THE MAGAZINE OF THE PIPER CENTER FOR CREATIVE WRITING | COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

WRITING THE WORLD POETRY BELOW THE EQUATOR PETER PEREIRA ON THIS WRITER’S LIFE INTERVIEWS WITH JOSÉ CRUZ GONZÁLEZ & CHRIS BURAWA PROFILES OF MICHAEL CHABON | BEN BOVA | ZADIE SMITH ON GENRE: LITERARY ADAPTATION | TRUTH IN NONFICTION

ALSOINSIDE EDITHGROSSMAN | DONLEE | KEVINMCILVOY | GUILLERMOREYES IN THIS ISSUE

NUMBER 5 FALL 2006 FEATURES EDITOR UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS ...... 4 Charles Jensen Beth Staples recounts a writer’s exploration of South America and its people.

COPYEDITOR IMPOSSIBLY TRUE TALES ...... 7 Elizabyth Hiscox W. Todd Kaneko profi les the varied talent of Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon. Kelly Mc Williams STARS ON THE RISE ...... 10 Molly Meneely CONTRIBUTORS Elizabyth Hiscox previews the 2007 Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Max Doty Peter Pereira Conference. Michael Green Guillermo Reyes Tina Hammerton Beth Staples IN THE COMMUNITY’S WORDS ...... 12 Elizabyth Hiscox Isaac Wilson Douglas S. Jones Carlos Manuel talks community theater with José Cruz González. W. Todd Kaneko Don Lee WOMAN OF LA MANCHA ...... 15 Kevin McIlvoy Molly Meneely looks at Edith Grossman’s revelatory translation of the Cervantes classic Don Quixote.

PIPER CENTER STAFF MAKING THE FUTURE ...... 22 Jewell Parker Rhodes, Artistic Director Max Doty boldly goes where only Ben Bova has dared to explore. Roxane Barwick, Program Coordinator Charles Jensen, Program Manager MYSTERIOUS ALCHEMIES ...... 24 Salima Keegan, Editor/Publisher Michael Green explores the process of literary adaptation for cinema. Paul Morris, MLSt Program Director Aimée Baker, Program Assistant MUTUAL TRANSFORMATIONS ...... 30 Douglas S. Jones describes changes in this year’s Visual Text Project.

PIPER CENTER SHIPS IN THE NIGHT ...... 32 ADVISORY COUNCIL Elizabyth Hiscox sits down with Nightboat Books founder and ASU alum Jennifer Cha- Ben Bova Greg Thielen Billy Collins Raye Thomas, chair pis. Harold Dorenbecher Theresa Wilhoit Dana Jamison, chair George Witte BEAUTIFUL CHAOS ...... 35 Simi Juneja C. D. Wright Molly Meneely discusses Zadie Smith’s new book, On Beauty. Jo Krueger Kathleen Laskowski BROKEN PROMISES ...... 38 Maxine Marshall Isaac Wilson investigates the diff erence between fi ction and nonfi ction. Naomi Shihab Nye Barbara Peters, NO SMALL MYSTERY ...... 40 ex oficio Tina Hammerton talks with the Arizona Arts Commission’s and ASU MFA Alum Janaki Ram Christopher Burawa.

TABLE OF CONTENTS PHOTO DEPARTMENTS Geoffrey Gray LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR ...... 3 THIS WRITER’S LIFE: PETER PEREIRA ...... 18 Q & A: LEE, MCILVOY, REYES ...... 42 ALUMNI LINER NOTES ...... 49 PRINTED IN CANADA CONTRIBUTORS ...... 50 2 FROM THE DIRECTOR

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

Dear Piper Friends,

It has been another successful and exciting year for the Virginia G. Piper Center.

Thank you so much for embracing the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series! There were familiar faces and new faces—and, most particularly, a growing legion of teen- agers, young adults, and working professionals. Together, we proved that the Valley of the Sun can be a literary haven for all; that Arizonans care deeply about language and art.

Because of your generous appetite for spiritually fulfilling stories and poems, the Piper Center will invite the public to attend the 2007 ASU Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writer’s Conference evening events. Internationally-acclaimed author Walter Mosely will be our special guest and we’ll host a screening of Devil in a Blue Dress, starring Denzel Washington. Award-winning poet Tony Hoagland, novelist Diana Gabaldon, and returning favorites Bernard Cooper, Carolyn Forché, Tania Katan, and Aaron Shurin will also join our line-up of conference fac- ulty. The conference will take place February 21 through February 24, 2007, in the Historic Quarter of the ASU Tempe campus, which includes the beautifully restored Piper Writers House and gardens.

The Piper Center will also be collaborating with Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies to celebrate Cervantes’s Don Quixote. Edith Grossman, an award-winning translator of Spanish literature, will join us for several days . . . and we will do a concert perfomance of Dale Wasserman’s classic musical Man of La Mancha, which was based on the original Cervantes novel. These events will culminate with Edith Grossman’s public reading event on November 3.

I also look forward to seeing you at Zadie Smith’s reading at Old Main on September 16 and Michael Chabon’s event at the Orpheum Theater on October 7.

For those of you that have joined Piper Friends, thank you. For those of you who have yet to join . . . please do it today. Together, we can continue to grow our community’s passion and excitement for literature in all its varied forms. You can make a difference!

Warmest wishes,

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TODD FREDSON DURING HIS TRIP TO SOUTH AMERICA

UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS

PIPER CENTER FELLOWS TRAVEL ABROAD BY BETH STAPLES

Thanks in part to a Virginia G. Piper International Trav- of creative writing. As Todd set out for Ecuador last sum- el and Research Fellowship, MFA student Todd Fredson mer, fiction student Kriste Peoples flew to Florence, Italy spent last summer traveling around Ecuador, Peru, Co- to study the depiction of Africans in Renaissance artwork lombia, and Brazil. The fellowships—which were awarded for a creative non-fiction project. A third fellowship was for the first time last summer—were created to help stu- awarded after the Fall 2005 semester to Matthew Gavin dents in ASU’s Creative Writing graduate program fund Frank, who traveled to South Africa to study an artistic travel-related research for their literary endeavors; they movement rising out of squatter camps in Cape Town, d are awarded based on the literary merit of the student’s who is now working on poems he hopes to turn into a proposed trip, the potential for publication after the trip, book-length manuscript of poetry about his experience. and the contribution of potential publication to the field Now that nearly a year has passed, Todd’s trip to South

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America has proven itself to be literarily fruitful in many the terracing of mountainsides; how plants grow differ- ways. During the trip he made contacts with writers and ently at different altitudes; the medicinal benefits of some artists who are not only inspirations for his work, but also of the plants in that climate; and that Peru has over 4000 resources for him as an International Editor for Hayden’s types of potatoes! Gonzalo appears in beautiful detail in Ferry Review. His ruminations about the people he met the second section of “Echolalia.” and things he saw on the trip continue to provide new After Peru, Todd and Sarah decided to reroute directly discoveries that he explores through his poetry. Together to Bolivia, but at the border, they heard stories of an erup- with Sarah Vap, his travelling companion and fellow poet, tion in the political climate, protests over fuel, the indige- he has already published a four-part response to his trip nous people versus the European descendents in charge of entitled “Echolalia” in 42opus, an online literary maga- energy policy. Things were shutting down and becoming zine. The website describes the work as “a traveling im- unsafe. So, like most best-laid plans, these changed. Todd pression/poem/(non)fictional telling” of Todd and Sarah’s and Sarah decided to reroute to Colombia. Two weeks trip. The four installments of “Echolalia” are divided by later, the president of Bolivia resigned. country, and are poetic renderings of what they saw, what In Colombia, Todd and Sarah attended the Interna- they did in each place, and how their experiences changed tional Poetry Festival of Medellín, which featured dozens their thinking. The poems are a documentation of how of poets from around the world, including Wole Soyinka, Todd and Sarah processed (and continue to process) these Rita Dove, Ernesto Cardenal, Sherwin Bitsui, Breyten experiences alone and then together. Breytenbach, and Sujata Bhatt. Medellín used to be the Todd embarked on the trip last summer hoping to at- drug capital of the world—home to Pablo Escobar. The tend literary events in each of five countries, do research, poetry festival started fifteen years prior in an attempt to talk to writers, share his poetry, and listen to the work of reclaim the heart and imagination of the city. At the festi- others. In Guayaquil, Ecuador, their first stop, Todd and val, Todd and Sarah watched each poet perform in his or Sarah taught creative writing to 4th, 5th, and 6th grad- her native language, and then a translator or student read ers at the Inter-American Academy. They did an exercise the poem in Spanish. The festival was a major event; the entitled “You Probably Didn’t Know” with the students, readings took over the city. They read in parks, the zoo, asking them to write about things they knew about that universities, museums, libraries, out-lying neighborhoods, others might not. The results were beautiful and surpris- even prisons. The only resistance in the festival’s history ing. Some of the poems created in the residencies were came during the 90s, when a terrorist blew up a statue later published in the international section of 22 Across, by the Colombian artist Botero, killing several people. In the annual anthology of young writers published through response, Botero made another statue and placed it next ASU’s Young Writer’s Program. Others were included in to the ravaged one, along with a plaque honoring those the Ecuador installment of “Echolalia.” who had died. “This was an amazing thing to participate Todd spent the next leg of the trip in Peru, where he in,” Todd said. “Even if we couldn’t understand the poem, went to learn more about Yachay Wasi, a non-profit, Unit- there was still so much to grasp via inflection, body lan- ed Nations-recognized and endorsed education program guage, just the whole presentation, the author’s presence based outside of Cuzco; he was curious about the pro- . . . and crowds turned out everywhere. Poetry is a living gram as a model for alternative educations. The program occupation there.” was set up by a photographer from the village of Acopia From Colombia, Todd and Sarah went on to Brazil via to preserve the beautiful high Andean environment and a tributary of the Amazon River called the Rio Solimões. Quechua, the Incan language, which is still widely spoken. The trip to the city of Manaus took four days by boat. During their time in Peru, Todd and Sarah stayed with Passengers slept and passed the time in hammocks. From Gonzalo, an agro-economist who worked for a bank, but Manaus they moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro and who also spent time going to different villages speaking finally to Sao Paulo. The fourth section of “Echolalia” about sustainable farming practices. Gonzalo explained details the trip down the polluted river to the big cit-

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FROM “ECHOLALIA”

The road ran inland along the coast, along the Tayrona National Park. As we passed degrees of hills, varieties of green, a few people descended or got on, but there were few villages. Most residences were individual. Some with nurseries, some with little restaurants out front—open to the roadside, the short walls planked vertically and staggered along the tops, like rows of sandy, uneven teeth.

The voceadore tapped us, “El Zaina.” We got off at one of the restaurants. Across the paved road another road ran perpendicularly into the forest, canopy-covered, the trailhead at its end—to Arricefe, the campground where we’d stay, a long stretch of beach and undestroyed coastal forest. A cold can of Cerveza Aguila first. Per- haps that would be best.

“. . . and their uniforms look exactly the same, except for the badge—”

At first I thought the Americans might be useful, know a little information about where we were going. Six of them. Five men with the tattoos & stubble-growth INTERNATIONAL POETRY FESTIVAL OF MEDELLÍN of our extreme-sports generation, shirts advertising an intimacy with mountain biking or climbing products, a ies where original art is sold among fake jewelry and the few board sports. And that blasé-cool, laissez-faire in- homeless wearing placards. They met a couple like them- tensity that comes with technological advances, know- selves: artists studying for their Masters degrees, though ing the right equipment should render any death-trap in visual art. a manageable thrill, then back to the office. Basic SUV- Todd and Sarah filled their journals with images and commercial. And one woman, not sure how to compli- notes to take home with them: a turtle they saw on the cate the eager velocity of the conversation. Caribbean coast of Colombia giving birth by moonlight; the tiny needles of Peruvian grandmothers hand-making “—and his gun!” One makes sideways, cocked-wrist, lace at the market; pigs leashed like dogs on the roadside gun-pointing gestures. Our image of inner-city gang- in Ecuador; spirals of whole orange rinds on the side of sters. Another ran across the road to a vendor and re- orange juice carts. “Echolalia” can be seen in all four parts turned with a sachet of airy fried doughballs, shrimp- on 42opus. Todd and Sarah consider it a work in-progress, flavored, with a texture like pork rinds. “You’re not and eventually plan to revise it into an electronic chap- going to eat that . . . .” “Oh yeah.” book, with video and photos, and perhaps into a print version as well. — Todd Fredson/Sarah Vap Originally appeared in 42opus

6 ICONS PATRICIA WILLIAMS

IMPOSSIBLY TRUE TALES

MICHAEL CHABON ON BLURRING LINES & BLOWING MINDS BY W. TODD KANEKO

Michael Chabon is going to blow your mind. Since the ary Houdini, and the coolest writer in America. Strangely, debut of his first novel, he has been praised as the current many of these accolades may well be due to his love of the young star of American letters. In addition to the 2001 kinds of fiction that are frowned upon by most purveyors Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, he won the New York Society of “serious” literature. Prize for Fiction, the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, Chabon’s literary career began with The Mysteries of the Commonwealth Club Gold Medal, and many others. Pittsburgh—the story of a gangster’s son who finds himself The New York Times compared his prose to the webs wo- caught between two romances, one male and one female. ven by a magical spider, and the Chicago Tribune declared This Fitzgeraldesque coming-of-age book was well-re- his sentences “so cozy they’ll wrap you up and kiss you ceived by critics and readers alike, sitting on the New York goodnight.” He has been hailed as a prose magician, a liter- Times Bestseller list for twelve weeks. After the success of

