Fiction/Poetry

Hey fellow writers! I hope your writing and all of your other endeavors are going well. I’d like to bring to your attention several poets you should investigate.

Susan Browne: a poet with a realist approach. Her poetry is the furthest from abstract, it screams its messages and stories. She teaches at Diablo Valley College (never heard of that). Her chapbook “Buddha’s Dogs” explores some profound and intriguing aspects of her past with tongue-in-cheek humor and unique perspectives.

Charles Harper Webb: goes by his full name because there are “so many” Charles Webb’s and even another Charles H. Webb in the writing world. Born in Philadelphia, he wrote “romantic dithyrambs” to any girl who caught his eye. After a brief career in psychotherapy, Webb returned to his true love, writing poetry. His poems are raw, powerful, and bizarre, a sure treat to read.  

I have a special message to all of the student readers, either in high school, middle school, or university. As you may have read, I am the founder of a charity that does work in Africa. A Spring of Hope is a non-profit that constructs wells in rural African schools. We are currently combatting the world water crisis, the mass lack of water in impoverished areas around the world. We are actively encouraging education and leadership by improving  schools through the addition of water in schools. We have found that students will more likely attend school if the school can provide a healthy and happy environment… and how can that be attained without the most essential compound, water? 

A Spring of Hope is looking for students, such as yourselves, who are tired of this generation of inactivity. It is time to take a stand and believe that even individuals can change the world! We need students of all kinds to visit our website, www.aspringofhope.org, and go to the Get Involved page. There, you can find out all you need to know to adopt a school in Africa and directly raise money for it through your school. A Spring of Hope is a wonderful opportunity to develop as a caring human being, learn about another culture, and even save lives. So please, if you are looking to make an impact, visit the website. Now on with my fiction review…

A Thousand Splendid Suns, by The Kite Runner author Khaled Hosseini, is an exceptional example of the contemporary novel focusing a unique culture. Though I believe that Hosseini accomplished little stylistically, I felt that he expertly captured the lives of so many women trapped in abusive marriages through his two protagonists, Mariam and Laila. The setting is Afghanistan in recent history. The women live through pivotal moments in middle eastern history while enduring heartache, depression, and despondency. The history is told from an intimate, human perspective through Hoesseini’s novel and its impacts on humanity are fully realized. The novel provides hope when there needs to be while still maintaining the very real overcast of gloom that comes with being held captive by a chauvinist husband. I was entertained and learned much about Afghanistan culture and I encourage you all to read the novel, or at the very least, read his more popular novel The Kite Runner.

Authors I have recently discovered for older teens: 

David Sedaris- is a comedian, author, and American humorist. He has published five essay collections including Naked (1997), best seller, and Holidays on Ice (1997). I read  his short story i like guys from Naked last week and I was captured by his satiric language and tongue-in-cheek humor. He is an author worth noting for his beautiful non-fiction in which he recounts instances in humorous ways while still emphasizing poignant moments. He was named “Humorist of the Year” by Time magazine in 2001 and currently resides in France with his life partner, Hugh.  

Kathyrn Harrison- is a renowned author with a sordid past. Born while both of her parents were eighteen in 1961, Harrison grew up under the care of her grandparents. She says “college was a period of upheaval for me; I experiment with drugs; I lived with far less self-discipline and academic focus than I had before.” (website, kathyrnharrison.com) A disturbing incestuous relationship with her formerly estranged father developed during her junior year of college. She now lives in New York City with her husband Colin, two children, and several pets. Her non-fiction piece Renewal drew me in to her vivid and almost colloquial writing style. Her twelfth novel, While They Slept, was published in March 2008. 

  Mona Simpson- The long-lost sister of Apple-guru CEO Steve Jobs, Simpson is both a novelist and essayist. Speaking of disturbing sexual relationships with fathers, Mona Simpson’s Lawns, a short story (fiction) published in the Iowa Review, tells the story from the point of view of a wayward college student who has been taken advantage of by her father since her childhood. Simpson’s piece was remarkably convincing for an essay and she has been lauded for her exceptional writing abilities. Her novel, Anywhere But Here, was adopted onto the silver screen in 1999. Interestingly enough, her husband Richard Appel is a writer for The Simpsons and used Simpson’s name for Homer Simpson’s mother. 

My creative writing class at Yale is a workshop that requires you to read and critique class member’s creative pieces. This class is truly exciting for me as I have never been in a classroom environment that encourages free, untamed, uncensored creative writing (with the exception of the occasional creative on-demand assignments in my AP English Language class).  We have been reading dozens of short stories both student-produced and from renowned authors. Each day, my eyes open just a tiny bit more to the immense world of fiction writing. A common theme in the first cluster of our readings has been gloom, promiscuity, and shame. I love those things just as much as the next person (um.. not so much) but I attempted to turn seemingly depressing prompts into opportunities to make a joke. It really gets your mind going to imagine a conflicting ending to a given prompt.For example, a prompt is: “He has carried aches and pains throughout his days for years. A type of pain that squeezes out his energy and love. This pain is…”You are immediately forced to think of an equally gloomy ending to this story. Yet, you can turn it around and create something unexpected and unique. I suggest you guys to try it. Post your prompts and replies here and see how people respond! 

As the Bokononists in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle would say, everything has been so “busy, busy, busy.” I took off on June 8th for a spectacular trip to South Africa. My foundation, A Spring of Hope, did tons of work in a rural area of the Limpopo Province. We identified several new schools that are in desperate need of water. We will be assigning these schools to high school and college students in the US and around the world who wish to raise money at their schools to drill wells and provide supplies. (Anyone interested? See www.aspringofhope.org) Four days after my return last Tuesday, I hopped on another plane (my 6th one this summer…[not as bad as last year, 14]) to go to New Haven, CT, my current location. I am in my gorgeous Branford dorm now soaking up all of the Yaliness at Yale University. I will be attending its summer session until August 9th. Now here is the good news… I am taking a creative writing course during my stay at Yale. I will be posting all about the course, leaving tips and advice that I have picked up from the course, and even give reading suggestions for you all. Over the next 5 weeks, I will be posting from Yale, and I will tell you all of the literary wonders that I encounter!