Intern’s Report: Writing Voodoo

Lighthouse is fortunate to have as a summer intern Sara Aboulafia from Smith College–enough to give you hope for the next generations. Here’s her take on last night’s Writing Voodoo Lit Fest Salon.

The Voodoo That They Do:

A Brass-Tacks Conversation with Writers at Forest Room 5

by Sara Aboulafia, Lighthouse Summer Intern 

 

            Earlier this year my school spotted me a few hundred bucks to go to the Nieman Conference of Narrative Journalism, a large get-together of industry hot-shots and hopefuls over a March weekend at The Sheraton Hotel in Boston. After a strange stint writing for a volunteer organization in New Orleans, I thought the conference would give me some idea of what the field was really all about. I would love to say I walked away from the conference with inspiration clicking at my heels as I strode headfirst into a new reporting assignment for my local newspaper. Alas, I instead left with songs of industry-lagging despair ringing in my ears: “This is a miserable field,” one famous, published-in-every-magazine-on-the-block writer told me. But after Lighthouse’s first Lit-Fest salon, “Writing Voodoo” at hip LoHi spot Forest Room 5–where guests settled into a rustic parlor-like back-room with cocktails and beer in hand–I felt a little quickening in my step.

            Rather than scribbling without coming up for a breath as I did at the Nieman Conference, I listened to the panel of writers taking nary a note. The impression that I got from the panel–journalist Shari Caudron and fiction writers William Haywood Henderson and Karen Palmer–was that it was the writers’ attitude and energy that, despite the occupation’s many pitfalls and pratfalls, kept them writing. When a few members of the audience offered questions which verged on the pessimistic and glum (“What do you do when your friend tells you have to write your whole damn book again? Tell me, how do you get one of those agent-things?) all three panelists responded with good-humor, humility, and enough self-deprecation that the gathering felt less like a staged success-story performance and more like the honest, open conversation it was.

            Though the salon was called “Writing Voodoo,” the writers admitted that there were, ultimately, no tried-and-true spells or tricks to writing, and that its satisfactions and tortures tended to trade hands. To demonstrate this truism, writer Shari Caudron jumped up to provide a visual aid which plotted her emotional trajectory every single time she must tackle a new story. Her poster-sized graph depicted a massive reverse-check-mark whose

 

Capsule review for those who missed

episode one of the Third-Annual Lit Fest. The kickoff party?  Rocked.  Thanks to a combination of the funky stylings of The Alltunators, the donated backyard furniture from Jay Kenney, and the Red Rock Ale compliments of Rock Bottom Brewery. Here’s a pic from the Alltunator’s first set. (Just as a flash-forward, lighting not being our forte, everyone who came out to enjoy the music was plunged into darkness by the end of the second set, which could have been dangerous and even awkward, but maybe we all played it off okay. And we do have insurance.)

Was there food? you might wonder. Yes, Virginia, there was food from the delicious and nutritious Parisi’s deli, some of which still resides in the Lighthouse refrigerator (note to selves: we might donate that to the Lighthouse dog).  Much as I tried, I could not get the coveted “bald guys by the beer keg” photo — the aesthetics weren’t right. But rest assured, there was a congregation of guys (who shave their heads for purely stylistic reasons) by the keg.  It was like college in that sense.  Here was my attempt at getting a candid shot of people by the keg.  Act natural! I said.

Smarty pantses.  Anyway, Episode One only worked out thanks to goddess Jennie Dorris (pictured above, middle) our illustrious volunteers Patricia Harris, Rosemary L’Esprit, Jillian Polasky, Scotty and Joy Sawyer, and Meghan Wilson, who I implicitly thanked already by helping her to a generous dose of wine down the front of her shirt. Here she is, left, the Voice of Lighthouse (see our podcasts), before the offending elbow sent the offending wine down the very nice and snazzy shirt.

