Time to Talk About the Conferences

First:

Oh, wow. These conferences really showed me just how badly I want to be a writer, and to study writing at the graduate level. I met absolutely amazing people, wonderful writers, took inspiring classes, learned so much from workshop. And I did two conferences. Let me just tell you, one is enough, and two is a party. People at those conferences know writers are short on time and money, and they give you your bang for your buck (although, some more than others). So, onto the reviews of the conferences.

Indiana University Writers Conference:

This was the first conference I went to, and while I was excited about visiting the place--everything I'd read seemed amazing--I actually didn't expect it to be as intense as it was. This was one of those conferences where whoever registers gets in, so I expected it to be in the style of easy-as-pie, relaxing, and something where I could just feel good about myself. I imagined that, since I'd gotten a merit scholarship to attend, that I'd be one of the best writers there, and that that would make it easy for me. Being in Bloomington, Indiana-- the atmosphere was certainly relaxed and friendly, and the town felt like a mix of little Oberlin and a-little-bigger Stanford, CA--was an amazing and chill and fun experience. But the conference itself was invigorating and challenging.

So, it's true: I do think I was one of the best writers at the conference. That said, a ridiculous amount of people were on the very same level, and I felt challenged in skill and open to new ideas. People who weren't as "good" weren't necessarily bad writers, but instead, were less-experienced writers. They were just starting up, and one could tell that they'd be real great in no time. What I loved the most was the sheer diversity of everyone and their writing. Every piece I laid eyes on felt different, fresh, and originally belonging to the mind of its writer. I think it's very hard to achieve something like this with any group, but that's a strength of Indiana that I've always been excited about: its diversity. The school pushes for diversity more than any other MFA program I've run into, and that makes a huge difference when it comes to creative writing, or creative anything. More than half of the scholarships were diversity-based, and the program is far more affordable than many around: $50 for the application (which is deducted later from classes), $250 for classes ($500 with the workshop, too, which I opted for), and housing is $45-$70 night, depending on where you stay. The tuition of most places I looked at were $1,000--at least. So Indiana creates even more diversity by keeping costs low.

The classes, which ran from 9-2 with a lunch-panel inbetween, were wonderful. However, I skipped a few, just to retain my sanity (since there wasn't a break) and to have time to have work done. But this is a real good thing about a conference, if there's too much to do.


[I'm going to continue writing this soon, but posting this so you won't have to wait.]

current writing and reads, etc.

So, I know it's been a ridiculously long time since my last post. That's probably because I got real burnt out from the two writing conferences I went to (Indiana U and U of Mass-Amherst), and up until last week I couldn't think a bit about writing about writing. However, I got some good headway on some stories, specifically Strange English and The Naked Diner, and wrote a new story, Icarus, which needs a tiny bit of revision, and started another story that's probably kind-of sort-of a lesbian version of Breakfast at Tiffany's, and certainly more modern, and shorter. It's probably less interesting of a plot, but, that's not my focus considering that it's a short-short and Tiffany's is a novella. I really need to work on plot, though, so I'm thinking of purchasing a couple spy novels, hopefully something about a heist, a good mystery, and I got some Truman Capote from Amazon for only about $5 a book: Breakfast at Tiffany's, of course, and In Cold Blood. I probably won't be able to get to these new books for a while, though, because of my Honors Project.

I haven't been submitting anywhere recently but that's because I'm real busy from working on The Truce--I'm on about page 50--and I need 100 pages done by the end of the summer. (Technically, by December, but hell, I want to work on editing the first draft and on the critical essay in the fall semester). So, I'm doing about 5 pages a day this July, so I can unwind a tiny bit in August, and do some reading for the project before I delve into really working on the essay in September-November. I want to have something totally concrete by December, so I can put some finishing touches to everything. Of course, The Truce won't be a final draft, but it will be a good one. And that will be pretty cool. I should contact Prof. Faber sometime in late July, to let him know how everything's going. With all this planning, all of this seems to be going very well--especially since reading Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast really gave me a good kind of voice to come from. Benedetti's a very quintessential Uruguayan voice, so it only makes sense that I pick an essential American one. I'm so excited about this, and I need to stop being silly and just work!

As for reading, I decided that I really need to get back to Virginia Woolf, because Paul Lisicky, who read my manuscript at the UMass conference (I promise to talk about the conferences in the next post), told me I should read her because she'd be good for my work. (He said this in response to Strange English). So I'm reading Mrs. Dalloway right now, and it's absolutely wonderful. I'm sure I'll be finished with the book in a couple of days. I'm also reading Camus' L'étranger in the original French, and while I have to look up words every once in a while, it's ver readable. I should keep doing this, so that whenever I pick up French again (I certainly hope to do it at graduate school--many MFA programs require taking language classes), I can really know what I'm doing.

