The Act of Creation

My office is in chaos – again. After finishing my course thesis on the parallels between Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground last month, I spent a Saturday clearing the disarray of books, critical essays, notepads and Post-its with my jotted thoughts and references, my highlighted and dog-eared MLA Handbook and dictionary, half-empty water bottles, bags of kale chips and chocolate covered almonds, and uncapped pens and highlighters scattered on the desk and floor of my den. For weeks this project had consumed me as I worked to create an organized, meaningful, well-written essay from a jumble of notes and fragmented ideas by the midnight deadline.

Three weeks later the clutter is back, as I now work to meet the deadlines for several guest blog spots, a newspaper column, and my MFA thesis. I’m familiar with the muddle of my surroundings and in my mind and am oddly calmed by it. Scribbles on scraps of paper, napkins, envelopes, receipts, sticky notes, and index cards are once again ubiquitous, tacked to my bulletin board and adhered to my computer monitors, reminding me to add a transition, description, or a bit of dialogue to some work-in-progress. Books, writing magazines, and drafts of my columns, stories, essays, and novel chapters, defaced with nearly illegible edits and suggestions (mine and others’), litter the floor in shambolic piles that seem incongruous with my reputed compulsion toward extreme tidiness. It appears this is how I create. Even without the looming deadlines, disorder is part of my process.

While writing my Bakhtinian analysis of The Picture of Dorian Gray a few years ago, I learned that the crude journals in which Mikhail Bakhtin had written one of his most influential manuscripts were lost for nearly seventy years, buried in a lumber room where rats and seeping water had severely damaged much of them. About what could be discerned, Michael Holquist says this: “In the faded scrawl we can see the race between the occurrence of ideas and their feverish transcription. This volume provides a chance to see Bakhtin in all the heat and urgency of thought as it wrestles with itself. In Toward a Philosophy of the Act we catch Bakhtin in the act – the act of creation” (ix).

An 1890 typescript of Dorian Gray with Wilde’s corrections and emendations reflects a similar, seemingly haphazard approach to the process. Words and even entire sections are crossed out or rewritten, and handwritten insertions run between the typed lines and up the margins. Nearly indecipherable notes and corrections to himself and to his typist fill the white space of each page of what we know is not even an early draft of the narrative.

A characteristically organized person, the chaos of my own comparatively tiny writing life vexes me. Over the years, I’ve created paper and computer files and designated bins to contain my various projects, but, once immersed in the work, the system seems to fall apart. And no matter how many journals I purchase, the ideas and insights continue to be recorded on the nearest scrap.

The act of creation, it would seem, is simply messy.

 

Published on TreeHouse: An Exhibition of the Arts on June 12, 2013.

 

First galley proof of Marcel Proust’s “A la recherche du temps perdu”

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Getting Started…Again

With the year nearly half over, it’s painfully obvious that fulfilling my sole 2013 (and 2012 and, yes, 2011) resolution of dedicating ninety minutes each day to my thesis novel is once again in serious jeopardy.  According to my calculations at the beginning of the year, approximately 234 hours should have been allocated to this endeavor to date with almost eighty pages of new words to show for the effort.  To admit that I’m woefully behind would be an arrant understatement.

Finding stretches of uninterrupted time to write fiction was a recurring topic in my four years of workshops and technique classes in Chapman University’s MFA program.  While full-time professional writers can hole up for days and weeks or even months to attend to their craft, the novice or aspiring professional writer has a “real” job and other demands that take precedence – or at least appear to in the moment.

In my defense, I’ve had a busy academic and professional year so far.  But I have to confess there’s more than busyness going on here.  The truth is…I’m terrified.  There.  I’ve said it.  Despite the encouragement and favorable criticism I’ve received from respected instructors, authors, and editors regarding my work, the inadequacy Demon taunts me relentlessly (and a little too gleefully, I might add) and, at the moment, has me whimpering in a corner with my pile of draft chapters.

With graduation scheduled for early next year, the thesis portion of my novel is due in about nine months.  There’s simply no time for the Demon or for whimpering.  There is, however, time for the wisdom and irreverent humor of Anne Lamott:

“How?” [her] students ask.  “How do you actually do it?”  Write, that is. 

