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Author Archives: Michael
New Books We Love: The Ruins of Us by Keija Parssinen
I first met Keija Parnissen last summer when she and her husband Michael stopped by The Missouri Review’s summer launch party. I can’t remember how the conversation started, but we talked for a solid half-hour about … well, a little bit of everything, with that effortless rhythm that happens when I speak to someone genuinely interesting. And it is also really wonderful to know that there is a writer here in Columbia not immediately connected to the university, and thriving with her own work.
Keija has just released her deubt novel, The Ruins of Us, on Harper Perennial. Calling her a local writer is only half-accurate: she’s lived in Saudi Arabia, Texas, New Jersey, Iowa, and now, right here in Columbia where, among other things, she runs the Quarry Heights Workshop. Between flying around the country to give readings and celebrate her book publication with her family and friends, she took the time to sit down and answer a few questions for TMR about her new novel.
TMR: When asked about his famous character, Emma Bovary, Flaubert said “Madame Bovary, she is me.” I’m sure you get lots of questions about how autobiographical your characters are. What elements of yourself do you see in Rosalie? In Abdullah? In Faisal? In Miriam?
Parssinen: While I find it irksome that people assume every work of fiction is autobiographical, Flaubert’s quote gets at the heart of the matter—obviously he’s not a housewife who embarks on a disastrous adulterous affair, but it is he who breathed life into Emma and established her emotional and psychological being. In that way, the author is every character in her book, for she is their creator. So while Rosalie, Abdullah, Miriam, Dan, and Faisal are removed from my biography by virtue of our differences in age, religion, provenance, and in some cases, sex, they are born of my imagination, cultivated from my knowledge of pain, joy, betrayal, love. They are, indeed, me.
TMR: How did you decide to expand your narrative outside the family to Dan Coleman? Why does Isra not also get her own storyline?
Parssinen: The novel actually began as Dan’s story because I felt most comfortable writing in his voice. He’s the battle-hardened expat living as a stranger in a strange world, and I’d known his kind, both within my family and without. I wanted him to serve as the novel’s Nick Carraway, to observe the family in turmoil and report to the reader from a distance. But of course, as Nick and Dan both discover, the observer inevitably becomes enmeshed in the storyline, and that’s where things get tricky. To me, Isra is the catalyst of the narrative but she is unimportant to it—she reveals the cracks in the façade, but she’s peripheral. And while I found her an interesting character—an educated, progressive Arab woman who agrees to become a second wife—there was no room for her voice in this already-crowded story. Much of the book dwells on what it means to be an outsider, and she truly is one, even down to her authorially-enforced silence.
TMR: What was the most difficult scene to write and why?
Parssinen: I nearly cry every time I read the scene between Dan and Rosalie on the dune, when they’re talking about their failed marriages and whether love is worth it. My parents divorced and it was immensely painful for me and my siblings; even though my parents are now back together, none of us kids has fully recovered from that early pain. It was my first real experience with loss, after leaving Saudi Arabia—and to imagine through Dan and Rosalie’s dialogue the pain of negotiating lost love was excruciating for me, but it also helped me understand my parents’ decisions and work towards forgiving them.
TMR: Often in novels, there are storylines and even characters that have to be “cut” in order to make the novel work. Would you please share one or two things that you had to make the hard choice on, and eliminate from the book?
Parssinen: Thankfully, I didn’t have to cut any of my major characters, but I did have to eliminate pages and pages of character rumination. My poor agent and editor, drowning in all those swirling thoughts and wondering how the devil to create a sense of pacing! They were both very honest with me—“Look, Dan is becoming a HUGE drag, could you please just pep him up a little bit, have him actually do something instead of just be sad and ponder his losses?” I probably cut 40 pages of Dan, pages where I really liked the writing and the mood created and had carefully constructed each sentence. It was incredibly tough but absolutely necessary to excise those parts.
TMR: Do you consider Rosalie and Abdullah’s marriage a “failed marriage”?
