Sculptors, and Painters, and Writers, Oh My!

Sculptors, and Painters, and Writers, Oh My!

For many writers, gaining experience and knowledge are major parts of the writing process. Barbara Kingsolver, the author of the creative nonfiction book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle spent a year focusing on eating locally in order to write a book about her experience. Rebecca Skloot, the author of the New York Times Bestseller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, spent ten years conducting research and interviews before completing her novel. In turn, I have been inspired by both Barbara Kingsolver and Rebecca Skloot within my own writing. Rebecca Skloot’s work is a fantastic example of blending narrative with hard facts, and Barbara Kingsolver’s work demonstrates a strong voice and characterization. 

Specific research for a book is wonderful, but I wondered if it would help my writing to intentionally engage with other art forms without a story in mind. Good writers read things that don’t resemble their own works. They use a diverse range of sources to improve their writing. The literary world is full of gems, and it doesn’t take much exploring to understand how it shapes your own writing. This extends beyond the literary community. To learn more about multidisciplinary art in relation to writing, I looked to modern artist Simphiwe Ndzube

When I walked into Simphiwe Ndzubes’s exhibitionOracles of the Pink Universe” at the Denver Art Museum, I was immediately drawn to the narrative artistry of his work. Ndzube is a painter and sculptor. His art depicts a fictional world and cast of interesting characters. Ndzube’s work illustrates an original creation myth to grapple with the consequences of apartheid in South Africa and racial injustice worldwide. 

Not only does Ndzube use interesting characters and intriguing storylines in his work, he carefully crafts the sensory experience of walking into his gallery. His work is a physical manifestation of carefully crafted poetry. Much of his work sits on a flat canvas with 3D elements that add depth. His use of colors helps guide the eyes of the audience around the piece. 

Natural colors are juxtaposed with various shades of pink. Everything from the lighting, music and use of empty space has been arranged to tell a story. The poetry his work could inspire is limitless. 

Ndzube himself isn’t afraid to learn from other artists. His work takes inspiration from Heironymous Bosch, known for his whimsical depictions of biblical scenes, and Italian sculptor and painter Michelangelo. Ndzube used a multidisciplinary approach by studying magical realism as a literary genre and closely looking at Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. 

The work of Simphiwe Ndzube is far from the only art that writers can learn from. Songwriters carefully craft albums to create an auditory experience, and ballets often tell stories. Abstract artists create tension in their pieces by using texture, symbolism, and blank space. I realized that when I examined the art I am surrounded by every day, I couldn’t help but be inspired. So, learn to knit, listen to that free bluegrass concert in the park, take time to appreciate the graffiti in your neighborhood, buy yourself flowers to examine the arrangement, and most of all, enjoy yourself. 

Meet the blogger:

OLIVIA ROSE LEE is working on her BFA in creative writing at Hamline University. She is an aspiring novelist interested in exploring environmental writing, mixed media art, and modern folklore.

 

Invitation to My Literary Dinner Party

Invitation to My Literary Dinner Party

Ever wondered what it might be like to meet a writer? To engage in conversation or to hear the perspectives from literary creators themselves? I present to you my literary dinner party with five writers sharing their insights over drinks, dinner, and conversation. 

 

#5) Augustina Bazterrica

Augustina Bazterrica published Tender is the Flesh back in 2017 to much acclaim. A dystopian tale centering around a global transition from the consumption of livestock to humans in only a few short decades. The focus on words constantly calls attention to how language itself can be (and often is) used to control people by altering understandings surrounding issues. 

Bazterrica is a talented writer with her finger on humanity’s pulse, and her insights on societal structures would be invaluable. What wisdom could she impart on America’s structures and power imbalances, and are we also being controlled through our language as well? I have a feeling meat would be off the menu for Bazterrica so let’s start with a hearts of palm salad, a common dish in her country of Argentina.

 

#4) James Baldwin

James Baldwin was an insightful man who could express his ideas about the world in profound ways. During the era of the Civil Rights Movement, Baldwin was alongside historical figures like MLK and Malcom X, cataloging their journeys and the impact all three of them were having on the nation, echoing through time to even today. I couldn’t imagine a more remarkable individual to have the honor of meeting. What insights would he provide towards race relations in America today?