Just a note: Scrivener, the computer program, has done wonders for me. It's just great.

Watson Fellowship

I'm considering applying for the Watson Fellowship. Scary stuff.

Some more news, of course. I didn't get into the creative writing workshop with Dan Chaon and Bernard Matambo. A lot of majors apply, and it's hard to get in if you aren't one just for that reason. I'm not hating myself for not getting in, or anything like that, but I do think it's a shame that I won't be able to study with them. It seems like they'd both be totally awesome, and that I'd learn a lot. But, ah well! That means I can take the Odyssey class P/NP, and concentrate fully on finishing up my philosophy and comp lit majors, as well as honors in comp lit. Tres exciting.

I finished reading The Golden Ass yesterday at Oberlin's commencement (the speech was terrible, so I read instead), and then I bought Hemingway's memoir Moveable Feast at the bookstore and now I'm on about page fifty of that. It's a short book, and I'm cheating--I should be reading in French right now. But the book took me in, and I'm thinking that stylistically, I'd like to make my Honors translation sound a bit like that. We'll see. Benedetti a la Hemingway. Hmm. I'll think about it.

Job, IU, etc.

In case it wasn't obvious from the last post, now I'm definitely going to the conference at Indiana University. I also ended up finding a job that's only 8-12 hours a week, and that allows for academic leaves (I'm basically going to end up being a secretary at Career Services). This'll allow for work on my Honors Project, and now I'll be able to attend both conferences. It was harder to get into the UMass one, but it must have been just as difficult to get a scholarship from IU, so at this point it's my responsibility to myself and my work to attend both. At this point in life, anyway, I'm very attracted to IU, so I probably should have been careful in saying that I might not have gone. But I was too stressed out about my job search, probably, to notice that. But I'll have my priorities better set starting right now!

This summer is totally, totally going to work out. Yay!

IUWC Scholarship

Dear Elisa,

Your manuscript has been selected as one of the best submissions to the 2009 Indiana University Writers' Conference. We are pleased to offer you a merit-based scholarship in the amount of $100. You will receive an official letter with an invoice in the mail soon.

Congratulations and we look forward to seeing you this summer!

Sincerely,

Bob Bledsoe Kelly Wilson

Director, IUWC Associate Director, IUWC

Awesome. They know they like me, and hopefully they'll feel that way when I apply for their MFA Program! I'm very happy, and overjoyed about my story, Strange English, which won the scholarship.

Dahl Prize, etcetera

Hey everyone!

So, good news, separate from creative writing, but certainly not from writing. I won the Dahl Prize, which is a prize for the best undergraduate essay submitted, and that's ridiculously exciting, yay! I'm winning $150 for that. If only I'd get this sort of reaction for my creative writing. (But, then again, this is far less competition.)

Among my own writings, I'm going to no matter what finish up the Los Ángeles story today, because I need to use it for the creative writing apps that I'm also finishing up today (which are due tomorrow by 5 p.m.). I'm really hoping to get into the fiction class, as Bernard Matambo and Dan Chaon are teaching it. I did a winter term with Dan Chaon, and it was absolutely, terrifically amazing. I wrote a bunch of stories and he went over them with me, and our tastes totally clicked. It probably helps that before I wrote the stories as I traveled for the month of January of 2008, I read an entire huge collection of Raymond Carver stories. Read, read, read. That's the only thing to keep us writers good and going.

So, I've decided that this summer, I'm going to read 3 books a month (at least): one in Spanish, one in French, and one in English. It's going to be a bit of a drag to not allow myself to read that much English, but it's just, totally necessary for my education in the other languages. Going abroad in Paris, and then taking a super-intense 400-level Spanish class this spring, just goes to show what reading in other languages can do for your writing. On top of the 3-books-a-month plan, I'm going to be reading a lot of theory, and working on my Honors project. Still keeping my fingers crossed for a job.

So, it's finals time at Oberlin. Crazy. That's the only word for it.

Love,
Me!

Juniper Summer Writing Institute

So, among many other things that have happened, I was accepted into the Juniper Summer Writing Insitute at UMass. I've applied to a good amount of summer workshops, and I've gotten into two (that one and the one at Indiana University). I'm definitely going to the Juniper Institute, because it seems to be highly lauded, and is at one of the *top-ten* schools in the country. The other one is at a school I absolutely adore from a paragraph I read about and visits to its website, but the program itself is for just about anyone. Which is fine, but that all depends on my summer job.

Currently I'm doing summer job stuff, and I've been meaning to see if anyone in the Hispanic Studies Department is interested in having someone do research over the summer, so I need to make sure I do that. That's not really writing-related, though. So sorry to get on that tangent, I'm just thinking about it lots lately.

