March 27, 2008
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Notes from yesterday:
10am Public Readings.
(I should’ve read some of my new stuff. Dang it.)
1. Memo as a story/story as memo.
2. pregnant man on a bench
hotel rooms, numbers.
3. aunt and uncle, married but separate lives?
Elmer and Helen.
drinkers and smokers.
overlapping hobbies = Twins.
4. birds, student writer.
5. “Shelter” by Evan Nelson
Howie, real estate agent
6. small (Nikki, host),
Old Mil, “Too Doo” stuffed animal
Panel @ Noon.
(I was 5 rows back, better shot of Rushdie.)
Should – Literature shouldn’t have to do anything.
In response to whether lit should create revolutions.
Neruda mentioned.
Getting dressed is a political act, Alexandra Fuller.
“You’ve got to remember that you have three children.” “Just put it in your memoir!” (Alex’s daughter).
Oprah & James Frey.
Literary Nonfiction, good genre says Alex. “In Cold Blood,” Tom Wolfe, etc.
Peter Kuper: “Auto-Lie-Ography.”
James Frey: Came in as fiction, publisher puts it out as nonfiction to make $.
Banned work gets attention. Not all it’s cracked up to be, says Rushdie.
Taboo subjects?
Vagina-friendly towns. Look at Eve’s book.
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund exists.
NYTimes: f-bomb and anti-Palestine essays (or was it pro-Palestine?).
Alex: Communist at age 14.
Her mother: “I should’ve never taught you to read and write.”
Mother boycotted her book too.
“You make me look like a racist alcoholic.” Fact check.
Rushdie’s family put an ad in a paper:
“We never liked him anyway.”
He becomes popular and cool and then they want him back. Of course.
Islam/Muslim – Much more to uncover about these subjects.
Arab writers can’t even live in Arab nations.
Intellectual Freedom as an end.*I want to read more of Alex’s things; she seems really interesting. And witty.
