the reading of the bulls
I see hummingbirds every day, poking the long needles of their snouts down into the banks of magenta flowers outside my window.
I read a portion of one of my short stories last night, one called "Shake, Sugaree," about a woman clerking in a fabric store in Knoxville, TN, the night someone robs it. I don't think i've read any of my work in front of a crowd since maybe 2003, when i was doing the writing courses at Harvard summer school.
A lot of people in my house were reading, six of us total, and i think we all did a really good job! One of the other people in the house bought all the readers a round of tequila, which is not my favorite, but i thought, okay, fine, cactus courage would be maybe not a bad idea.
Fourteen people read in total, and we had a strict five minutes each. Five minutes is not a lot of time to read your work, unless you are a poet or a flash-fiction writer and all your pieces are like, a page long. Five minutes, they tell us, is about 2.5 pages, or 1100 words. I have exactly sweet F-A that's that long, in either fiction or nonfiction.
I have to say, i think this is a really valuable component of this program, the required readings, because practically speaking, if you wind up being any kind of successful writer, you'll have to read your work to strangers at public readings, so you might as well do that a few times before some publisher or bookstore has spent money on an event for you to do so.
It reminded me of how, in the program in which i teach at UNC, presentation of your work and portfolios is a component of the program of study, to get people used to talking about their work and their creative decisions and methods in front of a group. It's a required professional skill and something you'll have to do your whole career long, so really, a graduate program that doesn't prepare you for that at all is failing its students in a vital area. So, go UNO, I for one appreciate the opportunity to read my work.
The readings were held at a local restaurant called La Pamplonada, which is thematically decorated with about 230948 pieces of art featuring bulls, and some huge taxidermized bull heads. Capacity is about 135, i'd guess, and we pretty much fill it with the 85 students and the dozen-plus faculty and postgrads. It's a challenging place to read, because not only is everyone there eating and drinking (sometimes to excess), but there's a fountain in the middle of the restaurant that runs continually, and the place itself is open to the air with only a tarp for a roof, so the bells from the cathedral next door are really loud when they start tolling. Most restaurants and houses have this kind of open-but-tarp-covered eating area. Not sure why.
We weren't required to read in our area of focus (mine's creative nonfiction), which made me think at first, i'd take the easy way out and read a couple of poems. But, i'm just not that into poetry. I mean, i write it now and then, and read it now and then, and am proud of the poems i've written (the one's i haven't put in the file called "sucky poems," that is), but it's not my primary, secondary, or even tertiary writing interest.
So, i decided to read fiction, and i spent a good while going through things i've written, trying to find a section i could cut down to fit the time requirement, that would be worth listening to, that i felt was decently-written...and i wound up with two. One was a section of serious craft-heavy prose from the draft of a novel called Burglar's Wine, a bit where these two teenage brothers discover their musical talents in church, but subsequently form a rock band. The other was this piece i read, which despite the fact that it's about a robbery, is fairly funny due to the narrative voice.
I had pretty much settled on the Burglar's Wine piece and had a classmate with a printer print it out for me--i didn't want to impose and have her print both, since she was already doing me a favor. Then, sitting in the courtyard talking performance anxiety with a couple housemates yesterday afternoon, i mentioned that i had two choices but was just going to go with the one my classmate was printing out. One of my housemates with a printer offered to print out the second.
So, i wound up with both and figured, i'd wait to see what the people before me were reading, and choose based on that. If they were reading heavy shit, i'd read the lighter-toned robbery piece. If they were all reading flip, funny selections, then i'd read the serious one. The guy before me read poetry about the BP spill and the Afghanistan war, so i figured, funny it is.
Afterward, the head of the program told me he thought i did a good job, so that was really gratifying. Guess i am pretty decent at this writing/reading thing.
I read a portion of one of my short stories last night, one called "Shake, Sugaree," about a woman clerking in a fabric store in Knoxville, TN, the night someone robs it. I don't think i've read any of my work in front of a crowd since maybe 2003, when i was doing the writing courses at Harvard summer school.
A lot of people in my house were reading, six of us total, and i think we all did a really good job! One of the other people in the house bought all the readers a round of tequila, which is not my favorite, but i thought, okay, fine, cactus courage would be maybe not a bad idea.
Fourteen people read in total, and we had a strict five minutes each. Five minutes is not a lot of time to read your work, unless you are a poet or a flash-fiction writer and all your pieces are like, a page long. Five minutes, they tell us, is about 2.5 pages, or 1100 words. I have exactly sweet F-A that's that long, in either fiction or nonfiction.
I have to say, i think this is a really valuable component of this program, the required readings, because practically speaking, if you wind up being any kind of successful writer, you'll have to read your work to strangers at public readings, so you might as well do that a few times before some publisher or bookstore has spent money on an event for you to do so.
It reminded me of how, in the program in which i teach at UNC, presentation of your work and portfolios is a component of the program of study, to get people used to talking about their work and their creative decisions and methods in front of a group. It's a required professional skill and something you'll have to do your whole career long, so really, a graduate program that doesn't prepare you for that at all is failing its students in a vital area. So, go UNO, I for one appreciate the opportunity to read my work.
The readings were held at a local restaurant called La Pamplonada, which is thematically decorated with about 230948 pieces of art featuring bulls, and some huge taxidermized bull heads. Capacity is about 135, i'd guess, and we pretty much fill it with the 85 students and the dozen-plus faculty and postgrads. It's a challenging place to read, because not only is everyone there eating and drinking (sometimes to excess), but there's a fountain in the middle of the restaurant that runs continually, and the place itself is open to the air with only a tarp for a roof, so the bells from the cathedral next door are really loud when they start tolling. Most restaurants and houses have this kind of open-but-tarp-covered eating area. Not sure why.
We weren't required to read in our area of focus (mine's creative nonfiction), which made me think at first, i'd take the easy way out and read a couple of poems. But, i'm just not that into poetry. I mean, i write it now and then, and read it now and then, and am proud of the poems i've written (the one's i haven't put in the file called "sucky poems," that is), but it's not my primary, secondary, or even tertiary writing interest.
So, i decided to read fiction, and i spent a good while going through things i've written, trying to find a section i could cut down to fit the time requirement, that would be worth listening to, that i felt was decently-written...and i wound up with two. One was a section of serious craft-heavy prose from the draft of a novel called Burglar's Wine, a bit where these two teenage brothers discover their musical talents in church, but subsequently form a rock band. The other was this piece i read, which despite the fact that it's about a robbery, is fairly funny due to the narrative voice.
I had pretty much settled on the Burglar's Wine piece and had a classmate with a printer print it out for me--i didn't want to impose and have her print both, since she was already doing me a favor. Then, sitting in the courtyard talking performance anxiety with a couple housemates yesterday afternoon, i mentioned that i had two choices but was just going to go with the one my classmate was printing out. One of my housemates with a printer offered to print out the second.
So, i wound up with both and figured, i'd wait to see what the people before me were reading, and choose based on that. If they were reading heavy shit, i'd read the lighter-toned robbery piece. If they were all reading flip, funny selections, then i'd read the serious one. The guy before me read poetry about the BP spill and the Afghanistan war, so i figured, funny it is.
Afterward, the head of the program told me he thought i did a good job, so that was really gratifying. Guess i am pretty decent at this writing/reading thing.
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