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Mysteries, Chabon worked for five years on a novel called ing novel about religious, political and sexual identities Fountain City. He eventually abandoned the project and that is equally rooted in comic book fantasy and the bru- wrote Wonder Boys, the story of Grady Tripp, a writer over- tal real world during World War II. In the book, Chabon come with writers’ block as he attempts to complete his pairs Sammy Clay, an American Jew in New York, with second novel. Michael Douglas and Toby Maguire starred Joe Kavalier, a Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia. The in the film adaptation of Wonder Boys, which earned seven two young friends find their calling in the world of comic Academy Award nominations. The book marked Chabon’s books, making their mark on the industry with their in- successful sophomore effort, and while the critical success vented hero, the Escapist—the super-powered champion of these first two books cemented Chabon’s place in liter- of a secret organization dedicated to bestowing freedom ary fiction, his third novel would be the book by which upon all those who live in slavery and oppression. The most readers would come to identify him. novel is global in its scope, moving from Prague to Brook- At the age of only 37, Chabon won the Pulitzer Prize for lyn, and even to Antarctica as Joe and Sammy struggle The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It’s a sprawl- against anti-Semitism, McCarthyism, and homophobia. Kavalier and Clay is remarkable not only in the scope of its material, but also because the novel proves that an author BOUNDARY-BUSTING BOOKS can write about superheroes without sacrificing his place in the genre of literary fiction. Michael Chabon is by no The careers of Sammy and Joe parallel in many ways means the only writer of the careers of real life comics pioneers—Joe’s artwork re- literary fiction to sully his sembles Jim Steranko’s montage-like page layouts and noir hands in the materials of aesthetics, while Sammy may very well be a shadow of popular culture and genre Stan Lee, the creator of Spider-Man and the Incredible fiction. Many contemporary Hulk. The book demonstrates a genuine love for comics, writers use the lines that de- and as a result, Chabon has not only been embraced by fine genres of fiction to give comic book fans, but by the industry as well. He was se- shape to their imaginations lected as an award presenter at the 2003 Eisner Awards, the rather than be restricted to comics industry equivalent of the Oscars, and in 2004 he the realist realm of high lit- was invited to give the keynote address. JSA: All Stars #7, erature. If you enjoyed read- published by DC Comics in 2004, features Chabon’s story ing The Amazing Adven- about what it must be like to be the sibling of a super- tures of Kavalier and Clay hero, and Dark Horse Comics currently publishes Michael and The Final Solution, you might think about checking out Chabon Presents the Amazing Adventures of the Escapist. This some of these books: series features stories by literary authors like Glen David Gold and Chris Offutt alongside the work of big comics Willfull Creatures: Stories, Aimee Bender names like Will Eisner, Marv Wolfman, Jim Starlin, and Specimen Days, Michael Cunningham Bill Sienkewicz. Carter Beats the Devil, Glen David Gold While the Escapist continues his adventures in the ca- Men and Cartoons, Jonathan Lethem pable hands of other storytellers, Chabon has continued to Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link cross the lines of pop culture and highbrow literature. In The Knife Thrower and Other Stories, Steven Millhauser Summerland, eleven-year-old Ethan Feld traverses parallel The Prestige, Christopher Priest universes in search of players for a baseball game of cos- The Glorious Deception, Jim Steinmeyer mic proportions. The fate of the world is at stake in Cha- Chang and Eng, Darin Strauss bon’s first fantasy novel for young readers, and Ethan must somehow overcome the fact that he is the worst player

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ever to have played the game. Summerland is as much a teenth century China. His newest novel, The Yiddish Po- tribute to baseball as Kavalier and Clay is an homage to licemen’s Union, takes place in an alternate reality in which comic books—the author weaves a tale that the Jews were given the Alaskan relies on sports mythologies and folklore to panhandle rather than land in give it shape, thereby grounding the fantasy the Middle East—the book is of magic and dimensional travel in a frame- due out in 2007. work of American legend and tradition. On October 7 of this year, Similarly, in The Final Solution, Chabon in- the Virginia G. Piper Center vokes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as he writes for Creative Writing welcomes about an aging beekeeper, who may or may Michael Chabon to the Valley not be a retired Sherlock Holmes, in search of the Sun. The evening will in- of a stolen parrot whose squawking might clude a talk about his work, a be the key to unearthing Nazi secrets. question and answer session, and It has been said that with the publica- a chance to meet the author and tion of Kavalier and Clay, Chabon’s writing have a book signed. This event has moved from writing about characters in is part of the Disinguished Visit- search of love or acceptance to more light- ing Writers Series and promises hearted heroes set in milieus more suited to to be an occasion that will reso- Ray Bradbury than F. Scott Fitzgerald. But nate in Phoenix’s literary com- the seeds of Chabon’s later genre-bend- munity for some time to come. ing works lay dormant beneath the surface Michael Chabon’s keynote of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder speech at the Eisner Awards Boys—the shadow of Art Bechstein’s gang- speaks volumes about his ap- ster father and Grady Tripp’s self-identifica- proach to writing fiction. In his tion with the fictional pulp writer August Van Dorn look address, he advocated a return to comics for children by forward to Chabon’s efforts to meld the excitement of writing stories that we enjoyed reading as kids rather than pulp fiction with more literary fare. trying to figure out what kids might want to read today. There are other arenas in which Chabon works to He said that comics should blow kids’ minds, explaining break down the walls that separate popular culture from that “a mind is blown when something you always feared literary fiction. He has edited two anthologies of fiction but knew to be impossible turns out to be true; when the for McSweeney’s in which he presents work by Joyce Carol world turns out far vaster, far more marvelous or malevo- Oates, Charles D’Ambrosio, and Rick Moody alongside lent than you ever dreamed; when you get proof that ev- stories by Michael Moorcock, Elmore Leonard, and Har- erything is connected to everything else, that everything lan Ellison. Chabon shows that pulp fiction writers can you know is wrong, that you are both the center of the peacefully co-exist alongside literary writers—these sto- universe and a tiny speck sailing off its nethermost edge.” ries about Nazi canaries, murderous elephants, and VCRs In this sense, Chabon has been doing exactly this in his that record the future all exemplify Chabon’s belief that prose. He gives us books about sports, super-heroes, and stories should be fun to read. pipe-smoking sleuths—yet the stories he writes still re- Although he is primarily known as a fiction writer, volve around the workings of the human heart. He makes Chabon also writes for television and the silver screen, us reconsider the line between high and low culture, and having worked on Spider-Man 2, as well as having pitched he does so without a trace of literary condescension. He scripts for Fantastic Four, X-Men, and two television pilots. reminds us that fiction is supposed to be fun. This is how He is currently working on a screenplay called Snow and Michael Chabon blows our minds, and that’s why we love the Seven, a martial arts version of Snow White set in nine- his work.

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STARS ON THE RISE

PREVIEW OF THE 2007 WRITERS CONFERENCE BY ELIZABYTH HISCOX

Organized around the idea of instruction and discus- world. Writing is a bit like architecture; often writers keep sion, ASU’s Writers Conference Desert Nights, Rising Stars at their craft for a lifetime and build their most impres- is one of those conferences that excels at a sort of home- sive structures late. To make an analogy with another art, grown energy. This does not mean that one wouldn’t rec- the Fred Astaires and Ginger Rogers of the word might ognize the names of the writers who have come to town actually “dance” better as octogenarians. The Yale Series in the last four years; A.S. Byatt, Robert Hass, Russell of Younger Poets competition, the longest-running poetry Banks; Adrienne Rich, to name a few. The energy from prize in America, for example, goes to a poet under the this intimate but vibrant conference arises because in ad- tender age of forty. What has this got to do with a writing dition to big names and knock-out readings there is a conference? Simply, you are never too old to get your feet genuine attempt to help the participants into the writerly wet, and while the conference welcomes participants from

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the high school level on, it is this “constant beginner” at- internationally, as is the work of Reyes (Mother Lolita and mosphere that allows the wary first time writer a chance Men on the Verge of a His-panic Breakdown). to meet similar adventurers. The popular Small Group Instruction courses (additional In the spring of 2007, February 21st to 24th, confer- cost) will be offered again, with a reduction in class size. This ence goers can anticipate that instructive camaraderie chance to work closely on your writing with established paired with a new mix of top writers will be limited to a talent. Author Walter Mosley 2007 CONFERENCE GUESTS INCLUDE group of eight for poetry and will be part of the still-grow- a maximum of five for all oth- ing list of writers to attend. WALTER MOSLEY, AUTHOR OF er genres to give participants Mosely’s first novel, Devil in more individual attention. a Blue Dress, won the Shamus DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS, AND The conference will also Award for Best First P.I. Novel resurrect the built-in down- and later became a major mo- TONY HOAGLAND, AUTHOR OF time so that participants can tion picture. The conference sit on the Piper House’s front will honor the long standing WHAT NARCISSISM MEANS TO ME. porch or in the back garden to courtship between page and discuss the day’s events. Reg- screen with a special focus on film noir, incorporating istration check-in will also be scheduled for Wednesday literary adaptation into the conference schedule. morning so that participants can have an opportunity to Tony Hoagland, author of acclaimed poetry collections meet one another and become familiar with the schedule What Narcissism Means to Me and Donkey Gospel, will be and venues before the events officially start. There is also joined by Peter Pereira, physician-poet, and Richard Sik- the opportunity for those who are not interested in or are en, recently chosen as the winner of the Yale Series of unable to attend the entire conference to purchase tickets Younger Poets. The conference will welcome back award- to attend the evening readings. winning poet Carolyn Forché, who has published four If you are interested in the 2007 Desert Nights, Rising books of poetry, including Gathering the Tribes, The Coun- Stars Conference, registration information is as follows: try Between Us, The Angel of History, and most recently, Blue Hour. The conference will also welcome back Bernard Cooper, GENERAL REGISTRATION author of two memoirs as well as a novel, A Year of Rhymes; Access to all general conference panels, classes, and a collection of short stories, Guess Again; and most recently, daytime readings: $275 ($250 early registration by his poignant and humorous memoir Bill From My Father: October 31, 2006) A Memoir. Authors Elizabeth Searle (Celebrities in Disgrace), Kevin McIlvoy (The Complete History of New Mexico), and SMALL GROUP INSTRUCTION Mary Sojourner (Solace: Rituals of Loss and Desire) will 2 hours of small group workshops on Thursday, Fri- also return, along with essayist, playwright, and performer day, and Saturday: $125 + General registration (in- Tania Katan (My One-Night Stand With Cancer). cludes lunch all three days) Some of Arizona State’s own writers will also be on hand. Poets Sally Ball and Cynthia Hogue, both with new collections TICKETS TO EVENING READINGS out: Annus Mirabilis (winner of the Barrow Street $10 each night. Required for anyone who wants to Press Book Prize) and The Incognito Body, respectively. attend the evening readings Can be purchased at the T.M. McNally, whose most recent work The Goat Bridge, conference or in advance. Tickets to evening readings won The William Faulkner-William Wisdom Gold Medal, will also be sold to the general public on a first-come, will return along with Jay Boyer and Guillermo Reyes. A first-served basis. fiction writer and playwright, Boyer’s plays are performed

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IN THE COMMUNITY’S WORDS

AN INTERVIEW WITH JOSÉ CRUZ GONZÁLEZ BY CARLOS MANUEL

Playwright José Cruz González was born in Calexico, yet profound, has a strong impact on young audiences as California, a border town between Mexico and the U. S., well as adults. Recently, the department of Theatre and and was raised in a small town called Freedom. A first Film at ASU produced one of González’s latest plays, Wak- generation Chicano, he received a bachelor’s degree from ing Up in Lost Hills: A Central California Rip Van Winkle. the University of California, San Diego in U. S./Chicano In 2006, the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writ- History with a Theater Minor. He also holds a Master of ing provided sponsorships for José Cruz to complete a res- Arts from ASU in Theater and a Master of Fine Arts from idency at Childsplay, a local arts organization that brings the University of California, Irvine in Directing. children’s theater into Phoenix area schools. José Cruz González’s plays have slowly become a trade- mark within Theatre for Youth. His work, always simple CARLOS MANUEL (CM): Let’s start back at the beginning.

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What did you do after you finished your schooling? we received an NEA/TCG Theatre Residency grant for Playwrights, which brought me to Tempe to develop The JOSÉ CRUZ GONZÁLEZ (JCG): While at Irvine, I got in- Highest Heaven. Since then, I have written five plays for volved with South Coast Repertory. I was working in Childsplay. the literary department reading new scripts. South Coast Repertory kept an eye on me and based on my directing CM: Your new play is called Lost Hills. How did the project schoolwork they asked if I wanted to apply for a NEA come about? Directing Fellowship. We applied and got it. At South Coast Repertory I created the His- JCG: Lost Hills is a small communi- panic Playwrights Project, a festival “IT WAS AMAZING ty two hours north of Los Angeles, of new plays by Latino playwrights. I with only 1200 people living there, was supposed to work there for one SEEING THE COMMUNITY mostly Latino immigrants. We spent year but I ended up working there seven to eight months interviewing for eleven years. The Hispanic Play- INVOLVED IN THEIR OWN the community, from the youngest wrights Project lasted nineteen years; to the oldest, talking to community it closed in the summer of 2005. STORIES.” leaders, listening to everyone’s stories and anecdotes. CM: How did you get into playwriting? It was a commission—two years ago I was asked to be part of the project. I worked with Cornerstone Theater, JCG: While working at South Coast Repertory, I was also a company specializing in “community-based theatre,” teaching in the community to young people and I noticed which means the plays are created for a specific commu- there wasn’t any dramatic material for them. I also wasn’t nity. The plays are for, by, and with that particular com- reading about the stories I grew up with, so I started munity in mind. The company spends a period of time writing them. In the 80s, I started teaching at California interviewing people; talking to everyone, young and old; State University, Los Angeles and that gave me more time getting to know the community, its history, its problems, to write. I wrote my first full-length play, Harvest Moon, its development. Then, once there is enough information, which had its premiere in 1994 in Seattle, Washington and the company spends time putting together a story that is it gave me a little national exposure. I left South Coast relevant to the community; a play is written where the Repertory in 1996 and concentrated on my teaching and characters and the actors are the members of the commu- writing. Also in 1996 I participated in “New Visions/New nity. Voices” hosted at The Kennedy Center. “New Visions/ New Voices” is a week-long residency for playwrights to CM: So people end up playing themselves? stimulate and support the creation of new plays and mu- sicals for young audiences and families, culminating in a JCG: They’re composites of themselves with others in the weekend festival of staged readings and discussions with mix. I heard so many stories, but the one that attracted me professionals in the field from around the country. It was the most was the story of a mother of four children, who there that I developed a new play titled The Highest Heav- is a recovering crystal meth addict. She told me about en, the story of a young Chicano during the Depression her life and the things that were going on in the town. who is deported and has to find his way back into the How she “woke up” when she got clean. I also learned country and to his family. While being there, I met David about the 200 abandoned cars all around town and the Saar, (Childsplay’s artistic director) who asked me what I garbage. No one was doing anything about it. Most of the was going to do with the play. At the time I had no idea. men didn’t much care about how Lost Hills looked. The Six months later, David called me to see if I was interested women organized themselves and with the help of their in working with Childsplay. Of course I said yes and soon, children, they cleaned the town. They got rid of the cars

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and the garbage and the amazing thing was that very few [involvement] from the youngest child to the oldest per- men helped. son in the play. Even my mother, who came to the town to cook a meal for the community, ended up in the play—at CM: The play is bilingual (Spanish/English) and there is a the last minute, one of the community members had to long speech in the play that is only in Spanish. Could you go to Mexico for an emergency, so my mother ended up tell me why you chose to do that? playing the role. I tell you, it is a good feeling to see the community involved. JCG: When I wrote the play, I knew it was important to tell the stories from the community, and I also knew it was CM: Understanding that the play is for, by, and with the important to give a message to the men in the community. community in mind, how do you think it’s going to work And because all of them are Spanish-speaking, I wanted at ASU? the main character to call upon them to make them see that it is necessary to improve their homes, their com- JCG: Well, I believe this is the first time a Cornerstone munities, their lives. I wanted to use the play as a tool to “community-based” play is being performed outside its speak to these men. own setting. But the play still has a broader appeal, and the It was amazing seeing the community involved in their messages are universal, so I think it will work. own stories. The experience was overwhelming. We have

