Readings…

So as I find myself in the early stages of my third semester in Spalding University’s MFA in Writing program, it seems an appropriate time to take a cue from a fellow Spalding student and friend Colleen Harris and share with you readers my cumulative bibliography to date. It is copied below, and I ask you to feel free to make suggestions about things I have not yet read that perhaps I should – especially in the genre of creative nonfiction, which is what I’m finishing my degree in. This includes memoir, essays, and the like.

To be clear, these are only books I’ve read and absorbed since beginning the MFA program a little more than a year ago, so it is certainly conceivable that you might suggest something I’ve already read, but I welcome any suggestion anyone has. Really. I mean it.

Meanwhile, I’m hard at work at my extended critical essay, or ECE in Spalding parlance, and am actually enjoying composing it quite a bit. It’s about how yearning compels empathy and action in memoir. I’ll let you know when I’m done.

Here’s the list:

Buckley, Christopher. No Way to Treat a First Lady: A Novel. New York: Random House, 2003.
---. Supreme Courtship: A Novel. New York: Twelve, 2008.
Butler, Robert Olen. From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction. Ed. Janet Burroway. New York: Grove, 2005.
Carver, Raymond. “Cathedral.” Cathedral: Stories. New York: Vintage-Random House, 1984. 209-228.
Conroy, Frank. Body & Soul: A Novel. New York: Delta-Random House, 1993.
---. Stop-Time: A Memoir. New York: Penguin, 1997.
DeLillo, Don. Falling Man: A Novel. New York: Scribner, 2007.
Didion, Joan. The Year of Magical Thinking. New York: Knopf, 2005.
Driskell, Kathleen. Seed Across Snow: A Collection of Poems. Los Angeles: Red Hen, 2009.
Ellroy, James. My Dark Places: An L.A. Crime Memoir. New York: Vintage-Random House, 1997.
Emerson, Claudia. Late Wife: Poems. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 2005.
Finch, Robert. The Iambics of Newfoundland: Notes from an Unknown Shore. New York: Counterpoint, 2007.
Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines. New York: Quill-HarperCollins, 2003.
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6th ed. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2003.
Goodman, Richard. French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France. Chapel Hill: Algonquin, 2002.
---. The Soul of Creative Writing. New Brunswick: Transaction, 2008.
Gorman, Jacquelin. The Seeing Glass: A Memoir. New York: Riverhead, 1998.
Herr, Michael. Dispatches. New York: Vintage International-Random House, 1991.
Holloway, Monica. Driving With Dead People: A Memoir. New York: Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2007.
Iyer, Pico. Sun After Dark: Flights Into the Foreign. New York: Vintage-Random House, 2004.
Jones, Edward P. Lost in the City: Stories. New York: Amistad-HarperCollins, 2003.
Katz, Jon. A Dog Year: Twelve Months, Four Dogs, and Me. New York: Random House, 2003.
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor, 1995.
Le Guin, Ursula K. Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew. Portland: Eight Mountain, 1998.
Lisberger, Jody. Remember Love: Stories. Louisville: Fleur-de-Lis, 2008.
McClure, Tori Murden. A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean. New York: Collins, 2009.
McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York: ReganBooks-HarperCollins, 1997.
Moehringer, J.R. The Tender Bar: A Memoir. New York: Hyperion, 2005.
Moffett, James and Kenneth R. McElheny, eds. Points of View: An Anthology of Short Stories. New York: Mentor, 1995.
Monsoon Wedding. Screenplay by Sabrina Dhawan. Dir. Mira Nair. Mirabai Films, 2001.
Oates, Joyce Carol, ed. The Best American Essays of the Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
Obama, Barack. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Rev. ed. New York: Three Rivers, 2004.
O’Brien, Tim. In the Lake of the Woods. New York: Penguin, 1995.
---. The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.
Patchett, Ann. Bel Canto: A Novel. New York: Harper-Perennial, 2005.
---. The Patron Saint of Liars: A Novel. New York: Harper-Perennial, 2007.
---. Run: A Novel. New York: Harper-Perennial, 2008.
---. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship. New York: Harper-Perennial, 2005.
Tolle, Eckhart. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. New York: Plume-Penguin, 2006.
Truss, Lynne. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. New York: Gotham, 2006.
Wolff, Tobias. This Boy’s Life: A Memoir. New York: Grove, 1989.
Wood, James. How Fiction Works. New York: Farrar, 2008.

I can't seem to figure out how to get things underlined in this blog, alas... please understand that all titles are underlined in my official cumulative biography. Same goes for the hanging indentation that doesn't translate when I copy here. LOL...

Namaste.

MFA Residency – Day 2

It is now Saturday night, May 23rd, nearly 9:00 pm and the end of the first full day of residency here at Spalding University’s brief-residency MFA in Writing Program. The day was, well, in a word: long. And, this is not just according to me. I heard it time and again from students and faculty members alike. It was also: terrific, exciting, exhilarating, and inspirational.

That’s kind of what residency is all about. We are thrust into the company of a number of writers in all sorts of genres with varied interests, lives, talents, and ways of looking at the world. Today was the first day of workshop and the first full day of lectures and readings and sharing meals together. Some are down in the lobby of the Brown Hotel right this moment sharing a beer or a glass of wine or – given that we are in Kentucky, after all – a glass of fine bourbon. (I will join them there soon!)

The final event of this day was the first installment of Spalding’s Festival of Contemporary Writing, featuring six faculty members reading from new and/or recent work. Dianne Aprile, Greg Pape, Jody Lisberger, Ellie Bryant, Philip Deaver, and Mary Waters each read this evening and each was positively delightful in their own particular ways. What a pleasure (and inspiration) to hear such magnificent work from these faculty mentors (many of whom I’ve worked with and/or come to know over the past year).

Tomorrow we’re at it again and I, for one, can hardly wait.

Namaste.