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Lunchbreak Links

Back of a postcard (circa 1930)
Originally uploaded by kingofkerwood

Gone, But Not Forgotten

Self-Steam

I ran across a little malapropism while grading undergraduate essays. The student misheard the term "self-esteem" and wrote "Everyone needs some self-steam to keep going." I chuckled did my damage with my red pen, but I have been thinking about it all weekend and have come to regard it as a little present for the universe.

Self-steam is going to be my motto for this week. I'll use my self-steam to get myself to the gym, to get some work done on this novel, to fill out applications for grants and other opportunities.

So there you have it. What are you going to do with your self-steam this week?

Posted at 08:24 AM | Comments (0)
Category: The Writing Life

Six-Toed Links

Hemingway's Cats Have Extra Toes
Originally uploaded by seabright hoffman

A Little Q&A Etiquette

No, No, No, No, No, NO NO!
Originally uploaded by Alicia

Author has written a NOVEL about a family in crisis-- alcoholism, violence, incest, the whole 9. Reader raises hand. "How much of this is about your life? Was your family like that? Did you just change the names?"

I think this sort of question is way out of line. If a writer has chosen to write a memoir, it's acceptable to ask questions of a more personal nature if these matters are covered in the book. If the writer is a novelist, it is no more appropriate to ask if she has experienced the same violence as her characters than it would be to ask a stranger on the train whether she had experienced incest in her life.

I don't know where it comes from-- this idea that the purpose of meeting an author in person is to get her to confess that the novel is merely a fictionalized version of her real life. I can't imagine that this is helpful to writers as they approach their work. The last thing I need to think about as I explore a storyline is whether I want someone to think it's really about me. Until quite recently, it is a concern that has never crossed my mind.

I am writing a novel now which about a married man who has a secret family. Someone said to me, aren't you worried about how your parents are going to take it? Actually, I wasn't worried at all, but maybe I should be?

Peter Hedges opens his wonderful novel "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" with a dedication that also serves as a disclaimer. "To my mother, who is not fat and my father who is not dead." I have been thinking that perhaps I should dedicate my new novel with a similar defensive strategy. "To my father-- Mack Henry, and to my mother--Barbara Ann, who is his only wife."

Posted at 02:41 PM | Comments (2)
Category: The Writing Life

Read This While I Go Fix The Economy

We Knew Him When: That's Nam Le To My Right
Originally uploaded by kleopatrjones

Twitter: It's Worse Than A Time Waster

I was talking to one of my grad students yesterday about Twitter and why I had to scale it way back. He was saying "What's the lure?" And I told him it was like having 30 people chatting in your living room except they were not trashing your house, eating up your food, and drinking up all your liquor. He smiled as if to say "What's not to like?" But I realised what it is about Twitter that is so incompatible to creative writing.

It's actually the same reason why cocktail parties are so bad for process. Twitter, for those who are not familiar, is a social networking site where members exchange messages of 140 characters or less. It's a lot like party chatter. (Which I happen to enjoy.) The problem is that it is surfacy. Whatever you say is broadcast to hundreds of people, so you aren't going to say anything really personal or meaningful. It's all sort of superficial. This is the opposite of the kind of zone you need to be in to write a novel. To write a novel you need to be solitary, private, honest and deep in your own ocean.

Posted at 08:10 AM | Comments (3)
Category: Writing

Komunyakaa at Rutgers-Newark

Yusef at Victor Jara Stadium, Santiago
Originally uploaded by rattapallax

Posted at 09:10 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Thinking Days Are Writing Days

As you all know, I have been working hard to balance my writing with my teaching and other responsibilities. I was a little bit disappointed with myself last week when my two "writing days" yielded only some notes and a little bit of revision of existing chapters. I am so close to the end of the novel and I am very eager to power through until the end.

Well, it seems that those writing days were really thinking days. Today, I was at work teaching and handling all my other work responsibilities and my mind kept going back to my novel. I mean this is a really specific way. Often my mind goes to the project, but it's more like I am busy thinking that I should be writing. Today was different. All day, no matter of what I was doing, I was thinking of really specific details of the manuscript. As I was screening "4 Little Girls," the Spike Lee documentary on the Birmingham Church bombings, I was thinking about contextualizing certain chapters of the novel. When I was eating my lunch, it reminded me that one of the characters is on a diet. It's as though no matter what I else am doing, I am still working on this novel.

