All This Talk of Love

Last night was inspiring. (And not just because I planned & pulled off a dinner that did not involve frying food in olive oil & dousing it with salt, although I did that, too!)  I was privileged to attend the launch event for Christopher Castellani's new novel, All This Talk of Love.  It was amazing - Porter Square Books was PACKED, Chris' reading swept us right up into his story (and I'll confess, I often zone out when being read to, but not this time) , and the whole evening was a celebration of his hard work and a dream come true... proof of happily ever after.

As I looked across the room from my spot standing on the side of the crowd (I arrived too late to find a seat, but had a great vantage point as I leaned against a shelf of bestselling narrative non-fiction), I thought again about relationships, and how strange life is: the world is set up so that we bump into people across a wide range of circumstance--professionally, in social groups and neighborhoods, online, in classes--and if we handle things well (as clearly Chris has) those relationships form little bonds that tug at us in moments like this, when there is something to celebrate, prompting us to drop what we're doing and go join in the good cheer.

Chris is the Artistic Director of Grub Street, perhaps the premier writing organization on the East Coast.  He's had a hand in encouraging almost every writer in our region, and does so with combination of graciousness and wisdom that make people want to know him more.

And as I think about the title of his new novel, All This Talk of Love, it seems so apt.  We talk about love a great deal, it seems to me. But I'm not sure I'm all that great at showing it.  Last night as Christopher talked about his real-life Italian family, and the fictitious one he has created across his trilogy of books, I was filled with that wonderful sense of being part of something bigger than just me.  I looked out at this crowd of disparate celebrants who might not be gathered in quite this way except for our shared admiration of Chris, it made me want to be better at love - not just the talking, but the doing--the moments that lead to gathering when it's time to celebrate.

Not bad for an evening at a bookstore, huh?  I'm grateful :)

Why I Teach Memoir Writing

I'm teaching a memoir writing class tomorrow.  I'm beyond excited.

This is a new class.  It's given me a chance to reverse-engineer my writing process and figure out why certain things work and others don't.  It hasn't even happened  yet, and already it's been a great experience.

My Dad was a teacher, and he always thought this would be a good career option for me. He was right, but I ignored him (the way teenage daughters often do).  Back then, the only image I had for "teacher" was someone standing in front of a chalkboard in a school, talking about the same math problem, frog dissection, or French verb conjugation over and over and over again each year.  It sounded kind of...dull.

Here's what I didn't know(and I'm still not sure if this applies to math, but there's never been a danger of me teaching math to anyone, so let's not worry about that here): teaching changes, each time you do it.  First, YOU are different - your perspective, what you've seen and learned in your own life, how you've grown. And second, because YOUR STUDENTS are different.  Each group brings something new to the table.  It keeps things unpredictable, and that's often where the gems are hidden.

Of course, there are certain topics in any field that will always come up. I doubt there has ever been a writing class where questions about how to navigate the forbidding world of publishing weren't raised...nor should there be.  But there are other questions--ones more personal to a specific writer's struggles or challenges--that move teaching beyond the instructive aspect, making it interactive.  That's the sweet spot.

I teach writing because it helps me write.  It re-fuels my love of stories, reminds me that as much as life tries to lump us all together into a few homogenous groups, each of our journeys has remarkably unique elements and surprises worth reading about.  And THEN it forces me to move beyond all of that wonder/amazement and focus on basics: How does one construct a scene?  What's the goal and how do you know if you've reached it?  What do you do with those scenes once they're written?  How do you finish the job?

I'm excited about tomorrow: as a chance to share what I've learned, encourage new memoirs (as a reader, it's my favorite genre, so it behooves me to keep the pipeline stocked!), and refuel my own excitement about what it means to share your story.

If you have a chance this weekend, consider: What do you love to do? Why?

(And if you're looking for a chance to write about it, come join me in class!)