NaNoWriMo Loves You

Picture sez it all. November!

(Jennifer, this is all your fault.)

Portrait of the Prodigal as a Profiteer

You can win free books and a t-shirt by visiting England Rents, Rants and Raves and entering the fierce competition celebrating Denis Lipman's new book A Yank Back to England: The Prodigal Tourist Returns. Michael Dirda of The Washington Post loved it, and Michael York, who has had a long and varied career, but whom I best remember in 1973's Lost Horizon (a film that perhaps wasn't terribly well reviewed but that I enjoyed at a young age) says, "A perceptive, engaging and informative take on contemporary England as seen through the eyes of a fellow expatriate who writes with humor and affection. The cast of characters has an almost Dickensian vivacity." I've managed to dig up two England photos from 1986 (it's all part of the rules)... hurry to send in your own. The one above is from a bus as I first entered London on the ride from Gatwick Airport. I've been back several times now, but that was my first time abroad as well as my first time in England, so it was eerie and special.

30 Days of Return to the Journal Experiments

The literary journal experiments went on hiatus while I dealt with the influx of new faculty scholarly authors to Georgetown's Office of Scholarly and Literary Publications. But we have one fiction group, and I promised to write with the group for all of October -- 30 glorious days -- even though I'm also working on a scholarly article with the Articles-Only group. Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks is going so wonderfully that it makes sense to take on a new thing now that the old thing is well on its way.

This means structure, dates, deadlines, goals. For October 'tis thus: produce a piece for The Georgia Review to submit by October 23. Why that date? Because October 31 is the deadline for a call for submissions, and I want to send it one week early. That will mean devoting a special hour each day for 23 days to this one creative writing task.

RESOLVED

1. Although I'm typically more of a morning scholarly writer, I choose evenings for this writing, from 8-9 p.m. If that time is filled because of an evening event, I will spend a quiet hour before leaving for said event, or a quiet later-night hour after coming home.

2. Even though I don't know what to write, I will trust that coming to the page will yield something. Much of this theory comes from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way that several of the fiction group are reading and working through together.

3. No matter what happens, I will keep this commitment every day, and I will submit something, however poor and miserable, on the 23rd. This is writing as bricklaying, writing as plumbing, writing as a regular-person job. Artists take commissions all the time, and this is my commission.

4. To prepare myself for this I will read back issues of The Georgia Review and blog about them. This office is also a subscriber, but knowing a literary magazine well is a good way to submit to it successfully.

5. We're all in this together. I'm writing with them and they're writing with me. Teamwork.

The image above, of an albino peacock, is a hint of what the call for submissions is about.

Reading a book just because it won a prize

There are many ways to decide what to read. Though overwhelmed with manuscripts, I still like to keep up with new books, and following prize winners is one great way to do it.

But prize committees are complicated organisms, and many of us have read the confessions of past participants who admit they skim the books (how can you not, if you have to get through 70 or 100 to make a decision, and you also have a full-time job?). Also, inherent in a group vote is everyone picking the same book as a lower-rung choice, but with many books vying for #1, so the prize ends up going to a book everyone liked but nobody loved. Finally, the prize is usually awarded every year, even if a great choice isn't available each year. So sometimes an author gets a prize for being the best of a lesser bunch, whereas other times an author does not get a prize simply because someone amazing was in the running that year (or cynically, someone more famous whom prize judges thinks finally deserves a win).

Still, even though I understand all of this this (and I've served on several prize committees, one of which I resigned in disgust after the ranking phenomenon, when everyone's #3 won a huge scholarship, and the higher-ranked ones were left thinking they hadn't rated because we could not agree on them), I'm going to take a chance and read the book that just won the Thurber Prize because (a) I love humor and don't read enough of it; and (b) I've never read a Thurber-prize book before.

The book is Larry Doyle's I Love You Beth Cooper, and the publisher is Harper Perennial. I'll read it on my trusty Kindle and post my thoughts about it later.

Competition, part two

After that post about competition and art, I remembered judging the Maryland Writers Association fiction competition again this year... it is either my third year or my fourth, and the entries are always great. Some are publishable, and they are all worth reading! MWA is such a supportive and smart organization. I spoke at their annual writers conference a few years back, but didn't tell them them a little secret -- that was my first writers conference ever! Normally I'm highly allergic to the usual writer-industry stuff (and a later visit to another gackawful conference reminded me why), but the MWA is different/better. Visit them, and if you have a few Andrew Jacksons burning a hole in your chinos, make a donation...

Stomach aches and contest entries

Oh the resistance I have to the concept of "competitive" art. Whether it is writing, painting, music -- the notion that art wins prizes, and that there is good, better, and best expression rubs my fur backward just a bit. I acknowledge that certain accomplishment is genuine, and should be rewarded. But what if three wonderful novels are entered into competition, and they are all quite different? How is one the "best" of the three? And even more complex, what about the politics of the competition? Once I walked off of a journalism judging committee because first-, second- and third-place votes were all given the same weight, and since we each voted for a different first-place work but we all voted for the same third-place work, that author won the grand prize! It was absurd, and the institutionalization of mediocrity. I complained to the head of the awards committee, who shrugged and said it wasn't worth her time to weight the votes and try again. So several excellent journalists who had earned our various first-place votes walked away thinking they didn't make the cut, and one obvious third-placer is out there now putting "Grand prize winner" on his c.v.

So why after all that kvetching did I choose to enter the Arts Club of Washington's first-ever playwriting competition this year? First because I admire the organization. Founded in 1916, it is the oldest arts club in a city that desperately needs more focus on the arts in general. It has been tireless over the years in promoting opera, cultural programs, photography, and overall cultural literacy. Washington is a city of vast artistic treasures, yet not nearly enough practicing artists of national or international acclaim. There is room for many, many more, and in a city this financially flush there should be generous funding available as well.

I've heard some fanciful souls refer to Washington as "Paris on the Potomac," and it can sometimes resemble that city in its L'Enfant design if you stand in just the right spot, sip enough vin rouge, and squint. The Arts Club of Washington is doing what it can to make that hazy half-vision a full-fledged reality, so I wrote a play just for them, and submitted it, and prayed...

2006 Novella Contest at Miami University Press

Short stories have been making a comeback for a while now, which is welcome news to this Lorrie Moore, Jhumpa Lahiri and Ethan Canin fan. But whither the novella? Miami University Press in Oxford, Ohio has one answer, with its 2006 Novella Prize.

Novellas have long been popular with readers. A River Runs Through It, below, features a novella as the title work, Stephen King's novella The Body was turned into the memorable movie "Stand By Me," and many short novels such as Marly Youmans's Catherwood are technically novellas. Your definition of novella and mine may vary, but MUP puts 'em between 18,000 and 40,000 words. For those of you who are visual, picture a novel about 2/3 of an inch across the spine: that's roughly 90,000 words.

If you haven't written your novella yet, then limber up those hunting-and-pecking fingers and give it a try. Submissions are due by October 15. Just one word of caution. Make sure a press is right for you before you submit an entry to any contest. Get to know its work, and feel comfortable with its other authors as your colleagues. Many a writer has "won" a contest only to find that they felt dubious about the publication (and the often-stingy contract terms!) that followed. This one looks pretty good to me, which is why I'm posting it here, but it's a good idea to do background research to see how it jibes with your own sense of your career.