Autobiography & Fiction with Electric Literature

I’m here at the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada, wrapping up a multi-week residency with Electric Literature.

Feeling incredibly fortunate to have an endowment sponsorship supporting my time here, as well as the support of my day job in being away for several weeks.

Being in a community of like-minded writers has been so lovely, but I’m also very thankful for our guest faculty, including Halimah Marcus, Jess Zimmerman, Susan Choi, and Meredith Talusan.

Two nights ago, Dionne Brand gave a beautiful talk about the meaning of autobiography and fiction in her work, and titled this lecture “To Look Again”:

Autobiography affords and allows one to look again at the materials of life — to look again and make sense of the act of living — unravel what simultaneity collapses… get out from under certain ways of thinking/knowing…..

How one is made and how one makes oneself.

She went on to describe the framing of autobiography as something that can be transformed, carrying the personal and molecular forward as a metaphor for the construct of history. This description resonated so deeply with me because it’s very similar to the way I write. I take my own experiences — what I know and what continues to shape me — and use these events, big or small, as dynamic forces to shape my work.

I’m carrying that spirit forward with me for the rest of this week as I work on several big projects.

Hope it sparks creativity in you, too!

In Memoriam: Aaron Allston

For those of you who haven't heard the sad news, author Aaron Allston passed away very suddenly last night. The cause of death was determined to be massive heart failure. I still don't have the words to describe Aaron's life and career as eloquently as he deserves. Bryan Young wrote a beautiful tribute over at Big Shiny Robot, as did Ron Garner, for Silence in the Library.

All I have to offer is an email I started drafting to him hours before I learned that he had died. Early this morning, I rewrote it. I think it's as fitting a way to say goodbye to a friend as any, so I'm going to post it here as a memorial.

Dear Aaron,  

Yesterday, I was writing you an email.  

You were on my list of people to personally thank re: Athena's Daughters. I'd glanced over the names and got excited when I saw yours on the spreadsheet. Because we hadn't seen each other since the workshop and I was looking forward to catching up. Maybe we'd chat about this year's Origins, or the short story you'd mentioned wanting to turn into a series. 

And now I'm sitting here thinking how insufficient a single email feels in the grand scheme of things, and how utterly, stupidly insane it is that you will never get to read it. I do owe you a thank you. You won't get to read this one, and it won't have a jaunty postscript on the end as I'd originally planned, but I'm going to write it anyway. Even though you hate it when people make a fuss. 

So, Aaron – thank you.  

You approached writing not as a strange, unknowable force, but as a meticulous creative science. You taught me the value of structure and careful planning within a story, but you also weren't afraid to kill the darlings in favor of better options when these changes made the work stronger. When we first met, you made me get excited about my own creative work for the first time in years. 

You were a brilliant writer and peer reviewer. Your comments on my stories were insightful, often funny, and always thought-provoking. I can't count the number of times I heard the words maybe you ought to consider... in a workshop setting over the years. (And genuinely welcomed them.) On the flip side, although I may have reacted to a few of your editing suggestions with the kind of frowns and theatrical groans you'd usually get from a feature of Droopy Dog, you were usually right. 

More importantly, you were a generous, encouraging friend. The last time I saw you at the writer's workshop, I asked you to sign my newly-bought copy of “A Hero By Any Other Name.” Everyone had begun multitasking by signing books for the Time Traveled Tales Kickstarter. But I wasn't able to read your inscription until I got home a couple days later. 

I read it again last night, after I heard the news and got off the phone. The last sentence has always -- and will always -- make me cry. Looking forward to being in an anthology with you!

This letter is an awful substitute for conversation. But I just wanted to thank you for your friendship and for your faith. Today, I plotted out a new story in your absence, because I didn't know what else to do, and because it seemed like a fitting way to honor a lost friend. Selfishly, I wish I could ask you about the ending. Maybe we can talk edits after the next forty to seventy years have passed.

Clear skies, friend. We miss you. 

Conley

Athena's Daughters, Day 19: A Preview of My Story!

Day 21 of our Kickstarter! It's going to be a short post tonight (as I am recovering from food poisoning), but I wanted to give you all a preview of the story I wrote for Athena's Daughters, "Oh, Sisters, Let's Go Down to the River."

