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3:14 (Pie Time)

So: I made pie.

It was a warm day, an even warmer day in the kitchen. I’d been making jam earlier in the afternoon and the behemoth stovetop canner was still glowering on the stove and cooling down. The butter was so cold, I had a hard time getting it to break up into any chunks at first. But I kept breathing deeply, kept working at it patiently. I stared out our kitchen window a few times, trying to psych myself out—“who’s making pie crust from scratch? Not me, not me. La, la, laaaah.” By the time I finished, I was convinced that I’d overworked the dough again, that it was going to be crackery and terrible. I kept adding a bit of water, first a quarter-cup, then a teaspoon more at a time. I let the dough rest in the fridge for about an hour.

It didn’t roll out very well. You can see that, above. (Maybe more water?) But I didn’t want to over-roll it, either.

So I cut the dough in half, rolled out one wobbly oval, then patted it into the pie plate. Poured in about three cups of the local Shuksan strawberries that had been macerating, deeply and redly, mixed with a bit of sugar and flour. Then I rolled out another wobbly oval. The dough didn’t ventolin price quite cover the top of the plate, so I wasn’t quite able to crimp it all the way around. It tore a bit. But I patched. I brushed an egg wash over the top and cut a few vents. I put a baking sheet under the pie plate to catch the juices, put the whole thing in the oven. I hoped for the best.

And oh my delighted goodness, the crust was not crackery or tough. When the pie came out of the oven, its top crust was crisp and golden on the outside, buttery and flaky with large flakes. The juices had bubbled over the top onto the cookie sheet. The bottom crust did not brown as well, probably because the cookie sheet diffused the heat. The crust was a little too salty—I would use unsalted butter next time, rather than salted, which I bought by mistake. It wasn’t the best pie, but it was the best I could do at the moment. It wasn’t pretty.

But it was pie, it was strawberry, it was eaten. It was mine. It was ours, to share with our girls and our guests. And, the next day, it was a spoonful for breakfast.

(Still taking pie-making tips and favorite recipes, or thoughts about anything “basic” that you’re afraid to make in the kitchen.)

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Time to make pie

I helped to make the crust here! Photo by Shauna James Ahern. Used with permission.

I can make bubbling crisps, chewy cookies, melting brownies, moist cakes and quick breads. But I haven’t tried pie.

Well, that’s not quite true. The last time I made pie, it tasted like a cheese plate minus the saving grace of cheese: fruit and crackers. Oh, the shame. And I’m a baker, so I was really upset. So I never made it again. Besides, I reasoned to myself, I don’t have a food processor. And I don’t want to use shortening—scary stuff in a can! And yes, I know there are other options besides transfats, or besides just butter. Pre-packaged crusts seemed to go against why I love to bake. So, I went on, rationalizing my way through all these excuses.

See, I also thought that pie crust was like the other forms of baking that I’ve done: mostly following a recipe, playing very little with the amounts or the ingredients, but mostly using the best-quality ingredients possible. But I cook differently than I bake—I do find recipes, but I often play with them quite a bit. This ingredient sounds good, but maybe I’ll use this instead of this. I’ll look, and taste, when I’m cooking, and mostly relying on my palate’s memory. It’s a lot more of an improvisational game than a putting together a model train, or painting by numbers.

So this week I was thrilled to see some different approaches to pie crust, and to making pie. My dear friend Shauna decided to give me a pie crust crash course. I watched her cut butter, roll her index fingers and thumbs together in order to coat the butter with flour, and  pat crust into her pie plates. It was a busy afternoon—two pies, one by hand and one by food processor, plus an online Facebook/Twitter pie party of 1500 participants, plus four children six and under needing different kinds of attention and snacks—but I learned so much.

If, like me, you are a piecrust novice, I thought I’d list a few things here that might be useful. Here are some things I wanted to remember for myself when making pie. They are not hard-and-fast rules–looking at different recipes, pie-makers will swear by their own rules, which seem to vary widely–but there are some guidelines that I can’t wait to put into practice.
• Chill everything before beginning to mix: your flour, your butter (it should be like ice cubes), your hands, your bowl. Maybe the water, which can be ice water.
• Make your filling first, especially with a fruit pie, so the fruit can macerate and rest in its juices. Cut your working recipe in half, and make the bottom buy albuterol inhaler online no prescription crust, leaving the other half of the ingredients to remain chilling in the freezer/refrigerator. Then once you have rolled out and patted the bottom crust in, you can make the top crust.
• If using a food processor, use about 8 pulses in order to cut the butter into the flour and salt. You want it to look something like dry cottage cheese curds.
• Kerrygold butter is the best. Using European butter with a high butterfat content helps the flavor.
• Work quickly, but not frantically.
• When working the dough with your hands, there’s a motion you can use to cut the butter into the flour—or rather, coat the butter with the flour. Holding both hands out in front of you, pinkies down, practice rolling your index fingers down the length of your thumbs. That’s approximately the motion you want to make in order to meld the butter with the flour.
• Contrary to what Pepperidge Farm and others might have you believe (at least, I did), the goal is actually not a uniformly consistent ball of dough, like pizza dough. You do want it to cohere, but you don’t need it to be smooth all the way through.
• A few lumps of butter throughout the dough actually help. They do not all need to be the size of a pea, either; some might be as large as a shelled walnut.
• The end result, the ball of dough, should feel something like cold cream cheese.
• Most importantly, chill your attitude. Be relaxed, be comfortable, be happy. It’s pie. It’s made to be shared.

