In no particular order and for no particular reason:
community college English instructor
adjunct university instructor
newspaper reporter and entertainment writer
newspaper copy editor
newspaper book reviewer
bridge caddy
substitute teacher -- all grades
independent telephone-book delivery man (two days)
courier
landscaping and sprinkler-installation worker
high-school journalism teacher
technical editor
scholarly journal editor
summer camp counselor, bus driver, rock-climbing teacher, and adventure director
newsletter editor
freelance magazine writer
video script writer
Miller's Outpost seasonal employee
public relations writer
unpaid wedding photographer (beginning at age 10, when I took Polaroid photos at my mom's second wedding ... exactly one photo came out).
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Quicksilver Literary Magazine
The first issue of Quicksilver, which I help to edit, is now live. Here’s the link:
http://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=55407
http://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=55407
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Writers as "Experience Junkies"
A few years ago, a friend of mine characterized writers as "experience junkies." Her point at the time was that writers tend to be self-destructive in pursuing relationships, vices, and other singular interests without giving enough consideration to the consequences of these actions. A writer might start a fist fight or date someone he doesn't particularly like just because these can be interesting ways to pass the time. This is the Jack London and Ernest Hemingway school of writing, and while it may be a cliche, it raises intriguing questions about the need of a writer to see and experience the world in order to be able to write about it.
Although most writers are not "type A" personalities and do not require excessive adrenaline stimulation to be happy, they might follow these self-destructive paths simply for the value of the experience. Writers are not known for being particularly happy, after all, so why shouldn't they at least experience interesting things? The idea is to suffer and take good notes while suffering.
I'm not sure I subscribe to this way of thinking. At any rate, I'm sure I'm not self-destructive in the same way that so many of these famous writers have been. Maybe in some ways I am an "experience junkie," but I'm a junkie who has successfully made the switch to methadone.
Of course, life influences fiction, but fiction also shapes life. As Cary Tennis, one of the more poetically inclined advice columnists, observed: “A novel forces its characters to live through whatever it is. That is the great cruel power of the artist: To force his characters to live through whatever he chooses for them.”
Although most writers are not "type A" personalities and do not require excessive adrenaline stimulation to be happy, they might follow these self-destructive paths simply for the value of the experience. Writers are not known for being particularly happy, after all, so why shouldn't they at least experience interesting things? The idea is to suffer and take good notes while suffering.
I'm not sure I subscribe to this way of thinking. At any rate, I'm sure I'm not self-destructive in the same way that so many of these famous writers have been. Maybe in some ways I am an "experience junkie," but I'm a junkie who has successfully made the switch to methadone.
Of course, life influences fiction, but fiction also shapes life. As Cary Tennis, one of the more poetically inclined advice columnists, observed: “A novel forces its characters to live through whatever it is. That is the great cruel power of the artist: To force his characters to live through whatever he chooses for them.”
Monday, October 20, 2008
Advice You Can Use
I don't know what made me think of this, but a few years ago, before Katrina, I was visiting New Orleans with a random group of friends and acquaintances. We were drinking beer before lunch one day when this one girl, whom I had just met that day, advised me to pour my beer into a glass before drinking it. This would, she assured me, help to prevent gas and thus enable me to enjoy my beer without gastrointestinal interruption.
A few months later, I found out this same girl was killed after she smashed her car into a tree off the highway.
I guess what I'm saying is this: Be cautious in life, but be cautious about the right things.
By way of disclaimer: I don't mean to trivialize the death of this young woman, who was a lovely enough girl as I remember. This story just came out of nowhere to bug me today, after several years of hiding in the obscurity of passing memory. Anyway, I think of her in a vague way every time I pour a beer into a glass, which is not something I was in the habit of doing before. Maybe it was pretty good advice after all.
A few months later, I found out this same girl was killed after she smashed her car into a tree off the highway.
I guess what I'm saying is this: Be cautious in life, but be cautious about the right things.
By way of disclaimer: I don't mean to trivialize the death of this young woman, who was a lovely enough girl as I remember. This story just came out of nowhere to bug me today, after several years of hiding in the obscurity of passing memory. Anyway, I think of her in a vague way every time I pour a beer into a glass, which is not something I was in the habit of doing before. Maybe it was pretty good advice after all.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Up at 6 a.m. -- here's a poem
Light from Other Rooms
The glow of electric light
fills in the house shadow’s
as you wander from room to room
a walking midnight ghost upon
the floor
drifting through carpeted corridors
of our suburban brickhouse manor
I lie upon the mattress stiff and flat
listening for the noise of the electric light
not the click of the switch
the turning of the light-tide
but another sound, the soft wash
of electric-light particle waves
splashing rhythmically upon the beach
of our own mutual undoing
digging watery trenches in the
vanilla sand until the
flick of the switch when you leave the hall
in cloaking darkness a ghostly
puddle in the hallway from where
the light has fallen down, its energy
drained, its illuminated promise vanishing
into the ordinary gray darkness.
