscript Ready to Publish ish Fund for Justice, a non-profit anti-poverty organization, Finding a Unique Voice and has even written grants related to Hurricane Katrina. The Hook, The Door, The Invitation: Strong Titles Haworth was high in demand on this visit home to ASU—he Creating Powerful Characters was also scheduled to give a lecture and talk sponsored by Translating Poetry the Jewish Studies Department the following day. We were all Online Literary Communities grateful for the time he spent with us. Martin Naparsteck of the Salt Lake Tribune wrote that PANEL DISCUSSION TOPICS INCLUDE Richard Yañez’s 2003 collection of stories, El Paso del Norte, Approaches to Writing Historical Fiction “is less about how borders separate people than about how Writer/Artist Collaborations people, even those in opposition to each other, come to- Contemporary Canadian Writers gether at borders . . . how sanity is often indistinguishable Publishing in Small Press Journals from insanity, how the living can still love the dead and how Teaching Writing to Youth things that seem different are really the same.” But after hear- Playwrights Discuss Drama ing him read, I think I’d have to add the word “hysterically Contemporary Science & Nature Writing funny” somewhere in there to even begin to do him justice. Richard read some creative non-fiction about a heavy metal SMALL GROUP WORKSHOPS WITH bar in Juarez—I lost all composure when he started naming Forrest Gander Peggy Shumaker off 80’s hair bands at machine gun speed. I tried to regain Lee Gutkind Mary Sojourner dignity but he just kept reloading as Yañez crossed the border Kevin McIlvoy Michael A. Stackpole into my small town middle school past. I have been to Juarez, Elizabeth Searle Indu Sudaresan and I remember feeling strangely at home there from the minute I arrived. READINGS BY While Richard may like sipping a cold one and listening Bernard Cooper Alistair MacLeod to AC/DC, he hardly has time. He has taught at Antioch Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Laurie Notaro College, Colorado College, and has been a Fellow at Saint Carolyn Forché Jewell Parker Rhodes Mary’s College Center for Women’s InterCultural Leader- Robert Hass Aaron Shurin ship. His fiction has appeared in Our Working Lives: Short Tania Katan Gail Tsukiyama Stories of People and Work and was featured in the Chicano Chapbook Series edited by Gary Soto. Richard told us that COMPLETE INFORMATION ONLINE he is “advocating for all those individuals going from one Visit our website at www.asu.edu/piper. place to another.” Please note: conference schedule is subject to change. As I walked home, I started to wonder: what kind of magic is working in the English Department to keep us all here

9 GENRE CHARLES JENSEN

THE SCIENCE OF LITERATURE

THE EMERGENCE OF “SCIENCE WRITING” BY MATTHEW GAVIN FRANK

In the space between the Erlenmeyer flask and the into a world where romantic dinners are not only adorned inked quill, science writing lives. Cinematically speaking, with candlelight, but the fires of a Bunsen burner. Via this one might picture an explosion in a chemistry lab. As the Big Academic-Disciplinary Bang, a new inspiration was smoke begins to clear, we see a jagged hole blown into the born. The conversation between the scientific and literary lab’s brick wall. Unbeknownst to these struggling scien- genres was as inevitable as it is intriguing. tists, they were sharing this wall with an equally struggling While continually revolutionary, the fusion of science poetry class. Now, for the first time, these dazed chemists and literary aesthetic is not a new development. A casual begin to hew through the haze toward this hole, stepping flip through the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci allows through into a world of classic narrative and verse. And us to realize that the left and right sides of our brains these poets, sniffing the strange chemical air, step through have been shaking hands for quite a long time. (Many art

1 0 GENRE

historians point out that the painting of the Mona Lisa’s plough through material in a journalistic or review style, canonized smile would not have been possible without da or those that skip daintily, poignantly, humorously, or even Vinci’s extensive anatomical knowledge). angrily into creative writing.” A glance at the New York Times Bestseller archives re- This “dainty skip” is confidently carving itself into the veals that the contemporary reading public is more than fabric of Arizona State University, even beyond Morris’s ready for this fusion; in 1993, physicist Alan Lightman Master of Liberal Studies Program. At ASU’s 2005 Desert produced Einstein’s Dreams, dazzling the literary market Nights Rising Stars Writers Conference, poet and professor with his linguistically poetic look at metaphysical theories of creative writing at the University of Arizona in Tuc- on time and relativity. son, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Now this genre—this . . . this . . . discussed this conversation between science writing—has penetrated ac- “WONDER IS NOT ONLY science and poetry. ademia. Here at Arizona State Uni- “We poets are lunatic heirs to versity, the College of Liberal Arts & OUR STARTING POINT, pagan forces,” Deming declared. Science’s Paul Morris has launched Discussing her use of Science News the Master of Liberal Studies pro- BUT OUR DESTINATION.” magazine as a primary inspiration gram, a two-year degree program to her poetry, Deming stressed that for working adults in which one —SHARMAN RUSSELL many poets, like post-Copernican can specialize in “Science, Society, scientists, could no longer blindly and Creative Nonfiction Writing.” trust their senses, but interrogate Morris believes the fusion of science and creative writ- them. Poet John Donne was anti-Copernicus, but he was ing produces “a new way to understand the world.” stirred enough to write about it—an early example of the Many others agree. Numerous literary journals have dialogue between science and poetry. been launched on the exclusive subject of science writ- Deming, author of three nonfiction books and three ing. One such journal, the Science Creative Quarterly, calls collections of poetry (including Science and Other Poems), its subject matter, “. . . strong science-related humor, cre- went on to discuss that science, much like poetry, fic- ative, and poetry pieces. Some have even begun to call it tion, and creative nonfiction, aims to find connections in literature.” the world. For instance, she spoke of how human-induced Even their submission guidelines are creative: “Things global climate changes have changed the dynamics of rat that are newsworthy. Things that are not terribly so. Things populations, which, in turn, have changed the migratory that educate. Things that entertain. Things that both ed- patterns of predatory owls. These owls can now be found ucate and entertain. Things that are important to one’s further South. With fodder like this, it is no wonder sci- well-being, or perhaps to the global community at large. ence writing has soaked into the fabric of the literary Things that (at the end of the day) are really only there for aesthetic—like the owl into the rat. the sake of being there.” ASU’s 2006 Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Confer- The quarterly has published work ranging from a three- ence will again host a literary representative of science year-old’s take on chemistry; overheard dialogue connect- writing. Sharman Russell, in her book Anatomy of a Rose: ing sex with extinction, baseball with emergency rooms, Exploring the Secret Life of Flowers, declares, “Wonder is not “dirty” words with genitalia; a questioning of the “truth” only our starting point, but our destination.” of established science; a deliciously vulgar cartoon about Russell, a professor at Western New Mexico University butterflies; a meditation on evolution vs. “intelligent de- and in Antioch University’s (Los Angeles) low-residency sign”; a “love story” between science and the arts. MFA program, has produced numerous books document- The Science Creative Quarterly’s Editor, David Ng, states, ing her lyrical journeys into the worlds of hunger, butter- “We’re hoping to provide [a journal] that will accept flies and moths, archeology, and the American West. She all types of science writing. This will include those that has accumulated numerous awards for her work including

1 1 GENRE

a Writers at Work fellowship in Nonfiction and a Pushcart sored in part by a generous donation from the ASU Office Prize. Amazon.com believes Russell “leads the reader into for Research and Sponsored Projects territory where few humans tread... [Her] gentle grasp of Science and literary writing have long sought a similar humor, irony, and poetic language makes often-complex ideal: to understand the world in which we live. How, for information accessible—in short, lyrical chapters—to the instance, can one discuss the creation and implications of layperson.” the spider-goat without creative leaps of language. Sci- Russell will be on the ASU campus for the Desert Nights, entists have recently created this beast: a real animal who Rising Stars Writers Conference Friday, February 24, 2006, spins Kevlar webs, to be used by airline companies. In participating in the panels “Science and Nature: Writing circles such as this, the world is evolving into one large the Real” and “From the World to the Word: Contempo- science-poem, where the line between the beautiful and rary Science and Nature Writing.” Russell’s visit is spon- the wretched is becoming increasingly blurred. It is our duty, as writers and readers, to render it. ✦

ASU’S MFA PROGRAM IN CREATIVE a Benefactor also provides fee waivers to ASU’s writ- WRITING LOOKS TO FUTURE SUCCESS ing students for AWP, allowing more to attend. From open-to-the-public readings and workshops, to one of the finest annual conferences around, the Creative Writ- This year, the Creative Writing Program at ASU will ing Program does a lot to keep writers interested and celebrate twenty-one years of writing excellence. While involved. the program applauds its history of fine writing, it will The faculty is also excited about the program’s fu- also be looking forward, as it always has, to the future of ture. Professor Norman Dubie speaks of his hopes for creative writing. the continuation of “this weird sense of community we Following its tradition of community interaction, the have among the students that is somehow a birthing Creative Writing Program will hold a large celebration mechanism for all of the wonderful writing that comes at the Associated Writing Programs (AWP) conference from here.” And he’s right. The students in the program in Austin, Texas. On the bill of festivities are readings by seek each other out. The open dialogue between poetry ASU faculty, including Jewell Parker Rhodes, Cynthia and prose writers and the faculty’s continual encourage- Hogue, Melissa Pritchard, T. M. McNally, Beckian Fritz ment of students to explore beyond their genres allows Goldberg, and Ron Carlson. for writers in all camps to experiment and learn from If you can’t decide what to toast to first, how about each other. Tomorrow’s success stories are building their the program’s tradition of community? In a field where communities today. tooth-and-nail tactics toward literary achievement aren’t Interim Director Cynthia Hogue is excited about the exactly absent, the Creative Writing Program at ASU is international plans for creative writing and the role of renowned for its focus on community—not only be- the artist in the world. Back from a recent visit to Royal tween the students and faculty, but the greater commu- Holloway University in London just before the Met- nity at large. On the national scale, the Virginia G. Piper ro bombings, Professor Hogue says, “our international Center for Creative Writing supports AWP at the Bene- plans should of course proceed. Art is among the few factor level, the highest level of support an institution ‘languages’ large enough to meet these times. Our work can offer. This commitment to community encourages here is thus timely; and an enhanced, internationalized dialogue and interaction between all writing programs, vision that would result in contribution to the larger bringing writers together from across the nation. Being culture down the line.” SEE “FUTURE SUCCESS” ON PAGE 17

1 2 AUTHOR PROFLE

TRUE TALES OF A LOUDMOUTH GIRL LAURIE NOTARO AND THE ART OF LIVING YOUR ART BY MICHAEL GREEN

Humor writer Laurie Notaro is fat, clumsy, an idiot, a sonality as well as give some idea of the content of her loudmouth, and the dorkiest girl alive. work. This is, at least, according to the titles she has given her “If you take yourself too seriously and don’t laugh at successful books, collections of humor essays which in- yourself on occasion, believe me, someone will do it for clude The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club: True Tales from you,” says Notaro. “All I’ve ever done [with my writing] a Magnificent and Clumsy Life (2002), Autobiography of a Fat is beat someone to the punch. My readers are the same; Bride: True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood (2003), and I Love they’ll be the first ones to tell their best friend that they Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): True Tales of a Loud- went to a job interview with their fly open.” mouth Girl (2004). Notaro’s titles also point toward her intended audience: Her titles reflect her wry outlook and self-effacing per- contemporary women well versed in popular culture, irony

1 3 AUTHOR PROFILE

and self-deprecation who might have belonged to Gener- book deal the very same week that she lost/quit her job at ation X a decade ago, though they would be loathe to ever The Republic. A book tour and a multi-book deal quickly apply something to themselves as uncool as a label. followed and she has made the most of her opportunity, With her approach Notaro means to mine the truth and putting out five books in five years. humor in the struggles and minor humiliations in the ev- Though Notaro expresses no desire to go back to the eryday lives of young women. She also seems to be trying grind of newspaper writing, she concedes that the secret to challenge, if not completely destroy, the unrealistic im- to her discipline and book writing productivity was the age of women propagated by daily pressures of column a relentless media that depict writing. She would often them as thin, flawless, and “NOTARO MEANS TO MINE THE TRUTH pound out six 1000-word successful. columns a week, on a vari- “You can laugh at [the AND HUMOR IN THE STRUGGLES ety of subjects, and she said struggles],” she says. “They’re this made her really good at not serious enough to be fail- AND MINOR HUMILIATIONS “writing fast.” Though she ures, they don’t hold that sort concedes there are downsides of consequence. There are IN THE EVERY DAY LIVES OF to being under such pressure. very few things in life that “More often than not you can be considered personal YOUNG WOMEN.” think that your stuff sucks,” failures in my books—things she says. “One out of ten or you can’t fix: death, commit- one out of a hundred [times] ting a crime, and voting for the wrong candidate.” I feel like I really like a piece.” As far as the image of the thin, flawless, successful As a writer, Notaro says the spirit of Laura Ingalls Wild- woman, she says, “If I was Godzilla or even had a bigger er’s Little House series of books has influenced her, but that shoe size, I’d step on it. I’d love to squash the guts out of she generally stays away from contemporary humorists it.” such as Dave Barry and Sarah Vowell. “I don’t read stuff Loyal fans constitute a large readership of Notaro’s writ- that’s similar to mine,” she says. “I don’t want stuff to seep ing and they use her insights and perceptions as sound- in. You have to make your mark with your own style. You ing boards for their own. She says she gets mail every really have to develop that within your own self.” She says day; there are Idiot Girl groups and message boards, even that developing that voice may be more crucial in humor an Idiot Girl calendar. And her first book has 150 mostly writing than in other forms. glowing fan reviews on Amazon.com, though one reader As far as those other forms go, Notaro currently has dismissed it as “a long drunkalogue that attempts to cash what she describes as a “funny novel” under way. She said in on puking and smoking.” she found the form of novel writing difficult at first but But Notaro is unconcerned with readers that don’t get that it has eventually become easier for her, especially as her. “You can either relate to the material or you can’t,” she’s come to enjoy the freedom of it. “It’s liberating to she says, “And frankly, I’m much more concerned with open things up,” she says. “I can kill people if I want to. I making the people who ‘get it’ laugh—I am wholly unin- can’t do that in columns based on real life.” ✦ terested in converting those readers who don’t. I am not a missionary. I hate missionaries.” Notaro, who will have a homecoming of sorts when she appears at ASU’s 2006 Writers Conference, developed her FIND MORE PIPER CENTER INFO AT sensibilities writing columns for ASU’s State Press Maga- WWW.ASU.EDU/PIPER zine and Phoenix’s Arizona Republic in the early and mid (480) 965-6018 nineties. Eventually, after years of trying, she landed a