This story was inspired directly by family. When my grandmother was a little girl in Virginia in the 1920s, one of her routine chores was to scrub out the family well. As a child, she was lowered into the dark space by a hanging bucket in order to clean it. I always thought this was terrifying! Even now, it's fascinating to imagine the courage it took for a girl her age to do that on a routine basis.

When I was brainstorming the type of story I wanted to write about a strong female character, an idea based on parts of my grandmother's childhood was the first thing that came to mind. I also wanted to tie the other side of my family heritage into the folk tale I wrote. My paternal grandfather was Native American, and it was important for me to show that Native culture had significant influence on the Appalachian region.

An excerpt of my story is here on Wattpad. I have also posted a brief excerpt below. I hope you enjoy it!

“You be careful of them mean ol' ghosts!”

Staring into the dark mouth of the stone well, Mary felt her sister's hands grab her shoulders as like to push her in, and whirled around with a shout, gripping her small metal pail in one hand and swinging it round in an attempt to scare Virgie away. But all Virgie did was whoop as she jumped back quick, and the pail missed her by a mile. She grabbed her stomach and laughed like she was fit to die afterward, her loose scraggly blond hair hanging in front of her sunburned face.

Mary pushed her frizzy black hair out of her eyes with a frown.

“You shut your mouth! There ain't nothin' down there!”

But now she couldn't help thinkin' there might be. She glanced down at her feet to remind herself what was real, watched the way her own faded cotton dress, greenish with tiny brownish purple flowers, swayed in the wind above her muddy legs and bare feet. They'd run down from the house on the dirt path behind the outhouse, just after sunrise, pushing through thick bushes and red briars in the low light until they hit the small field clearing where the well was at. She was moving so fast to keep up with tall, leggy Virgie there weren't time to be scared. All Mary'd had sense enough to do was keep hold of her pail and put an arm in front of her face to keep from getting too scratched up.

Now, standing in front of the well, watching the sun shine through the green-leafed maple trees and listening to the wind whistle through the stones, making the hanging rope bucket creak and move, Mary felt a hard lump in the middle of her belly, and clutched the handle of her pail until it bit into her hands. She had to go inside that big old well and clean it. Her eyes flicked over the outside stones. One side of the well was covered in moss. There were dead leaves crunched up and rotting around the edge, where it met the dirt. Least that'd clean up fine. She was more scared of going inside.

The well didn't have no roof, just two big wood posts set into the stone, and a long wooden box with a crank on one end stretched across 'em and nailed down tight. The bucket dangled a few feet from the middle of the box, where the rest of the rope was at. Mary put her hand to the bottom of one of the posts. A couple black ants crawled up quick through her fingers, but she didn't care about them. The grey stuff keeping the thick wood in place against the stones was hard and rough against her palm. Some of it came off in little crumbly bits as she poked her fingers around the edges.

“Hit's the mortar,” Virgie told her quiet-like, coming up to stand beside her. “Daddy reckons it'll need fixing in a couple years.”

“Oh,” Mary said, snatching back her hand like she was burned.

She was afraid to ask the questions on her mind – the ones that'd been on her mind ever since Flossie and Virgie told her the well'd be her main chore. When she was no more'n four or five – before Flossie was married, before Bonnie was underfoot, before Mama went to heaven – she'd watched her sisters walk back to the house after cleaning the well. She knew Virgie was always the one who went in, cause her face and arms and dress were smudged with black dirt and green slime, blond hair sticking to her sweaty forehead, knuckles and hands scrubbed raw from the lye.

Ain't it scary to be down there in the dark alone? Hanging on to that rope with nothing to help you? How's it s'posed to hold a body up?

She was brought out of her thinking when Virgie tapped her arm, maybe feeling how Mary was nervous, and said,

“Come on, Mary E, let's go!”

As always -- if you like what you read, back us or share about the project here!

Athena's Daughters, Day 18: Guest Blogging for Silence in the Library

Hello, all! To any readers who celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a fabulous holiday. To readers who don't, I hope you were at least able to enjoy a couple extra days off work. I know I've loved spending time with friends and family this week.

To update you on Athena's Daughters, we are now over $28K, meaning all backers at the $5 level and up just got a free digital download of Janine K. Spendlove's War of the Seasons short stories "Girl" and "White Flag!" What's not to love?

