Warren Wilson College

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Originally uploaded by Borareed.

Bora with Ed, Mahjka and Natalie

Grace

If I pay attention, I find that there are elements in each residency that accumulate and resonate throughout the week. I thank God for lightbulbs that have gone off in my head about omniscience, narrative form, ephiphanies, and language. My new supervisor, Adria, has been an important part of many of these insights. I'm thrilled to be working with her this semseter.

The other operative word this residency seem to be "grace." A fellow student asked me about it, it came up in my workshop and during. Writers are fascinated by mystery (Flannery O'Connor's words).

A quote from class today on the dearth of happy endings in the literary short story: "The sad story is our record, the occasional happy story, our prayer."

Essays and Workshops

I'm good to go on the essay--the faculty accepted the proposal with nary a comment. I'm relieved to have cleared that hurtle.

My story, "Helpmate," was discussed in workshop today. Workshops are funny. On the one hand, you submit your story because you know that you need help--you've taken a story to a certain point and need input to take it to the next level. Still, some primitive part of you just wants a big pat on the back. This workshop was some of both, and the faculty input was so smart (revelations and epiphany, surprise versus suspense), I took pages and pages of notes. I thanked them, then went out and ordered a margarita. Such is the nature of workshops. :)

Biscuits and Religious Sensibility

The Moosehead Cafe serves up homemade biscuits in the tradition of chips at a Mexican restaurant--they bring you a basket, you eat them. Then they bring your order, including biscuits. Then they refill the basket with...more biscuits. They were delicious and overwhelming. You may not recognize me when I return. I'll be the one rolling off the plane.

In workshop, faculty member David Shields commented on a fundamentalist Christian character in the story (not mine). He said that religous leaders, therapists and others who deal, in their own way, with life's big questions, are often portrayed negatively in literature. Such people are didactic in nature--they have answers--so if their voice is too strong, it tends to elbow out how the story itself is trying to deal with the very same issues: life, death, love, hope, loss.

After class, we had a short but interesting discussion about my experience looking at these questions via a faith-based lens (theology) and (now) a literary one. In a nutshell, I observed, religion is concerned with the answers to the human condition. Literature is more interested in exploring (filling out, nuancing, renaming) life's problems and questions.

Many writers are mystics in their own way. But they are vehmently opposed to organized religion. For them, art is faith. It occurrs to me that just as fundamentalist religious sentiment clamps down on ambiguity and questioning, modern day literati have nearly an equal, corresponding dislike of writing that presents too many answers. David Shields said that he even found some of Flannery O'Connor's stories too didactic. O'Connor would probably say, if you don't have a worldview--an opinion about good and evil, God and the fallenness of man--what the heck are you writing about???

Squirrels in Heat?

It's unseasonably warm here in the mountains of North Carolina. Warm enough to run in shorts and wear flip flops. Today I saw four squirrels running hither and yon, chasing each other across the lawn, up and down oak turnks and leaping off its branches. They moved so aggressively and chattered so loudly, I was a little freaked out. Wouldn't want to meet them in a dark alley. Why so many squirrels in motion? Isn't this the wrong season for squirrel love? But what else could it be? And what does one call a group of squirrels--herd, gaggle, pride, squad?

Tomorrow we (me and a couple of fiction buddies) may play hooky from the poetry lecture and go into town to the farmer's market to try cat's head biscuits (biscuits the size of a cat's head) and pinto beans with chow chow. Being here is not primarily about anthropological forays. On the other hand, why pass up a chance for genuine southern cooking? And how can ANYONE pass up something called cat's head biscuits? Two points if you know what chow chow is. Jonathan?

1:00 AM and Doing Homework--What am I? An Undergrad?!?

The days here are amazing and full and amazingly full. Today I heard lectures on 1) shifting narrative conciousness in Kafka, 2) anger in poetry 3) narrative texture and 4) intentionally veiled or evasive dialogue. I met with my new supervisor, had dinner in town with friends and hear four fabulous writing faculty read their stuff.

During past residencies, I've managed to run and read each day, pray a little and even write as inspiration hits. Compared with being a mom, the schedule is a piece of cake, I'd always say. But this is my essay semester, so there is another layer of deadlines and meetings on top of everything else. Right now, I'm working on drafting my essay proposal which I will go over with Adria, and which she will present to the rest of the faculty. Yes. All the fiction faculty have to approve the topic. My working title? "Modulations in Omniscience in Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop." Pretty exciting, eh? I'm hoping to sell the movie rights.

There's a fiction lecture first thing in the morning (given by my former supervisor, must not miss), but I plan to skip the poetry lecture and take a run, then nap (or visa versa). Hey, it's not so late. It's only 10:00 in California!

Just read your comments...

Hey, I just read your comments. Thanks for the encouragement Janet. Jonathan, I was more nervous about getting an advisor I didn't like than being told "no." The faculty have a long meeting where they discuss who will work with whom. So if anyone said "no," I would probably never know. Anyway, I like Adria a lot, so it all worked out. Thanks for asking.

Collin...the food? This is what you're most interested in?!? It's fine. The veteran students start heading into town for dinner early in the residency. The new students usually hang with the cafeteria until they can't stand it any longer (day 7 or so). I'm trying to be a happy medium--go out with friends but be frugal and healthy. By the way, Warren Wilson is a working farm, so they butcher their own beef, make their own yogurt and grow veggies. Which is all well and good. But tamale pie is tamale pie, no matter where they got the meat. On the other hand, especially given world events, I try and remember to be thankful for abundant food and shelter and not complain or say things like, "THIS is supposed to be CHINESE food?"

Speaking of food...has anyone read MY YEAR OF MEATS by Ozeki?

Bora meets her new supervisor!

Drum roll, please...This semseter, I will be working with Adria Bernardi, novelist, short story writer and translator of Italian poetry. I'm pleased with the match--she's one of the four people I requested, partly because of her emphasis on language and also because she is bilingual and may have insight into my stories that are either set in Korea or are about Koreans living in the US. This is my third semester, in which I am required to produce a critical essay (50 pp) on a particular craft issue. Her main job will be to help me with that, but I hope to get it out of the way as quickly as possible and come back to ficiton writing. Ahhhhh...the pre-semester-who-will-I-work-with-this-time anxiety is now a distant memory. And we're off and running with semester 3.

The students who are entering this semester are diverse in age, background and (more than usual) ethnicity. On the fiction side, I've met a woman who has led rock and mountain climbing expeditions all over the world, a man who just defended his dissertation from the Harvard school of public health and a woman who made a living acting on the Guiding Light. People are here from all over the US, but also from Spain and Switzerland. I guess I shouldn't grumble too much about having to travel fom the west coast.

For you writing types: the most interesting lecture today was about authenticity in fiction. Not "truth" in the sense of "did this really happen?" OR doing sufficient research, but the elements that make the reader believe that the story is authentic, "truthful," makes them say, "Okay, I buy this." Whether it is about working in a fast food place or logging in the 18th century or Black people owning slaves (as in The Known World by Edward P. Jones) or farming on Mars, for that matter, what makes a story believable? If any of these topics are of great interest to you, we can order a CD of the lecture for $8. Or I can dig out my notes when I see you. Off to bed. Zzzzzzz.....