Work Hard, Party Hard (Or How to Be an Unstarving Artist)

 

Last Friday night, I got the chance to step out into the sun, put on a summer dress, mingle with my lovely co-workers and fellow Lighthousers, eat tasty hors d’oeuvres the size of my thumb and lemon sweets from heaven, and imbibe wine and whiskey (in moderation, of course). Oh, dear Lord, if this is what you have in store for me, I thought as I pranced lightly around the gardens and green and took a second plate (only one, I promise) with fellow intern Kevin, then please, keep it coming.

            But seriously,  The Gourmand’s Tale was a hit, much thanks to the impressive caterers and our hosts, board members Emily Sinclair and Jay Kenney, the latter (Board President), who gave a very sweet speech on the lawn about why he first decided to join Lighthouse. I felt absolutely flushed from a mix of sugar and camaraderie, as Michael and Andrea (who retold their story of the humble beginnings of Lighthouse), glowed with satisfaction and geniality as warming as the Sazerac whiskey drink poet Jake Adam York passed out among us.

            Ever the poet and historian, York recounted the origins of the drink, originally concocted in New Orleans by an antebellum Creole apothecary (coincidentally, NPR just did a story on the drink, which has been bestowed the title of official New Orleans cocktail). Everyone seemed to appreciate the story, even if the Anis-tinged drink got a mixed reception. I enjoyed the drink, since the only whiskey I’ve ever had is the cheap stuff passed around with friends, our fingers pinching our noses as we each took a swig, our arms eventually looped around each other in a circle. Of course, this is also another, different kind of alcohol-inspired story, even if by now it’s a strange, mixed-up memory.

            Board member Tiffany Tyson also presented her own story to go with her sinfully sweet and tasty lemon-ice-box pie, admitting apologetically that she usually had the dessert in her native Mississippi only at funerals (Christmas and Easter meant Pecan Pie), and which she associated with grief. But, of course, The Gourmand’s Tale was a celebration, of Lighthouse and the end of Lit-Fest. And though rain was forecasted for the night and dark clouds gathered, the weather held as the night progressed and we shared new treats.

            Former Denver Poet Laureate Chris Ransick told a memorable foodie story that began in a France eatery on a trip with his wife, who was trying creme broulee for the first time. Ransick remembered their early days together as young twenty-somethings with two dollars to their name, and having to get day old-bread from a buddy at a bakery. They ate bread-pudding every morning for days, Ransick recalled with a laugh (one keen guest pointed out that any day that starts with bread pudding doesn’t count as deprivation). As Ransick spoke, a line formed for the chocolate decadence cake he brought while I was busy passing out lemon pie (and having two pieces myself); the chocolate decadence, of course, disappeared faster than you can say Ghirardelli (a chocolate freakazoid myself, I wanted to lick the knife, but since that wouldn’t be proper, I just scraped some of the bottom of the pan with my finger and licked it – politely – right there.)

            Though Ransick treated us with gourmet chocolate, he stopped to remind us that food in this country is indeed a luxury, and that the ability to get any ingredient from around the world really belongs to very recent history (and may not survive as a privilege in the future.) Because I’ve worked on an organic farm and currently live in a cooperative household that buys local food, I do believe in eating locally and seasonally. Still, the decadence of the food that night left me wanting to imagine that it just sort of dropped from the sky, or appeared as a wizard drew his cape across the table. Gray clouds scattered across the sky, yellow lights glowing from Jay and Emily’s beautiful house, everyone looking and feeling their best – it was just enough magic for this romantic to believe it could happen.

 

If the Gourmand’s Tale was magical and sugary-sweet,  than the Business Panel – which met at 10 AM the next morning at the Tattered Cover – meant getting down to the hard stuff, and chewing on some bitter fruit. Agent Betsy Lerner flew in from New York for the panel to give the inside scoop on what agents are really looking for out of a book proposal. 

Participants brought in their hopeful query letters – letters sent to agents summing up their project and their own biography – as well as the first page of their manuscripts to be read and critiqued by Lerner after the program. Lerner brought her own sample of mostly awful anonymous first pages and query letters to dissect, from the maudlin to the self-congratulatory, (e.g. “Dear Ms. Lerner, here is a white-hot one for you!”), asking the equally as tough participants what they thought of the writing. Said one disapproving audience member, “If you can’t even write an engaging, concise letter, why would I want to read a book by you? That’s just my snotty attitude.”  

“That’s just my snotty attitude, too,” said Lerner, adding that the more horrifying letters she’s received have come with bribes: a Starbucks gift card, a necklace with a little typewriter on it, chocolate (she threw that out, because she was afraid it was poison), and so on. Small gasps were heard all around when Lerner said that she did not want a writer to report the exact number of words in their manuscript, and many of the participants laughed at their own past submission flops. The veteran agent had seen her fair share of both flops and successes, and was full of clever quips and sage advice. A few of the highlights:

 

·       Do not send an agent “cutesy stationary, lavender paper, paper with little flecks, or paper with ink blots.”

