Tucson Festival of Books

So, tomorrow morning marks the start of the very first Tucson Festival of Books!

Here is a link to maps and schedules, and here is the festival blog.

The UA Poetry Center has a list of their events.

The Pima County Public Library has a page about the festival.

There's an entry about it on the NewPages blog.

The Arizona Public Media page features video.

They even have a Facebook page.

And here's a clip about the festival on Youtube.

*

Here's what I'm thinking for Saturday:

Poetry readings by Alison Hawthorne Deming and Luci Tapahonso will be the first of the day. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins will be giving a reading to close the day out.

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. Unfortunately, it's at the same time as Prof. Deming's reading! I will happily choose to go see my former teacher, but I hope I'll have a chance to hear about the Halaby/Brande talk.

Also at the same time is a talk on "Public Speaking for Shy Writers" with Michael Charton. Too bad!

My next pick: Fenton Johnson, Beth Alvarado and Naomi Benaron will give a talk on "Shaping Truth in Memoir and Fiction."

It's at the same time as two other talks that sound interesting: "Life Worth Living, Inside Out: The Sufi and the Sage," with Albert Clayton Gaulden and Mansur Johnson..."Oral History and Community Story: The Foundation and Inspiration of Fiction Writing," with Patricia Preciado Martin.

Later on, I plan to attend this very nifty panel discussion, which is one of the events at the UA BookStore:

Jason Brown, Kevin Canty, Ander Monson & Manuel Munoz

"The Writing Life: Surviving & Publishing in Today's Market"

And then this one:

Aurelie Sheehan and Laura Fitzgerald

"Art or Craft? What Makes Fiction Work and Why?"

That means I'll miss a talk on "The Art of Eavesdropping," with Stephen Kuusisto. (We just did an exercise on dialogue and eavesdropping in the community college workshop I'm taking.) And a talk called "In the Driver's Seat: The Character-Driven Plot," with Elizabeth McKenzie, Alfredo Vea and Ann Cummins. And one called "We Cannot Look Away: Exploring a Social Conscience Through Writing," with Stella Pope Duarte...tempting.


Of course, this is a pretty ambitious schedule. And I'm giving up my precious "sleeping in" days, so hopefully all the literary excitement will keep my energy levels high. But seriously, what an incredible opportunity, right here in Tucson. Hooray!

*

On Sunday, I plan to go see the

"KALACHAKRA" SAND MANDALA

Viewing & Dissolution Ceremony for the Wheel of Time, Sand Mandala with respected Buddhist scholar and former attendant to the Dalai Lama, Losang Samten.

More soon...

Details, Details

I have to give a presentation on "authenticating details" today. It's an assignment for my community college fiction workshop. It's just beginner's stuff, because it's really an introductory level class. But it's keeping me honest, and I have plenty to learn. Plus, this kind of thing is probably good practice, considering I'll be teaching sometime soonish! I can hardly believe it, me---teaching. Exciting and strange.

This is from the handout I made (I have a partner, but I'm only including the parts I prepared):

*

Authenticating details are details that reveal something particular about who a character is—something about their personality, background, situation, emotional state etc. When these kinds of revealing details are specific and unique, they work to make us believe the character—they authenticate the character for the reader.

Sometimes, authenticating details are called significant details. This is from pages 26-29 of Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, by Janet Burroway and Elizabeth Stuckey-French:

Specific, definite, concrete, particular details—these are the life of fiction. Details (as every good liar knows) are the stuff of persuasiveness. (26)

A detail is “definite” and “concrete” when it appeals to the senses. It should be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched. (26)

The [...] writer must deal in sense detail [and] these details must be details “that matter.” [You must] mean more than you say. (27)

A detail is concrete if it appeals to one of the five senses; it is significant if it also conveys an idea or a judgment or both. The windowsill was green is concrete, because we can see it. The windowsill was shedding flakes of fungus-green paint is concrete and also significant because it conveys an idea that the paint is old and suggests the judgment that the color is ugly. The second version can also be seen more vividly. (27)

[...] if you are to realize your characters through detail, you must be careful to select the details that convey the characteristics essential to our understanding. You must select the significant. (29)

No amount of concrete detail will move us [...] unless it also implicitly suggests meaning and value. (29)

Writing Fiction also points out that “active verbs [...] tend to call forth significant details” (34). Here is a comparison from the book:

A general verb creates a general impression, but a precise, active verb conveys the exact picture in the reader’s mind. For example:

General Specific

walk------ Does the waiter scurry or amble?
yell------- Does the coach demand or bellow?
swim----- Does the child splash or glide?

climb----- Does the hiker stumble up the hill or stride?

Exercises, from page 203 of John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers:

Describe a landscape as seen by an old woman whose disgusting and detestable old husband has just died. Do not mention the husband or death.

Describe a lake as seen by a young man who has just committed murder. Do not mention the murder.

Describe a building as seen by a man whose son has just been killed in a war. Do not mention the son, war, death, or the old man doing the seeing; then describe the same building, in the same weather and at the same time of day, as seen by a happy lover. Do not mention love or the loved one.

*

We also have a few examples, and our own little exercise, involving this picture from Found Magazine.