Beth Grosart: Inspiration and Truth

AWP Panel: Teaching the Writer and the Text: Writers of Color in the Creative Writing Workshop

(Panelists: Elmaz Abinader, M. Evelina Galang, Faith Adele, Mat Johnson, David Mura)

As I enter the generic conference room, there is nothing generic about the sea of faces - brown, black, olive, and tan colors of varying tones. Two or three shades of white are intermixed, but fade amongst the color.  I squeeze by an Asian woman with a half buzzed hair cut; the other half of her head is covered in long, straight black strands. She smiles at me and makes room.
Settling into my seat, I study the faces around me. An Asian man sitting at the panel table, smiles at me and I can't help but wonder if it's the kind of smile that says, I recognize you as a member of my tribe. You are one of my people. Or if he's just looking around the room, being friendly. I take it as a little of both and smile back.
I hesitate to look around. I have always felt like an outsider in groups like this, groups full of a diverse crowd of minorities. I sometimes wonder if I feel like the white people interspersed through the room, but then I remember, unlike them, I can fake it. I look like the majority in this room of minorities. What they don't know, by looking at me, is that I'm adopted. I grew up with the other half. Does that make me less of one of them? That's what causes me to sit quietly, take my silent notes and soak in what's being said in front of me:

"We must take our stories outside of this room."
"Why does the what of who we are hold us back for critique and craft?"
"Culture supports story but isn't the reason for story."
Ask yourself, "What reading have you done?" "It's our role to educate ourselves as readers." Read all cannons, "read outside the white cannon."
"No one has the truth themselves...All need to join stories to have the whole story."
"All of our stories come together in a joint narrative. It's not complete without every perspective."

The panel ends and the applause shakes us all forward in our seats, wishing it to continue. After the crowd starts to exit, I walk to the front to speak to the Asian panelist, David Mura. I say thank you. I tell him I appreciate his words. They continue to ring true in my head: Asian Americans, especially, have issues with recognizing and acknowledging their own racial place and diversity.
After telling him I have the added complication (if that's the right word, I sort of think not) of being an Asian American adoptee, he recognizes, just by looking at me, that I'm Korean. He tells me he knows some Korean American adopted writers who, once they recognized their diversity, "out their diversity," they became racially aware as writers. Some, even to a higher degree than people who had always been at that place. This is me, I say. For years, in high school and college, it never occurred to me to write racially diverse characters. My lens was white- painted by my parents, friends, school, and teachers. I was almost 30 years old before I wrote MY truth, before I wrote through a truthful lens.

Leaving the conference room, I remember the moment that (to use a panel term) "outed" my diversity. At the start of my low-res, grad school career, faculty member Evelina Galang (also a panelist) asked me, "What do you write?" I tried to speak. I thought I had a good answer - short, literary fiction about characters with complicated issues that are struggling with identity. She pushed me further, "That's not an answer. What do you write?" I tried again, but again, failed. In just a few minutes, she changed me as a writer. She helped me see that it wasn't my characters struggling with identity; it was me. This small moment inspired a new writer from within to create the writer I am today.

This AWP panel, sitting amongst that group, full of color and truth, helped me remember my revelation and inspired me to never forget it.

Tom rich- final post

Throughout the week I learned a lot about how people are inspired to write. Keith Dorrington was inspired to write The Fighter because he admired the way Dickie Ecklund and Micky Ward were still working hard to train Micky to be a good fighter, despite Micky's failures in fighting and despite Dicky's drug addiction. PK Simonds was inspired to go into the screenwriting business for television because he was intrigued by comedy and wanted to further his comedic writing skills. The publishing company heads were inspired to start companies editing and publishing literary journals because they enjoy reading literary journals. Thus, during this past week I met people who were inspired to write by traits of admiration, interest, and enjoyment.

