I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you all that tonight, Oct. 10, at 7 p.m., I will be at the Fairfield University Bookstore (that’s the former Borders) in downtown Fairfield to talk about, read from and sign copies of my book, Beware the Hawk.
I hope you come to see me.
A few weeks ago, I sat down with Alex McNab, a novelist and journalist who writes for the Fairfield Writer’s Blog, to talk about revision and drink caffeinated beverages. McNab began reading The Garret a year and a half ago when I began revising my novel, and – since he’s revising his own novel – he was interested in knowing more about my process.
His post about our chat went up this morning. I am so excited about it, and I hope you check it out.
We talked about re-typing work, when to look at notes from writing workshop during the revision process, strengthening prose, and returning to written work after a long time.
I should disclaim here: This is just my process of revision, and it’s an ever-evolving mishmash of ideas and tips I’ve picked up from members of writing groups, books I’ve read and professors I’ve had.
Linsey Jayne and Erin Corriveau, founders of Spry Literary Magazine.
(Photo by James McCready.)
On Monday, I had the pleasure of g-chatting with Erin Corriveau and Linsey Jayne, the founders of Spry, a brand new literary journal.
I know both Erin and Linsey from our MFA program, and I was intrigued by their mentions on Facebook and Twitter of a new literary magazine dedicated to brief literature.
As someone who naturally writes short, I really wanted to find out more, and so I asked them for an interview. After g-chatting with them for an hour, I’m excited about their project, which will showcase short, powerful pieces of writing, and I hope all the writers who read this blog will be as well.
Below is the interview, which is divided into three parts with page breaks. Click through, and enjoy!
Editor’s note: The following interview was conducted over the internet and has been edited. Lols have been removed, g-chat typos have been corrected, and for the sake of clarity, some sections of the interview have been moved around.
(Also, the ladies make reference to a “Third Semester Project.” That’s an academic project that Fairfield University makes its MFA students do in order to obtain their degree.)
What is Spry?
A
J: So tell me about Spry. What distinguishes Spry from the other journals out there? What’s your vision for this publication?
Erin: Well, Linsey and I both studied “short” or “brief” literature during our third semester projects and we also really respect how well words are used when the space is limited. I’d say that what distinguishes Spry from other journals is the dedication we have to concise yet well-done writing.
AJ: So all the pieces in Spry are going to be super-brief?
Linsey: Yeah, we want to reward the bravery and power and experimentation that exists in shorter forms.
Erin: Ditto to LJ, that being said though….We’ve seen a lot of poetry that is concise to a fault (even though I wouldn’t really want to put it that way) I think we have a lot of poets sending us work that is quite sparse… While we don’t want epic poems, we also aren’t only searching for haikus.
AJ: That’s pretty cool. For short-form work, I’ve seen a lot of flash fiction journals, but not so many cross-genre journals dedicated to the short form. You’re accepting a few different genres, right?
Linsey: We sure are! We’re accepting submissions in creative nonfiction, short fiction, flash fiction and poetry.
Sorry. Flash anything, not just fiction.
Erin: Yes, and…. flash creative nonfiction too.
On Brevity:
AJ: This might seem like a silly question, but what’s the difference between flash and short fiction or non-fiction? Is there a word count cutoff? How does it work?
Erin: We had many discussions about this.
Technically Linsey is the expert here. I can say, though, that for our journal, fiction and creative nonfiction must be under 2500 words for the “normal genre” and then for the Flash category, all fiction and creative nonfiction must be under 750 words.
I don’t know if Linsey wants to speak more to how we came up with those numbers or anything, but I can say there was a lot of discussion…. and also a lot of forgetting what number we chose.
Linsey: I can if you’d like – in my Third Semester Project, I studied the superfine lines that exist between prose poetry and flash fiction (and flash fiction / short fiction), and while more often than not this is something that is dictated by the presentation of content, most publications seem to consider flash fiction as being around 750 words. Sometimes it’s a bit longer, no longer than 1,000 usually. So since our passions were driven by the shorter, more agile work of the economy of words, we stuck to the shorter end of that spectrum. And when I say flash fiction, again, I just mean flash prose.
