Fringe, the Noun that Verbs Your World

Check out the Working issue’s most recent addition, an interview with Paul Buhle, editor of Working: A Graphic Adaptation, a re-working of Studs Terkel’s classic oral history text, Working.

Questions? Comments? Read the book yet? Post below.

It’s all very well and good to imagine launching thousands of messages-in-bottles across the Atlantic, to see them bobbing for years before nestling into the shores of distant and beautiful beaches, where they will cause a welling of emotion in all who discover them. It is quite another thing to collect all of those bottles and haul them to the beach in the family sedan.

With the Fiction Project, and similar others, the Art House Co-op makes beautiful ideas reality. More than that, they make them tangible.

The logic is simple: Most people long to express themselves, but they are nervous about taking that first step. Even when the step is taken and something beautiful has been crafted, self-consciousness can set in and that thing of beauty gets shoved into a junk drawer, or thrown out, or simply lost.

The good people at the Art House Co-op do away with all of those scary grey areas. Potential creative geniuses (that means you) need only sign up and wait for their notebooks and suggested themes to arrive in the post. That’s right. The post. If the prospect of receiving a package doesn’t make you shiver with antici…pation then I don’t know what will.

Participants in... more »

A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to attend a performance of The Vagina Monologues in Watertown, MA. The show was organized by Courtney Howard and performed by employees of Pathfinder International. I asked Courtney about her experience putting the show together. Here’s what she had to say:

Fringe: How long have you been involved with the Vagina Monologues? What initially sparked your interest?

CH: I joined the V-Day movement when I was a student at Providence College in 2001. Our feminist group on campus, called Women Will, organized the production every year. After seeing the Vagina Monologues performed for the first time, I knew I wanted to be part of it. I felt I had found an appropriate platform to raise my voice while expanding my comfort zone. Over the years, my transition from being an audience member, to an actress, to a director has been really empowering.

Fringe:  Everyone really seems to get into their characters during the production. How did you do the casting?

CH: I assigned the parts based on people’s personalities. Women tend to be intuitive and I was fortunate enough to have a cast who trusted my judgment. We started to incorporate feedback sessions... more »

Ever wonder what was going on at the other end of outsourcing? Sure, people here complain about losing jobs to India and other developing countries, but who gets those jobs? Read Tina Crossgrove’s Outsourcing to experience the losses involved with development on the other side of the world.

Celia Lisset Alvarez, poet, fiction writer, and author of the short story Mesh and Lace in our Working Issue, was kind enough to answer a few of our questions over email. We talked diners, family, and the 80s.

Fringe: The setting, while vivid and well described, doesn’t seem to be particular to any city, state, or region. Is there a particular place you had in mind when writing this story?

Alvarez: I did go to a Catholic school here in Miami, but there’s no diner nearby. I think I wanted the story to feel claustrophobic, as if the only places that existed were the diner and—briefly—Isabel and Tony’s home. I haven’t traveled much outside of Florida, but, no matter where I’ve been, stepping into certain places—like Denny’s or Waffle House—is the same anywhere, whether you’re in trendy South Beach, sleepy Sarasota, or historic St. Augustine. Some people find this comforting, but it seems to me very strange, like bubbles in the environment where no particularities can penetrate. At the same time, I didn’t want the diner to be a recognizable one. Despite Isabel’s chafing against the “waitress of Oz” theme, she is part of a supportive group at work, something that I felt... more »

Acclaimed writer Craig Nova’s latest offering is The Informer, released in mid-March. A thriller set in 1930 Berlin during the dying stages of the Weimar Republic, The Informer follows Armina Treffen, a detective in the Berlin Police Department, as she hunts for a killer loose in the city. Someone has been murdering prostitutes in Berlin’s Tiergarten, and Armina’s investigation brings her into contact with Gaelle, a likely future target. Gaelle is playing both sides in what is a highly politically-charged climate, and fears for her life—and yet something keeps her from asking Armina Treffen for help.

Nova is the author of twelve novels and an autobiography. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and is now a Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at UNC-Greensboro. His writing has appeared in, among others, Esquire, The Paris Review, and New York Times Magazine.

I had a chance to discuss The Informer with Nova shortly after its release.