Watching Shauna make the pies was inspiring, and it made me understand how I could get into pie-making this summer: it is baking as I like to cook. It is playful, it is flexible, it is creative, and it is pleasurable.

I saw how piemaking could be a meditative act, seeing how the baker should see what is happening to the dough, and simply roll (sorry) with the punches and adjust accordingly. I realized that I want a French rolling pin, which looks more like a mallet slightly tapered at both ends, rather than a log with handles at each end. Christmas elves, take note, please.

And I realized that the truth is that I am a perfectionist, and I hate getting stuff “wrong,” and I have a hard time fixing my “mistakes,” large or small, or starting all over again. I really need to get over that if I am going to return to my childhood dream: being a writer.

It’s time to make some pie. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Readers: any pie tips for me, or any favorite recipes? Or, do you have something “basic” that you’ve been afraid to make, and why?

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5(ish) Questions: Brian Oliu’s Own MFA

Brian Oliu is the dear friend of my dear friends Elizabeth and Colin, and teaches creative writing at the University of Alabama. He’s just come out with his first book–more about that below. Through the wonders of social media, we’ve had grand exchanges about 80’s music (he’s also a DJ) and karaoke standards. And about writing. Despite my Luddite misgivings about poetry involving technology, video games, and Craigslist, there’s clearly a great deal of generous heart behind his work. I love this line from one of his Craigslist lyric essays: “You always opted for gin: you only trust things that you can see through: windows, keyholes.” Please welcome Brian to the “(private) MFA” series!

1. Did you go through an MFA program? If so, how was it structured?

I received my MFA from the University of Alabama in 2009. One of the appeals of the program was the fact that it was a three-year program with the option of a fourth year (which I took advantage of), as well as the fact that it wasn’t genre-specific. I classify myself as a non-fiction writer and I was able to take non-fiction courses as well as fiction and poetry.

2. If you were to design your own private MFA for yourself—either before or after going through your MFA program—what would it look like, and why? What would be your goals? How would you challenge yourself, solicit feedback, create a writing community? (Or, none of those things?)

I think the purpose of the MFA is first and foremost to give people the opportunity to write, which brings forth the other purpose of the MFA: to determine if people actually want to write and pursue it further. The MFA gives people the opportunity to see all of the things that go along with writing/being a writer. Furthermore, it gives writers the chance to teach, edit, get involved with the publishing aspect, so on and so forth and figure out if these are things that people would like to go forward with. Some folks realize that they want to write and only write, and thus go into jobs unrelated to the writing world. I think the other thing that is important about the MFA is that it provides a sense of camaraderie (if one is lucky with their program, as I was!) as well as finding an audience for one’s work in addition to finding folks who are good readers of one’s work. So, if it were up to me, I’d have everyone get involved in all of those facets: working on a literary journal, designing a chapbook, teaching creative writing to undergraduates/high schoolers, etc. As for ‘improving writing’ I do feel as if having readers and receiving feedback is important, although I think the drive to write is more important: thus some semblance of deadlines would be effective, as would a focus on the idea of a larger project–if the members of the MFA community could understand the larger ideas and projects that each writer is attempting to create, I think the feedback would be even more helpful, as a lot of workshop
seems to be explaining the context of each piece: one of the most beneficial classes I took at Alabama was a novel workshop where we all got to know each other’s work over the course of a semester.

3. Do you teach creative writing, or do you teach in an MFA program now? How do you measure student progress, or grading?

I teach creative writing on the undergraduate level: I teach mostly upper-level courses- mostly ‘prose tour’ classes where we examine a bunch of different types of fiction and non-fiction and attempt to emulate the style of the writing or the concepts that are brought forward. On occasion I teach highly specialized courses as well–I have taught a class on the lyric essay as well as a class on video games/games in general as literature.

Furthermore, I’m a member of the Slash Pine Projects, which is a collective here in Tuscaloosa that puts out chapbooks, puts on poetry festivals, and tries to bring art to the community. I have approximately 20 interns, all undergraduates at the University of Alabama specializing in everything from English Literature to Creative Writing to Book Arts. One of the things that I hold most important when teaching creative writing is to view everyone as an artist and as a writer, no matter what level of writing they are currently at: some are Creative Writing minors who take their work very seriously, others are taking Creative Writing as an elective and know that they just enjoy writing poetry and would like to take a class on it and learn how to make themselves better writers. As a result, instead of grading or writing notes, I e-mail every one of my students after receiving their work and enter a dialog with them: tell them what I saw, and what I perceived that they were trying to do with the story. If they want line edits, I’ll be more than happy to do that, but overall I want to talk about the feel of the pieces and what the goals of the students are.

4. If you do teach creative writing, what is the most important thing that you try to teach your students, and why that? And how do you try to accomplish that goal?

To me, the most important thing to teach is simply to write. I try to debunk myths about writing: I’m very open about my relationship with writing as well as my process and I let them know that there’s no such thing as a muse–that I am struggling with finding time to write as well as with what to write about as much as they are. I like to talk a great deal about beginnings and ways to get over their conceived idea of ‘writer’s block’ (which I don’t believe in either!) as well as learning to think about themselves as writers, collaborators, and readers. Writing is exciting and beautiful and magical–the creation of something out of nothing and I just try to pass on that joy, first and foremost. To borrow from the excellent Dear Sugar on The Rumpus, I want them to “write like motherfuckers”.

