Good Books for Teachers Cont...

Certain stories are useful to us because they show young writers a new way to relate events. Such a story is "Conversations with an Absent Lover on a Beachless Afternoon" by Ana Castillo.

The story is simple: A love affair has just ended, and the woman is looking back -- not just at the affair, but at her whole life.

Instead of using a series of flashbacks, Castillo has the female character write 35 short one-sided conversations to the ex lover. He has left and this is what she has to say to him. It begins like this:

I can assure you that the last thing I want to do is scare you off, away, further than you are going already to go because you, in your own words, are just starting your life, and I, by my own account, am half way done. It is not my intention to stop you. No one stopped me, try as he -- or she -- might. I kept moving, like a shark, in one concentrated direction. No, never has anyone stopped me. Nor can anything, short of death.

In some, she talks about the love affair. In others she talks about her traditional Mexican-American mother and her not-so-dependable father. Each of these conversations adds to our knowledge of what has happened to make her a woman who knows exactly why she had an affair with a younger man, why it ended, and why she feels no remorse.

If you read the story, you might ask your students to write a story that begins after something has ended -- a friendship, a job. Tell the story through one person's imaginary conversation with another. Tell not only the story of the ending, but of what led up to it.

Conversations with an Absent Lover on a Beachless Afternoon, by Ana Castillo can be found at http://seadeeper.com/shortstories/conversations.php

Loverboys: Stories
Ana Castillo
ISBN-10 - 0393039595, W. W. Norton & Company; 1st ed edition (1996)

New Chicago Stories
Fred Gardaphe
ISBN 0-9627425-0-3, City Stoop Press (1990)

Bibliographic Guide to Chicana and Latina Narrative:
by Kathy S. Leonard
ISBN-10: 0313319871, Praeger Publishers (2003)

April, 2008

INVENTING THE TRUTH, THE ART AND CRAFT OF MEMOIR, edited by William Zinsser
In this unique collection, memoir writers Russell Baker, Jill Ker Conway, Annie Dillard, Ian Frazier, Henry Lous Gates, Jr., Alfred Kazin Frank McCourt, Toni Morrison, and Eileen Simpson explain "how they sorted out their memories and their emotions and arrived at a version of their past that they felt was true."

This would be terrific for a nonfiction unit or for starting you to think about your own memoirs. You're going to want to read the memoirs by these people. My favorite is THE ROAD FROM COORAIN by JILL Ker Conway. You're also going to want to read ON WRITING WELL and other books by Zinsser.

THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES series. A yearly volume published by Houghton Mifflin. I like to use this in class. The stories are good; the author bios with story explanations are often revealing; and the introductions are extremely useful. The list of publications at the back is useful for aspiring authors.

If you have not read or reread SO LONG SEE YOU TOMORROW by William Maxwell (Ballantine Books), do it NOW. I just finished it for 8th time, and I can't imagine a book any more valuable for the creative writing teacher.

It's a murder story and much more. An elderly person who was indirectly involved in the crime and who still feels guilty about his actions at the time narrates it. Obviously then, this novel will show your students how crucial the selection of the point of view can be. Maxwell also demonstrates how well flashbacks can work if handled skillfully because the narrator moves effortlessly back and forth through time. And by carrying so much information about central Illinois 90 years ago, he demonstrates that a novel can be historical even if it's not historical fiction. Finally in his handling of theme, Maxwell proves what my teacher at the U. of Wisconsin meant when he said, "You can theme a flesh, but you can't flesh a theme." In other words the message emerges from the story; it is not imposed on the story. This book carries a huge message, but Maxwell is not sermonizing, he's story telling.

But the next time I read this novel in one of my classes, I will hold back on this teachy stuff and just let the students become as excited as I am. We'll read on our own (it's short) and then savor all those moments and marvel at the choices Maxwell makes to pull it off. I will then ask my students what they can learn about writing from all of this. And finally, I will recommend that they read his short stories.

"Figures of Speech: 60 Ways to Turn a Phrase by Arthur Quinn" (A Perigrine Smith Book). As writing teachers you might not need to know the meaning of apocote, aporia, auxesis, or abusio, but you might enjoy finding out. Good stuff here for a group activity.

"Their Ancient Glittering Eyes" by Donald Hall. Wonderfully intelligent and thoughtful profiles of Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, T. S. Eliot, Archibald MacLeish, Yvor Winters, Marianne Moore, and Ezra Pound. Hall, one of our greatest living poets, spent time with all of these people, and although he is probably thought of more as a poet, he can certainly turn out the prose.

"Poets and Writers" March April issue. This issue has many strong articles. I especially "The Rilke Trail," "The Importance of Place." I also read, with great interest, an article titled "A Rant Against Creative Writing Classes."

Here's what Fanny Zeddies has to say about a creative writing classic: Creative Power by Hughes Mearns.

"Haircut" by Ring Lardner
An old favorite. A barber in a small town in the early part of the 20th century tells us (we're sitting in the barber chair) about a town character named Jim Kendall. We get a general picture of why Jim was such a "card." Then we find out how he died, and unlike the barber, we can see exactly what happened. For years, I have read this with students and then asked them to write a story narrated by someone who doesn't "get it." The results are always good. Like so many great short stories, this has a strong sense of place. Read this and you understand small town life more clearly. Along with dramatic irony and place description, this is a fine example of dialect.

January, 2008

STONER by John Williams
This novel, which takes place in the early part of the century, it's a straight forward account of the life of a professor at the University of Missouri. Many think it's one of the greatest American novels. I agree.

It's sad and slow, but unusually exciting. How Williams maintains suspense is intriguing. There are many plausible outcomes. The scenes are strong. Any number of place descriptions could be used as models. The book is gloomy, but not maudlin . It's great for what it does not have as for what it has.

I have not used this in class, but I have recommended it

Edna O'Brien
Lately I have been reading and rereading short stories by Edna O'Brien.. As far as as I'm concerned, she's as good as it gets. Like the stories of Alice Munro and William Trevor hers leave me moved in a way no other fiction does. The writing is controlled; the descriptions are consistently sharp. (I know more about Irish rural life than I ever could in a nonfiction book) But, above all, they are stories, not exercises. The outcome is in doubt until the end. She makes me appreciate what theme really means because her stories say so much about what really matters.

Some authors are valuable for creative writing teachers because they give so many examples to our students. Others, like O'Brien, are valuable because they inspire us to write and to teach.

I plan to keep adding books. I hope you can help me out.