The MFA Chronicles

So, I met a lot of great people on P & W and the MFA Blog during the application season. Some of us decided it would be great to keep in touch via Facebook & Twitter, and I met a lot of new great people through the people I'd already connected with.

One of those great people, Jonterri Gadson, came up with a great idea: a collaborative blog made by first year MFA students. And so The MFA Chronicles was born. We're all starting at different programs, we have different genres, and most of us have never met in person. I'm excited to be a part of it and I'll hope you'll check us out.

PS---I spread the word to my wonderful S. She's starting a Creative Writing PhD in fiction, and I think she'll give us a fun perspective from a different angle.

http://mfachronicles.blogspot.com/

MFA Applications Will Kill Your Soul (But Don't Let That Stop You)

PIA08533: Supernova Dust Factory in M74

SO, for months now I've been meaning to post a list of things I learned from the MFA application process. But I just didn't have the strength. Now that I'm safely far, far away from that soul-crushing process, I think I'm ready to give it a go.

Here's the knowledge-like substance I gleaned from the whole torrid affair.

1) MFA APPLICATIONS WILL KILL YOUR SOUL. But pleeeease don't let that stop you. It doesn't feel like it now, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Or insert uplifting cliche of your choice here.

I applied during the last semester of my undergrad. (I graduated December 2008.) I was trying to finish my senior thesis and get through papers & midterms & finals, and at the same time I was revamping my application list again and again, studying for the GRE, taking the GRE, ordering transcripts, writing endless SOP drafts, trying to figure out how to apply to each school (why why WHY can't this process be more streamlined/standardized?), trying to get my writing sample in order, etc. etc. etc.

That was the longest semester of my life. I'd tried to prepare over the previous summer, but by the time I actually sent in my last application, my list of schools was completely different, so all my summer work ended up being kind of irrelevant. Actually, strike that. It would've been a lot harder without the thinking head start, even if I did most of the grunt work during the semester.

Waiting sucks. Rejection sucks. Not knowing sucks. Knowing sucks. Spending 24 hours a day glued to the MFA Blog, TSE and P&W until you forget what the sun looks like sucks. Second-guessing your writing sample/SOP/application list/reasons for living sucks. The whole process really, really sucks.

In the end, it was all worth it. I got into a kickass program with the funding I couldn't live without, and I am so. freaking. grateful.

If I hadn't gotten in, I would've applied again. I was thinking Teach for America for my Plan B.

SO, anyway, I know it's awful. But you're gonna make it. Or maybe you already have. High five!

2) YOU'RE THE DECIDER. Tom Kealey's MFA Handbook is invaluable. Buy it, read it, heed its advice---up to a point. In the end, the only person who really knows which schools should be on your list is you. (Wait, actually I think that advice is in the Handbook, too.) TSE and the P&W boards can be really helpful, too. But there is no magic list. There is no MFA Monarch who can tell you exactly how to get in at your dream school.

3) THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A SAFETY SCHOOL. There just isn't.

I applied to 9 schools. I got into Minnesota and waitlisted (as in, bottom-of-the-list-don't-hold-your-breath-listed) at Cornell. I got rejected outright by 7 schools, including Rutgers-Newark & UMass Boston & Florida, where the stats and the hype and my professors made me think I had some kind of a shot in hell. I also got rejected by Michigan & Syracuse & UMass Amherst & UT Austin/Michener, where the stats & the hype made me think I'd have just as much luck balling up my application and flushing it down the proverbial toilet. But I felt the same way about Minnesota, and somehow that happened for me.

I guess my point is: Apply where you actually want to go to school, where you can actually get funding, and don't worry so much about the stats & the hype. Just do your best and then sit back and see what happens.

At some point I told one of my letter-writers that I was worried because I felt like my list was too pie-in-the-sky, and that's basically what he told me. I think it's really good advice, and I'm glad I followed it. I didn't apply anywhere I wouldn't have been really happy to end up.

This application thing is so not a science. Follow your heart (and the funding!)

You can see my final rundown here: All Results Are In.

4) SCHOOLS WILL FIND YOUR BLOG. They will find it, they will read it, and wondering if it's having any effect on their decisions will drive you crazy. I was totally convinced that schools would never look for, let alone find my blog. But then I started seeing views from urls at schools I'd applied to---I knew because of StatCounter---ON or close to the days those schools sent out decisions. And then the administrative coordinator at Minnesota confirmed, when I was on my visit there, that they like to take a look at them. She did say that they do it after making decisions, so it has no effect on that, but who knows if that's true at other schools.