1 4 MFA FACULTY NEWS CHARLES JENSEN

BOOKS IN BLOOM SPRING BRINGS NEW WORK FROM ASU MFA FACULTY BY PATRICIA SANDERS

SALLY BALL began writing Annus Mira- The new poetry and fiction from ASU Creative Writing bilis while she was teaching at the Uni- faculty finds its origins in experiences as diverse as illness versitat Stuttgart in the late 1990s. Ball, and mathematics, the romance novel, and war. We asked who teaches poetry at ASU, says that the authors to tell us about the seeds of their work, their the book “grew up out of a poem in research, and how and why they made some of their impor- which the lyrical possibilities of math- tant choices. With each of these titles coming into bloom ematical language had become clear and over the next few months, these talented writers and gifted tantalizing.” While researching the his- teachers are sure to leave an indelible mark on contemporary tory of mathematics, she became absorbed in the lives and writing. theories of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, who both

1 5 MFA FACULTY NEWS

independently invented calculus during the 1670s. “The post-9/11 body politic. Hogue says she “began writing at book is mostly contemporary,” Ball says, “about a contem- a time when my life was defined by the disease’s pain. I porary speaker, but these theologian/mathematicians fig- contemplated in this way the larger Pain in the world— ure as forebears.” Annus Mirabilis earned the 2004 Barrow not my own individual experience, but that of others, that Street Prize and is published by Barrow Street Press. I was helpless to help. It meditates on the experience of losing ‘cognito’ and becoming a body I did not know. It BECKIAN FRITZ GOLDBERG explains became an experimental investigation not just of that per- that Lie Awake Lake “evolved from a sonal experience, but of the social experience of being an series of brief elegies I wrote in the ‘ill body’—of all body (rather than, as in the mental con- wake of my father’s death and prompt- struct, nobody).” Hogue is Interim Director of the Cre- ed a lyrical meditation on the body ative Writing Program at ASU and Professor and Maxine and form.” While writing the book, and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Creative Po- Goldberg read old medical texts and etry, as well as Affiliate Faculty in the Women’s Studies historical sources on anatomy. She Department. She was the 2004–2005 H.D. Fellow at the says, “it combines personal grief with Beinecke Library at Yale University. The Incognito Body is the larger mystery of our mortality, the historical and cul- forthcoming from Red Hen Press. tural conception of the body.” “Prologue as Part of the Body” opens, “Love and War,” T.M. MCNALLY says, when asked what The Goat Bridge is It begins with something backward— about. “Civil War, which is the worst. gardenia tucked behind True Love, which is the best.” McNally, the ear as if scent could hear an associate professor of English at ASU, its undoing began work on the novel while teach- ing in Germany, after one of his students Lie Awake Lake is published by Oberlin College Press. asked for an extension on an assignment Goldberg’s newest book is due from the University of because her lover had been shot in Kosovo. “Love and its Akron Press in 2007. “The Book of Accident is my punk- transcendent power is I think a recurring theme in my apocalyptic-fairytail-noir,” she says. “There are recurring books,” he says. “In my earlier work I’ve explored these characters such as the Torture & Burn Boys, Skin Girl, Wolf subjects closer to my backyard. So the canvas of The Goat Boy, a gang called the Sex Kings. Through a series of lyric Bridge is larger, perhaps, but it’s also a natural destination glimpses, their world unfolds as one haunted by the media given the paths I’ve been on.” The University of Michigan image, technological advancement and ultimately the rela- Press has published the novel, portions of which received tionship between the maternal and the violent.” Goldberg the William Faulkner–William Wisdom Gold Medal for is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at ASU. the Novella.

CYNTHIA HOGUE’s The Incognito Body MELISSA PRITCHARD’s Late Bloomer is comprises three “movements”: The first, about “a strapped divorcee with a teen- a meditation on being and time and age daughter who stumbles into ghost- memory, opens with a mythic and col- writing Native American romance nov- laged voice edged with the surreal. The els, only to find her life imitating art,” second, an experimental section, is a se- the author says. Pritchard, professor of ries built around the journal Hogue kept English and Women’s Studies at ASU, during the onset of a serious disease, says that in this novel she was “exploring and the third opens into an acute consideration of the answers to my own question of what is romance, and how

1 6 MFA FACULTY NEWS

does it differ from love? I needed to answer this for my- pin, Antoine de Saint-Exupery. “Prohi- self, so it made sense my protagonist would be female. My bition Nude to Her Bored Photogra- own experiences in romance, always initially exhilarating, pher God” opens, had usually turned disastrous or otherwise ephemeral, yet I believed (and still believe) deeply in love.” Late Bloomer I didn’t stand a chance of freeing myself was published in 2004 in hardcover (Doubleday) and is from this dream of being in a lost wind, now available in paperback from Anchor. creosote, and burning mesquite. You JEWELL PARKER RHODES’s Voodoo Sea- laid me out in the desert, inside son is the first in a contemporary trilogy about Marie Laveau, an African-Ameri- the blood gel, black celluloid can woman who became a powerful where I wore nothing... Voodooienne in 19th-century New Or- leans, and Laveau’s descendants. Laveau My Hand Upon Your Name is published by Red Hen Press. herself was a main character in Rhodes’s Savard is an associate professor of Creative Writing at novel Voodoo Dreams; Voodoo Season ASU. ✦ places Marie Laveau’s granddaughter, who is also named Marie, at the center of a mystery that leads her to redis- “FUTURE SUCCESS,” CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12 cover her grandmother’s legacy of spiritual empowerment. The program isn’t only moving up, but out as well. The second book, Voodoo Jazz, will take place in New Or- ASU also celebrates its alumni, who continue to leans before Hurricane Katrina and the final book, Hur- have great success. Recent graduates such as Rigo- ricane Levee Blues, will take place during the flooding and berto González, Jorn Ake, and Mary Gannon are but devastation of Katrina. Voodoo Season is published by Atria a few who are blazing their ways through the literary Books. Rhodes is the Virginia G. Piper Chair in Creative world. Former students are testament to the success of Writing and Artistic Director of the Piper Center. the program. They continue to push their craft in new directions, contributing to the expansion of creative ALBERTO RÍOS says of his new book, The writing. Theater of Night, “these poems are what ASU’s Creative Writing Program is on a skyward tra- is left of the love story of my great- jectory. This year, a new course focusing on editing and grandparents, Clemente and Ventura. publishing will be introduced, guided by professor Sally Their lives take place in a northern So- Ball who, in addition to writing and teaching, is Senior nora and southern Arizona landscape Editor at FourWay books. Courses like this and “Cre- that is both west and north—the new ative Writing in the Professions” give students practical American West and the old Mexican guidance. ASU will also offer an undergraduate degree north, both frontiers. But how can a map register both? in creative writing, to be headed by Jeannine Savard, How, as well can a single life be made of two people inside strengthening the program’s commitment to younger each other: Clemente and Ventura’s answers are the old writers. and new century stories these poems tell.” The Theater of With the inception of the Virginia G. Piper Center Night is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press. for Creative Writing, the quality of student work, and the continuing focus on the importance of community, “I like walking in unpeopled places . . . So does JEANNINE there is no telling how far the next twenty-one years SAVARD,” one reviewer wrote of Savard’s My Hand Upon will take the Creative Writing Program. Your Name. But the book is full of names—dedications; — Douglas S. Jones elegies to individuals; epigraphs by Federico Fellini, J. Du-

1 7 ICONS PAUL MORRIS

“HERE I AM...I MUST HAVE EATEN.”

KATHLEEN FRASER ON HOW(2) SURVIVE BY TINA HAMMERTON

Five-, ten-, even fifteen-minute late arrivals are slinking Todd Fredson has volunteered to help her read her play around on tip-toes and wincing, hopeful for a sympathetic “Celeste and Sirius”from her most recent book of poetry, glance from audience members. Discrete Categories Forced Into Coupling. As she speaks and Kathleen Fraser will have none of it. arranges props in the front of the room, including an in- “There’s two seats right up here!” Smiling and waving, visible set of headphones, her gestures are animated, her her bright blue eyes are a welcome relief to latecomers voice lively, and her face has the vibrant color of a life and a laughing reminder to the rest of us. Haven’t we all been there? PICTURED ABOVE: KATHLEEN FRASER (CENTER) PRESENTS A COM- When everyone has settled in, the ice not only broken PLETE SET OF HER LITERARY MAGAZINE TO SALIMA KEEGAN (L) AND but melted, Fraser announces that third-year MFA student CYNTHIA HOGUE (R).

1 8 ICONS

lived doing exactly what she wants to be doing. literature and a “King James lyric kind of music,” both of And now, she gets to spend more time living where she which she loved and memorized around the table with wants to be living. her father, a Scottish/British Presbyterian minister. “Ter- Fraser describes Rome, where she has lived part-time rified” at school when forced to stand and recite memo- for many years, as “walking through different centuries rized verses in front of the classroom, it was all this “Life- of architecture. Showing has-love-li-ness-to-sell,” through walls will be an- that made poetry “a kind of cient Roman bricks, hon- FRASER MOVED TO NEW YORK enemy at that point” until oring what was there.” Per- college. Then she met up- haps this is part of what WITH A $50 BILL perclass students passing inspired her to honor the poems down the rows of Etruscans in her 1990 book, AND STARTED TAKING CLASSES the lecture hall. Kathleen When New Time Folds Up. recalls “they were writing “I thought, I’ll never be WITH STANLEY KUNITZ. these little, anguished, I-I-I able to write about this, it’s me-me-me love lyrics,” but just too overwhelming,” “I HAD $5 FOR LUNCH MONEY AND I at the time, she looked up says Fraser, describing the to them and was inspired to awestruck journey to the SPENT IT FOR HIS BOOK.” write. Literature class was pre-Roman ruins in Tusca- “highly structured, highly ny that inspired “Etruscan formal, highly compressed Pages.” She was feeling an lyric work,” and this seemed immense grief for the “life-giving, erotic Ertruscan cul- a sharp contrast to her own experience, pulling the type- ture,” which was ground out by more military cultures. writer into the girls bathroom late at night. “I really didn’t Seeing that the only remaining source of the Etruscan lan- see any living writers, until I think it was my last semester guage is on tombstones, Fraser set about trying to convey and Robert Lowell was brought to school.” Fraser remem- these emptied spaces in the form of her poems while at bers she was shocked to learn that he spent up to two the same time filling some of them in with a language of weeks working on just one poem. “mourning and grief.” Things changed when Fraser took a class in creative Fraser was also moved by Rome’s Villa Medici, where writing, and was surprised by “a very big compliment.” she studied sculptures by Bernini. She gave a vibrant and Not long afterwards, she moved to New York with a $50 intense reading of her poem, “You can hear her breathing bill from her father and started taking classes with Stanley in the photograph,” which explores the myth of Apollo’s Kunitz, who stunned and impressed her at his reading. “I attempted capture of Daphne, and/or of Bernini’s reach remember I had saved up $5 for lunch money, and I just for them both, and/or of the museum photographer, try- spent it for his book. Here I am . . . I must have eaten,” ing to catch them all, and so forth. I was reminded of she laughs. Fraser’s statement in her book of essays, translating the un- Despite Fraser’s love for New York poets, she was some- speakable, which describes how she does not like to be cat- times bothered by their “Here I am everybody!” kind egorized (captured) as a certain type of poet, and therefore of attitude, or “performative,” ego-centered poetry that keeps “changing her address.” seemed to be their trademark. She was hungry for some- Hours after the bright noon reading and talk given thing different, but didn’t realize what it was until she read in the Piper Writers House, Fraser joined our intimate the work of Barbara Guest. Fraser states that reading a weekly post-modern workshop for a question and answer Guest poem was more like a “linguistic thrill,” with more session. attention paid to the exact use of language itself than the Fraser’s introduction to poetry was English children’s subject matter. She also met George Oppen, who used

1 9 ICONS

discretion and silence to convey the modesty she felt was these are readers of her poems, other writers, and those at missing in most New York poets. Fraser was partly react- the Piper Center who are working to archive How (2), the ing, she says, to a time period of identity politics where online revival of the ground-breaking journal, How(ever). it seemed not only popular but practically mandatory for When asked what some of the advantages and disad- poets to focus on themselves and their own suffering in vantages of putting a literary journal online are, Fraser their poems. She felt that she did not want to teach only said it had been created for people who just don’t have “confessional” work to her students if that meant the enough time. She remembers having “all these amaz- young women in her class would think that all women ing thick books next to (her) bed” that she couldn’t get who write poetry have mental to, and wanted to offer a short bite difficulties or are suicidal. For that was “completely accessible and these reasons, Guest and Op- not scary,” because public discourse pen seemed to be a validation about writing can be intimidating. At for what she had previously the same time, Fraser wanted to keep only felt in her gut as a nag- the spirit of the original How(ever) in ging feeling there was more to mind, which was among the first of poetry than revealing the suf- its kind to “investigate work that had fering of the self. been erased from the canon,” includ- “I remember having this ing experimental work by poets such realization—it’s so obvious to as Lorine Neideker, H.D., Gertrude me now, but everyone has to Stein, and others. Fraser feels that the come to a form of this on their online journal’s advantage—endless own—I didn’t have to write a ALBERTO RÍOS WITH KATHLEEN FRASER AT THE PIPER space—can also be a disadvantage. certain kind of poem, I started WRITERS HOUSE, OCTOBER 2005. She states that there is just so much with a line and that whatever going on that one sometimes feels came up into my mind I could put down next. It was OK. the need to simplify. Overall, though, she sounds excited I didn’t have to show it to anybody if I didn’t like it later, about the “collaging of visual and sound, mixed-media but that I could put it there, and that I could trust that or multi-media, and various kinds of performance” made whatever was coming into my mind (even though I hadn’t possible by this new format. Fraser acknowledges that decided for it to come into my mind) that it probably was without help, there could have been many disasters with some connection there that my brain was making, and that such a big undertaking. She refers to Cynthia Hogue as I wasn’t necessarily conscious of. So I allowed those con- her “stalwart angel,” telling us the story of a time she was nections, those unknown connections to start being there experiencing a big technical problem and Cynthia was and in order for them to be there the poem had to be of a able to find assistance. “It’s like a full-time job doing this different sort. It couldn’t be so focused on that lyric music. journal,” she says, explaining why she finally had to devote The other thing that I learned right about that time was more time to her own writing. that my ear was very shaped by what I realized was a bully, After a full day of readings, talks, and meetings, Fraser a bullying sound and part of that sound was coming from stayed into the evening to sign books for every waiting lyric . . . and I didn’t want to be bullied.” fan and posed with us for more pictures, bright-eyed and Fraser has paid dearly to carve out a space for herself animated the entire time. But it’s the words she chose near and other women, who feel there is a need to explore “the the end of her talk, not the ones written on the inside relationship of language to gendered experience” and to of my book cover, that I’ve committed most to memory: dare to experiment with that language while acknowledg- “After all, it’s your life—you should do what makes you ing its constant interruptions. Her important work is kept feel good.” ✦ alive by those who continue to value that space. Among

