Kathe Koja | Writing about writing

At Minuteman HS in Lexington, MA, I led writing workshops with the students, and asked them to try an exercise using sense details – the things a character might see, smell, touch, and so on – to make more real, and more immediate, a piece of boring writing. (The prompt was “The boy sat on the steps to eat his lunch,” and their response was astute and enthusiastic.)

So in that spirit, here’s a sensory detail of my own: the completely amazing Buddha Boy cake created by Kailey Jones: a feast for the eyes, the detail was amazing, down to the spine and the pages! It was a feast for the taste buds, too – we shared out the cake with Connie Maynard and her GSA group, itself a feast of ideas and energy . . . The whole day went by much too quickly, between the assemblies and those writing workshops and the chance to share ideas (and lunch – Minuteman has an excellent in-house restaurant, staffed by the school’s culinary department) with Eileen Roddy, Maureen Archambault, and Maryam Bowen, among other teachers . . . Thank you, Minuteman students and teachers, for a sweet day.

I’m proud to be returning for a second year to the LGBT Summit, sponsored by GLSEN of Southeastern Michigan, taking place in Beverly Hills, Mich., tomorrow, 10/29. (You can read an overview of the Summit here.)

Together with Julia LaBrell, I’ll be leading a workshop whose message and invitation is to break the silence and tell your story: to the wise, hilarious, questioning, burdened, free, and wonderful kids who will come to the conference – I know they’ll be there; they always are, and are always wonderful – who will enrich each other and us and all who know them, or will come to know them, by the stories of self that they’ll tell, and share, and become.

I plan to read a bit from two stories of self, from my novels The Blue Mirror and Talk, of Maggy the artist and Kit the actor, a girl and a boy whose lives depend, in the end, on telling themselves the truth of what each sees. Fiction tells the truth uniquely, or so it’s been my experience, as a reader and a writer. Story has power: tremendous power: you tell yourself a story every day, no matter who you are or what age you are or what your circumstances are, when you get out of bed in the morning and put one foot in front of the other. Make it the true one! Tell yourself who you are, right out loud, and then tell the rest of us, break the silence and share yourself with the world.

No planes would take me to Boston in anything like a timely fashion – one of the hazards of the road – so my visit to Minuteman is fun postponed, though thankfully not fun denied. Onward!

Tomorrow I’ll be heading to the Boston area and Minuteman High School, as noted, to talk to the freshman class about Buddha Boy and to some of the juniors about writing: their writing, and the larger arena of Writing itself.

So today I’m considering what makes for a successful author visit. There are all kinds of lists and guidelines and how-tos and what-not-to-dos, all meant to help the institution – school, library, university – choose the right author to invite, pair that visit with a current program or curriculum (or build one around same), and get the most out of the time the author spends in situ, for students, faculty, and the public if applicable.

What this author likes to do, when I undertake a visit, whether it’s to read or talk or conduct a writers’ workshop or do a Q&A or some combination – or something completely different – is remember, first and foremost, that the writer is the Beast From Afar (even if I’m actually the Beast from Across Town). I’m there from a different landscape to share what I know, be closely interrogated (as one does with a curious beast; if an auroch walked into my room right now, you can bet I’m petting it and touching those horns), learn everything I can about this new territory, and be a pleasing beast to have around. It’s one of the great perks of my profession, these invitations and welcomes, and I look forward to the visit every time. See you shortly, Minuteman!

My class visit to Wayne State University has been changed to tomorrow evening, and the auguries for discussion, decadence, and deep diving into the Champagne-flavored wells of the unconscious remain excellent. I’ll be reading from Under the Poppy as well, and signing copies, and waving to the shade of Oscar Wilde, who always loves a good literary party.

Do you wish you could forget, do you sigh over good memories, does it all seem like a blur? Or are you still there?

I’m not.  But I remember.

Which pretty much describes the upcoming trajectory: On October 12, I’ll be visiting Wayne State University, Prof. Anca Vlasopolos‘ Fin de siecle class that encompasses the great Wilde, the French Symbolists, and more, more, more. I’ll be reading from and discussing Under the Poppy, and letting the energy of decadence take the discussion where it may.

The next day, I’ll be heading to Minuteman High School in Lexington MA, to talk on 10/14 about Buddha Boy with the freshman class, all of whom have read the novel, all of whom I intend to ask one very specific question (no hints, no spoiler, no exceptions).

Then at month’s end, 10/29, I’ll be part of a writing workshop at the Fall LGBT Youth Summit held by Southeast Michgan’s GLSEN chapter, hosted again by Groves High School in Birmingham MI. Last year’s workshop was amazing, and passed in the blink of an eye – so much to say, so little time.

Being invited to make these visits is a great perk of my job, as well as a personal pleasure – it’s fun, to talk to other readers and writers, fun to examine ideas and ask questions and ponder what answers there may be. Onto the road I go; maybe I’ll see you there, and if I do, let’s talk.

This month at Bookslut, I do some joyriding with my books – historical, YA, horror – barreling down the road, exploring the varied towns of genre.  It’s a useful image, emotionally useful, too, because the work carries the writer, not the other way around; or that’s the way it’s been for me.

Writing the books I most want, need, to write has meant traveling to landscapes I may never have seen any other way – physical as well as fictional landscapes – schools and convention centers and book stores and libraries, meeting and talking to readers and writers and students, some of whom have been fully unforgettable (the student in the quad who, in one long breathless sentence, demonstrated that she already was the writer she longed to become; the education professional who thought censorship was actually a pretty good idea), some of whom have become my colleagues, and dear irreplaceable friends. And the journey’s not over yet: looks like we’re heading into the theatre district …. Let’s go.

In honor of Shared Worlds, and all the worlds we share when we write and read, here are writers like Paolo Bacigalupi, Michael Moorcock, Alastair Reynolds, and me, discussing the same.  Whose world is the most real to you?

Was it ever enough, just to write the book and put it on the Great Bookshelf that is the world, and hope the right readers would find it and make it their own?  No.  And a qualified yes. But mostly no.

Rather than detail all the amusing and not-so ways in which writers have tried throughout the ages to get people to notice that their books/scrolls/stone tablets etc. actually do, in fact, exist, I offer this link because it contains both David Rakoff, whose work I love, and Christopher Schelling, my genius agent. And because the idea of the one-book bookstore is amusing. Does it work? Who knows? Would you go into it or pass it by with a shrug or a smile? What does work? And does every writer have to answer that question for him- or herself, especially now in the brave new world of 24/7 blog’n'tweet?

There are ways to make it fun, of course, firstly by not self-defining the task as the horror of marketing (unless you really like marketing, or happen to own a marketing firm); and secondly, by having fun with it, as much fun as humanly possible, the methods of which will differ writer by writer, book by book, day by day. What works for you may only work for you.  And that’s good enough; in fact, it’s perfect. Do you have a one-book bookstore in you?