Q. Fringe readers will be interested to know that you chose 1930 Berlin partly because of some cultural and political parallels between that time and place and ours. Can you talk about those parallels a bit, and how they helped lead to The Informer?

A. Well, this is a... more »

I love editing–maybe it’s because I enjoy pointing out others’ mistakes, maybe it’s because I have always loved reading, or maybe it’s just because most people cannot write and they desperately need help. The reason is not all that important.

I recently learned about a fun new way for the editor nerd in all of us to get our thrills (that doesn’t involve correcting loved ones’ grammar or whipping out our Sharpies to obliterate renegade apostrophes and quotation marks on signage). Bite-Size Edits is a new website that allows you to suggest changes to randomly generated pieces of text. Most of these sentences come from rookie writers trying to capitalize on social networking by getting free proofreading, but some have been uploaded by bona fide authors such as Tao Lin and Lydia Millet. It’s a fun way for authors to connect with their fans and potential readers, and to perhaps even get some valuable feedback on their work!

It’s also a fun way to procrastinate while you’re supposed to be doing actual editing…not that I would do that.

What do you think? Would you use this as a way to test your work out in the public?

*Cross-Posted to Looks& Books*

Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton died on March 16, 2009. Of Popcorn’s influence on The Last Moonshiner, author Lydia Ship had this to say:

“He built his own coffin and kept it in his spare room. Deep in the mountains with his still, he once ran out of food and ate ketchup and grubs for dinner – damn good, he said. He made moonshine, drank it, and drove off-road delivering it (or off-road, into-tree). Popcorn also fought a bully. The fight interested me. That’s why I wrote about him.”

Let’s get WORKING! The first piece in Fringe’s themed issue – Working – is Someone Else’s Ivy, an essay close to my heart. This is not so simply because I published it, but because I have lived the life she writes about: food service. You needn’t have swirled whipped cream on someone’s mocha before to appreciate the description of the job, though. In fact, you don’t even need to have customer service experience. All you need is to want to be able to do your job the way you know the job should be done. That is, not necessarily how your boss wants it done. Amy Clark’s tale of a worker’s revolt is the stuff dreams are made of.

Fringe Working Issue artist Martin Askem graces us with his inspiring artist statement:

The Saviour of Modern Art

I am a self taught, self developed, self managed and motivated artist who has been practicing for just over one year.

I am without doubt the most exciting artist of the modern generation with my work being rated as powerful as Salvador Dali’s work by many respected art critics and organisations.

I have a vision that I pursue with more vigour and aggression than the late Picasso had in his early days in France. My vision is to be recognised as the greatest living artist in the work and indeed the saviour of modern art.

I have a creative depth of mind that cannot be surpassed and I have future works planned that will not only exceed the currently considered masters but indeed all masters from all time.

My work speaks for itself and will continue to do so.

When this and future generations talk about art, one name will stand above all and that name will be mine

Martin Askem

- – - – - – - -

He also sheds some light on two of the pieces featured in Fringe:

Ten Decima Street

A dedication to my grandparents Decima & Charlie, A lady... more »

All writers have their quirky routines, favorite pens, preferred work spaces, writers block remedies. They also, whether they know it or not, have their own set of rules and regulations they try to follow each time they sit down to their blank notebook or empty computer screen. Writing is an exercise in solitude–most writers write for themselves, following their own voices and instincts. However, it’s not a territory free from expectations and rules–writing is not, as many may believe, a free-for-all.  If there’s one thing writers like to do, it’s talking about, reading about, and writing about writing. It is in hearing others’ rules and habits and mantras that writers find a sense of community and the feeling that we are not all alone in this crazy endeavor.

Which is why The Guardian’s recent two-part story, “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” is so compelling. Inspired by Elmore Leonard, the paper asked 29 writers (including Leonard) to list their own rules for writing. While it’s fascinating to get a voyeur’s look into the minds and habits of some of the most prominent and talented writers of our time, it’s also amazing that so many of the rules diverge and contradict and then... more »

Editor, poet, and graphic designer Bryan Roth talked with Fringe’s Rachel Dacus via email about his own work. Roth writes, mainly in free verse, about relationships, pivotal moments in time when everything can change, and regret about the choices we make in those pivotal moments. He’s well-known in Colorado for reading his own and others’ poems from memory.