You sit down. […] You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day.  This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively. […] You turn on your computer and bring up the right file, and then you stare at it for an hour or so. [...] You look at the ceiling, and over at the clock, yawn, and stare at the paper again.  Then, with your fingers poised on the keyboard, you squint at an image that is forming in your mind – a scene, a locale, a character, whatever – and you try to quiet your mind so you can hear what that landscape or character has to say above the other voices in your mind.  The other voices are banshees and drunken monkeys.  They are the voices of anxiety, judgment, doom, guilt.  Also, severe hypochondria.  There may be a Nurse Ratched-like listing of things that must be done right this moment: foods that must come out of the freezer, appointments that must be canceled or made, hairs that must be tweezed.  But you hold an imaginary gun to your head and make yourself stay at the desk.  There is a vague pain at the base of your neck.  It crosses your mind that you have meningitis […]. 

Yet somehow in the face of all this, you clear a space for the writing voice, hacking away at the others with machetes, and you begin to compose sentences.  You begin to string words together like beads to tell a story.  You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come alive.  But you cannot will this to happen.  It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work.  So you might as well just go ahead and get started (Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, 6-7).

Forty-five pages by August 26 – I can do that.  I must do that.  It’s time to slay the Demon and get started…again.

 

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How to Write

What I know about writing I know from having read the work of the great writers. If you really want to learn how to write, do that. Read Shakespeare, and all the others whose work has withstood time and circumstance and changing fashions and the assaults of the ignorant and the bigoted; read those writers and don’t spend a lot of time analyzing them. Digest them, swallow them all, one after another, and try to sound like them for a time. Learn to be as faithful to the art and craft as they all were, and follow their example. That is, wide reading and hard work. One doesn’t write out of some intellectual plan or strategy; one writes from a kind of beautiful necessity born of the reading of thousands of good stories poems plays… One is deeply involved in literature, and thinks more of writing than of being a writer. It is not a stance.

 

                                               ~ Richard Bausch (“How to Write in 700 Easy Lessons,” The Atlantic, August 2010)

 

Bausch is the award-winning author of eleven novels, eight short story collections, and one volume of poetry and prose.  I am thrilled to be taking my final fiction writing workshop of the MFA program at Chapman University with Professor Bausch, commencing Monday, January 28.

 

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Back to Bakhtin: The “I” in Ida

I don’t know what it is about Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin, but, since making his acquaintance during my first year in Chapman’s English and Creative Writing graduate program, I can’t seem to shake him.  I’ve looked at Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and the works of Virginia Woolf through the Bakhtinian lens and, now, with my Gothic romp in and around the motifs of mirrors and portraiture and the literary doppelgänger in Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dorian Gray, and Dracula wistfully behind me, I’m back into Bakhtin’s theories in the context of Gertrude Stein for my final thesis of the semester.  As if she weren’t abstruse enough.

On the surface, Stein’s novel Ida is about a very tired woman who loves dogs and likes to marry.  Throughout much of the tale, Ida is sitting or resting or talking with one of her dogs or herself or marrying or leaving.  She leaves and rests a great deal.  Neither the protagonist nor the plot is all that interesting, which leads one to believe that its simplistic, albeit quirky banality belies a deeper message that Stein is perhaps so intent on conveying she forgets to use punctuation.

The existence of a twin is presented at the onset of the novel, when Ida is born to two kind parents: “And as Ida came, with her came her twin, so there she was, Ida-Ida.”  From this description of her birth, the notion of Ida’s divergent consciousnesses is foreshadowed; however, it may take you a while to realize there is no actual twin.  Ida-Ida, or, rather, Ida-Winnie is, in fact, the manifestation of a troubled child grappling with abandonment issues.  A few paragraphs into the tale, we learn that Ida’s parents “went off on a trip and never came back,” the first of a great many “funny things” that happen to dear Ida in Stein’s Bildungsroman.  In the early part of the novel, Ida’s clone is omnipresent, emerging as Ida’s foremost self: “The place was full, nobody looked at Ida.  Some of them were talking about Winnie.  They said.  But really, is Winnie so interesting.  They just talked and talked about that. / So that is the way life went on. / There was Winnie.”

A close look at these other “funny” events of Ida’s youth and Stein’s incoherent telling of them reveals the perspective of a confused child coping with parental desertion and the indifferent negligence of other family members as she grows up.  Throughout the novel, Ida flits from relative to relative, state to state (geographic and mental), and marriage to marriage in her quest for authentication.  Much like her numerous canine connections, Ida’s human associations are superficial and fleeting, always ending abruptly and thereby compounding Ida’s sense of isolation and separateness and providing the early impetus for a double or decoy that can interact with others on her behalf.   