Parssinen: Yes, but not necessarily for the reasons you might imagine (his taking a second wife, etc). It failed for those most mundane reasons: they stopped communicating with each other and became complacent within the marriage. And while the second wife presents obvious problems (!) for the union, it had started to die before her emergence on the scene.
TMR: Writers read diversely. The books that are recommended in the back of The Ruins of Us are thematically similar. Take your readers in another direction: what is one book that you recommend and love that is completely different from your writing?
Parssinen: Great question! I love Yannick Murphy’s recent novel, The Call. In it, she experiments with form while telling the story of a Vermont veterinarian’s family living in a creaking old house in the countryside. She takes incredible structural risks, novelistically, and somehow manages to pull off a story that is emotionally resonant and incredibly funny. Though on the surface of things, it’s a domestic, pastoral story, it’s pure magic. I plan to read all of her earlier work, I loved it so much!
If you’re a Columbia resident, Keija’s book launch party here in town is free and open to the public: this Saturday, January 28th, at 7:00 pm, swing by Orr Street Studios and meet her, buy the book (what—you haven’t already?!), and hang out for a few hours. If you’re not in Columbia, skip over to Keija’s site to find out when she is coming to your town and, of course, snag a copy of her book.
Follow Michael Nye on Twitter: @mpnye
On Literary Readings and Community
The number of “Best of 2011″ lists is pretty daunting. Not only does ever major media outlet have a “Best of 2011″ list, some even have a “Worst of 2011.” There are lists for Most Overlooked and Underrated and Overrated and probably several others that my brain is unable to process at the moment. Often the effect of these lists is to remind me that there were many terrific books this past year that I did not read and, perhaps even worse, never heard of in the first place.
While I missed many books this year, I went to a ton of author readings. Last semester alone, I attended about seven events at the University of Missouri (new PhD student readings and visiting writers), probably three more at Orr Street Studios, and another, oh, let’s call it five at Get Lost Bookstore in Columbia. Over the last five months, I probably went to an average of a reading per week. If I sit and think about it for a while, there are also all the readings from this past summer and this past spring, which would then include readings I went to in St. Louis and Washington, D.C., where the AWP Conference was in February.
Believe me, all semester long, I bitched and moaned about going to readings. We all did. Hey, people like to complain. There was definitely a time this semester when I looked at my calendar, and there was something like seven readings in ten days. I tried to make all of them, too. But why? Why did I want to go to all these things? Especially when, as you probably can guess from this, more than once, I had the sinking feeling I didn’t want to go at all.
But readings aren’t just about me. They are about my literary community, my arts community, and even when I’m cranky, it was always the right decision to get myself in gear and attend.
Readings are, in many ways, just like editing a magazine journal. To paraphrase Joyce Carol Oates, editing is a we, and one can get somewhat tired of an I. She was talking, of course, about the difference between being an editor and being a writer, and why being a magazine editor is an attractive vocation. But the same idea – being involved and being for other people rather than just yourself – applies to readings.
Writers, when writing, spend their time alone. The solitude is essential for deep thinking and the process of creation. Loneliness, of course, goes hand-in-hand with this quiet, and after spending years working on something – poems, a novel, stories – getting in front of an audience of people and sharing that work can be a welcome shift.
It can also be a disaster. Many of us, I’m sure, have been to readings that were … well, lackluster. We’ve also been to readings where people are trying a wee bit too hard to be “entertaining.” There are plenty of these stories. This makes the readings that are really and truly an amazing experience. For me, hearing Edward P. Jones read his work is still one of the most incredible things I’ve ever heard.
Readings are the chance for writers to be outgoing, extroverted, friendly, celebratory. Listeners, often writers and avid readers too, are warm and gregarious. Alcohol is (hopefully) involved. We gossip. Laugh. Shake hands. We crave remarks and thoughts about the work, discover what other people are working on, what we’re reading: we want to know who and what is being read not just published. We’re eager to talk.
Here in Columbia, there are three regular spots for readings: any event our English Department holds, the Hearing Voices series at Orr Street Studios, and at Get Lost Bookshop down on Ninth Street. I attend as many as I can, and hope that wherever you’re reading this from, you’re doing the same in your part of the world.