Next section: Submitting to Spry, Issue One and Naming Spry
Hello, hello! Just a quick post to make some announcements.
Come see me in Fairfield next Wednesday!
A week from today (Wedensday, Oct. 10 at 7 p.m.) , I will be at the Fairfield University bookstore downtown Fairfield to discuss and read from Beware the Hawk. If you’re in the area, come see me! I will be signing books and everything. And if you want a saw in what I will talk about about that evening, you can have one! Vote below.
[polldaddy poll=6532091].
Interview with the editors of Spry Literary Journal.
Are you a writer? Do you write short? Boy, do I have a post for you! Later this week I will be posting an interview with the founders of Spry, a brand spanking new journal dedicated to the short form. I talked to them on Monday (Because we’re all hip and happening ladies, we did the interview via G-Chat) and I’m putting my post together this week. Check back to read an engaging interview and for the inside track on Spry.
Some changes ’round here
If you look at my blog on Tuesday nights, you might see some strange things happening in my sidebar, or even on the main page. (Like a link to my friend Alena’s blog under a category called “Link-a-Licious” in my sidebar.) That’s because I teach a blogging class on Tuesday nights and I use my blog as an example and sometimes, as a guinea pig. So that’s what’s up there. I haven’t lost my mind. Not yet.
UPDATE: Fellow bloggers, I have removed my Blogroll page. All my links are now in the sidebar. Some of my links are now gone – I removed a group of blogs that haven’t been updated in a very long time. But no worries, I will be changing up the links frequently.
October is here, and with it, weather that definitely feels like fall and not some watered-down version of summer, which is basically September’s jam, amirite?
Despite the balmy weather of the last four weeks – which would normally lure me out of the house and away from my office – September brought on a stiffer work ethic than what I experienced in August.
Now, without further ado, before I light a fire in the grate, put on a sweater, and make some applesauce, let’s review what I accomplished in the last month.
As always, if you’re not interested, let me direct you to YouTube. Please rock out to this song , which describes the state of our furnace from this week until April.
On to the goals:
Finish the second draft of my novel by April (September.) Despite the fact that I’ve spent a large part of my time on another project, I’ve been making progress on draft two of the novel. Will it be ready by the end of the year? Maybe not. But it will be substantially done and that’s something.
Get it sent to agents before summer. It could happen.
Send out at least three short stories. I’ve sent out one short story, to a contest, which I think brings my sending-out-of-stories count to two. And this might not count, but I’m sending out chapters of my novel to two contests.
Read one two novels a month in 2012. Done! I’ve met my goal of reading 24 novels in a year, rounding out my total with classics like Revolutionary Road, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and Anna Karenina, (which really ought to count as three books.)
I’m not done though. This fall I’m tackling the books written by my friends and colleagues. Last night I finished David Fitzpatrick’s memoir, Sharp, and I’m now reading Nick Knittel’s collection of short stories, Good Things, which came out last week. David and Nick both went to Fairfield University’s MFA program with me, and actually, I’ve read some of Nick’s stories in workshop, so it’s exciting to see them in book form.
Also on the nightstand: The Whipping Club by MFA alum Deb Henry and Twilight of the Drifter by family friend and prolific author Shelly Frome.
I haven’t read with this kind of abandon since I was in high school. It’s been wonderful.
Make at least $20 off a piece of fiction. Done in March. I got my first royalties in July. I can confirm that I made more than $20.
Other goals: I also set to work on two of my big conflicts this year: My feelings about my faith and my issues with anxiety. I don’t really know what to day about these right now.
I’ve made up my mind about my own faith, but still face a dilemma about religion.
As far as anxiety goes, September always brings more stress with it. Some of that is habit and some of it is a teaching thing. I don’t think I’ve made any progress in dealing with it, but I do think I’ve managed the stress well this past month.