New Story in Kartika Review

“Buying Eggs and Lending Soup” is a compelling narrative of acculturation in which American customs are seen as Other. It’s the kind of flash fiction that delivers a deadpan sensibility and restrained characterization in tiny, potent scenes. – Jennifer Derilo, Creative Nonfiction Editor Kartika Review

My flash fiction piece “Buying Eggs, Lending Soup” is in the beautiful Issue 10 of Kartika Review. I’ve been a fan of this literary magazine since it started and it is an honor to have my work in this issue. The piece originated from an exercise in The Writers Studio, where I imitated the narrator of Evan S. Connell’s Mrs. Bridge. That book, along with its companion novel Mr. Bridge, has exactly what Derilo describes. The deadpan sensibility. The restrained characterization. It was amazing to see her describe my piece with the same things that put me in awe of Connell’s work. While my piece consists of two miniature, potent scenes, Connell strings together numerous small scenes in two books to create what Wallace Stegner once called “a hell of a portrait.”

I hope you will check out the issue. You can read it online at kartikareview.com, download the e-journal, or order the print copy.

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writing

To Find the Persona Narrator Is Essential

Talking with poet Philip Schultz and a fellow Writers Studio student. Photo by David T. Anderson

Last week, Philip Schultz, the Pulitzer-Prize winning poet and founder of The Writers Studio visited Tucson. On Wednesday, he gave a private craft class to Writers Studio students. I have been part of the Writers Studio since 2005 and I believe strongly in the method he developed to teach writing, which he actually developed based on learning to read with dyslexia.

In the craft class, several of the questions and answers focused heavily on the Writers Studio method, specifically the idea of employing a Persona Narrator. Persona is defined as “the distance between the writer and the story’s narrator.” Schultz’s latest book is a memoir, “My Dyslexia,” and I was curious how he used the Persona Narrator concept when the narrator was so clearly himself.

Schultz answered that to him, regardless of whether it was fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, to find the Persona Narrator is essential. He clarified that the narrator in My Dyslexia was not himself, it was a version of himself. Without a persona narrator in place, he could not have written the book. He needed objectivity and distance. He said a Persona Narrator allows the writer to be playful, gives the writer room for trial and error, and engages the reader in a game of imagination and wits. When writing about oneself, it helps the writer see him or herself as a character in a play. It also allows writers to say things they might otherwise be afraid to say.

So how do you find the right persona narrator for your material? There is no easy answer to this. It is through a process of reading and imitating. In my time at the Writers Studio, we have tried a different narrator weekly. Sometimes its a cool, matter-of-fact narrator like Jennifer Egan’s Goon Squad narrator. Other times, it is an over the top, shouting from the rooftop narrator like many of the narrators in Gerald Stern’s poems. Schultz said many of his narrators are from Chekhov. Something about the plainspoken narrators works well for him and his material.

I am grateful for the Writers Studio method and what it has done for my writing. At the dessert reception after class, I thanked him for coming up with the method and told him how much it has guided my writing. Read more about the method here.

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writing

Read To A Dog

Read to a Dog at Wheeler Taft Abbett, Sr. Branch Library

Sophie and I read to a golden retriever named “Mr. T.”

On Thursday nights, I take my daughter to the library. We live 2 minutes from a brand new library, the Wheeler Taft Abbett branch of the Pima County Library. On Thursday evenings, they have a Read to a Dog program. Kids can read aloud to therapy dogs.  This picture was taken when Sophie was two years old. At the time, she would stand by me while I read to the dog.

Now, she likes to read the books herself. Sophie has read (from memorization) Goodnight Moon and The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Harry the Dirty Dog to a chihuahua named Prancer, a Rottweiler named Rico, and a golden retriever named Mr. T. The children receive laminated cards with numbers on them to establish the order they read. She gets nervous when she reads and her voice gets quiet. She rushes through the phrases and gets flustered. But after it is over, she beams. They get two paper bones to write their names. One goes up on the wall and the other one goes home.

The dogs even have their own calling cards with professional headshots on one side and their name on the back. Each child gets one the first time they read to that particular dog.

For more info, read up here.

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children's literacy

A Tiny Truth in Print

I had a micro-essay (and I mean micro! less than 130 characters) published in Issue 38 of Creative Nonfiction.

My favorite part is they published it under my Twitter handle, swinglet. That has been my username for pretty much everything since I got married. While we were engaged, my husband asked — What will your username be? Since he was swinglej, I went with swinglet. It has been an interesting username. A Bath & Body Works employee asked me if I was a swing dancer. I am not sure what other people think.

This issue was their first redesigned issue and it is gorgeous. It feels like a magazine and the tiny truths add to the new, modern feel of the issue. My favorite essays in the magazine included an excerpt from Rebecca Skloot’s “The Infamous Life of Henrietta Lacks,” Philip Lopate’s examination of imagination in nonfiction, and a boundary-pushing essay “Study in Perfect” by Sarah Gorham. Also, in the “gee, there is so much to read in the world” category is David Shield’s “Required Reading.”

The editors at Creative Nonfiction kindly sent me three contributor copies. As I already subscribe, this gave me four beautiful copies to read and share.

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writing

KidLit: Paddington Bear

My sister brought my two-year-old daughter a Paddington Bear from Paddington Station in London. It is one of her favorite stuffed animals. Last week, we took Paddington to the library with us. I asked the librarian if they had any books about Paddington Bear. The librarian looked it up on the computer, stood up, and asked us to follow her. She pulled this book Paddington off the shelf. My daughter’s eyes lit up to see her stuffed animal on the cover. He was shoeless, just like hers! She had pulled his red Wellies off and left them at home.

Her favorite part of the book is when Paddington gets messy. He slips on some treats and enters a cab with bits of cake and tea all over his navy coat and red hat. She wanted to return to this page several times to see the part where he got his clothes dirty.

Of course, after a mess always comes a bath. She was delighted with the illustrations of Paddington bathing with his hat on.

One thing she also got a kick out of was the tag. In the book, the tag is written exactly like the tag affixed to her actual stuffed bear. I dragged my finger along each word, reading the familiar line – “Please look after this BEAR. THANK YOU.”

It was nice to find this book in the local library. It gives her stuffed bear a new significance. He is from Darkest Peru. He eats marmalade. He is clumsy and gets messy. He takes baths, just like her. And, he doesn’t wear his shoes throughout the book and now no longer wears his shoes in our home.

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children's literacy
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