If you're keeping an open journal during admissions season, be somewhat careful. I really, really wasn't careful, and I tortured myself over it later. It might be a good idea not to show all your cards, just in case.

See this post: Off the Record (You're Not Out There, Are You?)

5) FIND EVERY WAY TO SAVE $$$$. This is a crazy expensive process, and in the end, it's kind of like betting. I'm chronically broke, and I hate betting (why risk not having money I already have for extra money I'm pretty sure I won't win?) So I was all over the money-saving jedi moves.

Michigan, UT Austin/Michener and UMass Amherst will waive their application fees if you send in the proper request form, along with documentation of financial need. This was a big help to me.

Cornell's site said they'd waive their fee in extraordinary circumstances, but it sounded like they were less cool with it than the other schools, and it scared me off, so I didn't ask for the waiver there. I probably should have. There are other schools out there, like Brown, that will also waive their fee, but I mostly just know about the ones where I applied. Doing the research really pays off.

If you get a GRE waiver from your undergrad school (knocks the price of the GRE in half!) a copy of that waiver will usually serve as proof of financial need. That's the easiest way. If you didn't or can't get a waiver, a letter from your financial aid office stating that you're a financial need student (very low EFC, received x percentage of need-based aid, etc.) will do the trick.

Ask the financial aid office at your school about GRE waivers, well ahead of time. As with the application fee waivers, you have to have a significant amount of documented financial need to qualify. And don't forget to always fill out that FAFSA!

Oh! And of course, the most important part: do your research about program funding! (!!!) Do see Seth Abramson's article about funding (here), do consult the MFA Handbook, and do make sure that the info you're getting is still current.

6) READ FACULTY BOOKS, AS MANY AS YOU CAN, AS EARLY AS YOU CAN. Funding (including teaching) had to be first, for me. And then came location. I'm ashamed to say I really didn't manage to start reading faculty works until after my application list was set in stone. But if I had it to do again, faculty would tie with location. After reading faculty works, I really feel like maybe I kinda sorta "get," in some tiny way, why I got in at Minnesota. That could just be in my head, and I still believe that the biggest factor was probably plain old luck, but hey. I feel a certain click, and that's a nice feeling.

That doesn't mean that just because you love somebody's work, they're going to like yours. And it doesn't mean that just because somebody likes your work, you're going to get in at their program. But even if you're strapped for time, like I was, and it comes down to just reading the faculty at the programs you've already decided to apply to, reading faculty work could really help if you're lucky enough to have to pick between 2 or more programs.

Here's the reading list I made up, for the schools I applied to: Fiction Faculty Books

7) COMMUNITY HELPS. But it also drives you crazy. But it also helps. But it also drives you crazy.

I was lucky enough to have a best friend, Sacha, who was applying to Creative Writing PhD programs at the same time I was applying to MFA programs. I think I would've gone crazy without her. If you don't have a friend applying to MFAs at the same time you are, try to find one.

That's part of what the blogs & boards are good for. It felt good to get info, to commiserate and celebrate with everyone else who was going through the crazy ups and downs of the admissions season. I feel like I've met some really awesome people and made a lot of great connections.

But sometimes it's just too much. Try to take it easy. I really, really didn't take it easy, and I think I'm just now recovering. (Ha?) Don't let the information overload/radio silence cycle eat your brain or crush your soul. See this post: Freedom from Information

*

Well, I think that's about all I can think of, at least for now. I hope somebody out there finds this helpful. You can find links to all the various MFA hotspots at the linkbar up top, and some more stuff at my Minneapolis Links. My linked searches there are MN-specific, but you can always just plug in your own search term once you get there.

For more information/crazytalk/possibly useless advice, check out the labels below, or check out the searchbox in the sidebar. And feel free to comment with questions. I'll try my best to answer, when I have a chance.

And GOOD LUCK! May the MFA force be with you.

Multi What?

I want to introduce you to my other blog:

Multi What? A blog about mixed identity.

Multicultural, multiethnic, multiracial, multi-multi...