Is it too late to get caught up in the wreckless literary theatrics of the Lit Fest season?  Indeed it is not. Monday night, June 9, 8 PM, we get Shari Caudron, William Haywood Henderson, and Karen Palmer sharing their “Writing Voodoo” secrets. (Tix are $10 for members.) Come to Forest Room 5, stake out your territory, order some food and wine, and sit back and enjoy the show. See you all there! See a full list of free and cheap events here.

 

Economist’s Tip Sheet

Maybe, because you squandered your stimulus check on a mountain bike or, say, fuel for your voraciously hungry car, you thought you’d sit out the Lit Fest this year, sliding through the next couple of weeks without really dressing, brushing your hair, or joining in the shenanigans. Sorry. No can do! There are free-to-near-free ways to get involved with Lit Fest–all the community goodness at half (or none of) the price. 

 

We consulted a Lighthouse team of economists and various consumer agencies, and they prepared the following tip sheet. These events and happenings are free or $10*. We just want to see your happy mug at Lighthouse! Can you really afford not to show it?

 

The Kickoff Party: Fri, 6/6, 6 to 9 PM (Ferril)……………………..$10
What if we threw a Lit Fest and everyone gathered to toast it? Personally, we think it would be really stunning. Music by the Alltunators, food by Parisi’s, wine by Above the Rim Fine Wine, water compliments of Mother Nature, and beer from Rock Bottom Brewery. You’re not going to find a more economical way to enjoy yourself, or better people to do it with.  Tix here.

 

Faculty Reading: Sat, 6/7, 7 PM (Mercury Cafe)…………………..$0
Opera tickets are $28.  Live theatre is at least $20. And you just spent $9.75 to see Indiana Jones without any popcorn. The Lit Fest offers a night of literary entertainment for absolutely nothing. And our faculty ain’t no scrubs.  Between them, they’ve published twenty-three books, and their work has graced the pages of everything from the Threepenny Review to the New Yorker. We won’t even start tallying the awards. Plus, they’re a hoot to hang out with. It’s like that dream you had where the guy who won the Colorado Book Award was reading you a bedtime story, only it’s not bedtime, and he really is.  (Featuring Robert Root, Nick Arvin, Rebecca Berg, Mike Henry, and Jessica Roeder).

 

Salon: Writing Voodoo. Mon, 6/9, 8 PM (FR5)…………………………$10
Some things are invaluable. Love. Health. Wisdom. And the answers to certain questions, such as: How do you write a book?  What’s the deal with this nightmarish first draft? How do you revise it? How do you know when to, gulp, abandon it? How do you navigate relationships with editors and agents? These questions and many more will be addressed by multi-book veterans William Haywood Henderson, Shari Caudron and Karen Palmer.  We also look forward to your thoughts on the matter. (Note the location: Forest Room 2532 15th St. Come early, order drinks, enjoy an appetizer.) Tix here.

 

Faculty Reading Deux: Tue, 6/10, 8 PM (Mercury Cafe)………….$0
Another fun reading from writers on our faculty–one of whom is currently topping the local bestseller list, and others who have been there or might be soon.  (Featuring Janis Hallowell, Matt Kailey, William Henderson, David Rothman, Harrison Candelaria Fletcher, and Jake Adam York).

 

Salon: Mixed Up Arts. Thur, 6/12, 8 PM (FR5)………………………….$10
During lean economic times, we’re often encouraged to scrimp and save. Pinch and moderate. So it’s nice to go hog wild once in a while. In this salon, we’ll celebrate, ponder, and maybe even worry over what we have in abundance: Talent. Musical and visual artists Mario Acevedo, Jennie Dorris, and Rebecca Berg (who also happen to be writers) will discuss and demonstrate the intersection between their many creative modes. Think of it as a mini concert/art show where writers make movies. And argue. And have a heck of a good time. (Note the location: Forest Room 2532 15th St. Come early, order drinks, enjoy an appetizer.) Tix here.