The first part of this interview covers the purpose of poetry and how to edit a collection.

Let’s look at your poem “What the Gambler Knows.” What gave you the idea for this poem?

What the Gambler Knows
I'm a driver, I'm a winner.
Things are gonna change—I can feel it.
—Beck, "Loser"

One day you'll wake up,
realize what your life has been reduced to—
what, in the end, each day becomes—
is simply one more chance
to roll the dice,
one more quick recalculation
of what you're up against,
what you still have left to lose.

***

It’s been said that poets write about their obsessions. I think, to a large extent, that’s true of most poets, and certainly true of myself. One of my greatest “obsessions” is time, and particularly with how everything hangs in the balance at any given moment—really, how every moment of every day—you have... more »

 We lost one of the American literary greats this past week. Fringe celebrates J.D. Salinger’s ineffable legacy with posts from writers who have been affected by his work. 

Bostonist co-editor Kerry Skemp writes:

I found out about J.D. Salinger’s death in that least Salingerian of forms: the Facebook status update. Discovering the death of a beloved but notably reclusive author of classic books through an always-changing, often-inane website was jarring, but not necessarily surprising: just the day before, another friend’s status update had alerted me of Howard Zinn’s passing. I was saddened by these deaths, but reassured, in a way, to know that others cared about these men too, that I was in a community of concerned individuals who wanted to carry on the legacy of these men. This saved me the responsibility of mourning alone, of living up to their legacy. I wasn’t alone. But was Salinger?

My first impulse after reading that status update was to run home and hug my copies of Salinger’s books—to make sure that they were okay, that they wouldn’t disappear in the wake of their author’s death. I continued, though, to feel strange about the disconnect between the painstakingly crafted, long-lasting works of a notoriously solitary author, and the ephemeral nature... more »

Editor, poet, and graphic designer Bryan Roth lives in northern Colorado, where he teaches poetry workshops and classes, helms his own design company, and is in the process of launching a new poetry press. Fringe’s Rachel Dacus emailed to interview Bryan to pick his brain about the purposes and occasions for poetry and about poetry editing. He writes, mainly in free verse, about relationships, pivotal moments in time when everything can change, and regret about the choices we make in those pivotal moments. He’s well-known in Colorado for reading his own and others’ poems from memory.

In the second installment in this interview, which will go live next Wednesday, Roth and Dacus will talk about some of his poems.

How did you become interested in writing poetry?

In high school, my freshman English teacher in gave everyone an assignment to write a poem. I had no idea what to write about. The girl next to me in English class was constantly complaining about math class, so I wrote a poem complaining about how hard algebra is, which was ironic because math was my best subject, and English—not so much, up to that point. Long story short, the teacher liked the poem so much,... more »

We lost one of the American literary greats this past week. Fringe celebrates J.D. Salinger’s ineffable legacy with posts from writers who have been affected by his work.

Fringe Editor-in-Chief Lizzie Stark writes:

For me, Catcher in the Rye represents two major touchstones of my literary life. The first was the spring break of my sophomore year in high school, when it became the first required reading book I had ever liked. As a student at a private all-girls school, I felt that I understood Holden’s beef with the phonies, and as a teen girl, like all teen girls, who felt inept at fitting in, I related to his outsider status. I  picked up Franny and Zooey and found myself unsuccessfully trying to utter the proverbial “OM”, as if it had the power to shock me out of teenage malaise. The small format of the books, their plain white,  slightly bumpy covers made me feel like I was reading something important, ancient, adult.

Years later, during the summer after my sophomore year of college, I read Catcher again on a trip to West Africa to visit my cousin in the Peace Corps. I’d made a tactical error in bringing a book about privileged white boys to one of... more »

I’ve always found that, other than dumping off all my old clothes in the Goodwill cart, helping people can be a lot harder than I expect it to be. Sometimes the obstacles people face just make me want to sit down on the floor and cry. Sometimes I simply can’t make a difference. Sometimes people don’t want to be helped. Meaghan Winter writes of these internal struggles in her essay Grown. Winter follows the life of one woman in the women’s crisis center where she volunteers. Through their interactions she sheds light on the feelings of anger, joy, frustration, and impotence that come with the simple desire to help somebody.

