Everything's Prose-erific

Now that we've reserved her hotel room, we have to believe that, indeed, Francine Prose is coming to Denver on September 30 to be our next Writer's Studio guest. The author of so many books I can't even order them all, Prose has already dazzled me with her willingness to take on any subject--from the academic PC culture to skinheads--and push beyond the cliché of it to find what's really interesting. When you think Blue Angel, for example, think Humbert Humbert, only he lusts after talented writers instead of pre-pubescent nymphs. And turn it around so that the object of his affection is a writer who's stealing his own life story for her novel... well, it's a helluva lot more interesting than another dirty-old-professor-afraid-of-death yarn.

You can tell the woman's brainy, and so as not to intimidate with her mental faculties, she's funny as sin. And full of interesting advice, such as this (from the Atlantic's Web site, which you can no longer access without a subscription, which seems like a terrible shame--almost as bad as the Atlantic leaving Boston and no longer publishing monthly fiction):

I used to tell my students to write every day, but I no longer say that. It turns out to be destructive advice. You tell people to write every day and they're consumed with guilt when they don't. So forget that. I do tell people to be careful about whom they show their work to in its early stages. It must be someone you trust, who has your best interest at heart. Reading constantly and carefully is also very important. Finally, be observant. Watch what's going on around you. Listen to people. You need to listen to people's voices, to how they tell their stories.

Of her work as an editor at the (sadly) defunct mag Doubletake, which also underscores the poetic justice of her surname: My experience as a writer affects my work as an editor more than the other way around. I'm a maniac about sentences and sentence structure and how things are written -- I'll rewrite something a zillion times until it shows some improvement. I expect that same meticulousness from what I'm reading and what I want to publish. I know how important and difficult careful writing is, so I think, Look, if I'm going to work that hard, everybody else ought to as well.

And one more little ditty. Living with a poet, I can appreciate the distinction she’s making:

I think poets are much more dramatic, more theatrical than fiction writers. Poets and fiction writers cannot have the same habits. If you're working on a novel you work every day. As Flaubert said, it's a life that requires bourgeois habits. I can't imagine -- although the minute I say I can't imagine something, I usually find out that it happened -- a memorial service for a fiction writer in which people are throwing themselves on the coffin.

She's coming, everyone, so get ready now. Start reading all the Prose you can get your hands on! (Pun intended.) Oh, and save Saturday and Sunday, September 30 & October 1, for the woman herself.

--AD

The real milagro

was that any of us could talk intelligently about The Milagro Beanfield War at all, given that only one or two folks who attended our lecture on "Fiction Lessons from the Milagro Beanfield War" had read it in the last 20 years. Sadly, the instructor (moi) was in the same boat, but I did a very close read of the first 70 (of 470+) pages (some of the pages re-read upwards of 20 times as I continually forgot where I was). We were still able to come up with some things to steal and think about, including: (1) the up-and-down-the-scale tone and diction shifts that accommodate a novel about a multifaceted, multilayered community; (2) the use of an omniscient narrator as a ballsy way to capture community as character; and (3) something about character? The hit of the day may have been the woman who wrote from a child's perspective about how many pills Auntie took to get some rest (you know who you are) as well as a guy writing about a bearded man nicknamed the Captain who takes too much to heart. Oh, and the uncomfortable lunch scene featuring a woman looked down upon by her father-in-law; or any of the myriad others that came out of that writing jam. Thanks, all, for a memorable afternoon. --ad

Francine Brings Class Wherever She Goes

After an eventful, heartening, laugh-packed weekend with Francine Prose, we're all on Prose withdrawal. She came in with a huge brain and generous spirit, and left with her indispensable book, Reading Like a Writer, hiking up the local bestseller list. (I'd be surprised if it wasn't number one by next week, although some of the sales venues don't report to the list, so maybe not.) This was helped by the lovely fact that the Rocky came through! Have I mentioned that Lighthouse now LOVES the Rocky? Book lovers everywhere should subscribe ASAP, or at least pick up that Friday paper. They've even tapped Chris Ransick to pick up a blog on their books site. More to come on that. Talking to Francine before her event on Sunday at a local coffee shop, she expressed bafflement at a review she'd seen in another Denver paper about a new book. The review talked about how it's all about the language and how beautiful it is. At the end of the review, there were four or five quotations that were supposed to support this thesis. Not so, says Prose. "They're awful! They're some chest-thumping cliches." On another front, it was generally decided that all the truisms and rules trotted out in writing classes (not Lighthouse workshops, though, as we trot only opinions--ha) should be forgotten post haste, as Cheever doesn't abide them, nor does Mansfield, and we would all be best to be like Cheever and Mansfield in that way if not others. (I'm trying others as well, except the writing in my skivvies thing.) Francine said something to me over coffee that morning that stayed with me: "The idea is to be revolutionary. You really want to do something that no one’s done before. " Easy when you've got her brain and talent. It was great seeing you all this weekend. This will be tough to top. --ad

More Evidence of a Prosey Universe

Her argument for growing up: NPR'syou've got to read this.

See you all at her Writer's Studio and Reading to Write Seminar.

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