·       Writers too often refer to their work as a “labor of love.” This becomes tiresome. “If you wrote to me ‘This was a labor of agony,’ that would be interesting to me.”

·       “Nonfiction is generally sold on the proposal, an annotated table of contents and a few sample chapters; it does not have to completed.” 

·        “There’s something about an agent to agent referral that always smells rotten.” In other words, don’t mention your last agent in the letter.

·       “A bestseller is like a meteor – you can’t predict when it’s going to come or how hot it’s going to be.”

·       Don’t compare your book to a contemporary bestseller – “think about a book people haven’t considered in a while.”

·        “Everybody likes sympathetic characters. I don’t…even your lightly flawed characters are not enough…If you can create monsters that are sympathetic, that’s key.”

·       “Go through your manuscript and highlight your similes – see what they’re doing – you can at least take the clichés out.”

 

 

Another point that too many writers overlook is the importance of the title, Lerner said. Lerner admitted with a grin that she was, herself, pretty demanding when it came to things like book covers and titles, going so far as to take or rip the cover off if it doesn’t seem “aesthetically attached to the book.” She then challenged the participants to throw out their own book titles and see what kind of reception they would get: “In this crowd?” joked one member to a round of laughter.

Too much alliteration in a title? Scrap it. Sounds to much like another popular novel or movie? Rework it. Vague or foreign-sounding and difficult to pronounce? Reconsider. Even Lighthouse Executive Director Mike Henry’s own working title for his poetry book, Down From Buffalo, was not met with approval: “It’s going to be considered too regional,” Lerner said, conceding that the point was a marketing and not a literary one. But with all of Lerner’s sage, down-to-business advice for the participants, she admitted that most of her new clients came to her through referrals and from her own browsing through literary journals and papers: “Referrals are my bread and butter…almost everything I take on is not a blind query letter.”

That said, honing query letters and sample pages of a book until they dazzle is that much more important. Acting out of some brave spasm of courage, two members at the end of the panel read from their own first pages to audience commentary.  Their reception was warm. “I’m just stoked because usually when someone is brave enough to get up and read their stuff it sucks,” said one sassy audience member.

The business panels were the kind of tough love that every hopeful writer must endure, both from the publishing world and from their peers. But Lerner reminded the audience that  harsh criticism (though it can be necessary) or hard-and-fast rules from the publishing world don’t have to completely deter your writing spirit: “There are always exceptions to the rule…if you’re a creative writer, or, God Forbid, call yourself an artist, you’ve got to do the thing no one else does.”

 

 

 

 

 

Lit Fest In Review

For some well-put reflections on the 2008 Lit Fest, we refer you to the blog of Lighthouse member Laureen Harris.  Thanks, Laureen!

http://delphinia.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/lit-fest-2008/

 

Poetry Like Bread? Thoughts at the DNC Special Salon on Writing and Politics

by Sara Aboulafia 

 

“The crossroads of poetry and politics is a place where craft

encounters commitment, where the spirit of dissent encounters

the imagination, where we labor to create a culture of conscience.”

–Martin Espada   

 

            Last fall I took a class called Poetry and the Political Imagination with poet Martin Espada. Espada is large, bearded man who cuts a rather imposing figure – on one of my first days in class, he stood at the teacher’s podium and presented himself as a man who had muddled through plenty of dirty work, from his job as a bar-room bouncer to his long-time career as a lawyer, before he landed what he considered to be a rather cushy teaching job. He was unapologetic, someone who took his subject seriously, and at first he left me more than a little intimidated. Over the course of the first few days of the class, I learned that he was acquainted with virtually everyone on his reading list – from writer Carolyn Forche to Allen Ginsberg, whom he referred to simply as Allen, “because I knew him.”

            One of his lesser-known writer-friends on his reading list, Vietnam war veteran’s Doug Anderson’s poetry left me shuddering and on the verge of tears. I can still remember vividly his description of the small Vietnamese girl bathing in water as Anderson’s troop moved across a bridge in his Bamboo Bridge, and the troop’s reaction to the girl’s look of disgust as their white men’s gaze fell upon her:

 

We cross the bridge, quietly.

The bathing girl does not see us

till we’ve stopped and gaped like fools

There are no catcalls, whoops

none of the things that soldiers do…

 

For a moment we all hold the same thought,

that there is life in life and war is shit….

 

And then she turns and sees us there

sinks in the water

eyes full of hate

the trance broken

We move into the village on the other side. 

