Literary Serendipity and Author Events

Every summer, I read the issues of Poets & Writers that I haven’t had the time to read during the school year. (AKA all the issues.) This summer, as I was perusing “5 Over 50” (a favorite with this 59-year-old), I came across debut poet Shareen K. Murayama. When she’s questioning herself as a writer, she thinks of a Sean Thomas Dougherty poem:

Why Bother?

Because right now there is      someone

out there with

a wound                                       in the exact shape

                                                                        of your words.

This poem perfectly captures a type of literary serendipity: that moment when a writer’s words give you precisely what you need.

Sometimes it’s entertainment or escape. Other times, hope, inspiration, insight. More crucially (and this is what Dougherty is getting at), healing. Company and reassurance that you’re not alone. That you’re not a freak, not the only soul who has ever endured, thought, or felt X, Y, or Z.

Anyone who loves reading has been shaped by several such moments–some of them life-changing. Those of us who write, we strive to pay these moments forward. As Dougherty’s poem implies, when writing is hard, we need to trust that our words will offer “someone / out there” exactly what they need.

Last week, I was that someone. Two author events with three writers–Grant Faulkner, Mary Helen Stefaniak, and Elizabeth Stuckey-French–gave me exactly what I needed, not as I read the writers’ words, but as I listened to them speak about their work.

Grant Faulkner with Mary Helen Stefaniak at Prairie Lights

When I entered Prairie Lights Books, I thought my needs and wants were simple and straightforward. I wanted to support my friend Mary Helen Stefaniak–author of a short story collection, three novels, and (most recently) a collection of creative nonfiction called The Six-Minute Memoir: Fifty-Five Short Essays on Life (U of Iowa P, 2022). She was going to interview Grant Faulkner, author of The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story (U of New Mexico P, 2023).

I thought that their conversation about super short forms would give me fresh activities and assignments for my creative writing students. And, to be honest, I hoped that the event would help with my jet lag and with my re-entry into Iowa City. My partner, Ben, and I had just enjoyed ten exquisite days in England: our first vacation together since before COVID. I wanted to hang on to my travel high. Instead of succumbing to the familiar–instead of sinking into my couch and then my bed–I went forth, determined to learn from a new writer.

And learn, I did.

First of all, I learned that Grant was not only the author of The Art of Brevity, but also the founder of a journal called 100 word story AND the director of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

What?! How does the same person write both 100-word stories and novels?

Grant is often asked this question, and he acknowledged that the two types of writing are quite different. Writing during NaNoWriMo, trying to generate at least 50,000 words in the month of November, is “pure writing”–drafting–while creating flash fiction is “mostly editing.” Yet, he said, flash fiction can jump-start longer fiction. You can start a novel by writing moments. And when you’re in the midst of novel-writing, you can use short writing projects to sustain or increase your momentum: “Completing something is creative fuel.”

Mary Helen agreed, explaining that the monthly columns she wrote for the Iowa Source helped her complete her first novel, and that eventually, she selected from these columns to create her essay collection, The Six-Minute Memoir. (Side-note: six-minute memoirs don’t take six minutes to write, but to read aloud–which Mary Helen did on Iowa Public Radio.)

Although I learned a great deal from Mary Helen and Grant’s entire conversation, it was their opening exchange that helped me recognize the exact shape of my need, a perennial need, deeper than the desires that initially motivated me to attend their event.

What is this need?

More comfort and confidence in my identity as a writer.

(Okay, more comfort and confidence, period. But that’s a whole other post.)

When I heard Grant say that the 100-word story is “mostly editing,” I felt a jolt of glee. I love editing! In fact, I’m what Susan Gubar calls a “compulsive writer.” I cannot help but edit as I draft. I do so with full awareness that nearly every other writer advises against such early and incessant editing. Maybe, I thought, the 100-word story is an ideal form for me, one that would play to my strengths and help me feel more certain of my writing.

This conviction grew stronger when Grant said that the form is “highly addictive” and that it relies on “the power of omission.” I like writing best when it feels addictive, absorbing and all-encompassing. And members of my writing group (which includes Mary Helen) joke about my penchant for deletion.

But my excitement wasn’t just about trying a new form. It was also about trying a new process and cultivating a new attitude.

