Tayari's Blog: February 2008
February 27, 2008
The Mouthier, The Better
A couple of years ago when I was a visiting writing at George Washington University, I taught a class on Reading and Writing Memoir. My students had lots of different opinions about the ten books on the syllabus, but there was one book they all seemed to dig: The Truth Book by Joy Castro.
One of my favorite scenes in The Truth Book occurs midway through when Joy, an abused child, finds an ally in a irreverent classmate, she nicknames "The Mouthy Girl." When I talked to Joy after the book was published, she mentioned that she and The Mouthy Girl reunited after all these years.
Joy is a blogger these days and she has written the story up on her site. Here's a quote:
In the acknowledgments at the end of the book, I wrote, as the very last line, "And to Beth Loughney, mouthy girl, wherever you are." I hadn't seen her since I was fourteen, a runaway in rural West Virginia, and I didn't expect to. I just wanted to thank her from the bottom of my heart, however I could.But soon after the book was published, I was contacted by a reader in Arkansas, a TV journalist who was himself an ex-Jehovah's Witness and who, because of his job, had access to vast databases.
"Do you want me to find Mouthy Girl for you?" he offered.
Read the whole story on Joy's new blog. And leave her a comment so she can know you're out there.
A Tribute To Chinua Achebe
Last night, Evie invited me to A Tribute To Chinua Achebe sponsored by Pen America. I was 
thrilled because the event was sold out. The reason? Not only is it the 50th Anniversary of Things Fall Apart, but the stars were out over Manhattan to celebrate. The Great Ms. M-- that is Toni Morrison--, Edwidge Danticat, Chris Abani, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Ha Jin, and other powerhouses took to the stage to tell the world how much Achebe's work means to them. (And let me tell you, it means a lot. We were seated at 8pm and didn't get out until after 10pm!)
Highlights:
No pics, sorry. There was a big sign saying "no cameras" and I was afraid of being kicked out. It was a literary event, but there were bouncers.
Posted at 10:22 AM | ![[comments]](http://www.tayarijones.com/images/comments.gif){kind=small}
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Category:
Living For The City
February 26, 2008
Hot Fun In The Summertime!
Working on a coming-of-age story? I am teaching a course called "Tales From The Kidscape" at the Split Rock Arts Program at the University of Minnesota.
In this workshop setting we will critique each other's writing as well as read the work of published authors. I decided to focus on the coming of age story because I really enjoy writing and reading stories with young protagonists that are not YA titles. (Not that there is anything wrong with YA.)
I coined the term "kidscape" because I believe that young people occupy a separate world than adults. Think about it: The Kidscape has a lot in common with life in another country-- it's got its own food, dress, language, etc. Its inhabitants even live under a very specialised set of rules and regulation. Really really getting a grip on this concept is the key to writing realistic young characters.
Interested? Sign up! The class is a week long. And while you're at it, check out the other offerings. Classes last only one week, but there are five weeks worth of classes to choose from-- in all kinds of art!
February 24, 2008
This Is Why People BURN Manuscripts
Today's NYT has a review of a newly published novel by Richard Wright, A Father's Law. The novel was unfinished at the time of Wright's death in 1960. Apparently his daughter, Julia, authorized literary experts to piece it together from his notes, just in time for the 100th anniversary of Wright's death.
According to the review, it is a hot mess. (If the quotes given are any indication, I am ready, for once, to agree with the NYTBR!)
I can't imagine someone going through my junk, piecing together half-finished projects. You could use this activity as a good test of whether I am actually dead or not-- if there is any life left in me, I will jump up and stop the madness.
Publishing unfinished, unpolished, unedited, and just un-ready work by an author such as Wright does as injustice to his legacy. It's not as though he left such a scant body of work that extra volumes are needed to round things out.
Let the literary dead rest in piece.
February 21, 2008
Fairly Famous Writers Behaving Foolishly
Yesterday, I drove waaay up to Princeton University to see Natasha T. read with George Saunders. She read some new stuff and he read a really really funny short story-- much of it set at a restaurant like HOOTERS, except the half-naked waiters are all men. The name of this fictional establishment: JOYSTICKS. Gotta love it.