Multi who, multi what? A blog about mixed identity, by one of the world's few (?) Somali-Armenian Americans.

...Tiger Woods is Cablinasian, this lady's Armali.

I've done some renovation, and now I'll be approaching it from a different (more personal) angle. I'm reposting this most recent entry here, because this is an important part of who I am, and because I thought this would be a good way to announce the rebirth of Multi What?

*

Hello, World!

What's an Armali?

To start with, I'm half Somali and half Armenian. I could go with Somenian, but I think Armali sounds nicer, right?

That means I'm half black and half white---like a certain president we know, I have a black African father and a white (ish?) American mother.

oh THAT's healthy!

My mother is a second generation Armenian American (or third generation, depending on how you count it---her grandparents all came to the US from Armenian villages in Turkey around 1915-1920s.) My father is Somali. He was born and raised in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, and first immigrated to the US as a young man. My parents met in Boston, Massachusetts. I have a younger sister and brother by the same parents.


But that's not all! (Ha, I feel like a game show.)

My mother's first husband was Ghanaian, and I have two sisters by that marriage. So they're half Ghanaian and half Armenian. Their father's second wife is Tanzanian, and my sisters have a brother (my step-half brother?) by that marriage, who's half Tanzanian and half Ghanaian.

My father's second wife was European American, and I have one sister by that marriage. So she's half European American and half Somali.

My stepdad, my mom's husband now, is African American, and I have two stepbrothers (by his first marriage) who are African American on both sides.

My stepmom, my father's wife now, is Somali, and I have a whole lotta siblings who are Somali on both sides.

My mother has only one sibling, my uncle. My aunt-by-marriage is Jewish American, and my only maternal first cousin (he's like my brother) is half Jewish and half Armenian.

My name is Arabic, and I minored in Arabic in college, but English is my only native language. My parents never taught us Somali or Armenian---I really, really want to learn, someday.

I was raised Muslim---I think of myself as agnostic now, just FYI. My mother's family are
(at least nominally) Armenian Orthodox Christian, and since my aunt is Jewish, we kids got to know all kinds of holidays, when we were growing up : )

I have family in Boston, New York, Arizona, Virginia, London, Kenya and who knows where else!

Okay, I know I'm forgetting something...

Secret Identities

So---I've decided to blow my cover. I feel like I've gotten over some of my initial embarrassment, largely thanks to those of you who keep visiting, those of you who've taken the time to say a few words. So thanks for that.

Yes, I get pretty silly here, and no, it's nothing fancy. But it's me, or at least it's a little bit of me. Why be ashamed about that? I can put together a more professional-ish site if I ever get to the point where that's necessary.

My other concern was about privacy. The internets frighten me, to be honest---and that's weird, because I tend to be a bit of an internet addict. But I've been delving into the world of blogs more and more lately, and there are plenty of real people out there who use their real names to blog, and they seem none the worse for wear. My friend S. does, and she hasn't had any problems. Same with Twitter---apparently it's no big deal. I guess I'm just more old fashioned than I thought.

I want to be able to share stuff, and sometimes that means I can't be anonymous. Like now: Look, the Minnesota MFA program is welcoming our incoming class! Me, right there, it's real! *happiness*



I'll try it out for a while. If the sky doesn't come crashing down, I guess I'll stick with it.

Here we go (knock on wood):

Hi, I'm Wahida. It's nice to meet you!

"You Are Being Lied to About Pirates," by Johann Hari

WTF---NUCLEAR WASTE?!

How did I not know about this? Why aren't more people talking about this?

I'm really glad to see there are people out there taking a multi-angled view of this pirate mess. There's so much human suffering involved, and there's more than one place to lay the blame.

(I know, I know---this place is completely scattered. But please just go read this article over at the Huffington Post.)

"You Are Being Lied to About Pirates," by Johann Hari

You Are Being Lied to About Pirates

Johann Hari, Columnist, London Independent

Posted April 13, 2009 | 10:05 AM (EST)

[...] The words of one pirate from that lost age - a young British man called William Scott - should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirating to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish-stocks by over-exploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea-life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia's unprotected seas. The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."

This is the context in which the men we are calling "pirates" have emerged. Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a 'tax' on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia - and it's not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas." William Scott would understand those words.