As for how writing is going, I'm working on an expansion of the Los Angeles story, and then I'm working on some creative writing applications for next fall. I'm really busy, but I'll post something better soon.

--Me!

EXTRA EXTRA

EXTRA EXTRA:

This week:
Mon. March 16- Arts & Letters 2009 Prize Competition- al.gcsu.edu
Mon. March 16- Prairie Schooner Book Prize Series- http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/prizes/index.html
Thurs. March 19- Fish One Page Prize- www.fishpublishing.com

Turn of the month (because there's SO MUCH):
Mon. March 30- Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers- shenandoah.wlu.edu
Mon. March 30- www.narrative.magazine.com/third-person-story-contest
Mon. March 30- www.shortstorycompetition.com
Tues. March 31- Eaton Literary Agency's Annual Awards Program- www.eatonliterary.com
Tues. March 31- Glimmer Train's Fiction Open- www.glimmertrain.org
Tues. March 31- Tom Howard/John H. Reid Short Story Contest- www.winningwriters.com/tomstory
Tues. March 31- Joseph Henry Jackson Award- www.theintersection.org
Tues. March 31- 2009 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest- www.carvezine.com/contest.htm
Wed. April 1- Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award- www.sherwoodandersonfoundation.org
Wed. April 1- Jack Dyer Fiction Prize- www.siu.edu/~crborchd
Wed. April 1- National Writers Association Novel Writing Contest- www.nationalwriters.com
Wed. April 1- Short Grain Writing Contest- www.grainmagazine.ca

'One, although he had made a point of showering and vigorously drying beforehand, dripped sweat off the tip of his nose and onto her face as ardently as he dripped his endearments, and seemed genuinely puzzled, even hurt, when she turned away from his kiss. Another, a huge, morose fellow with a gold Pisces chain on his fleshy chest, lay on his back and talked about how the most wonderful time in his life had been when he played football in high school; he was unable to figure out why everything had been so boring ever since. "I bet I know what you was like then," he said, rolling over. "You was one of them quiet types that never went out. And look at you now." There was no malice in his voice; it was a wonderless comment, which made its accuracy all the more depressing.'

--Mary Gaitskill, Trying to Be, from the short story collection Bad Behavior

Also, if it isn't obvious, the very-polished stories that I spoke about in my last post are all (in that order) a complete collection.

It's pretty short for a whole collection, so I plan on doing something that Luisa Valenzuela did, which was to have different sections in a short story collection, each one with a certain theme.

Clearly, these stories are pretty short, so I need to work on length.

A Long Overdue Update

Well, it's certainly been a while, that's for sure. I've got a completely legitimate explanation: I'm taking 17 credits this semester. Some of my friends are going through totally intense stuff. Really, the only reason that I'm posting something right now is because I'm feeling a little bit lonely, it's midterms, and I don't want to work on my Philosophy of Language paper just yet, even if Frege's a fabulous guy.

Writing's been going pretty well; I realized that if I write stories that are closer to the truth--such as the one I just wrote called Berkeley, California--I should try to write them in the third person. I should also try elongating them, as my story will be end up being carried more by plot than character. I turned an intense portfolio of work for a competition here at school for the Creative Writing department, so now a bunch of my works are in tip-top shape, which is GREAT! This includes the titles Red, Strange English, The Naked Diner, I'm Just Joking, and Sleeping with Scarlett. I was describing the stories to a friend of mine and I realized just how bizarre my stories can seem sometimes. Anyways, I had a friend look over a couple, and she asked, "Why aren't you a creative writing major?" That's always totally flattering. But, hey, philosophy and comparative literature make my writing more wonderful than creative writing classes, and that's about it.

I bought the 2008 Pushcart Prize on Amazon.com, as well as Mary Gaitskill's short story collection Bad Behavior (published by Vintage--I found out about her reading an article about her in Poets and Writers Magazine). Anyways, the collection of Puschart Prize stories was actually quite horrendous...the writers certainly had good ideas, but the stories felt ridiculously unpolished, messy, rushed...I was very shocked that they had won such prestigious awards. Perhaps I know too many amazing writers here, because I felt like they certainly could have written the prize-winning poems, and that they had some skills that the prize-winning stories were lacking. (To be fair, I've only read the first three stories and the first three poems.) Mary Gaitskill's short story collection, however, is absolutely amazing. She's wonderful. Her writing is clean and thoughtful, and intricately beautiful. It's also very disturbing. I'm a little bit over halfway through the collection, and I'm very grateful for the writing she's given to the world. As for the magazine I just mentioned, I bought a subscription because the one I bought randomly after a dinner out of town at the Barnes & Noble was totally fabulous.

