Light in August

So, due to the fact that the book I just read for English class--Maryse Conde's Crossing the Mangrove--is based on a helluva lotta Faulkner, I get to have a great excuse to read my first of his. The prof recommended we all look up some info on the intertextuality of that text and of another--Faulkner's Light in August--so guess what I'm reading this week! That's right. Light in August. I'll be visiting The Red Wheelbarrow on Friday, I think, to get a hold of the book.

My God. Summertime by Gershwin...may be the best song I've ever heard...

Work so far!

Okay, well, I finished part I of the magical realism novella much faster than I thought I would. My friend who is very picky about fiction she likes--and knows a lot about magical realism--read it and loved it. So that's a good sign! It's called The Beasts We Knew, and takes place from 1860s-1920s Spain and Connecticut, two quite different places. And there might be a short stop in England, but I'm not sure. So, I can send that off to Spiral on Monday. Alyssa's going to take a look at it, who has done lots of work in genre fiction, so that will be helpful, too.

Here's a little something from it (yes, I've been sucking at putting up excerpts lately, so I'm starting again):

I never believed any of those stories they told when I was younger, when I was intent on growing up, but suddenly, I was with child, and when I gave light to a baby boy, I knew that there was something within him that I could never let go. I was fifteen years old and being a mother had made me more beautiful. It doesn’t matter who the father was, only that I wasn’t one of those girls who made up stories about ghosts or gods. His father wasn’t human at all, and ghosts and gods as any Católica knows are very human, and that’s why people make them up, because all humanity wants is more and more of us. I never told anyone about his father, and whenever asked about it, I would give very human descriptions without giving any lies: big hands, strange smile, wouldn’t take no for an answer. They just smiled and looked at me like I was the monster.

Currently, I'm finishing up the short stories in the Los Angeles collection: Los Angeles, The Disease, and Sleeping with Scarlett. Today, Sleeping with Scarlett seems to be the biggest focus. I'm considering translating it into French (it takes place in Paris) for my conversation class, but, we'll see about that. It would be exciting to talk about Scarlett Johansson's body in French. Totallay. Duffy's great to listen to for working on this. Here's a little something from that, too:

“Oh,” she said in her low voice. “Oh,” she repeated. I couldn’t stand looking at her and walked away, fingering my pockets for a second cigarette. I was a cameraman. Moving things like this woman I walked away from shouldn’t be burning into my eyes the way she was. But the important thing is, that’s what she was doing. And that meant something. I headed for the doors as fast as I could and took a taxi home. The Paris sky, that meant something too.

I'm hoping to have all the Lost Angeles short story stuff finished by Sunday, so that I can start to focus on my new projects.

That is all!

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs--and Duffy

I'm kind of totally considering perhaps becoming a writing professor...or at least doing it for a while. It seems like a good idea to teach, especially when it's in the arts. I don't think I could be a professor in anything else, but writing seems like it would be fun to work with. This is just based on how much I love looking at friends' writing, etc. And I read all of the time. And it's a good use of the MFA I'm hoping to earn in a couple years from now.

I'd ask for your opinion on it, my dear nonexistent reader, but as you don't exist, I don't know if you can really give me an opinion.

Also: I'm totally loving Duffy. She makes me want to become a rockstar. Oh how old dreams constantly come back.

Spiral, etc

Spiral submissions coming up--due in like a week. I've agreed to edit Alyssa's submissions, in return for her editing mine, even though, I'll still do it if she doesn't have the time to look at mine. I'm hoping I'll be finish part I of the novella, but I have a back-up submission if I'm not able to finish it (but I really, really, really want to !).

Writing's not going as quickly as I wish, considering the little amount of work I have presently in comparison to what I was working on before. But I can't write when I'm exhausted, and since I got back from the States, I can only write so much per sitting. Hopefully, some time today at Starbucks will change that. (Yes, there are Starbucks in Paris!)

I'm cleaning my place currently. That helps me think.

New projects:
-Putting together a story for a friend. Inter-war era Paris, perhaps New York too. Very glamorous happenings, despite economic depression in the states.
-Want to put SOAP in the 50s. Totally. Screenplay it up.
-Considering asking Harris Lapiroff if I can put one of his poems to a comic strip. His poems have a very youthful feel to them, which can be good or bad sometimes, but I think that as he gets older this youthful feel will be more and more appropriate--perhaps due to its feeling of nostalgia, or something. Here's the poem he wrote up that I like:

How I Long to be Found in a Time Beyond Love

November when air is warm with climate change,
I pray for nuclear winter, another ice age,
a snow that falls soft and lovely and enduring.

You and I wandering the streets of Albany
and out to the beach, flakes of aftermath
dropping one by one by one onto our limbs
weighing down until we move no longer but only
sleep compressed under thousands of pounds of powder,
found millennia later by excavators
with tinted goggles and laser drills.