PHILIP R. HARDING SPIRIT OF BOOKS begin to really grapple with what it means to be an art- WINNERS ANNOUNCED ist. Nabokov blends beauty with obscenity, and the re- sult is a book that is stunningly beautiful and moving.” In April, the Piper Center selected W. TODD KANEKO While Kaneko labels Lolita’s antihero Humbert Hum- and JAMIE JOHNSEN-BRIGHAM as the recipients of its bert as a villain akin to J.R. Ewing and Othello’s Iago, he inaugural Philip R. Harding Spirit of Books Awards. argues that the story is compelling because we identify The prizes, which honor Harding’s passion for the lan- with the source of Humbert’s motivations—at least at guage—and for those who share that love—consist of their root. a five-hundred dollar Barnes & Noble gift card to be “Humbert’s story is a metaphor for aging, I think, spent at the winner’s discretion, and were made possible as he strives to rediscover the girl he loved as a child,” by a donation from JEWELL PARKER RHODES; SANDRA writes Kaneko. “Humbert chases ghosts throughout the MCKENZIE, Harding’s widow and an Assistant Dean for book, and I think that this is essentially what people do College Advancement at ASU; and Philip’s friends. when they go through mid-life crises—they buy motor- “I was thrilled with the quality of the submissions this cycles, get botox, and crave extra-marital sex to make year from the undergraduate and graduate students who them feel young and to remind them that they are still applied for the award,” said McKenzie. “On the night alive.” that the two very deserving recipients were announced, Kaneko has his eye on a few books including Barry I knew that Phil would have been thrilled as well.” Hannah’s Airships, Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation, Kaneko, who recently completed his MFA in fiction, and Chuck Palahniuk’s Stranger Than Fiction, but hopes won the prize at the graduate level for his essay on Vlad- to spend his prize gradually. mir Nabokov’s Lolita. “I have trouble finishing books when I have a selec- Kaneko writes, “[Lolita’s] theme of reclaiming faded tion at my fingertips,” he writes. “Typical short attention youth is compelling to me as I enter my late thirties and SEE “HARDING” ON PAGE 16

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WOMAN OF LA MANCHA EDITH GROSSMAN BREATHES NEW LIFE INTO QUIXOTE BY MOLLY MENEELY

“Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do panion, Sancho Panza, have entertained readers for cen- not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago . . . ” turies with the most fundamental and compelling human The opening of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote seems themes of heroism, friendship, love, idealism, adventure, almost to hint at its own longevity in the fiction tradition, imagination, and folly. The novel’s complexity of execu- at its ability to stay contemporary, to live always “not long tion, its inability to be neatly categorized into a genre or ago.” style, and Don Quixote’s own resilient excitability make Composed in two parts in 1605 and 1615, and translat- the work a relevant, lively exercise for current readers. ed into English at least twenty times since, Don Quixote is Edith Grossman’s 2003 translation with Harper Collins, considered by many to be the first modern novel, a tragic- especially, has revolutionized Don Quixote’s readership, comic-satiric-romance whose title character and his com- focusing on the vitality of Cervantes’ language, rendering

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his clever humor accessible, and eliminating off-putting housed at ASU. Beyond the obvious appeal of this master- archaisms. Publishers Weekly calls her translation “revela- piece to the many Spanish speakers of the Phoenix area, tory” and “robust,” and Grossman, a preeminent translator Bjork and Piper Center Artistic Director Jewell Parker of Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel García Márquez (in- Rhodes agreed that Don Quixote appeals to all, across lin- cluding his first work of fiction in ten years, Memories of guistic or cultural boundaries. Past ACMRS symposiums My Melancholy Whores), among other noted Spanish-lan- have focused on Robin Hood, J.R.R. Tolkien, Elizabeth guage authors, continues to receive lavish praise for this I, and Renaissance Italy, but this year’s events, capped by work, which likewise continues to rise to prominence in Grossman’s keynote speech, will explore Don Quixote in academic and popular domains alike. its many manifestations: Edward Friedman of Vanderbilt This November 3, the Arizona Center for Medieval University will discuss Don Quixote from a scholarly per- and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS), in partnership with spective, Ron Newcomer of ASU’s Theatre Department the Piper Center for Creative Writing, will bring Edith will present Don Quixote in film, and there are plans to Grossman to ASU as the featured guest at ACMRS’s year- assemble a musical medley from Dale Wasserman’s Man ly symposium. Selecting Don Quixote as the centerpiece of La Mancha to spice up the proceedings. All events are for this year’s symposium was easy, admits Robert Bjork, free to the public, and updates may be found on the Piper Director of ACMRS, a uniquely tri-university center ap- Center website. proved by Arizona’s Board of Regents and funded and

“HARDING,” CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14 and complex emotional struggles and triumphs.” span, I guess.” There’s one final item Johnsen-Bringham plans to The Harding Award at the undergraduate level went buy with her prize money—a journal, in which she to freshman Johnsen-Brigham, who wrote about the hopes to take notes during an upcoming trip to Eng- way J.R.R. Tolkien inspired her love of reading at a land through a study abroad program with the Barrett young age. Honors College. “When I was about ten years old, my mom brought “I hope to write something based on my trip, so I The Hobbit home to read to me,” writes Johnsen-Bring- will take notes in my journal,” writes Johsnen-Bring- ham. “I could never stop at one chapter. I made my ham. “England has some of the most diverse, fascinating mom read two or three. But in the middle of the week people and I can’t wait to meet them and to hear their my mom had to go to California for business. I could stories.” not stand being home with the book and not knowing Both winners thanked the Piper Center and McK- what was going to happen next, so I picked it up and enzie. finished it in one day.” “I was so honored to receive this award, especially as While Johnsen-Bringham still enjoys fantasy, her a freshman,” writes Johnsen-Bringam. “It was also such literary tastes have expanded. Indeed, her ‘To Buy’ list an honor to meet Mr. Harding’s widow. She is an inspi- includes such titles as Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master rational woman, and her husband was a gifted man.” and Margarita, and Giorgio Bassani’s The Garden Of The Kaneko agreed, adding, “I’m grateful to [McKenzie] Finzi Continis. for her generous gift, and to the Piper Center for mak- “I love books that take the reader to places that he or ing the contest possible. The quality of work produced she never imagined,” writes Johnsen-Bringham, “but I by writers here at ASU helps to make this contest com- also love almost the opposite types of novels; I love sto- petitive, and I am honored to have been a part of it.” ries about the human condition with basic story lines

1 6 COMMUNITY NEWS

LOCAL POET DONATES BOOK COLLECTION TO PIPER CENTER

The late DOROTHY LYKES—poet, teacher, and close ing Floor, her 1979 masterpiece; also available is John friend of many in the ASU Creative Writing Program— Ashbery’s rare 1966 manuscript, Rivers and Mountains, donated her collection of American poetry books, tapes a revolutionary collection including some of his more of poets reading their work, and broadsides to the Vir- widely anthologized poems (“The Skaters,” “Into the ginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. Dusk-Charged Air”). Also present is Mark Doty’s in- Dorothy spent several decades working with ASU credibly rare 1981 manuscript The Empire of Summer, a faculty and students, particularly Regent’s Professor and book that Doty has since disowned and stricken from PEN American Award winner NORMAN DUBIE. She his official resume. The book appears in only eigh- published two collections of poetry, including 1995’s teen libraries worldwide. A signed copy of Gwendo- Cobalt Blue. According to Norman, she had “unlimited lyn Brooks’ essential Blacks occupies the shelves as well. energy and good heart” and was always “secretly help- While the book is not terribly rare (thankfully so), her ing poor poets through difficult times,” though she nev- signature is, as is a hardcover first edition of Langston er discussed it. Dorothy continues to help poets today, Hughes’ 1949 work, One-Way Ticket. even after her death. The Arizona State Poetry Society Lykes, a staunch supporter of local poets, possessed a recently sponsored a contest in her memory. The ASPS wealth of books by Arizona State University luminar- describes Dorothy as “a talented poet, teacher of poetry, ies both past and present. Among these valuable pieces and generous benefactor-philanthropist.” Her generos- are signed copies of Rita Dove’s Thomas and Beulah, ity is not limited to the literary world. According to (1986) and The Yellow House on the Corner (1980). The the Nature Conservancy, in 2004 the Hassayampa River former is a Pulitzer Prize winner detailing the lives of Preserve doubled in size with the donation of 330 acres her grandparents. of desert foothills. Norman Dubie’s rare empathetic humanity may only No wonder, then, that hundreds of people gathered be eclipsed by the rareness of some of his early chap- in January 2006 for a memorial reading in her honor, books. Included in the Lykes collection is his 1969 sponsored by the ASU Creative Writing Program. Near- first published work, The Horsehair Sofa, which is about ly all of the members of the MFA faculty participated in the size and shape of a note card and inscribed by the the event, reading poems by and in honor of Dorothy. author. This book is likely the only of its kind library- After hearing so many of her friends testifying to her available, especially since The Horsehair Sofa appears in enduring love of poetry, the immensity and value of the only six libraries worldwide. As a young man, Dubie works she donated in the collection is no surprise. burned more than half of the copies of the published “I’ve barely scratched even the tip of the iceberg,” book at the urging of a poet-friend, stressing that in the says MATTHEW FRANK, a recent MFA graduate who is event that Dubie ever became famous, the book would currently cataloging the collection. Matt reports that really be valuable. It is officially invaluable. A special in addition to the materials already at the Piper House, thanks goes to DEBORAH LOCKETT, Dorothy’s daughter, there are at least forty more boxes of books, and quite who made the transfer of the Lykes Poetry Collection a few boxes of cassette tapes of readings, including one possible. of Norman’s from the 1970s. There are also scores of Select works from the Dorothy Lykes Collection can broadsides—poems published by printmaking artists, of- now be viewed at the Piper House. For more informa- ten with accompanying illustrations, and signed by the tion, visit the website at http://www.asu.edu/piper. author, with the best ones steadily increasing in value. The library boasts a crisp signed copy of Ai’s Kill- —Tina Hammerton & Matthew Frank

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PRACTICING EMPATHY

THIS WRITER’S LIFE BY PETER PEREIRA

I was reading poems to a group of health care providers treatment as scientific data and logical deduction. at a conference recently, and I asked how many of them There has been a resurgence in the last few years of had taken courses in literature, or creative writing, during teaching literature to medical students, and other students their training. There was only a scattering of hands. Most in health-care related fields. There are classes in Narrative of them had completed their training taking only science Medicine across the country, using poetry, non-fiction, courses! novels, short stories, and writing exercises to help future It’s interesting to me because, strictly speaking, medical care providers develop empathy and narrative competence. practice is not a science. It is an interpretive art. In health Physicians now have less time with their patients than ever care the capacity to empathize and intuit can be just as before, but the same skills of careful listening and accu- important (I would say more important) in diagnosis and rate interpretation are required of them. It may be that

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the study of the lyric poem—using metaphor and symbol, 1) The practice of empathy, and how poetry can help us be packed with overt and covert meaning—is an excellent better doctors. way for students in health care fields to learn to develop The poet and writer Muriel Rukeyser once said: “The their skills of interpretation and empathy. world is made of stories, not atoms.” In this era of high- I am a family physician at High tech, reductive medicine, most of Point Community Clinic in West “EVERY DAY, PEOPLE SHARE my day is still spent listening to, Seattle, where I have provided and deciphering, patients’ stories. primary care for the past fifteen INTIMATE DETAILS OF THE LIVES Because poets (and other writers) years to a mostly low-income, are experts at language—at cre- ethnically diverse population— WITH ME. IT’S A PRIVILEGE, ating and interpreting narrative, including refugees, immigrants, image, tone, metaphor, and point housing-project residents, young AN HONOR, TO BE ENTRUSTED of view; at accepting ambiguity, families, elderly, and the working facture, caesura, silence—learn- poor. I love being a community WITH THESE STORIES, ing to read and to write poetry clinic doc—it’s incredibly chal- can help us to be better at de- lenging and fulfilling work. Ev- AND I DON’T TAKE IT LIGHTLY.” ciphering the sometimes chaotic ery day people share the most sea of words patients present, and intimate details of their lives with me: from concerns to arrive more accurately at the heart of their concern. about their sex life or relationships, to depression, diar- But there is more to poetry than just words and lan- rhea, and skin rashes; from the birth of a child to the loss guage. I think poetry is a very soul-centered, person-cen- of a spouse, to a new diagnosis of heart disease or diabetes. tered kind of writing. The practice of reading or writing It’s a privilege and an honor to be entrusted with these poems is a way to take care of yourself, to talk to yourself stories, and I don’t take it lightly. about your experiences as a doctor or as a caregiver. When Even before I was a doctor, I was a poet. I double-de- you have had a particularly difficult case, or when a bad greed in English and Biology as an undergraduate, and if outcome or something tragic (or joyful!) has taken place, I had not been accepted into medical school, I may have writing about it is both a way to express and to contain gone on to graduate school in Comparative Literature, the intense feelings and emotions that arise. It’s a way to or to an MFA program in creative writing. Poetry and nourish your soul, and to practice empathy. the writing life have always been deeply important to me. It’s important to consider the difference between pity, As a doctor and a poet I have found that serving both of sympathy, and empathy. Pity is feeling sorry for someone; these vocations doesn’t divide my efforts—it doubly en- it implies a certain level of detachment and superiority, riches my experience of each. I come to medicine with a a “glad it didn’t happen to me.” Sympathy is when you poet’s eye and ear and heart; I come to poetry with a doc- think you know what the other person is feeling; when tor’s engagement with the world and the realities of the you say, “Oh yes, the same thing happened to me,” or “I body, human suffering, and healing. And I have learned, in know just how you are feeling.” The relationship is a little blending poetry and medicine, three things that I believe closer, but there is still some distance, and a little bit of in- are true: validation, because we can never really know what anoth- 1) The reading and writing of poems can help us be- er person is feeling. Empathy is when you open yourself come better doctors, better health care providers, by help- up to the other person’s experience, and allow yourself to ing us develop our empathy; be truly moved by it. One way I’ve heard this described 2) The reading and writing of poems can help patients is that if you go into a music store and pluck one string who are facing life threatening or life-altering illness; on a violin, each of the other instruments in the store 3) The reading and writing of poems can help heal the will resonate with sound. When you are feeling empathy, world. you are allowing yourself to vibrate, to resonate with the