 

Salon: DNC Special: Writing & Politics. Mon, 6/16, 8 PM (FR5)….$10
They always say the pen is mightier than the sword. But does that mean you should write an Ode to Exxon Mobil? Or a story about a superdelegate who falls in love with a regular delegate to the dismay of all involved?  We don’t know.  But after this salon, we might. The esteemed Janis Hallowell (She Was), Nick Arvin (Articles of War), Valerie Ann Leff (Better Homes and Husbands) and David J. Rothman (The Elephant’s Chiropractor) will join you in tackling the sticky subject of politics in writing: can you do it? Should you do it? How? Note: due to possible adverse reactions to partisan clichés, we have banned the following verbal constructions: throwing anything or anyone “under the bus,” “the math,” and “reading from [insert odious name or entity's] playbook.”  Tix here. 

 

Lit Fest Participant Reading: Tue, 6/17, 8 PM (Mercury Cafe)……..$0
Often touted as “the most inspiring night of the entire Festival,” the participant reading features writers who are taking workshops and enjoying the two-week binge that is Lit Fest. This year we feature two writers who signed book deals at (or, more accurately, quickly after) previous Lit Fests, including the PEN/Hemingway award honorable mention Gary Schanbacher (Migration Patterns) and author of the soon-to-be-released Umbrellas or Else, J. Diego Frey. There are 10 slots open for other Lit Festers to read short, 3-minute pieces. Will you be one of them? This opportunity’s pure gold: contact sara@lighthousewriters.org to get on the list, and show up at the Merc to listen and enjoy. (Oh, and arrive early to order food/drink!)

 

Closing Reception: A Gourmand’s Tale: Fri, 6/20, 6-9 PM………..$40
Oh, food. How we love it. We love it just about as much as we love wine and beautiful gardens. So we’ve decided to bring all of these things together in the final Lit Fest shindig, where we’ll toast our visiting agents (including local agents Kate Schafer and Sandra Bond, as well as New Yorker Betsy Lerner of  Dunow, Carlson, and Lerner) and editors (from Fulcrum and Ghost Road), and each other! We’ll hang out with old friends, make new friends, and listen to an appetizing salon talk on writing and food from Denver Poet Laureate Chris Ransick and Lighthouse members Carleen Brice and Tiffany Tyson. If all of this sounds pretty swanky, it is. If it sounds like something you can’t afford, it isn’t. Directions to this private garden party near 9th & Gaylord will be e-mailed to registrants. Please order tix by 6/12 at the latest. (Caterers need the stats!)

 

*Except for one event that’s a farewell kind of fundraiser that we’ve buried at the bottom of the tip sheet (an old trick). It’s still an economical choice!

 

Lit Fest Personality Test: 7 Days & Counting

Our crack team of Lighthouse psychologists has put together a personality profile for members, to help them approach Lit Fest in the most self-actualized way. Sit back and be analytical about thyself. We’ll see you in a week!  Download a pdf of our Lit Fest Brochure here.

What Style of Lit Fester Are You?

The Bohemian
The Bohemian Lit Fester loves the outdoors, and in many cases, has great legs to show for it.  He/she writes and lives passionately, and always keeps up with current events.  It is not uncommon for this Lit Fester to sign a petition, fire off a stunningly articulate letter, or curl up with Wallace Stegner, Terry Tempest Williams or Wendell Berry.  For the Bohemian Lit Fester in your life (or the bohemian in you), we recommend: Laura Pritchett’s Weekend Intensive Environmental Writing, where writers will learn how to effectively write and publish work about our planet; Shari Caudron’s Developing the “I” Narrator, where writers will learn how to navigate the tricky first person; and the engaging DNC Special: Writing and Politics, where a panel of writers will discuss that delicate business of how politics and writing work together (or not!).

