Alors, Monica Carter! Writers On Fire In France participant wins 2010 PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship - Final reading of all 2010 fellows at the Hammer tonite!

 Chateau St. Philippe

When Monica came to the inaugural Writers On Fire In France retreat in August 2006, she blew us all away with her charm, raw talent and razor-sharp wit. She was still feeling her way into writing, still seeking her own voice and style. Four years later, Monica is one of a handful of 2010 PEN Emerging Voices fellows. She has also recently been named a 2010 Lambda Literary Fellow. I couldn't be prouder.

Monica is living proof that tenacity, focus and discipline coupled with talent can pay off. In all my years of teaching, I have seen countless gifted writers disappear. Just vanish. It always pains me. Often the most talented seem somehow unable to find the discipline, or the moxie, to make good on their creative promise. When talent and drive combine, it is truly cause for celebration. I also hope Monica demonstrates to you what can be achieved in a relatively short number of years [yes, four years is short in writing terms!] if you're focused and dedicated and willing to learn.

While Monica zoomed around the groovy Silverlake area getting ready for her event tomorrow night, and I hewed close to magical Topanga canyon, we engaged in a casual cyber-interview. I texted her a flurry of questions and Monica chose the ones which sparked her. The following is our exchange.

Enjoy! Let Monica's success encourage and inspire you. I hope you will come to the reading tonight at the Hammer! (For more info on reading and PEN Emerging Voices fellows, scroll to bottom of post).

Monica's prized 1934 Corona typewriter

RR:  Can writing be taught?
MC:  Hmmm.  Like comedy, I don't think writing can be taught.  I think you can hone what's there, but you can't give someone that innate ability to create. I can be taught to function in a world of numbers, but it doesn't come to me naturally and thus, I am not an accountant.  The same applies for the arts. We have natural proclivities and hopefully those are reflected in our choices in life.  My writing has been positively affected by others, but I was not taught how to write.  I was taught how to make what I have stronger, more effective.  If it could be taught, then everyone who graduated form an MFA program would be successful and that is clearly not the case.  I think in teaching, you can inspire, harness and refine.
RR:  What inspires you?

Stairs downtown

One of Monica's shots today of inspiring architecture

 

MC:  What doesn't?  The choices people make inspires me. It makes me question how I have lived, how they live and what causes us to make different decisions.  Architecture, especially tall buildings, inspire me.  Every moment in every life contains thousands of details and in a tall office building, say, there are millions of details that are particular to those lives and particular to how they intersect with each other.  The same goes for busy city streets, subways and airports.  Lives and their traces of living are there for all of us to examine and it just depends on whether we notice them or not.  I tend to treat real life like television. It's difficult to stop watching.  [My bolding and italics; take note, aspiring writers! Observe the world around you! It is your paint box, as Stephen Elliott says.] Black and white photography inspires me.  Music inspires me.  Dramatic choices inspire me.  The art of living inspires me.

Downtown library

Another Monica snap of inspiring architecture from today

 

RR:  How would you describe your writing journey? One word.

MC:  Arduous.
RR:  Ha! Now. Has reading a book ever changed your life?

MC:  The Great Gatsby.  I know people misconstrue this as an homage to the rich, but seriously, the language is transcendent and the social commentary is trenchant.

RR:  You're just trying to justify your purchase of expensive shoes today for your event tomorrow! Who're your influences?
MC:  Toni Morrison, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dawn Powell, Leonard Michaels, Edward Albee, Deborah Eisenberg, Emile Zola, Graham Green.

RR:  Impressive list! You remind us how important it is to read. I always say, you're only as good a writer as what you read. So. You were at the first Writers On Fire In France retreat. How did that fit into your writing journey? Do you have vivid memories of the experience? Of France?

 Writing exercise outside chateau

MC:  Writers on Fire was really integral and necessary for my growth as a writer.  I wrote things I was uncomfortable writing about which in turn freed me to delve deeper into myself and write what I was afraid to write.  I gained so much confidence during that retreat and learned to trust my own intuition.  I became less worried about what I was going to write and discovered how to trust what I was writing.

 A few of the participants at local village cafe, Le Duc de Savoie.