Trich on Literary Journal Publishing Companies (seminar)

I learn a lot about publishing companies for literary journals from the seminar. I met 3 people who ran these companies who seemed to be inspired simply by the fact that they enjoy reading literary journals. Each of these company owners receive thousands of literary journal submissions each month. If a company head likes a submission they will let a person know by email. If the company head knows he will be able to sell the literary journal he will buy the rights to the submission from the original writer. When he buys the submission his job is then to publish it and try to sell it to bookstores across the nation. How this works is they make calls to a book store companies headquarters and ask who their buyer is. If they are successful at getting a buyers contact information it is then their job to promote the literary journal and sell it to the book store company. This job is often hard because often times book store companies don't give out their buyers contact info and often times book stores don't even sell literary journals.  

Julia's final post

This week has helped me to gather new inspirations for my writings. Yesterday we had the chance to go to conferences and listen to writers, where they got their inspirations from. A guy called Brock Clark shared one of his books, which was written in a funny way. He writes in first person and writes in an open style. Writing with humor and not being uptight has a positive influence on the readers. The book he shared made the auditorium laugh. He said that no one should write a book about an another writer because readers would loose interest in reading.

All in all the week helped me to gather new inspirations from what I have seen and heard from different people. Knowing that everyone starts off as a small writer and grows with experience shows that everyone needs a point to start off with. The ideas grow through different actions like watching movies, traveling or art. Art is the main inspiration to start writing poems as well as books. It has been a great week!!!

Trippe Final Reflection

    Write On! was an interesting project for project week. I have always been interested in writing because I read a lot, but have never really gotten around to trying my hand at it. The first two days the group stayed in the classroom at New Hampton and learned about different writing styles. We heard the writer from the movie The Fighter speak about his motivation to write, which was very interesting. We learned about memoirs, creative writing, poetry, documentary, and receiving inspiration from artwork. On Wednesday, our group took a trip down to New Bedford to learn about the inspiration for the famous book Moby Dick. The author, Herman Melville, was inspired by his experience on a whaling voyage and used this experience in his portrayal of Ismail, the narrator of his book. He had the notion of whaling as "bad", which was a radical view in the days of whaling. Whalers believed that whales were dark, evil leviathans from the depths of the cold and terrifying sea. Melville's idea that whales were peaceful mammals definitely was not the common view. We went to Woods Hole down the Cape afterwards, and listened to Mr. McCollom's Uncle talk about writing for TV shows. This was interesting because he had a lot of information to pass on to us. He had worked with the writers for famous shows, including one of my favorites (Game of Thrones). On Thursday, we traveled to the AWP conference in Boston. There, we sat in on two conferences of our choosing to learn more about different writing inspirations. I personally did not take much from this part of the trip, but this was probably due more to my poor selection in conferences rather than the conferences themselves. That night, we attended a concert at the Berklee College of Music. This was a very impressive concert. It certainly inspired me, many of the women had incredible voices. We even saw a girl go HAM on the recorder. And there was a song with Kazoo's, which i guess was kinda cool.

All in all, this was an exciting project. I learned many things about writing that I did not know previously. I learned that when writing a memoir, using dialogue enriches the story. I learned that when writing a documentary, it is important to stick to facts but certain unimportant details can be created. Finally, I learned how art can inspire us to create. This was interesting to me in particular; art creating art.

Schwings Final Post

Projects week has come to a close as I sit here typing out my final post contemplating what do focus on. This week was meant for finding inspiration as well as studying forms of it.  This first couple of days were longhand tedious but full of knowledge and experience as we talked to published poets, writers, our own teachers, and famous names such as Keith Dorrington. The hardest challenge I faced was creating my own poetry during the first session with Chelsea Woodard. I struggled as I looked at my chosen work of art, "A Pair of Shoes" by Vincent Van Gogh as my mind convulsed too many ideas at once causing me to have what I think of as a "writers block." I chuckle now as I remember this moment because I feel much more confident when tackling the creating of poetry because I know now that poetry is meant to be unstructured and simply a result of inspiration which can come from absolutely anything. My family is full of writers and I have always had a knack for writing but now after completing this week I not only enjoy it but I appreciate it and understand the creative side of writing. 