 

I wondered at how these small, simply-worded poems moved through me – images of war and the disturbed boyhood of soldiers who, between gunfire and stepping hesitatingly around mortal landmines, had little time to take stock of their own experiences. Espada expressed a belief that poetry is capable of serving to memorialize and bear witness to human history, and in Anderson’s poetry I found a brave and unflinching eye for its absolute horrors. 

            Espada’s were lectures so beautifully and succinctly written and delivered that I scribbled each word religiously, but it was what he said outside of class one day to me and my classmate Ben that I will never forget; “The life of the poet,” he said, leaning in closely, “is the life of the road. The life of the poet is a lonely one.” Though I searched for a hint of irony from the much-appreciated poet, I could find none at all (it wasn’t until some time later that Espada began to show his funny side: subtle, dry, and built upon trust).

            Martin Espada offered me a window into both what political poetry was, and what it meant to lead the life of a political poet – the curious mix of engaged and withdrawn, incisive and reflective. Two nights ago, at Lighthouse’s DNC salon on writing and politics held in the hip backroom lounge of hip LoHi restaurant Forest Room 5, I was reintroduced to all of the questions I asked of political poetry and what it meant to be a “political poet” in that class. Though the DNC salon didn’t speak specifically to the topic of how to write about timely campaign politics, the panelists had a compelling discussion considering the eternally hazardous task of writing the political.

            The four panelists - novelists Nick Arvin and Janis Hallowell  and poets Jake Adam York and David J. Rothman - presented differing viewpoints on writing and politics that Espada’s class seemed to embrace without exclusion. Can we, for example, consider transcendental, revelatory, Whitman-esque poetry political? Does one have to engage in partisan politics to be a political poet? Does one have to invoke the horrors of war to be a political poet? Finally, should poetry (and perhaps all writing) be, as reflected in the title of the Curbstone Press anthology Espada edited, “like bread, for everyone?” Does this mean our political literature has be widely accessible to “the people,” populist, perhaps teetering into the facile? Or can it remain challenging, provoking, questioning? 

            At the salon, such questions were responded to graciously but unapologetically, and I’ll admit right now that there’s no way that I can do justice to all four of the writers’ many differing positions (not including the audience’s own challenges). Their viewpoints seemed to collide as strongly as but were spoken more deftly than TV political pundits, and I found all of their perspectives worthy, lively, and challenging.

            At the salon, poet David Rothman advocated vehemently for the poet as activist in lived-experience, even if the poetry itself doesn’t necessarily read as political. Nick Arvin, the author of the recently-published World War II book Articles of War, admitted that he was a bit uncomfortable around the idea that “everything is political,” assuming that the term would have to be broadened so much as to lose all meaning. Rothman also expressed discomfort with this idea, arguing that the social can be separated from the political (except in the case of fascist states and the unfortunate attempt of Social Realism to marry the two), with Jake Adam York arguing that the line could never be clear.

            York argued for a poetry which enables the reader to challenge her own prejudices toward the poetic subject. Such an epistemological challenge, York argued, one which challenges a particular way of thinking, can stand the test of time more so than poetry which speaks to a specific political occasion – Langston Hughes’ Weary Blues, about the loneliness of a black piano player, stands the test of time more so than the Scotsborough Boys for this reason. It is those black poets who challenge white readers to reflect on their own reaction to black work and language who do this most effectively, York suggested (apologies to York for this meager summary). Janis Hallowell, a fiction writer, responded to York’s thoughts with a self-deprecating laugh – “I had a shitty education. I didn’t learn about ‘epistemology,’ she joked to audience laughter (and some sympathetic clapping). Her recently-published book She Was follows the protagonist Doreen Woods into her past as a Vietnam war-protester.

            For Hallowell, it was her characters who “politicized” her. Her book, whose protagonist engages political issues and social movements in the latter-half of the twentieth-century, from Vietnam and the civil rights era to the war in Iraq, took her “towards the politics.” And yet, Hallowell remarked, “If I thought I was writing a political novel, I would have stopped.” For Hallowell, the political implications of her work had to be unconscious for her to write. And though his book’s subject is war and a soldier’s life, Nick Arvin didn’t want to be interpreted politically: “This is not a political character,” he said.

            Whatever their stance toward or their definition of the “political,” the differences between the poets and prose writers seemed to be less about the extent of their education, perhaps, and more about the possibilities that different literary forms provide for writers. York’s urging toward a political poetry which engaged enduring themes (the nature of racism and prejudice, for example) rather than topical situations perhaps grew out of his belief that poetry is often sequestered from day-to-day events. And Hallowell’s politicization through her characters seems to be an approach which is embedded in the world of fiction (though this approach is certainly not limited to prose).