Monica is second from the left

The environment there was awe-inspiring from the chateau to the food.  France seems to be a magical force for me.  I have been so many places there and each one has inspired me to write.  From the city to the country, it is saturated with history and a simplicity that strikes a creative chord with me.

 Chateau St. Philippe, front exterior at dusk

RR:  We were lucky to have you with us. How has the PEN fellowship changed or affected your writing? Do you have a special medal or something so people know?
MC:  I am still absorbing the PEN fellowship experience.  There was so much to learn and so much that has helped my writing, I think that the benefits will seep out over the years in my writing.  I have no medal, but a PEN tattoo on my forehead.

RR:  I'll be looking out for that forehead tat at the Hammer! Btw, do you write to music?
MC:  I do write to music, but not all the time.  I look to music to put me in the mood or to set the tone.
RR:  What are you afraid of?

MC:  Cockroaches, real and imagined. 

Inhibition.  Mob mentality.  Militants of any kind.

RR:  Love that you're afraid of inhibition. That's profound -- and a sure sign of a writer! I certainly hear you on mob mentality, too. So just now I saw a car advertising Survival Kits in the parking lot of Trader Joe's. WOULD YOU SURVIVE? was spelled out on in ominous white lettering on the side of the car. It got me thinking. What's your response to those words?
MC:  Yes.  I am a bull.  And I never go back.
RR:  What's your opinion on gay marriage? "The Real L Word"? Lindsay Lohan? Stephanie Meyer? Elizabeth Gilbert? Bjork?

MC:  I think if they all got married it would be a really good Real L Word.  Ilene Chaiken scares me.
RR:  What's your opinion on gay marriage?

MC:  Opinion?  It's good.  What's not to like?  We are a capitalist society and any chance for for us to make money should be law.  Whose to say we can't participate in the misery like everyone else?  Besides, society owes us.  I mean, where would reality television, fashion and humor be without us?

RR:  How would you describe Los Angeles? Do you see the city as a woman? If so, what kind?
MC:  Los Angeles is the ultimate cool blond.  You can discover her, but you never know her and she never asks you to.

RR:  Brilliant! What is easy for you and what is hard in writing? How do you work on what's hard?
MC:  All of it is hard and nothing is easy.  To work on what is hard, I sit down everyday and try to write.  And not judge what I have written.

Monica Carter

Monica Carter, a 2010 PEN USA Emerging Voices Fellow and a 2010 Lambda Literary Fellow, has been published in Black Clock #12 and Pale House II. She is the owner and curator of her own website dedicated to international literature, Salonica World Lit. Ms. Carter is working on her novel, Eating the Apple, set in 1930’s Manhattan which tells the story of an aging, alcoholic lesbian writer caught in a love triangle.

The 2010 Emerging Voices Fellows are Lorene Garrett, Natashia Deón, Monica Carter, Bev Magennis and Simone Kang. This year has been an amazing journey with these five talented writers. Please join us in celebrating the completion of their fellowship with a reading and reception at the Hammer Museum.

Wednesday, July 21st at 7 pm.

Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90024

http://hammer.ucla.edu/programs/detail/program_id/535

ALL HAMMER PUBLIC PROGRAMS ARE FREE. Tickets are required, and are available at the Billy Wilder Theater Box Office one hour prior to start time. Limit one ticket per person on a first come, first served basis. Hammer members receive priority seating, subject to availability. Reservations not accepted, RSVPs not required.

Easy parking is available under the museum for $3 after 6:00.

http://www.penusa.org/upcoming

Emerging Voices is a literary fellowship program that aims to provide new writers, who lack access, with the tools they will need to launch a professional writing career. Over the course of one year, each fellow participates in a professional mentorship, hosted Q & A evenings with prominent local authors, a series of Master classes focused on genre, and two public readings.  

[How cool! I also had the pleasure of teaching Lorene Garrett one day when I guest taught at Samantha Dunn's UCLA master class. The new breed of writers, coming to get ya!]

In-Class Exercise #2 - Beth Brett's East Village Bar Scene, With Tennis Racket

 

Today, a former star tennis athlete transforms her writing with the help of her psychic racket. Read on for another in-class exercise from the ongoing book-writing workshop. I hope these posts inspire you to try your hand at timed writings yourselves -- whether you are in a workshop right now or not.