The time that I spent staring at the computer, complaining that I wasn't getting anything done, I was getting something done afterall. I was like a hen sitting on her eggs. It's not exaciting to watch, but it's neccesary if those eggs are going to hatch.

This just goes to show that sometimes progress can't be measured by word count.

Posted at 08:58 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Writing

The Geniuses are Here

The 2008 MacArthur Awards have been announced. This $500,00 fellowship-- nicknamed the "Genius Award"-- is an out-of-the-blue award to the lucky winner. I tend to think that the award may be a little more out of the blue for some winners than others. Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, author of the magnificent Half of a Yellow Sun is a most deserving winner, but I doubt that she was stunned by the honor. Pleased, yes, but stunned, maybe not.

This year's list is pretty interesting. For one thing, there are at least two really handsome men on that list! (Is that shallow?) Also an award was given to an Urban Gardener and to a Rural Family Physician. I am delighted to see people who are doing important humanitarian work being rewarded in this way. I am sure they will pour most of the grant into their good works, but I hope they remember to hold a little back for their own pleasure.

Posted at 07:30 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

Feeling like Royalty

Today, I received a royalty check! Twenty-five dollars and five cents was this quarter's haul for the audio book version of Leaving Atlanta. I can't tell you how happy it makes me.

At this stage in my career,I can say that I am very proud of the work that I have published, so the money I make feels very honest and very clean. The first check I received for my writing was a $100 honorarium I received for my first published story which appeared in a now-defunct magazine called Catalyst. The editor was an up and coming Atlanta writer by the name of Pearl Cleage.

So what will I do with my twenty-five bucks? I'm thinking maybe I will buy myself a new notebook and a fancy chocolate bar. Or maybe two glasses of champagne.

Posted at 08:01 PM | Comments (4)
Category: The Writing Life

700 Billion Dollar Links

Caged man
Originally uploaded by Mieke Miwian

Depends on What You Mean By "Generation"

Did you see the (latest) remembrance of David Foster Wallace in the NYT today? I have to admit that I am suffering from DFW fatigue. At first, I couldn't figure out what it was that was sticking in my craw. Well, for Joy Castro, the NYT article "The Best Mind of His Generation" was the last straw. And she's not being quiet about it.

I must say that the NYT article got to me a little bit, although the tributes have been pushing my buttons all week-- at not just because the DFW tributes eclipsed the death of Reginald Shepherd, just a couple of days earlier. The loss of Wallace has got everybody talking about genius and talking about genius makes folks want to talk about geniuses and it has become clear that, for many people, genius has a demographic designation and it doesn't really include women and writers of color. The A.O. Scott piece in the NYT was just the latest example.

But I won't go on. Just go see what Joy says.

Posted at 03:17 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Current Events

Well-Compensated Links

Steve Inskeep, NPR, (Host of Morning Edition)
Originally uploaded by onanov

It's In The Stars

My horoscope says it's time to get serious.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

A poet friend of mine hatched a scheme for writing a book in record time. He bought a round-trip ticket for a Greyhound bus that would take him from Oakland, California to New York City and back. He vowed that over the course of those nine grueling days and 6,000 miles, as he ate stale sandwiches from vending machines in bus stations and slept sitting up surrounded by strangers, he would churn out an epic-length poem about the experience of traveling cross-country on the most populist form of transportation. The experiment worked. His book was witty, shocking, and entertaining. I urge you to give yourself a comparable assignment, Sagittarius. Invoke the magic of a strict deadline to create something beautiful that will last a long time.

Other folks, you can get yours here.

Posted at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Writing

Totally Exhausted Links

Sleepy Rex - BB Zai 2
Originally uploaded by ~✽ Yen ✽~

Up, Up and Away!

I just wanted to take a second before I dash to work to thank you all for your email and comment hugs when I was having such a hard time with my writing last week. I really recommend that you go and read the comments. There is some serious practical wisdom there.) I think I have found a way to balance my responsibilities.

