Thoughts on the Printed Word

This thoughtful, inspiring article from independent book publisher Eric Obenauf offers a hopeful forecast for the world of print, finally.

"The goal for book publishers, most simply put, should not be to undertake a virtual arms race of developing technology with both the Internet and media, or to try to compete on a bloated scale with music and film, or even to translate a work to conform to an undetermined potential future model. The mission for book publishers and print media at large should be to create a product that is irreplaceable and indispensible."

New Words to Commit to Memory Foam

Merriam-Webster has just released its list of words newly added to the dictionary. So, get learnin! If you've been creating a "sock puppet" or "waterboarding" before now, it's been unofficial. Anyone who can use three of them in a single sentence, gets a free back issue of HFR. Post 'em here!

Not Be Forgotten: Larry Levis

“Sometimes, remembering those days,
I watch a warm, dry wind bothering a whole line of elms
And maples along a street in this neighborhood until
They’re all moving at once, until I feel just like them,
Trembling & in unison. None of this matters now,
But I never felt alone all that year, & if I had sorrows,
I also had laughter, the affliction of angels and children.
Which can set a whole house on fire if you’d let it.”

The above is from the poem, “My Story In A Late Style Of Fire,” by Larry Levis (1946-1996). It's the poem that made me love Levis, and the book it's from, Winter Stars, is the book that made me want to be a poet. I didn’t just want to write like Levis, I wanted to be Levis, to see the world as he did, to feel what he felt, love like he loved, with passion and with attention to and for the details that can make a meaning for the living. I had my first poet/man crush. Other man crushes in the past included Flea, Johnny Cash, Dostoyevsky, Camus, and Kierkegaard.

Last semester I was a junior studying under the poet Norman Dubie, who was and still is one of my favorite poets, and I also knew he was Larry Levis’s old drinking buddy from his poem “A Genesis Text for Larry Levis Who Died Alone.” But what I didn’t know is what matters now. On the first day of class Dubie asked us to name our favorite poets. I said Larry. Dubie started talking. A great poet he was, he said, “He was the smartest poet I’ve met, ya know I used to be his teacher out at Iowa” (here, I am paraphrasing from memory). So there I was, a junior studying under the teacher who taught my favorite poet. Lucky? Destiny sounds better to me. If I wrote a good poem in class, Dubie would say, this is something Larry would have liked, or this reminds me of Levis, which would make me feel as if I had reached some subliminal point on the hierarchy of needs scale. To be studying under Dubie was too real for me, I believed in it, really; I could have believed in astrology at that point, the alignment of planets making things like this possible.

Levis’s best poems are exhibited in his last three works, Winter Stars, Widening Spell of The Leaves, and Elegy—which was published posthumously. I recommend starting out with Winter Stars; it is accessible, stunning, and less heart-wrenchingly exhaustive than the others are. Though Levis is largely unknown--due to his unexpected early death--his work has been highly respected by other established poets such as Charles Wright, Tony Hoagland, Philip Levine, David St. John, and many others. Hoagland has this to say about Levis’s work, “In comparison as a device whose goal is logical coherence, or persuasion, or concentration; rather, [Levis's] practice is to use image as a form of inquiry, as a kind of tentative, speculating finger poking into the unknown." So do yourself a favor, read and listen to some of his poetry here, and then go buy one of his books and find out why he is considered by many to be a forgotten god of the contemporary poets.

The Writer's Center Announces Fellowships for Emerging Writers

The Writer’s Center, metropolitan DC’s community gathering place for writers and readers, is currently accepting submissions for several competitive Emerging Writer Fellowships. Emerging Writer Fellows will be selected from applicants who have published up to 2 book-length works of prose and up to 3 book-length works of poetry. We welcome submissions from writers of any genre, background, or experience.

Emerging Writer Fellows will be featured at The Writer’s Center as part of their Emerging Writers Reading Series. The readings, held on Friday evenings, bring together writers in different genres with a backdrop of live music. The Writer’s Center book store will sell titles by the Emerging Writers throughout the season in which they appear in an effort to promote them and their work to a wide audience.

Selected Fellows are invited to lead a special Saturday workshop at The Writer’s Center, with compensation commensurate with standard Writer’s Center provisions. Fellows receive an all-inclusive honorarium to help offset their travel costs in the amount of $250 or $500, depending on their place of departure.

Fellows for Fall 2009 include novelist Alexander Chee (Edinburgh), novelist Lisa Selin Davis (Belly), poet Suzanne Frischkorn (Lit Windowpane), poet Aaron Smith (Blue on Blue Ground), Canadian fiction writer Neal Smith (Bang Crunch), poet Srikanth Reddy (Facts for Visitors), and poet Nancy Krygowski (Velocity). Their events will be held in September, October, and December. See our events calendar for more information. Spring 2009 events will be held in February, March, and April/May.