Over the many years I've been teaching, I've witnessed magic happen when people write in-class, timed exercises. Everyone seems to get out of their own way and write better than themselves. There is simply no time for the critical voices to surface or for the self-conscious "writer" to tamper with the unconscious natural gift. This time, in the space of 15 minutes, Beth Brett departed from her conventional tennis racket approach to the page, and summoned a much groovier, imaginative, psychedelic version!

Our in-class exercise was inspired by the book we're reading, The Secret Life Of Puppets. We'd just read and discussed the first chapter. Intrigued by, among other things, the concept of the "grotto," I suggested everyone write a scene that was somehow magical, spiritual, sacred. Include an animal -- a real animal, or animal as metaphor. Then set the scene in either a cave, catacomb, dungeon or cellar. Extra credit offered for including a glockenspiel. (The random, and humorous element, never hurts!) Fifteen minutes. And they were off! Scribbling and tapping away.

As usual, I let them know when they were halfway through. And when they had one minute to go. That's not an invitation to wrap things up with a pretty pink bow. Not in my workshops. In that last minute, I often nudge people to throw away any last vestiges of censorship and let it rip.

Because this is an ongoing book-writing workshop, each person forged a scene that featured their protagonists and figured into their book somehow. 

Here is Beth Brett's offering. Beth currently works as a publicist for The Getty. A Princeton graduate and a lifelong tennis star who started her court odyssey as a young child, Beth brings a determination and focus to her work that is mind-bending. However, her hard-working "good girl" mode sometimes gets in the way of allowing characters to misbehave. Not when the character of Frankie enters the scene! This in-class exercise was a bona fide breakthrough. A grand slam. Beth wrote in a fluid, loose style. Her sentences were shorter, crisper, more authoritative. She dared to skip around in time with ease, and evoked the jampacked, adrenalized bar crowd and its Beauty Bar environs with grit and verve in a way we had not seen in her other carefully prepared, manicured and somehow sanitized early pages. Actually, there were two modes in her submitted pages: good girl Disneyfication, and then fascinating flare-ups of a hidden angry, harsh tone. Yet they were like split personalities. Unintegrated. Until this exercise! Everything came together -- and humor volleyed through the vivid prose. There was a playfulness and warmth throughout. Since this point, Beth's acing her pages. I hope this inspires all of you to try out these exercises yourselves.

FYI, I did not allow any of the workshop participants to alter their exercises from how they dashed them off in those 15 minutes. So flaws and frenzy are all laid bare, revealing the raw power of what they've wrought as well as giving insight into their process. There's plenty of time to nip, tuck and tweak later. The triumph is in experiencing a more integrated and focused style of writing. The writer suggests meaning by vividly rendering what's happening on the scene's surface - as well as pointing toward what's churning beneath. No mean feat!

BETH'S EXERCISE

It was Manhattan, the winter of 1998. I don’t recall the date, which may have had something to do with being drunk off my ass. I was a free bird. No courses. No senior thesis. No tennis. I was out with friends, barhopping in the East Village. We were getting slaphappy and silly. Frankie, my boyfriend of four years was getting belligerent as he had a tendency to do when he had one too many.

The scene played out in my head before it happened. There was the time in Cambridge, when I tried to sneak past the bouncer and punches were thrown. There was the time we had the drunken munchies and ate omelets at the diner and left without paying. The time we tried to sneak Zorbie, the dwarf rabbit, into the fancy French bistro, which didn’t allow pets, but, instead, offered rabbit stew on the menu. And, then there was this night.

Our fingers were almost frostbitten as we waited outside to be let into the Beauty Bar. Dressed like he was headed into the Alaskan outback, the bouncer seemed to enjoy letting us suffer in the cold. I glanced in his direction, flipped my hair and batted my eyelashes, but nothing seemed to penetrate his icy glaze.

“Let’s get out of here, this place isn’t worth the wait,” I said loudly once we were within earshot of the bouncer, I’d come to call the bar Nazi.

Frankie wouldn’t budge. He was beyond listening, focused on the frosty beverage almost within range. We inched forward. I was still wearing my tennis shirt over my black warm-up pants. I had hit earlier that day. Come to think of it, I was still carrying my racquets. Clearly, I didn’t fit Nazi bouncer’s version of an “It” girl. Maybe we’d be lucky if we got in at all.
He patrolled his turf, making sure everyone was single file in the line, enjoying his power. Finally, we made it to the checkpoint. We had our IDs. I was finally 21, so now I had proper identification. He let us pass. No questions asked.