Ida is an odd little story that, with its illogical “plot” shifts, contradictions, and chattering, Ionescoan streams of consciousness such as “The next dog and this is important because it is the next dog.  His name is Never Sleeps although he sleeps enough,” would be well played in the Theatre of the Absurd.  But there is a serious undertone to Stein’s absurdity, and a thoughtful examination of the text exposes Ida’s conscious foray into the rich and multifaceted themes of identity, authenticity, and the paradox of anonymity in celebrity.  As Marianne Hauser avows in her review of Stein’s work, it is “too deliberate to be called crazy, and too well done to be laughed off.”

We’ll see what Mikhail has to say about it.  And if you don’t hear from me in a week, someone, please, come looking for me.

 

Carl Van Vechten, 1934

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A Long Complicated Sentence

A great many authors have lately become impatient with the inadequacy of punctuation.  Many think that new signs should be invented; signs to imitate the variation in human speech; signs for emphasis; signs for word-groupings.  Miss Stein, however, feels that such indications harm rather than help the practice of reading.  They impair the collaborative participation of the reader.  ‘A comma by helping you along holding your coat for you and putting on your shoes keeps you from living your life as actively as you should live it. [...] A long complicated sentence should force itself upon you, make yourself know yourself knowing it.’¹

 

~ Thornton Wilder, “Introduction to The Geographical History of America” from Ida: A Novel, edited by Logan Esdale (New Haven: Yale UP, 2012)

 

1.From Gertrude Stein’s lecture “Poetry and Grammar” in Lectures in America (Boston: Beacon P, 1957).  Wilder modified the concluding verb in the first sentence.  In Stein’s lecture it reads, “[A]s actively as you should lead it.”

 

Ninth draft of the beginning of “War and Peace” (1864)

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On the Write Track

Yesterday I received my prize for winning first place in the Fiction Writing Contest at the recent Orange County Christian Writers Conference: a detailed critique of my query letter and fifty pages of my manuscript-in-progress, Time of Death, by Andy Meisenheimer and Beth Jusino of The Editorial Department, an industry leader in book editing and manuscript development.

I’ll admit I’ve been nervous these past two weeks, knowing that every line of the chapters I submitted was being reviewed and evaluated by an actual editor.  What a thrill to read in the critique that I’ve employed “a poetic/narrative third-person technique” that “works wonderfully” and a “gentle, foreboding tone” I should engage more consistently.  I’ve been criticized in other forums for this narrative voice (also referred to as my intruding or interloping narrator), whose portentous tenor and omniscience I’ve come to depend on and appreciate.

While I confess to honing in first on the sections of the critique in which passages of my novel were deemed “excellent” and “beautifully constructed,” particularly as they tended to be the same passages with which I am most pleased as the author, I am sincerely grateful for the obvious close reading of my submission by the editors and their insightful and relevant feedback.  Their comments and suggestions make perfect sense, and I now know exactly what I need to do to elevate this project to the next level.  Further, I have a better understanding of the Christian fiction market and how to pitch this manuscript when the time comes.

I’m encouraged to hear that I have a solid story and a seeming aptitude for the craft.  There is still much work to be done, and classes at Chapman resume in two months, but for now, at least, it appears I’m on the right track.

 

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Praise for Time of Death

I am so honored by the unanimous response to my novel-in-progress, Time of Death, at the 2012 Orange County Christian Writers Conference this weekend.  The manuscript excerpt I submitted won three awards, including First Prize in the Fiction Writing Contest sponsored by The Editorial Department, Second Prize in the WestBow Press Writing Contest, and Third Prize in the Beverly Bush Smith Aspiring Writer Award competition. 

I have been working on this project during the last four years while pursuing the dual MA in English and MFA in Creative Writing degree at Chapman University.  While the book will serve as my final thesis for the MFA, publication has always been my primary goal.  This fiction narrative tells the story of Fawn Evans from her youth through womanhood and the sometimes subtle but often overt spiritual battle for her soul.  During the years that follow a horrific car accident of which Fawn is the only survivor, it becomes clear that she was spared for a reason, and it is up to her to realize her intrinsic value and God’s plan for her life. 

The title, Time of Death, represents the moments of both physical death and spiritual death.  My desire for this debut novel is that it will resonate with young and mature adult readers who are adrift or distracted and help them recognize their own unique purpose and destiny. 

This was my first non-academic writing conference, and I’m encouraged by and utterly grateful for the new literary connections made, the endorsement of my work, and, of course, the publication and editorial prizes.  I’m more motivated than ever to finish writing the story.  As always, I will chronicle my progress periodically on Archetype and look forward to that momentous post proclaiming its completion. 