I am taking it easy on the twittering, as Lauren has advised. When I told her about my Tweetdeck, an application that allows me to twitter with several dozen people at the time she said "DISMANTLE IT." And I had to admit that she sort of had a point. (Y'all, I was twittering so much that the LA Times noticed when I quit.) Also I am blocking off a couple of days in the week to just putter around and write. Other advice I am taking includes not beating up on myself for the times I don't write. (Like today-- not writing, all school work, and I am not freaking out.) And last but not least, a great tip from Laraine, who-- unlike me--, pays attention when the flight attendant says

Posted at 07:30 AM | Comments (3)
Category: The Writing Life

New Week Links

Butterfly Boy (1949)
Originally uploaded by Omega418

Meet Karen Batchelor

As some of you know, I taught Remedial Reading for several years when I was in my mid-twenties. This experience really changed the way I understood my life and this country. I couldn’t believe how many people graduate high school without the sort of basic literacy that would allow them to, say, really enjoy a magazine article. The job was tough as no-one really cared about this population—evidenced by the fact that they let a 23-year-old kid to run the joint. One of the biggest challenges was finding reading material appropriate for students on this level—people with the mind of adults, but the literacy skills of a much younger person.

A couple of years ago, I met Karen Batchelor, author of Murder at Ocean View College. It’s a mystery, and a good one, but also it’s a novel designed to help adults who are just learning to read. Q&A with her below.

Posted at 07:22 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Guest Bloggers

When Charlotte's Web Just Won't Do

Tayari: Karen, Congrats on your novel. When I read Murder at Ocean View College, I couldn't’t help wishing that I had a tool like this when I was in the class room.

Karen: I know what you mean. Since I teach ESL at City College of San Francisco, I have seen the trend—more students unable to read the psych books, the history books, the biology books required to graduate from college. I can still hear the groans when I assign students to read three pages out of the textbook—too hard, too may new words, too boring, they say.

Tayari: But the point of ESL and college remedial classes is to get students ready to read textbooks, right? I know when I was teaching, it was all about prepping them for practical needs, not reading for pleasure. It was reading for day to day survival.

Karen: Yes, this is often the focus of the curriculum, but people learn to enjoy reading by reading for pleasure. This is what gets people practicing reading when they are away from the classroom.

Tayari: Had you used novels before?

Karen: Yes, but it soon became clear to me that there was a serious need for literature for adults who are ESL and reluctant readers. The only novels we could assign were novels written for children and teenagers. Not only are the issues and interests of adults different from those of children, but adults are usually embarrassed and demoralized to have to read kids’ books. They have experienced life and are not inspired by Charlotte’s Web
Embarrassed, a young Chinese woman whispered to me, “I go to the library with my son and I read his books.” One young macho male kept his copy of L.L. Stine’s horror book hidden in his backpack so that the “regular” college students might not realize what he was reading.

Continue reading this entry

Posted at 07:22 AM | Comments (2)
Category: Guest Bloggers

Tayari Jones by Curt Richter

The Universe is really cooperating with me lately. Twice I was sitting here thinking that it would be nice to have a new photo. I love, love, my Ettlinger shot, and the picture on the layout of the blog has tremendous sentimental value, but I was thinking that I would like to switch it up a little bit from time to time. Then, viola! Curt Richter sent me this lovely potrait that we took when I was in Key West in January.

Posted at 10:41 AM | Comments (2)
Category: The Writing Life

Lose The Phone

oops

Originally uploaded by jeremy.plemon

So often, an inability to connect with the world makes a plot-line move. Think Casablanca: When Bogie and Ingrid miss each other on the train platform. So beautiful! So tragic! It wouldn't be if one of them had whipped out a cell phone and said, "Hey! Where are you! I'm by the ticket counter." Could those misfits in The Breakfast Club have bonded if they could have been yakking away on thier Sidekicks? I can't think how much Romeo and Juliet could have benefited from blue tooth technology.

Now, screenwriters have to figure out how to get rid of the cell phones if they want that kind of scene. And then coming up with a way to lose the cell phones can too easily seem like a device. To make matters worse, if the scene takes place in a public venue,you have to come up with a reason why no one else in the whole place has a cell phone!

I have a similar situation in my own novel. Thank heavens it takes place in the 1980s. Our characters are stranded at a gas station and everything hinges on who gets there first to pick them up. In the cell phone age, one of them would have made a simple phone call and avoided the drama that is the climax of the story.

Hee, hee. If the characters were real, I just imagine James-- the busted bigamist-- holding a blackberry in the year 2008 thinking how all this could have been avoided.

Posted at 09:41 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Writing

RIP, David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes

Posted at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Current Events

JC Book Festival

Today, I spent the afternoon at the first annual Jersey City Book Festival. For the most part, I spent the day sitting at a table waiting for my books to get up and sell themselves. I have to admit, I am not good at the flag-down-and-pitch model of book marketing.