5. What have you read lately that’s just blown you away?

Lidia Yuknavitch‘s The Chronology of Water is absolutely stunning. A beautiful memoir. I also re-read Christian Bobin’s A Little Party Dress recently and it was even lovelier the second time through. Sarah Goldstein’s Fables is gorgeous.

6. What are you working on now? Do you have anything coming out? Can you say a little bit more about it here?

I assembled an eBook of Tuscaloosa writers called ‘Tuscaloosa Runs This’ to help generate donations for tornado recovery efforts. Furthermore, my book of Tuscaloosa Craigslist Missed Connections, ‘So You Know It’s Me’, was released in June on Tiny Hardcore Press. Other than that, been putting some finishing touches on a manuscript based off of 8-bit Nintendo games, and I’ve started a book collaboration with a book that my grandfather wrote in Catalan on long-distance running.

Thanks for playing, Brian! I like seeing how the MFA for you is about exposing students to “the things that go along with being a writer.’ And how you seem to teach writing and approach writing itself as opportunity and drive–more about inclusivity and community, less about hypercritical judging and evaluation along the way. I’m grateful for you taking the time to write here. Maybe we’ll get to meet, with Colin and Elizabeth, at AWP; it’s coming to Seattle in 2014.

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Love letter to a small Japanese grocery store

Breaking news (and my, the online news world moves fast!) I’ve written my first article for Seattlest, a Seattle news/events/restaurants website. I’m going to be writing for the Food section of Seattlest, and I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to be a food writer. Here are some behind-the-scenes notes about the story.

This story is a love letter of sorts to Maruta Shoten, a small Japanese grocery store south of downtown Seattle. Maruta made me so homesick when I walked in, that I almost cried. Maruta carried umani in its deli section, a dish which I’d never seen outside my family’s kitchens. When I saw the umani I missed my California family intensely. I miss them still, living in Washington after all these years.

I grew up going to Sakai’s, in downtown Sacramento, which closed down eventually.  I have so many childhood memories of exploring the crowded and dark aisles of Sakai’s, and eventually leaving with some Botan rice candy and some Kern’s guava nectar. I remember my mom buying fresh tofu from the 5-gallon tubs of water, and watching the butcher cut up char shiu for us to take home. I remember the clear crackling cellophane bags of curry powder and other spices, and the porcelain buy ventolin 4mg teakettles crowded in the storefront window. These are the kinds of sensory memories that I want to pass on to my daughters; it’s a form of infusing cultural heritage like no other.

During the editing process I had to delete the personal “I” and exchange it for the royal “we”, deferring to the website’s overall voice: a useful lesson for an I-centric blogger (like me) to learn.

This post also marks my first foray into something like food photography–I have a nice point-and-shoot digital camera, though, nothing very fancy.  That’s our red couch, and my smoky lavender sweater serving as color backdrops for the food shots. Time to take some photography lessons!

A good number of folks in Seattle know all about the largest ethnic supermarkets in the ID (International District), Uwajimaya and Viet Wah–but I wonder what is going to happen to the much smaller markets like Maruta. It seems to be doing fairly well, but I wonder what will happen to it if it ever closes down. That’s why I wrote this article. I hope we can continue to support small mom-and-pop markets like this one. They often yield something that the larger supermarkets usually cannot: a sense of intimate community and history.

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Writing takes ego, part 2

Remember when I wrote that writing takes ego, almost exactly a year ago? I heard that sentiment echoed in so much of Jhumpa Lahiri’s lovely recent New Yorker article, “Trading Stories.” “Being a writer means taking the leap from listening to saying, “Listen to me.”” Read more here. And, more about writing, and being an artist: this cartoon about the artistic life as a matter of faith.

I’ve been reading so many good books lately, many of them much appreciated, and some of them from unexpected quarters. I’ll tell you more about them as I get the chance. For right now I can say, though, that Diana Abu-Jaber’s forthcoming novel Birds of Paradise is one of my favorite novels that I’ve read in a long time: layered, complex, page-turning, and beautiful, and satisfying. I really wish I could recommend it as a summer read, but it doesn’t come out until September. More about it later. It is available for pre-order on Amazon, so run, don’t walk. (Full disclosure: I received an advance copy from Norton, the publisher, but I would not write so wholeheartedly about the book if I really didn’t like it. It’s that good.)

(In the meantime, go read my former student Kevin’s book review column on Thought Catalog: he’s snappy, insightful, and funny, and an incredible reader. Alas, I can’t take any credit for him.)

Aaaand, a whole pile of incredible-looking books just arrived at once from the library: R. Zamora Linmark’s Leche, Jessica Hagedorn’s latest Toxicology, Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder, Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water, Miguel Syjuco’s Ilustrado. And I haven’t even finished The Tragedy of Arthur yet! I can’t even make room on my nightstand. And I’ve started writing for a local website; I’ll let you know when I’ve published my first piece there.

All of this lovely reading and writing–I am choosing to take it all as a sign that something in the universe has shifted, and that more good things are coming. Getting some faith back in faith; getting ready to say, in several different ways and several different venues, “Listen to me.”