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other person. Not observing or copying their feeling, but First, we have shifted the crisis to a bearable distance from allowing yourself to feel what you are feeling in response us: removed it to the symbolic but vivid world of lan- to them. guage. Second, we have actively I believe the reading and writ- made and shaped this model of ing of poems is a way to develop our situation rather than passively one’s ability to empathize, to res- endured it as lived experience.” onate with another person. And empathy is at the heart of all heal- 3) How the reading and writing of ing relationships. poems can help heal the world. Thirdly, I think the reading and 2) How the reading and writing of writing of poems is also a way to poems can help patients. heal the world. I know it sounds There is a large body of litera- kind of high-fallutin’. But here ture about “Poetic Medicine” and is what I mean. Carolyn Forché, “Poetry Therapy.” John Fox has a the former Amnesty International book called Poetic Healing, which worker and poet, who edited a is a kind of guidebook for patients wonderful anthology, Against For- on how writing can help them getting, The Poetry of Witness has with the healing process. And said: there have been studies that show “One of the things that hap- that people who write about their pens when poets bear witness to experience with illness not only historical events is that everyone feel better, but do better. they tell becomes a witness, too; Gregory Orr has written a fas- everyone they tell also becomes cinating book of essays, Poetry as responsible for what they have Survival. In this book, he defines heard and what they now know.” the lyric poem, specifically the Poetry of witness has long personal lyric poem, as “the ‘I’ been a way that cultures and civi- poem written from the heart, dramatizing inner and outer lizations all over the world remember things—their war experience.” Orr goes on to say that the lyric poem has stories, their cultural milestones—and give voice to the been found in all cultures and all languages, at all times oppressed or the disappeared. in history. And therefore, he believes, it must be neces- I have written many poems from my work with South- sary for our survival, that as humans we strive to maintain east Asian refugees, who came to America after the Vietnam homeostasis, or stability, in our lives. When life becomes War (what they call, interestingly enough, “The American disordered through strong negative or positive emotions, War”); particularly from my work with Cambodian refu- such as after the birth of a child, a cancer diagnosis, the gees who survived the Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge holocaust. death of a spouse, one of the ways we survive is through These patients are primarily older women, who have lost the ordering power of the lyric poem. That the words and everything: family, husband, children, home, property, pos- images and ideas we put into the poem help regulate and sessions, a way of life. Many of them are illiterate, even in express the disorder—and make it survivable. their own language, and so have no way to preserve their Here is a quote: “Thus the poem we compose (or re- stories except by telling them. My hope in writing these spond to as readers) still accurately mirrors the life crisis poems is that they will serve a social purpose: keeping it dramatizes, still displays life’s interplay of disorder and their stories alive, and not letting the world forget them. order . . . but . . . two crucial things . . . are different . . . . One of these poems, “What is Lost,” has been used in

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several medical schools across the country, in courses ex- ploring Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Cross-Cultural Next to her guttural vowels Medicine. It gives me hope to imagine a generation of and clipped consonants, my English doctors learning to practice empathy through poetry. strikes a tin note. The interpreter translates my advice, and I wonder WHAT IS LOST which sound was nerve, which was heart, which grief. . . . everywhere and always, go after that which is lost. I give her another pill to try. — Carolyn Forché, “Ourselves Or Nothing” Perhaps with this one she will sleep well When she came across the border tonight. A sleep untroubled she had no shoes—only one black by dreams, by memory. Cambodian skirt, a thin blouse, the long scarf they used for everything: sleeping, She listens politely, smiles bathing, carrying food, wrapping a thank you: her only English. the bodies of the dead. Yet as I watch her leave She no longer wants to say I know her cure comes Tuesday afternoons— what happened to her husband and brothers, when she joins the circle afraid if words bring them back, of other Khmer women to sew. along will come the soldiers. Punctuating the fabric with yellow thread, binding her remnants What do I have, she asks, into a piece that will hold. to keep the nightmares away?

SUPPORT THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN LITERATURE!

One of the Piper Center’s missions is to support the Your charitable donation goes directly to a student students in the ASU Master of Fine Arts program in and affords them the opportunity to focus on their creative writing. Because graduate students are often creative work. required to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, many of our students struggle to find time to write. These developing writers need our financial support to succeed! Please consider helping us help our stu- The Piper Center provides these students with fellow- dents grow into the literary masters of tomorrow— ships that release them from other obligations and pro- your funding makes a difference in their lives. vide the greatest gift a writer can receive: the gift of time. See page 51 of this issue for more information.

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MAKING THE FUTURE

BEN BOVA & “HISTORICAL NOVELS THAT HAVEN’T HAPPENED YET” BY MAX DOTY

On his official site, www.benbova.net, in a section pro- of nonfiction on subjects ranging from the nature of light viding tips to aspiring writers, Ben Bova quotes Joseph to the emerging field of astrobiology. Conrad: Given his other-worldly output, one might imagine “I sit down religiously every morning. I sit down for Bova, who will visit ASU on October 19 as part of the eight hours a day—and the sitting down is all. In the course ongoing Piper Center’s Distinguished Visiting Writers Se- of that working day of eight hours I write three sentences ries, as a recluse chained to his desk and fearful of sun- which I erase before leaving the table in despair.” light—think Carl Sagan meets Howard Hughes. Given Bova’s prolificacy, it seems likely that his days of In reality, however, Bova is a well-known public per- writing a mere three sentences are few and far between. sonality. He’s served as a science analyst for CBS Morning He’s written or edited 110 novels, collections, and pieces News, taught classes at Harvard, and served on numerous,

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boards for both scientific and literary organizations. He knack for offering compelling arguments that make even was on the Steering Committee for the NASA/Space his most outlandish proposals seem not only feasible, but Transportation Association study on space tourism and necessary: “Tapping sunlight in space to deliver gigawatts was president of Science Fiction Writers of America. of clean, uninterrupted electrical power to Earth will not That said, Bova is best known as a writer of science only help to end the U.S. reliance on oil from the Middle fiction, especially his ‘Grand East, it will slow down global Tour’ series, which spans fif- warming from the greenhouse teen novels, including Titan, “POETS WHO SING ABOUT effect of burning fossil fuels.” Bova’s latest. Strict adherence Chief among Bova’s con- to scientific fact is a hallmark THE BEAUTY OF THE STARS cerns is our exploration of of Bova’s work. He does not space and the search for ex- write space opera, and if his WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING traterrestrial life. In Faint characters sometimes resemble Echoes, Distant Stars, which starry-eyed Luke Skywalkers WHAT MAKES THEM SHINE Bova published in 2004, he or roughish Han Solos, there argues that over the next ten is certainly no mystical force ARE MISSING HALF THE SPLENDOR years humanity is poised both guiding their destinies—and to discover alien life and to their laser pistols are always OF THE HEAVENS.” create life from scratch in a well-explained. laboratory, breakthroughs he In his 1981 work, Notes calls, “The biggest discoveries to a Science Fiction Writer, Bova writes, “Science is beau- in human history.” tiful, and anyone can understand the basics of scientific If Bova sounds a bit like an elder statesman, it’s because thought. Poets who sing about the beauty of the stars, he’s just that. Born in 1932, he takes after predecessors without understanding what makes them shine and how Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, hard sci-fi writers who they were created, are missing half the real splendor of the would sooner choke a protagonist to death than have her heavens.” breathe oxygen on a world whose atmosphere contains For Bova, understanding the workings of the universe is none. And in a time where writers like David Mitchell, intrinsically important—but it is also a way of illuminating Jonathan Lethem, and Neal Stephenson are blurring the character. In his short story, “Stars, Won’t You Hide Me?” line between ‘literature’ and science fiction, Bova’s books humanity’s last survivor’s solitude is manifested physically are still planted firmly on sci-fi shelves in bookstores ev- in the charred Earth he discovers at the end of his journey erywhere. home, and even his death coincides with the universe’s “I think of [the Grand Tour books] as historical nov- final collapse of the universe. The message seems clear: els that haven’t happened yet,” said Bova in a November humanity is universe; universe is humanity. 2000 interview with Locus magazine. “My audience con- It is perhaps because Bova sees this connection so clear- sists partly of science fiction fans, but mostly of people in ly that he is so outspoken regarding political and scientific technical fields–I sell well at universities, NASA installa- issues. A new-year’s letter from Bova to his readers this tions, places like that. It’s a technically educated audience, year addressed issues ranging from stem cell research to people who are interested in realistic stories about how global warming to reforming the United States’ educa- you get there from here. Everybody wants to be in this tional system. Some of Bova’s suggestions can come across wonderful future. The question I keep thinking about is, as a bit outrageous. In his letter, for example, he writes, How do you build it? How do you make it happen?” “First, we should start a program to build solar power satellites. This would be a mammoth undertaking: solar power satellites would be miles across.” But Bova has a

2 3 GENRE CHARLES JENSEN

MYSTERIOUS ALCHEMIES

THE SCIENCE—AND MAGIC—OF LITERARY ADAPTATION BY MICHAEL GREEN

FADE IN: MICHAEL EXT. TEMPE, ARIZONA-DAY (Takes a deep breath) This is it. MICHAEL a 32-year-old roguish globetrot- ting journalist moves through the pedes- INT. PIPER CENTER OFFICES-DAY trian traffic at Arizona State University Michael enters the foyer and slowly climbs dressed in a fedora and bomber jacket. the creaking stairs. At the top a nervous He walks up to quaint, restored two-story looking receptionist nods and moves to- house with a sign that reads “Piper Writ- wards a door with a sign that reads ‘Su- ers House.” preme Editor.’

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INT. CHARLIE JENSEN’S OFFICE-DAY fall. Tell me more. Michael enters the office, a dim, severe- looking place. Ceiling fans spin slowly MICHAEL overhead like ancient propellers. JENSEN After navigating my way through a nasty sits behind a huge mahogany desk sipping civil war I finally tracked down Ellroy at Tang from a brandy snifter. a hotel deep in the jungle. He just hap- pened to be vacationing there with Hanson, MICHAEL Chabon, and three other screenwriters who (Clearly nervous) specialize in adaptation. Hello, Charlie. How are you? JENSEN JENSEN Wow, what luck. Let’s dispense with the pleasantries, Green. You know the score. You’ve either MICHAEL brought me your story on literary adapta- That’s what I said! Anyway, with all of tion or we’re out of business. them together like that, I was able to ask them about literary adaptation... MICHAEL I’ll tell you what I found out and you can FLASHBACK tell me if there’s a story here or not. EXT. BORNEO JUNLGE HOTEL VERANDA-DAY JENSEN Michael and six writers sit outside on a Let’s have it. This is our last shot. large veranda overlooking the thick jun- gle. Along with Ellroy, Hanson and Cha- MICHAEL bon are BRIAN HELGELAND, who co-wrote the It started in the jungles of Borneo . . . screenplay for L.A Confidential with Han- I had finally run down JAMES ELLROY, the son; STEVE KLOVES, who co-wrote Wonder Boys famous crime-novelist and author of L.A with Hanson; and NICHOLAS MEYER, who is Confidential . . . currently working with Hanson on an adap- tation of Michael Faber’s novel The Crimson JENSEN Petal and the White. Jungle sounds—-birds, Why L.A Confidential? monkeys, elephants—-are heard all around them. The men recline in wicker chairs and MICHAEL sip exotic drinks. Because the 1997 film is one of the most acclaimed literature to film adaptations MICHAEL of recent years. And because the director So Mr. Ellroy, why did you consider your and co-writer of the film, CURTIS HANSON, novel L.A. Confidential to be unfilmable? also struck gold a few years later with another brilliant adaptation, this one of ELLROY MICHAEL CHABON’S Wonder Boys. First, you have to understand that I grew up in the fifties in a town—-Hollywood—- JENSEN that was constantly racked with corrup- Good, good, I like the connection to Cha- tion, incompetence, and scandal. Not much bon. As you know, he’s visiting ASU this has changed. I know what hacks and blund-

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erers they have scribbling away in that Lieutenant’s Woman, for example, was a town. radical re-imagining of the novel, tak- (He leans forward and takes a ing a 19th century story and setting half sip of his drink.) of it in the 20th century with characters But more so, I just thought the book was who were actors playing their 19th-century too complicated. The formal outline ran counterparts. But it worked brilliantly, 250 pages. My design was to cram real-life preserving the themes and emotions of the events and established historical charac- original novel. ters into a series of complexly structured storylines and then add fictional protago- A waiter comes out onto the veranda and nists and antagonists. It was uncompress- passes around another round of drinks. ible, uncontainable, bereft of sympathetic Light begins to fade and the jungle sounds characters, unapologetically dark, and, I become “spookier.” thought, untranslatable to the screen. MICHAEL MICHAEL Nicholas Meyer, you’ve adapted your own But it was made into a great movie that novel, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, into a won an Oscar for its screenplay. What hap- film. Do you think that adapting your own pened? work helps preserve the essence of it? Is BRIAN HELGELAND there less chance of having it “ruined” by The guiding precept when Curtis and I another writer? adapted the book was to stay true to the characters. They’re all sort of magnifi- NICHOLAS MEYER cent jerks and we didn’t want to make stan- A lot of it comes down to experience. A dard Hollywood characters out of them. In writer adapting his own work may not nec- helping them to the screen I felt like a essarily produce a better screenplay if he guardian of the novel’s intent. isn’t familiar with the form of film. I had not yet directed a movie when I adapted The CURTIS HANSON Seven-Per-Cent Solution, and it was very And intent is often what’s lost in trans- top heavy with words. If I did the movie lation. Rather than distilling the essence again, it would be much less talky, much of a book—-its mood, its tone, its subtle more suited to film. themes—-Hollywood appropriates plots and characters as raw materials for what often MICHAEL becomes a much different story. You’ve adapted quite a few works, includ- ing Phillip Roth’s novel The Human Stain HELGELAND and the cult classic Time after Time. Any That’s not to say that you can’t come up specific rules that you follow in adapt- with a great adaptation by radically chang- ing? ing some aspects of the novel. MEYER HANSON It depends on what you’re trying to adapt, Right. In fact sometimes you have to “re- though I do think that even if it’s Henry imagine” the book in order to communicate V or Philip Roth or Dostoyevsky, you have the essence I was describing. The French to be loose enough to fool around, while at

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the same time mysteriously capturing the familiar to millions of fans by including alchemy of the original as Curtis said. If some serious elements that I hoped would you do that they’ll forgive you for the get people more involved in the charac- literal things that you fail to deliver. ters. At the same time I had to preserve the genre elements that audiences wanted MICHAEL to see. You mention some sacred literary texts. Don’t you owe something to the legions MICHAEL of people familiar with How about Wonder Boys? the books when you go to “[HAVING A BOOK ADAPTED FOR What made that adapta- work on them? tion of your novel so THE SCREEN] IS LIKE SENDING successful? MEYER Yes and no. Ultimately, YOUR KIDS OFF TO COLLEGE: CHABON readers are happier when It’s a little hard to you produce something YOU’VE DONE WHAT YOU COULD say, as I wasn’t much that is good rather than involved. But it touches “true,” especially since AS A PARENT. NOW YOU JUST on an issue we haven’t film adaptations are of- discussed yet, which is ten the result of a lot HOPE THEY DON’T BLOW IT.” that authors normally of pillaging. I adapted don’t get a chance to the movie Sommersby from the French film shepherd their work through the film pro- The Return of Martin Guerre, which in turn cess. It’s like sending your kids off to was adapted from a novel. I also adapted college: you’ve done what you could as a some of the Star Trek films from televi- parent. Now you just hope they don’t blow sion. For Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered it. Country, I adapted the real events of the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of MICHAEL the Soviet Union into a Star Trek story. It Some people consider it one of the best was an adaptation inside an adaptation. movies ever made about the writing pro- cess. MICHAEL You also used elements of literature—most CHABON specifically of Moby Dick and A Tale of Well, I got lucky. With a book it’s all Two Cities—in Star Trek II: The Wrath of about the words on the page. In film, so Khan. many other elements bring the story alive. Wonder Boys got a really good director, a MEYER good script, great music, and brilliant That’s right. We wanted to root the screen- cinematography. play in classical motifs, as well as make it seem like the characters lived in a fu- MICHAEL ture that still remembers its past. How does one get an adaptation gig? MICHAEL CHABON I did a similar thing when I worked on STEVE KLOVES Spider-Man II. I tried to elevate a story There are different ways. The entertain-

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ment business can be a treacherous but MICHAEL miraculous place when it comes to getting Thank you, gentlemen. I’ve got to get this your work produced. In my case, I partial- back to my editor before its too late. ly got the job writing the Harry Potter movies because the author of the books, INT. CHARLIE JENSEN’S OFFICE-DAY J.K. Rowling, loved my movie The Fabulous Michael and Jensen sit across the big desk Baker Boys. Ultimately, the best thing to from one another. Jensen looks visibly re- do is work hard and not worry about it. lieved and he reaches into his desk for two Do it because you love it. If you’re good, chocolate cigars. someone will find you. JENSEN Suddenly gunfire can be heard in the dis- Well, you’ve pulled it off this time, tance. Michael gets up and gathers his Green. At the last possible second, as things. usual. Now, for your next story...