  We lost one of the American literary greats this past week. Fringe celebrates J.D. Salinger’s ineffable legacy with posts from writers who have been affected by his work. 

Claire Blechman writes: 

When I lived in New York, I was friends with a girl who worked at Harold Ober Associates, J.D. Salinger’s literary agency. We asked her one night (over Arepas at a tiny restaurant in the Village) what it was like on the inside. She told us the agency received bags and bags of fanmail for Salinger, which languished unopened in the office.  

 There was in fact a specific list of instructions on how to deal with Salinger-related issues. Most were variations on a theme: don’t ask, don’t tell. His address was a state secret: only two people in the whole agency knew it. The only mail he ever received from them was residual checks.

 “J.D. Salinger hates you,” she said. Me, and you, and everyone you know.

 I decided to read Catcher in the Rye my senior year of college. I was lifeguarding with a particularly vacant muscle-head from the lacrosse team who went by his last name: Pearl. I asked Pearl what the last book he read was. “Catcher in the Rye,” he said. It was his... more »

An interview with T.L. Crum, author of Bloodsuckers.

Fringe: What was the inspiration for this piece?

I’m writing a short story collection about people living ordinary lives in the face of extraordinary physical conditions – everything from face-blindness and cystic fibrosis to the more common (but no less extraordinary) alcoholism or depression – so that’s initially why I latched onto the idea of writing about leech therapy. Oh man, that’s a terrible pun.

Fringe: How often do you write? Do you do it on a schedule?

Because my husband wins the Most Supportive Husband/Best Daddy award, I’m able to write about six out of seven days per week. Since I started my novel, my goal is to write 2,000 words per day, minimum 1,000. Some days, that’s a lot to ask of my carpal tunnel, though.

Fringe: How did you get into writing? How long have you been writing?

I started off writing screenplays in college (incidentally, I majored in business). I wrote six mediocre features before I decided that I wanted to try my hand at a short story. As soon as I set my very first scene – a mother on a boat holding a dissolvable urn – I was addicted. Finally, I could... more »

We lost one of the American literary greats this past week. Fringe celebrates J.D. Salinger’s ineffable legacy with posts from writers who have been affected by his work.

Ashley Peterson eulogizes J.D. in her own words:

The first Salinger enthusiast I knew, which is to say, the first person I knew who read beyond Catcher in the Rye, was Sarah Worden.  We met in eighth grade drama class, shared a love of Dum Dum lollipops, and by twelfth grade were best friends.

By college I too had read past Catcher, and one summer decided to read even beyond what Salinger had allowed Little, Brown to provide.  Blissfully and thankfully unaware of the possibilities of interlibrary loan, a friend and I traveled to a handful of Virginia college libraries chasing copies of stories from McCalls, The Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker.  We came close to catching them all, I believe.

Last Thursday, I went home and read the first half of “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters.”    Is there a more comforting literary presence than Muriel Fedder’s father’s uncle, the tiny man in the silk top hat?  With his cigar, his broad smile, and his outsized farewell gestures buoying the rumpled Buddy Glass he called... more »

We lost one of the American literary greats this past week. Fringe celebrates J.D. Salinger’s ineffable legacy with posts from writers who have been affected by his work.

Today, Laura van den Berg, author of What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us,  remembers what it was like to read Salinger as a teenager and as an adult:

Growing up, I was a decidedly non-literary child—the kind who had to be routinely prodded to complete assigned readings for school—but that began to change when I encountered J.D. Salinger, the first writer I fell in love with on my own volition. Like many others, I felt an immediate kinship with Catcher in the Rye. At the time, I felt as though the book, with its brilliant exploration of coming-of-age angst and loneliness, had been written for me; I longed to be like Holden, a see-er of the truth in a world populated by phonies—which is, I suppose, as good a reason as any to become a writer.

When I revisited Catcher in the Rye in later years, my view of Holden grew more nuanced. I could see that he was unreliable, at once see-er of the truth and also in the grips of a kind of blindness. And... more »