Afterwards, we all went out for dinner, cocktails, and other shennanigans. Goofy photographs here.
Posted at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
February 19, 2008
My Post- The Color Purple Complex
I have a guest post up at Persephone Speaks, the blog for Kore Press. The essay stems from an recent enounter on an airplane:
A few months ago, before the media coverage of Clinton/Obama contest pressured black women to decide if we are "women" before we are "black," I sat beside a black man on an airplane. Since such close quarters lend themselves to small talk, he asked me what I do for a living.
“I’m a writer,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “What do you write? Romances?”
“Nope.”
He gave me a sideways glance. “So you have a problem with men?”
Read the rest. Leave a comment on our home blog if you like, but comments over at Persephone Speaks are welcome as well.
Tuesday's To-Do!
Posted at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
February 18, 2008
Obama Is Messing With My Manuscript!
Here's a writing issue. My new novel, "The Outside Child", is set in Atlanta, circa 1987. Check out this paragraph decribing one of the characters, paying special attention to the last line:
Raleigh isn’t bad looking; he’s just really white looking. White enough to pass. My mother claims that she knew right away that Raleigh was a black man; she says it was something about his elbows. But my guess is that when she saw him with James, it was clear who was in charge and what real white man would let James call all the shots? None that my mother ever heard of, so she started checking out his body and found something about his joints that confirmed her hunches. And even she admits that in winter, when his elbows and knees are covered, he’s as white as the president.
So here is the issue. This line made sense in 1987, when the narrator is speaking, but since it may not make so much when the book is published, do I have to change it? And even if I don't have to change it, should I? Does the line have less kick if Barak, Michelle, and those beautiful girls are sleeping on Pennsylvania Avenue?
February 17, 2008
8 Things About Me
This is the oldest meme in the cyberverse, but Alex Chee tagged me and I happen to love him, so here we go.
I will do the world a favor and not tag anyone. The buck stops with me.
Posted at 03:18 PM | Comments (4)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
February 16, 2008
February 14, 2008
Opportunities!
Since this is Valentine's Day and nothing says I Love You like shared information, here is a post all about opportunities.
Posted at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
February 13, 2008
Ouch. Deborah Gregory's Sad Story
I met Deborah Gregory about a million years ago at the very start of 
my writing career. I was about twenty-six at my first paying gig at a community college in Baltimore. She was on a panel talking about "The Cheetah Girls" and also liposuction. All I remember is that she was dressed from the rooter-to-the-tooter in cheetah patterned clothing and I thought "what is THAT all about?" Well, it was about The Cheetah Girls, a gizzlion-dollar empire based on Gregory's books. Apparently Disney is making all the money. (and I mean ALL of it.)
Gregory said she's pocketed $125,000 over the last nine years in option fees and payments for her title as co-producer of the movies. Although she's asked for them, she has never gotten "net profit participation statements" from Disney, spelling out details of expenses and revenues. If anyone is getting rich on this formidable franchise, Gregory noted, it's not the woman who created it.
Here is the GalleyCat quick-and-dirty summation and the longer article in the LA Times. And just in the interest of keeping it real, you have to make note that Black Enterprise called foul way back last year.
Posted at 01:07 PM | Comments (2)
Category:
The Writing Life
OMG, Did You Say CORNELL?
The man attached to beautiful tattoo is headed to Cornell to get his MFA! Cornell only accepts a handfull of writers in fiction and JUSTIN TORRES is one of them. And don't even ask about the aid package... sweet!
Posted at 09:49 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
February 11, 2008
Sunday's My Fun Day
Yesterday, I read at Sunday Salon in Williamsburg. Weather was bad in New York last night, 
but a few brave souls came out to hear me, Matthew Cheny (he's one in the "fur" coat!), Frances Madeson, and Tony D'Souza. Where else could you come out to hear a stories about a man who married a tree, laundering dead bodies on the gentle cyle, a doll house tricked out like a lunatic asylum, and of course my obsession with bigamy.
Blogger, Ed Champion was in the house. I want him to give a lecture at Rutgers about the free-lance boogie. He is the hardest working writer in cyberspace and in print too!