No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters - especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But the "pirates" have the overwhelming support of the local population for a reason. The independent Somalian news-site WardherNews conducted the best research we have into what ordinary Somalis are thinking - and it found 70 percent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence of the country's territorial waters." During the revolutionary war in America, George Washington and America's founding fathers paid pirates to protect America's territorial waters, because they had no navy or coastguard of their own. Most Americans supported them. Is this so different?

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn't act on those crimes - but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world's oil supply, we begin to shriek about "evil." If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause - our crimes - before we send in the gun-boats to root out Somalia's criminals.

The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor." Once again, our great imperial fleets sail in today - but who is the robber?

It's just so shocking (and depressing) that an issue of this magnitude could fly under the radar for so long. I can't believe I'm just hearing about this now, especially since I'm subscribed to an email news search on keyword "Somalia."

Did I mention I'm half Somali? My father is Somali, (born and raised in Mogadishu), and my mother is Armenian American.

I mean, it's pretty devastating. I know that the mainstream US media is significantly less than dependable, especially regarding world and minority issues, but wow...

Apparently they're planning to try the surviving pirate as an adult, even though he may be as young as fifteen? See blog post by Kalash at kabobfest.com.

Sigh.

At least South Park is paying attention, see the episode "Fatbeard":

All Results Are In

Got my FINAL notification today---I accepted at Minnesota last month, so this is just for posterity's sake. I'm taking this off the sidebar, now. It feels good to be settled, signed, sealed, delivered.

Nine applications. One acceptance (golden ticket!), one confirmed waitlist, one possible waitlist/eventual rejection, and six flat-out rejections.

How it all shook out:

The Long Wait: MFA Fiction Programs

U Minnesota---Accepted!!! by phone (Letter 2/19)...
I accepted the offer of admission 3/25.

Cornell---Waitlisted 3/24, by email after I called...(I was #8 on a waitlist of 8)

Rutgers-Newark---Rejected 4/16 via website (Letter 4/22) I think I was waitlisted?*

U Florida---Rejected 3/28 by mail

Syracuse---Rejected 3/14 by mail

UMass Boston---Rejected 3/13 via website (Letter 3/23)

U Michigan---Rejected 3/2 by mail

UMass Amherst---Rejected 2/27 by mail

U Texas/Michener---Rejected 2/26 via website (Letter 3/9)

* Online status remained "no decision" long after first-round notifications
(both acceptances and rejections) went out. Finally rejected via website 4/16.

*

PS----Link to a list of literature-related blogs compiled by Rigoberto González (who, as it happens, teaches at Rutgers-Newark.) I originally found the link here, at Practicing Writing.

Let's Take a Vote (De-Lurk, Ye Lurkers)

So, I kind of feel like I should take the blog down, start over with a less guess what happened to me today/work sucks/I like cider beer approach.

Try to be more serious and professional, mwah ha ha? Since I'm going to be starting this program, and I'm going to be teaching, and I feel like I'm supposed to have a "myrealname.com" sort of website, where I (try to) say brilliant things in a charming, writerly manner.

I sorta feel like an idiot, now that I know I'm not really as anonymous as I thought I was. I have fun with this little bloglet, though---and I'm not sure I have the time to be serious, right now.

Pretty please, let me know what you think. Is this blog too embarrassing for a future MFA student? Could I ever put my real name on it without dying of shame? I know it's a silly little site, but what if I promise to start being more put together, before the program starts?

What would you do? Are there any redeeming qualities, or has this blog served its purpose---getting me through the MFA admissions season with my gray matter intact?

PS---No blowing smoke where it doesn't belong!

Freedom from Information

The forums/blogs/post-subscriptions are driving me into the ground. My obsession with wringing every drop of information from the internet every day is truly starting to affect my quality of life.

I was finished with work today by noon. I ate lunch, walked to the library to return a book, talked to my sister on the phone, and was home by 2 pm. A nice way to start the free portion of my Wednesday.

When I got home, as usual, I went straight to the computer (after saying hi to my furry roommates, Treble the dog and Boots the cat.) I checked the blogs, checked the forums, read through all the posts that I missed while I was at work.

I talked to S. on the phone, I made a call to the Dept. of Education (stupid financial aid/student loan mix-up I'm trying to get fixed.)