Aveson; Final Post

I joined this project week to find new ways to get inspiration for photography. Photography is my passion and talking to other peoples passion for writing and how they got hat inspiration taught me how to highlight everything, to make everything pop. Some artists say that language connects the world together to make one. In a way, photography has the same role. Everyone can look a picture and analyze it just like reading a book or a magazine article or even an essay.

Quote from Lawless: "It's not the violence that sets a man apart, it's the distance they are willing to go."

This quote influenced me to not give up on anything. Omitting the beginning part about violence and just focusing on "its the distance they are willing to go" drives me to go the distance. There is a limit to go but if I keep pushing past that limit in photography, my art can go places.

Trich on PK Simonds

I enjoyed talking to PK Simonds, a former screen writer and producer in LA. He was a producer and screenwriter of four TV shows that were very popular. I learn a lot from him about the process by which a TV episode is made. How it works and single person first types up an outline for an episode by himself. He hen shows his outline to people in a conference room and they give him "notes," which are ways by which the episode can be improved. When everyone in the conference room has read the outline, the writer than turns the outline into a script based on the notes. When done, the script is presented to the people in the conference room again. The people in the conference room read the script and give the writer more notes or flaws to fix. The writer then goes back to make edits to the script once again. This process continues until the writer and all members of the conference room believe they have a relatively flawless script. Simonds explained that it is very important in this process that the editors in the conference room be honest and professional about bad ideas. It is important that when bringing up a bad idea they are as constructive as possible and not rude to the writer. "Honesty is believing" said Simonds. He said that his willingness to learn about comedy was one of his inspirations to go into screen writing. He said that he learned that "people fighting is the best context for a joke." During fighting there is tension, and a joke told during fight releases the tension. He claims "the funniest jokes are a release of tension.  

Siqi Wang- Final reflection

During the week, we went to different places and met different people. From poetry to free writing. From New Hampshire to Massachusetts. Different sessions inspired me with different ideas. I learned how to connect poems to visual arts and we need to play with poems. I learned how to spread your mind and how does TV shows work. This week has been full of inspiration. With the inspiration, I created a short story in one of my session. This is a story which inspired by a fellow student's art.
It's 2030 , every family owns a robot nowadays. You can have the robot as housekeeper, maid, babysitter, tutor, personal tennis coach, or even your life-long partner (if you are creepy enough). Robert is the new Robot which the Fords' family just bought. The Fords is not wealthy at all. They can only buy a robot like Robert because Robert is a broken one. Even though it still have perfect control system, but it lost one arm as a killer in his last owner's home. He used to be a great killer. He can use knife, sword, gun, or even just a single rope to kill his target. He failed his last mission. He supposed to kill the rich man in sleep, but he stopped because the rich guy's little son was in the cradle next to him. Maybe that's why he can't be a top killer, he's too merciful. A killer can't have feeling. "Feeling will kill you." That's what his master told him. Staring at the hand he used to held gun, he stuck into his old memories.
This is just the introduction of my little story, but having the idea and being inspired more and more in the future. I am really excited to finish the story.

Awp conference- Ha Bui

The workshops I went to was a workshops for teachers on strategies to teach first grade children to write poetry and a workshop where the speakers talk about their books and read them aloud . I did not expect to go to a conference that is for teacher because the random title From hamster to sandbox has nothing to do with teaching. However , the talks was very interesting to listen to a teacher's perspective on teaching and that it is not that easy.
The second talk, one of the quote the speaker give was interesting . She said that " You should not write what you know, write what you feel "

Kenzie: This past week

This week was packed full of aspects of inspiration and different types of writing. I really enjoyed Ms. Grosart's workshop on Flash Fiction. As a new genre of literacy new doors were opened and I think that was the whole point of our project. I found new areas of inspiration, and learned from authors sharing their own sources. The conference we attended was a cool look inside the creative minds of others and how an artists work expresses themselves. Throughout the week I was inspired, not only to write but to simply express more of what I see in the world. My "inner eye" as one speaker said is unique. How I see things and experience them is different than anyone else, and I like the idea that through writing and art I have the power to share that. One of the exercises we did was for a flash fiction assignment. Each of us received different instructions of where to walk and from there to look for a source of inspiration. I walked towards Alby's, the country store I see almost everyday and found an old fountain. This was the source of my inspiration for the following little blurb.....