For now, the journey continues… 

 

“A Girl Writing” by Henriette Browne, between 1860 and 1880

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Part Two: An Interview with MFA Graduate and Author Ruben Guzman

While enrolled in Chapman University’s dual MA in English and MFA in Creative Writing program, Ruben Guzman wrote The Fountain in Forsyth Park, the tale of a single, middle-aged gay man searching for meaning and mystical connections in the moments of conventional life.  Guzman and I were peers in the program until his graduation last year.  Recently, I had the opportunity to interview him about the MFA program from his perspective, his debut novel, and his experience with self-publishing.  What follows is the second half of my interview with Guzman.  (The first half was published on March 25.)  The full interview will be posted in the Original Work category in the sidebar to the right and will also be included among the links at the top of the Archetype home page soon.

 
Arch:  You and I have talked about the creative stall (most often referred to as “writer’s block,” a term I think sounds more ominously permanent); was there ever a time while writing Fountain when you felt unsure about how the story or the protagonist, Remy, was developing?

Guzman:  Before starting my MFA, I was in a graduate program in screenwriting.  So I think part of that formulaic way of storytelling rubbed off, which is odd because that’s the reason I abandoned screenwriting.  When I was told that certain plot points had to happen by page 30 or 45, I felt I wasn’t embracing a fully creative and organic storytelling process.

After writing a couple of chapters of Fountain nonlinearly, I discovered that I was able to formulate the outline of the whole story in my head.  What I did find useful was generally planning out what happens through the story early on.  I deduced that if I knew something would take place later on and this is what happens, I would have a target to shoot for.  My advice is to write nonlinearly.  I found that I wanted to write about a drag show at a Savannah nightclub way before my story ever got there.  For me, nonlinear writing worked well in this case because I had to get the story and characters to that drag show.  It also prevented me from veering off on tangents and losing focus.

Arch:  I’m writing my thesis nonlinearly, as well, and couldn’t agree more.  It really does help you keep the characters and story moving towards pivotal events or targets, as you referred to them.  You once mentioned a breakthrough point at which the narrative began to practically pour out of you.  How far along were you in the project when you reached that moment, and to what do you attribute the breakthrough?  Once there, how was the pace of your writing impacted?

Guzman:  I reached that point when I read James Gleick’s Chaos: Making a New Science during the winter break before my final thesis class.  I was simply channel surfing one night and came across a program on chaos theory on cable.  It piqued my interest since much of it seemed to make sense as metaphor for Fountain.  By the time the program mentioned fractals, I was already online buying Gleick’s book.  Fountain really explores the balance between the scientific and metaphysical aspects of life.

In reflecting back on that moment of discovery, I believe that keeping an open mind throughout a project is worth the risk.  Passion for the story can emerge at a least expected time.  When I started watching that show, I was asking myself how I could possibly apply chaos theory to my story.  It sounded really odd at first, but something was telling me to give it a chance.  Getting to a point of inspiration and letting the writing happen, with no expectations, was a big and cool discovery for me.  It made me a believer in trusting impulse – trusting in my Jinn so to speak.

Arch:  I’m a fan of Gleick’s book, too, and applied his theories of chaos and Lorenz’s butterfly effect to the works of Virginia Woolf recently, so I know what you mean about those seemingly unlikely connections.  Defense of the thesis is one of the final components of the MFA program.  Were you confident about Fountain when you submitted it?  Assuming you had been working with your defense committee members prior to submitting the narrative as your final thesis, was there any aspect of the process that surprised you?

Guzman:  From the first day of writing Fountain, I’d made a commitment to write something that I wanted to read.  My focus wasn’t on something that made sense, was moralistic, was commercially viable, or otherwise.  I made my vow and stuck to it.  I was fortunate that my faculty advisor, James Blaylock, is a science fiction writer with numerous novels.  He was able to give me support when I doubted myself in some of the risks I was taking.  He got what I was trying to do and helped me to sharpen my story.

Fortunately, my thesis committee responded favorably to my final product.  They praised me for the risks and were unanimous in stating that they hadn’t read anything like it before.  When they then asked what I planned to do with it, I told them that I’d reached my goal of writing what I wanted to read.  That’s when they urged me to seek publication.  Needless to say, I was floating after my thesis defense.

Arch:  Last year I attended a writing conference with several other MFA candidates, and we discussed the advantages and value of a literary peer group.  After graduation, MFA students lose that inherent forum for critical feedback.  Are you concerned about that now that you have completed the program?

