Thursday, April 21, 2011

Steve Almond on memoir/fake memoir

I love Steve Almond's definition of memoir: It is a radically subjective account of events that objectively took place.

Anything else, he says (and quality nonfiction writers would agree), is fiction.

Entire post here.

Thanks to the fine folks at Brevity for passing this along.

Might I mention how much I love Steve Almond? He came to the Good Thunder Reading Series in Mankato a couple of years ago. I was teaching at a small private, conservative college at the time and offered my composition students extra credit for attending Almond's reading. Let's just say it was entirely engaging but quite "blue." My saintly conservative students were good sports! They learned a little more about the world that night!

Monday, April 18, 2011

Minnesota's literary rock stars

I had the pleasure of attending the Minnesota Book Awards on April 16. The emcee mentioned St. Paul ranks 7th and Minneapolis 3rd in the list of the country's most literate cities, making Minnesota the only state with two cities in the top 10. I have no doubts! Not sure what makes Minnesota so wonderfully literate--lots of theories out there about nothing to do during long, cold winters but sit inside and read and write. Works for me!

I love the Mankato contingent at the Book Awards--big this year as always! Not only writers/editors who currently live in the Mankato area, but lots of good representation of former Mankatoans (lots of MFA grads) now living and writing and teaching in other parts of the state.

Speaking of Minnesota State Mankato's MFA program, it got a major shout-out on the April 18 Huffington Post of the top-25 most underrated MFA programs. I am a proud MSU MFA program hanger-on, as I like to call myself. I've taken one class in the program but I mostly insert myself into the MFA society and pretend that I'm a candidate. I figure the atmosphere will rub off at some point.

Anyway, lots of award-winners I now must read, including VESTMENTS by John Reiminger and Lightsey Darst's poetry collection. Swati Avasthi's SPLIT did not win but I heard enough fantastic raves--including from Pete Hautmann, the actual winner--that I have to check it out, too.

I'm once again proud to be a writer and book lover in Minnesota.