...More Good Books for Teachers

DECEMBER 2009

In her book Thinking Write, Kelly Stone teaches you how to use the power of the subconscious mind to capitalize on your writing sessions. Proven techniques for accessing this hidden tool are revealed with a mix of anecdotes, exercises, and guided meditations. Writers-both professional and aspiring-will take away:

• A working understanding of the subconscious mind and its benefits to writers
• Practical techniques for developing a bridge to the subconscious mind
• Easy-to-use strategies for using the power of the subconscious mind to assist with writing endeavors and become successful as a writer
• Proven psychological methods for building self-confidence as a writer

OCTOBER 2009

Historical fiction is a rich subject. Here are some of the favorites of my teacher/writer friends:

• Death Comes to the Archbishop, Cather
• Ragtime, Doctorow
• Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett,
• All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque
• The Siege of Krishnapur, Farrell
• I Claudius, Graves
• Augustus, John Williams
• Johnny Tremain, Forbes

AUGUST 2009

Almost all of the authors who write the introductions for the annual Best American Short Stories struggle with how to define the short story as a literary form and as to what makes a good one. Each of these authors read through hundreds of stories and picked his or her top 20. A tough assignment they all concurred. Here are some provocative remarks from the guest editors:

E. Annie Proulx:
“The reader comes to the short story subliminally expecting enlightenment…” “Manner and Right Behavior stories…Perceived Social Value” stories…..Rites of Passage…”

Garrison Keller:
“I get disappointed by stuff in which there's nobody home, just Really Fine Writing about somebody's vague unhappiness and unease.” Good stories have “basic age-old themes.” “Mostly people seem to want to spin everything their way…..so people come to the house of fiction, hoping to hear the truth.” “Reality is what we crave.” “A story that carries its lesson under its arm is immediately distrusted.”

Amy Tan:
“I think the stories we love to read may very well have to do with our emotional obsessions, the circuitry between our brain and our heart, the questions we thought about as children that we still think about, whether they are about the endurance of love, the fears that unite us, the acceptance of irreversible decay, or the ties that bind that turn out to be illusory.” “With fairy tales, you could immerse your imagination like your big toe in a tub of hot water and retract it if it didn't agree with you.” “In stories you could hide or escape.” “I discovered that the short story is a distillation of the personality of a whole world.” “I feel that the short story is more akin to a poem than a novel in how it should be read.” “I know how quickly stories can blue into sameness and fall away from memory. The splendid ones are left standing. But in the end, only the vivid remain.” “What I look for most in a story, what I crave, what I found in these twenty-one, is a distinctive voice that tells a story only that voice can tell.” “I think the best of fiction is by its nature and its virtues. It can enlarge us by helping us notice small details in life.”

E.L. Doctorow:
“What makes the short story a distinct literary form, says O'Connor (who published a study of the genre entitled The Lonely Voice), is “its intense awareness of human loneliness.” “We are left with the not terribly useful truism that the story as a form deals with the human condition.” “…tendency of the short story to isolate the individual.” “The scale of the short story predisposes it to the isolation of the self.”

Barbara Kingsolver:
Doing the work of picking out the short stories would be “a trial by fire, I thought, {it} would disclose to me the heart of the form and all its mysteries.” “..the genre of short fiction, with its economy of language and revealing plot-driven engine.” “{I} tried to divine why it is that I love a short story when I do, and the answer came to me quite clearly: I love it for what it tells e about life. If it tells me something I didn't already know, or that I maybe suspected but never framed quite that way, or that never before socked me divinely in the solar plexus, then the story is worth the read.” “..whether it was sand or gemstones I held in my palm when the words had trickled away.” “Probably the greatest challenge of the form is to get a story launched and landed efficiently with a whole worthwhile journey in between.” “A good short story cannot simply be Lit Lite; it is the successful execution of large truths delivered in tight spaces.”