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5(ish) Questions: Christine Lee Zilka’s Own MFA

Up next in the “(private)” MFA series is Christine Lee Zilka. We met recently on Twitter, partly through a mutual friend, partly because I knew (from research a while back) that she was editor-at-large of Kartika Review before I submitted my essay. Hooray for the wonders of social media. Somehow, on Twitter, the automatic Bay Area radar kicked in, and we discovered that we’d attended this school at the same time, lived in adjacent dorms, both majored in English, but never met each other. (And really, being an Asian English major meant that we probably would have seen each other in classes at one time or another.)  Christine blogs here about her novel-in-process, and she’s got a few pieces of writing coming out soon. I’m really looking forward to reading more of her work.

1. Did you go through an MFA program? If so, how was it structured?

I went to Mills College for my MFA; the coursework was a balance of craft+literature classes and workshops. I don’t think Mills is necessarily any different from other MFA programs–but I did appreciate the practice of including reading along with writing as discipline.

The breakdown of requirements was/is as follows:
4 writing workshops
3 literature courses (including up to 2 classes on craft)
3 elective credits
1 thesis class

As a two year (four semester) program, this list works out to one workshop per semester, two of which had to be in the genre of specialty (creative non-fiction, fiction, or poetry) and a courseload of 2-3 classes per semester. We assembled our thesis team (an advisor and a reader) at the beginning of our second year–and we met with our advisor regularly throughout the second year to touch base on the progress of our manuscripts.

Mills does NOT read prose thesis manuscripts longer than 90 pages (or was it 120 pages)–either way, it is nowhere near book length, for better and for worse).

I decided to stretch my MFA out to three years–and because I unexpectedly got sick and had to withdraw for a semester, I ended up taking 3.5 years.

2. If you were to design your own private MFA for yourself—either before or after going through your own MFA program—what would it look like, and why? What would be your goals? How would you challenge yourself, solicit feedback, create a writing community?

As you can see with the MFA requirements above, it’s possible to replicate the MFA educational structure: you can take workshops on a regular basis, establish a writing group, read books and get a reading group together to critique the works (and if you so desire, go so far as to discuss them as a writer–from a craft perspective). There are books like Janet Burroway‘s “Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft” and John Gardner’s “The Art of Fiction” and then there is Jane Smiley’s “13 Ways of Looking at the Novel” as reference.

But you see–I didn’t go to an MFA program purely for the workshops and classes–I went to establish a writing life, find mentors, and find a community of writers. I had denied myself a life as a writer for so long that I needed a very clear change in my environment, and that is something the MFA program provided me. If you can’t/won’t attend an MFA program, you can still achieve this by applying to writing workshops and conferences whereby you travel to a different geography or climate and immerse yourself as a writer for a week or two or three.

Summer writing workshops/conferences aren’t cheap, but they are still cheaper than the cost of most MFA programs without scholarship. And summer conferences are certainly more transient (1-2 weeks long) and can accommodate a fulltime working schedule. (Even filling out the applications for such summer programs is an enlightening process–you will be asked questions on “what you hope to gain from the experience” and possible questions asking you to detail what it is you write about. All good things to know about yourself as a writer).

I went to Squaw, and it helped me shift direction. It was the place I decided I wanted to pursue an MFA. And of course there are other writing conferences–like Napa Valley Writers Workshop, which is so wonderful and craft-focused with amazing writing workshop leaders each summer. And VONA. I have made writer friends for life at each of these summer workshops, and they are still an invaluable part of my community.

One of the pitfalls of an MFA program is that you are exposed to the same feedback for the entirety of your education–the same peers, the same professors, even if you try hard to make sure you take classes with different people and instructors. I have told people in MFA programs to expand their community, and go to workshops and conferences.

And I’d advise the same for people not within an MFA program–go to different workshops and conferences, find your people. Apply and go to Squaw, to Napa Valley, to VONA. Go to your neighborhood UC Extension or if you’re in NYC, Gotham Writers Workshop. Get your feedback there, make friends, gain mentorship.

There is a lot of pushback on Twitter and FB in the writing community–seeing these things as “distractions,” but for me they are another inlet of community. I have made friends and have a support system on these networks. In fact, that’s how you and I met–! Facebook and twitter are helpful ways to gain community and support and insight–just so long as of course you keep your writing routine up.

Blogging is also helpful–a way to keep in touch with others, exercise your craft. Get your feedback. Make connections. Throw out your questions and doubts to the universe on your blog, and most likely than not, you’ll get a response.

As for goals–I think that’s a personal matter. I’m an extremely slow writer, and I don’t think the two years of an MFA program is enough time for me to finish a book-length manuscript. And quite honestly, I’d rather spend two years writing 75 pages that I am proud to have written. But yes, you should have goals–whether that is a collection
of stories, or 3 stories…or if the goal is to just to have sent your writing out to a number of litmags.

But don’t make your goals ones that are dependent on others. Like, don’t make it your goal “to get published.” So much of being published is not contingent on you, but on others–on others’ subjective reaction to your writing and their own timelines. Send your writing out, and make it a goal to submit to 30 literary magazines, but don’t make it a goal to get published in 5 literary magazines.

Enjoy the process. Write. Read. It doesn’t have to take two years. It can take three and a half years. Or five.