Baldwin spent nine years in France—something that potentially allowed his impeccable insights on our society by viewing it from afar—so I think a nice souffle as an appetizer would be appropriate.

 

#3) Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov was undoubtedly one of the greatest sci-fi writers of his time. His Foundation has genuinely impacted how I think about the world in terms of society, technological advances, and how easily everything can begin to crumble if we’re not careful.

Asimov used his craft and his genre of choice to highlight social issues he viewed during his time which still resonate to this day. What would be his impressions of modern society and what changes he sees—if any, as we could potentially still be dealing with issues he foresaw (psychohistory anyone?) during his time?

Born in Russia (but living in America from age three onward) a nice borscht soup feels appropriate to cleanse some palettes. 

 

#2) Alan Moore

For anyone not familiar with the name, Alan Moore is the mind behind such groundbreaking graphic novels such as Watchmen and Batman: The Killing Joke. Moore took the traditional comic book genre, designed for action and entertainment, and injected it full of adult themes, social commentary, and heartbreaking drama that elevated the genre to new heights.

Moore is an anarchist, occultist, chaos magician, and perhaps most importantly, a curmudgeon of the highest order—this man hates adaptations of his work. Would Moore’s worldviews align with the others and if not, how so and why? 

Hailing from the UK, I’d hope Moore would be fan of bangers and mash because it’s what’s for dinner. 

 

#1) Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut was one of the greatest authors and minds of modern literature. Satirical and profound, witty yet charming, and capable of creating fantastic tales full of compelling, if not broken, characters. 

His sci-fi is comparable to Asimov and his commentary rivals each of the aforementioned writers, but perhaps most importantly, he was able to see through the muck of our world and still have a sense of humor about it. “So it goes.” What would Vonnegut think of the world today? What stories would be brewing below the surface to reflect the issues in our modern world?

Vonnegut had a penchant for hot chocolate, and what finer drink to close out a dinner party than a sweet beverage to be shared among peers. 

 

So, that concludes my list. A dinner party for the ages composed of incredible minds sharing their insights, commentaries, criticisms, and wisdom. All of which this world needs more of. What would your list look like?

Meet the blogger:

Author photo

CAL MacFARLAND is a Creative Writing major in his final year at Hamline University. Self-proclaimed word wizard, Cal spends much of his time writing short stories, essays, and articles for publication. With a lifelong passion for incredible stories, he hopes to share his own with the world.

 

Creating Your Own Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude: An Ode to Ross Gay

Creating Your Own Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude: An Ode to Ross Gay

When I was young, I had a deep desire to prove I could be a great writer. At award celebrations in middle school, cool poets read these heartbreaking poems brimming with bruises, cigarettes and swearing. If my experience is at all normal, budding poets can feel pressure to be deep or somber, which can often translate to sadness or angst. I easily fell prey to romanticizing sadness in my early writing. I felt that, in order to win a contest or get published, my work had to be intense, moody, and sad. 

Today, one writer in particular helps me juggle heartbreak and happiness in my writing: Ross Gay. He’s published five books and is also an avid gardener. When you visit the “about” section on Ross Gay’s website, several sentences come right up at the top, reading: Ross Gay is interested in joy. Ross Gay wants to understand joy. Ross Gay is curious about joy. Ross Gay studies joy. 

Ross Gay knows there should be a place for grief and sadness in poetry. In one interview, Gay lays it out: “If I agreed I was happy all the time, I would be full of shit, because I’m not.” In many ways, it is productive for writers to grapple with grief in their work. Poetry wouldn’t be a human experience if it didn’t translate pain or create a space for collective mourning. People get sick, our friends die. We fall in love, we break up. Systems oppress us. But not every poem must reside in a place of helplessness.

How do we deal with this as writers? How do we deal with our personal struggles when it seems the whole world is falling apart? 