Finally, Frankie’s beer was in reach. We maneuvered past steamy bodies, glad for the body heat. Old school hair dryers were set up through the dark bar. We crushed peanut shells with our footsteps as Madonna’s Ray of Light played over the speakers crushing attempts at conversation.

Frankie was long and lean and used his Gumby-like physique to lean over the patrons at the bar to get his order in. Ever the chivalrous knight, he managed to find me a thread-worn barstool in the midst of the madness. “Two Coronas, please,” he said to the scaly bar wench. He chugged it. He croaked hideously, the stench lingering. It was smoke-filled and steamy. New York’s “No Smoking” rule would take another five years to go into effect.

To Frankie, hanging out in a bar, even a dive one as lowly as this, was a little slice of heaven, but to me, this was without question, one of Dante’s Rings of Hell. I could pretend to keep up, to enjoy these outings, but when it came down to it, there was no place I’d rather be than the tennis court. It was my version of Dorothy’s Kansas. 

Tonight, we were 21, in the moment, still had our college drinking sea legs, ready to enjoy some beers and darts with old friends in a bar that felt close to home for Frankie, with its peanut shell-crusted carpet, ripped red leather booths, chipped, beer-stained banquets and tipsy barstools, mannequins of the clientele.

“I need to use the loo.”
“I need to take a leak, too,” said Frankie, putting it ever so eloquently.
Hell, we decided to make a field trip of it. We hit the single stall bathroom together. We weren’t planning anything. No kinky sex. No drugs. After four years together and a half-year living together, we were old hat at this, eating together, sleeping together, taking leaks together, that’s just what best friends with benefits did, I thought.

There was a knock on the door. It came quickly. I was almost done peeing. “Hold on, there’s someone in here.”
“Get out now,” came the authoritative voice on the other side of the wall.
I quickly pulled up my pants and washed my hands. I was shaking a little. We opened the door slowly, Frankie putting himself in front of me, neither of us knowing what to expect.

“You two need to leave now,” shouted the Nazi bouncer, who had changed shifts from his outside post to inside the Beauty Bar.
I was no troublemaker and he looked as though he meant it. Frankie was furious. He tried to argue as the bouncer gripped him by arm, escorting us both to the curb.
“It’s one at a time, no one enters the bathroom together.” He said without apology.
“Let’s go,” I pleaded with Frankie for the second time that evening.

As I turned around to hail a cab to take us out of this messed up, deranged city to our one-bedroom on Fleet Street in Forest Hills, I missed Frankie spray-painting the front of the Beauty Bar with a stream of piss, spelling out F-U-C-K Y-O-U as he left his John Hancock on a detail of a German beer wench in her Lederhosen.

The bouncer was not amused. Punches were thrown. My man’s watch was ripped off and then crushed with the stomp of the Nazi’s boot. I watched the scene with eyes half closed. Wondering if I should bring out the big gun, my tennis racquet. I prayed to G-d the cops wouldn’t arrest him; that we’d make it back safely to our cozy warm apartment in Forest Hills.
It was probably a matter of seconds rather than minutes, but my prayers were answered and a more sympathetic bouncer and a few friskier guys out on the town came to our rescue. They let Frankie go, with the words “You’re not welcome here. Don’t ever come back here again,” throwing his watch at him for emphasis.

I had half my body in the taxi, waiting to be carried out of this night. From his running meter, it looked like only a minute had passed since the beginning and end of this horrible fight scene. “Where to?” 66-69 Fleet Street, I murmured, my eyes now half-closed. I relaxed now, leaning my head against Frankie’s shoulder. I warm and content now, knowing we lived to die another day. I feel asleep, lulled by the cab transporting away from what seemed like Dante’s Rings of Hell. Next thing I knew, Frankie was shaking me gently, “B, we’re home,” he said. He practically lifted me out of the cab like a sleeping child. My racquet was forgotten. The cab already pulling away from us and was heading down Fleet Street towards his next fare.

