Bread Loaf

…from his marvelous short story collection The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards over at Lively Words

Saturday, August 15, 2009 I barely made it to breakfast. While the waiters were lifting up the hot trays of eggs I was grabbing frantically for a hard-boiled egg and some plain oatmeal before they whisked everything away. On the plus side, when I went to wolf down my food, I ended up sitting right across from Julie Barer, agent extraordinaire, and we had a lovely chat. She did a great job of selling my friend Ru’s gorgeous debut novel A Disobedient Girl. And no, I didn’t do anything to pitch my work. We’ve met before at Bread Loaf and spoken about my work. She’s seen my first collection (the now-published one) and passed on it a few years ago, subsequent queries have not interested her, so no need to push that on our quick social interaction. I think agents must get terribly tired of always being pitched. She would have asked if she were interested–this is Bread Loaf, after all, and she is here as a scout. Rushed to the 9AM lecture then, and I’m glad I did. It was Patricia Hampl’s “You’re History or How to Get the Me out of Memoir.” It was an excellent lecture/reading and she’s quite funny and charming. We’ve been having moth troubles for speakers at the podium this year and she kept battling with a particularly pesky one, at one point saying, “I. Want. You. To. Die,” through gritted teeth. Then she cheerfully looked out at the audience and said, “When you go to a Catholic retreat, they give you bug repellent. A Zen retreat, no repellent. That’s why I’m Catholic.” The audience laughed. As the bugging continued, a woman from the audience came up and put a paper towel (or something) on Patricia’s shoulder and said, “It will keep the bugs away.” Patricia then looked out at the audience sort of helplessly and said in a small voice, “I don’t want it,” as she dragged it off her shoulder. “I’ve got a look I’m going for here…” she added. It was a funny moment, and not at the expense of the woman who had put that dingy paper towel on her shoulder. The whole reading gave you a real sense of her as a likable, generous person. At 2:30, I attended Frances de Pontes Peebles’s craft workshop on The Benefits of Telling. It was a good class, with a nice, easy atmosphere of sharing information. I like seeing how different people teach. The Fellow readers were Vicki Forman (NF), Leslie Harrison (Poetry) and Skip Horack (Fiction). I enjoyed them all. Dinner was served outdoors, picnic-style, to give the waiters a...

Friday, August 14, 2009 The morning lecture was with Thomas Mallon, titled, “Epistler in Chief: Six Presidents in Their Letters.” He is such an engaging speaker, charming and funny and composed. I always love hearing him speak. And his topic was fascinating—presidential letters and diaries. Something that we (sadly) won’t have anymore because the concerns of subpoena and litigation are so real these days that presidents don’t dare keep diaries or write personal letters. Mallon started the lecture with a funny anecdote about revisions. Said he had already revised his title (to five presidents—to fit the time constraints) and cited a Mel Brooks gag where Moses arrives with a stack of three stone tablets and says, “The Fifteen Commandments!”—then shuffles his grip causing one tablet to fall to the ground and shatter—so he calls out, “The Ten Commandments!” I loved the intimate glimpse into the lives of these great men from history. Oh, and the one thing that really stuck with me was when Mallon spoke about telegrams and their forced pithiness and quick delivery as being very much like the emails or even text messages of today. We tend to think that we’re the only generation to have this method of “instant delivery” and of “terse messages” meant to convey as much as possible in as few words as possible. That really woke me up in an “of course!” sort of way that will be useful when writing my historical novel. Later, I attended a panel on publishing prose with Miriam Altschuler and Julie Barer (both agents), Fiona McCrae (Graywolf) and Judy Clain (Little Brown), both editors. It was interesting and enlightening, although also confirmed a lot of what I feel I already know about the publishing and agenting process. Much was said about how important a good agent is for an author both in terms of career and sales. There were three Fellow readings in the afternoon. The readings were enjoyable, and also instructive—especially in terms of things I want to remember to do when I read (be personable, make eye contact, thank the host). For dinner I had the veggie option: grilled veggies in a curried coconut milk sauce over basmati rice. A little spicy, but just the right amount, followed by a yummy dessert (squares of cake that had been cut into triangles, and half iced with chocolate, half with a caramel icing and then and reassembled into a square for a sort of yin-yang effect) and coffee. The waiters gave great service—really knew what they were doing and didn’t look nervous. Perhaps this means more aspiring writers these days are having to wait tables...

