THE MAGAZINE OF THE PIPER CENTER FOR CREATIVE WRITING | COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES INTERNATIONAL WRITING WRITERS & TEACHERS SEE THE WORLD GEORGE WITTE ON THIS WRITER’S LIFE INTERVIEW WITH PLAYWRIGHT LAURIE BROOKS PROFILES OF WALTER MOSLEY & GAIL TSUKIYAMA SPECIAL REPORT: TWENTY YEARS OF HAYDEN’S FERRY REVIEW ALSOINSIDE DIANAGABALDON | JAMESMASAOMITSUI | CLAUDIARANKINE | PHILIPTAYLOR IN THIS ISSUE NUMBER 6 SPRING 2007 FEATURES EDITOR Charles Jensen THE INESCAPABLE ELEMENT ..................................................................................................4 ASSISTANT EDITOR Aimée Baker draws a portrait of novelist Walter Mosley. Michael Green SINGAPORE SUMMER .............................................................................................................6 COPYEDITOR Molly Meneely and John Young describe their experience traveling to Asia to Veronica Lucero teach creative writing. CONTRIBUTORS Aimée Baker Carlos Manuel POINTS OF LIGHT ................................................................................................................. 10 Charles Jensen illuminates new features of this year’s writers conference. Darcy Courteau James Masao Mitsui Cameron Fielder Claudia Rankine Dioana Gabaldon Philip Taylor A PASSAGE TO INDIA ........................................................................................................... 12 Michael Green George Witte Caitlin Horrocks explains the Piper Center for Creative Writing’s newest retreat. Elizabyth Hiscox John Young Douglas Jones “IT STARTS WITH AN IMAGE” .............................................................................................. 15 Carlos Manuel spends time with playwright Laurie Brooks. PIPER CENTER STAFF THE POETRY OF LANDSCAPE ..............................................................................................22 Jewell Parker Rhodes, Artistic Director Elizabyth Hiscox and Douglas Jones describe their trip to Durham, England. Charles Jensen, Program Manager Roxane Barwick, Program Coordinator NEW DIRECTIONS, NEW ENVIES .........................................................................................24 Salima Keegan, Communications Director Caitlin Horrocks recounts Hayden’s Ferry Review’s twenty years of success. Aimée Baker, Program Assistant Meghan Brinson, Program Assistant DISTANT HORIZONS ..............................................................................................................27 Beth Staples, Program Assistant Michael Green explores the trend of setting novels in Africa. PIPER CENTER THE DELIGHTFUL ANTIDOTE ..................................................................................................30 ADVISORY COUNCIL Aimée Baker talks about novelist Gail Tsukiyama’s literary strength. Ben Bova John Rothschild Billy Collins Greg Thielen MAKING A FIRST BOOK ......................................................................................................33 Harold Dorenbecher Theresa Wilhoit Darcy Courteau interviews ASU Alumni on their recent debut books. Dana Jamison, chair George Witte Simi Juneja C. D. Wright KEEPING UP WITH THE WILHOITS ......................................................................................36 Jo Krueger Darcy Courteau catches up with the fi rst three recipients of the prestigious The- Kathleen Laskowski resa A. Wilhoit Thesis Fellowship. Maxine Marshall Naomi Shihab Nye Barbara Peters, ex oficio Janaki Ram DEPARTMENTS LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR .................................................................................................3 TABLE OF CONTENTS PHOTO THIS WRITER’S LIFE: GEORGE WITTE ..................................................................................... 19 Geoffrey Gray MFA FACULTY NEWS ..............................................................................................................35 2007 ONLINE BOOK CLUB SELECTIONS ................................................................................38 Q & A: GABALDON, MITSUI, RANKINE, TAYLOR ..............................................................39 2 FROM THE DIRECTOR LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR Dear Friends, It is hard to believe that the 2007 ASU Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Con- ference will be celebrating its fifth anniversary. How time has flown! Thanks to participant feedback, the conference has grown to include a wide vari- ety of readings, workshops, and panels in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and publishing. In addition, intensive multi-day writing workshops will be taught by terrific writ- ers like Diana Gabaldon, Carolyn Forché, T. M. McNally, Michael A. Stackpole, and many more. From February 21–24, 2007, the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing will, for the first time, invite the public to attend the conference’s evening readings: February 21: James Masao Mitsui and Gail Tsukiyama February 22: Kevin McIlvoy and Diana Gabaldon February 23: Peter Pereira, Laurie Notaro, and Tony Hoagland February 24: Walter Mosley Even if you aren’t registered for the entire conference, come join us for splendid evenings of fiction, poetry, and non- fiction readings. Be sure to visit www.asu.edu/piper for the most up-to-date listing of conference news. Thank you all for your kind and generous support of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. Warmest wishes, 3 AUTHOR PROFILE THE INESCAPABLE ELEMENT A PROFILE OF WALTER MOSLEY BY AIMÉE BAKER “Did he hesitate? Even for a second?” Dewitt Albright standing of race in America. Like his character, Mosley asks the amateur private eye Easy Rawlins in Walter Mos- shows no sign of hesitation. ley’s acclaimed 1990 novel, Devil in a Blue Dress. One Mosley is perhaps best known for the Easy Rawlins se- might ask the same about Mosley himself. He is the au- ries, which presently accounts for ten of his novels. Raw- thor or editor of more than twenty-five books, several lins is a familiar and even comforting character, the kind screenplays, and numerous short stories and articles. He is who falls into tough places, does necessary bad things, but a Grammy winner for his liner notes on a Richard Pryor at his core remains decent, even warmhearted. In Devil boxed set and the recipient of several prominent awards in a Blue Dress, Rawlins, just back from World War II, is and acknowledgments, including the Anisfield Wolf Award, trying to set up his life in Los Angeles when he loses his given to works that increase the appreciation and under- job. In order to keep his house, he accepts a request from 4 AUTHOR PROFILE Albright to find a white woman who frequents black clubs. and accurate detail intrinsic to Mosley’s writing.) Easy’s As with all mysteries, and especially those that take some new vocation as a janitor is not arbitrary either. Unlike of their cues from film noir, the journey is much more another famous Los Angeles detective, Jake Gittes (from complicated than it at first appears, as the past and pres- the film Chinatown), who has prospered in the postwar ent tangle up in ways reader and characters don’t always era, Easy has found that the same opportunities are not understand. Easy soon finds his available to black men, despite life spiraling out of control as “FICTION MOSTLY RESIDES IN the intervening eras of Civil he encounters greed, murder, Rights and Affirmative Action. deceit, and racism. The reader THE IMAGINATION OF THE READER. Perhaps responding to some eagerly follows this fast-paced of the political overtones, Presi- ride through the sinister streets ALL A WRITER CAN DO IS HINT dent Clinton, when admitting of Los Angeles. his affection for the mystery What is immediately appar- AT A WORLD THAT CALLS FORTH novel, singled out Mosley’s ent in the Easy Rawlins nov- works as among his favorites. els is not only Walter Mosley’s THE DREAM, [TELL] THE STORY Readers across the country skill with navigating the tricky agree, it seems, since the nov- aspects of mystery storytelling THAT EXHORTS US TO CALL els spend long stretches on the but also his vivid portrayal of a bestseller lists and earn ter- culture and time. With Easy as THE POSSIBILITY INTO BEING.” rific reviews. The popularity of a guide, the reader traverses the Devil in a Blue Dress led to a landscape of midcentury Los — WALTER MOSLEY movie adaptation starring Den- Angeles, sitting down at Joppy’s zel Washington and Don Chea- bar (which sits above a meat-packing plant) to have a stiff dle. Mosley is currently working on the screenplay for the drink or taking a midnight drive out past the dusty city Rawlins novel Little Scarlet. limits. Like most genre works, Mosley’s novels are guilty Though best known for his mysteries, Mosley works indulgences that provide all the requisite pleasures. But easily in other genres and disciplines as well. His publica- there is a serious subtext under the popular surface, which tions include everything from literary fiction to young steeps the reader in history. Inextricable in this history, of adult fiction to science fiction. Considered together, Wal- course, is the subject of race, which has not always found ter Mosley’s body of work will be revered for its inno- its way into stories set in Los Angeles but which Mosley vation, style, imagination, and social conscience. In the understands is an inescapable element. He handles all this introduction to the 2003 Best American Short Stories, so deftly that the reader never feels him preaching a the- which he edited, Mosley writes, “Fiction mostly resides in matic point. the imagination of the reader. All a writer can do