FADE OUT.

dia, to explore outreach possibilities with the Day- MFA FACULTY NEWS walka Foundation’s Kalam: Margins Write program, which offers writing programs to marginalized youth. JAY BOYER’s recently produced plays include Cards We Wished We’d Sent, Vagabonds, and Second Chance. He has JEWELL PARKER RHODES’s Voodoo Season will be released fiction recently published or forthcoming in Biscuit In- in paperback. She recently published a new memoir, ternational Prizewinning Short Stories, Istanbul Literary Re- Porch Stories: A Grandmother’s Guide to Happiness. view, and Arabesques: Journal of Literature and Cultures.

RON CARLSON has accepted a position as the Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of California, Irvine. Ron leaves after twenty years of dis- tinguished service to ASU, during which time he was recognized as a Regents’ Professor.

BECKIAN FRITZ GOLDBERG’s new po- etry collection, The Book of Accident, was recently released by the Univer- sity of Akron Press.

MELISSA PRITCHARD has published short stories in Conjunctions and Boulevard and recently served as MELISSA PRITCHARD WITH HER STUDENTS DURING HER VISIT TO a judge for the PEN/Faulkner KOLKATA, INDIA Award. In January 2006, she traveled to Kolkata, In-

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STUDENTS AWARDED INTERNATIONAL Summer International Creative Writing Travel and Re- TRAVEL FELLOWSHIPS search Fellowship. Park will take part in the popular writing conference held each summer in the Czech If you suspect that students who receive Piper Center Republic’s capital city. This year, the Prague Sum- International Fellowships are all set to put their feet up, mer Program’s (PSP) theme is “There’s No Place Like sip on umbrella-capped beverages, and leisurely contem- Home(land Security): Home as the Origin of Imagina- plate the art of the word, well, you are not in the know. tion and Alienation.” Park was attracted to the theme, as This summer’s fellowship recipients will be forgoing her own work echoes this exploration: “I have lived in the cabana for some serious time invested in their own various places: New Jersey, Alaska, Guam, New Hamp- work and the work of those they will meet or teach. In shire, South Korea, Maryland, and now Arizona. Each the short time it has been making international funding place is marked by its own history, cultural heritage, ge- available, the Piper Center has helped Creative Writing ography, and landscape . . . they have shaped my identity, MFA students flex their writing muscles in Italy, South my imagination, and my poetry.” Park will participate in America, and South Africa. This summer, Singapore and poetry workshops held three times a week in addition the Czech Republic join the list. to attending film, lecture, and reading series’ all focused In the first fellowship of its kind, two fiction MFAs, on the conference theme. “For the past year, I have been MOLLY MENEELY and JOHN YOUNG, will travel to the thinking and writing about the Korean War,” says Park. National University of Singapore (NUS) to teach a “Korea is a peninsula divided by ideology; economic multi-genre creative writing course to a small group and political forces, mountains, and a latitude. It is a of students new to the field. The Piper Center/NUS land of separated families and nuclear threat . . . a place Teaching Fellowship funds the six-week program, which that I know intimately and not at all.” is a sort of academic aperitif for some of the NUS stu- Park also hopes to parlay her personal explorations dents who will travel to Tempe in the fall as part of an into public good. As co-editor of Hayden’s Ferry Re- exchange with the Barrett Honors College. There’s the view’s International Section, Park will seek to bring hope, too, that once they’ve gotten a bit of an introduc- home some new voices, as well as develop her own tion to the wildly satisfying world of the creative word, while abroad. She has already been in contact with ex- they’ll seek out full-term courses in fiction, poetry, or pats and writers from the region, and will meet with drama while at ASU. For those who will not participate poets and translators while in Prague to consider their in the fall exchange, this may be one of the few chances work for future issues of the journal. Park and co-edi- they have to experience such a course, and the instruc- tor Todd Fredson are especially interested in the “work tors are happy to bring what they know to Singapore: from indigenous cultures, under-represented bodies of “Obviously, I’m really excited about it,” says Young. “I a society, and writers working outside of academia or probably would’ve gone anywhere in the world to teach in non-traditional manners,” and are out to snag some creative writing.” In addition to teaching the mini- contemporary Czech poetry, with special attention to course, the fellowship has a built in time for Meneely the work of women and groups like the Roma. and Young to work on their own writing. If the publi- The Piper Center wishes to congratulate these stu- cations of previous international fellowship recipients dents for their successes abroad! are a barometer of what we can expect, the fruits of this exchange may not stay in Singapore. We may be reading — Elizabyth Hiscox words that bloomed abroad, back here. Prague is the city at the end of the trail for poet DIANA PARK, the recipient of the Piper Center 2006

2 9 ON COLLABORATION CHARLES JENSEN / ART BY KRIS SANFORD & W. TODD KANEKO

MUTUAL TRANSFORMATIONS THE VISUAL TEXT PROJECT EVOLVES BY DOUGLAS JONES

Under the direction of graduate students Katie Cap- Cappello and Reisert offered the artists a theme with pello (Creative Writing) and Rachel Reisert (Visual Arts), which to work: Transformation. In an interview, Cappello the Visual Text Project continued in its second year, bring- talked about how they arrived at this theme and how the ing together writers and artists to collaborate on original creative process of writing was affected. “What we were pieces of cross-genre artwork. The writers varied in genre looking for was a theme that would speak to the spirit from poety and fiction to playwriting, as did the visual behind artistic collaboration. We both feel that true col- artists, hailing from the camps of photography, painting, laboration is not just an illustrated story or a painting with printmaking, and performance. The end product was an words. When I write something for myself, I am writing edition of thirty-five 11 x 14 inch portfolios, containing from a singular point of view. However, when I work with one copy of each group’s piece. an artist, suddenly my words speak not just for me, but

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for her as well. My writing has been transformed by our tion as part of the event’s closing celebration. One port- interaction and become a new thing.” folio was donated to the Art Department’s permanent Looking through the final products, one can see how collection, and another to the Piper Center for Creative different groups interpreted the theme. For example, one Writing. group made a series of broadsides by slamming an inked The Visual Text Project is one of the few student-based dodgeball on their paper. When all of the broadsides are opportunities for ASU’s artists and writers to expand their lined up, the dodgeball mark moves up and down through- craft. It is also a wonderful opportunity for the local com- out the series, transforming the experience of the viewer munity to see what’s happening at the seams of ASU’s art from the single moment of impact to movement. Another world. Let us hope that next year the Visual Text Project is a piece of white paper that simply reads: “shmimage,” will continue to bring together artists and writers to ex- undercutting the necessity of image to the piece. plore processes and to better understand the artistic com- One of the tricks to organizing this event is figuring munity in which we live. out how to manage the pairing of the participants. Cap- pello and Reisert decided to work only with those who expressed interest. “We wanted the project to go through a transforma- tion of its own from last year’s format,” says Cappello. “We PIPER decided to form a mix of pairs and groups instead of just WRITER’S STUDIO pairs. Of course, logistically, it’s harder to get three people together than two...but I think the larger issue behind this SCHEDULE OF is our lack of understanding as writers of what goes into FALL WORKSHOPS the creation of a piece of visual art.” The grand total came to twenty-six participants—fourteen writers and twelve WORKSHOP SESSION I WORKSHOP SESSION II artists—who were divided into eleven groups. AUGUST 21 - OCTOBER 9 OCTOBER 16 - DECEMBER 4 The understanding of other artistic processes is one of the major benefits of this project. While the craft of the BEGINNING FICTION BEGINNING SCREENWRITING writer is different than, say, that of the photographer, Cap- WITH JENNIFER SPIEGEL WITH SCOTT KRAUSE pello points out, “The conceptual work, the act of creation, Tuesdays, 6 pm - 8 pm Thursdays, 6 pm - 8 pm requires the same amount of thought and concentration.” Scottsdale Tempe While the difference of craft is what distinguishes writers from artists, the artistic process is what binds them. BEGINNING MEMOIR INTENSIVE NONFICTION The Visual Text Project culminated in a week-long WITH KATHY MONTGOMERY WITH TANIA KATAN showing in the Harry Wood Gallery, which ran from Feb- Tuesdays, 6 pm - 8 pm Mondays, 6 pm - 8 pm ruary 20—26. The show was kicked off with a celebra- Tempe Phoenix tory reading of the texts and discussion by the artists and writers. In the case of groups consisting of more than one INTENSIVE FICTION INTENSIVE FICTION writer paired with an artist, each writer took a turn read- WITH BARBARA NELSON WITH MELISSA PRITCHARD ing the text. As one participant pointed out, “It allowed Mondays, 6 pm - 8 pm Wednesdays, 6 pm - 8 pm the voice of each writer to be heard more distinctly in the Scottsdale Tempe final product.” Each participant was given one portfolio to keep. Pro- fessor of Intermedia Arts Angela Ellsworth and renowned For course descriptions, faculty bios, or to register, please visit playwright Tania Katan oversaw the second round of the www.asu.edu/piper/workshops Visual Text Project and lectured on the art of collabora-

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SHIPS IN THE NIGHT

ASU ALUMS HELM NIGHTBOAT BOOKS BY ELIZABYTH HISCOX

Jennifer Chapis, ASU alum and cofounder of the non-profit Washington Square, further fed my desire to publish both press, Nightboat Books, discusses the importance of like-minded emerging and established writers. I didn’t realize it at the writers, the attractions of the innovative/overlooked, and the joy time, but during my experience at HFR and in ASU’s of discovery in the stew of an interview that follows. The follow- Graduate Creative Writing Program I had begun to meet ing was conducted via e-mail in the spring of 2006. friends and poets who would one day work on Night- boat Books: Board member Kevin Vaughan Brubaker, and WHY A PRESS? past Associate Editor Jennifer Currin. Later, I met Kazim Ali, who would become the press’s publisher and my co- I have always wanted to be a publisher, to help bring great founder. At the time, we were both teaching in the NYU writers to readers, and vice versa. Working on Hayden’s Expository Writing Program, trying to inspire our stu- Ferry Review and New York University’s literary journal, dents to think harder than they ever dreamed they could;

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to seek out rich connections within disparate concepts; to boat maneuvers in darkness at the mercy of changing cur- think outside the confines of traditional essay writing; and rents and weather, always immersed in forces beyond itself. to feel comfortable maneuvering in the dark throughout By our way of thinking, this image speaks directly to the the writing process. As it turned out, our shared vision creative process. Particularly in the generative stages, the extended far beyond teaching writer is a navigator, a listener. and pedagogy. Coincidentally, “PERHAPS WRITING A BOOK IS His or her allegiance lies with we shared an almost identi- the written word, not un- cal vision of the publishing A WAY OF LOCATING SOMETHING like the sailor and the sea, the company we would one day mountaineer and the moun- start—a small non-profit press THAT WILL NEVER STOP MOVING. tain. When you’re the writer dedicated to promoting inno- you are the vehicle, the guide, vative poetry and prose that PERHAPS READING A BOOK IS and the terrain all in one yet would not otherwise be rec- you are none of these things. ognized by more mainstream A RELATED GESTURE. IT IS OUR GOAL Simultaneously lost and found, publishers. you revel in your own exotic TO SHED ENOUGH LIGHT FOR THE foreignness, the grace of exist- WHY THE FOCUS OF THE ing between places and states PRESS? WRITER AND READER TO FIND of mind, of not really belong- ing anywhere. Perhaps writing One day during our prelimi- ONE ANOTHER.” a book is a way of locating nary planning stages, Kazim and capturing something that handed me a stack of Fanny Howe’s out-of-print novels will never stop moving. Perhaps reading a book is a related and said, “Here, read these and tell me they shouldn’t be gesture. It was and still is our goal at Nightboat Books to back in print!” Back then, I wasn’t even aware that Fan- shed enough light so the writer and reader can find one ny Howe wrote fiction. This was precisely Kazim’s point. another. [Howe] has more novels than collections of poems, and yet most people, even well-read authors and poets, haven’t WHAT ARE THE REALITIES OF A NON-PROFIT PRESS? experienced her novels. We wanted to showcase brilliant, out-of-the-ordinary (and out of print!) books. The Night- They are what you boat Prose Series was proud to reprint Fanny Howe’s The might expect—long Lives of a Spirit alongside the stunning new coda, Glass- hours, hard work, and town: Where Something Got Broken. It’s a passionate and a lot of responsibility. stunning double book that transcends genre. While challenging, it While our staff and editors value and enjoy all different is also tremendously kinds of prose and poetry, Kazim and I chose to focus on rewarding, and let’s the kinds of writing that most excite us. We publish books not forget exciting. that take unconventional, original, and interesting risks Finding Juliet Patter- (with language, voice, syntax, structure, subject matter, son’s book The Tru- etc.). All the Nightboat editors are unified in this quest. ant Lover and Joshua JENNIFER CHAPIS AND KAZIM ALI STAFF- Kryah’s Glean [2004/ ING THE NIGHTBOAT BOOKS TABLE AT WHY NIGHTBOAT? 05 Nightboat Poetry AWP IN AUSTIN, 2006. Prize contest win- The name Nightboat signifies travel, passage, and possi- ners] amidst a stack of over 500 other manuscripts. . . now, bility. . . of mind and body, and of language. The night that was fun! Kazim and I read the poems aloud to one

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another, and it was as if a strong plishment and to be publishing wind stirred the room. But not her book. The process to find it every day is like that. Running a was long and hard, yet every bit press is a tremendous undertaking, of it was worth it, and more. Your and the “set up” never really seems heart is racing and pounding too. to end. The biggest challenges are money and time, neither of which For more information, visit very many dedicated poets (or http://www.nightboat.org presses!) have enough of.