Follow Michael Nye on Twitter: @mpnye
Winners of the 2011 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize
We are delighted to announce the winners of our 21st annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize. Let’s get to it!
Fiction
Winner: Yuko Sakata of Madison, WI for “Unintended”
Finalists:
Jessica F. Kane of New York, NY, for “The Essentials of Acceleration”
Thomas Pierce of Charlottesville, VA, for “Grasshopper Kings”
Bart Skarzynski of Columbus, OH for “Project X”
Poetry
Winner: David Kirby of Tallahassee, FL
Finalists:
Steve Gehrke of Reno, NV
Cynthia Marie Hoffman of Madison, WI
Mark Wunderlich of Catskill, NY.
Essay
Winner: Peter Selgin of Winter Park, FL, for “The Kuhreihen Melody”
Finalists:
May-Lee Chai of San Francisco, CA, for “The Blue Boot”
Mako Yoshikawa of Cambridge, MA, for “My Father’s Women”
Dave Zoby of Casper, WY, for “Leftovers, 1993”
We received over 2500 manuscripts this year, and the overall quality was extraordinarily good, making our decision a difficult one. This is of course a good thing: selecting winners of a contest should never be easy, and it certainly wasn’t for us. We’re very thankful to all the writers who entered this year. TMR is only as good as the work we publish, and we are grateful that so many writers sent us their very best work.
We were particularly thrilled to find out, after we accepted her work, that “Unintended” will be Yuko Sakata’s first published story!
I also want to say “Thanks!” to our staff. Promotion of the Editors’ Prize began in May, months before we get the chance to even start reading the submissions. Also, there is the never-ending amount of administrative work that goes into promoting the contest. Then we had to make the tough decisions on semi-finalists, finalists, and making the recommendations for our winners. And, we pulled it off! All of this was done successfully only because of our contest editor, Claire McQuerry, who did all the hard work behind the scenes to make our contest a huge success. Her staff was once again tremendous this year. Thank you to all the editors, advisors, and interns who made it happen.
We’re making plans right now for our Editors’ Prize weekend, our annual spring reception and reading honoring the winners of the contest. Details will be forthcoming as soon as we lock down the date. The 2012 Editors’ Prize issue will be out in April. I’m positive you’ll find these stories, poems, and essays as engaging and memorable as we did.
Congratulations to Yuko, David, and Peter!
Follow Michael Nye on Twitter: @mpnye
On The Recent Semester Teaching Creative Writing
This is finals week of the autumn semester at the University of Missouri, which means it is also the last week I’m teaching my Intro to Fiction Writing class. Today, my students will turn in a revision of one of the two stories they wrote this semester, or a third, brand spankin’ new story. Then we will be done.
I don’t know when I will teach fiction writing again. This is not by choice. I requested English 1510 this semester, was lucky enough to snag it, and was told even then to not expect to receive this course ever again. This is not about because of my ineptitude as a teacher (I hope) but because typically the managing editor teaches English 1000, a freshman composition class. I was told that I was given creative writing only because of how many people were on sabbatical and unavailable. Don’t expect to get again, they said. Well, then!
Since this might be it with teaching creative writing for a while, here are a few things I took away from my class this semester:
–I haven’t read Harry Potter and they haven’t read Moby Dick. Perhaps the one thing that can be guaranteed in a writing class is that the instructor has read more than the students (digression: some of you are thinking “Actually, I know that’s not true” and I’m nodding along glumly). When I was an undergraduate, I often felt embarrassed because my teachers all referred to novels and stories and poems that I had never heard of, and because of this, I not only missed crucial points of their lectures but also felt that I was unqualified to be in their class. Insecurity, and all that. This semester, I’ve usually found that talking about films is the best way of proving a point: there’s a better chance of my students having seen a particular film, and since films are generally narrative like novels and stories, an easy-to-understand analogy could often be drawn between movies and stories when I was trying to demonstrate a point about characterization, point of view, framing, dialogue, setting, and so forth.