The glow of electric light
fills in the house shadow’s
as you wander from room to room
a walking midnight ghost upon
the floor
drifting through carpeted corridors
of our suburban brickhouse manor
I lie upon the mattress stiff and flat
listening for the noise of the electric light
not the click of the switch
the turning of the light-tide
but another sound, the soft wash
of electric-light particle waves
splashing rhythmically upon the beach
of our own mutual undoing
digging watery trenches in the
vanilla sand until the
flick of the switch when you leave the hall
in cloaking darkness a ghostly
puddle in the hallway from where
the light has fallen down, its energy
drained, its illuminated promise vanishing
into the ordinary gray darkness.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
On Turning 40
I turn 40 in January. I'm certainly not as troubled about turning 40 as I was about turning 30, having given up a lot of delusions since then, but I can't say I like it either. Just a few years ago, I was a part of the venerated 18-35 advertising "youth" demographic, the generation everyone wants to cater to or be a part of; in just a few months, I'll be in the legally protected, "over 40" demographic that gets good insurance rates and discounts on root canals. Right now, I'm in the dreaded "in between."
Just for kicks, here's a list of writers who died before or just after turning 40: Flannery O'Connor, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe, and Sylvia Plath. I guess it's not safe to a be a naturalist of a gothicist.
Just for kicks, here's a list of writers who died before or just after turning 40: Flannery O'Connor, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe, and Sylvia Plath. I guess it's not safe to a be a naturalist of a gothicist.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Why can't a story just be a story?
The other day in class, I was giving my students an introduction to the Tennessee Williams's play "Streetcar Named Desire." I started talking about how a streetcar is essentially a conveyance that goes in circles, symbolically implying the journey that goes round and round but never gets anywhere. Naturally, I said, this ties in symbolically with the name of the streetcar ("Desire") and how the desire and passion of these people's lives keeps them on this circular journey that goes through "Cemeteries" and ends at "Elysian Fields."
One of my students interrupted and asked, "But how can you say it means all this when he could have just named the streetcar 'Desire' because that was the name of the streetcar in the neighborhood?"
I should be used to questions like this from students, who always want to know why we have to "read so much" into plays, poems, and stories. But I sort of lost my patience, admittedly without losing my smile, and responded, "Because it's never just what it is. Tennessee Williams is a playwright interested in deeper connections. His work, like all literature, is interesting because it works out of these traditions and is rich with metaphor, symbolism, and allusion. Williams isn't writing journalism, after all."
Is that a good enough answer? Maybe not. It is frustrating, when you love literature, to answer these types of questions from people who believe a story should just be enjoyed and quickly forgotten. But good stories, stories with staying power, usually do more than provide simple diversion or voyeuristic thrill.
Tennessee Williams is not known for his subtle symbolism, which is why he's a good choice for young readers just beginning to learn the value of analysis and close reading. If the streetcar isn't supposed to mean something besides just being a streetcar, why does Williams focus on it so much? Why does it keep coming up in the dialogue? ("Haven't you ridden on that streetcar?") Why not just have Blanche arrive in a taxi cab with no name at all?
One of my students interrupted and asked, "But how can you say it means all this when he could have just named the streetcar 'Desire' because that was the name of the streetcar in the neighborhood?"
I should be used to questions like this from students, who always want to know why we have to "read so much" into plays, poems, and stories. But I sort of lost my patience, admittedly without losing my smile, and responded, "Because it's never just what it is. Tennessee Williams is a playwright interested in deeper connections. His work, like all literature, is interesting because it works out of these traditions and is rich with metaphor, symbolism, and allusion. Williams isn't writing journalism, after all."
Is that a good enough answer? Maybe not. It is frustrating, when you love literature, to answer these types of questions from people who believe a story should just be enjoyed and quickly forgotten. But good stories, stories with staying power, usually do more than provide simple diversion or voyeuristic thrill.
Tennessee Williams is not known for his subtle symbolism, which is why he's a good choice for young readers just beginning to learn the value of analysis and close reading. If the streetcar isn't supposed to mean something besides just being a streetcar, why does Williams focus on it so much? Why does it keep coming up in the dialogue? ("Haven't you ridden on that streetcar?") Why not just have Blanche arrive in a taxi cab with no name at all?
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