2 0 PUBLISHING

TOUCHED BY AN AGENT: EMERGING authors, or most importantly, participation in the na- WRITERS GET NOTICED tional (and international) writing community, by sharing work with interested readers to collaborate in the expe- He’s co-founder of a prestigious New York literary rience of something meaningful—reading. agency, twenty-five years strong and thriving and is a So how does one get noticed by the likes of Sobel? As former bookseller, publisher’s sales representative, mar- is so often the case in life, there are no guarantees. In “A keting director, and subsidiary rights agent who works Literary Agent Reads the Reviews,” published in Eureka, closely with Hollywood film agents and co-agents in Sobel admits what most writers know deep down: “Ev- foreign markets. He’s the kind of individual any aspiring erybody skims.” Editors, agents, sales personnel—every- writer would nearly die to meet. But Nat Sobel, prin- body in the industry—all are pressed for time as the big cipal at Sobel Weber Associates, Inc. is busy; he’s got his publishing houses face more submissions than ever and nose in the latest issue of Hayden’s Ferry Review (HFR). must make quick decisions. Keeping that in mind, asserts It’s common practice of literary journals like HFR Sobel however, could be a benefit, rather than a reason to distribute copies to agents in order to promote their for dismay. When asking himself, “What [am] I look- writers, and there’s a growing reverse trend of agents ing for in a short story?” he points to a story’s opening. digging into the journals to uncover emerging talent, At first, it seems an awkward reality which calls upon especially writers who are yet unagented, that have yet our memories of high school teachers instructing us to to be introduced to the publishing market on a broader begin five-paragraph essays with an “attention grabber.” scale. Sobel, a faculty member at ASU’s upcoming Des- But truthfully, if your reader doesn’t become engrossed ert Nights, Rising Stars Writers’ Conference in February, by the character, fictional world, or incipient drama in goes one step further. A five-year subscriber of HFR, your first few paragraphs, he or she may never get to the Sobel has a record of scouring journals for talent; in end, despite your assertion that that’s perhaps where your fact, one could argue he’s built his business this way. As brilliance is best demonstrated. So Sobel relishes a strong a result, Sobel now holds an enviable roster of diverse opening; he cheerfully recounts missing a subway stop writers, including Richard Russo (Empire Falls) and F. X. after becoming absorbed in a particular story’s opening Toole, whose short story in Rope Burns was transformed pages. To make an opening leap off the page, Sobel men- into the Oscar-winning film Million Dollar Baby. On oc- tions the speed or pacing of an opening’s prose, an un- casion, when especially struck by the quality of a story, usual description, a suspenseful hook, a sense of impend- Sobel has contacted HFR writers through the editorial ing drama, or a memorable character. No surprises really, staff. but all point to the existence of something—something “This is where the new and emerging writers can be distinctive and not easily abandoned. found,” confirms Salima Keegan, Managing Editor of As for the HFR writers contacted by Sobel about HFR, “not in the New Yorker . . . you have to get in here their stories, they speak of excitement and gaining a first.” Of letting the authors know that Nat Sobel has fresh sense of validity as a writer as a result of his e- requested their e-mail, she laughs: “That’s a fun call to mail. Sobel has encouraged these writers to send him make.” manuscripts, and several are at work on pieces they plan In the career of writing, in which the rungs of the to send to him down the road. Regardless of the pres- ladder are distantly separated or simply a mirage, both sure to publish or to deliver what Sobel is hoping for, emerging and established writers seek publication in HFR writer Michael Guerra knows to stay focused: “[no journals like HFR, not only to accumulate notable en- matter what] I’ll still write because it’s the only thing I tries on their curriculum vitae, but to assert (or reas- know how to do with any consistency, and as my brother sert) their standing in contemporary American literature. says, I like to suffer.” ✦ Publication in HFR could signal a stamp of authenticity, — Molly Meneely an entrance into the next echelon of serious American

2 1 FEATURES CHARLES JENSEN

TRANSLATIONS OF THE POSSIBLE

BREAKING LITERARY LANGUAGE BARRIERS BY MATTHEW GAVIN FRANK & ELIZABYTH HISCOX

Is translation translatable? Translating a work of poet- tance of “reproducing as exactly as possible the meaning ry, depending on who’s asked, is a nebulous endeavor, a of the source text.” Larson’s theory readily lends itself slippery slope, or an exact science. Some theories uphold to the mathematical. Her text, in fact, includes a graph: the doctrine of literal accuracy. Others allow for various square, circle, and triangle, connected by easy-to-follow cultural, personal, and religious beliefs. Certain translators arrows. The square represents the source text (rigid, four- see the original work as a springboard for them to explore sided). The translator’s duty is to “discover the meaning” their own visions of what the poem could have been. via “studying the lexicon.” The resultant meaning is repre- Mildred L. Larson, author of The Meaning-Based Transla- sented by a circle. Is the choice of this shape a concession tion Workbook, has put translation on a tight leash, reducing that “meaning” may not be right-angled, after all? Once the practice to a 1-2-3 process that stresses the impor- the translator “re-expresses the meaning” (under the twin

2 2 FEATURES

umbrellas of “reproducing” and “exactly”) the translation as rigid as it sounds) insists translation must be a “revela- emerges: the shape of a triangle. A side from the square of tory” act that exists “between” original author and trans- the source text has been removed. What is the geometri- lator, often spawning an indirect “friendship.” Revelations cal subtext here: adding is frowned upon, but taking away usually defy diagramming, and Barnstone insists that “mi- may be a necessity? Perhaps the equation is faulty in its mesis is impossible.” It has not stopped the revelatory at- concision. tempts. Marilyn Chin, currently of San Diego State, has pro- Numerous contemporary literary journals have incor- duced translation theories porated translations—in all that encompass greater CERTAIN TRANSLATORS SEE of their various theoretical variability. Her theories renderings—into their pag- have such translation con- THE ORIGINAL WORK AS A SPRINGBOARD es. Artful Dodge, one such cessions as cultural loss, journal, divides their pub- cultural gain, jingoism, im- FOR THEM TO EXPLORE THEIR OWN lication into such segments migration, hybridity, and, as “Poets as Translators,” interestingly, love. Chin VISIONS OF WHAT THE POEM and “Poets as Expatriates.” stresses that, like a sense of Their website bears an es- humor, expressions of love COULD HAVE BEEN. say, quoting Andre Gide, differ between cultures. French writer and winner How, then, does one translate a love poem from Chinese of 1947’s Nobel Prize for Literature: “. . . every creative to English? In an attempt to answer this, Chin employs the writer owes it to his [her] country to translate at least use of poetic symbols in translation. one foreign work, to which his [her] talent and his[her] How does one define accuracy in this case? The spot- temperament are particularly suited, and thus to enrich his on symbol cross-culturally? Like a person, a poem can [her] own literature.” experience a sense of exile. The poem is an immigrant. Other publications, like The Translation Review out of According to Chin, it is the translator’s duty to recognize University of Texas at Dallas, focus solely on translations both the grief and the hope inherent in an immigrant of poetry, fiction, essays and plays, accompanied by the poem. The translator must exploit this, employing an in- translator’s commentary and theory. Translation Journal, tegration that respects, but does not necessarily duplicate, out of Poughkeepsie, New York, calls itself “a publication its source cultural influences. for translators by translators about translators and transla- Again, however, there are no set rules as to how this tion.” respect is elicited. Ezra Pound believed a translator is a Here in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, our creative critic who can extensively alter a poem (some say own literary journal, Hayden’s Ferry Review, is entering the he improved on the source material), yet he still included fray with its new International Section. International Edi- pages of footnotes. This tactic, when taken to extremes, tor Todd Fredson remarks on some of the hopes and hang- could render a poem impenetrable without an accompa- ups of the process: “The project has been to respect the nying reader. For instance, a popular Yiddish phrase for full dimensionalities of language, to display the poetries of stop kidding around translates into English as stop bang- other cultures as responsibly as possible—and by poetries, ing on the teakettle. Perhaps, advocates of the exact can I mean writing that troubles the categories of genre. For justify a footnote here. Its very inclusion might subvert instance, translations of peyote songs by indigenous people the notion of an accurate translation, however. Surely the of the Americas. These are ‘non-signifying’ words, sounds original poet didn’t intend for the reader to disrupt the that contact the page, sounds which we could never ‘look poem’s rhythm by flipping to the back of the book. up.’ Their meaning depends on context.” Willis Barnstone maintains translation is a two-way The journal’s choice to take on the “untranslatable” has street. Barnstone, in “An ABC of Translating Poetry,” (not led to the integration of previously untapped technologies:

2 3 FEATURES

“We are trying to provide a venue that displays the work work. He said that while Swenson’s were more accurate to with as much context as possible. For one, a sound re- the original, Bly’s verve made for a more successful poem cording of the artist reading/performing the work.” This in English.” Transtromer became well-known in the States aspect of the work will be available in the online version because of Bly’s translations. Hogue then asked the ques- of the journal. Fredson is confident in the progress of the tion that falls at the heart of the translation issue, a ques- project, however daunting it may seem in this, its infancy: tion that deals with the originations of the art: “I asked, “We just have to figure out a different way to restore that How much of the poem in a Bly translation was yours and immediacy; we have a different task with the language.” how much his? He said, ‘Oh, about seventy percent Bly.’” Translation will also make its first appearance at the Is translation a deal with the devil, or a chance to open ASU’s Desert Nights, Rising Stars Conference, in Febru- up a new art form? As poet Norman Dubie puts it, Ameri- ary. Cynthia Hogue, poet and moderator of the scheduled can Modernism begins with an act of translation: Ezra panel “Two Voices: Translating Poetry” works closely with Pound’s very imprecise (even outrageously inaccurate) students delving into poetry translation, which she views but beautiful “translations” of Li Po. The complications of as “an art that requires humility as well as aesthetic accom- Pound’s translations alone have embroiled scholars for a plishment.” In a conversation with Swedish poet Tomas half-century, and there seems little sign that the divisions Transtromer, Hogue had the opportunity to ask the poet over the issue of translation and imitation will be resolved a question that most theorists would relish: either/or? “[I in the near future. These authors, at least, are glad that asked] what he thought of Robert Bly’s translations of his there are so many voices, in so many languages, clamoring work in comparison to May Swenson’s translations of his to be heard on the subject. ✦

PIPER WRITER’S STUDIO SPRING SCHEDULE OF WORKSHOPS WEEK OF JAN 16 - WEEK OF MAR 5 WEEK OF MAR 13 - WEEK OF MAY 1 INTENSIVE FICTION INTENSIVE FICTION RON CARLSON BARBARA NELSON Wednesdays, 6 - 8 pm Thursdays, 6 - 8 pm Piper Writer’s House, Tempe Piper Writer’s House, Tempe INTENSIVE NARRATIVE NONFICTION POETRY PAUL MORRIS JAMES MASAO MITSUI Saturdays, 10 am - Noon Saturdays, 11 am - 1 pm Scottsdale Civic Center Library, Scottsdale Borders Books & Music, Glendale BEGINNING FICTION PERSONAL ESSAY & MEMOIR MICHELLE MARTINEZ TANIA KATAN Saturdays, 10 am - Noon Sun 1 pm - 3 pm Borders Books & Music, North Scottsdale Borders Books & Music, Phoenix (Biltmore)

Complete registration information at www.asu.edu/piper/workshops

2 4 GENRE

BLURRING THE LINES

LEE GUTKIND AND THE CRAFT OF CREATIVE NONFICTION BY MATTHEW GAVIN FRANK

Former professional wrestler Bruno “the Living Leg- Perhaps he began to ponder his life, past and future. end” Sammartino stands 6-feet, one-inch tall. With his How, in his mid-20s, he decided that, in order to be a hands extended over his head, he would probably reach writer, he needed to uncover the stories of people from close to eight-feet. And topping these hands, eight feet various walks of life. He needed to travel the country on from earth, was writer, professor, and editor Lee Gutkind. his motorcycle and write his first book, Bike Fever about I’m not sure where this encounter took place, but I his experiences within the gasoline fabric of the biker imagine an old wrestling ring, Gutkind staring down at culture. the distant canvas, perhaps playing connect-the-dots with He needed to perform as a clown with the Ringling old stains of sweat and blood, thinking, “So this: this is Brothers, scrub with organ-transplant surgeons, immerse where Creative Nonfiction has gotten me.” himself in the world of veterinary medicine, childhood