In class, I’ve lamented the fact that we need movies to teach us about writing fiction, but perhaps seeing these links isn’t a bad thing at all. We make do with what we got—what good, really, does it do to expound on A Separate Peace or Revolutionary Road or Underworld if my students haven’t read those books?—and it also might, I hope, make us all realize that writing doesn’t live in a vacuum. We’re shaped and formed by our greater culture, not just pop culture, but film, music, painting, sculpture, dance, and the like.
–Be honest about what they write and what they read. This might seem obvious, but too often I’ve had and heard about creative writing teachers cheerleading more than teaching. Hey, if the work isn’t good, how does it benefit the student to think otherwise?
–Style and ideas worry students more than substance. Style is, of course, significantly easier to mimic than substance. Mimicking a minimalist story is pretty easy. Having a surprise ending is pretty straightforward—withhold one crucial bit of information until the last page. This is how we all learn, though, isn’t it? I used to copy Fitzgerald stories in order to learn how he made his sentences dance; I wrote an entire book in response to a Charles Baxter novel. It’s a terrific way to discover that one doesn’t really sound like anyone else: I sound like me, my students sound like themselves.
More than once this semester, a student said “I have an idea for a story! *insert idea here* Do you think that would work?” To which I always answered, “It could. You should write it and find out.” In time, I think they’ll learn that all the bells and whistles on the page can’t cover a story that wholly lacks an emotional core. Perhaps they too already knew it. By now, I hope they definitely know it.
–Grading stories helps. I’ve gone back and forth on this over the years, but I think that I’m generally on the side of putting grades on student stories. I hear you: how can you tell this story is a B+ rather than a C-? My first response to that question is: really? In conversation with every colleague about writing workshops, we know which students are the best writers. This does indicate that there is some criteria, however difficult it might be to articulate, as to why something is “better.”
Students at a university receive these things called grades, and grades, more than anything, get their attention. I wrote a criteria for story grades on my syllabus, explaining why grades are given on their work, and, no, an A story is not perfect or necessarily complete. Grading gives the students an understanding that those elements of fiction I lectured about way back in September are not suggestions, but things that must be considered seriously when constructing a story.
–Stories may not change, but I do. I used a mixture of stories each semester, combining stories I’ve read before and stories I haven’t. Fresh eyes, and fresh stories, are often beneficial to everyone. One good example is Dan Chaon’s “Big Me.” To be honest, I’ve always assigned it because it’s in the textbook and students seem to like it. I’ve always thought the story was competent, just not for me. But this time, for whatever reason, the story really hit me: the duality of the characters, the non-linear construction, the haunting of memory, the way Andy forgets large chunks of his past. What once struck me as pretty straightforward now seemed remarkably complex, tenuously but perfectly held together, sad and funny and strange all at once. None of this would have struck me if I hadn’t assigned it again.
There are others I’ve always thought were good for teaching but I’m not crazy about, and there are others that I adore that never seem to win over my students. And there is always at least one surprise story each semester that resonates with my students when I had expected they would dislike it. Which is always sorta fun to discover.
–Be generous. Two weeks ago, one of my first writing teachers, Melanie Rae Thon, was visiting MU, and I was asked to give the introduction to her reading. I thought of her teaching first, even before her books, since that’s how I first knew her. And what she gave us, always, was her time, her spirit, her belief that our work was worth reading. She was generous. This quality is not easy: there are too many constraints on our time, too many people and tasks pulling at us from all sides. To really be patient with a student’s story, to remember that the writer is still learning, can be easy to forget. Having a visit from one of the teachers who gently nudged me in the direction of the writing life was a nice reminder that beginning writers need, perhaps more than anything, an attentive reader and a pat on the back.
I hope I provided a little bit of both this semester.