What if I could use my short writings to fuel my longer ones? What if I could take joy and pride in my short writings for themselves? What if I could exude writer’s confidence like Mary Helen and Grant?

Now, I know that most writers (and people) are not as confident as they seem. But Grant’s enthusiasm for the short form helped me realize that I had been feeling down on myself because it had been a long time since I had worked on a long-form project. (Later when I read the intro to his book, I learned that Grant, too, had once staked his self-worth as a writer on producing a novel, specifically “the Great American Novel.” There it was! A writer helping me feel less alone, helping me better understand myself.)

When it came to writing, I had been thinking that size mattered, that “more” was better, even though I work hard to reject those ideas in the rest of my life. (Some of my mantras: less is more; quality over quantity; enough is enough).

So even though I’ve recently had three personal essays accepted for publication (two forthcoming in Sinister Wisdom and one already out in Survive and Thrive–all written when my personal plate was HEAPING FULL), I feel uneasy because it’s been a long time since I published my three lesbian mystery novels. I feel out of sorts because I’m not currently immersed in a novel or some other long-form project.

Yet this feeling is not simply about over-valuing the long-form and its status–not simply about the allure of seeing my name on a book cover. It’s not merely about the baggage of not feeling good enough. And it’s not about some overzealous work ethic.

It’s mostly about needing a consistent task and purpose–a reliable creative outlet. I want to avoid the time in between writing projects, a type of midway that I dread. (What should I write next? Which image or idea should I seize? What next? What now? Now what? )

I further recognized my need for a steadying and grounding WIP (Work in Progress) in one of the 100-word stories that Grant read. It was a story of his own that, on the surface, has nothing to do with writing and everything to do with feeling unmoored:

Shirley Temple

I sat at the bar, my feet swinging from a stool. Jacksonville, 1972. The adults crowded into a circular booth in the corner. Men pinched women. Women squirmed in squirmy dresses. I smelled the chlorine on my hands as I listened to the cackles of laughter. My father told me I could have as many Shirley Temples as I wanted, but I drank slowly, counting to fifty before taking a single bird-like sip. The cherry bobbed slowly lower in the glass, almost dissolving like candy. I wouldn’t eat it until it rested on the bottom. It’s good to have rules.

It is indeed good to have rules. Routine, ritual, rhythm. It is peaceful and reassuring to be absorbed by a project, to know what you want to do next with your writing.

Maybe I could make a new “rule.” When I’m in between “bigger” writing projects, I could write moments. That practice could be my default, steadying in its own way. There was no need for me to feel like Grant’s young character at the bar, uneasily waiting for something to happen. I could make something happen.

This energizing realization was far from my only takeaway. I was also fueled by the audience.

The Audience

The upstairs of Prairie Lights was a full intergenerational house. Half the audience was older–likely Iowa Summer Writing Festival participants. The other half was young–teenage young! All these folks were my kindred spirits, eager for the authors’ words.

At the end of the Q&A, Grant called on a young girl who’d had her hand up the entire time. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was! She had come from Korea to Writing Camp and now she was meeting the founder of NaNoWriMo! Grant’s admission that he was not the founder, but the executive director, did nothing to diminish her fangirling. They launched into an exchange about spicy writing, she asserting that her generation was drawn to the spicy–sex, drugs, violence–and Grant countering that earlier generations had written their fair share on those topics.

Their exchange filled me with joy. It fit the exact shape of my worry and sorrow about my beloved world of books. Right wing politicians were trying to sever connections between writers and readers. They were trying to prevent readers from finding words in the the exact shape of their wounds and needs. The governor of Iowa recently legislated LGBTQ+ books–and any books that describe sex!–out of public schools. This abrupt and horrible act magnified my grief about higher ed, the decline of the humanities and liberal arts, the dwindling number of English majors.

But that young Korean girl! And all of her fellow writing-campers! They reminded me that the bond between readers and writers is strong, stronger than any politician or educational trend. Young people will always fall in love with reading and writing.

The audience’s enthusiasm also renewed my faith in the power of teaching. When I considered Mary Helen and Grant’s event in conjunction with Dougherty’s poem “Why Bother?”, I was reminded that the published written word is only one way that our words can fit the exact shape of another’s needs. We can also work that magic when we speak or teach.