Talking to S. was good---and she sent me the most wonderful postcard, a 1953 portrait of Jack Kerouac taken by Allen Ginsberg. She wanted to make sure my mailbox didn't stay empty! I got it today. If it wasn't for her, there would have been nothing in there but my next Six Feet Under DVD.

Then I checked the blogs, checked the forums, read through all the new posts coming in. Checked the blogs, checked the forums, read through...

Suddenly it was 7 pm.

I meant to take a long bath and read, I meant to work on the story I'm writing for workshop, I meant to finally do some Arabic, I meant to get through some administrative-type chores I have to do, I meant to call my grandparents. Instead, I sacrificed my brain and my time to the false idol of internet chatter, again. I mean, I hardly ever get around to reading the news, since all of this started.

This is no way to live. This little addiction of mine is out of control, and it's become progressively worse lately.

So, I'm totally grounded. I hereby solemnly swear that as of now I will NOT look at P & W, I will NOT open the email account where I have all my post-subscriptions delivered, I will NOT visit the MFA Blog or TSE or the GradCafe. If I can get through this and be good, maybe I'll allow myself to check back (during a limited window of time) a week from now. Or, maybe I'll be past the sweats and shakes by then, and won't want to go back.

Either way, I'm reclaiming my life outside of the computer. First, right now, I'm closing all the bad tabs open in my browser, signing out of gmail, and I'm eating a popsicle. Tomorrow I'm going to come home from work, eat lunch and write.

And not in this blog. Really write.

The Tucson Festival of Books is this weekend, 3/14-3/15, and I'm going. I'm really excited. The UA Poetry Center has a list of their events. I want to go to Alison Hawthorne Deming's reading for sure, and I'm also really interested in a talk called "Fiction out of Friction: Evolution, Arabs and Other Controversial Topics," with Robin Brande and Laila Halaby. And a lot more, too much to go into now. I'm falling asleep at the keyboard.


It's almost my bedtime. Goodnight, world.

*

PS--On a related note, Denis Johnson is reading at the Poetry Center on April 9th.

PPS---Why was there no new Lost tonight?

PPPS--Someone recalled the library copy of Burning Down the House I was reading. That's the book I had to return. I've been wanting to buy it, so now I will. It'll be better to be able to mark it all up, anyway.

Off the Record (You're Not Out There, Are You?)

Ahem...

I've developed the most ridiculous fear that some of the programs I've applied to are finding my blog and actually reading it. This would be a terrible, terrible thing.

"But you're anonymous," you might say. Well, not so much, if you've read my SOP.

How would they find me? I have no idea. (The forums? Google? The tin foil hat I'm wearing?)

Aren't I blowing my relative importance in the MFA world completely out of proportion by worrying that actual faculty are taking the time to scour the internet looking for little old me? Well, yes, I am. That's the only thing that's keeping me from totally losing it about this.

This incredibly self-involved hypothesis is based on stupid, stupid StatCounter. I wish I never installed it. Besides telling me how many people stop by the blog, I just discovered that I can see where they're checking it from. In the past week or two, I've had hits from both Syracuse and U Minnesota.

Of course, I also had hits from Indiana U and Boston U and U Arizona and U Alabama and U Tennessee, and I didn't apply to any of those. The most likely explanation is that these hits are just fellow/future applicants/students looking for MFA info. If so, hi!

But today, on the day when U Florida started notifying for fiction, I see a hit from Gainesville. What?! What?!

So, on the off chance that my paranoid delusions are in fact not delusions (humor me?), I just want to say that some of what I say on this blog is silly, and all of it is off the record, and most of all---please don't judge me based on my babble? Also, hi.

Actually, I'll extend that message to everyone out there in TV-land, not just the imaginary MFA faculty. This process (and waking up at 4 am for my job) is kind of wearing away at my sanity these days. Maybe an open diary was just a bad idea, during decision season.

Too late to turn back now---I believe I believe I believe I'm falling in love? What song is that again? Where am I?

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog, where I'll try to tune the crazy down. Thanks!

*

UPDATE 4/1:

They will find your blog, no matter how anonymous you think you are, and they will read it. And, undoubtedly, they will snicker behind their hands at how silly you are. And even if they don't, you'll always be sure that they did. Just a little warning, there.