Follow Michael Nye on Twitter: @mpnye
Why Literary Journals Charge Online Submission Fees
Why does The Missouri Review charge $3.00 to receive online submissions? This practice is becoming more common among print journals that accept online submissions, including Ploughshares, Massachusetts Review, American Short Fiction, Southwest Review, just to name a few. TMR has had an online submission fee in place for many years, but the latest Poets & Writers (Nov/Dec) has just been released, and there are several articles on literary magazines, small presses, and what we’re doing to build community. Included in this issue is Laura Maylene Walter’s essay “Price of Submission” about why literary magazines charge for online submissions. It’s a good article – go read it! But there are a couple additional thoughts we’d like to add, some specific to TMR and some broader about our literary community.
One of the things worth recognizing is that the cost of submitting to a magazine is a fixed prospective cost: a cost that will be incurred and cannot be recovered. Submissions have never really been free. It’s simply that the cost (paper, envelopes, postage, etc.) has been paid to the post office, not the magazine. And I’m not saying that it necessarily should have. Freed up from (some) of the costs of submitting to literary magazines, has there been an increase in subscriptions? Has there been an increase in financial support of literary journals from writers?
No. Not at all.
Because of this, supporters of online submission fees, like me, tend to take a more realistic and business-centric approach: there is a revenue stream that we need to capture. It is, however, a pretty small revenue stream; we earn significantly more through subscriptions. There isn’t a print literary magazine that can be sustainable—even in the most basic sense of covering its printing and mailing costs (let alone paying its staff)—solely through online submission fees. Opponents of submission fees feel that it’s a tremendous burden on writers, who are overwhelming described as poor, noble, honorable (and so forth)(and, yes, I’m a writer, too), and that the practice is unethical and unlike any other business model. Further, opponents believe that it is an easy system to rig – solicit work from writers that the editors know, then charge writers we don’t know to submit – and that because of a greater need for transparency in our community, we shouldn’t do this.
Fair enough. I’m a big believer in transparency. So. Here’s what editors ask fellow editors when discussing charging online submission fees: Will this mean I get fewer submissions? Editors don’t even look at as a revenue stream. Editors look at it as a way of slowing down submissions.
In fact, submissions increase significantly. This varies from magazine to magazine, but the increase in submissions is somewhere between twenty to thirty-five percent.
Maybe editors are looking at this all wrong. Maybe writers have done the mental math that I’ve done above and said You know what, I support literary journals when I submit online and pay a submission fee so I don’t need to subscribe to journals if I spend $60 a year on submissions. Now, that would be really rational, so the thought appeals to me (I’m Mr. Roboto like that) but it would make sense.
Why, then, don’t we avoid the dreaded “slush pile” and just solicit work from writers we know? Good question. And it really gets to the heart of why literary magazines exist and why writers want to publish in them. It is all about discovering a new voice from a new writer. It’s about finding that one really amazing story or poem from a writer we have never heard of before, and then delivering that writer’s work to a larger audience. We can’t do that if we solicit work because, of course, we don’t know who that new voice is. That’s what we – and I mean all literary journals, not just TMR – are most proud of. Literary magazines are all about discovery. The response to online submission fees is that we receive more work to read and consider, but also more possibilities of finding a new, unpublished writer.
So, then: are writers doing the calculations of going to the post office and deciding online submissions are fine? Is it just way too easy to click a button? Do writers view paying online submission fees as “supporting” the journal, adding to our revenue stream, and therefore, they don’t need to subscribe to us? I don’t know. What I do know is that as a magazine editor, the initial idea of online submission fees was not to increase revenue but to decrease submissions. That hasn’t happened, and since submissions have increased, it is reasonable to conclude that writers clearly have no problem with submitting work to us this way.
It is also important to recognize that TMR continues to accept paper submissions. If a writer does not believe online submissions are ethical or fair, then he/she can mail work to us. We continue to, and will continue to, receive paper submissions. I think it’s crucial that we leave that option open.
So, yes, TMR charges for online submission fees. No writer has to pay this fee if he or she chooses not to. What’s important about is two-fold: 1. To be fully transparent with our audience and 2. Remain open to new ideas as to how to strengthen our magazine, which includes our relationship with our audience and the biz-side of publishing TMR. Through a slightly different lens – communicating with an unseen readership, and being open to trying new things – writers are working on the same problems. It’s the same struggle for all of us—how do I create something true and authentic while also bringing it to the widest audience possible?