To be considered, please send a letter of interest, a resume or CV that details publication history and familiarity facilitating group discussions, and a copy of your most recent book. Self-published or vanity press titles will not be accepted. A committee comprised of The Writer’s Center board members, staff, and members will evaluate submissions on behalf of our community of writers.

The deadline to submit is August 15, 2009. Applicants are encouraged to call Charles Jensen, Director, for more information at 301-654-8664.

The Writer’s Center, established in 1976, is one of the nation’s oldest and largest literary centers. We provide over 60 free public events and more than 200 writing workshops each year, sell one of the largest selections of literary magazines in our on-site bookstore, and publish Poet Lore, America’s oldest continually published poetry journal.

Website of the Week: Three Percent

Part of the University of Rochester and affiliated with it's translation press Open Letter, Three Percent is a site devoted to what is new and valuable in translation. The name of the site comes from the fact that only three percent of all works published in America are works in translation, a staggeringly low amount in the University's opinion. The website's job is to advocate for translation of world literature and be guide to some of the best examples out there.

It's a good time to be looking at translation. Most American lit-heads were at least somewhat chastened when we were singled out last year - by no less than someone who helps choose the Nobel Prize - that Americans do not read enough of the rest of the world's literature. It does give you pause. Reading only Americans makes no more sense than only reading Texans or Pennsylvanians. Where would the short story be without Chekhov? Where would poetry be without Wislawa Szymborska ? Where would we be without Magic Realism? Scolding from the Nobel aside, there is a lot we may be missing. Give Three Percent a look, and make sure you're not coming out on the short end of the stick.

Review of DO-OVER! by Robin Hemley

Review of DO-OVER! by Robin Hemley, Little, Brown & Company, 2009.

By Jessica DeVoe Riley

“You’re going to know a lot about your life when you finish this.”

Imagine being given the chance to do over something from your past. How about two things? How about ten? Think you would learn something new about your life? Robin Hemley did.

At age forty-eight, Robin Hemley finds himself divorced and remarried, the father of three girls with one more child on the way, and the owner of one too many unresolved childhood memories. He decides that if he intends to be the kind of father he wants to be, then he must come to terms with those cringe-worthy memories. His approach is to shout “Do over!” with the bravado of his inner child. The end result is his book DO-OVER!, "In Which a forty-eight-year-old father of three returns to kindergarten, summer camp, the prom, and other embarrassments.” Hemley brings readers on an amusing tour of his life: reflections on the awkwardness of youth and his journey to confront those ghosts of his past.

While the book admittedly sounds a bit like the plot to Billy Madison, it is much more than repeating a few grades in school – Hemley returns to summer camp, joins a fraternity, and spends the night in his childhood home. Each chapter is dedicated to a single do-over, in which Hemley tells the memory of why this is a moment in time he would like to repeat, how the do-over experience goes, and what he learns from it to apply to his present life as a father and husband. It’s hard not to cheer along for Hemley. He writes with such endearing humor as he addresses the survival strategy that everyone knows but has trouble applying to their own lives: learn and move on from your mistakes. “Our whole lives we struggle with our personal sense of failure,” he writes. “To the outside world, our failures are strangers, but to us, they’re our closest intimates, closer than friends, children, spouses, parents; nourished from an early age, they may become so strong that they overcome us.”

In addition to a balanced blend of comedy, sarcasm, and sensitivity while delivering painful memories of flubbing lines, lacking confidence, or getting homesick while studying abroad, Hemley draws the reader in with descriptions of the supporters he encounters along the way. Hemley repeatedly references how most people he tells about his project are not only excited for him but often offer the moments they would like to do over. Even the sixth grade art teacher who introduced herself to Hemley saying, “I’m going to have a hard time taking this seriously,” winds up confiding in Hemley about her own past experiences with teachers, a conversation that leaves him “feeling as though I’ve made her a convert, though I’m not exactly sure to what.”

From his dream high school prom date talking of the current batch of high-schoolers (“Sometimes I forget that I’m not as young as they are because I feel their age still”) to toasting with friends in Japan (“To who we are!"), Hemley makes his strongest connection to readers by bringing everyone in on the agreement that the inner child still exists, and that everyone benefits by letting him out once in a while. With that imagination and exuberance for life, though, comes the childhood feelings of confusion or lack of confidence or fear. As adults we’ve (hopefully) become more capable of handling those feelings: “Sometimes I’m an observer. Sometimes I’m a participant. Sometimes I’m an oddity. But most of the time, I seem to fit in somehow, and these are the moments I relish, even when I’m playing the fool or basking in the imaginative worlds of childhood.”

Robin Hemley is the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on DO-OVER!. He has published seven books, and his stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, Chicago Tribune, and many literary magazines and anthologies, including Hayden's Ferry Review (his story, "Mercy" appeared in issue #34). Robin received his MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop; he currently directs the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa and lives in Iowa City, IA.