I also wanted to point you in the direction of the Silence in the Library official blog. Throughout the Kickstarter campaign, several of our anthology authors have taken turns to guest blog there. They have discussed how they got started as writers, about how they balance their writing jobs with high-powered careers, family and hobbies, and have also given sneak peeks of their anthology stories. Yesterday, my guest post went up! You can read it at their website. I also have it posted below:

Don’t Be Afraid to Show People Your Work! Or: You Never Forget Your First Workshop

I’ve been thinking a lot about writer’s workshops in the past month. One of my good friends and I had a discussion this summer about whether they are helpful, and whether I should encourage her to take them.

In full fairness, I told her about the reason I love workshops and still believe in them. I’ve been attending them for years. The first one I remember was part of a summer arts programming series put on by my hometown university. It was offered for kids in the area who were interested in creative writing. My mother signed me up and told me I was going. I imagine it was in the hope that thiswould be a good opportunity for me to be encouraged and to meet new friends around town.

The story I prepared was about a Victorian-era girl named Lucy, who was twenty (glamorous!), was a college student involved in a dark mystery (even more glamorous!), and who also had a dashing fiance named John who wore three-piece suits (I die of glamour!) It was probably the result of fervent, ongoing obsessions with Anne of the Island, Daphne duMaurier, and a lot of PBS shows.  

Here are the two vivid memories I have of that workshop: I didn’t have an ending for my story. And, as the group sat around a dilapidated, square lab table, flipping through our typed printouts and our copies of handwritten stories, I was convinced everyone hated it. Granted, I was probably ten or eleven at the time, and the other kids were in middle school or high school. I might have been convinced they didn’t like me no matter what I wrote, because a lot of them wore ripped jeans, were into alt rock, and had multiple earrings. Compared to a seventy pound kid in a kitten t-shirt and LL Bean athletic shorts, they were all way cooler by default. But that anxious tugging in my chest–that awful silence as I waited for strangers to pass divine judgment on words I’d put on paper instead of keeping inside my head–is a feeling I’ve never forgotten. And it’s what prompted my feelings about workshops as a tool for writers.

A. They are terrifying.

B. If you get the chance, and feel brave enough, you should do one.

I’m not saying a single workshop session will make you a better writer. Over the years, I’ve participated in plenty of classes where the group didn’t click. Workshops where I left feeling more confused than when I went in. Workshops where I had no idea how to fix the draft I’d submitted, and didn’t get much concrete feedback other than “what you have now isn’t working.” Workshops where we weren’t allowed to write science-fiction or fantasy stories because they weren’t “real.” I’ve also been my own worst enemy in some workshops. I’ve turned in drafts of ideas I hated because I was too afraid to write about an idea I loved.

But for all of those experiences, I also have plenty of stories about positive workshops. Sessions where I sweated and angsted about a submission I couldn’t wrangle, and my fellow writers said, “Well, have you tried x? What if your main character did y? Why not start the story at point z?” Sessions where I feel I can be brutally honest with the group, and they’re brutally honest with me in return. Sessions where I was also excited (and not just terrified) to put up my work for peer review.

In the end, I still love the workshop model and believe in it. Mainly because it is so helpful, and so important, to have other people see your work. Whatever you produce – whether it’s fan writing, original fiction, an outline, or a bare thread of an idea – being able to talk with a trusted group or trusted person about something you’ve created is one of the best feelings in the world. The story I produced for Athena’s Daughters was done under deadline for my writers’ workshop.

For me, it’s a way to make sure I have legitimate writing output, as opposed to keeping multiple, hundred-page word documents on my computer and tinkering with story bits in secrecy for years. A good workshop doesn’t even have to be a formal class that you pay to take. It can be as simple as assembling a group of your people, fellow writers, who love telling stories and want to see what like-minded peers think of their drafts.

So, if you’ve ever wondered what all the fuss is about, I say try it. Maybe your workshop will be fabulous, and you’ll meet your people. Maybe you’ll just get a wince-inducing story out of the experience, which you can then trod out at parties. (“Hey, remember the workshop where that guy didn’t spell or grammar-check his submission? WTF?!”)

As always, if you like what you see, back us or share about the project here!