The Voyeur
The Voyeur Lit Fester is a master of observation.  He/she notices the little details that nobody else sees, and may have been caught staring once or twice—at someone’s outfit, at someone’s unusual mannerisms, at someone’s ear.  He/she is just interested in things, especially in people.  For the voyeur in everyone, we recommend: Rebecca Berg’s weekend intensive Emotion On and Off the Page, where writers of fiction and nonfiction will explore this most important aspect of characterization; Shari Caudron’s Writing About Real People; and Michael J. Henry’s Metaphor as Theme (because let’s face it, even the greatest observer needs a little help spotting their most powerful themes).

The Daredevil
The Daredevil Lit Fester is always open to something new: new foods, new places, new friends. When it comes to writing, this person is often talented in multiple genres, and tends to flit between them (when he/she isn’t falling from a plane or recovering from a shattered something-or-other).  For all of those with a daring spirit, we recommend: Harrison Fletcher’s weekend intensive Writing a Shadowbox, where participants will explore literary collage; Rebecca Berg’s seminar Writing What You Don’t Know; Laura Hendrie’s Stretching the Truth (how to do it without the red-faced “tell”); Laura Pritchett’s Writing Sex Well (because let’s face it, some ain’t got the gumption) and the sensory extravaganza Mixed Up Arts, a salon that combines musical, visual and literary genius.

The Artisan
The Artisan Lit Fester is a modest soul.  You won’t find this writer chasing the spotlight or mugging for the camera.  Instead, you’ll find him/her laboring over each word, each sentence, each line break.  There are certain classics that will make the Artisan swoon–literally. For the writer who truly loves words, we recommend: Laura Pritchett’s With A Nod to the Greats, where writers will gain tips and inspiration from great works; Robert Root’s Ratcheting Up Your Prose, where writers will learn to write by ear; and Michael J. Henry’s Stealing From Poetry, where participants will do just that.

The Mod
The Mod Lit Fester lives in the present moment.  Because of this, he/she is insanely busy.  Juggling work, friends, family, and the writing endeavor, this is one Lit Fester who needs to slow down once in a while, kick off those stylish shoes and look at the big picture.  Hence, we recommend: Karen Palmer’s weekend intensive From Detail to Big Picture and Back: Navigating Your Book; as well as Shari Caudron’s Mid-Year Writing Goals Tune-Up.  And because a routine can deaden one’s creativity, we prescribe a healthy dose of Robert Root’s Why Don’t You Collage That? Or, The Art of the Asterisk, where writers will explore non-linear forms of creative nonfiction.

The Sleuth
The Sleuth is the kind of writer everybody wants to hate, but can’t.  He/she can always find the precise word to describe a situation, can sniff out a secret and reveal it in seconds flat, will say the one thing nobody else is willing to say, and say it with perfect comic timing.  Here is a writer that digs deeper than other people, and with the zeal of a bloodhound.  For the sleuth, we recommend Robert Root’s weekend intensive Making Memoir (because sometimes the biggest challenge is airing our own secrets); Shari Caudron’s Stalking the Story; and Matt Kailey’s Writing Your Truth.  Sleuths will also enjoy the Writing Voodoo salon, in which an award-winning panel of authors reveals the rituals, spells, and superstitions that keep them going.

The Raconteur
The Raconteur is a born storyteller.  He/she can’t take a trip to the grocery store without having some outlandish encounter, and may begin sentences with, “That reminds me of the time I got my toe stuck in a storm drain in Kuala Lumpur…”  This writer is so caught up in the incredible tumult of his life that he can forget to sit down and write about it.  For the lovable and vivacious raconteur, we recommend: Valerie Ann Leff’s Aerobic Writing, which is designed to get all of those stories on the page fast; Jessica Roeder’s Writing to One Person (because all too often, the Raconteur tells it to everyone); and Nick Arvin’s Collected Stories: The Whole or the Sum of the Parts? where writers will find the connective tissue between their stories, and a way to appeal to publishers. 