3. What have you read lately that’s just blown you away?

Mat Johnson‘s Pym: Read it for the voice! And you’ll laugh, even as the story investigates the idea of race that will stimulate both cortex and funny bone function. Oh, and if you’re a Poe fan, then this is a must-read for sure. Vida by Patricia Engel. Best short story collection of 2010! Sabina is the recurring protagonist throughout the entire collection–and her voice and character: pitch-perfect and whipsmart.

I recently read an amazing story on “The Lazarus File” by Matthew McGough in The Atlantic. Amazing read about a cold case brought to life by DNA evidence–and so the article is as much about the case as how DNA evidence has revolutionized homicide investigation. The article is excellent journalism–but in particular, I admired the way in which McGough structured his article.

I’m a big Haruki Murakami, Jeffrey Eugenides, Junot Díaz and John Irving fan. I also love Nicole Krauss, whose book Great House came out last year. I loved her book The History of Love, and Great House addresses many of the same themes. The structure of the book is atypical and precarious (can you tell I’m obsessed with novel structure?) but the characters hold the novel together–they were characters I knew I could hang with for hundreds of pages.

Alexander Chee has an essay called “Fanboy” online at The Morning News. Comic books are amazing–if you walk into a comic bookstore, the place is full of disenfranchised men, and men who yearn for power vicariously through comic book heroes. But Alexander Chee, in this essay, examines comic books from a multitude of perspectives, from his biracial isolation, to U.S. imperialism.

And my mom just gave me a copy of Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin. It’s just been released in English translation. My mom said the novel blew her away when she read it in the original Korean years ago. I just started reading it–but already, I’m so impressed. The entire novel is written in the always risky second-person point of view.

4.What are you working on now? Do you have anything coming out? Can you say a little bit more about it here?

I’m working on a novel. An excerpt of my novel will appear in an anthology entitled “Men Undressed: Women Writers on the Male Sexual Experience“, available in October 2011. The anthology is comprised of pieces by women writers writing sex scenes from the male perspective–a response to our literary canon comprised of men like Flaubert to D.H. Lawrence to Philip Roth writing sex scenes from the female perspective. The anthology’s call for submissions spurred me to write a long overdue sex scene in my novel. I can’t wait to read all the pieces within the anthology! It’ll be out via Other Voices/DZANC books this Fall.

I’ve also got a short story forthcoming in Kweli Journal. The piece is called “Ume,” and it was a piece that used to be twice as long and told from the point of view of both a father and a son–but I edited it down for length, to just the father’s POV. It worked, I think, much better as a short piece in that way. The piece is particularly meaningful for me because it was the first piece I wrote after I had my stroke, from which I took about 2 years to recover. There was nothing wrong with me on a musculature level, but I lost my short term memory capabilities, and I had a lot of cognitive issues that prevented me from reading a story, let alone writing one. By the time I heard from Kweli, I’d sent “Ume” out to about 50 litmags, and I’d almost lost hope that I would find this story a home. I’m so glad Kweli took it in, and I’m really glad that the home is Kweli Journal, which is a fantastic literary journal focusing on writers of color.

Thanks for participating, Christine! I’ve learned a lot from your post, and I love the idea of the MFA’s purpose “to establish a writing life.” I also like the idea that the goal of being a writer is not necessarily “to get published”–behind this ideal is, I think, the drive to appreciate the writing life for what it is. I’m a huge fangirl of Murakami and Diaz (and Chee) as well. I hope we’ll get to meet someday.

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In print

Here is a link to Kartika Review, the wonderful Asian American literary magazine that accepted my creative nonfiction essay, “How It Feels to Inherit Camp.” You can download the essay and the issue, but please consider buying a copy of the journal itself–it is a small, volunteer-operated nonprofit organization. Even before I submitted anything to the journal, I had been reading and using it as a resource in my literature classrooms. It incorporates both established and emerging generic ventolin inhaler voices in Asian American literature, and I’m honored to be included in this season’s issue. This month’s issue includes an interview with Jessica Hagedorn, who is one of my very favorite Asian American authors.

As some folks might remember, I tried out a version of the essay here, in this space, and the comments here encouraged me to submit it. It’s a heady thing to see it in print. Thank you, everyone, for reading.

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Reflections on the private MFA, year 1 (part 3.5): the reading list, with commentary

If you’re a writer, a reader, here’s what I’ve been reading for my own private MFA, year 1, with commentary. The books don’t make a lot of sense together, except that the list means that I have read for myself this year more than I have in a long time. And maybe that’s an accomplishment, in itself.

Nonfiction

I think it’s safe to say that I’ve read more nonfiction in this last year than I usually do. Novels are the bread-and-butter of my reading diet, or if you’re me, the rice. Nonfiction was a category I rarely touched, a whole section of the library that I rarely visited until graduate school, where literary theory, ethnic studies, and food studies (and food literature) really entered the menu. It’s still not the first section of the bookstore that I’ll visit, but I no longer avoid it like the plague.