Like Ross Gay has helped me discover, self care is an integral practice to have the capacity to tackle the world. We’ve come face to face with this realization from living through global pandemic. Yes, we know all about face masks and cups of tea, but how can we practice self care *in* our writing? 

The thing is poetry can hold space for it all, which I didn’t discover until later in my writing journey. Mourning, love, tenderness, rage, helplessness, levity––it’s all part of life, and thus part of poetry. Ross Gay agrees that he started writing poetry to lament, rather than to praise. Now, though, he sees the ways that praising and lamenting are part of the same process of life: “The process of writing my second book reminded me– or taught me– that I love praising, too, and that they’re very intertwined, obviously.”

He says that if we acknowledge life’s sorrows, we must acknowledge life’s joys. I used to think happiness was seen as frivolous or naive in poetry, but joy and comfort are no less important than sadness in writing. Gay says “Joy is this very complex, full, rigorous emotion.” Joy is just as deep as grief— just as crucial to our lives and just as crucial to poetry. 

Ross Gay embodies the profound ways joy and gratitude impact our lives in his poem “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude,” a 285-line poem giving thanks to everything from “the tiny bee’s shadow” to “the ancestor who loved you before she knew you.” He gets specific. He picks out little delights of his life and spins a shining web. Towards the end of the poem, he even expresses his gratitude for the reader, connecting with each person that lays eyes on his poem:

I want so badly to rub the sponge of gratitude

over every last thing, including you, which, yes, awkward,

the suds in your ear and armpit, the little sparkling gems

slipping into your eye. 

One of my favorite things about this poem and Ross Gay is that he doesn’t shy away from the weird or even gross parts about being human. In fact, he’s grateful for it. You can experience more of his full embracing of life in his other work, such as The Book of Delights, where he challenged himself to handwrite an essay each day of the year. 

I believe gratitude to be a self-care practice, and I believe Ross Gay is a perfect place to begin the exploration of self-care in poetry. My challenge to all writers, especially those grappling with heavy content or a difficult period in life, is to create your own catalogue of unabashed gratitude. So, today: take a breath. Write your gratitude down. Start a doc, open the notes app. Use your poet self to encounter the world’s joy. What are the early-bloomed peach trees, paisley panties, and hyacinth bells in your own life.

Meet the blogger:

EMMA HARRINGTON is a current senior at Hamline University and second year editor in chief of the Fulcrum Journal. Her poems have been published in Fulcrum, Emry’s Online Journal, and december magazine. Outside of school, she loves to sing in choir, tend to her plants, and go on hikes.

 

On Your Mark, Get Set, Bake!  Writing Exercises Based on the Great British Baking Show

On Your Mark, Get Set, Bake! Writing Exercises Based on the Great British Baking Show

The Great British Baking Show (also called The Great British Bake Off or GBBO) is a baking competition show that’s been on air since 2010. Unlike many other reality television shows, it relies on camaraderie between competitors and difficult baking challenges rather than drama or arguments to generate intrigue. Because GBBO doesn’t offer a grand prize, competitors will happily help each other out when needed. The most stress between people in the competition tent is when judge Paul Hollywood gives a competitor a suspicious look from across the room.

But The Great British Baking Show can do more than just bring joy to all who watch it. It can also serve as inspiration for writers. In this post, we’ll look at some writing exercises in the form of GBBO’s three challenge structure.

The Signature

In The Great British Baking Show, the signature challenge is the place to show off what makes your work unique. How would you describe the way you write? Do you use a lot of metaphors, write long flowing sentences, or keep things simple? In other words: what is your writing signature?

For this exercise, pick 3 excerpts of writing from different writers. Look at the construction of the pieces and take a few notes on what techniques are used in each one. Put the excerpts away. Set a timer for ten minutes, and try to imitate the style of the first excerpt based on your notes. Repeat the process again for the other two pieces you took notes on. Then, set another timer and write a piece in your own voice.

Take a few minutes to reflect on the experience. What are some of the differences between the pieces? Which ones did you enjoy, and which ones did you struggle with? Think about how this might change the way you write in the future.

Optional: Write all four of your pieces on the same topic and imagine how each writer might approach the same subject.