LEAVING ATLANTA, by Tayari Jones

* Watch out for spoilers! *

I definitely don't want to ruin this book for anyone---I'm only about halfway through it myself. I'll try not to give away any major plot points, but if you're like me and you like to come to a book with a clean slate when you can, you might want to skip this post.

Tayari Jones (I encourage you to check out her blog) is on the fiction faculty at the Rutgers-Newark MFA program. Here's a description of Leaving Atlanta, her first novel, from the Rutgers website:

Her first novel, Leaving Atlanta, is a coming of age story set during the city’s infamous child murders of 1979-81. Jones herself was in the fifth grade when thirty African American children were murdered from the neighborhoods near her home and school. When asked why she chose this subject matter for her first novel, she says, “This novel is my way of documenting a particular moment in history. It is a love letter to my generation and also an effort to remember my own childhood. To remind myself and my readers what it was like to been eleven and at the mercy of the world. And despite the obvious darkness of the time period, I also wanted to remember all that is sweet about girlhood, to recall all the moments that make a person smile and feel optimistic.”

Leaving Atlanta received many awards and accolades including the Hurston/Wright Award for Debut Fiction. It was named “Novel of the Year” by Atlanta Magazine, “Best Southern Novel of the Year,” by Creative Loafing Atlanta. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Washington Post both listed it as one of the best of 2002.

I'm on page 131 right now, and so far it's a moving and engaging read. The book has a couple of interesting little quirks that I've been thinking about.

The first is that she places herself (or at least a little girl with her name) in the story, as a peripheral character. It makes sense, because the book is set in a time and place that she experienced. At the same time, it's quirky, because it seems like the more common thing is for the author to just write the POV character as a version of themselves without saying anything about it. Little Tayari pops up here and there, never having much serious interaction with the main characters, but kind of present throughout.

The POV character in the first section is LaTasha (Tasha) Baxter. At one point, Tasha is thinking about a party she didn't get invited to:

"Oh," Tasha said. She was glad that she hadn't been invited; her mother probably would have done the very same thing and Tasha would have ended up like Tayari, looking at her math book, trying not to cry. (69)

It has a certain effect, at least for me---every time Tayari-the-fifth-grader is mentioned, I find myself drawn out of the story for just a tiny moment. I think about Tayari Jones, the author. Thinking about her reminds me that even though this novel is fiction, it's about a situation that really did happen. I wonder if that's what she was trying to do?

* Warning, interesting craft choice "spoiled" here---I liked the surprise of it *

The second thing I wanted to mention has to do with point of view. The first section of the book is told from Tasha's POV, using a very close third person. Nothing unusual there, but we really get to know Tasha, and we get to feel invested in her character and her situation. That's why it was such a surprise to turn the page to the second section---all of a sudden, we're thrown into a second person POV.

The most interesting thing about the use of the second person here, I think, is the way that we already know this "you" character. We were introduced to him, Rodney Green, through Tasha's POV in the first section of the book. He's another fifth-grader in the same class.

I think we're all taught that the second person is difficult to maintain. I think it works here because Jones has already set this character up for us. He has a context in relation to the other children and in relation to the setting. He's not just some vague, unknown "you"---he's Rodney from before. It's less jolting to "be" him, because we already know something about who and where he is. For me, it didn't take long for the second person POV to become (for the most part) comfortably invisible.

Again, though---the second person draws attention to itself, and there are more of those tiny moments when I'm pulled out of the story by it. It makes me think, again, about how this is a kind of historical fiction. Intentional? I guess I think so.

*

Just one last note about the use of Little Tayari Jones---I love that she often seems to be doing particularly goofy kid things:

Why doesn't she just ask you how old you are and move on? Tayari Jones, two aisles over, is sniffing rubber cement and could use a little adult supervision. But Miss Russell squats beside you and leans forward as if your vocational leanings are of some consequence. (122)

It makes me laugh every time, and it makes me like the author for using "her" character that way.

*

Update 1/17---I finished the book. The third and final section is in the first person, from another child's POV.

It ended too soon (at the right time, but...man.)

I Need a JOB

Every time I check the boards, and there are no new posts to read, part of me feels like screaming. I'll lose all respect for myself if I don't find a job soon. This just isn't healthy! I'm trying to quit smoking again, too. (Umm, gradually, but I'm down to no more than 2 or 3 a day). I have a BA and Wendy's won't hire me. None of this is helping. Must...stop hitting...refresh.