WHERE DO YOU SEE NIGHTBOAT BOOKS HEADED? PIPER ONLINE BOOK CLUB Most importantly, our aim is to continue developing our 2006 LITERARY SELECTIONS list of titles. In our immediate future, we are thrilled to be publishing Fanny Howe’s collection Radical Love: 5 Novels, JULY to be released in October 2006. CLAUDIA RANKINE’S Ever since the very beginning, the press has grown far Don’t Let Me Be Lonely faster than we imagined possible. Only a couple of weeks in, Jean Valentine was already on the Board of Directors AUGUST and scheduled to judge the first contest. ASU’s Alberto ZADIE SMITH’S Ríos and Beckian Fritz Goldberg had agreed to sit on On Beauty the Advisory Committee, as well as Brenda Hillman and Lucille Clifton. Shortly thereafter, Marie Ponsot was lined SEPTEMBER up to read at our NYC press launch with Susan Wheeler MICHAEL CHABON’S and our first two authors: Daniel Lin and Katherine Dim- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay ma. We had barely begun and the ball was rolling so fast we could hardly keep up. It’s been like that ever since. OCTOBER BRENT RUNYON’S WHAT ROLE DOES THE CONTEST [THE NIGHTBOAT POETRY The Burn Journals PRIZE] PLAY FOR THE PRESS? NOVEMBER [It] is a vehicle for giving writers an opportunity to in- WALTER MOSLEY’S crease their visibility, as well as for us to discover great Devil in a Blue Dress work. The contest helps us pursue our mission to distrib- ute and promote beautifully crafted work that resists con- DECEMBER vention and transcends boundaries. DAVID MITCHELL’S Poets work so hard for so many long years before they Cloud Atlas are given the chance to be published. As poets ourselves, we understand this firsthand. Almost nothing feels better Discussions begin via e-mail listserv on the 5th of each than calling the winning poet with the news. The poet month. To join, visit http://www.asu.edu/piper/bookclub. tells you she can’t believe it. She’s almost speechless. She Membership is free! confesses that her heart is racing and pounding so loudly she can barely concentrate. You’re so proud of her accom-

3 4 BOOKS RODERICK FIELD BEAUTIFUL CHAOS

ZADIE SMITH’S NEW NOVEL PEELS BACK THE ACADEMY BY MOLLY MENEELY

The postmodernist Rembrandt scholar Howard Belsey Liberal Arts education. Meanwhile Belsey’s other son, Je- doesn’t exactly care for Rembrandt or even for the aes- rome, a black sheep in the family for his Christian lean- thetic tradition of foregrounding “the human.” Mean- ings, lusts unrequitedly for the hot daughter of none other while, his mixed race American teenage son, Levi, stumps than Monty Kipps. The daughter in turn seduces the will- for Haitian rights and sells pirated DVDs streetside to ing and clumsy Howard Belsey whose long-standing mar- advance the cause. At the prestigious northeastern uni- riage has already begun to disintegrate. The list goes on. versity where Belsey works, the most recent—and most If you fear chaos, Zadie Smith’s On Beauty may make strident—new hire, the British art scholar of Caribbean you dizzy. descent Monty Kipps (Belsey’s long sworn intellectual and In an homage to E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End, Zadie personal enemy), promises to take the “liberal” out of a Smith tackles the inter- and counter-relationships between

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two families alike in mixed heritage, but dissimilar from bia and distaste for women’s rights, and soon both patri- nearly every other perspective. It’s the wives, behemoth archs appear on the page as strange and sour echoes of and lovely Kiki Belsey and cloistered Carlene Kipps, who each other. connect in quiet moments of puzzlement and admiration, But this sleepy college town, home to elite Wellington but as is so often the case in Smith’s exuberant, sprawling College and the grizzly underbelly of academic postur- work, cultural and social chaos rules. In the midst of the ing, has enough characters for every reader to find him many chords and notes at play—academic politics, cultural or herself in the action. At an outdoor performance of antagonism, snobbery, social Mozart’s Requiem attended by inequality, linguistic power- “I DON’T WRITE AS A PETITION OR the Belsey family, Zora and mongering, family relations, the street poet Carl mistak- sexual fantasies and realities, ARGUMENT. I WRITE WHAT I WRITE enly exchange their portable and, of course, the improvisa- music players (was neither lis- tional jazz blend of Smith’s ra- BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT I CAN DO. tening to the concert?), thus diantly different voices among the spark for Zora’s romantic races and ages—these charac- I DON’T DO IT FOR ANY BIG REASON. infatuation and fascination ters try to find their tune. If with his class and cultural dif- classic argument pits chaos I JUST WRITE THE BOOKS.” ferences (“She’s like a poet against the order of beauty, poet,” explains Zora to Carl whether in painting, music, writing, society, or in the when introducing him to Claire Malcolm, the poetry universe itself, Smith demands that both be winners. On professor intent on keeping Zora out of her classroom). Beauty, breathless in its execution, happily undisciplined in Zora’s repeated, earnest faux pas dot the book in the same its scope, and equally generous with scathing critique of clumsy manner in which we’ve all sporadically discovered all parties, sings an at times melancholic, other times glee- that defining true “art,” “artist,” or true anything for that ful, but always unforgettable song. matter, grows from an often shaky foundation (ever tried For those familiar with Smith’s first novel White Teeth defining beauty?). Zora’s mother, Kiki Belsey, meanwhile, (2000), published at the age of twenty-four and quickly watches her marriage fall out of tune in time with her bestowed with award upon award, On Beauty (2005), itself body, which has grown to immense proportions during short-listed for the Booker Prize and received the Orange her adult life, becoming at once an idolized, lush, female Prize, offers many related pleasures. In fact, Smith mines physical landscape and the very opposite of contemporary, much of the same psychological territory, at times blindly, thin, white, unchanging beauty. In deciding how to re- to various causes: instead of White Teeth’s Chalfen family spond to her husband’s marital offenses, Kiki behaves with and their futuristic biological tinkering, we have daugh- coldness, anger, laughter, and later, “a wispy sigh and then ter Zora Belsey’s self-improvement plan, steamrolls herself nothing,” all identifiable oscillations of the heart we’ve into a poetry class taught by one of her father’s lovers, and each experienced. speaks at university-wide meetings on behalf of a spoken- What may mark Smith most as an author to watch is her word-suave “tough guy” who resists both her patronage fervent embrace of this complexity. The prose is approach- and her awkward romantic entreaties. Instead of White able and the dialogue from the mouths of real, unstyl- Teeth’s enduring friendship of Archie and Samad, both of ized people, yet her work still asserts an apparent, perhaps whom naturally attract readers even when they err, we unintentional, ambition. She treats the evolving social is- have the bristling antagonism of Belsey and Kipps and you sues of the world in real, messy terms—an ambition with can’t help but wonder if they each became Rembrandt which many contemporary authors may fear to tread. scholars (of differing philosophies, of course), simply to Thus the energy of Smith’s work, rather than threaten- further irritate the other. But just when Belsey’s view of ing to overwhelm, refreshes. Even at her tragic moments, art feels stifling and heartless, Kipps champions homopho- Smith is honest and light, and the world, somehow, more

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accessible. the kind of stuff I write because that’s what I can do. I In fact, Smith relishes a certain improvised unevenness. make no case for it . . . I am conscious of what I’m do- In her upcoming collection of essays tentatively titled Fail ing, but I don’t do it for any big reason. I just write the Better, she will examine reputed writers arguably through books.” Considering both authors can make readers laugh the lens of beauty: the beauty which emanates from mo- one page and break their hearts the next, it’s an approach ments when their work falters, digresses, or surprises—of- toward writing, and art itself, worth holding onto. fering an emotional richness—rather than a satisfied, or- This September 16, Smith will visit ASU to read recent dered formula. Even in her nonfiction, chaos and beauty work and be available for book signings at a Piper Center make happy bedfellows. Distinguished Visiting Writers Series event open to the But don’t expect easy answers on what makes a story public (details at www.asu.edu/piper). As she speaks, spot- “true art” or an author a “true artist.” An author not un- lighted at the front of the room, it will be hard not to be like Smith for her irony, wit, and fearless blend of char- reminded of On Beauty’s closing scene: Howard Belsey, acters and consequences, Flannery O’Connor wrote that center stage in a lecture hall, speechless at last at the ge- if you want to know what a story is about, you should nius of Rembrandt and the beauty of his wife (“Howard’s read the story; a statement alone will never suffice. Smith audience looked at Howard . . . awaiting elucidation . . . ”). echoes this sentiment in a recent interview with Powell’s Then, as we await elucidation, Smith’s work, not unlike Books: “The only thing that I find unnerving is the idea the painting, will ultimately, ecstatically, speak for itself, a that when you write you’re pushing an agenda or an argu- music unlike any other. ment. I don’t write as a petition or an argument. I write

MEETING THE CHALLENGE JORN AKE SALLY BALL This past spring, IRA A. FULTON issued a visionary ROXANE BARWICK fundraising challenge to the ASU community: for CHRIS BECKER each donation received up to $5,000, Fulton would THERESA DELGADO guarantee matching funds, as long as the donation was NORMAN DUBIE received by June 30, 2006. TINA DURHAM REBECCA DYER As an added bonus, donors could earmark their funds LORI ISBELL for a certain department or center on campus. Several SALIMA KEEGAN donors chose to route their donation directly to the MIKE MCNALLY Piper Center for Creative Writing, in support of our ROBERT NELSON students and programs. FRANCES NEW MELISSA PRITCHARD We wish to recognize and thank the individuals who, JEWELL PARKER RHODES at press time, had participated in the Fulton Chal- JAMIE MARIE ROSE lenge: MICHELL SKINNER GREG THIELEN

3 7 GENRE CHARLES JENSEN

BROKEN PROMISES THREE RULES ON TRUTH VS REALITY IN THE NEW NONFICTION BY ISAAC WILSON

The recent revelation that critical portions of James curred.” In exchange for this promise, the reader responds Frey’s memoir, A Million Little Pieces, were actually works by immediately suspending disbelief—they will not sit in of fiction (a nice way of saying made-up), should have their chair and wonder, “Sure, but could this have really those of us who write nonfiction or memoir re-examining happened?” like they might when reading a novel. With our own writing process. this agreement in place your nonfiction is immediately Unlike composing a work of fiction—a novel or short granted a certain level of seriousness that a fictional story story—when you sit down to write nonfiction you are must earn, a weight and gravitas that comes from the as- making a specific contract with your future readers. This sumption that the events being described actually hap- contract reads something like this: “I, as writer, pledge to pened to real people. Which would be the more powerful render events, to the best of my ability, as they actually oc- cautionary tale—your mother telling you a story about

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some boy, one you have come to suspect does not exist, Frey wrote about his “months” in prison, when really his shooting his eye out with his BB gun, or your best friend time was in the range of two to four days. Edward Abbey’s coming home from the hospital with a black patch over Desert Solitaire: A Season In The Wilderness, was actually his eye? three different seasons (over several years) worth of stories There are other advantages to agreeing to the nonfic- from his time as a ranger at Arches National Park. Abbey’s tion contract. “Truth is stranger than fiction” is a cliché publisher thought that readers would be confused by this because it’s true. In nonfiction you can write about that distinction, and consequently we have a nonfiction col- six-legged elephant you saw lection that pretends to happen in Nepal, and you don’t have over the course of one year. to worry if your reader will ‘TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION’ RULE THREE: No compress- “buy” the scene where you ing of place. Settings can be feed it peanuts the way you IS A CLICHÉ BECAUSE IT’S TRUE. like characters, awfully similar might if the same hungry ele- and sometimes arbitrary, but in phant appeared in your latest YOU DON’T HAVE TO IMAGINE WHAT nonfiction combining or sim- novella. You also don’t have to plifying them means stepping imagine what your characters YOUR CHARACTERS WOULD DO into murky waters. might do. Real people are RULE FOUR: It is okay to doing the work for you, and BECAUSE REAL PEOPLE ARE DOING break any of the rules if you you can focus on portraying tell the reader you are breaking people and events rather than THAT WORK FOR YOU. them. For example, I was lying creating them. when I said Paul only taught Paul Morris teaches graduate-level creative nonfiction three rules. In a real example, Edmund Morris, who won workshops at ASU, and in these classes presents three rules the Pulitzer for his biography of Theodore Roosevelt, for those who are just starting to write nonfiction: wrote in the preface of Dutch, an authorized biography RULE ONE: No compressing multiple characters into of President Reagan, “. . . this is the story of a real per- one. This is more tempting then it may first seem. Say you son told by an imaginary narrator who eventually mutates had seven brothers growing up; in your tell-all memoir are into myself.” Edmund Morris, after spending several years you going to subject us to all seven? Wouldn’t it be nice to with unprecedented access to Reagan, felt the only way take the more interesting traits of each one and just give to accurately paint a portrait of the man, whom he came us one character that represents all of them? Maybe, but it to know as someone who told the same jokes and sto- is also somewhat disengenous. In the mid 1940’s, Joseph ries, time after time, in maddening fashion, was to create Mitchell wrote a series of articles for the New Yorker about an imaginary narrator who grew up with Reagan. This New York’s Fulton Fish Market. Only when he published avant-garde solution was criticized by many, but by being the collection as a book in 1948 titled Old Mr. Flood did forthcoming Edmund Morris successfully modified his he admit in the preface that the main character, Old Mr. contract with the reader. Flood, was actually a composite of “. . . several old men While some of the best selling nonfiction titles of all who work or hang out in the Fulton Fish Market, or who time have taken huge liberties when presenting people did in the past.” Also in the preface, possibly anticipat- and events (read the author’s note at the end of Midnight ing criticism, Mitchell wrote “I wanted these stories to be In The Garden Of Good And Evil), James Frey’s outright lies truthful rather than factual, but they are solidly based on have created a new set of sensitivities to misrepresenting facts.” Many have been critical that this composite char- facts in memoir and creative nonfiction. And it all hap- acter was first presented in pieces of what was thought to pened on Oprah. The situation highlighted what we really be journalism. already knew, that in nonfiction being honest with your RULE TWO: No compressing (or expanding) time. James reader is important. Following the three rules above, and the fourth when necessary, is not a bad place to start. 3 9 AUTHOR PROFILE

NO SMALL MYSTERY AN INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTOPHER BURAWA BY TINA HAMMERTON

Christopher Burawa was born in Reykjavik, Iceland. Lapses, was published in Spring 2006 by Cleveland State He holds an MA in English Language and Literature and University Press. an MFA in Creative Writing from Arizona State Univer- Chris Burawa describes The Small Mystery of Lapses as “a sity. He was awarded a MacDowell Colony fellowship complilation, and a corruption, of family histories.” Histo- in 2003. His translations of the contemporary Icelandic ry has always fascinated Chris. His MA thesis explored the poet Jóhann Hjálmarsson, Of the Same Mind, won the Toad historical context of an Old English poem, “The Dream Press International Chapbook Competition and was pub- of the Rood.” His own poems evolve, among other ori- lished in 2005. Currently, he is the Director of Literature gins, from questions about how important family history and Public Information Officer for the Arizona Commis- really is and what kind of claim one can lay on it. Chris sion on the Arts. His book of poems, The Small Mystery of doesn’t feel like there is some “tidal influence coming