Although many authors argue that self-publishing is terrible for a writer's career, every time I go to a local book festival, I leave with a whole new respect for authors who have made themselves into a one-person book writing, marketing, and distribution team. The authors at Van Horst Park were out there really doing their thing. Some people had T-shirts advertising the books, everyone had bookmarks, and posters. If people pass a table on the way to the pastry vendor, they have to at least hear the author out first. (A couple of years ago, I was at a book festival and an author whipped a credit card machine out of her satchel.)

Pretty impressive.

I left early. I just didn't have the stamina. You should have seen me sneaking out the back with with my paltry little display folded up and stuffed in my tote bag. I sold, like, a book and a half. Before my next novel comes out, I am going to have to take some notes from the writers who are doing it for themselves.

Posted at 07:32 PM | Comments (0)
Category: The Writing Life

Survived The Week Links

S.O.S.!

It's two weeks into the school year and I am falling into a very bad rhythm that I must break. I think I may have confessed to accomplishing next to nothing on my writing last school year. This summer, I went to the Blue Mountain Center, and wrote like I was on fire. Still smoking, I came home in July, spiffied up my writing room and wrote like crazy for the rest of the summer. Then school started. I have read over the entire manuscript, but I haven't been really in the world of the novel enough to write meaningfully. This is not good.

I have featured guest posts here for working writers-- working writers with KIDS even-- who find time to get their work done. One of the most popular posts on this blog was Renee Simms's excellent piece "Jazzing My Way Through." So why am I not jazzing? I come home, tired, hop in the shower, whimper into my Carol's Daughter, and crash, crash, crash.

I have urged people to snatch time while they can get it. I remind everyone that Judith Ortiz Cofer found her writing time while her baby's clothes were in the dryer. But I am finding that I need full immersion time, which is not only free time as measured by the clock, but I need free mind space as well. I can't work when I feel like I am stealing my time, when my to-do list is ticking like a bomb.

It's time for me to reorganize my life and refocus my efforts. I know that I usually am providing helpful hints for other people, but now I am sending y'all an S.O.S. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am three quarters through this novel. I can't let it go until next summer.

Posted at 08:59 AM | Comments (9)
Category: Writing

Home at Last Links!

I am beat-down tired after a really long day at work. Why is so hard to transition back into the race after a gorgeously productive summer??? But here are some links before I throw in the towel.

Sin City Law

I don't often blog about TV shows. For one thing, I don't have a television and the second is that this is supposed be a literary blog. I am making an exception for "Sin City Law", a documentary program that airs on the Sundance Channel. (The TV-less can get it on iTunes.)

"Sin City Law" is different than other crime shows-- both scripted and unscripted. Have you noticed that most crime shows these day focus on the cops and the prosecution. They act like the constitution is am impediment to keeping citizens safe and a boon to criminals. They kick doors in without a warrant, and are never wrong when they do. They slam the accused against the hoods are cars, but it's okay, because the people are "dirtbags". As much as I love "The Closer", it drives me nuts when Brenda Leigh says "Hurry up! We need to question him before his lawyer gets here." I am not a conspiracy nut, but you can't help wondering is so much exposure to this worldview is just softening us up for the police state that's right around the corner.

Enter "Sin City Law" which takes a look at the justice system in Las Vegas, a city devastated by methamphetamine. The cases are tragic all around. In the first season, Alzora Jackson, public defender, takes on cases she can't hope to win-- and in many cases she shouldn't win. For her, the clients often deserve jail, but the question is what punishment is fair. Sometimes the fight comes down to whether the client will get life with or without parole. Very little is accomplished via dramatic in-court monologues. Save that for Law & Order. The real drama comes when a public defender has to explain to a seventeen year old that the best option is to accept a plea that makes her eligible for parole when she's 65.

Don't be put off by the name "Sin City Law" or the equally sensational episode titles. This, I think is a wrong-headed attempt to draw in viewers who like the more titillating fare. This is a nuanced look at crime, poverty, and justice.

Related:

Lovely Day Links!

Singer Betty Wright
Originally uploaded by Shavar

Man-oh-man it's gorgeous outside and here I am slaving over this hot computer.

