An Acceptance for "Distance" -- Finally

After years of submitting and many, many near misses, my story "Distance" has finally found a home at the Coe Review. It looks like a very nice magazine, and they've been around since 1971 -- a year after I was born.

Check them out . . .

http://www.public.coe.edu/coereview/coereview/default.htm


Don't give up. Just keep sending. There's hope yet for all of our memorabilia.

Saying What Needs Saying

My friend, Josh Maday, keeps sending me these essays that I wish I had written -- because they articulate so well exactly what I've been thinking.

Check it out . . . http://www.storysouth.com/fall2004/shortshorts.html


We need less American writing and more American literature!

Are Writers Clowns?

Have you been to a poetry reading or fiction reading lately? It strikes me that writers feel a strange compulsion to be stand-up comedians. Why this incredible pressure to make the audience laugh? For me, it cheapens the writing. Like comedians, writers now make quirky observations about everyday life. A colleague told me the other day that he had the chance to see a writer, and about the reading/writer, he said, "He was a riot!" I'm not sure how I'm supposed to think about that. Is that our goal as writers -- to be a riot?

Why not read the serious stuff? Why not read the stuff that gets at the human condition? Why not read the stuff that might make them cry -- not tears of laughter, but the kind of tears that that whithered, rich hag in Fahrenheit 451 cried after hearing "Dover Beach"?

Maybe the answer is that we fear the audience. We want their acceptance so badly that we go for the lowest common denominator and make them laugh. We doubt our right to be in front of them reading our words, so we cover everything up with some guffaws. We read the funny stuff. They laugh. Will we do it so much that audience expects it -- and only it?

Or, maybe worse, we don't have any serious stuff to read. We got zany, we got odd, we got funny, we got fringe -- but we don't have the goods, and so if we keep them laughing, maybe they won't notice.

Reviewers (writers) are Killing Language

Read a review of a collection of short stories or poems sometime. Or, read a blurb. Reviewers, who are mainly just less-known writers trying to get noticed by better-known writers, throw about some of our best words, rendering them useless. Let's be honest, most of the writing that is happening right now in serious fiction, poetry, and non-fiction is pretty bland -- at least in the ideas that it tries to tackle. Oatmeal. We're making literary oatmeal, and we have no brown sugar or milk. It might be well "crafted" (a term I've come to hate), but most of it doesn't seem to be after anything very big, aside from publication.

Yet, to hear the reviewers and blurbests, you'd think we're in the golden age of literature. Everything is "stunning" or "awesome" or "incredible" or "fantastic".

Please.

At best, the quality of the writing (and by that I mean the quality of its ability to reflect anything that resembles the human condition) is mediocre at best. Why can't reviewers use words like "decent" or " not too bad" or "some interesting moments" or, God forbid, "banal" or "inauthentic" or "clearly this guy just knew somebody and that's the only reason he has a book"?

Why are reviewers afraid to be honest? The cynic in me says that they're just brown-nosing or trying not to offend anyone who might be a potential contact down the road. Another part of me wonders if the reviewers have any idea what is actually good. Or, can they only see as far as the style, form, and hyper-crafted sentences?

Whatever it is they're doing -- it's killing language. When it comes to reviews, words like "stunning" and "fantastic" mean nothing to me anymore. They are par for the course. I guess we'll have to make up all new words to mean that something is superlative. (Oops, just found nineteen reviews that used "superlative")

I think it comes down to this. Writers used to come to the page because they had a vision of the world, and writing was their medium. Now, most writers have put the medium first. Love the words, even if they say nothing because they are, after all, such pretty words.

Fah.

Couple Things

First, I had a great time reading and signing at Schuler Books in Lansing. They now have my novel at all of their store locations. What a great bookstore -- a Michigan gem that deserves support.

Also, my friend Josh Maday forwarded an article to me that is a must-read for fiction writers. Check it out at: www.cmsu.edu/englphil/pleiades/ShivaniAmericanFiction.html

If you read it, feel free to comment on it.

Spread the Word

On Thursday, March 29th, Grand Valley State University professor, poet, fiction writer, and essayist, Ander Monson, will be giving a reading at Delta College. The reading will begin at 1:00 p.m. in room G-160. Afterwards, Monson will be signing copies of his new book of essays.



He'll also have copies of his excellent, must-have collection of stories (or is it a novel?)



Finally, he'll also have copies of his collection of poetry. (Yes, this guy has had a good couple of years!)



Hope to see you at the reading.