Tag: josip novakovich

  • “Girls”: The Story behind the Story

    I think “Girls” will win the prize for the longest gestation period of any story I’ve ever written. The opening sentence is exactly as I wrote it in 1984 as part of my autobiography for Mr Caravello’s sophomore English class. Mr Caravello liked that so much he had me read it out loud to the…

  • Final residency—Days 1 and 2

    Day 1 In a near-replay of last January’s travel difficulties, I arrived at the hotel at 4a. Despite a mere three hours of sleep, I managed to make it to the opening session on time and even have a bit of prep time in the morning. After the initial orientation, we had a breakdown by…

  • Residency day 7

    The pacing of the residency is such that it kind of feels like it’s all coasting from here on. The morning seminar was “Anthology” with Denis Johnson in which we contributed poems that made us want to be a writer. I, being a fiction person, lied and chose “These Poems, She Said” by Robert Bringhurst.…

  • Residency day 5

    The mid-point of the residency and the traditional morning-time reading and writing period. I got a bunch of work done including some work on the novel. After lunch we had first synthesis (it was interesting to see someone else’s take on the time). Interestingly, it seemed that most of the synthesis groups finished up early.…

  • Residency day 7

    We began the day with Josip Novakovich’s talk on negative motivation in fiction. Again, the large size of the group tended to work against it being a proper seminar. I’m also seeing Josip being fond of using exercises as part of his writing instruction. For me the problem is that these sorts of exercises address…

  • Residency day 6

    Today began with a seminar by Peter Meinke which seemed to have been better-planned for a small group of poets than the entire student body courtesy of a last-minute cancellation of the opposing talk on experimental fiction. Meinke’s views on poetry are a bit opposed to mine. I stand more with Charles Bernstein, who wrote…