The highlight of evening for me was meeting Tiffany, a member of a this blog community. It was cold last night. I mean really really cold. So cold that it made me want to move back to Georgia. So cold, that my friend, Aisha, was bundled from head to toe-- even inside! (She just left open a little slit so she could see the reading.) So, when I looked out from the stage and saw Tiffany... Well, I was delighted and I think she could tell!
Posted at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
Living For The City
February 09, 2008
Just Say No... Nicely
Here's part three of my what-do-when post. I'm thinking of starting a little advice column. So email me your writing related questions. Okay, onto the post. Here's the scenario: you have just read the letter from an events organizer inviting you to give a reading. You have carefully evaluated the offer and you have concluded that these people must be crazy. What's the best way to say no?
Posted at 08:25 AM | Comments (3)
Category:
The Writing Life
February 08, 2008
CONGRATULATIONS TRACY K!
Tracy K. Smith has won the first annual Essence Literary Award in the category of poetry! (Full list of winners, here.) Just think: we can say we knew her way back when she was the Karaoke Queen.
Posted at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)
Category:
Current Events
February 07, 2008
Alas, Poor David
David Payne has a pretty interesting article in Oxford American about the bias against southern writers. As a southern writer, I am trying really hard to feel his pain, but I just can't. (Maud, who is a finer woman than I am, is able and makes some really compelling observations.)
I think my resistance comes from this quote:
While fine writers go neglected in other regions, too, it’s singular to find an entire generational cohort working off the radar. The sole exceptions I can think of are among African-American writers. Yet if Alice Walker and Edward P. Jones have escaped the regional box, Margaret Walker Alexander and Randall Kenan haven’t; and even Ernest Gaines, despite the heavy help of Oprah, remains less well-known than he deserves.
I agree with his point that African American southern writers are not usually thought to be "just" southern. I think it's because we are not thought to be southern at all! (And honestly, I have never heard of Randall Kenan descrined as "southern". How single-minded of Payne to think that the low-profile of Kenan's career is due to his zip code rather than the double-whammy of race and sexuality. If you want to add region, we can make it a triple, but you get the idea.)
Payne's complaint that southern writers all all thought to be racists just sort of ignores that idea that some of us are on the receiving end of that racism. It's as though, despite his nod to Kenan et al, he has forgotten we exist!
And this quote: "What the “Nigger” represents to African Americans, the Redneck is to white Southerners.." I don't even know what to say about that. Well, I know what to say, but as a southerner, I am too polite to say it.
You're Invited... Now What?
This is part two of the post I started on Monday concerning opportunities offered at AWP and other conferences. It is not unusual to meet someone who may promise to invite you to give a reading. Imagine yourself in the hotel bar and someone says, "Hey, would you like to come to our campus and give a reading." Of course, you'll say "yes," even though you don't know the terms of the invitation.
A few days, or weeks later, you may receive an email from the person formally inviting you. This letter should have the terms-- how much your will be paid and what is expected of you for the visit. Hopefully, they are offering you a zillion trillion dollars. Sometimes the offer is more modest. How do you decide if you want to do the event? Here are some things to consider.
Next: How to say no.
Posted at 10:09 AM | Comments (1)
Category:
The Writing Life
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LADYLEE!
Our Blog-Sister, Ladylee, is having a birthday today.
I met Ladylee (Dr. Ladylee to you!) right here on line. She was one of the first commenters when I started this blog a couple of years ago. Sometimes when I invite guest bloggers to submit articles, they ask me what is the audience of the blog. I often tell them about Ladylee.
I chose her because she has a PhD is bio-physical-chemical something or the other, but she is just getting her feet wet in this writing thing. I tell guest posters to think about her as a reader-- she's so smart, she has a degree in something we can't even properly pronounce, let alone explain, but at the same time, she is interested in the world of writing. If they still don't get it, I send them to her crazy blog and they say... Okay, I am writing to a brilliant scientist who is really really down to earth, serious about writing, and also really really silly sometimes. Yes, I say. That's about the size of it.
So go over there and leave her a birthday comment. And don't forget to tell her who sent you.
Posted at 09:36 AM | Comments (1)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
Linka-licious
Posted at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
February 06, 2008
Shall We Go To The Theater?
