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Quotation of the Week: Beth Garland

by Erika Dreifus on
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This week I’m proud to present not only a quotation, but rather an entire brief essay by my friend Beth Garland, who has recently returned from a trip to the War, Literature, and the Arts Conference in Colorado Springs. The theme of the 2010 conference was “the representation and reporting of America’s wars from 1990 to present.” Beth was invited to appear and read from one of her most impressive works of short fiction to date (and I’ve read many of them), “Departure,” a piece that focuses on one Army wife’s journey home after sending her husband off on a deployment to Iraq.

Here’s a little bit about our guest blogger: Beth Garland, a former technical writer, earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. She has been “married to the military” for 10 years and has written articles on military marriage for examiner.com. She lives in Surf City, N.C., with her husband and two daughters and is expecting a third child next spring.

In the week leading up to the War, Literature, and the Arts Conference in Colorado Springs, my emotions ran from one end of the spectrum to the other. Fear, pride, excitement, dread…wanting to go ahead with the trip as planned one day, ready to back out the next. I’d like to blame it all on the fact that I’m newly pregnant again and my hormones are going crazy, but in truth, I was just being me, a terribly anxious person who always expects the worst. I’m afraid to fly, so I could hardly believe that I needed to worry about how well the 15-minute reading of my story “Departure,” would go, since I wouldn’t survive the trip there, but if by some miracle I did, I would have to face my second biggest fear, public speaking. And then, if I were still breathing after all that, I’d have to get back on a plane and fly home. I began to refer to the ordeal as the Trifecta of Terror (more…)

Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled
  • Resource alert! The next (October) issue of The Practicing Writer, a free e-newsletter for poets, fictionists, and writers of creative nonfiction, will go out to subscribers on Thursday. As usual, it will be filled with submission calls (paying opportunities only!), no-fee contest and competition announcements, and much more. Not yet a subscriber? Join us!
  • I’m a fan of residency programs, but rarely do I stumble on an announcement that simply makes me long to be awarded a residency in a particular program. But that’s exactly what happened when I discovered the Brown Foundation Fellows Program at the Dora Maar House in Ménerbes, France.
  • The Writer magazine’s blog lets us in on a really neat-sounding part-time freelance writing/blogging gig at Milwaukee’s Pfister Hotel.
  • Jane Friedman shares 7 no-cost writing competitions that can yield excellent professional results.
  • Teaching jobs I learned about this past week: The University of Maine at Farmington seeks an Assistant Professor in Creative Writing “with significant credits in writing for film or television. Additional qualifications and publications in journalism and/or fiction would be welcome.” Bridgewater State University (Mass.) is also looking to hire an Assistant Professor (with a fiction specialty). The University of Southern Mississippi will be hiring an Associate/Full Professor to serve as a Distinguished Senior Fiction Writer. And the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is looking for “an advanced associate professor or a full professor to serve as the Glenna Luschei Professor and Editor of Prairie Schooner” (the applicant should have “a distinguished publication record as a poet, significant experience as an editor of creative works, a record of excellent teaching, and an active creative/research program.”
  • And some non-teaching jobs: DePaul University (Ill.) is looking for a Senior Writer, Penland School of Crafts (N.C.) seeks a Communications and Marketing Associate, and Heyday Books (Calif.) is advertising for a Marketing/Publicity Director.

Friday Find: Kelly James-Enger’s Query Checklist

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

I have enough on my plate for this particular weekend without sending out any freelance queries, but for those of you who may indeed be developing some ideas and pitches, I’m going to send you right over to Kelly James-Enger’s Dollars and Deadlines blog, where you’ll find a very sage “10-Question Query Checklist.”

Good luck with whatever projects are on your weekend agenda, folks. See you back here on Monday.

Thursday’s Pre-Publication Post: From Generation to Generation

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

One of the central themes that I’ve taken from my Jewish heritage is the concept of l’dor v’dor, transmitting our faith “from generation to generation.” The emphasis on l’dor v’dor may also have something to do with my soaking in and ruminating over the experiences of my paternal grandparents, events and circumstances in which so much of my story collection, Quiet Americans, is rooted. But this week, I was prompted to consider the forward-looking element of l’dor v’dor and its presence in the collection, and in my writing more broadly. This can be tricky, since I don’t have children of my own.

But it’s my great good fortune that my sister–we’re the only grandchildren on our father’s side–is the mother of two children. And I get to spend a  lot of time with my niece and nephew. They inspire me, too.

My niece’s influence has crept into one story pretty clearly: In “The Quiet American, Or How to Be a Good Guest,” I’ve essentially reconstructed a moment she and I shared in her babyhood. She’s embedded elsewhere as well, but I’d like to think I’ve handled matters a little more subtly in those pages and won’t say too much more about that now.

All of this is on my mind right now, I think, because The Christian Science Monitor has just published my poem, “Meteorology.” Although I’m quite aware that poetry need not reflect the poet’s lived experience, “Meteorology” is very much drawn from, once again, a moment shared with my niece.

What the poem doesn’t mention, however, is that during last week’s surprise storms here in New York City, my niece was the one who correctly diagnosed the hail that was shooting down from the sky. (I, with all my advanced degrees, objected: “That’s not hail!”)

Nor does the poem allude to one of my niece’s great-grandfather’s most endearing habits: Once I’d left home for college and beyond, and was living outside the metro New York area, he’d start his part of every phone conversation with the same question: “How’s the weather?” (Frankly, my father exhibits a keen attention to the daily forecast, too.)

L’dor v’dor, indeed.

The Wednesday Web Browser

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Oh, have I found some online goodies for you this week, my friends!