2 5 GENRE

mental illness, professional base- of Vanity Fair writer James Wol- ball umpires. cott), founder and editor of Cre- He needed to produce works ative Nonfiction magazine, prolific of scholarship regarding the author, and Professor of English genre of creative nonfiction at the University of Pittsburgh which Gutkind states, “allows has taught us all a lesson. The the writer to employ the dili- truth doesn’t hurt. It almost gence of a reporter, the shifting hurts. voices and viewpoints of a nov- Now, the literary world seems elist, the refined wordplay of the ready to embrace this nearly- poet, and the analytical modes of painful strain of veracity. Cre- the essayist.” ative nonfiction contests are ex- He needed to launch the jour- ploding like popcorn throughout nal Creative Nonfiction and pub- numerous literary journals that lish the works of others writing previously relegated themselves in the genre. The journal, now to poetry, fiction, and book re- eleven years old, is still the only views. Arizona State University literary publication to exclu- is also beginning to embrace this sively feature works of creative genre, which Gutkind defines, in nonfiction. (Some of Gutkind’s a nutshell, as “information em- favorite authors in the genre GUTKIND, AN ENERGETIC SPEAKER, GIVES A TALK DURING bedded in story.” Gutkind was include Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, HIS VISIT TO THE PIPER CENTER. a featured writer at ASU’s 2005 Annie Dillard, James Baldwin, Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writ- Cynthia Ozick and John McPhee). ers Conference, and he’ll return to the 2006 conference as He needed to write a book on robots, studying at the well, participating in such panels as “The Personal Story largest robotics center in the world (Gutkind says, “I’m and the Public Story in Creative Nonfiction” and “Life as standing there with these guys who don’t say a word about Narrative: the Nerve of Memoir.” Gutkind’s visits have girls or sex—nothing but robots”) and he needed to write been sponsored in part by a generous donation from ASU’s a book on fatherhood, truckin’ around the country during Office for Research and Sponsored Projects. the summer with his son, to the Grand Canyon, the Pacific Unlike traditional journalism, writers of creative non- Coast, Seward, Alaska’s Exit Glacier, and the like. fiction aim to render their topics subjectively, fortifying But first, he needed to somehow write his way out of their research with a wealth of authorial reflection. As op- Bruno Sammartino’s clutches. You see, long before profes- posed to a sound-byte-style of interviewing, writers of sional wrestling was seen as acting, Gutkind had also writ- creative nonfiction tend to immerse themselves into the ten an expose of the dubious sport divulging such trade atmospheres about which they are writing, becoming the secrets as the prolific use of fake blood capsules, and the veritable flies-on-the-walls, until they have earned the fact that most of these “wrestlers” were “buffoons.” intimate trust of their subjects. See the aforementioned Sammartino was not happy. But, as Gutkind declares, chronicle of Lee Gutkind’s deliciously wayward lifestyle. “He decided to be nice and spun me around and let me Like many successful essays or pieces of fiction, Gut- down. But . . . he threatened that if he ever saw me again, kind stresses that a successful piece of creative nonfiction he would get me, lift me up in the air, and smash me down must have both a frame and a focus, but can also employ as hard as possible and crush me.” that most elusive of nonfiction writing techniques: inner Lee Gutkind: Godfather of the creative nonfiction point-of-view. genre, (he received this designation from the sarcastic pen SEE “GUTKIND” ON PAGE 29

2 6 THIS WRITER’S LIFE

CONVERSATIONS WITH STRANGERS

THIS WRITER’S LIFE BY LISA SELIN DAVIS

Ever since publishing my first novel, I’ve been suffer- age in the New York job market (I dropped out of urban ing from a case of sophomoritis. I wrote the first book in planning school, the only course of study I ever pursued grad school, at ASU, when my responsibilities were mini- that could lead to an actual job), I finally felt desperate mal and time was plentiful. As graduation approached, I enough to begin, in the hopes that journalism could fuel began to wonder how I’d fund my writing life in the real my fiction career; the only question was what should I world. I was always interested in journalism, but, like so pitch? many budding writers, I was intimidated, discouraged, and I was riding my bike down University Avenue, in Tem- confounded by the notion of pitching articles. Still, once I pe, Arizona, when I saw it: the lone historic house peek- was faced with the looming reality of graduation, and the ing out from between the strip malls and gas stations that eventual earning of a degree that wouldn’t be much lever- lined the street. It was as if developers had been erasing the

2 7 THIS WRITER’S LIFE

street’s architectural history, and they’d missed a spot. The I had steady enough income, I’d get a jump start on the house was an 1880 Georgian revival, home of Mrs. Rita, second: the journalism would fund my fiction writing, and the fortune teller immortalized in the 1992 Gin Blossoms keep me on an even plane of inspiration. song of the same name. How, I wondered, had Mrs. Rita’s Just as I’d spent two years in graduate school training managed to escape the bulldozer, when all the buildings myself (well, actually, learning from some of the greatest around it had succumbed? creative writing teachers around) to write fiction, I had That became the subject of to surmount a huge learning my first article. I wrote up one curve in the journalism world. paragraph about Mrs. Rita’s— I HAVE ALWAYS STRUGGLED I resigned myself to living like mistakenly calling it a bun- a student again, pretending I galow—and then I Googled WITH THE IDEA THAT MY “WORK” was getting a Masters at the “urban planning magazines” University of Lisa. Even now, and simply sent the paragraph AND MY “JOB” COULD BE I’m still learning how to rec- to every magazine on the list. ognize an article. Any time you Most didn’t respond at all, ex- TWO SEPARATE THINGS. start a sentence with, “I won- cept for the one that said it was der how...” that’s a good indi- a magazine about county poli- I’M NOT ONE OF THOSE FOLKS cation that an article is in the ticians, and how on earth did making. They usually start with Mrs. Rita’s fit in? WITH BOUNDLESS ENERGY. the question Why. But count- Finally, the editor of Pres- less times, something I see ev- ervation magazine’s online site ery day makes its way to the conceded, and paid me $250 to detail the murky reasons pages of the Times, and I have a sort of V-8 moment: Why that Mrs. Rita’s still stood. didn’t I think of that? (Does anyone remember those com- I was elated: the problem of funding my writing life, I mercials from the 1980s?) figured, was solved. I would return home to New York, and The highlight of my career so far came when I inter- buoy my fiction writing with such articles. I have always viewed John Sayles in a diner in upstate New York about struggled with the idea that “work” and “job” could be his then new film, Silver City. He was kind enough to ask two separate things: I never wanted to wait tables for my me about my forthcoming novel, and then about how I job, and do my work—writing—in the hours in between. managed to split myself between fiction writing and jour- It was partly a matter of pride—I worked for years in the nalism. “Well,” I admitted. “I haven’t actually written that film industry, in part so I could say something impressive much fiction since I started doing this.” when folks back home asked what I did for a living—and He nodded. “It’s going to be hard for you to do both. partly, it was a matter of knowing my own limitations. I’m They work the same muscle.” not one of those folks with boundless energy; I usually He spoke the truth. You’d think that the fact-gathering, write a paragraph and take a ten-minute break. I knew I’d the adherence to truth, the arrangements of pre-recorded be too exhausted by my day job to keep writing. quotes on a piece of paper would be far less taxing than So I parlayed that first article into many, making work creating an entire world, which is the work, I guess, of a and job one endeavor. Tempe, it turns out, was engaged novel. I thought that journalism would keep my literary in a fierce battle over its proposed historic district, in the muscles in shape, not exhaust them. Maple-Ash neighborhood, and I wrote a long piece about While I’ve had some moderate success—a couple of ar- it for another magazine. And the wonderful woman from ticles in the New York Times, writing for the new Life maga- Preservation kept having me back, and within a year, I was zine, or This Old House—I’m still waiting to hit this elusive making a living—albeit it a bad one—at freelance writing. plateau, in which the work finds me. Editors still complete- My first book was sold, and I just assumed that as soon as ly ignore my pitches, even when I come recommended

2 8 THIS WRITER’S LIFE

by their friends and have a long list of credentials (novel, reality of writing outside of the graduate school environ- shmovel, they seem to agree). When you have no trust ment. Almost all of us have to write on the side, except fund or rich husband, it’s an incredibly stressful life. And maybe the six or eight folks lucky enough to earn their so much of one’s success rests on whimsy: many editors living that way, and even then, I imagine there are a whole receive upwards of 500 pitches host of problems associated with a day; if they’re in a bad mood, that level of success (the pressure, chances are your brilliant story or maybe just picking out which idea won’t get a fair shake. writers’ colony you feel like go- I sound like I’m complaining. ing to that month). I’m not. Most days, I’m home I do know this: this time of writing with the cat on my lap. writing at home, of pajamas and Others, I’m out in some out-of- cats, is limited. Any minute now, the-way neighborhood, talking I’ll have to get a real job, with ben- to strangers, which is one of my efits, and leave the cozy cocoon of most favorite activities. But I am my apartment for some midtown no closer to solving the eternal office tower. I learned so much in problem of how to fund a writing life (potential rich hus- graduate school, but the work of being a writer—of carv- bands, please email me), and only halfway through my sec- ing out time every day to do that world creating—seems ond book. While I’ve written two drafts of the new novel, to parallel the work of Mrs. Rita, doggedly protecting her it might be years before I finish it. And maybe that’s the historic house amid the massive redevelopment around it. ✦

“GUTKIND,” CONTINUED FROM PAGE 26 “Inner point-of-view,” Gutkind states, “can be interior Certain critics of creative nonfiction, especially when monologue, or seeing the world through the eyes of your discussing the memoir, have attacked this level of truthful- characters or subjects. You can connect the character with ness as “confessional” and “naval-gazing.” Gutkind believes the reader without the filter of the writer.” these labels do not describe memoir, but bad memoir. Many may wonder how a writer could possibly speak “Memoir must teach a reader; communicate with for another person in a piece of nonfiction without tick- them,” Gutkind says, “Memoir must have a universal core: ling the reader’s sense of disbelief. our story plus something that makes it bigger.” “The reader,” Gutkind declares, “will take this leap if Morris agrees. “Memoir,” he declares, “is about what we know our characters well enough.” to leave out of the story . . . [The writer] must always ask, And how can we achieve this sense of intimacy? ‘Why is this important to me?’ What haunts you?” “Observe,” Gutkind says, “And ask questions. Ask [your As creative nonfiction finds its way into more and more subjects] what the weather was like on a particular day. MFA programs around the country, perhaps its widespread Ask them how they were feeling.” acceptance as a literary genre equal to poetry and fic- Students in ASU’s new Master of Liberal Studies Program tion is an inevitability. The genre is, indeed, like a battered will have the opportunity to make such observations, and ask wrestler, no blood capsules necessary, head-butting its way such questions. The MLSt Program, launched by the College into the literary mainstream, and winning. of Liberal Arts & Sciences to accommodate the academic Perhaps Gutkind, in his essay, “Creative Nonfiction in needs of working adults, offers “Science, Society, and Cre- the Crosshairs” put it best. He writes: “True stories, re- ative Nonfiction Writing” as an area of concentration. ported and expressed in unconventional form, can capture “The power of creative nonfiction is in its truthful- the ebb and flow of life, achieve a special dimension of ness,” Morris states, “and the truth has many versions.” enlightenment and unforgettable personal clarity.” ✦

2 9 O N S T A G E

FROM SCRIPT TO STAGE: SUZAN-LORI PARKS ON WRITING & PERFORMANCE the line. Such a theory of performance (and perhaps of human communication in general) that links the ver- Before author and playwright Suzan-Lori Parks won bal with physical and emotional truths, matches well the her Pulitzer for Topdog/Underdog on Broadway, an Obie complexity of Parks’s work. Here, humor and sadness are Award for Venus, and her MacArthur Foundation Award braided together, comedy and tragedy become inextri- (often quipped the “genius” grant), she had her first play cable, and her words can seem politically correct and produced at a small bar in New York called the Gas Sta- incorrect all in the same breath. It’s why some consider tion, with no stage, no lights, and an audience of three her work “difficult,” and it’s why audiences return again people—her mother, the bar owner, and again, emotionally moved and the homeless guy from outside. and uniquely inspired. Now, decades, productions, and When Parks sees her plays awards later, Parks’s Venus, based on performed, does she sit with a the life of an African woman enlisted critical eye? No, she enjoys giv- in a London freak show because of ing the actors and director space her unusually large posterior, graces to let go and enjoy themselves. the stage of the Galvin Playhouse “You don’t have to have my ex- at ASU, February 17-25. Esteemed perience,” she says, “have your director Laurie Carlos, herself an own.” But “if [the actors] ‘get Obie and Bessie award winner, will it wrong,’” she says, laughing, direct, just as she did years ago, odd- but asserting seriously, “it’s be- ly enough, for that first play by Parks cause they think there’s a point. at the Gas Station. If I wanted to write a point, I’d Such a coincidence is not the write a point.” She gestures with only allure for audiences attending her finger to make a period mark Venus in Tempe. In addition to the in the air. production of Venus, the Depart- Venus does in fact touch upon ment of Theatre at ASU’s Herberger many themes, never settling College of Fine Arts will host “The PULITZER-PRIZE WINNER SUZAN-LORI PARKS comfortably on a single point. Venus Project: African Diaspora Per- Instead, the ethics of exploita- formance and African American Theatre,” a weekend of tion and spectatorship, the mystique and commodifica- panels, readings, and receptions (all events are open to tion of the female physique, the intersection of race with the public, and most are free) responding to the current stereotypes and myth are all subjected to her poetic, dra- state of African American theater and forming a conver- matic, and, at times, clinical investigation. Parks won’t sation around the performances themselves. be in town for ASU’s Venus, but in the hands of director Those who attend Venus will experience Parks’s lively Carlos, her longtime friend and colleague and herself integration of language, rhythm, and action. Language, a celebrated figure in American drama, the result will insists Parks, “is a physical act,” and it’s a mistake to con- surely be explosive and intimate, merging forms and top- sider the mind and body as two distinct entities oper- ics with language that literally moves. ating independently. Instead, the essence of a charac- For tickets to Suzan-Lori Parks’s Venus at the Galvin ter weaves through his or her every thought, gesture, Playhouse, February 17-25, visit http://herbergercol- step, vowel, breath, and guttural grunt. To this end, Parks lege.asu.edu/tickets or call 480-965-6447. ✦ rarely includes much stage direction beyond the spoken —Molly Meneely text of her plays—the action is often already nested in

3 0 INTERVIEW MATTHEW VALENTINE

THE DEEP HEART OF POETRY

AN INTERVIEW WITH NAOMI SHIHAB NYE BY GREG THIELEN

Each day, within our culture, we are constantly bom- about everything from her family to her basketball team, barded with advertising. Someone is always trying to sell from politics to food. It is this combination of her “real- us something, whether it be a politician or a product. ness,” along with her passion, that infuses and enlightens Smoke and mirrors are used to confuse us visually, and her craft. within the world of linguistics, “spin” is the tool of the trade. That’s why it’s so refreshing when you come across GT: Where do you find your inspiration as a writer? Has something, someone, who is, in the strongest sense of the that place changed over time? word, real. Naomi Shihab Nye is one of those rarities. In many ways, meeting her is like meeting one of her poems, NSN: It has changed only a little. I have always asked my- and vice versa. There are no smoke and mirrors. No spin. self, Where do I go now? If you pay any kind of attention at Just the experience. And the passion. She is passionate all to what goes on all around us, how can our thoughts