  • The Brief Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks*, Rebecca Skloot. An amazing feat of science writing, journalistic reporting, memoir that travels fluently between several time periods. If you haven’t read it yet, pick it up; you’ll probably be shocked at what you probably didn’t know. It took Skloot something like 10 years to research and write the book, and I can see why. Side literary note: she cited Fannie Flagg’s novel Fried Green Tomatoes as an influence for her own book’s structure.
  • Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. Chip and Dan Heath. I thought I’d be reading this book as a career changer, and in some respects it’s been useful. But I found their lessons highly memorable and applicable in settings from teaching freshman composition to political change and policy creation. Perhaps a bit too business-oriented for me?–but an entertaining and provocative read.
  • One Person/Multiple Careers, Marci Alboher. Another useful read for career changers. Some useful suggestions and inspiring examples, but not as memorable as the Heaths’ book.
  • My Reading Life, Pat Conroy. As a novelist, Conroy has hit some of the same notes far too often for me, but his appreciation of food and his zest for storytelling can draw me back in spite of myself. This memoir is Conroy’s set of love letters to some of his most influential books, and as a fellow lifelong passionate reader it’s fun to see how he approaches each book or author with reverence or nostalgia or hero-worship.
  • The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown. I really love this author’s speeches on TEDtalks. For those who are drawn to her material there–with all due respect, because I really do think her work is valuable–I’d suggest sticking to the talks. Part memoir, part advice–this book felt to me like the PowerPoint slides without as much of the author’s engaging and compelling presence.
  • The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp. I liked this book more as a memoir than as a writing/creative advice manual, but I think I am not quite her audience. I don’t think I need to be convinced to be creative, or that creativity is valuable and part of everyday life. But, I appreciate her willingness to include so many people and activities as “creative.”
  • On Writing, Stephen King.* This book surprised me in so many good ways. Because I don’t really like the genres that King uses typically (horror, noir), I don’t read his work very often. But this book reminded me that he is a master storyteller, and some of the memoir sections told me about why he writes in the genres that he does. I found myself wanting to keep my library copy; it’s a book that I could see myself returning to over and over again. A great precursor to Victor LaValle’s work (more on that in a minute).
  • The Writing Life, Annie Dillard. A lovely set of meditations on the writing life–not really Dillard’s life, necessarily–but a set of gentle suggestions or mantras about how to approach life as a writer and working artist. One of my favorite moments in the book involves seclusion and fireworks.

Fiction

As always, so many good books, so little time. I don’t think this list is complete, but it’s a good sampling of what I read this year (except for the books that I like to reread). Sometimes I become too ambitious and order a whole slew of books at once from the library and can’t read them all in time. I’ll tell you this, though: my 50-page rule still holds. (If the author doesn’t have me by page 50, I will usually not finish the book. See the first sentence of this paragraph.)

  • Honoring Juanita, Hans Ostrom. My good friend and colleague wrote this historical novel, cheap ventolin online based on events in the Sierra Nevada. Sometimes it’s hard to shake the author’s presence from fiction when you know the author, but Mary Bluestone’s voice is engaging and the novel’s exploration of the aftermath of historical figures made me think quite a bit.
  • The Atlas of Love, Laurie Frankel. Another colleague wrote this lovely book about “atypical” forms of family, friendships, and love. Readers who have gone to graduate school in the humanities will especially appreciate this warmhearted book and its engaging narrator, Janey.
  • Big Machine, Victor LaValle. One of the craziest books I’ve read in a while, but I want so many more people to read it. Both page-turning and experimental: a huge accomplishment in itself. Stephen King (horror) crossed with Ralph Ellison (modernist experiments with race) and Haruki Murakami (magical realism) and James Weldon Johnson (deep knowledge of racial politics). And set partly in the Bay Area, home of my homes. I kept thinking, “No, you can’t do that! or go there”–and he kept doing it. Go read it, please, so we can talk about it together.
  • Great House, Nicole Krauss. Krauss has gorgeous prose. I found myself writing down bits of wisdom from the book, short lines and quotations. But I never quite felt that this novel came together as I felt it should. Four narrators/narratives, all centered around a single object: a writer’s desk (think The Red Violin in novel form).
  • Pictures of You, Caroline Leavitt. After I became pregnant with my first daughter, it was hard to read anything where bad things happened to children. (Exponentially so now that both of my daughters are here.) Thus, Leavitt’s novel was an emotional test for me: can I read a novel where bad things happen to children, and the bad thing is the death of a parent? Yes, I can, but not without difficulty. More about this in a later post.
  • Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay. Outing myself as a fantasy/historical fantasy reader, since junior high school. I don’t read very much of it anymore but Kay, I think, is one of the very best. He rarely sacrifices character development for plot, when so many in this genre seem to do the reverse. This novel’s set in China, around the time of the Tang dynasty, involving an impossible and terribly consequential gift.
  • Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, Danielle Evans. I had to take this book back to the library because I wasn’t quite in the mood for it (read: it made me sad), but I admired Evans’s craft. I’d like to revisit the collection someday.
  • A Thread Of Sky, Deanna Fei. Some important (and highly readable) work here if you are interested in transnational relationships between Asia and America and immigrants. Five main characters, all with large and looming issues, made this novel at times overly ambitious, but it provides an important crash course in a number of Asian American issues.
  • Take Me Home, Brian Leung. I was excited to read Leung’s historical novel set in Wyoming in the 19th century, about  Chinese immigrants and the Rock Springs massacre. Not many have ventured into historical fictional territory (ha) with this incident, if any. I am hoping my scholarly friends in Asian American Studies and American Literature will pick this one up.
  • Skippy Dies, Paul Murray. Amazing prose, well-drawn characters, hilarious at points–and yet, as with a number of postmodern pyrotechnics, the ending did not satisfy me.
  • The Calligrapher’s Daughter, Eugenia Kim. A staggering feat of feminist historical fiction, especially given Kim’s audience and what we would probably (not) know about twentieth-century Korean history and the Japanese occupation. I was awed. I loved the narrator and the narrator’s mother, and I wanted to know what would happen to them both.
  • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith. This book is a classic, I know, but I did not read it until this year. It was startlingly honest about maternal love, about tenement poverty, about adultery and about female adolescence. You probably wouldn’t get away with publishing this book as a “coming of age” Young Adult novel today, and yet in so many ways that’s exactly what it is, the prototype for the female bildungsroman all the way up to The House on Mango Street and beyond. I am still thinking through this book’s honesty.