The Intuitive
The Intuitive Lit Fester has more than five senses—he/she operates with at least six or seven.  This person can sense a romance before two lovers have laid eyes on each other, can discern in subtle glances worlds of meaning.  Sometimes it gets overwhelming.  We recommend: David Rothman’s Writing the Alpine: Mountain Journalism for the Soul and Maybe Even for the Bank Account, where the Intuitive can spend some blessed time away from other people; Valerie Ann Leff’s Voices in Your Head, which helps draw fictional characters out of the subconscious (it’s like exorcism, only instead of simply removing the demons, we make them do our bidding!); and Jake Adam York’s I to Eye: Writing about Photographs, Away from the Self.  And finally, it’s good for these sensitive souls to be a little bit more playful, so we’re sending them to Harrison Fletcher’s Hermit Crabs and Other Thievery, which will give even the most innovative writer a kick in the pants.  (A gentle kick, of course). 

 

Count up to Lit Fest: 11 Days (Also, an Invite to Meet Your Brood)

Over a decade ago, leaving the cozy, inspiring, crazy-making, inbred culture of our graduate MFA program, Mike Henry and I ventured west to see what we could see. Were there eight writers to every ten strangers you met, as there were in Boston? Would they be interested in finding each other? Really, we all know that writing, per se, cannot be taught—though learning the craft can be accelerated, the learning curve shortened—so why start a nonprofit, independent writing center?  As our brilliant volunteer copywriter J. Chris Rock so eloquently put it: “Sometimes, what a writer needs most is other writers.”

We’re a strange and diverse enough crowd, everyone from apprentices to full-timers working on their fourth novels, ages 10 to 85, all walks of life, probably all political persuasions. So what do we have in common?  A tendency to see things in terms of the story, the poetic line, the image, the scene. We try to be, as someone famous said, people upon whom nothing is lost. That might not go over so well with some of our family and friends. In that way, Lit Fest becomes a time to let it all hang out there—every writerly impulse, every bad draft, every I-love-it-but-I-hate-it attitude toward our strange, shared compulsion. People here will understand… even without your “treatise on why I do this” that you send out every year to your e-mail list.  

So begins the count up to the Third Annual Lighthouse Lit Fest.  Over the last two years, we’ve seen writers immerse themselves in weekend-intensive writing courses like Writing Through Character, Navigating Your Book, Environmental Writing, and Emotion On & Off the Page (not to mention the already waitlisted Novel Bootcamp). Some have gone on to their own wonderful writing careers outside of Colorado, like our friend Sarah Ockler, whose Twenty Boy Summer catapulted her to a 2-book deal with Little, Brown, freedom from a day job, and a return to the city she loves, New York. Others, like Gary Schanbacher (author of Migration Patterns, winner of an honorable mention for the 2008 PEN/Hemingway Award for first fiction) and J. Diego Frey (author of the forthcoming Umbrellas or Else, from Ghost Road), continue to take part in Lighthouse events and will make a featured appearance at the Lit Fest participant reading on Tuesday, June 17.  Both Schanbacher and Frey received book deals after meetings at our first- and second-annual Lit Fests. Hear them read (for free, of course) on June 17, 8PM, Forest Room 5, [OOPS! Edited: it's at the Mercury Cafe] along with other scribblers who sign up for the Participant Reading. If you’re participating in Lit Fest and you’d like a 3-to-5 minute slot to read, contact moi: andrea@lighthousewriters.org.

See ya’ll there!

 

Mark Strand Podcast, with Jingle ™

So, here we’re beginning to get a feel for what a podcast might sound like. But we ain’t there yet, partially because of some volume problems and the fact that the recording cut off the last question, so it ends abruptly and awkwardly. And to avoid some coughing jags from Sr. Strand, I cut some applause from the audience (which wasn’t really captured with the audio anyway), so one of Strand’s jokes gets mangled by editing. (Isn’t that how it always is?) But that gives us new heights to shoot for! Right? Right.