Clapp's Fountain
He shivered. He waited. The hard wood of the fence post dug into his back and the wind chilled his spine. He pulled the flap of his coat up and tucked his hat down further over his eyes. The outlines of the buildings behind him were strong, their brick and white accents barely visible in the clouded night. The remaining winter snow glared from the full moon. And still he waited.
From somewhere in the night a crow cawed. A creak sounded from a window in Randall, the old science building. All the students were done trick or treating and had gone back to their dorms to sleep soundly, exhausted from the night's festivities It was the witching hour, a time when all the lights were out and the spirits of Halloween in their prime. His thoughts spun out of control into a fantastical world of witches and demons, and he allowed his imagination to thrive in the tumultuous realm of haunting spirits. Still, he waited. The idea that Clapp wouldn't show up was at the back of his mind, threatening to make him leave. Yet he refused to be swayed. He needed what Clapp had and he was not going to leave his post. Before him a dark figure came out of the woods, transforming into a slim man with a fedora jauntily tilted towards his left eye. He hopped the curb and bounced to a stop. They inspected each other.
"Are you Clapp?"
"Aye, I'm here ain't I?"
"Rumford," the waiting man extended his hand, but Clapp waved it away.
"No need for that, chap. I'll just be doing my business and be on my way. It's the workings of the night, ya know. It being the witching hour and all," Clapp winked and smiled charmingly.
He placed something in the dry well of the drinking fountain, then nodded to Rumford. He skipped the curb and the last Rumford saw of Clapp was his slim form swaggering off down the road, whistling into the night.
Rumford grabbed the goods, his hand greedily feeling their form. He was delighted to finally have what he needed so desperately. His fingertips trembled at the sensation of holding it at last.
"Tomorrow," he whispered to himself, "I must wait for tomorrow. The plan will work much better that way." He cackled, his head tilting back, silhouetted against the stark landscape of the snow, and somewhere across campus a crow echoed him.

Brian Nazzaro: Final post

This week has taught me many valuable things about writing, journaling, and screen writing. This week has also taught me to search for what inspires me to right. By meeting many interesting people and hearing many interesting stories of inspiration through writing, I have learned that everyone no matter what, has something that inspires them. We talked to people who wrote famous movies such as the fighter or famous tv shows such as ghost whisperer and to hear these people influence us on chasing our dreams and telling us that they weren't born terrific story tellers or writers, that they worked towards it, inspires me. This week has not only taught me about true inspiration but about the different job opportunities that writing and story telling has to offer. I had a great week and learned many things.

Trippe Blogpost Day 4

     Today at the AWP conference, I sat through a session about publishing a literary journal. I listened to 4 different authors of literary magazines talk about many things. Some of the topics touched upon were how to receive funding, how to acquire submissions, and how to get the word out about their literature. 3 of the speakers appeared to know what they were talking about, while the fourth seemed to be a total space cadet. He didn't really know what to say, or even that much about his topic. Though to be fair to him, it was not the most interesting thing to sit through. I probably would have chosen a different conference if I had known. It had important information pertaining to starting a literary journal, but I do not have any plans to do so anytime soon.

Veronika Reichert - Final Post

  I wrote this paragraph for exercise about getting inspiration from famous pictures. This famous photograph taken by Will Counts of Elizabeth Eckford attempting to enter Little Rock School on 4th September, 1957. The girl shouting in the background is Hazel Massery.  

  Elizabeth Eckford is on her way to school for the first time. She holds a notebook in her hand and wears sunglasses to cover her eyes. In the back we can see people screaming and yelling at her. It's the first day that a colored girl like her, can go to school and she does. With her white flowing dress she continues her way to school without caring about the people behind her.