I had a number of “books I like to reread,” but I’ll save that for another post, another time.  I am working on Abraham Verghese’s novel Cutting for Stone, and I just picked up The Tragedy of Arthur. Have a good weekend. I hope you’re able to enjoy some reading time.

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5(ish) Questions: Elizabeth Wade’s Own Private MFA

My friend Elizabeth and I have bonded over food, Twitter, grief, writing, and many things  in between. She has been an informal writing mentor for me in this private MFA process, and while she’s  published quite a bit (poetry, essay, memoir, creative nonfiction), she doesn’t have an MFA, herself. I’ve admired her bold and sensual writing for a while now, seeing various pieces online (more about where to find her writing below). She’s married to a longtime dear friend, Colin Rafferty, which is how we met. I’m happy to introduce her here, as the inaugural guest poster in my “Other People’s (Private) MFA” series.

1. Did you go through an MFA program? If so, how was it structured?

I do not have an MFA, and I’m not sure I’ll ever pursue one. I’ve told myself that if I ever reach a point where I can’t find the time or the community I need to do the writing I want to do, I’ll think about my commitment to writing, and, assuming it still holds, I’ll then consider the MFA. From my vantage point, those two things–time to write and a writing community–appear to be the most valuable aspects of an MFA program. For those reasons, I’d probably gravitate toward a longer, residential program instead of more compressed options.

2. If you were to design your own private MFA for yourself—either before or after going through your MFA program—what would it look like, and why?

I’d love to answer the question you’ve actually asked–what I would do. But I think it’s more honest to tell you what I have done in “my own private MFA” (thanks for the term!), and to acknowledge that it hasn’t all been intentional or well-conceived.

I spent several years running from writing, for various and complicated reasons, most of them concerning my twenty-something-self trying to figure out how to make her way in the world, and exactly what sort of way she hoped to make. Eventually, I realized that writing was an essential part of that way. I think that realization was an important thing for me–it took embarking on a life without writing to make me see how crucial writing is to the life I want to live.

Once I acknowledged that, I started setting my life up to make it conducive to writing. Some things—and, frankly, some people—weren’t really amenable to my choices. I got out of a bad relationship in part (though certainly not entirely) because my then-partner disparaged my longing to be a writer and actually referred to his belief that someday I would “wake up and realize this writing thing isn’t real life.” When I did go back to graduate school, I was too scared to acknowledge my fervent belief that my critical sensibilities and my writerly tendencies are intricately connected, so I applied to PhD programs and pretended for a time that my creative work was outside of my academic interests.

I was wrong about that, and things got easier once I sorted that out. So here are the things I’ve done in “my own private MFA” that I’d recommend for others.

  • Surround yourself with a variety of talented writers and readers. You won’t agree with them all in issues of aesthetics or craft, and that’s okay, even good. Learn from them. Talk with them extensively about writing and reading, about art and process and anything else that comes up.
  • Find a local writing group. Take a class.
  • Go to AWP, the yearly conference of writers and writing programs, and spend a lot of time in the book fair. Find some journals you love (one of mine is Hayden’s Ferry Review, which published the first prose poem I ever wrote ) and support them loyally. Read them. Subscribe to them.
  • Read voraciously. Think about what you read. Consider why it works or doesn’t work. Talk to others about what they read. Ask people you admire what they are reading. Ask what you should be reading.
  • Read in different genres and forms and time periods and traditions. Read classics from the canon–I especially like Homer, Donne, and Woolf, but you should read enough to figure out who you like and why.
  • Read contemporary work–start with Brian Oliu‘s new collection So You Know It’s Me, any of Beth Ann Fennelly‘s poetry collections, and the weekly advice column Dear Sugar. Read anything that interests you–not just literary works, but history and biography and field guides and maps and instructional booklets and anything else you can get your eyes on.
  • Memorize the writing of other people. This works best if you’re into poetry, of course, but I think you could pull off flash prose pieces, too. Let words generic ventolin percolate. Let them be the rhythm that undergirds your daily life. You know how songs can get stuck in your head sometimes? Try to switch out songs for poems.
  • Write your ass off. This is something that gets overlooked a lot, which is weird. But a lot of writers–at time, myself included–go through phrases where they pretend that writing is a mystical thing that just comes to you. Sometimes it does, and that’s lovely. But in my experience, that’s rare. Be attentive enough to listen–if you notice your inner voice or your muse or whatever you want to call it tugging at you with an opening line or an idea, then certainly be mindful of that. But don’t sit around and wait for it. Write. Get a schedule going. Have regular times when you commit to writing. Sometimes you’ll produce crap. But sometimes you won’t, and that is good.
  • You’ll read a lot about people who write every day. This is interesting to me, though I’ve never really done it. If it works for you, fine. If not, that’s fine, too. My point isn’t that you have to write for any arbitrary period of time. Rather, it’s that you should allocate times to write and stick to those. Don’t cancel or postpone them for quotidian things. Keep those appointments as if they were sacred. They are.
  • Once you get a sense of what you do well, experiment with something different. If you write long forms, try shorter ones. If you’re a poet, try your hand at prose. Write a review, a letter, a list. Find things in your daily life that are not usually approached as writing opportunities, and make them writing opportunities.
  • Eventually, find readers you trust to look at your work. Accept criticism. Be willing to change things, but always know how to stay true to your vision. Recognize that your vision may not always be marketable or publishable. Figure out your priorities, and proceed accordingly.
  • To the extent that you’re able, think about working in projects or units. I picked this up from my friend & fellow writer Brian Oliu, who’s also one of my favorite people to engage in conversations about writing. Writing a poem or essay or story is like planting a tree. Be mindful of the forest.