In-Class Exercise #1 - Lisa Firestone's Monaco scene

At the dawn of a new year and decade, with an auspicious blue moon lighting our path, I present a recent in-class exercise from the ongoing book-writing workshop. I hope these posts inspire you to try your hand at timed writings yourselves -- whether you are in a workshop right now or not.

Over the many years I've been teaching, I've witnessed magic happen when people write in-class, timed exercises. Everyone seems to get out of their own way and write better than themselves. There is simply no time for the critical voices to surface or for the self-conscious "writer" to tamper with the unconscious natural gift.

Our in-class exercise was inspired by the book we're reading, The Secret Life Of Puppets. We'd just read and discussed the first chapter. Intrigued by, among other things, the concept of the "grotto," I suggested everyone write a scene that was somehow magical, spiritual, sacred. Include an animal -- a real animal, or animal as metaphor. Then set the scene in either a cave, catacomb, dungeon or cellar. Extra credit offered for including a glockenspiel. (The random, and humorous element, never hurts!) Fifteen minutes. And they were off! Scribbling and tapping away.

As usual, I let them know when they were halfway through. And when they had one minute to go. That's not an invitation to wrap things up with a pretty pink bow. Not in my workshops. In that last minute, I often nudge people to throw away any last vestiges of censorship and let it rip.

Because this is an ongoing book-writing workshop, each person forged a scene that featured their protagonists and figured into their book somehow. 

Here is Lisa Firestone's offering. There is an ease, a humor, and a visceral quality to her in-class writing. She takes her time, and fully inhabits the scene in a way she often doesn't allow herself when she's banging out chapters for workshop deadlines. This is something many writers struggle with if they have busy lives, other jobs. You may be goal-oriented and driven to turn out pages. To complete drafts. To nail basic narrative flow. Then you get to go back and luxuriate in filling out the promise of those chapters. These are putter-inners. (I am a taker-outer myself!) When these type of writers do allow themselves to pause, and enter more deeply into a scene, the results are remarkable. It's as if they are prying open the prose and finding the hidden pulse that beats there. I've seen Lisa experience breakthroughs with these in-class exercises, and then bring that new quality back to her book. There's nothing more thrilling.

FYI, I did not allow any of the workshop participants to alter their exercises from how they dashed them off in those 15 minutes. So flaws and frenzy are all laid bare, revealing the raw power of what they've wrought as well as giving insight into their process. There's plenty of time to nip, tuck and tweak later. The triumph is in experiencing a more integrated and focused style of writing. The writer suggests meaning by vividly rendering what's happening on the scene's surface - as well as pointing toward what's churning beneath. No mean feat!

Lisa's exercise:

         Flynn swam ahead of Alexander. She knew he was allowing her to lead. He told her to head toward the crevice in the rock where the waves crashed and to wait for him to lead her inside.  She tread water with the power of the wave gently lifting and lowering her. Breathing was easier than she thought it would be and she trusted Alexander’s decision to bring her there.  He swam up, placed his hand on her shoulder and led her through the steep divide in the rock.

     “Duck and swim under the rock here,” Alexander said to her. "I will place my hand on your head and lead you up when it’s safe."  Flynn wanted to turn back, she felt too enclosed, but Alexander looked at her.

 

     “One deep breath and we are going to make it under.”  She inhaled then swam quickly until she felt Alexander’s hand rise her to the surface. Darkness surrounded them with one pitch of light on the rock forty feet behind them. She looked around the mostly still water that rose and fell gently. The power of the water remained on the other side of the rock.

         “Look up at the wall.” Alexander said to her.  Bright green eyes stared back, the kind that were small and set very close together with wings attached.

 

     “Bats?” Flynn asked, though she guessed at the answer.

 

     “If one flies toward you, duck under the water.”

         Flynn kept her eyes up, circling around on alert.

         “Beautiful in here.” Alexander said, treading water slowly.

      “Yes, it is.” Flynn tread water more quickly.

     “Duck.” Alexander shouted pulling her down into the sea.

     Flynn felt something hit the water just above her head. Alexander kept her down there for a few seconds then pulled her back up.

 

         “I’m ready to go.”  Flynn said, taking a big breath.

         “Follow me.”

       They went back under the rock and Flynn felt schools of fish rushing by pecking at her body like mallets on a glockenspiel.

        Happy writing, and happy new year! I hope you summon your creativity in ways you dared not imagine.
Rachel