Guzman:  It will be tough to retain a reliable network of others like one would have in a workshop or thesis setting.  Not having a thesis committee to sign off on future projects is a little sad.  Like other writers, I do tend to be a loner when writing.  But I know a few other writers and peers I can look to for workshopping new projects.  I can also do the same for them in their writing projects.  I’m also considering finding writing groups with which to share ideas and work.  They’re a little tough to find, but they’re out there.

Arch:  After finishing The Fountain in Forsyth Park, you decided to self-publish it.  What led you to that decision, and what was the process like?  Can you offer any suggestions or insights to others who are considering self-publishing?

Guzman:  Self-publishing has expanded into a viable way of getting exposure and is at a point where it’s quickly gaining respectability.  I wanted to experiment with self-publishing for the sake of getting immediate feedback from others outside of academia.  Landing a publisher is incredibly difficult; it could take years or not happen at all.  I didn’t want to wait.  Much like the writing process, I pursued an unconventional way of publishing.  Self-publishing was attractive and was timely and cost-effective for me.

The down side is the reality that I am the marketing department.  So connecting with websites, reviews, contests, and blogs like yours are marketing strategies.  As a writer, I’ve also had to put myself in a marketing frame of mind with my product.

Arch:  What’s next for you?  Is there another project in progress?

Guzman:  Yes, I’ve got a few projects going.  While my priority is marketing Fountain for more readers, I’m also writing a collection of short stories that all revolve around childhood fears.  I’m also playing with other forms of narrative such as audio narrative and episodic writing for podcasting to see where they may lead.  My focus is to further any one of these projects on a day-to-day basis – and there’s never enough time, that’s for sure.

 

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An Interview with MFA Graduate and Author Ruben Guzman

As a graduate student enrolled in Chapman University’s dual MA in English and MFA in Creative Writing program, Ruben Guzman wrote his debut novel The Fountain in Forsyth Park, the tale of a middle-aged homosexual man searching for meaning in his melancholy life.  Guzman and I were peers in the program until his graduation last year.  Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Guzman about the MFA program from his perspective, his first book, and his experience with self-publishing.  The interview will be posted on Archetype in two parts.  The first half of the interview is presented below.

 

Arch:  As an MFA student myself, I’m always curious about which came first for other student writers: the program requirement of the 150-page novel thesis or the story premise that needed the discipline and critical feedback of an MFA program.  In your case, was The Fountain in Forsyth Park already in progress when you began your work at Chapman, or was it conceived and written entirely while pursuing your English and Creative Writing degrees? 

Guzman:  Fountain came about after starting my MFA.  In my third writing workshop class, I felt I finally had something substantial to write.  Up to then I’d been writing short stories – likely bad ones when thinking back.  I was inspired to write Fountain while on a trip to Savannah to help my best friend open a furniture and design store.  I was so intrigued with the city and was charmed by its history, architecture, culture, and traditions.  It was really that first trip that inspired me to write my novel.  I even made several trips back during the writing process to do my research. 

Arch:  I’ve found that the demands of graduate school both promote and hinder the advancement of creative projects.  Challenging reading and writing assignments immerse students in classic and contemporary literature and develop their critical thinking and writing skills.  However, the course load can be daunting for most and leave little time for thesis work and other creative endeavors.  With a full time job and demanding class schedule, how did you carve out the time to write Fountain? 

Guzman:  I can agree that managing a job and graduate school made for a trying creative writing process at times.  I recall that there were semesters when I couldn’t even touch my novel project due to other commitments.  That was frustrating. 

However, as I reflect on it now, those times were critical in two ways.  One, my immersion in other literary topics like critical theory, special authors, and period and contemporary literature contributed in developing my own thoughts about my novel.  I had a chance to read Saramago, Nabokov, Whitman, and Wilde – all influential to Fountain in one way or another.  Learning theory afforded me the chance to think of fiction and metafiction in different ways.  In Fountain, I even took the opportunity to play with literary terms like fabula and syuzhet – two important ideas on narrative intent that I couldn’t have used without studying theory. 

Two, it allowed me to let my ideas ferment (whether consciously or unconsciously).  Those breaks worked for me in the sense that, when time opened up, I was ready and eager to write something.  During those productive periods, I would eat my lunch in the office in order to take coffee breaks instead.  I would write at the coffee shop for an hour each day.  Come to think of it, I wrote nearly all of Fountain at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. 