Many teachers have worked that magic for me, and I’ve long known that we teachers can make a huge difference in our students’ lives by taking their dreams and ideas seriously, by giving them encouragement and individual attention. But when I witnessed Mary Helen and Grant supporting each other and bantering with the audience, I was reminded me that we teachers also give students exactly what they need simply by being ourselves and sharing our passion for our subject.

Elizabeth Stuckey-French at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival

This insight became clearer to me a few days later at another author event: a craft talk on revision by Elizabeth Stuckey-French. Part of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, this event more closely resembled teaching than did the Prairie Lights event. Well, it was teaching. Elizabeth stood at the front of the lecture hall, and there were handouts at each door. (Nothing says teaching like handouts.)

Elizabeth Stuckey-French in Phillips Hall July 13, 2023

Not surprisingly, Elizabeth’s handout and her presentation itself offered a smorgasbord of revision tips.

She’s a successful writer–and therefore an expert reviser. Elizabeth has published a short story collection and two novels. With Patricia Henley, she’s published a YA novel, and with her late husband, Ned Stuckey-French, and Janet Burroway, she’s published an edition of the popular textbook Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. (For a short time when Elizabeth still lived in Iowa, we were members of the same writing group, the group that Mary Helen later joined. Elizabeth was always eager to help the rest of us revise, always the first to turn our small talk toward feedback for the writer.)

Elizabeth’s main point about revision? Do it in small, sequential steps.

Using a camera analogy, she recommended a three-part process:

• the long shot–the “emotion at the heart of the story,” character, conflict, point of view, setting
• the middle shot–structure and pacing, scenes and backstory
• the close up–sentences and words

Elizabeth shared several helpful recommendations for each stage, but what was most valuable to me were the moments when she used herself as an example and made herself vulnerable.

It was these moments that most resonated with the Prairie Lights event, these moments that demonstrated how a teacher’s words and way of being can meet the exact shape of a student’s needs.

Most of Elizabeth’s vulnerable moments related to drafting and the early “long shot” stage of revision.

For example, in response to a student’s comment that drafting is more fun than revising, Elizabeth said that the further she gets in her writing career, the “less fun” drafting becomes. She sets two-hour time limits on first-draft work because it’s “hard to write one bad thing after another….you can’t fix it because you don’t know what it’s about yet.”

Wow, I thought, if Elizabeth sees her first drafts as “bad things,” I must be far from the only writer to feel disappointed in my early drafts. Maybe if I could truly believe that such disappointment is a normal, expected part of the process, I could relax about what Anne Lamott calls “shitty first drafts.” I could sometimes resist my compulsion to revise and edit while I draft. Or I could accept this urge as an inevitable part of my process and quit beating myself up over it.

Or maybe I could resist the urge to censor material before it even makes it to the page or screen. I could accept this point that Elizabeth made: you may have to write lots of backstory in order to feel comfortable with your first draft, but you’ll likely need to cut a lot of it when you revise. “Save discarded material for other projects,” she said.

Elizabeth noted that familiarity with your process is key. Remember that “glee and despair” are a part of writing, and don’t get too caught up in either one. Her acknowledgement of her own divergent emotions helped normalize my own.

I was reassured by her reluctance to immediately share her early drafts. “Celebrate that you’ve finished a draft,” she said, “but don’t share it right away because you won’t be ready for advice.”

Elizabeth also helped me feel more comfortable with the unconscious part of my creativity. “Your unconscious has a very quiet voice,” she said. “It’s tentative and easy to ignore.” It often says indirect things like “Why don’t you try this?” We need to train ourselves to listen to it, to stop questioning why we’re interested in something. “You’re drawn to things,” Elizabeth said, “because they’ll bring something up for you.”

Ironically, even though Elizabeth’s focus was revision, she gave me courage and permission to draft more freely. Her words met the exact shape of my need.

After her talk, I told her as much, and we took a photo together with two of our writing group’s founding members, Mo Jones and Eileen Bartos.

Mo, me, Elizabeth, Eileen
photo by Phoebe French

That’s another bit of literary serendipity, the enduring bonds of friendship that form among writers.