Let us know what you think of the original Lighthouse Jingle ™. And the lovely voice of Lighthouse, Meghan Wilson. We’ll be figuring out how you can subscribe to us on iTunes in the next, well, year or so. We’ll be sure to let you know!

Use your own listening device (right click on this and save it to your desktop or music library), or just put your cursor over this file and hit the triangle and it will start playing:

mark-strand-podcast-962

 

From Mark Strand’s Lips to…

150+ lucky ears this weekend. In advance of posting our new-and-improved Lighthouse podcast (with jingle*) of this weekend’s incredible Inside the Writer’s Studio with Mark Strand and Eli Gottlieb, I thought I’d tantalize with a little bit of what’s what. First, on Saturday, 100-plus packed into the Jones Theater and learned that a young Mark Strand shared a glass of gin with W.H. Auden, each of them rotating the glass with each sip so that their lips never touched the same spot on the glass. (CORRECTION: Eli points out that Auden turned the glass so that their lips did touch the same part of the glass, where Mark gamely turned the glass for a clean spot. Thanks, Eli!) Second, Strand’s good friend Brodsky could bring thousands of screaming fans out to venues across the world–like a veritable Mick Jagger of poetry. Third, when Strand gets together with the literati in New York, it’s always for dinner or a dinner party (no more than 8 people), the topic of conversation: gossip or politics, and the meal?  Well, let’s just say those of us in the audience on Sunday’s Tattered Cover event got recipes from the former Poet Laureate of the United States.  One of them involved a raw egg yolk nestled in a bed of steaming pasta.  Enough said.

Here’s a tasty vittle from Herr Eli Gottlieb, who was our uberdexterous interviewer on Saturday at the Jones (and don’t forget–podcast plus jingle* forthcoming!):

Mark Strand is that rarest of things, a great poet who’s contitnued to get better over time.  Everybody with a set of eyes and ears remembers his early books of poems: the stab of their ironies, their uncanny off-kilter relationship to the authorial self.  They performed a kind of emotional chiropractry on readers, and were like the mysterious galleries in the paintings of Giorgio di Chirico in that they obeyed no known laws of physics and yet felt entirely actual and real.  Their terseness hid a world of implication.   And differently from the so-called “confessional poets” who were in vogue when Mark first began publishing, they seemed to take a more jaunty, European or Continental approach to worldly anxiety.  If Wallace Stevens had been baked in the hard American daylight of Robert Frost, they might have produced the wry, sly confection that is Mark Strand.

 

Diligently, over 50 years, he’s continued to write, while—no easy feat—expanding steadily as a poet.   Talent is one thing.   Ongoing creative growth through a life of art is another thing entirely, and far rarer.   I’ve seen his work process, with its scribbled notebook pages, its endless revisions.  The

 

More Strands

Here’s the opening to Mark Strand’s intro to Best American Poetry 1991 (One of the first poetry books I bought, outside of school):

“It is 1957. I am home on vacation from art school, sitting across from my mother in the living room. We are talking about my future. My mother feels I have picked a difficult profession. I will have to struggle in obscurity, and it may be years and years before I am recognized; even then there is no guarantee that I will be able to make a living or support a family. She thinks it would be wiser for me to become a lawyer or doctor. It is then that I tell her that although I have just begun art school, I am actually more interested in poetry. “But then you’ll never be able to earn a living,” she says. My mother is concerned that I shall suffer needlessly. I tell her that the pleasures to be gotten from poetry far exceed those that come with wealth or stability. I offer to read her some of my favorite poems by Wallace Stevens. I begin with “The Idea of Order at Key West.” in a few minutes, my mother’s eyes are closed and her head leans to one side. She is asleep in her chair.”

Has anyone else had a conversation like this? Feel free to post your own as a response….

(My Dad, circa 1987: “What the hell do you want to be an English major for?” His sincere expression of love and concern–and I mean that not sarcastically.)

