brevity

Memoir as Soviet Social Realism

In Teaching Resources, book reviews, memoir on November 21, 2009 at 9:42 am

In truth, we think Maud Newton (the esteemed blogger and book critic) is painting memoir with too wide a brush and setting up a bit of  strawman (straw book?) argument here, but her thoughts on why she writes her life story as a novel instead of as a memoir are provocative, and here at Brevity (way up here, in our lofty penthouse office), we like provocative things.  So have a listen:

It’s hard to dispute writer Ben Yagoda’s assertion that the memoir has become the “central form” of this cultural moment. Whether it has, as he also contends, supplanted fiction remains to be seen.

But I hope he’s wrong.

Of course some escape-from-my-wretched-childhood stories are smart and candid and complex. Shalom Auslander’s “Foreskin’s Lament” flies in the face of the therapeutic model: It closes on a troubling note, as Auslander worries that the God he’s turned his back on will punish him by killing his child.

For the most part, though, the general formula is simple, and quintessentially American — miserablism to triumphalism, with the closing benediction, through sales, of capitalism.

The critic Dubravka Ugresic has likened this parade of stories depicting a downtrodden but ultimately redeemed real-life protagonist to Soviet social realism, in that they take actual events as a starting point but twist them into sanguine rags-to-riches propaganda that serves to reinforce readers’ belief that anyone can overcome difficult times. Such stories, in this analysis, are an insidious, uniquely modern incarnation of Horatio Alger’s dime novels.

Newton’s full story can be found in the LA Times.

A Very Normal Prize in Fiction and Nonfiction

In Call for Submissions, Events, creative nonfiction on November 20, 2009 at 8:33 am

Fiction Prize: $1,000 & Publication
Nonfiction Prize: $1,000 & Publication

Deadline Feb 12, 2010

Final Judges

Margot Livesey: Fiction
David Shields: Nonfiction

GUIDELINES

  1. All submissions must be no more than 10,087 words double-spaced, 12 pt. font, with numbered pages and NO IDENTIFYING INFORMATION ON MANUSCRIPT.
  2. Entry fee: $20 per submission. Please make checks out to “The Normal School.”
  3. All submissions must include 2 Cover Sheets:
    1. 1st Cover Sheet must include: a) Title b) Genre c) Name of Author d) 50 word biographical statement e) mailing address f) email address
    2. 2nd Cover Sheet must include: a) Title of Work b) Genre *NO OTHER IDENTIFYING INFORMATION CAN APPEAR ON THIS COVER SHEET.
  4. All submissions must be previously unpublished in any form (print or electronic media).
  5. Simultaneous submissions ARE allowed as long you notify editors of The Normal School should your piece be accepted elsewhere. Multiple submissions ARE allowed, but each submission must be accompanied by the entry fee.
  6. Manuscripts will not be returned. Please do not send your only copy. If you want verification that we have received your manuscript, send a self-addressed, stamped postcard.
  7. Please address all submissions to:

The Normal School

Normal Prize Contest – “Genre”
5245 N. Backer Ave.
M/S PB 98
California State University, Fresno
Fresno, CA 93740

All submissions must be postmarked between 12/1/2009 and 2/12/2010.
Please be sure to SPECIFY GENRE on envelope and cover sheet.
All entrants will receive a complimentary issue of The Normal School.

Winners will be announced before the Fall 2010 issue via email.
All entries will be considered for publication.

Creative Nonfiction Defined: Yes You Can

In Teaching Resources, blogs we like, creative nonfiction on November 6, 2009 at 10:10 am

Oftentimes, at the end of a long day of manuscript sorting high up in the Brevity corporate towers, we will push back our chairs, throw some Miles Davis onto the big speakers, pour small offerings of Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon, and wonder at people who have trouble defining creative nonfiction. “Really,” we might say to one another. “It’s not a mystery.  What we do is pretty straightforward.  Can you pass the Blanton’s, Mr. Jeeves?”

So we were pleased when running across poet/memoirist/blog-provocateur Steve Fellner’s discussion of definitions on his blog Pansy Poetics. Here’s a bit, but the entire post is worth reading as well.

I tell (my students) they need to break up the word. Creative. Non-Fiction.

Non-Fiction=The Real=Autobiographical Experience and/or Texts and/or History=”The Content” of the Piece

For the “Creative” aspect of the definition, they need to ask the question, “Where would the author locate his artistry in the piece?”, “What special formal strategies does she employ?” (ie point-of-view, diction, organization, etc.”)

“That’s why,” I say, “Journalism and diary writing cannot be creative non-fiction. There’s nothing inherently special about its formal strategies. It’s simply meant to convey. To an audience. Or to oneself. It’s not meant to convey in a way that is special or artistic.”

Of course, there are an infinite number of ways to deconstruct this definition. (Even though I think it’s pretty good.)

The endless battles about this definition as a result of that can go on and on.

But it offers a starting point rather than simply raising your hands in the air, and offering nothing except to claim no one can pin it down, that it transgresses boundaries and refuses to be defined. Of course, it refuses to be defined; that’s why we’ve become writers, to fumble our way towards a useless, necessary naming.