3. Do you teach creative writing, or do you teach in an MFA program now? How do you measure student progress, or grading?

I currently teach literature and writing (i.e,, composition) courses at the University of Mary Washington. I do include some creative work in most of my classes, and I generally try to stress process. Work rarely emerges fully-formed. The real work of writing is in revision, and I try to teach my students that.

4. What have you read lately that’s just blown you away?

This essay on writing and gender by Lidia Yuknavitch. And this benefit e-book of Alabama writers in the wake of the deadly tornadoes that hit the state in April: (full disclosure: I have a piece in this collection, but that’s not why I’m plugging it. See the essay by B.J. Hollars. See the poem by M.C. Hyland. These are the stories of my town and her people. Please read them.) And this debut short story collection by Alissa Nutting.

5. What are you working on now? Do you have anything coming out? Can you say a little bit more about it here?

I’m wrapping up a sequence of prose poems that synthesizes the protagonist’s medical history with a love story.
I’ve been writing a lot about grief this year.
I’m pretty sure my next project is going to concern the circus.

Later this year, I’ll have pieces from the prose poem sequence out with Packingtown Review, Kenyon Review Online, AGNI, and Shadowbox Magazine. I also have two nonfiction shorts forthcoming this year from Sweet. These pieces concern the recent death of my younger brother, Austin–or, maybe it’s more accurate to say they concern me as I learned to deal with his death. And my poem “Selling the Saddle” will be out in Cave Wall next year. This is a longer poem that traverses everything from sex to death, from tampons to Kentucky basketball legends. It sprawls. I kind of love it.

These are all great journals, and I’m thrilled to be included in them. Also, I tend to post little “behind-the-writing” pieces on my blog for each publication. To read those and see my previous publications, please see this site.

Many thanks, Elizabeth! As I said to you once, I look forward to some distant kitchen where we will bake and cook and eat and write together into the wee hours of the morning.

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Reflections on the private MFA, year 1 (part 3): the reading list

Here are a few of the books I read this year, during the life of the blog so far, in no particular order. Happy to answer questions or comments about any of these, as always.

Nonfiction:

  • The Brief Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks*, Rebecca Skloot
  • Switch, Chip and Dan Heath
  • One Person/Multiple Careers, Marci Alboher
  • My Reading Life, Pat Conroy
  • The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown
  • The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp
  • On Writing, Stephen King*
  • The Writing Life, Annie Dillard

Fiction:

  • Honoring Juanita, Hans Ostrom
  • The Atlas of Love, Laurie Frankel
  • Big Machine, Victor LaValle
  • Great House, Nicole Krauss
  • Pictures of You, Caroline Leavitt
  • Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay
  • Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, Danielle Evans
  • A Thread Of Sky, Deanna Fei
  • Take Me Home, Brian Leung
  • Skippy Dies, Paul Murray
  • The Calligrapher’s Daughter, Eugenia Kim
  • Edinburgh, Alexander Chee
  • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

And there are a number of books I love to reread, too. Here are a few:

  • Three Junes, Julia Glass
  • Straight Man and Empire Falls, Richard Russo
  • Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbon
  • I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
  • The Guernsey Potato Peel Pie and Literary ventolin pills Society, Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
  • A Homemade Life, Molly Wizenberg
  • Most books by Guy Gavriel Kay
  • The Sum of Our Days, Isabel Allende
  • The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants quartet, Ann Brashares
  • A Severed Wasp, Madeleine L’Engle
  • Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
  • Tender at the Bone and other food memoirs, Ruth Reichl

And by request, a few of the writerly sites I’ve been reading.

  • Koreanish, by Alexander Chee (check out his entry on the novel!). He doesn’t post very often, but when he does….ah. My model for blog entries as well-written essays.
  • Tea and Cookies, by Tara Austen Weaver (love her description of her writing process)
  • Occasionally, I check in at Advice to Writers for inspiration, a sort of kick-in-the pants to suck it up and get going.
  • Dear Sugar at The Rumpus’s advice column”Write Like A MF” is already a classic.
  • New Twitterquaintance Christine Lee Zilka already has an MFA, and is writing her novel at 80,000 Words.

Look for the “others’ private MFA” series, coming right up!