{"id":9133,"date":"2014-03-03T05:05:34","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T10:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=9133"},"modified":"2020-03-26T04:45:53","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T08:45:53","slug":"in-the-book-trenches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2014\/03\/03\/in-the-book-trenches\/","title":{"rendered":"In the book trenches"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Annie<\/a>

Annie Proulx, the keynote speaker at the 2014 AWP conference. Photo: U.S. Embassy in Argentina<\/a>, Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n

(Our regional book reviewer, Betsy Kepes, is covering the Association of Writers and Writing Programs–AWP–Annual Conference for NCPR. She’ll be posting about the conference through the next few<\/em> days.)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

How many writers does it take to fill the Seattle Convention Center? Thousands of people are here for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Annual Conference. The place swarmed with people when I walked in this morning and stood in line (H \u2013L) to pick up my registration packet and press pass. A book fair added to the hustle with rows and rows of booths where literary presses and journals show their wares.<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

Yesterday I spent the day with my cousin on pastoral Vashon Island so the noise and activity inside made me seek out a secluded corner (actually called the \u201cDickinson Quiet Space” with a poem that begins \u201cThere is a solitude of space\u201d) to plan my day. Each hour offers at least 25 options for sessions and readings, the super-sized conference.<\/p>\n

I started off with a panel of authors who write \u201cliterary\u201d children\u2019s fiction. They discussed how they reconcile their artistic vision with the need of their publishers to sell lots of books. The five women panelists were all articulate and funny. Sara Zarr said it\u2019s easy for her to write books that are all conversations and relationships, \u201cinternal struggle\u201d books. It stretches her as a writer to try making more things happen, to beef up the plot. Laurel Snyder, who studied poetry at the Iowa Writers Workshop, told us that as a poet she never wrote for an audience, only for herself. Now, as a children\u2019s book writer, she writes for someone and enjoys actually having readers. Stephanie Kuehnert wrote raw and brutal scenes and thought she was writing literature for adults, but when her manuscripts didn\u2019t sell her agent had her take out all the adult characters and market her novel as YA (Young Adult). She found an editor within weeks. Young Adult literature has \u201cgrown up\u201d and sex and violence are now part of the territory.<\/p>\n

\"Even<\/a>

Even a book reviewer has to eat…Betsy on the right, enjoying a Japanese dinner she described as the most authentic since her time in Japan.<\/p><\/div>\n

A nuts and bolts workshop filled the next hour for me, with a panel of booksellers and authors telling how they sell books. (I\u2019ve got a manuscript with an agent now and hope that some day I\u2019ll actually use this information.) Author Jonathon Evison was particularly good, a real stand-up comedian who would be a great person to invite to any bookstore. When someone in the audience asked the events planner for Elliot Bay Bookstore what was the best way to get her attention, Evison said, \u201cBuy four books and stand in front of her with your pile.\u201d<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t resist the title of the next session: How to Write a Good Bad Book Review. The panelists were all book reviewers for the NYT<\/i> or Slate<\/i> or other top publications and they too had lots of fun being together and laughing at reviews that skewered books. But they were quick to say that a bad review has to be very well-written and have something to say other than complete derision. Sasha Weiss of The New Yorker <\/i>said reading book reviews should be \u201cintensely pleasurable\u201d and that the reviewer has to earn authority by being a good writer herself. Parul Sehgal of the NYT<\/i> talked about the importance of tone, especially in a bad book review, and that the enemy is clich\u00e9. Dan Kois, the editor of Slate, <\/i>was annoyed by NYT<\/i> reviewer Michiko Kukitani\u2019s recent negative review of SLU alum Lorrie Moore\u2019s new book of stories. Kukitani said the new book is \u201cdisappointing,\u201d a word that is loaded with meaning. Kois said she never explained her disappointment, if she had the review would have been far richer.<\/p>\n

\"Okay,<\/a>

Okay, here’s a close up of that Japanese dinner. Photo: Betsy Kepes<\/p><\/div>\n

Sprinkled throughout the three days of this conference are readings by famous and not-so-famous writers. I went to a panel where David Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars<\/i> and several other novels) and Erik Larson (The Devil in the White City<\/i>) read from their work and talked with a moderator. Guterson read new poetry and I have to say I would have preferred some of his prose. Larson read an excerpt from The Devil in the White City<\/i> which also seemed puzzling as he has written a few books since that one. They did better when they answered questions from a moderator. Both men live in Seattle and admitted that the gloomy, rainy weather of winter help them stay inside to write. When asked how he picked topics for his books, Larsen said he mopes around for almost a year after he finishes a book before he finally settles on a new subject. \u201cYou really have to feel trembling with enthusiasm,\u201d he said. If you\u2019re not that way at the beginning of a project, don\u2019t write that book.<\/p>\n

Before Annie Proulx\u2019s Keynote talk began at 8:30pm I had time to get tea and a sandwich at a Starbucks and take the long escalators up to the tenth floor of the public library to join quiet rows of people working on computers and doing research. The building is new and \u201cmodern\u201d with a roof of steep angles and a metal grid that makes it look like a giant waffle iron. It is obviously well-loved by the people of Seattle\u2014hundreds of library computers are available, along with a job search area and tables and chairs everywhere with people reading and working. Even at 7pm on a Thursday evening it was full of people.<\/p>\n

I made sure to get to the convention center Ballroom A-B-C early enough to get a good seat in the second row. Before the talk began I chatted with a woman from Vancouver Island, also at her first AWP conference. She went to university in Ottawa so we had some fun talking about that city.<\/p>\n

Just before 8:30pm a small cluster of people passed in front of us to sit in the front row. An older woman with shaggy gray hair and a limp caught my attention. Was it\u2026? Yes, Annie Proulx came to the podium after a funny introduction by a professor from the University of Washington. He compared Proulx\u2019s prose to the press comments given by the quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks.<\/p>\n

Years ago I read Proulx\u2019s first novels, Postcards<\/i> and The Shipping News<\/i>. The vivid writing drew me in to her world of flawed men and women who find, usually, a little happiness by the end of the book. Proulx\u2019s short story \u201cBrokeback Mountain\u201d became a very successful movie. I\u2019d highly recommend reading the short story, a tightly wound drama written with Proulx\u2019s distinctive \u201cmuscular\u201d prose. (That sounds a little ridiculous, but read the story and you\u2019ll see what I mean.)<\/p>\n

When Proulx began to read in a rich even voice it was a treat to hear a master at work. She was both profound and funny. Proulx read from a prepared text with her major theme \u201cwhy do we write\u201d? It\u2019s simple, she said, we write to communicate and the bound book was humanity\u2019s most important invention for 1500 years. Proulx is a master of one-line zingers. She said in recent years the number of readers has declined but the number of authors has \u201cviolently exploded\u201d with the rise of self-publishing.\u00a0 Book reviewers have always had only one qualification\u2014they are able to read.<\/p>\n

The crowd gave Proulx a standing ovation when she left the stage and the line was long at her book signing table. I had to skip the signing to catch a bus north to Lake City where I\u2019m staying with friends. After the ride and a short walk through a quiet neighborhood I\u2019m having a tough time falling asleep. My mind is still fizzing with the excitement of the day and it\u2019s worth a little insomnia.<\/p>\n

Coming next\u2014more workshops and Gretel Ehrlich and Barry Lopez, plus a special appointment at the Seattle library to view a rare volume of photographer Edward Curtis\u2019s twenty-volume masterpiece The North American Indian<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Our regional book reviewer, Betsy Kepes, is covering the Association of Writers and Writing Programs–AWP–Annual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9133"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22143,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9133\/revisions\/22143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}