Cheers,
–MJH

 

Mark Strand. Denver. May 3 and 4.

Picture this: a relatively handsome, bored, long-haired undergraduate boy slouches in a classroom, sometime in 1987 (or so). Contemporary American Poetry, four credits, Tues/Thurs 10 to 11:50 am.

The professor drones on about Adrienne Rich, W.S. Merwin, Elizabeth Bishop. The boy likes these poets. They are interesting. They make him think, and he likes to think. But not too much.

They turn the page to a new decade, a new group of poets. In his red-jacketed anthology, there is a black-and-white photo of a handsome poet-dude, resembling a bit of Chris Reeve, the Superman years.

They begin reading poetry from this guy out loud, this guy whose name is Mark Strand.

The boy in the classroom feels a charge, and his mind begins to awaken, somehow.  Something in these poems seeps its way into his unconscious, and the poems, while they have meaning on their face, underneath lies a seething mass of emotion, idea, phobia, desire. For example:

SLEEPING WITH ONE EYE OPEN
  
Unmoved by what the wind does,
The windows
Are not rattled, nor do the various
Areas
Of the house make their usual racket–
Creak at
The joints, trusses, and studs.
Instead,
They are still. And the maples,
Able
At times to raise havoc,
Evoke
Not a sound from their branches
Clutches.
It’s my night to be rattled,
Saddled
With spooks. Even the half-moon
(Half-man,
Half half dark), on the horizon,
Lies on
Its side casting a fishy light
Which alights
On my Floor, lavishly lording
Its morbid
Look over me. Oh I feel dead,
Folded
Away in my blankets for good,
and
Forgotten.
My room is clammy and cold,
Moonhandled
And weird. The shivers
Wash over
Me, shaking my bones, my looses ends
Loosen,
And I lie sleeping with one eye open,
Hoping
That nothing, nothing will happen.

 

This sounds hokey, but when the boy first heard that poem, the hair on his arms stood on end. Really. (Or as the young kids say nowadays, For Reals.) And Strand’s poems still have that effect. (Okay, so the boy was me, when I had hair. When I was a bored, low B-average college student, blah, blah, blah….)

Come get your hair stood up at the Lighthouse Writer’s Studio weekend. May 3 and 4.

Oh, and check back daily as I will be violating copyrights and posting more of Mark’s poems here.

Cheers,
–MJH

 

 

 

Dateline Boston: Gary’s Report from the Hem-y Awards

Boston, MA, John F Kennedy Presidential Library, Sunday March 30, the 2008 PEN/Hemingway Award 

In the early spring of that year we sat in the auditorium and looked across the bay to the city.  On the shore there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and blue in the shipping channel.  On the podium, Patrick Hemingway stood and read aloud and it was a fine reading, clear and strong, and the sun sparkled off the water, and…..

Sorry, I got a little caught up in the moment.  In truth, being just a bit of a cynic (in a healthy, good natured way) I feared Poppa’s son reading from the opening to A Farewell to Arms might come off as hokum.  But his voice really was clear and strong, and the audience of between 300 and 400 did get caught up in the cadence and rhythm of the piece. 

Sherri and I were in Boston over the weekend of March 30^th to attend the 2008 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for “distinguished first works of fiction,” and for the L.L.Winship/PEN New England Awards (kind of like our Colorado Book Awards).  My book, Migration Patterns, was selected an Honorable Mention, and we had Mileage Plus credits stacked up, and what better excuse to visit a great city?  The ceremony was held at the JFK Presidential Library overlooking the bay and the city skyline.

 

 

The ceremony itself featured short readings not only by Patrick Hemingway but also by Joshua Ferris and the poet Ann Killough, winner of the L.L. Winship poetry award, and a feisty, short (yea!!) keynote by Alice Hoffman.  But the real fun of the weekend was in attending the Saturday night reception at Beacon Press (see pic below) in the heart of the Beacon Hill district, about a block from the state capital, and the