“[A]ny discussion of craft does not take place in a vacuum – that race is part of one’s lived experience and how we see ourselves and are seen does impact how and what we write.” Poet Neil Aiken puts together an absolutely indispensable list of texts – books, essays, lectures and beyond – on the craft of writing by writers of color. See also: our own Edan Lepucki‘s impromptu syllabus of craft readings.
On Craft and Color
Just Stop There
What do Susan Sontag, Joan Didion and Year in Reading alumna Margaret Atwood have in common? They’re all great writers — and they all had only one kid.
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Lot by Lot
Valeria Luiselli has a new novel coming out, and BOMB has an exclusive excerpt. Titled “Hyperbolics,” it juxtaposes the goings-on at a church auction with descriptions of items on offer, which steadily grow macabre. You might want to check out her first novel after reading it to get some context.
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Hardly Working
Why is it okay to say “I’m working on a novel” but not okay to say “I’m working on my novel”? The former is a normal, straightforward, expression, while the latter smacks of arrogance and self-absorption. At Bookforum, Jesse Barron writes about the oddity of Working on My Novel, a collection of retweets (you read that correctly) of writers telling the world about their labors. It might also be a good time to read Dominic Smith on the number of novelists at work in America. (h/t Arts and Letters Daily)
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Blade Culture
In Preparation for the Next Life, Atticus Lish showcased his ability to write brutal, unforgiving stories in terse, economical prose. This new short story from Granta is no different (and no less beautiful).
Tweet Like a Fiend
“Keep a close eye on your Twitter account. Important things may be said there that you will be expected to weigh in on, and if you don’t, everyone will wonder if you fell asleep in the bathroom stall of the bar last night and are still there, head sunken low next to the toilet, one lost contact lens embedded somewhere in the floor grime. Make sure they know you’re not; that was the you of 100 million years ago.” Jen Doll on writing and not-writing.
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Following the Writer
Over at The Toast, see what Year in Reading Alumnus Alexander Chee has to say about The Queen of the Night, his writing process, and publishing. Our own Sonya Chung’s review of his latest novel pairs nicely.
Mocha Dick
The (mostly) true story behind Moby-Dick gets the picture-book treatment in Mocha Dick: The Legend and the Fury.
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““[A]ny discussion of craft does not take place in a vacuum – that race is part of one’s lived experience and how we see ourselves and are seen does impact how and what we write.”
Subject matter has nothing to do with craft; issues of craft are identical across the total range of possible author-identities. Craft (its demands; its value judgments, et al) will vary according to language, possibly, and era, possibly, but not, correcting for the other variables, according to gender, age or race. Projecting Race as a factor, where it is supremely irrelevant, is one of the troubling manias of the Era, as though we can, somehow, make up for failures in Politics, Economics or Sociology by concentrating all of the serious conversations about Race that we *aren’t* having, under those three headings, where they will trouble us the least: in (eg) Literary Criticism. On the level of Literary Quality, the age/color/gender of the author is an irrelevant distraction. Authorial biography is already too intrusive, regarding Literary Fiction, and Identity Politics only serve to weaponize the problem.
If a “Writing Consultant” advertized his/her services as a *White* (or Asian or Native American, and so forth) practitioner, my reaction would be to steer clear, to say the least.
What are the best books on Literary Craft? That’s all we need to know. We need to stop with the Positive Segregation, no matter how appropriate to the Era it may feel at the time…