I'm working a lot on philosophy, which certainly makes my writing far more organized and logical. I'm taking three classes, although one of them is a private reading. Plato's really great--I'm reading Republic and it's very beautiful, although it's got some contentious issues (just like any philosophy, but I would even say more than usual). So, that's my Ancient Philosophy class. I'm also taking a Philosophy of Language class, which is totally mindblowing, so it's great (although a little bit confusing). Aaand I'm taking a private reading in the Epistemology of Emotions with Professor D. Ganson, which is totally great. So I'm writing a bunch this weekend.

My Honors project is going fabulously, but anyways, I'm getting very distracted by a friend, so I'm going to go! And get dinner!

Adieu!

After Babel

So, while my writing is a little bit behind currently, I've been doing some work to get ahead on my Honors Project. I'm working on an introduction (which is proving very tricky!), and I'm reading a totally addictive book, called After Babel, by George Steiner. He's certainly a man to my heart. I'm only on page 18 and I'm certain I can finish it by this weekend.

Tomorrow, I should see what I'm submitting to where. Yes.

EXTRA EXTRA

EXTRA EXTRA:

This week:
None.

This month:
Fri. Jan 30- Ohio State University Prize in Short Fiction- ohiostatepress.org
Fri. Jan 30- Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellowship- www.creativewriting.wisc.edu
Fri. Jan 30- Writers' Journal Annual Fiction Contest- www.writersjournal.com
Sat. Jan 31- Glimmer Train's Family Matters- www.glimmertrain.org
Sat. Jan 31- Just Deserts Short-Short Fiction Prize- http://myweb.num.edu/~passages
Sat. Jan 31- Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant- www.ohioana.org
Sat. Jan 31- Frank O'Conner International Short Story Award- www.munsterlit.ie
Sat. Jan 31- Prism International Annual Short Fiction Contest- prismmagazine.ca

ROLLING DEADLINE: www.milkweed.org

I'm going to be writing some absurd stuff because that's all I've got in my right now.

This one's going to be called, Twenty Years and Sixty-Seven Beggars.

Thanks, Isabel Allende! I've decided to try out a little something for a book of great beauty, the Botany Story, which is to switch between first and third person (but still always following the same character, the botany professor). I don't know how well it will work, as I'm obsessed with my narrator, but the problem is is that he strays away from plot often, and I need a little bit more control over it. Also, I think he sounds too much like me, and perhaps if I stay a little bit away from him, that will happen too. So we'll see. We're all post-post-post-post modern here, so anything's possible structure-wise, so I might as well experiment. It's a big intense book after all, and I won't be able to work on it all spring (snif) because I'll be working on the translation of Benedetti's book for my Honors project.

Speaking of Isabel Allende, I've totally forgotten to post up what I *did* get to read after I left Paris. While I only got fifty more pages into Middlemarch, I was able to finish House of Spirits by Isabel Allende. Just yesterday, I finished reading Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, in the original French, yay! I'm going to be reading a book of shorts by that guy who just won the Nobel Prize this week, although I doubt I'll get through the whole book. Anyways, we'll see about that too.

Myself, I need to work on being back in the States again. I'm finally home, but I'm afraid that I've been gone so long, that that might not really be the name of this place anymore. I'm going to do some work today at Java Zone after lunch, and I'm letting myself work on whatever fiction I need. Because I need it to feel more in place, I guess.

Oh, God, Mika. I know for a fact that my taste in music is terrible, but I don't care. I love Mika.

Oh Oh Oh Oberlin

So, I'm back at school, overwhelmed with such a winter and such a state. I feel less alone than I have in a very long time, and yet, I can tell I'm a different person from when I left. In a good way, though. But it's still a strange feeling. I feel like I'm doing things I could have never been capable of, even if I had been willing to do them in the past. I'm glad I'm living life in such a way that makes me become more like what I want to be, and even more, what I've always felt I'm supposed to become. Going to school at Oberlin has certainly been part of this.

Currently it's Winter Term, so the campus is bare--but that's part of the beauty of it. Not to mention, I'm not overwhelmed with billions of people around me. In Paris there were many people too, but as it's a city (and especially Paris) people keep to themselves there. I feel like I'd gotten so good at being alone that I need to learn a way to cultivate that skill, to be happy being alone, in a way. But I'm also happy to be meeting many people for lunch tomorrow, at Java Zone.

All this might seem irrelevant, but it's very relevant to my writing, so I guess that's why I'm posting it here. A book of places to publish to should be showing up in the mail soon, so some EXTRA EXTRAs will be popping up soon here. My writing projects have come to a halt, with the unexpected culture shock, as well as other reasons. My thoughts are preoccupied, but, not to worry friends, at least I am still reading (even if what I am reading is in French and I have once again halted reading Middlemarch).

The world is quite bizarre sometimes. I'm listening to Sufjan Stevens, and that helps. But I'm happy, be sure of that. I'm happy.