There is an interesting article in The Village Voice about Adrienne Kennedy's play, "Mom, How Did You Meet The Beatles." (You may remember that I went to see another of her plays, "The Ohio State Murders", a few months ago.) The best news is that tickets to "Mom, How Did You Meet The Beatles" are only TEN BUCKS. The show will run from Feb 4-23 at The Public Theater. You can get the tix on line. (Ten bucks! That's less than a dirty martini in midtown!)
(thx Sarah for keeping me hooked in to all things theater!)
Posted at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
See You Sunday?
Hello, New Yorkers. I'll be reading at Sunday Salon, on February 10 along with Tony D'Souza, Matthew Cheney, and Frances Madeson. It happens this coming Sunday at Stain Bar, located in 766 Grand Street in Williamsburg. Time: 7pm.
Posted at 07:19 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
The Writing Life
February 04, 2008
February Fever and Beyond
I've got a piece in the new issue of The Believer called "Symbolism and Cynicism: On Being a Writer During Black History Month."Here's a sneak peak:
There is something obscene about McDonald’s restaurants in the greater Washington, D.C., area handing out copies of A Raisin in the Sun while they push unhealthy foods on African American children. Although universities are not seeking to make a monetary profit from Black History Month, I am sometimes uneasy in the moments before my talk when the organizer professes a commitment to diversity and tolerance and then invites me to the stage as defense exhibit A.
You can read the whole article at The Believer. If you've got comments, of course, you can post them here. (I love your comments.) But you can also send letters to the editor of the magazine.
Post AWP Advice
First off: don't worry. I will not blog about AWP all week. This will probably be the last one, particularly since we got hundreds of applications (amazing!) for the MFA at Rutgers-Newark and I will be crazy busy sorting through the pile choosing our next exciting group of writers. (Maybe I'll post on do's and don't for applications. Does that sound like a good idea?)
But meanwhile on to the the question at hand. Often after attending conferences, writers will start receiving invitations to read, conduct workshops, submit to journals, etc. Several of my younger writers pals have asked me how to handled these situations. Today's installment is about what to do about editors and agents who are on the make at the conference.
I have a brilliant-but-young friend who got a cold call from an editor who read an article his community activisim in The Washington Post. Well, actually, the editor called me because she heard that I know everybody and while I don't, I did know this kid. I told her that I was going to put him in touch with my agent before letting her talk to him. Afterall, can you imagine what would happen if a big publisher were to call a young, 20-something, writer out of the blue? He'd agree to anything. I put my terrfic agent on the case and I am happy to report that there is a happy ending to ths story. Rather than limit the process to the cold caller, the proposal was submitted broadly and several editors were interested. The manuscript ended up at auction. And in a year or so it will be in bookstores!
Posted at 08:28 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
The Writing Life
February 03, 2008
Now That's It All Over, Let's Debrief
I am back home from AWP. The journey was only about ten miles, but I feel like I am back from a visit to another world. The question for 
today is whether or not bringing AWP to New York City was a good move for the conference. I've been mulling it over for the last three days and I think I am going to have to say that No, AWP should not return to New York.
Here's why:
Posted at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
February 02, 2008
Congratulations, Natasha!
Here is a photo of Natasha T and Robert P. He is said to be the "Bruce Springsteen of poetry." She is said to be a genius.
Posted at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
I *Heart* AWP
I know that the cool things to do is to roll your eyes and sneer at the mere mention of AWP. I have really good friends that go along 
with that charade. But me, I am not to proud to admit that I love the AWP conference. For me, it's most wonderful time of the year. I kind of think of it as my reward for surviving Christmas.
This year has been extra terrific. Rutgers-Newark, where I teach, gave a great faculty reading. Alice Elliot Dark and James Goodman stole the show. Then, Jayne Anne Philips (our fearless leader) spoke on a panel called Town/Gown: The New Urban University and Social Activism. Needless to say, they spoke real truths and everyone left inspired.
Tonight, Friend o' The Blog, Natasha Trethewey is giving a major reading. (In the pictures attached, she is being her down to earth self.) You know I will be front row for tonight's event. In the meanwhile I have taken lots of pics. Check them out.
Posted at 06:09 PM | Comments (2)
Category:
Travels & Rambles