Introducing Kendrick Daye of Art Nouveau

As you can probably tell, I spend a lot of time on the internet and one of my favorite destinations is Art Nouveau. It's an on-line magazine with all the-- I don't know what to call it-- all the-- well, the--- umph? the funk?-- of my favorite print magazines. The Sept/Oct issue, "Art is Everywhere" has just posted and features interviews with Jasmine Guy about her directorial debut with "For Colored Girls..", new poems by Academy of American Poets prize winner Kyla Marshell, an op-ed piece about self-publishing, a pictorial essay on fashion photography and surrealism. I could go on and on. And that's just one issue. Check out the archives.

I was clicking through yesterday and I thought about Kendrick Daye, one of the founders. I caught up with him on google chat and did a little bit of a Q&A.

Posted at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Guest Bloggers

Art Is Everywhere

Tayari Jones: Kendrick, I just took a look at Issue 5. What a fantastic accomplishment. I looks great and there's a lot of substance to go with the eye-popping layout. Tell me, how did you start Art Nouveau and what motivated you? How did you pull it off? Did you get a grant or something?

Kendrick Daye: First off, Thanks for the compliments. We really worked extremely hard to make this the best issue we could. We wanted the layout and photos and graphics to be out there but we also wanted to cover topics and issues that more mainstream magazines don't. Me and stylist Phillip Holmes started it back in the Fall of 07. We were sitting in my room one day and out of nowhere I just blurted out let's start a magazine. And he was excited, I was excited and we planned and planned all that night. I'm a graphic designer also, so I was designing the site and the graphics and we just went ahead and did and promoted the hell out of it on MySpace and Facebook and it just bloomed and kept going. We didn't get any grant or any monetary assitance, lol. We paid for everything ourselves.

Tayari: When you say your room, do you mean you DORM room? How old are you anyway?

Kendrick: Well I was in college when I started it, but I haven't lived on campus since Freshman year. My room in my apartment in downtown Atlanta. I'm 21 and graduate from Morehouse this July.

Continue reading this entry

Posted at 08:05 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Guest Bloggers

In The Mood for Links

Jennifer Baker-Henry reports on her trip to Ghana as part of the Pan African Literary Forum. Sounds like a good opportunity to see the world while taking great writing courses.

Revisiting History

If you are wondering about all the Tayari juvenilia showing up on the blog, it's because my dad sent me a box of all the detritus of my youth.

When I was in Georgia last month speaking to the students at Georgia College and State University about Leaving Atlanta, several people asked me about the "Student of The Month" prize that my characters seem to be so fixated on. I sadly told the audience that I never won the award and I have yet to get over it. Imagine how surprised I was to see a newspaper clipping all about me receiving the award. Memory is strange. I scanned the picture, but since it is about twenty-five years old, the quality isn't so great. I'm the girl on the left. The girl on the right is Faustina Chavers whom I understood to be the most glamorous girl in the world.

For kicks here is what was said about me:

Seventh grader Tayari Jones was named Student of The Month for April. "It was really a surprise. I didn't know until this morning," she said.
The eleven year old had won second place in the city-wide social science fair for her novel project on the popularity of designer jeans at Oglethopre (Elementary School). According to Tayari's research Jordache jeans were the favorites of her schoolmates.

Posted at 07:48 PM | Comments (0)
Category:

5/6 Through, Time To Start From The Top

I am 5/6 of the way through my novel. I've been writing it for about four years, which means that the first hundred pages were written when I was still considered to be in my early thirties. The most recent pages were written in my mid-to-late thirties. The point is that this book has been written at different phases of my life. Now it's time for me to write an ending that speaks to the book as a whole, not just the parts of the book I have written most recently.

Just to give a sense of how much water has passed under the bridge since I started writing this novel, consider that when I wrote my opening line "My father, James Whitherspoon, is a married man...":

Return to Reality

Well this is the last night before school starts for me. As I scrape together an outfit for tomorrow, I am sadly aware of how far I have drifted from the girl I once was-- new lunchbox, new shoes, fresh pencils. Now that I am on the opposite side of the desk, the start of the school year means the sad end of my summer writing spree.

This year, I plan to teach myself something. I am sorry to tell you that last school year, I only wrote about a chapter or so. This year I am going to do better by myself and my work. I am setting up conrete writing times that are as regular as my office hours. I am also keeping a journal where I check in once a week with my progress. And, of course, I'll keep updating on my twitter account.

There may be a little slow down in the blogging while I get my constitution together, but I will still post regularly. I promise.

Posted at 09:58 PM | Comments (0)
Category: The Writing Life

Back To Work Links

School starts tomorrow. This will likely mean a little less blogging, I fear.