   Reunions 2007
Why Write? By Josey Duncan ’06 I pressed my eyes to the ceiling and flailed my hands around over the long wooden table in a classroom in Eliot Hall. “I’m not reporting on any of you,” I said. “This is supposed to be, like, a personal account of my personal experience at Alumni College. So, I’m not going to be writing about you.” “Don’t worry,” Debra Ginsberg mercifully interrupted. And we were off. I attended Reunions this spring as a reporter. When I found out that the theme was “Reed & Write,” and that real live published alumni writers would descend on campus offering advice about how to be like them, I knew I had to go. After all, since I first learned to print sentences in stubby pencil on wide-ruled paper, I’ve fantasized about being a published writer. So far, following my senior thesis with creative writing professor Pete Rock, it’s been news stories and feature articles that I’ve gotten published, not short stories and novels. I figured I’d go back to school (admittedly, it hasn’t been that long) to get some advice. On the first day, we pinned on our nametags and gathered in Eliot 314. We were warmly welcomed by the event organizers, then broken up into small workshop groups in our chosen genres: poetry, memoir, fiction, and drama. Participants had submitted work ahead of time, so their egos were already on the line; I had gotten in under the transom, on assignment, so hadn’t had to bare the soul of my work . . . yet. I joined the fiction class given by memoirist (and recent debut novelist) Debra Ginsberg ’85. Before we moved in on the students’ stories, Ginsberg discussed the publishing industry. Apparently, getting one’s manuscript published is a bit like winning the lottery. There are five major publishers, and the rest of the so-called independent houses are really just “endless imprints” of the big five. Short story collections (my ambition and strong suit) are almost never picked up. Success in publishing comes from luck, connections, or both. The right manuscript in the right hands at the right time. Thesis karma. That kind of thing. I knew I should be discouraged as I sat in the basement of Eliot and scrawled these cautionary words of wisdom in my notebook. My head should have been swimming with images of overwhelmed literary agents carrying my barely read manuscripts across cluttered offices, cackling as they tossed them into giant shredders. But the fun part about being a cynic is that you already expect the worst. And after all, someone gets the attention of those agents, right? So why couldn’t it be me? The poetry lecture by Vern Rutsala ’56 on day two of Alumni College included a series of writing myths, each of which he wittily debunked. Among them was “writer’s block,” which he called a total lie. And a bad excuse. Not worth mentioning. Rutsala also said that, contrary to the opinion of some critics, M.F.A. programs are not diluting literature, they‘re improving it (so maybe I should apply to grad school?). And, despite what I’ve been lead to believe over the years by my peers, you do not have to have so-called “life experience” to be a good writer. Writing, said Rutsala, is re-writing; life can actually get in the way. During the fiction writing lecture by novelist Janet Fitch ’78, she said something that really got to me: fiction is not about ideas, she said, it’s about what goes on between people. It was honestly a relief to hear that. I never have any ideas, but I love people, and I am fascinated by how we interact. This remark also got me thinking more about the difference between fiction and memoir, something that took further shape during a subsequent memoirist panel. John Daniel ’70, Tamim Ansary ’70, and Debra Ginsberg sat at the front of the room. All are memoirists, but they have published very different collections of work. As I listened to them speak about the writing process, I began to realize that I am really a memoirist. It almost felt dirty to admit to myself, after claiming that what I’ve been writing all these years is fiction. I guess I’ve always felt that I have no right to go on and on about myself and my POV, since my life is basically boring. I haven’t done anything sufficiently interesting or historically significant to tell others about in a memoir. But listening to the panel, remembering Vern Rutsala’s advice and Janet Fitch’s definition of fiction, made me realize that everyone has at least one story to tell. Memoir isn’t about showing off your horrible, unique, or amazing life. It’s about shaping experiences and telling a story. And, as Debra Ginsberg put it, all five stories that exist in the world have already been told (and published). It’s the details that make them different. |