Bread Loaf, August 13, 2009 Should I make a disclaimer here? That I adore Bread Loaf and maybe I’m not the most unbiased reporter of happenings from the Mountain? Nah. If you didn’t know that about me already, you’ll figure it out soon enough. 🙂 This is my first time returning to Bread Loaf in three years and I’m honored to be back, and thrilled (if a little nervous) to be teaching a craft class during my visit. But I have to say, the first moment I topped the long hill of Rt 125 and spied those goldenrod colored houses, well, I got a little verklempt. Then I stopped in at the office said hello to the very fine Noreen Cargill and her lovely back-office staffers Eva, Michelle, and Laura (van den Berg) and major hugs were in order. I was barely in time to catch the end of Lorri Moore’s reading (what I heard was excellent) and then all of C. K. Williams. I wasn’t familiar with his poetry, but I thought he gave a great reading and I’m going to look for his book in the bookstore. It was cool when he said he had been here when he was in his twenties, met Robert Frost, and was honored to be reading in the Little Theater. After that was the welcome reception, with cocktails on Treman Lawn, where I couldn’t stop finding excellent friends to hug: Ru Freeman, Paul Austin, Sasha West, James Hall, Kirsten Menger-Anderson, Jim Ruland, Heidi Durrow, and more. It was amazing to be back in one of my very favorite places, seeing friends that I hadn’t seen for years. Ahhh, the community of writers, my tribe. From there, we went to dinner (I had the grilled salmon with a yummy cilantro and tomatillo salsa on top. I could hardly remember to eat, though, so enamored I was to be meeting new friends (Mecca!) and virtual friends (Dolan!) and former fellow-staffers (Nina!) and generally catching up with all the others I haven’t seen nearly enough of over the years. It was like a grand family reunion. After dinner, there was a kick-ass reading by Lynn Freed (no surprise) and Alan Shapiro (also no surprise). Lynn’s story (can’t remember the title of it or if she even told us the title) was one she said she wrote especially for an anthology. Of course she read impeccably in her lilting and lovely South African tinged voice. The story rocked my world and I’m still thinking about it. It was about a young girl found wild in the bush, possibly raised by baboons and how she is...

Hey, I found my notes! And it only took two weeks. Anyway, Mark Doty’s lecture was titled “Whitman in Tears” and was born of an essay he wrote for Virginia Quarterly Review on the anniversary of the publication of Leaves of Grass. The first thing Doty discussed was the poetic tone in of Leaves of Grass. It was very much a voice of confidence and intimacy (an “I know you” voice) and it was a revolutionary way of speaking to readers. Who dares to speak in this way? was the reaction of many. The first publication of Leaves of Grass was a volume that Whitman self-published (at age 36, although photos of him at that time show him looking quite grizzled). He didn’t even put his name on it. When Mark said this, the audience laughed, as if it was a show of Whitman’s ego. But I understood it as a lack of ego–like potters who choose not to sign the bottoms of their pots. Lots of famous Japanese potters did this and it was to show that they were part of the culture…that they were one with the world of art and the act of creation. It’s actually a very complex concept to try to describe, but it was clear to me along the lines of “I, as creator, am nothing. I am merely the conduit for this greater force: creativity.” And I understand this feeling all too well. it’s like that third essence of writing that I mentioned before, the “Where the hell did that come from?” part. Anyway, Whitman is the father of the wholly American vernacular and used words like “luckier” “stuck up” and “foo-foo” in his poems–unheard of before him. He wanted to speak like an everyman and wished for the widest possible scope of public intimacy. “You” is his most used word. Doty said Whitman communicates with his readers “lip-to-ear.” Also important to understanding Whitman, is to examine the culture of the times in which he lived. The 1850’s was a really pivotal time in America. There was a whole industry of healing just coming into being: the TB sanitoriums in upstate NY that represented the healing powers of nature; the “science” of phrenology, wherein the bumps on your head could tell a phrenologist what ails you, and even change as you heal; the rise of the cereal empires of Post and Kellogg, who also opened their own vast health-spas that regulated all aspects of diet and exercise as a way to cleanse and cure the body of its many afflictions. It was also the beginning of the self-actualization movement and Whitman represented...

Day 11 was the final day of fiction workshop. It was my turn to be workshopped, and going last was a new experience for me. The last two years I was the first to be critiqued. As “Akers” I am often expected to go first. In grade school, I would be the first to answer “here” in morning roll call (in High School Lisa Agee beat me out), the first to do whatever painful thing the gym teacher would make us do, the first to have to see the nurse for the scoliosis test, the first to get my report card…always first. But I’m all about equal opportunity, even when it comes to firstness, so I was happy to go last this time. The personal advantage for me, meant that on the last day when I was exhausted and my brain was mush, I’d only have to read and comment on one story since the other one was mine. I’ve also thought a lot about the workshop experience–the dynamic, if you will, and I realized that it changes over time. The advantage to going first is that everyone is fresh and gives your work a really careful read. The disadvantage is that they are often still tentative in their comments. The dynamic of going last is reversed: everyone is really comfortable with one another, but they’re often worn out by story number ten. I have to say, though, that my group was really coherent and generous right to the end. I got some great comments, compliments, and suggestions. It’s the best workshop group I’ve attended at Bread Loaf. At the end of the workshop, we presented a bottle of wine to Ursula and a card that we had all signed (the day before, at the Gala Reception and also that morning, furtively, for those who hadn’t been at the reception). She lifted the bottle out of its wrappings and said, “Oh, Chardonnay, my favorite! How did you know?” I smiled and said, “I’ve been serving you all week.” It was a funny moment. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the day before, at the Gala Reception, Ursula had told me that she wanted to nominate my story for Best New American Voices, which was a wonderful surprise. Of course, Bread Loaf can only nominate two (total) from the conference and each workshop leader nominates two, so I may not even get past that first cut, but it’s still nice to be asked to the dance. I was allowed to revise the story, based on the workshop comments, but since that was on the last day, I had less...