3 1 INTERVIEW

not be lit up in all kinds of odd ways, all the time? I just They also may have more reservations and inhibitions. came back from my favorite plant nursery, where I’d taken Adults sometimes have to work at shaking off their cen- a few branches of a troubled mountain laurel tree, that soring filters, too. I had a playwriting teacher once who looked just fine before we went away on a trip. The nurs- said he was fifty years old before he could lose that sense ery-man held it closely, bit his lip, and said seriously, “Well of his mother standing at his elbow as he wrote, shak- the first thing we need to figure out is, is this murder or ing her finger, No, no, no. It can be something different suicide?” Things like that. The world outside is drenched for every person. Sometimes the older we are the more with light, voices, histories, interweaving impulses, little we expect ourselves to be “good” to write something secrets on the wind, loss, aching . . . “good.” I urge writing workshop I was always listening for the little “HOW CAN OUR THOUGHTS participants to cast that notion to voices and sidelong impulses. the side. Write something raggedy The way inspiration has changed NOT BE LIT UP around the edges. Something half- is this: as we grow, we figure out baked, not-quite-there. Hit the hard more and more the many ways fric- IN ALL KINDS OF ODD WAYS stuff, the risky region. We can always tion, pain, anger, all the so-called work with shaping, editing, later. negative things, can be deeply moti- ALL THE TIME?” Adults have more patience with vating to the creative process. Things revision than children and teenagers don’t have to be perfect for there to be inspiration. When do. They’re far more interested in discovering the mate- they’re closest to perfect, we might just bask. So I would rial. They always look stunned when I tell them how many have to say, the world of possible inspirations gets bigger times I rewrote Habibi and Going Going, my two novels for as we go. teens. Six times and eight. They were barely born when I started on those books. And they’re little books! I urge GT: How do you see the relationship between poetry and adults to read William Stafford’s many fortifying essays song on a personal level? about writing (“You Must Revise Your Life,” “Writing the Australian Crawl,” etc.) in his Poets on Poetry series of NSN: For me, poetry begins more with voice than it begins books from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and other nourishing with thinking. The rising up of sounds, intonations, the texts. But, there are more similarities between adults and clicking of syllables together, surprising configurations, childrens writing than differences.We all treasure the sat- two words finding one another and resonating rhythms, is isfying sensation of having said something, or something where the emphasis lies. Mouthing the words. The words being said through us. We’re all amazed to know more shaping us as we go. This feels more like song than intel- than we think we know. Writing helps us realize we know lect or intention. Of course there is thought within this, anything at all! We all doubt ourselves. One thing leads to behind this, but the intuition of the sound of the voice is, another, if we believe in that and let it happen. for me, a stronger beginning place for the poem. GT: What advice would you give to young, new writers? GT: In the work you have done with children and adults, what are the similarities and differences that stand out NSN: Read as much as you can, and widely. Read voices when comparing their writing? from other countries, too. Read deeply of the people you love best. Write regularly. Also, find some way to share NSN: Young children are more spontaneous, less edito- your work, get it out into the air. Whether in a café, a rial in their relationship with their work, more prone to writing group that you set up yourself, or through pub- zooming streaks of wonderful wildness. lications or the internet, there are so many ways to let Adults have more to draw on, more tools, more experi- work get out and begin having its own life. Develop some ences. Sometimes adults can spell better, but not always. resilience about not always being “accepted.” Nothing

3 2 INTERVIEW

can happen if you don’t let your work get out. Don’t ex- pect other writers to do it for you. Writers are usually GT: From your experience collecting poems from around not publishers. We can’t publish all the manuscripts people the world, what are these poems trying to say to all of us send to us. We are not agents or editors-at-large, either. as a human race? Is there a common thread? What, in your Sometimes we can give advice, but I find too many people view, defines the differences? to be a bit lazy at this part of the process. Do your own homework! NSN: The differences generally ex- We need to be willing to research, ist in terms of flavors, scents, tree- read literary journals, subscribe to names, town-names, geographi- them, share them in a round-robin cal and holiday references, favored cycle with our friends, be savvy as foods and savory delicacies, dis- to what’s happening where. Attend tinctive cultural details, etc. The the libraries, please. University li- similarities, far more important. All braries are generally terrific too! voices wish to be respected. Hon- I am shocked when young writers ored. Voices of poets usually believe say they don’t read much. Well, start we are tied together as a human now. I am a little shocked about how family. The travesty of voices in many manuscripts get plopped onto news stories and headlines makes writers’ doorsteps by people who poetry all the more urgent. For ex- just want to be in print as quickly as ample, President Bush saying this possible, with as little effort of their past week that “we’ll never accept own. Don’t worry if your work comes back to you in anything less than total victory” in Iraq. What a false con- that old trusty self-addressed stamped envelope. Hey, how cept! What a spectacular delusion! What an incredible scary is your own handwriting? Befriend it, spend a little selfishness of spirit! Are the families of all the innocent time with it, decide if you’re going to work on it some civilian dead and all our dead soldiers part of his concept more or pop it back into the postal stream again? There is of “totality”? We need poetry as a tonic, to refresh our re- no instant way to do this and it’s not exactly the same path lationships with abused words. We need poetry to open us for anyone. I have never had a publishing agent. up to larger life. My first anthology, This Same Sky, which came out in 1992 (Simon & Schuster) and is still in print GT: What advice would you give to not-so-young, maybe contains, I hope, a universal spirit of integrity and con- struggling, writers? nectedness.

NSN: Same. Find a few trustworthy friends with whom GT: In your opinion, does the poet or artist have a respon- you can trade work on a regular basis for dialogue and sibility to create work that speaks to the current political response. Don’t just flatter one another, give helpful situation in which we find ourselves? Is that possible? Can details. We all need to be part of a community of a poet sit down with the conscious purpose of writing a voices. Anyone can set up a writing group that meets “political” poem? Also, who is listening except for other once a month, and discusses work, and trades journals and like-minded people? Should that matter? wisdom and questions. If you feel doubt, as the great poet Edward Field once said to a group of students, “Invite NSN: I do feel a poet needs to find a way to respond to it in, give it a good dinner, and send it on its way the weird times in which we are living, in voice, since our again.” Doubt always visits artists. We just have to be channel is the voice. I have not found any blanket thick nice to it when it comes and not give it our housekeys enough to wrap around the world, nor would I want to. So forever. yes, it does seem to me that poets must, in whatever way

3 3 INTERVIEW

feels clear to them, respond in words. Of course, someone reading in every American high school and college. could easily be so sickened by what human beings are do- GT: What have you gained as a writer from living in the ing that he/she might be able to write about nothing but, southwest? say, birds, toads, turtles. That would also be political. As far as sitting down NSN: Well, we have a great sense of with the conscious pur- “WE ALL TREASURE THE SATISFYING space down here. We have wide mar- pose of writing a political gins around our pages. There are a poem, I always think the SENSATION OF HAVING SAID lot of liberal Democrats and Inde- conscious and uncon- pendents in Texas, by the way. I love scious realms are oper- SOMETHING, OF SOMETHING BEING heat and I love the big sky. I think it ating in smooth tandem has given me more than I will ever with one another, if we SAID THROUGH US. WE’RE ALL know. I also love the mixed cultures, let them. I don’t think the Mexican-American beauty and we can ever really have AMAZED TO KNOW WE KNOW MORE richness, the millions of Tex-Mex any idea of who is listen- cafes, the numbers of peppers in our ing. One never knows. THAN WE THINK WE KNOW.” grocery stores, the feeling of prox- imity to Mexico, and then, of course, GT: Where do you see yourself now as an artist and writ- there are so many other cultures too. I have always found er? that a few tomatillos and avocados and cilantro can put me into an instant better mood. Not to mention the tequila. NSN: I’m always hoping, exploring, taking notes, writ- ✦ ing regularly. Working on three new projects at the mo- ment—a book of poems, a book of short related prose pieces, and a picture book. Writing bits and pieces, al- NAOMI’S BLACKBERRY MARGARITA RECIPE ways. As ever, enjoying the feel of new notebooks and old (Tastes best while watching the San Antonio Spurs) notebooks crammed with scribbles. Feeling the poignancy of the deep heart of middle age—child gone off to col- 1 cup blackberries lege, parents blessedly still alive but tender in their aging. 1/4 cup tequila Feeling still like a kid when it comes to words and find- 2 Tbsp. orange liqueur ing our ways with them. I feel very grateful to have had 1/4 cup fresh lime juice the job/life I’ve had, speaking to so many students in so 2 cups crushed ice many places, being always itinerant. I have no benefits, but I have had every benefit of the free-lance life, you know? Blend berries and juice in blender for 10 seconds. It’s delicious and it feels lucky. I also spend a bit too much Add remaining ingredients and blend till ice is time shouting epithets at my personal government. I don’t almost smooth. Moisten rim of glass with lime or think this current disaster of arrogance will be cured in orange and dip in sugar. Pour. Play ball! our lifetime. I care very much about my country and my country’s reputation in the wider world. I despise spin Makes 2 drinks. and power and greed. I wrote a poem called, “Ted Kooser is My President,” and thank goodness for Ted, and all the Note: Pour pureed berries through sieve if you don’t voices that ring true to us, all our lives, and continue to like seeds. sustain us when official voices don’t. I urge everyone to read Every War Has Two Losers, William Stafford On Peace and War, edited by Kim Stafford. This book should be required

3 4 BEYOND BORDERS PAUL MORRIS

POETRY VEERS OFF THE PAGE A CROSS-MEDIA APPROACH TO VERSE BY ELIZABYTH HISCOX

An unconventional approach to the roll of poetry, on the page, one part poem off. This has resulted in hybrid Royal Holloway’s Poetic Practice program, which Robert poetic projects that are pushing the edges of the art. Hampson heads with visual artist/poet Redell Olsen, il- Pieces are sometimes performed in public spaces to a lustrates the explosion of interest in poetry off the page. sort of found audience, or manipulated on the page or in The Practice program focuses on contemporary experi- film to re-vision the words themselves (Olsen’s The Book mental poetics in North America and the UK—and then of Fur uses text blocks that are “damaged” to mirror con- it zooms out. A three-pronged program, students explore tent). While he does not engage in a performative poet- digital media, contemporary literary theory, and contem- ics, a multimedia or digital approach, in his own practice, porary practice in art/poetry. This manifests itself in a va- Hampson admits becoming “more reckless” in his mature riety of ways, but the recipe must consist of one part poem work, incorporating visual material. For example, in his

3 5 BEYOND BORDERS

chapbook C is for Security, Hampson uses found images dealing with the impulses and complications of an urban of locks and bolts to build meaning alongside his words. lifestyle. Many of the Practice students are approaching The result is integral, not illustrative, and a thoughtful ap- this eternal topic through site-specific work: poems/per- proach to the use of complementary arts is key. formance that are in direct relation with the places in Hampson sees a move away from a more traditional which they are written/performed. One student deals approach to poetry to be the future. He also acknowl- with “the illegible urban,” an idea that surely translates edges that there are pitfalls, most rooted in misperceptions to a place like greater Phoenix. Though one may come by beginners that there are no boundaries or standards. in contact with others in an urban environment, specific Hampson notes that movements of the individual will prove unread- an open/exploratory HAMPSON ADMITS BECOMING able. All roads may lead to Rome, but once one approach to the word is in the heart of the empire where one’s foot- “does not mean any- “MORE RECKLESS” IN HIS steps lead is an inscrutable science. Asking big thing goes.” Within questions, like the importance of the individual, the Practice pro- MATURE POETRY BY has always been the hard work of poetry. Now, gram, poets are en- through a multi-media approach, poetry is try- couraged to im- INCORPORATING VISUAL ing to get at answers for a twenty-first century merse themselves in society: a recent project, in this vein, consist- art happenings about MATERIAL. ed of a 24 hour walk across London, postcards town, keeping cur- mailed on the hour, encounters made, and a per- rent with Art Monthly, etc. Hampson encourages any writ- formance at the end of the whirlwind city immersion. er interested in experimental poetry to do the same: “just The Practice program is creating links between the ex- not to be afraid.” A quest for cross-media inspiration, he perimental poetry of the UK and US, and one might won- believes, will allow any avid learner to acquire the skills der what the differences in the two are. Hampson doesn’t to expand their poetics. A genuine interest in various arts, see many: “I don’t have a sense of gaps; there is a lot of music and film for example, will allow a poet to approach interaction. My sense is there is enough common ground the word from different vantage points. between the two that there is an easy translation.” Hamp- An alternative take on poetry is not a new son’s own poetic influ- concept for Hampson. In the 1960s-70s he ences are a testimony. was part of what was dubbed the “Liverpool While he is guarded Scene.” The musical portion of this port- about linking his aes- town creative explosion is well known, but thetic to any one group the poetry that was pushing boundaries and or era, his list of guides taking names was just as vibrant. Wordsmiths includes Ezra Pound, generated a multi-genre poetics that was seen William Carlos Wil- as a popular movement. Pairing poetry with liams, Charles Olsen, rock, and rhythm and blues, the writers of and later Denise Le- the era were backed by musicians, bathed in vertov, and Carl Ber- the light from liquid slides and sharing stages ROBERT HAMPSON IN LONDON nstein, Lyn Heijininan, with pyrotechnics. Groups were formed that and other American put on “events and happenings” that had poetic compo- Language poets. nents. Hampson was part of the celebrated Zoon Cortex. ASUs relationship with Royal Holloway University will A visual feast accompanied the delights of the word. allow for more “common ground” to be covered and more Liverpool wasn’t just a stage; however, it made the page. big questions asked on both sides of the Atlantic. ✦ In his Seaport, Hampson wrestles with poetry of place,