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up through the generations.” Rather than accept the com- it’s largely fiction.” Chris describes the sagas as close to monly held view that our familial history forms us in modern novels in many respects—even like Westerns in some deterministic way, he instead imagines a lot of near a way. ancestors as almost fictional characters. Without judgment The title of the book is also part of his poem, “Rim- or any preconceived notions of what he should feel, Chris baud’s Last Fever”: analyzes “the way they come down to him and the way that he re-tells the story to himself.” Mother stands by the stove America seems to have become Chris’s permanent without knowing why, feels she needs air, and home, and the home he grew up in has vanished. He steps outside. moved to the United States when he was twelve, and al- though this may not seem late in life, he always “antici- A rutabaga goes missing from the stock pot. pated leaving.” Thus his poems address his own “struggles of what it means to be an Icelander, and not an American, This alone explains the small mystery of lapses— [while at the same time] being more American than Ice- dry cough behind the front door, landic, at least in the way [he] sounds and the way [he] a stuck door, thinks.” And he can’t go home. “The Iceland now, that I cold knob go back to visit, is nothing like the Iceland I knew. And so —when she returns. that world is reflected in this book.” As he sifted through the poems for his new manuscript, Here is another “mystery” Chris wants to reveal: Chris Burawa found patterns and preoccupations with “The word ‘lapses’ can mean errors in judgement, and it certain themes, especially Iceland, family, and history. But can also mean forgetfulness, but that’s not the context that there were others—contemporary lyrics—insisting they I’m using. It’s more of the absolute forgetfulness of the be included. “I did not want them next to each other. I self—all of a sudden we’ve dropped away [and] we kind didn’t know how they would be ordered, but I knew that of come to again in another form. It’s the exploration of I wanted them to appear and disappear, appear and disap- that nature of mind, the self that comes and goes. It has to pear.” So they weave throughout the book, and they coun- do with consciousness—the thing that happens when you terbalance and compliment the historic theme. hear a loud sound. You disappear, you become sound, and The poems are not confessional—in other words, they you come out of it, you just lose that sense of this person do not refer directly to Chris’s own childhood experienc- that says ‘I am.’” es growing up in Iceland. They draw instead on the tradi- Reading this book, I experience what Chris means. tions of families, the characterizations of people, and the Breaking out of its daily loop of struggle and obligation, superstitions that he grew up with. The sense of marvel at my mind “lapses.” I become the poem. Somehow, by us- nature also comes through. “We are very much into the ing “fracture” to “blur the boundaries of time,” Chris has outdoors. We love wilderness. There’s a kind of a blend- found the tools to stop it. ing [in the poems] of these things that are very Icelandic, Chris feels that these lapses tie indirectly to history, and that mean a lot to me, that I really feel are a part who we are, and our idea of what our own history is. of where I belong.” Chris grew up reading the Icelan- These are all important themes included in the book. This dic sagas, which develop characters through psychological does not mean, however, that he leaves nothing left for the descriptions. “That’s what was so seductive to historians reader to determine. “I think people have different entry- when they read the sagas, and started talking about them, ways into poems, and to get the monolithic approach is and why they thought it was actual history. In fact they unfortunate...that’s robbing your reading of it.” were written hundreds of years later by a bunch of monks, cloistered away, and while there was some oral history that was passed down to these monks that they could tap into,

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Q & A

DON LEE, KEVIN MCILVOY, AND GUILLERMO REYES MULL OVER OUR QUESTIONS ON WRITING, CULTURE, & ART. COLLECTED BY CHARLES JENSEN

HOW HAS YOUR WRITING CHANGED OVER novel, novella, short story, short short story, prose poem— THE YEARS? I reach more for moments of surprising generosity than for precision. I value states of being as highly as states of DON LEE (DL): Of late I think it’s gotten looser, which has becoming. been a conscious effort. My earlier work was too stiff, try- ing too hard to be polished and to have everything tidied GUILLERMO REYES (GR): I’m more relaxed. People who and buttoned-up, too stylized and self-conscious. I’m less know me will laugh at that assertion, but the younger self interested in symmetry and resolutions now. was constantly in need of finishing a project, mailing it out to hundreds of people, and then watch the rejections KEVIN MCILVOY (KM): In whatever form I am working in— pile up. I have plays I’m still rewriting from five years ago

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or so that I haven’t submitted yet. I will when I’m ready. live inside our own experience and we even more rarely Maybe I’ve written enough plays by now to know that join others in their experiences; we are in that insulated there’s always something I could submit, but I give each state of “nonbeing” Virginia Woolf describes so wisely in play sufficient time to develop before I send it out to get Moments of Being. Many of us wish to learn again how to its new share of rejections. The ability to slow down, re- be fully present—somatically, not just cerebrally—to the consider every aspect of the play, is something my students mysteries of the human and natural worlds before us. We don’t always understand. They’re in a rush to get it pro- believe literature offers us this gift. duced. I’m no longer interested in quick results. I place my first trust in the many sensual qualities of narrative voice. A voice with many voices poured into HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE THE PO- it has a way of making a reader permeable, ready to be ETRY OR PROSE BEING WRITTEN TODAY, poured out and to be poured into. AND HOW DOES YOUR OWN WORK RE- FLECT THAT CHARACTERIZATION? GR: Art is a cry in the wilderness; it’s the proverbial tree that falls in the forest. Society may need it, but people DL: I see more invention and variety. There’s certainly less may not even know it. The caveman drawings must have of the so called kitchen-sink realism that everyone was been important to the people who spent hours in them. I churning out for a while, and also what used to be labeled don’t know if anybody really stopped to admire them, but as workshop stories. all it takes is one appreciative observer to make your day. I don’t know if everyone can appreciate plays per se, but I KM: Thankfully, we live in an age of many literary sensi- do know billions tune in to television to watch some as- bilities. What firmly predominates, however, in contem- pect of life dramatized every night throughout the world. porary American fiction is the Updikean mode. In that Even when people can’t name the writer, they know they genuinely appealing mode the highest value is irony. Irony need the experience in the writing. So dramatization is values the thought elements of a reading experience above what I’m enthralled by, and I know people out there are the felt elements of a reading experience. hungry for it as well even if they’ve never seen a live In my own work I feel called to value the felt elements play. I try to fulfill that function whenever I can, but our above the thought elements. It is not my conscious inten- economy shows it’s up to the producers to bring such an tion to work against the grain of this ironic storytelling experience to the public. The play can be read, and it can that my culture has lionized. As I said, I have gone where be seen performed. Either way, I’d like to believe my plays the work has led me. I have done that with my own pri- can help move or disturb or delight an audience. I don’t vate sense of its value. have greater ambitions than that—I’m probably through trying “to change the world.” Dramatists are not prophets, WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE SINGLE MOST but our humbleness is probably healthier. IMPORTANT FUNCTION OF ART, AND HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR OWN WORK FULFILLS THAT FUNCTION? WHAT RESPONSIBILITY, IF ANY, DO WRIT- ERS HAVE TO VOICE THEIR OPINIONS ABOUT DL: Oh, the standard answer: to open up people’s imagi- WAR AND OTHER RELATED ISSUES? nation of how others live. Merely inserting a reader into someone else’s head for a while is very healthy. You fulfill DL: As much as any other citizen, but not necessarily in a lot of sociopolitical agendas in doing just that. their work. I feel an added burden as an ethnic writer, in that I’m asked to be a spokesperson for Asian Americans KM: I believe the most important function of art is to quite a bit, to talk about race and identity, which is, as help us learn presence. In our daily lives we rarely fully anyone will tell you, an awful drag. But at the same time,

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I know it’s important. This is a story I repeat often: my only to discover it was yet another in a series of deadly, favorite thing that happened on all of my book tours was mass hysterical movements that humanity has produced when a kid approached me after a reading. “I’m Korean through the centuries—Nazism was another such move- American,” he said, “and I want to be a writer, too. My ment in his times. Creative artists, in my opinion, should question to you is, Do I have to write about being Korean search for truths greater than whether or not the most re- American?”—to which I replied, “No, because hopefully cent president or prime minister is a fool. Yes, we need to I’m doing that for you.” stop and denounce a great in- justice when it occurs, but we KM: We writers place faith in “MERELY INSERTING A READER need to be careful about how beauty, its “radical decentering” and when we ally ourselves (Elaine Scarry, philosopher) INTO SOMEONE ELSE’S HEAD with a certain political move- power in our lives. A story with ment. To paraphrase Sartre, no direct polemic focus can, if FOR A WHILE IS VERY HEALTHY. today’s peace activist can be it creates beauty, so decenter tomorrow’s executioner. Be- us that any of us will, despite YOU FULFILL A LOT OF ware of the human inclination ourselves, have new awareness to discover the utopian solu- of the great suffering we cause SOCIOPOLITICAL AGENDAS IN JUST tion to the human condition, and have caused. and be selective about partisan I’m aware that many say art DOING THAT. expressions. As Orwell might should not be unsubtle (as in have warned, choose your al- much politically partisan po- — DON LEE lies carefully, and never be too etry and fiction), should always surprised when they become ‘tell it slant.’ From my perspec- deadly, as they usually do. tive, they are forgivably mistaken. They seem to assume that beauty has only ever been made with fine and deli- DO YOU SUBSCRIBE TO A PARTICULAR THE- cate tools. They seem to have forgotten that in times of ORY OR UNDERSTANDING OF LANGUAGE war and of human and animal genocide, artists across all OR ART, AND IF SO, WOULD YOU DESCRIBE cultures in all eras have put down their scalpels and have WHAT IT INVOLVES? picked up saws, and have made works of profound, decen- tering beauty. DL: God, I hope I don’t.

GR: Writers participate in civic issues like all other cit- KM: I have one over-riding principle in my life as an artist izens, and are entitled to their opinions. Movie starlets and, incidentally, in my life as a teacher: Question all first have theirs, too, and so does the babbling idiot on the talk principles. In this, Basho and Emerson and Son House are show. With our specific writing, however, I would argue my own demon teachers. we should assume a higher plane of discussion, reach for wisdom rather than the more fashionable latest cause, but GR: No particular theory really. Drama should simply I know plenty of writers who like to add to the shouting reach our heart and soul and you can use many different matches that occur all around us. Perhaps it’s my Chilean techniques to do that. My only recommendation is to get background that makes me balk at the idea of creative to the point. We don’t have all day. It’s like lovemaking re- writers acting out partisan games. I find it sad that the ally. It’s got to touch a nerve, or two, and then stop before great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda penned pro-Stalinist po- moving on to the next. ems only to discover Stalin was a mass murderer. At one point, he thought Communism a heroic universal struggle

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WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO KNOW YOUR HOW DO YOU MAKE YOUR PERSONAL EX- SUBJECT? PERIENCE USEFUL TO STRANGERS?

DL: I tend to do voluminous amounts of research about GR: I don’t know if strangers care about my personal ex- my characters’ professions. That’s how I get to know them. perience, only about the greater universal truths that my But much of that research is simply a way of procrasti- particular experience might convey, if I do it well enough. nating from writing, and it ends up that I toss most of I’d like to believe that I can write plays that have enough it. For instance, the novel I’m working on now involved dramatic backbone for people to see themselves mir- a brussels sprouts farmer. There’s surprisingly little out rored in it. As a Latino artist, I have had to live with com- there about brussels sprouts farming. So I’ve visited farms, ments such as “audiences won’t go see a Latino-themed and I interviewed one particular farmer in California on play because they can’t relate to it.” Apparently, out there the telephone for about five hours. But even just halfway a “mainstream” audience thinks of “Latinos” as such an through the book, I can tell that only about nine pages alien group of people that our lives are not relatable. We total will have anything to do with brussels sprouts. live in some other plane of existence that is apparently incomprehensible to this audience. Who exactly are these KM: In my case the “subject” is the fictional character. people? They apparently exist, and producers make deci- What is the true self that exists beyond all the selves the sions based on them. I’d like to meet them one day. You character has constructed? What is the ineffable in that might think I exaggerate, but I’ve been told most of this in true self? These, I believe, are the key questions. so many words by artistic directors and literary managers How will the artist’s work enact—and not just impart all over the country. The reason why some of our lead- (as in the use of irony)—for the reader the dissonances ing theater companies in Arizona don’t do Latino plays is and the harmonies among the character’s selves, between because they fear their “mainstream” audience base won’t her/his selves and her/his true self? How will the artist’s come to see such “alien” people on stage. As an artist, of work acknowledge the character’s worth to the reader, a course, I try to simply depict people to the best of my worth that transcends the values of mere use? How will ability, and to draw some conclusions about the human the portrayal of the character honor the inarticulate ex- experience. Our current practice in the United States, pressions of being human as well as the articulate expres- however, relegates an artist to some category such as “the sions? These, I believe, are the key challenges. minority experience” that basically tells audiences to stay away. We all live and we all die, so I don’t know what’s so GR: I am trying to make sense of my presence here (not in minority about that. The market, however, tells you oth- Arizona, but on an existential level), and of the few years erwise. I might have left. I sensed mortality quite early as a child when quakes rattled my native home in Chile, and then they IF TRANSLATED, WOULD YOUR WORK BE haunted me in my adopted city of Los Angeles. Quakes are MEANINGFUL TO, SAY, AN ABORIGINAL a great reminder that the foundation is cracking—and it’s TRIBE IN NEW GUINEA? PLEASE EXPLAIN. cracking for thee. I think I’ve latched on to subject matter that makes me introspective and moody, and yet humorous DL: I had my collection of stories translated into Korean, sometimes, even outrageous. In my comedies, I even try to and the translator finally emailed me and said they were defy death, a futile task, but necessary sometimes. Come- pretty much done, they only had one question: “What is dy’s a good place for defiance. In tragedy, I try to embrace the meaning of the first chapter of your novel?” he asked me it instead. I go back and forth, depending on my moods, [my italics]. The title of the first story was “The Price of and while I can write on specific subject matter—i.e. La- Eggs in China.” He said, “We think it means the weakness tino immigrants in L.A., for example—I know that our of the Chinese man’s heart. Would you agree?” I knew mortality is more important than our specific ethnicity. right then I was in big, big trouble. The fact is, authors

4 5 Q & A

have no idea how their work will be translated, and what DL: Both as a writer and an editor, I worry a lot about it will mean to anyone. the state of literature in this country. People keep telling me I’m being too doom-and-gloom, that there have been KM: It is improbable. I do not value my work less be- cries about the death of literature for decades, yet we still cause it speaks only to my own “tribe,” and, at that, a very carry on. But I do think this is a different era. People just few members. I try to hold don’t have as much time to Stendhal’s “sincerity of to do anything—much less method” in which he pro- “WE DON’T COMPETE WITH MADONNA, read—anymore. I sincere- poses that we humbly write ly believe, however, that if of and for our own moment TWINKIES, AND PIMP ‘ N HO MUSIC. people were informed about without reaching ambi- good books, they would read tiously for work that will be WE CAN’T SINGLEHANDEDLY MAKE and enjoy them, no matter valued through all eras and how dark or “literary” they by all people. PEOPLE LITERATE. WE TRY TO seemed. That’s why I liked the previous incarnation of GR: I would have to assume EDUCATE OUR STUDENTS AND OUR the Oprah Book Club. It’s that the aboriginal tribe is unfortunate that newspa- literate on Western terms LOVED ONES. THE REST OF THE TIME, pers have cut back on re- and that they actively seek view pages as much as they out plays by Latino play- LOCK YOUR DOORS AND BE AFRAID. have, and the demise of in- wrights. I’m not even con- dependent booksellers has fident an American audi- — GUILLERMO REYES hurt a great deal, too, in the ence does this, and I can’t loss of handselling and staff even get my students to go see plays without some sort recommendations. I’m not sure what can turn the tide. of threat of failing them in the class. So, no, probably not. Knowing my family in Chile, what sells abroad is Coca- GR: We don’t compete with Madonna, twinkies, and pimp Cola and artists who can shake their booty. I don’t hold ‘n ho music. We don’t. Millions watch entertainment that much hope for a universally educated, literate audience we consider crass and demeaning. We can’t singlehandedly anywhere in the world. make people literate. We try to educate our students and our loved ones. The rest of the time, lock your doors and ARE THERE ANY LIMITATIONS TO YOUR be afraid. ART? IF SO, WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF THOSE LIMITATIONS? HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ART AND COM- DL: I was stuck recently by Annie Proulx’s comment, upon MERCE AS YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED IT? seeing the film adaptation of Brokeback Mountain, that “film can be more powerful than the written word.” It’s DL: My first novel was marketed as both a literary book true that I sometimes envy the immediacy of films, but it’s and a mystery book, which irked my friends to no end. a different medium. Books are powerful in a different way, I kept getting calls and e-mails from them, complaining precisely because you have to linger with them. they had looked for my novel in a bookstore, couldn’t find it, and then were told it was in the mystery section. I think HOW COULD ART BE MADE MORE VITAL my publisher was trying to get the best of both worlds, AND USEFUL TO A PUBLIC SATURATED IN crossing over genres. It’s hard to say whether this worked TECHNOLOGY? or backfired or didn’t really matter, but yeah, I have to

