You've already heard me rant and rave about Junot Diaz and Margaret Atwood, but there are some other writers who've been influential, instrumental, and essential (you see what I did there?) in different ways throughout this piece and this process. Some notes on them below, and a special thank you to all the folks who've connected me to all this wonderful writing.
Amy Fusselman
A friend of mine said The True Story reminded him of Fusselman's work and lent me a copy of The Pharmacist's Mate. I was floored. Her writing is sparse and lovely and I am so goddamn glad I found it. But also, she gave me the courage to call what I was doing memoir or nonfiction. I was so confused by my own format, and so used to a certain other format and tone in memoir, that I didn't even know what to call it. In fact, I used The True Story to apply to fiction writing programs, which made absolutely no sense, and I'm sure is just part of the reason I got thirteen rejections. But when I read Fusselman's work, I knew I had found a comrade, a home, a genre.
Jo Ann Beard
As noted in an earlier post, I brought The True Story to the Rutgers Camden Summer Writing Conference, where I got some great feedback (and good laughs). James Marcus led the workshop for my story, and when I asked him where I could find similar writing, he emailed me with a list of fun folks, including Beard. I devoured The Boys of My Youth in a car ride to Rhode Island, then read the title story a second time on the drive home. The way she pops in and out of time is fascinating. She narrates her process in a way that just makes sense to me: sometimes you can't you write about something without writing about writing about it.
David Ives
Ives was recommended by another friend and reader of The True Story. I'm not a huge script-reader (I often forget to read the speakers' names, which can be, uh, confusing), but I borrowed her copy of All in the Timing. It's hard to make a direct connection with this one; I love the way Ives crafts a clever, active game out of a simple exchange of words, but I don't use a lot of dialogue in my own work. The closest I can get is with Sure Thing, where a man and woman meet at a cafe and have to restart their conversation repeatedly until they get to the (over-the-top) happy ending. Hashing it out over and over, through the fake and the real, until you end up unsure of which is which, and which you even want, is something I can definitely relate to.The True Story, or Vicious & Multiple & Untrue After All will premiere as part of First Person Arts RAW at the First Person Arts Festival (November 8-17, 2012).
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