3 6 CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM NEWS

ASU TO OFFER CREATIVE WRITING in the pilot year of the concentration. CONCENTRATION FOR ENGLISH MAJORS The B.A. degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing consists of forty-five semester hours of Undergraduate English majors at ASU now have the course work. Required courses include Critical Read- opportunity to pursue a Creative Writing concentration, ing and Writing About Literature (ENG 200); three lit- in which they will focus on developing their writing erature surveys—one in English literature (ENG 221 or skills in either poetry or fiction and receive individual ENG 222) and two in American literature (ENG 241 and mentoring from the same faculty who teach graduate ENG 242)—and six creative writing courses. The cre- courses. ative writing courses consist of introductory, intermedi- According to Cynthia ate, and advanced creative writ- Hogue, Interim Director of the ing in either poetry or fiction Creative Writing Program, “We (ENG 210, ENG 310, and ENG developed the program in order 411); Literary Forms: Theory to provide a competitive pool and Practice (ENG 495); and of talented undergraduates with two pro-seminars (ENG 498). a quality major, with the same Six hours must be taken from access to individual mentoring, a list supplied by the depart- challenging studio workshops, mental advisor, and nine hours and special topics advanced are electives that may be taken courses in both creative writing from the department’s offer- and literature that our graduate ings at the 200 level and above. MFA students receive.” According to Hogue, enroll- Hogue says that the program was devised with the ment in creative writing courses will remain open (as overall objective of the New American University in long as prerequisites are met). As in the past, any un- mind: to pay careful attention to improving the edu- dergraduate student will be able to take creative writ- cational experience of undergraduate students. It is ing courses, but non-majors should not expect the same also intended to meet student interests and educational level of individual mentoring that majors will receive. goals. Undergraduate writing course offerings histori- Students are eligible for the program if they have cally have a high demand, with lower-level courses of- completed forty-five units of university course work by ten filling immediately and more advanced classes tend- the time of the application and have a cumulative GPA ing to have long waiting lists. of 3.0 or higher. Students may apply for admission no In general, the same faculty who teach graduate earlier than the end of their sophomore year. students will be teaching students in the new major. To apply, students should submit their name and In consequence, the new program will be limited in contact information, unofficial college transcript, and a enrollment. Hogue explains, “We are keeping the ma- writing sample—up to ten poems or up to fifteen pages jor small and selective, so that we can be sure to give of prose—to the Concentration Director, Prof. Jeannine the undergraduate students the attention their creative Savard (LL 315A), or the English Department main of- writing deserves. We want to raise the level of expertise, fice (LL 542). Complete applications must be submitted prepare our majors well, especially if they wish to go by 5:00 p.m., March 1, 2006. Notification of acceptance on to graduate school, and introduce our students to a or denial will be made by April 1, 2006. fuller range of opportunities in the profession.” Approx- For more information, contact the English Depart- imately six poets and six fiction writers will be admitted ment at (480) 965-3535. ✦ —Patricia Sanders

3 7 AUTHOR PROFILE

EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE RUSSELL BANKS AND THE BRAVE NEW NOVEL BY MICHAEL GREEN

Russell Banks is discouraged by recent American lit- can make this observation unconcerned that he might be erature. He sees much of it as small-minded and timid and accused of it. His novels and short stories are diverse and wonders why fewer writers are looking outside of them- far-reaching, stretching both form and content in an ef- selves and their immediate concerns for material. fort to seek out the larger world. One example of his “In American writing, there is a fearfulness of connect- ambition: he followed his 1995 novel The Rule of the Bone, ing the story to the larger world outside of our domestic the first-person account of a troubled contemporary teen- lives,” he says. “Nobody wants to take on the big themes, ager, with Cloudsplitter, a thousand page tome fictionaliz- the historical and political connection.” ing the life of the abolitionist John Brown and giving, in Banks, the author of fifteen works of fiction including 19th century language, a rich and meticulously imagined The Sweet Hereafter, Affliction, and The Angel on the Roof, history of America.

3 8 AUTHOR PROFILE

Though Banks does cite exceptions to the current trend has achieved a fine balance in both life (writer, teach- of timidity—E. L. Doctorow, Joyce Carol Oates, Phillip er, husband, father) and work (a body of writing that is Roth, Don Delillo, Louise Erdrich—they are mostly writ- among the finest and most well-respected in contempo- ers from his generation, a generation that came of age in rary American letters). the 1960s and wrote with an awareness of the larger world Banks, who got his start as a poet and who has pub- formed in the heated political and social consciousness of lished volumes of poetry (though he claims to have “no the time. special gift for it.”) says he went rather easily from poetry I learned this and other things about Banks over a three- to short stories early in his career because of what he day period during which I par- sees as their formal and aes- ticipated in an intensive writ- THE POINT OF A NOVEL, SAYS BANKS, thetic similarities, including ing workshop he conducted the fact that, unlike novels, for Arizona State University IS TO FORGET THE BEGINNING neither poems nor short sto- creative writing graduate stu- ries mean to imitate the flow dents. I also interviewed him SO THAT YOU GET LOST of time. “In a short story the during his time at ASU and beginning and end are inex- introduced him at a reading IN TIME AND SPACE: “READING IS tricably linked. The part of for several hundred people at you that adores music and which he read from his latest OUT OF BODY TRAVEL.” lyric poetry is the part that novel, The Darling (2004). The writes and responds to the Darling is set partially in Liberia and with it Banks reaches short story,” he says. out again to connect us to what we share with the world: Conversely, the point of a novel, says Banks, is to for- history, politics, and nature, both human and otherwise. get the beginning so that you get lost in time and space. This large tableau on which Banks writes the novel’s story “A novel is much more imitative of human consciousness of a white Westerner caught up in Third World political in its natural state,” he says. “And reading is out of body turmoil has prompted reviewers to compare it to works by travel—it’s an aural and visual experience. [You] start to Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene. hallucinate, to see things that aren’t there.” Banks invokes In his ambitions, as well as the way he carries himself Conrad verbally now, saying that when the master issued unmistakably as a writer, Banks could be a spiritual de- his famous dictum: “Above all else, I want people to see,” scendant of those authors. He keeps close-cropped a gray, he meant it literally and not as a metaphor. grizzled beard; over the three days I spent with him he For Banks, this emphasis on form is not academic. As dressed in what could be called writerly clothes: well-cut much or more than any of his contemporaries, he works navy blazers and linen shirts, a Panama hat short of the with different forms not only from novel to novel, but also sort of thing that one can imagine Greene and Conrad in moving from novel to short story to poetry to film, the and especially Hemmingway sporting as they wrote and latter for which he clearly professed a love. Most of our drank their way across the wild, stifling regions described interview was taken up discussing the films that had been in their books. made from his novels—The Sweet Hereafter (1997) and Af- Banks especially gave off echoes of Hemingway in the fliction (1998)—as well as four film projects based on his stories he told about climbing Kilimanjaro and hanging novels currently in development. out with notorious hard-livers like Nick Nolte and Taxi Affliction and The Sweet Hereafter were highly acclaimed Driver writer Paul Schrader (with whom he worked on and Banks knows he got lucky with them, as so many the film adaptation of Affliction). Banks, kind and patient, novels have unsuccessful transfers to the screen. He had with a great sense of humor—he has a sharp wit but also some input on both movies but received no writing cred- laughs easily at other’s jokes—has none of Hemmingway’s its for the films and when The Sweet Hereafter was Oscar willful self-destructiveness about him. He is a man who nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, Banks was unable

3 9 AUTHOR PROFILE

to share in the nomination. talked about how he ties He says this doesn’t bother his writing to the larger him, but his experience world and how with that with those films taught he means to achieve empa- him to wrangle more con- thy. trol of his current projects. “We want our work to He is the sole screenwrit- have some connection to er on several of his cur- the history of American rent adaptations, including literature. And we want to Cloudsplitter, which Martin bring into that tradition the Scorsese is producing for history and insights of our HBO. He says mastering own time,” he had told us the form of the teleplay in our workshop. “It seems is challenging, as he tries pointless not to have that to distill a thousand prose high ambition.” pages down to one hun- After I introduced him dred and fifty screenplay Banks went on to read pages, but he seems happy for about an hour from The that the work is his alone Darling. It was fascinat- to grapple with. ing to watch him gather For Banks’ last night steam reading the long sec- with us he was back to the tion he chose. It started out novel, reading from The a little dense with detail, Darling in ASU’s beauti- but became more compel- ful Carson Ballroom at ling and moving as he went Old Main, with its wood on. Afterwards, Banks was floors and lovely acoustics. BANKS DISCUSSED HIS WRITING AT A PUBLIC Q&A AT THE PIPER spent, and clearly he had had Before he read, I intro- WRITERS HOUSE IN OCTOBER. a catharsis of sorts. He had duced Banks with a short gone out into the world and essay that I wrote in which I tried to make sense of his taken his audience with him. He had found his connec- work in those terms he seems most enthusiastic about. I tion. ✦

BECOME A MEMBER OF THE VIRGINIA G. PIPER CENTER FOR CREATIVE WRITING

For only $35 a year, Piper Center Members enjoy a 10% discount on all Piper Writer’s Studio Workshops, a 10% dis- count at Changing Hands Bookstore, a complimentary 1-year subscription to Hayden’s Ferry Review and Marginalia, as well as special discounts and invitations to our Distinguished Visiting Writers Series. Visit www.asu.edu/piper for more information.

Your involvement—both through your donations and through your attendance at our events—makes us and our community stronger.

4 0 Q & A

Q & A ELIZABETH SEARLE, AARON SHURIN, INDU SUDARESAN, AND DAVID L. ULIN MULL OVER OUR QUESTIONS ON WRITING, CULTURE, & ART. COLLECTED BY CHARLES JENSEN MIKKI ANSIN

HOW HAS YOUR WRITING CHANGED OVER Four-Sided Bed and even more so with my novella Celebri- THE YEARS? ties In Disgrace, I feel I returned to a more straightforward but still edgy style of storytelling. ELIZABETH SEARLE (ES): Oh yes, it’s always changing— especially now. I started out publishing a story in Redbook This past year, I’ve had a sort of ‘mid-life crisis’ with my magazine; later, in graduate school, I was entranced by writing where I was mired in a long novel and really just Virginia Woolf and great stylists like my mentor at Brown wanted to ‘kick loose’ and try new things—so I’ve experi- graduate school, John Hawkes. My fiction got more “lit- mented with literary nonfiction, script-writing (in con- erary,” complex and densely layered, as in my first story nection with the film adaptation of Celebrities In Disgrace) collection, My Body To You; later still, with my novel A and, most notably, libretto writing, with the libretto of

4 1 Q & A

the one-act opera Tonya & Nancy: The Opera. The libretto nonfiction because it seems to me an emerging genre, in in particular was fun and freeing to write; I broke up the which the rules have not solidified, and I can merge a lot lines—based on Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan’s real of different strategies—narrative, reportorial, meditative, public comments—into short rhythmic phrases like in a personal—in surface of a more multi-dimensional way of poem. I’ve always wanted to try poetry; maybe that will looking at the world. be next! HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE THE AARON SHURIN (AS): It’s gotten more complicated, less POETRY OR PROSE BEING WRITTEN sure of itself, more informed, less didactic, more flexible, TODAY, AND HOW DOES YOUR OWN WORK riskier, less about what I think I know and more about REFLECT THAT CHARACTERIZATION? what I don’t know. On the other hand, especially in non- fiction, age has encouraged the urge to tell what experi- ES: There’s lots of rich, interesting work being written ence has done to me, a representative person. right now; I especially love the work of various adventure- some women writers like Mary Gaitskill, Maria Flook, Al- INDU SUDARESAN (IS): What has mostly changed is my be- ice Munro, Jayne Anne Phillips, Cris Mazza, Abby Frucht; lief in myself as a writer. And surprisingly, that confidence women who write in a frank, vivid, intelligent and sensual brings an ease in the writing process itself in many ways. style; I aspire to those qualities in my own fiction. When I wrote my first novel (well before I wrote my first I also like and admire the works of writers who capture published novel) I was merely putting together a story the and grapple with our ‘times,’ such as Don Delillo, George best way I knew how, without any instruction, without Saunders, Rick Moody, Joyce Carol Oates, David Foster guidance. Today, the process is more refined right from Wallace, Francine Prose; in my own work, especially in the beginning, whether in my head or on paper. Before I Celebrities In Disgrace and Tonya & Nancy: The Opera, I am start, I have a very good sense of the essential structure of trying in my own way to get at the essence of this ‘tabloid’ the book, where the tension should lie, how it should end era. (vaguely is enough for this). IS: I don’t think any one style of prose exists in today’s DAVID L. ULIN (DU): What has not changed is that the gen- world, and there’s no way to pigeonhole writing and say esis of every piece of work is the same for me—I mull that this style is representative of say, the 21st century, over the ideas for a long time, allow them to gestate, write as one could say about the 19th century with Dickens, when I am ready, invariably dislike what I have written, Hardy, the Brontë sisters, even Austen. read over after a while and like it better, and then con- I grew up on these aforementioned nineteenth century tinue working. I think it will be as difficult to write my authors with their thickly narrative styles, their somewhat tenth novel as my first, because I will face the same initial sparser dialogues, their within-the-narrative character de- doubts and uncertainties; that too is an element of the velopments, and I think my historical novels reflect this unchanged part of the process for me. aspect of my early reading. It’s changed quite a lot, actually—I started out as a poet, But my short fiction does not—it is typically more con- then became a fiction writer, and about ten years ago, temporary, the writing is less contemplative and more ac- morphed into nonfiction. I see all these forms as related, tive. And yet both styles of my writing, old-fashioned and and in fact, continue to work in all three, although my contemporary, are accepted in today’s world. focus remains, as it has for the last decade, on nonfiction. I think my essential themes or intention are the same—to DU: I don’t know that you can characterize it in any par- ask why and what, to look at experience and try to un- ticular way, and that’s what best about it. We live in an era derstand it on the most personal level—but the delivery when the whole idea of schools of thought seems, thank- changes. Right now, I am fundamentally interested in fully, to have broken down, and artists and writers are free

