Entries Tagged 'writing' ↓

Via my friend Mel Favara. I’ll be reading in this series.
The one I attended was super fun.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THIRD INSTALLMENT OF THE 1,000 WORDS READING SERIES: THE FUTURE
MAIDEN IN THE MIST, 7PM MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2008. FREE
CONTACT: MEL FAVARA 971-506-3340, mel.Favara@gmail.com
More info at 1000wordspdx.blogspot.com

In this innovative reading series, five participants each present 1,000 words of prose written for the occasion. Writers agree to produce 250 words per week for four weeks leading up to the reading; they are given a theme at the beginning (THE FUTURE, this time), and must include certain phrases and words in each weekly effort as capriciously assigned by the host. A stunning variety of fresh works result from the writers’ wildly divergent interpretations of the prompts, and the rapid-fire presentation of short pieces make for an entertaining reading. Reading:

Benjamin Parzybok: Ben founded Gumball Poetry, a literary journal published into gumball machines, co-founded Project Hamad which helped free Adel Hamad, a Guantanamo inmate, runs the treasure hunt/caper into the underbelly of the city known as Peachblow (via the Black Magic Insurance Agency), and runs a startup around walking(walkertracker.com). He has a novel, Couch, forthcoming from Small Beer Press in the fall of 2008. He lives with his wife, the writer Laura Moulton, and their two kids in Portland, OR.

Daniel Thomas: Now in the full bloom of manhood, Daniel embodies the wisdom and perspective of the formally trained philosopher, the earthy humility of the former junky, the vulnerability of the natural born aesthete, the taste and style of a foppish dandy and the inexplicable ownership of very strange purebred dog. For bread and wine, he builds houses with Hammer and Hand.

Jill Stukenberg: Fiction and nonfiction star Jill Stukenberg recently relocated to Portland from New Mexico, where she earned an MFA from New Mexico State University. She writes and teaches at Clark College and Clackamas Community College.

Series curator Mel Favara will also read. She teaches English and hosts other literary hybrid events in Portland. Her work has appeared in the Willamette Week, No Slander, Columbia Poetry Review, and in her zine, teen sleuth.

Special guest Matthew Hattie Hein, formerly of the band New Bad Things and currently performing all by his lonesome and teaching English all over town, will play the guitar and sing.

I’m writing four installments of 250 words each for Mel Favara’s 1000 Word Reading Series, along with 3 other writers.

The setup is this:

The theme is ‘The Future’

Each week we get our assignment, which includes four words we must use - this week they are: granular, montage, tablecloth, and spurn and one phrase: “And the thing I most fear may come to pass, that”

Assignments are due on Sunday night (or punishable by…?). It’s awesome fun writing under these kinds of bonds. Your story is half yours, yet at the same time you look for ways to wickedly foil the assigner - can I use all 4 words and the phrase in a single sentence? What if a dog bargs and the main character thinks it’s saying “Spurn! Spurn!” etc

If you are unfamiliar with the art of word counting, it’s a sort of addiction - however in writing novels I always count in the opposite direction. A 5,000 word day is a total blow-out that needs later the tender care of black licorice and bourbon to bring the brain back from the brink. For me, 1,000 - 1,500 words is a solid day’s work. If I hit 300-400 words only, they better be well done.

Trying to write 250 words is a tremendous challenge. I’m a long distance runner, not a sprinter, I guess. And so each week after we get our assignments I easily bang out 600 or 900 or 1200 words, and then I spend the rest of the week fretting and deleting and fretting and removing ideas and removing characters and jettisoning the garbage and so on.

Secondly, it’s my first all-out 100% science fiction attempt, and it’s a blast.

The reading will be at Maiden in the Mist, 639 SE Morrison St., Portland, OR in the first week or so of March. I’ll post date, etc. when it gets closer.

One: I’ve started a blog. That much should be obvious at this point. Actually, Levin and I have started a blog together. We’ve decided to call it ‘Secret’ - in part because we both love secrets, and also because we’re both secretive. It’s an admission that running a blog, an inherently open medium, is going to take a little learning.

Two: I have a short story, The Coder, which appeared in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wrislet #21.

Three: Small Beer Press has purchased my novel, Couch - a book about three guys who carry a somewhat opinionated couch to South America.

Hooray! What a fantastic way to start 2008. I wrote Couch while Laura and I were living in South America in 2002. It was a magical time, and I am very excited to be working with the fantastic people at Small Beer Press.