A Guide to Independent Bookstores

Marc Fitten is turning his book tour for his new book Valeria’s Last Stand, into an Indie extravaganza. Fitten is visiting 100 independent bookstores while on tour and then posting reviews of each store on his blog. So far he has worked his way through 25 of them, covering a large portion of New England and the South.

Some of the review language is chatty and slight (it’s good to know that Amherst Books ‘smells nice’ but that not really how I pick my bookstores), but it is a representation of some great independents gathered in one place. Good luck and godspeed, Marc, I’m a little envious of all the great stores you’re going to.

Job Posting: Assistant Professor in Creative Writing - Fiction

Institution: Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
Location: Shippensburg, PA
Category: Faculty - Liberal Arts - English and Literature
Type: Full Time
Tenure-track assistant professor in Creative Writing, Fiction, full-time appointment beginning August 2010. MFA or PhD from an accredited institution required by time of appointment. Candidates must have a demonstrated commitment to undergraduate education, a strong record of publications in fiction, and evidence of academic service. Twelve-hour course load each semester may include creative writing, general education (writing and literature), and literature courses in the major, with course reduction available for advising the student literary magazine. The committee will request writing samples from selected candidates and may meet with these candidates at MLA. On-campus interviews for finalists will include a demonstration of teaching effectiveness and a brief fiction reading.

Submit letter of interest, curriculum vitae, undergraduate and graduate transcripts (unofficial for application, official prior to interview), and contact information for three references to:

Richard Zumkhawala-Cook, Chair
Creative Writing Search Committee
Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
1871 Old Main Drive, DHC 113
Shippensburg PA 17257

Review of applications begins November 2, 2009. For more information about the Department of English and Shippensburg University, see www.ship.edu/~english.

Evidence of a commitment to understanding diverse populations will be required as part of the on-campus interview. Offers of employment are contingent upon successful completion of a criminal background check. All candidates must furnish proof of eligibility to work in the U.S. upon appointment. Shippensburg University is committed to equal employment opportunity. Individuals from traditionally underrepresented populations are encouraged to apply.

A Look at Independent Presses

David Milofsky of the Denver Post is doing a pretty cool thing this summer: he's focusing his monthly columns on books coming out of independent and university presses. His June column took a look around at some of the best new books for summer reading. Having discovered that "where alternative presses are concerned our communal cup is overflowing," he decided to continue what he started in June. His new July column focuses on the books coming out of Coffee House and Graywolf presses.

In a time where the big houses are closing their doors to some of the most talented literary writers, the small presses are increasingly where to look for the most exciting and innovative fiction and poetry. Thanks to Milofsky for giving them some attention!

Happy July 4th!

Going through the HFR archive, I had some trouble finding an appropriate Independence Day poem. Our contributors don't like to talk about independence, or freedom or - even - apple pie. I suppose fireworks are kind of heavy handed for a poem? Fine. And I guess "Declaration of Independence" doesn't rhyme with a lot of stuff. So here's what we've got: a poster celebrating Summer from Silver Buckle Press, which appeared in issue #25. And a poem from issue #31 which strikes me as very American, contains an explosion, and is called "Consitution," though is not about the document. Enjoy! And have a wonderful holiday.

Constitution
By Caki Wilkinson

I have an Uncle Hugh
who shot his car.

It had something to do
with the carburetor,
and the seventh or eighth time
it steamed and smoked
instead of purred and sped,
he pulled his rifle
from the coat closet
and popped the gas tank
into a balloon of fire.

I asked my mother
did he feel bad
and she said
when a man's got a temper
he never feels bad, and
Uncle Hugh's like Daddy--
he'd shoot down
the big dipper
if he thought it sprung a leak.

I worry about that.

Some days
when the garage door
sticks
and the dog
pees on the newspaper
instead of retrieving it,
I watch a single, blue vein
rise
and throb
across my father's forehead
and I think of Uncle Hugh,
the way he stood there
with his mess of fire,
the way his family filed out
to the front porch,
squinting through all that
orange light,
and the way Uncle Hugh
never made a sound,
wiped his sweaty cheek,
picked his back tooth.

News Around the Net

Despite the current climate in the industry, Jessica Stockton is opening a new independent bookstore in Brooklyn.

Alice Hoffman's lesson on when to tweet and when not to tweet.

The journal of a controversial film.

The results are in on the Salinger spin-off, and it's a resounding "no."

In the wake of Iran's recent elections, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis will get its encore.

James Frey is working on a new YA novel involving aliens. Insert your favorite quip about Frey's fake memoir here.

Here's a list of the Best Worst Opening Lines award nominees. Bulwer-Lytton triple dog dares you to top them!

What comes after Tolkien?

The Open Library is attempting to make a single web page for every single book in the world.