When you’re ready, send us your work, online or hard copy. Either one works for us. We want to read it. We want lots of submissions. It’s what all of us are here to do: read, discover, then, finally, publish.
Follow Michael Nye on Twitter: @mpnye
Violence of the Lambs; Or Why I Didn’t Write About That
There was more. I was going to write about book reviewing, and my general sense of discomfort with book reviewing, which stems almost entirely from a lack of confidence to write reviews in a coherent and intelligible manner that would be useful or interesting to anyone. I was going to write about James Frey, and teaching undergraduates, and the difference between reading a single essay and a collection of essays, and probably some other subjects that would all tie together neatly for a pretty good Friday read for you, our blog reader.
Here’s the thing. I couldn’t finish it. Or, I could, I guess – did, in fact – but I wasn’t pleased with the result. It was a colossal mess of tangents and half-baked thoughts, and it seemed like a disservice to publish it the way it turned out.
It’s warm here – frighteningly warm for Missouri in February – and I have my windows open, again. All morning yesterday I read manuscripts. I haven’t done that in a while. Downstairs, on the third floor, TMR has a few couches and a coffee maker, and I put my feet up on a table, tucked a pen behind my ear, and read fiction submissions. Away from my desk, away from my computer, away from my phone (both office and mobile, which I wisely left upstairs). Felt fantastic. Felt really great to spend the morning just looking for stuff for the summer issue, reading other writers’ work, stories about Russian dancers or out of work truck drivers or the daughters of war veterans and such, and not really thinking about our audience, our budget, our expenses and income, advertising, none of the other stuff that is often pinballing through my mind in the course of the day.
I felt all right, reading like that.
Someone close to me recently remarked that I never say anything personal in my blog posts. Note, even, how carefully I phrased that previous sentence. Of course, that’s now what my site is for. But this person was right: I’m careful about this blog. It’s been one of the most successful things we’ve done since I started at The Missouri Review—our staff has written several thoughtful, smart, engaging essays on this site in the past two years, and our mantra has basically been to not be negative; remain about publishing, editing, writing; and be interesting. Writing about Sullivan’s work, I worried that I was getting increasingly negative and incoherent, upset about who knows what about his work, and that my post would be the kind of vitriol that our readers don’t want. Morever, the kind of vitriol I don’t like to write.
I bring this up because for almost a year and a half now, my personal life, especially this past month, has been a bit tumultuous (to put it mildly) and sitting in a chair reading this morning, I became aware of how much better I felt. Just in general. No grand epiphanies or realizations or anything like that; dark clouds will certainly move in later in the day (or tomorrow, soon, etc.). Writing about creative nonfiction and its ticks and whirls and wearing a cultural critic hat—it just didn’t feel right. No, it was more than that: it was a recognizable state of discord, both in head and heart, that I wanted nothing to do with. I just wanted to read.
When I was at River Styx, our rejection letters all started the same way: “Look. We’re all writers too, so we know how it feels.” That’s true, of course. But, what was making me a boiling cauldron of frustration yesterday afternoon was writing: not just the act of writing, but the criticism of writing and the Big Ideas behind criticism and interpretation and connectivity. What made me feel calm was reading, just reading, nothing more. And, really, why did any of us start writing in the first place? Because we read. And liked it. A lot.
It would be silly, of course, to have a rejection letter say “Look. We’re all readers too” because that seems pretty obvious, ironic in a hipster way or something, and perhaps even a little snide. Nonetheless, it might be more true to what unifies as, editors and submitters alike, than calling ourselves writers.
If I was clever, if I had my writing cap on, I’d be able to come up with a really snazzy close here. But I don’t. Moreover, I don’t want to attempt to tack this together neatly. The messiness of this post is what’s most interesting to me, and how, by taking a little time to not think, to read without thinking beyond the story in my hands. And, for today, I think that’s all I really want to focus on. I’ll leave it at that.
Follow Michael Nye on Twitter: @mpnye