             Both attempts to engage the political rely on the kind of challenge to the reader that York argued was central to political awareness. For me, the spoken-word poem “Blink Your Eyes,” by Sekou Sundiata is one of these poems, one I can’t get out of my head and that remains tied to the tip of my tongue. “Blink” gives us a picture of an innocent man being pulled over in his car: “It’s all about the skin, it’s all about the skin, it’s all about the skin you’re living in,” Sundiata says, coming back repeatedly to the poetic chorus, speaking – no, crooning - with the kind of hope and faith that that needs to be repeated to be believed: “I could wake up in the morning without a warning and the world could/Change…”

            “Disturb is change,” Jake Adam York said, a Southern poet deeply enmeshed himself in the racial politics of the South. Through a piece of literature one can inhabit other lives– the heart of an innocent black man pulled over in his car, and possibilities – the possibility that one day it could be different. Such work is powerful because, as York put it at the salon, it “offends you just enough so that you understand you don’t have access [to this world] but [also] entices you into it.” And, as a white person, though it may be discomfiting to me to read a poem alien to my experience, it is also challenging in a way that makes “possible a kind of empathetic imagination.”

            When you come right down to it, perhaps more than any other previous election, the 2008 presidential campaign (though perhaps the stuff of TV news and YouTube, as the panelists pointed out) has been as much about the issues as it has been about the candidates’ ability to win people’s empathy. Though our ability to relate to candidates is often steeped in the murky manipulation of campaign strategists and their ever-changing rhetoric (Does McCain really care about women’s issues, and have any respect for Hilary Clinton? Does Obama care deeply about the working class, after all?), no one can deny that the quarrel between the candidates is largely a matter, as Lighthouse executive director Michael Henry pointed out at the end of the salon, of which story is being told and who is telling that story.

            The ability to read the competing election coverage stories with an eye toward the past (What does it mean to be Establishment or Old Guard? And how many successful presidents have come in with little experience?) and an ear for narrative rhetoric is a priceless talent. It’s not just the writers that are capable of “bearing witness” to the lessons of history, then, but ourselves as readers. 

            That may be why, at the end of the salon, one audience member asked the room to name out loud their own favorite political poets, just to hear them on our tongues so that she knew they were on our minds, and so we could turn to each others’ favorites. (When I got home I continued to think of them – Yusef Kumonyaaka, whom I read one night in bed and fell asleep, dreaming a poem in his cadence and rhythm. And Patricia Smith, the startingly gifted and daring spoken word poet whose poem about her writer-son composing letters for his fellow inmates rips me to tears, and there are so many, many more). Picking up a book of poetry and prose – whether explicitly political or not -  can, in the end, teach us all to read between the lines.

 

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!

 

Big get for the Lighthouse Lit Fest 2008

Exciting times for the Lighthouse Lit Fest.  We just confirmed that agent Betsy Lerner will be attending, offering workshops and guidance to our writing community.  Here are the details about Betsy.  Save the date, everyone!  June 6-21.

Betsy Lerner worked as an editor for 16 years at major trade publishers including Simon & Schuster, Houghton Mifflin and finally as Executive Editor at Doubleday. She joined Dunow, Carlson & Lerner as a partner in 2005 after agenting at The Gernert Company for five years. She mostly works with non-fiction writers in the areas of psychology, history, cultural studies, biography, current events, business and the hard to categorize. She also represents fiction; her taste is eclectic, literary, dark, funny, voice driven. Lerner was the recipient of the Tony Godwin Publishing Prize. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and is the author of Food & Loathing and The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers.

 

Lighthouse Writer Makes Good

Mario Acevedo & Shari Caudron at the book awards.

 

Last night, in a ballroom overfilled with writers who were perhaps too excited to have a reason to wear more than PJs or jeans, I spotted only one man-in-a-kilt. (Thanks for the gin and tonic, Marc!) Shari Caudron seemed genuinely surprised to be awarded the Colorado Book Award for narrative nonfiction, despite the fact that I had a vision that predicted it.  (Which, sure, was later confirmed by a tipoff, but still…)  She killed with a reading from Who Are You People? and passed on the love to her “home” at LH.  Shucks, Shari.  You’re the best. (I have to get something off my chest, though. It’s Shari Co-dron.  Like Co-op, or co-conspirator, or co-defendant. Codependent! Not “caw” like what a bird does. Unless I’ve been wrong for eight years, which wouldn’t be unprecedented.) See full list of winners here.

Mario Acevedo was honored with a finalist nod for the first in his Chicano vampire trilogy (but you’ll have entries for the next several years, Mario, with your hyperprolific ways. I dare them not to award you with it eventually). Besides, he got a feature here last week–so by definition wins nonetheless. Still scratching my head about the idea of an army reservist sent to Iraq “to make art.” There was such a thing? Can anyone elaborate? The more I’m in the world, the more confused I get. Congrats, you two, and friends at Ghost Road Pressfor winning in the anthology category. And to excellent poet David Keplinger for The Prayers of Others.