4 2 Q & A

to pursue their individual visions, whatever these may be. However, my first two novels, The Twentieth Wife and I’m delighted that there appears to be a collapsing of the The Feast of Roses are set in the harems of the Mughal Em- walls dividing genre, as well as high and mass culture; we pire in 17th century India. They were intended, to begin are, finally, admitting that we all swim in the same cultural with, to be good stories—my protagonist, Mehrunnisa, is sea. This is something I hope my works reflects, both in a woman who marries one of the Emperors and goes on terms of subject matter, and in regard to the blending of to become the most powerful woman in the Mughal dy- strategies I referred to above. nasty, responsible in many ways for the building of the Taj Mahal. WHAT DO YOU SEE “WE LIVE IN AN ERA WHEN In India, even today, moth- AS THE SINGLE ers will tell their daughters MOST IMPORTANT THE WHOLE IDEA OF SCHOOLS OF the story of Mehrunnisa, of FUNCTION OF ART, how powerful she was, how AND HOW DO YOU THOUGHT SEEMS TO HAVE BROKEN ambitious, and she still THINK YOUR OWN forms a role model for little WORK FULFILLS THAT DOWN, AND WRITERS ARE FREE girls through their moth- FUNCTION? ers’ voices. The novels are TO PURSUE THEIR INDIVIDUAL VISIONS.” considered by many to be ES: I agree with what Joyce feminist statements on the Carol Oates said in her Best — DAVID L. ULIN rise of a woman’s power in American Short Stories editor 17th century India when essay: she said the most important thing to her in fiction women lived behind a veil, and within the walls of harems. is that the writer convey ‘what it’s like’—whether ‘it’ is The novels are also richly textured with the real history a trip to Mars or an intimate moment. We are all issuing behind Mehrunnisa’s court intrigues, her power struggles, reports from our own ‘fronts’; I try to take my own expe- her other marriage to a Persian soldier, her building of her rience of the world and shape it into vivid stories. father’s tomb. I did not set out to write feminist novels, but I did want AS: As I see it, the primary goal of art is to bring both to give voice to the silent women of India’s past, and I maker and observer into attention, in order to participate wanted to write about India’s history and the forgotten in a nuanced world of particularity and substance. From stories behind the Taj Mahal. the maker point of view, writing brings me to such atten- tion in which I thrive. DU: I don’t know that art can ever have any function other than that of communication, of one isolated soul reaching IS: To inform. We all feel the need to communicate with out to another and saying here I am. This is its point, and our fellow human beings, and writers put their commu- its intention; this is why I read and write. Any other func- nications down on paper. My main interest right now, and tion seems to me, gloss, icing; what we are really doing is for the past few years, has been very strong historical fic- trying to figure out a way to talk. We live alone and we tion, with as much of a bias toward history as fiction. I die alone, but art offers us a temporary respite, the solace write about Indian history, and I feel that there has been of knowing that everyone else is muddling through it just so little published literature dealing with history in the like us. shape of a novel (with the sights, sounds, aromas and tex- tures of bygone times woven into a storyline) that I feel WHAT RESPONSIBILITY DO WRITERS HAVE compelled to write it. TO VOICE THEIR OPINIONS ABOUT WAR I don’t set out with a mission when I begin my novels; AND OTHER ISSUES? that would, indeed be presumptuous of any writer.

4 3 Q & A

ES: I am the daughter of a champion letter-to-the-editor IS: I find it difficult to consider that writers should have a writer and ‘community columnist,’ known in our family specific responsibility—especially one assigned to them by as Arizona’s ‘Lone Liberal.’ I admire my Dad’s passionate someone else. And this is only because everyone’s concept writings and I am trying to follow in his footsteps by fir- of responsibility differs. Writers, and other artists, create ing off my own letters (two were published in the New their art because it is something they cannot do without. York Times this past election cycle; it was very gratifying You are grateful if someone else supports, subscribes to, to diss Bush in front of millions of readers). In my fiction, why, even understands your passion. But passion cannot I feel I go at the political situation more by ‘turning up be assigned a responsibility; responsibility can come from the dials’ on aspects of our passion but not the other current American scene. I way around. admire writers who manage “TRYING TO SAY ‘ALL’ If a writer is moved to capture the current so- enough, feels strongly cial trends without getting WRITERS SHOULD DO ANY ONE THING enough, cares enough about preachy or reductive, like current events or events of the brilliant satirist George IS LIKE TRYING TO HERD CATS.” the past that move her to Saunders. create art around it, then Trying to say ‘all’ writers — ELIZABETH SEARLE she makes a statement. And should do any one thing is all of this finally arises from like trying to herd cats; writers have the responsibility to a personal passion, a personal interest in the matter, a per- be true to their own vision; if that vision can encompass sonal investment—those can only come from within, it is the political scene then writers should explore that. And, not taught, it cannot be couched in terms of responsibility yes, as citizens of this country who are sometimes in a po- or accountability to a particular society. sition of prominence, I do think writers should use their gift for language to speak out on the issues of our time DU: This is a personal issue, and every writer must decide and the appalling political situation we find ourselves in, it for him or herself. As for me, I think that merely being under Bush and company. alive is a political act, and it would be impossible for me not to have some kind of social or political perspective AS: I’m not clear about the word “responsibility,” or who in my work. That said, it’s important that the perspective is shouldering the authority there. Intelligence, courage, fit, that it be integrated; not all (or even most) pieces are and conscience carry their own burdens. Opinions are overtly political, after all. There’s nothing worse than a opinions, and opinions expressed are opinions expressed; writer using an essay or a story as a platform to spout a they may be useful for consideration, or they may be an- position. Just look at social realism as a movement; it rings tagonistic or hateful. It’s like a student saying “I like this false. piece” without saying why. To me, something more than an opinion is what I look for in writing. As for the sub- DO YOU SUBSCRIBE TO A PARTICULAR ject, there are innumerable possible substitutions for, or THEORY OR UNDERSTANDING OF LAN- related to, “war,” from Exxon/Mobil to Dick Cheney to GUAGE OR ART, AND IF SO, WOULD YOU AIDS to Regis and Kelly, and equally multifarious means DESCRIBE WHAT IT INVOLVES? of attempting to address the problem(s). We need every- one’s attention cast in every possible direction. If you are ES: I did study with the great postmodernist master, John interested in writing about rose geraniums, and can do it Hawkes, so I absorbed at Brown a sense of restlessness non-programmatically so that I can be brought into the with traditional forms and a taste for stylistic experiments. experience in exciting, unanticipated ways, I’d probably I wouldn’t say I subscribe to a specific school, though; I see it as a victory for peace. did relate to the fiction branded ‘Dirty Realism’ about ten

4 4 Q & A

years ago; and I do applaud the return of a lusher prose fishing, a prison escape, an encounter with a shark—can style after feeling somewhat starved for that during the be learned beforehand, and not necessarily by being able reign of the ‘minimalists.’ But I enjoy a wide range of to experience it personally. A writer’s job is to put herself writers; I like to stay loose and open in my own work. within the skin of her protagonist and the closest approach to that is to learn everything about the protagonist’s job, DU: The only theory I as- hobbies, friends, interests. cribe to is that of accessi- And once you’ve arrived bility, of clean, precise lan- “WE ARE ALL BORN OF WANTS at that knowledge, if there guage, and telling the truth, are any gaps in your under- no matter how difficult. Of AND DESIRES, LOVES AND HATREDS. standing, you make sure that course, when I say truth, it’s they are not visible to the a relative concept—I don’t THE SUPERFICIALITIES OF OUR reader. A writer’s job then is believe in objective truth. to convince effectively, even But we must all describe the LIVES ARE NECESSARILY DIFFERENT, if he has never experienced world the way we see it, no more than half of what he matter how uncomfortable CREATED FROM OUR STRUGGLES writes about. that is. That’s my theory of So you don’t so much art in a nutshell—without TO SURVIVE.” need to know your subject that honest, that emotion- as to know how to commu- al revelation, we’re all just — INDU SUDARESAN nicate it successfully. wasting our time. DU: To me, this means, knowing it well enough to under- WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO KNOW YOUR stand it critically, to look past preconceived notions and SUBJECT? received wisdom, to remake it on your own terms. I want to be surprised by my subject when I write about it, and ES: To me, it means you reach a point as a writer where this only happens if I know it well enough. you find material with which you feel a deep visceral con- nection; I felt I found that anew with each of my three HOW DO YOU MAKE YOUR PERSONAL books: first, when I centered My Body To You on womens’ EXPERIENCE USEFUL TO STRANGERS? bodies and on the various mind/body dilemmas presented by my work with autistic children in Special Education; ES: In general, I try to treat my experience as something then in A Four-Sided Bed, I found myself fascinated by gen- that happens to someone, “me” being way the least part der-bending and variations on the concept of ‘marriage’; of the equation. Perception and specific language authen- in Celebrities In Disgrace and in my new opera, I wanted to ticate material, exactly to the degree that no one “owns” explore our super-competive celebrity-obsessed culture writing, even their own. and how it warps people. DU: The key to writing about one’s own life is maintain a AS: To know your subject is to be ignorant of it except sense of perspective, to look at the points of connection, insofar as the writing may bring it into context, substance, the way the personal illustrates the global. I’m not inter- and integrated formal relations. You might be saturated ested in navel-gazing; this is one reason memoir, in gen- with information or experience beforehand, but you also eral, doesn’t move me, because in too many cases, there’s might have to surrender it to the constellation at hand. not enough of a connection to the outside world. What I want to know is how the personal extends outward—I IS: Anything you write about—a walk on Mars, deep sea want to see the universal particular, as it were. Be spe-

4 5 Q & A

cific, yes, and personal, but also try to see beyond yourself, see how your experience links up and illuminates a wider IS: You cannot even begin to write if you consider limi- point-of-view. tations. Every novel you begin has to be your best, your most ambitious, your most complex, better in every way IF TRANSLATED,WOULD YOUR WORK than the one you wrote before it. I think this is the only BE MEANINGFUL TO, SAY, AN way to approach fiction, with this limitless confidence, ABORIGINAL TRIBE IN NEW because there are going to be GUINEA? PLEASE EXPLAIN. numerous pitfalls along the “WRITERS EVERYWHERE way—writing blocks, a waver- AS: It might require a shifting context, ing in belief, criticisms from say, from ritual to secular, or some- TEACH EACH OTHER TO READ friends as you write. Beyond thing like that, but provided the prop- that there are a thousand blips er frame I would like to say yes. AND READING ACROSS in the creative process, and of course, the marketing process of IS: There is, thankfully, a universality BOUNDARIES INTENSIFIES writing but they do not really in human experiences. We are all born count as limitations. It’s all part of wants and desires, loves and hatreds. READING.” of learning how to construct a The superficialities of our lives are novel, and how to effectively necessarily different, created from our —AARON SHURIN market it. environment, our struggles to survive All art should be limitless, in that environment, our needs within in almost everything, including that environment. access to it by everyone. That last part is not always true, My work has been translated into ten other languages, because art is not always accessible either because it is and I do hear constantly from readers around the world that physically not available, or perhaps because, in the case of Mehrunnisa’s life and her story has given them a deeper good writing, there are still so many people in the world insight into Indian history and that they have found paral- who are not literate. lels to her struggles even in their own lives, so many years How could art be made more vital and useful to a public after her death. I have never ascribed to the theory that saturated in technology? fiction is written for a particular audience; it has no niche really, which can make it difficult to sell initially. But good ES: Despite so many dire predictions of the demise of fiction, in the end, will resonate with almost everyone, reading, books do still offer a particular intimate and in- beyond their gender or their geography. tensely private experience unlike that offered by any oth- er art form. And each generation, a small but devoted fol- DU: Obviously, some of the particulars would be irrele- lowing of natural readers is born. My own seven-year-old vant, but I would hope the interior sense of being human, son is living proof that passionate readers are still rising that universal, would translate, much as I’d hope it would up among us. translate for me if I were reading their work. But that said, of course I know writers and publishers have to constantly struggle to keep hold of those readers; DO YOU SEE ANY LIMITATIONS TO YOUR I am all for ‘thinking outside the box’ and finding new ART? IF SO, WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS ways to merge writing with other newer forms of com- OF THOSE LIMITATIONS? munication. A tremendous amount of writing goes on on- line these days and that shouldn’t be discounted; I predict AS: I see many limitations, and they are precisely the young writers of the future will find ways to tap into the things that keep me writing. energy of online writings and mix it with the more tradi-

4 6 Q & A

tional writerly values of discipline and craft. AS: As equally troubled as anything related to commerce IS: Reading is my biggest passion, well beyond the confines is, which is to say hugely. of a mere hobby. If I do not read for at least a few hours everyday I could not function. And this too is learned be- IS: Commerce is a necessary part of art. I’ve never sub- havior. When I was a child, my father read incessantly, my scribed to the notion that the artist creates art merely sisters and my mothers read, and so I was encouraged to for himself or herself—though in the initial stages of any use it as entertainment also. We did not have a television writing project, it is vitally important to write just for at home; there were no computers, no video games, and yourself. But beyond that first draft, you must allow other no other distractions. voices to infiltrate, listen to what others have to say about I think the best way to appreciate art as an adult is to your work, use some or most of those suggestions. Once learn to appreciate it as a child despite all the technology you are beyond this, you go out and market your work, that exists. share it with the world, communicate (if you will, picking up on the answers to two of the earlier questions) your DU: All art is about limitations; all life is about limitations. true intent, your passions, your information. I struggle with my limitations every day when I sit down If you are to be read by a wider world (and really, who to write; I’m struggling with them right now. Art is what writes to be read by an esoteric few?) then you have to we make within our limitations; art is both an expression be out in that world talking about your work as only you of those limitations and an attempt to surpass them, how- can. ever temporarily. As for implications, I’m not sure that’s how I’d put it—the implications of my limitations are the DU: I write for a living, and work as a journalist and editor, implications of my art. so my sense of this is influenced by these relationships and necessities. In short, though, I think it is essential for writ- HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE THE ers and artists to think in terms of commerce—not purely RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ART AND for money, but because otherwise art gets marginalized. I COMMERCE AS YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED don’t want to be part of a garrison culture; I want to be IT? part of the mainstream, to take part in a broad discussion, and I think all artists should. How do we effect society? ES: Long-term, over the course of my writing life, it’s been Why is our work important? I’d suggest we have to en- a challenge for me as for all so-called ‘literary’ writers to gage. Not compromise for the marketplace, but be willing plug my books into the commercial mainstream. Recently, to address the culture at the most central levels, to enlarge however, I have experienced a hopeful new development the scope of both or own work and the larger dialogue. in my career as I’ve enjoyed an explosion of media inter- est in my latest project: Tonya & Nancy: The Opera. Within IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE a few weeks, news of this opera project has been spread REALITY OF YOUR ART AND THE REALITY by the AP throughout the nation and even the world; I’ve OF YOUR LIFE? appeared on national TV twice, on ESPN and MSNBC. I am still only beginning to figure out how to capitalize on AS: Absolutely: In my life I’m just a poor doofus; in my this startling burst of publicity, but it gives me hope that art I live in a complex, shapely order where all parts are the right oddball combination of factors can catch the brought to attention and excited toward meaning(s). public’s attention. I feel I’ve accidentally punched a hole through the ‘wall’ IS: I write historical fiction, my first two novels are based that normally surrounds literary writing into the whole on an empress’s life, my third novel is set in India in 1942 wider world. in the midst of India’s freedom struggle from British rule