Arch:  One of the most important elements of writing we learn about in workshop is the necessity of revision.  The willingness and ability to review early drafts with an increasingly critical eye and make appropriate edits is crucial to the final product.  How often did you find yourself revising sections of Fountain?  Were the edits you made in response to observations from your peers and professors or to your own development as a writer? 

Guzman:  I think workshops are effective for writers in a number of ways, but I also realized early on that I could take or leave other criticisms.  Readers weren’t going to necessarily understand the full scope of my ideas, so I had to learn which constructive suggestions to take from workshops. 

With respect to revisions, the breaks away from writing I mentioned earlier allowed me to realize the greater need to revise when returning to writing.  I found that revisions became just as natural as the writing itself after a while.  However, I didn’t let revisions get in the way of getting content written first.  Instead, I focused more on revising as I got closer to finishing Fountain.  I think it was better to have a nearly complete draft of my novel before I could solidify unity in motifs, character development, arcs, and the like. 

I also found myself continuing to revise up to the point at which I submitted my thesis, as well as after, when I started the self-publishing process.  By then, I was focused on tightening syntax, form, and punctuation; eliminating anachronisms; etc.  I’ll confess, I realized at that late point that I’d added references to the autumnal equinox but never changed the time of my story from October to September!  I knew when the equinox was all along but didn’t notice the problem until I was focused on revisions.  Hence, I can’t stress how important the revision process is. 

Arch:  Your story is told from the interesting perspective of your protagonist’s inner voice.  In Fountain, mystical elements, universal questions, and philosophical themes are probed in a stream-of-consciousness narrative style.  Were there times when the criticism you received from your peers or professors seemed disconnected with your artistic vision? 

Guzman:  Absolutely.  I remember not being able to articulate the difference between the inner voice and the conscience.  In my mind, the inner voice speaks constantly about anything from the mundane to the fantastic.  I had an idea of writing the narrative of one’s inner voice that worked in ways that one’s conscience wouldn’t.  In fact, Remy’s conscience is completely absent from the story.  It’s his inner voice, the uninhibited voice, the imp, the voice of impulse that fights to tell Remy’s story.  Jinn is based on the Arabic characterizations of the djinn or genie as we know it in Western culture.  It’s a parallel voice to the human one and can be known to work for or against us.  I remember one student in my workshop being really confused about that idea.  At the time, all I could explain was that Jinn was a voice inside Remy that wasn’t a moral compass.  It just was. 

I knew that this inner voice would give greater dimension to my marginalized protagonist.  It would have been one thing for Remy to narrate Fountain as a marginalized protagonist.  For me it was another thing to read a marginalized narrative voice contained within that marginalized protagonist. 

There were so many times I could have resorted to writing Jinn as Remy’s conscience, but it was neither spontaneous nor real to my expectations for the story.  Jinn’s stream-of-consciousness narrative left uncertainties and instabilities for the reader – something that was much more interesting for me to write.

 

The second half of this interview will be published on March 28.

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Southern California Spring Writing Conferences

Registration is now open for several unique and exciting writing conferences in and around Orange County this spring.  An overview of three is provided below.  For more information about each conference, related contest opportunities, and registration details, visit the websites. 

The California State University San Marcos’ Literature and Writing Department is pleased to present RE-VISION: Interpretation, Translation, and the Process of Writing on Saturday, April 28.  This graduate conference “offers participants an opportunity to explore how literary analysis and the teaching of literature have been continually and systematically re-examined, re-interpreted, and re-assessed.”  The department invites current graduate students in MA or PhD programs, as well as individuals who have completed an MA program in the last three years, to submit proposals for scholarly papers on any aspect of the conference theme as explored in literature, film, or other media by March 26.  For additional information, go to http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/45557. 

The Orange County Region of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators is hosting its twelfth annual Spring Writers’ Retreat at the South Coast Winery Resort and Spa in Temecula May 4 through May 6.  The conference includes hands-on writing workshops, manuscript critiques by a panel of editors and published authors, skill-building activities and exercises, networking opportunities, giveaways, and games.  There are currently twelve critique spots open for attendees interested in receiving a personalized manuscript critique.  For details and to register, visit the website at www.scbwi.org.

The 2012 Orange County Christian Writers Conference will be held at the Radisson Hotel in Newport Beach May 18 through May 20.  The conference features intensive workshops, Friday night networking and panel critiques, over 25 Saturday and Sunday session options, one-on-one faculty consultations, an awards banquet, and a keynote speech on the ministry of writing.  For more information and to register, visit the website at http://www.occwf.org/home.html.

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