4 6 Q & A

admit it irked me, too. But, I don’t know, maybe it was HOW DO YOU THINK THE CONCERNS OF a mystery book. After all, it got an Edgar Award for Best AMERICAN WRITERS DIFFER RIGHT NOW First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America! FROM THE CONCERNS OF OTHER WRITERS IN THE WORLD? GR: People enjoy the loud and the sensational, and un- fortunately, some of us are qui- DL: American writers are too et and unassuming most of the concerned with writing the time. Of course, when I’ve com- “I DO NOT VALUE MY WORK LESS book Great American Novel, I mitted myself to even one bit of think—huge, ambitious tomes. the sensational such as infusing BECAUSE IT SPEAKS ONLY TO MY When you look at the oeuvres my play with more sex, people of foreign writers, they produce have come in droves. The more OWN ‘TRIBE,’ AND, AT THAT, some big books, but many more delicate poetic piece gets ig- slim ones, simple stories that nored, so I know by now what A VERY FEW MEMBERS. WE aren’t trying to do too much, yet sells and I’m still reluctant to sell carry a lot of power. I’m more it. Not because I’m so virtuous, HUMBLY WRITE OF AND FOR OUR and more in favor of novels un- but because I’m not by nature der two hundred pages, but may- loud or sexy enough. OWN MOMENT.” be that’s because my next one is already looking to be around IS THERE A DIFFERENCE — KEVIN MCILVOY four hundred, and I’m only half- BETWEEN THE REALITY way through it, and I wish it OF YOUR ART AND THE REALITY OF YOUR were farther along. LIFE? KM: I’m concerned about our readers. Young American DL: Well, I’m in there in all of it, that’s for sure. Some readers, taught “to the test” and then tested exhaustively friends keep insisting I should write a completely auto- in our school systems, have read literature only through biographical story, implying, I think, that it might be more test-driven considerations. This has taught them to nega- entertaining than my usual stuff. I keep insisting it would tively associate any reading experience with a measuring be deadly dull. Maybe this indicates that when I relate my and evaluating experience. life to my friends, I lie and embellish too much. How to explain their excitement for the Harry Pot- ter books? They are not, after all, books anything like GR: The reality of the art and the reality of my life tend to the books on the tests. They are well-transformed video cross paths constantly. That’s my problem actually. I can’t games. How to explain their parents’ love for The DaVinci just sit down and write a killer thriller. That would cer- Code? Its information-centered content would lend itself tainly get my name out there. Instead, I end up writing quite well to a test, wouldn’t it? about Latino immigrants who have trouble asserting their presence in the U.S. and who wants to see that? I have GR: On the one hand, we are a lucky people. We Ameri- trouble getting even other Latino immigrants who have can writers are not literally taken off our mountaintops, trouble asserting themselves to come see these plays. The imprisoned, and tortured as has happened in my native introspective work that I so value is something I find dif- country, Chile, and in many other countries around the ficult for other people to even consider watching. So the world. We don’t have an ayatollah declaring fatwa on us reality of my life and my work constantly play off each as happened to Salman Rushdie. In the U.S., the market other. knows how to ignore writers rather than kill us. But being ignored is not the same as being persecuted. Democracy

4 7 Q & A

and the Bill of Rights still have their benefits, although I PIPER CENTER FRIENDS have to wonder how far the Bush Administration will go in trying to deny these basic rights to us (oops, but I for- The Piper Center wishes to thank our circle of generous get, I’m not supposed to do that partisan thing.) friends for their support of our programs and initiatives: WHAT DO AMERICAN WRITERS HAVE TO CHAMPIONS OF THE ARTS TEACH OTHER WRITERS IN THE WORLD? CLIVE CUSSLER WHAT MIGHT THEY LEARN? HAROLD DORENBECHER REBECCA DYER GR: I prefer to believe we don’t teach people, but we learn JO KRUEGER from one another. KATHLEEN LASKOWSKI Other writers in the world have their own problems, SALLIE NAJAFI and most of the time we can empathize with them. South JANAKI RAM African Playwright Athol Fugard teaches me about apart- GREG & ELIZABETH THIELEN heid, and Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman makes a case for RAYE THOMAS human rights in Chile (and thereby the world); Toni Mor- RICHARD & LINDA WARREN rison allows me to see American history from an African BELINDA BARCLAY-WHITE American woman’s perspective, and Gore Vidal from that TERESA A. WILHOIT of an American writer who’s thought hard about Ameri- can history and has met many of its players. I hope ulti- mately that sincere, honest writing can undo the damage ARTS ADVOCATES that a mass-market culture gives off in the world. For- MYLES V. & JULIE A. LYNK eign writers will hopefully see beyond the soda-swilling, cupcake-devouring, jean-wearing cowboy with the happy trigger image. Let’s worry about preventing our own so- SUPPORTING SUBSCRIBERS cial contract from falling apart, and maybe indirectly we’ll ANN & DAN BERGIN inspire people who need that type of inspiration. We have CAROL KOST plenty of things to learn from writers abroad, in turn. The KALLIANI MANGALAT fact that some literally risk their lives in writing the truth THOMAS ROGERS about their societies should teach us to stop whining (as I EUGENE & MARLENE SHAPIRO do at times myself, I admit), and try to prevent our weapons GEETA SINGH of mass destruction from being used. We often forget how TOM WAGNER dangerous the rest of the world perceives us. The culture GREGORY WILLIAMS we present to them often justifies their worst fears. We writers can help reminding people throughout the world Although the Piper Center is funded by the College of Lib- that we are more than just a sum of our military hardware. eral Arts & Sciences and a generous endowment from the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, we need your support and involvement to continue our mission to cultivate a lively lit- erary community in the Phoenix metro area.

For more information on providing your support, please turn to page 51 of this issue.

4 8 ALUMNI LINER NOTES ALUMNI LINER NOTES

JEFFREY COLEMAN’s new book Spir- band Miguel mar- its Distilled addresses a range of sub- ried in Janu- jects, including his deceased father ary, 2005. Their and grandmother, Sally Hemmings, the daughter, Iria, is 1998 dragging death of James Byrd, Jr., three years old recently deceased Yugoslav president and their son Jo- Slobodan Milosevic, the psychological seph Miguel was terror of September 11, the war in Iraq, born December the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, 13. She still teach- the 2001 massacre of Nepal’s royal family, people living es as an Adult Ed- with AIDS, the Confederate Flag issue in S.C., voodoo ucation Special- spirituality, relationships, and the influence of writers ist at Salt River Gwendolyn Brooks and James Baldwin. Pima-Maricopa Indian Commu- HERSHMAN JOHN is a full time faculty member at Phoenix nity, and continues to thoroughly enjoy her work. College, where he teaches composition, poetry and Ameri- can Indian Studies. Some of his works have been published SUE ALLSPAW POMEROY recently had three poems pub- in Flyway-A Literary Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Journal lished in Isotope: A journal of science and nature writing out of of Navajo Education, O Taste and See: Food Poems, Family Utah State University in a special Antarctica section. One Matters: Poems of Our Families, Puerto del Sol, and Wicazo of those poems is slated to be read on “The Nature’s Date- Sa Review. His poem “Roadrunner Fragment #17” is part book” on Martha of a public art display on Mill Avenue in Tempe. Univer- Stewart Living sity of Arizona Press will publish his book of poetry in Radio, a Sirius Ra- Fall 2007, which is tentatively titled Wooden Duck. dio channel. She is still working for KEVIN HAWORTH is still touring for his novel The Discon- the U.S. Antarc- tinuity of Small Things, which was published last year and tic Program and recently won the Samuel Goldberg Prize, given for best is scheduled to book of Jewish fiction by a writer under forty. Kevin would deploy to Palm- love to visit other ASU alumni at their current schools. er Station and the research ice- LISA MAY GILES is currently finishing her dissertation breakers for three “Risking Enchantment: American Poetry and the Gar- weeks this spring. den,” at Brandeis University. She splits her time now be- Claire, her daugh- tween Massachusetts and Maine, trying to find time for ter, is doing well after her severe prematurity (born three creative writing amidst her research. Last summer she gave months early), and is mostly all smiles. a poetry reading at a bookstore/cafe in Rockland, Maine; this summer she’ll be reading Dickinson non-stop. ALAN TONGRET’s The Inn of a Thousand Days: A Memoir of a Country B&B was published in 2005. He’s a busy play- ERICA MARIA LITZ published two poems, “Namesake” and wright whose recent productions include The Birth of Ve- “La Despierta” in the Volume 19 issue of The Caribbean nus at Phoenix’s Herberger Theatre Center and The World Writer. A ten-page piece called “Come together, all of Aflame at the Dramatist Guild in New York. you—sobrinos, children—and listen:” will appear in an arts magazine out of Seattle, quiet SHORTS. She and her hus-

4 9 CONTRIBUTORS CONTRIBUTORS

MAX DOTY is enrolled in Arizona State University’s MFA and periodically in other magazines such as California West. program. He has worked as a professional e-mail answerer His plays and short stories have been published in differ- for Google and a writer of the cell-phone game “Surviv- ent anthologies, most of the them dealing with Latino ing High School.” His irregularly updated webcomic The and/or gay issues. At the present time, Carlos is an MFA Mooches can be read at www.themooches.com. playwriting student at ASU.

MICHAEL GREEN is currently pursuing concurrent gradu- KEVIN MCILVOY is the author of four novels and a story ate degrees in fiction writing and Humanities with a con- collection, The Complete History of New Mexico. His work centration in film. He grew up in Tempe and lives there has recently appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Ploughshares, now with his tropical fish and a stray cat that occasionally TriQuarterly, and the Southern Review. He teaches in the uses him for food. MFA Program at New Mexico State University, where he is editor-in-chief of Puerto del Sol magazine. He is also a TINA HAMMERTON is a poet, social worker, and teacher of faculty member of the Warren Wilson MFA Program. English composition. She has developed and facilitated a poetry workshop for victims of domestic violence. Her MOLLY MENEELY is an MFA candidate in fiction at ASU, work has recently appeared in Coyote Brings Fire. where she also teaches composition and fiction writing. A former professional dancer with Colorado Ballet, Pacific ELIZABYTH HISCOX has served as Poetry Editor for Hayden’s Northwest Ballet, and Boulder Ballet, Molly has served Ferry Review, on the Flume Press Chapbook Series Board, as Managing Editor of SOMA Magazine and as Associate and taught creative writing at California State Univer- Fiction Editor at Hayden’s Ferry Review. sity, Chico. Her poetry has appeared in Watershed and Gulf Coast. She recently defended her MFA thesis “The Time PETER PEREIRA is a family physician in Seattle. His poems That Sugar Takes.” have appeared in Poetry, New England Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and Journal of the American Medical As- DOUGLAS S. JONES is a recent graduate of ASU’s Cre- sociation. His books include The Lost Twin and Saying the ative Writing program. He was the 2005 recipient of the World, which was a finalist for the PEN USA Award in Theresa A. Wilhoit Fellowship and recently defended his Poetry. His next book, What’s Written on the Body, is forth- poetry thesis “The Road of Salt.” His poems can be found coming from Copper Canyon Press. in Clackamas Literary Review, The Pedestal, and The Potomac Review. GUILLERMO REYES is the author of various plays, includ- ing the off-Broadway hits Men on the Verge of a His-Panic W. TODD KANEKO earned an MFA in fiction at ASU. He Breakdown, Mother Lolita, and The Suspects. Other plays reads comic books and plays with lightsabers, but only include Deporting the Divas, Chilean Holiday, The Hispanic when he thinks someone is looking. His work is forth- Zone, and A Southern Christmas. He currently heads the coming in Hayden’s Ferry Review and Roanoke Review. Playwriting Program at Arizona State University.

DON LEE is the author of the novel Country of Origin, BETH STAPLES is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at which won an American Book Award, and the story col- Arizona State University, where she teaches composition lection Yellow, which received the Sue Kaufman Prize for and creative writing. She is currently at work on the next First Fiction. He is the editor of Ploughshares and lives in great plotless novel. Cambridge, Massachusetts. ISSAC WILSON is pursuing an MFA in fiction writ- CARLOS MANUEL is a playwright, director, actor, and a free- ing at ASU. He thinks writing is easier than pick- lance writer. His articles appear monthly in ADELANTE ing pears, which is what he used to do for a living.

5 0 SUPPORT THE LITERARY ARTS IN OUR LOCAL COMMUNITY The Piper Center is committed to supporting both a to the talented students of Arizona State University’s MFA vibrant and diverse literary community in the Phoenix Program in Creative Writing. Through our giving program, metropolitan area as well as fostering the work of the you can ensure your financial support is earmarked to next generation of literary leaders by providing funding directly benefit our students or our community.

PATRON OF THE ARTS | $3,500 each year for 3 years ($10,500 cumulative donation) / $284 per month This three-year gift creates a merit-based scholarship in the donor’s name for a current student writer in the MFA program. Patrons are invited to join their student recipient for lunch with the Artistic Director of the Piper Center. Includes a three year Piper Center Membership.

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ZADIE SMITH BEN BOVA Acclaimed novelist of White Teeth and On Beauty Admired science writer and science fiction novelist Saturday, September 16, 2006 | 7:30 pm Wednesday, October 18, 2006 | 7:30 pm Old Main at the ASU Tempe Campus Arizona Science Center Planetarium, Phoenix This event is free and open to the public. This event is free and open to the public.

ILYA KAMINSKY EDITH GROSSMAN Poet and winner of the Dorset Prize for Dancing in Odessa Lauded translator of Cervantes’s Don Quixote Wednesday, September 27, 2006 | 7:30 pm Saturday, November 4, 2006 | 7:30 pm Old Main at the ASU Tempe Campus Old Main at the ASU Tempe Campus This event is free and open to the public. This event is free and open to the public.

MICHAEL CHABON 2007 DESERT NIGHTS, RISING STARS WRITERS CONFERENCE Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction With Diana Gabaldon, Tony Hoagland, Walter Mosley, Saturday, October 7, 2006 | 7:30 pm Laurie Notaro, Gail Tsukiyama, and many others Orpheum Theater, Phoenix February 21, 2007 — February 24, 2007 General Admission: $10. Call (602) 262-7272 for tickets. The Historic Quarter on ASU’s Tempe Campus

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