4 7 Q & A

and the Second World War. PIPER CENTER FRIENDS Nothing that exciting ever happens in my life. In an- other avatar, if I did not write, I would be a mere suburban The Piper Center wishes to thank our circle of generous memsahib. That said, I do enjoy my life, but I love escap- friends for their support of our programs and initiatives: ing from it into these other worlds that I have created from historical documents. PATRONS ($500 OR MORE) CLIVE CUSSLER DU: I’m better in my art (I hope), more thoughtful, more REBECCA DYER careful, more focused, more aware. Art is like my life, but RICHARD & LINDA WARREN heightened—they come out of the same well, but art is more conscious . . . although, in some odd sense, this may FRIENDS ($100 - $249) make it less pure. CAROL KOST THOMAS ROGERS HOW DO YOU THINK THE CONCERNS OF GREGORY WILLIAMS AMERICAN WRITERS DIFFER RIGHT NOW FROM THE CONCERNS OF OTHER WRITERS MEMBERS ($35 - $99) IN THE WORLD? CHARITY TAYLOR ANTAL EDDIE LUEKEN VY ARMOUR WENDY MARSHALL DU: I think the concerns of all writers everywhere are STACY BERTINELLI KATHLEEN MCAVOY always the same—to be honest about their ideas and ex- BOBBIE BOOKHOUT BRIDGET O’GARA perience, to tell the truth as they see it, to communicate JOAN BURTNETT KIMBERLEE PÉREZ across the void. MIKE CRONIN MELANIE ANN PRANITIS SANDRA D’AVY BRADLEY REARDON WHAT DO AMERICAN WRITERS HAVE TO CHRISTINE DEL DEO THOMAS C. ROGERS TEACH OTHER WRITERS IN THE WORLD? KATHY DOUGLAS WILLIAM ROSE WHAT MIGHT THEY LEARN? MELANIE GAINES BARBARA SEARLE MARK GULA BRIANNA TORRES DU: What we all have to teach each other, I think, is to JOSEPH HARRIS DAWN TRUEDE listen, to think, to consider. This is the problem with the JONATHAN JAFFE CYNTHIA VALE U.S.—that we live in a culture that doesn’t want to listen, SOL JAFFE JEFFREY WATSON that will not hear opposing points of view. This is as true JAN JANTZER CAROL WHITEMAN of the left as it is of the right; there is no sense of com- KATE JONUSKA KATHY WOOD munity, no sense of common ground. This is why I read CHIARA KINGSLEY DIEGEZ LESLIE WOOTEN writers of other cultures, and it’s why they should read EDITH KUNZ BARBARA ZIPPEL us—why we should all read each other, in a way. It gets back to that fundamental issue of communication: if we’re Although the Piper Center is funded by the College of Lib- talking, we can start to understand each other, and if we eral Arts & Sciences and a generous endowment from the understand each other, we can begin to see each other, Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, we need your support and which means maybe we won’t have to send our children involvement to continue our mission to cultivate a lively lit- to kill each other in the name of American values or Is- erary community in the Phoenix metro area. lamic purity, or any other abstraction you might care to name. ✦ For more information on providing your support, please turn to page 52 of this issue.

4 8 ALUMNI LINER NOTES ALUMNI LINER NOTES

JORN AKE (Poetry, 1999) re- and anthologies, including The Gettysburg Review, Black- turned to the United States and bird, 5AM, JAMA, Runes: A Review of Poetry, and Fam- now lives in New York City with ily Matters: Poems of our Families from Bottom Dog Press. his wife Claudia. Work he did in His chapbook, A House That Falls, won the 2005 Slapering Prague on Boys Whistling Like Ca- Hol Press prize and will be published later this winter. naries, along with work from The Circle Line, will be excerpted for BONNY BARRY SANDERS (Poetry, a chapbook produced by Popular 1983) lives with her husband, Ink, a conceptual project to put poetry in a retail environ- Tom, in Jacksonville, FL. Recently ment by combining designer clothing with the work of her collection of poems, entitled American writers. Touching Shadows, was published by Val Verde Press. She was hon- PAPATYA BUCAK (Fiction, 1999) ored to be invited to give a read- weathered Hurrican Wilma’s ing from the book, followed by a landfall in Florida by finding poetry workshop at the Jacksonville Museum of Modern crafty ways to catch up on her Art. reading until her power was re- stored. JENNIFER SPIEGEL (Fiction, 2003) recently published the short story "Kids With Horses" in Gettysburg Review. Her JEN CURRIN (Poetry, 2002) is the author manuscript, Love Slave, was recently named a finalist for of The Sleep of Four Cities (Anvil Press). the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel.✦ She currently teaches creative writing at the Vancouver Film School and Lang- ara College and serves as Associate Edi- tor for Nightboat Books, a press started THANK YOU TO OUR VOLUNTEERS! by former ASU MFA student Jennifer Chapis and NYU grad Kazim Ali. She The Piper Center wishes to thank our fall semester student is part of the poetry collective vertigo west, with whom interns and volunteers. Your hard work, dedication, and reli- she’s been working for over three years. ability are a huge contribution to our success. We wish you much luck in the future! HELEN HAYES (Poetry, 1995) is currently the headmistress of Chandler Preparatory Academy, a small charter prep ROXANE BARWICK school that offers a challenging private-school curricu- KATIE CORTESE lum in a public-school setting. Included in the school’s RYAN LEPIC six-year classical curriculum are two years of poetry com- MEGHAN MCINTYRE position (required for all students) and two years of drama BROOK MICHALIK performance (also a required course) that culminate in a KRISTINA MORGAN playwriting unit for the students. PAUL NORTH DIANA PARK SEAN NEVIN (Poetry, 2001) teaches creative writing for CYNTHIA REED ASU where he serves as the assistant director of the Young ILIANA ROCHA Writer’s Program and outreach coordinator for the Piper MARINA SHAPIRO Center. He is co-editor of 22 Across: An Review of Young EVA VALENCIA Writers and his poetry has appeared in numerous journals

4 9 CONTRIBUTORS CONTRIBUTORS

LISA SELIN DAVIS has written for the New York Times, Life, NAOMI SHIHAB NYE’s books include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Metropolis, and many other publications, and is the author Poems of the Middle East, Fuel, Never in a Hurry, Habibi, of the novel Belly. She received an MFA from ASU in and Lullaby Raft. She currently lives in San Antonio with 2003, and lives in Brooklyn, NY, where she teaches cre- her husband, photographer Michael Nye, and their teen- ative writing at the Pratt Institute of Art. age son. She advises international publishing through the Piper Center Advisory Board. MATTHEW GAVIN FRANK, MFA candidate in Poetry, has published or has work forthcoming in The New Republic, PATRICIA SANDERS is majoring in English literature and Indiana Review, Creative Nonfiction, Willow Springs, Belling- mathematics, planning to go on for an MFA. She knocks ham Review, Pleiades, Ninth Letter, Sonora Review, Gastro- together drafts on a powder-blue Smith Corona Coronet nomica, Brevity, and others. Super 12, on which she is currently writing a set of short stories based on anecdotes from her family. MICHAEL GREEN is currently pursuing concurrent gradu- ate degrees in fiction writing and Humanities with a con- ELIZABETH SEARLE is the author of A Four-Sided Bed, My centration in film. He grew up in Tempe and lives there Body to You, and Celebrities in Disgrace, which is currently now with his tropical fish and a stray cat that occasionally being adapted for film. She has taught in the Bennington uses him for food. MFA and Stonecoast MFA writing programs. She began writing fiction at Arizona State University. TINA HAMMERTON is a poet, social worker, and teacher of English composition. She has developed and facilitated a AARON SHURIN is the author of eight books of poetry, in- poetry workshop for victims of domestic violence. Her cluding the recently published Involuntary Lyrics; a collec- work has recently appeared in Coyote Brings Fire. tion of prose, Unbound: A Book of AIDS; and a forthcoming book of narrative essays, King of Shadows. He lives in San ELIZABYTH HISCOX is co-editor of poetry for Hayden’s Fer- Francisco, where he co-directs the MFA in Writing pro- ry Review. She has served on the staff of the Flume Press gram at the University of San Francisco. Chapbook Series and taught Creative Writing at Califor- nia State University, Chico. Her poetry has appeared in INDU SUDARESAN is the author of The Twentieth Wife and Watershed, “A” Literary Magazine, and Gulf Coast. The Feast of Roses. Her short fiction and essays have been published in literary magazines and on the web. She is DOUGLAS S. JONES is in his third year of ASU’s Creative currently working on a third novel set in India during the Writing Program. He will defend his thesis, a collection of 1940s, scheduled to go to press in 2006. poems, in the spring. GREG THIELEN lives in Tempe, Arizona with his wife and W. TODD KANEKO is an MFA candidate in fiction at ASU. three daughters. He has conducted other interviews with He reads comic books and plays with light-sabers, but only Norman Dubie, Allen Ginsberg, and Alberto Ríos. He when he thinks someone is looking. His work is forth- received an MFA in creative writing from ASU and was coming in Hayden’s Ferry Review and Roanoke Review. the winner of the 1996 Sarasota Poetry Theatre Chapbook Prize. MOLLY MENEELY is an MFA candidate in fiction at ASU, where she also teaches composition and fiction writing. DAVID L. ULIN is the editor of the Los Angeles Times Book A former professional dancer with Colorado Ballet, Pacif- Review. He is the author of The Myth of Solid Ground: ic Northwest Ballet, and Boulder Ballet, Molly has served Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason as Managing Editor of SOMA Magazine and Associate and Faith, and editor of Another City: Writing from Los An- Fiction Editor at Hayden’s Ferry Review. geles and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology. ✦

5 0 FRIENDS OF THE PIPER CENTER SUPPORT THE LITERARY ARTS IN OUR LOCAL COMMUNITY The Piper Center is committed to bringing to Your annual financial support is vital to our success. our area the most innovative, influential, and Because of the generous contributions of our friends distinguished writers of our time. These guests and patrons in the community, the Piper Center provide our community with readings, lectures, continues to succeed in our mission to cultivate interviews, and other opportunities that enrich our a vibrant and supportive literary network in the lives as creators and enthusiasts of fine literature. Phoenix metro area and beyond.

PATRON ($500+) | Receives Contributing Friend benefits plus signed book from a Distinguished Visiting Writer and an invitation to an exclusive Literary Salon for a Distinguished Writer. (Fair market value: $250.00)

CONTRIBUTING FRIEND ($250-$499) | Receives Friend benefits and a commemorative broadside of an Alberto Ríos poem made by Pyracantha Press. (Fair market value: $190.00)

FRIEND ($100-$249) | Receives Member benefits, 10% off ASU Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference Regis- tration, a Piper Center book bag, and recognition in Marginalia. (Fair market value: $90.00)

MEMBER ($35-$99) | Receives 10% discount on tuition for Piper Writer’s Studio Workshops, 10% off purchases made at Changing Hands Bookstore, and one year (two issues) subscription to Hayden’s Ferry Review and Marginalia magazines. (Fair market value: $55.00)

YES, I WOULD LIKE TO BECOME A 2005-2006 PIPER FRIEND IN THE FOLLOWING CATEGORY:

❏ Patron: $______❏ Contributing Friend: $______❏ Friend: $______❏ Member: $______

NAME ______

STREET/PO BOX

CITY/STATE/ZIP

PHONE (DAY) ______(EVENING) E-MAIL ___ (Funds will be deposited with the ASU Foundation, a separate non-profit organization that exists to benefit Arizona State University. Campaign code: MLPC•NLO5 Account: 30-X-MLDNOO76. Due to the value of the benefits provided, only payment in excess of Fair Market Value may be considered a charitable contribution.) ❏ Please charge my credit card: ❏ VISA ❏ DISCOVER ❏ MASTERCARD ❏ AMERICAN EXPRESS

CARD NUMBER ______EXP. DATE ______

SIGNATURE ______❏ Please find my check enclosed. (Please make checks payable to: THE ASU FOUNDATION.) THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION! PLEASE INCLUDE THIS FORM AND MAIL TO: Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing College of Liberal Arts & Sciences P. O. Box 875002 Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-5002 COMING EVENTS SPRING 2006 EVENTS

RON SMITH 2006 DESERT NIGHTS, RISING STARS WRITERS CONFERENCE Distinguished Fulbright Chair in Creative Writing With Bernard Cooper, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Carolyn Poetry Reading Forché, Robert Hass, Alistair McLeod, and many more Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 7 pm Four days of readings, classes, panels, and workshops Piper Writer’s House February 22, 2006 — February 25, 2006 This event is free and open to the public. The Historic Quarter on ASU’s Tempe Campus Registration info: www.asu.edu/piper/conference/2006 ART SPIEGELMAN Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Maus ASU CREATIVE WRITING FACULTY READING Lecture: Comix 101 With Cynthia Hogue, T. M. McNally, and Melissa Pritchard Thursday, February 2, 2006 at 7:30 pm Friday, March 24, 2006 at 7:30 pm Orpheum Theatre, Phoenix Carson Ballroom at ASU’s Old Main, Tempe Campus General Admission: $10. Call (602) 262-7272 for tickets. This event is free and open to the public.

SONIA SANCHEZ PIPER SCHOLARS/WILHOIT FELLOW READING Poet, Teacher, and Activist Thursday, April 6, 2006 at 7:30 pm Wednesday, February 8, 2006 at 7:30 pm ASU Memorial Union Alumni Lounge, Tempe Campus Desert Botanical Gardens, Tempe This event is free and open to the public. This event is free and open to the public.

MOREINFORMATION visitwww.asu.edu/piper call480.965.6018 [email protected]

COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES PO BOX 875002 ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY TEMPE, AZ 85287-5002