Sue Miller: “Most of what a writer is likely to admire in others' work is what she herself is unable to do, and this always encompasses a wider range of kinds of writing than what she is able to do.” “…..make me believe again in that place - the place where ideas come from.”

Walter Mosley:
“…if novels are mountains, then stories are far-flung islands that one comes upon in the limitless horizon of the sea. Not big islands like Hawaii, but small, craggy atolls inhabited by eclectic and nomadic life forms that found there way there in spite of tremendous odds.” “A good short story crosses the borders of our nations and our prejudices and our beliefs. A good short story asks a question that can't be answered in simple terms.”

Lorrie Moore:
“There is no thoroughly convincing theory of the short story - it is technically a genre, not a form, but resists the definitions that usually cluster around both.” “Perhaps this limitation accounts for the prevailing sadness of short stories.” “Unlike novels or poems, but more akin to a play, the short story is also an end-orientated form, and in the best ones the endings shine a light back upon the story illuminating its meaning with both surprise and inevitability.” “…a story - with its narrative version of a short man's complex - aims for quick eloquence and authority in voice and theme.”

March, 2009

Noted two-term American Poet Laureate Billy Collins is known for his ability to be user-friendly and "accessible" -- a term apparently he loathes -- he prefers "hospitable." He has gained broad popular appeal and mostly critical acclaim. He is recognized for his witty descriptions and wry comedic observations. Collins' book, Nine Horses, is a nice collection of poems. Most are quiet meditations about everyday life. Collins attempts to find beauty in the simplicity of life. He writes about animals, trains, jazz, insomnia, parades - mostly using plainly stated language but with wry twists.

Rooms

After three days of steady, inconsolable rain,
I walk through the rooms of the house
wondering which would be best to die in.

The study is an obvious choice
with its thick carpet and soothing paint,
its overstuffed chair preferable
to a doll-like tumble down the basement stairs.

Collins has often times been compared with Robert Frost. This book, however, fails to inspire on a Frost-like level. Nine Horses is full of comfortable prose, but isn't as magically transformative as The Road Not Taken. A writing teacher might use Nine Horses or any one of Collins' many books to illustrate that poetry does not have to be stiff and distant.

In Wordplaygrounds, John O'Connor offers concrete, tangible, practical lesson plans as well as great observations on poetry, students, teaching, and life. He intersperses his own casual/non-regimented classroom prompts and ideas with many student writing examples to make his points. His classroom activities range from simple - list making, word associations - to the more complex - metaphors, using historical personas - and even venturing into Performance Poetry. Above all his emphasis is on making poetry fun and accessible for everyone - he really wants to show that you shouldn't FEAR or be intimidated by poetry. Even a novice could 'teach' a poetry class using this book as a guide - and that's saying a lot.

In the chapter Avenues to the Past, O'Connor focuses on using memories as a source for artistic material. He points out, "What and how we choose to remember say a great deal about who we are." His suggestions range from using sensory descriptions and photographs to unlock memories to juxtaposing 'unrelated' memories.

Stories of the Poets, by Suzi Mee profiles poets. Her essays summarize the "story" of a particular poet and his/her work. ISBN 0-590-35584-8

February, 2009

In The Writing Life, Annie Dillard shares short, semi-rambling essays about her own writing and life experiences. While she writes eloquently, parts are rather sparse and oblique. This is not a "How To" manual on the forms and conventions of fiction writing. Dillard is practical, advising that, "appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark." This is about as nuts and bolts as she gets. Dillard does impart her own wisdom throughout, encouraging writers to, "spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place."

Much of The Writing Life has to do with the frustrations writers can feel: "It should surprise no one that the life of a writer – such as it is – is colorless to the point of sensory deprivation." Some of Dillard’s insights are wise: "There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by." Others amusing. When trying to explain her profession to a "member of the real world" she notes, "as I spoke he nodded precisely in the way that one nods at the utterances of the deranged."

Ultimately, The Writing Life illuminates the dedication, absurdity and risk-taking that encompass a writer’s life in a friendly manner.