Our pictures on the news,
us kept below zero in a block of ice
preserving our perfect bodies.

An archeologist leading a tour points and says
see their strange clothes, the way they wear their hair
see the way their eyes light up at one another
and the way their fingers twine.

Something I could totally never put together myself, but that I nevertheless enjoy. Am also reading a totally shallow book called Cliente in French by Josiane Balasko. It's about an escort boy and this older lady. Figured if I'm going to be reading in French, especially before a superserious private reading in January, I should read something superly awesome. Therefore the purchase as well of some French slam-poetry and Persepolis (ohgodIlovethisbook). I've read everything by Marjane Satrapi, but only in translation. I'm so excited to read her in the original! Oh...and I bought something by the Marquis de Sade.

Elisa

Brussels

Well, that was unexpected. I went to Brussels for a day trip and I can't stop really wishing I'd stayed longer. I'm considering going back, at a certain point, perhaps next summer. Anyway, I found this cool article on a writer who lived there for a while:

http://www.pmc.edu/mfa/interviews/bosselaar.html

Reading I've Done Recently...and other things...

So, I guess I should update y'all on what readings I've been doing lately...

So, I finished up Benedetti's La Tregua (whilst taking a break from Allende's Casa de las espiritus), and it was absolutely fab. I'm still waiting to hear about Honors...but I've decided to apply to a creative writing workshop if I don't get accepted for that...and then do some translation work over the summer.

I know I mentioned before that I was reading some other books; I finished Duras' The Lover (English translation), and I also finished Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse, which was challenge, but totally awesome. I'm currently working on Maryse Conde's Crossing the Mangrove (English translation) for class, Paris in the Fifties (for class!), and, finishing up Allende's Casa de los espiritus.

Other things:

I really want this program for MFAness....It looks so fab...: http://iub.edu/~mfawrite/about/
Of course it's amazing so who knows if I'll get in. But it's very international-like, and reputable. Two very good things.

I really miss philosophy classes. As usual. But I will be taking 2-3 this next semester, so...

I will be doing a reading in French literature for Winter Term...so I will be able to continue studying...yay!

--me.

Writings Website!

I put up a website with documents of my writings on it! Yay!

Here it is:
http://writersonthemarina.jottit.com

It's not nearly as fabulous looking as this one...but that's not the point. The point is that it's easy to navigate through my documents and works-in-progress.

--Elisa

EXTRA EXTRA

EXTRA EXTRA:

This week:
Sat. Nov 22- www.scratchcontest.net

This month:
Sun. Nov 30- www.fishpublishing.com ($30/story)
Sun. Nov 30- www.glimmertrain.org ($15)

Voila!

Current Projects

So, now that I got all midterms and travels to Barcelona and the Honors Application finished, I've got some low-stress projects I'm working on. Going to be

-finishing up part one of the magical realism novella (I'm working on it so that I can submit each section of the three for a serial publication in Spiral)
-continuing to edit the botany story
-considering writing up a screenplay version (or a musical version?) of Socrates on a Plane, but in the 50s...
-finishing up the stories in Los Angeles (Sleeping with Scarlett and The Disease)

So, it's really just all some catching-up work. I hope I get this all done by the time I head over to Uruguay, so that I can continue some serious work on the botany story when I get there.

If the Honors proposal gets accepted, I'll be starting working on the Benedetti translation in the spring! If not, I'll probably be working on that during the summer.

That's all!

Oh, and wait, I wanted to advertise something my friend put together: http://iomoth.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/photocomic-incomplete-from-summer-2008/

It should take about three seconds to read, and it's very good!

Writing Class & Honors

So, I'll be taking a writing class in the spring with Prof. Watanabe and this other guy whose name I can't remember (Matambo perhaps?). I think the guy was an Oberlin alum, so that probably means he'll be cool. The class is called Geographies of Displacement, it's only 2 credits (otherwise I wouldn't have room to take it!), and it seems cool because I think it's going to be half writing/ half reading, and it's about exiled writers. There will be many visiting authors for the course. It sounds good, and I'm surprised it's not in the Comp Lit department ('cause I'm sure to get Comp Lit credit for it).

I'm going to be turning in my Honors application at the end of this week; in case you don't remember, I'm hoping to translate Benedetti's La Tregua (The Truce) for the Honors Project, and then writing up something on the practice of translation in relation to the theories of translation. Prof. Ali and Prof. Faber have agreed to be my advisors for it, so all I have to do is hope that my crummy GPA in the school (3.3ish when it has to be at least 3.5) doesn't get in the way. I'm considering mentioning my writing blog in the application...We'll see...

I've been sucking at posting in general lately. I'll put up the EXTRA EXTRAs soon. Promise.

--Elisa