The Technical

GBBO is famous for its technical challenge in which the bakers must make something that they probably haven’t even heard of. For your technical challenge, try writing something in a form you’ve never used before. A few ideas to get started are listed below:

  • Poetry: write a ghazal , a haibun, a sestina, or other structured poem.
  • Fiction: write a story that uses almost exclusively dialogue, or no dialogue at all.
  • Creative Nonfiction: write an essay in reverse—tell the last events first, and the first events last.

 If none of these stick out to you, you can write something using a random prompt generator like this one, but try not to hit the button too many times. The point of this is to try something new, not to do something that you’re comfortable with.

The Showstopper

In the showstopper challenge, the goal for GBBO bakers is to show off what they know, and to be able to take and apply criticism. This is the last challenge, so it is the time to go all out and really give it your best shot.

This exercise is meant to be done in a group of two or more. With a friend or group of friends, set a timer for 20 minutes and write a creative piece in one of your favorite forms. When the timer goes off, take turns reading and critiquing the pieces you just wrote. Remember, these were written in a short amount of time, so it’s okay if they’re rough around the edges. Unlike bakers, writers don’t have to throw something in the bin if it doesn’t turn out the first time.

Optional: A day or two after writing your first drafts, meet up with the same people, set another timer, and try to implement some of the changes you talked about.

If you want to have a little extra fun, you can play this Spotify album of GBBO songs while you write and become completely immersed in the world of stodgy cakes, biscuits that don’t quite snap, and general British baking shenanigans.

Even if you don’t wind up trying any of these exercises, hopefully this is a reminder that inspiration can come from strange places—even British baking competition shows.

Meet the blogger:

ANNE SALMI is a creative writing student at Hamline University. When she isn’t watching old episodes of The Great British Baking Show, you can find her knitting in a coffee shop, hanging out with friends, or spending way too much money at the local book store.

 

Laugh Your Way to Great Writing

Laugh Your Way to Great Writing

When the world is burning, and the news seems to fuel that burn, I turn to comedians. Some might say this is naive and counterproductive, but I disagree (as long as Trevor Noah and Stephen Colbert are not your only news source). Humor is communal; laughter draws us together even when differences threaten to undo our penchant for human connection. Remember the last time you were in a room and tension seemed to fill the air more than oxygen? And then someone cracked a rather terrible joke, but seconds later, that tension dissolved and then disappeared? There is power there. But it’s not always easy. Quality humor requires tact. 

Let’s dig deeper into why humor is such an important literary tool to master. Not all humor fits all writing, but the element of stopping your reader in their tracks with a well-written, well-placed satirical or comedic line is an asset writers should take seriously (but not too seriously because that’s the opposite of what we’re going for here). Not everything you write will make readers double over with laughter. But humor equals surprise, which means delight in the reader’s experience. We LOVE surprises. Especially in fiction. Our attention is reinvigorated. And when you find yourself on the 5th page of a short story or the 250th page of a novel, this is a welcome sensation. And to be honest, even if it’s not that funny, I’ll still take a begrudging chuckle. Why else should we infuse humor into our writing? Is there a connection between humor and creativity? Yes. There most certainly is. There’s a decent amount of research that shows a correlation between a sense of humor and the creative process. Why is this? I’ll discuss a few reasons. 

  • Risk-taking– humor requires taking a risk. You don’t always know if a joke will land or pay off, but you do it in hopes that your audience will feel more connected to your material. Humor and vulnerability are closely related, leading us to places we might not visit when our logical brain is in overdrive. 
  • Playfulness and Innovation- most of us know that kids are fabulously creative. My eleven-year-old brother invents entire worlds using legos in a single afternoon. Not all humor is the same, but there’s often a detail of not taking everything too seriously within it. This opens a pathway for writers to look at their work in a new, more playful light and might lead to ideas you’d never considered before. So, to sum this point up, we could all take notes from our fellow tiny humans. 
  • Humor and information– when we absorb information that has humor sprinkled in, our defenses lower, we relax, we’re more willing to see things from new angles. Most of all, our interest is renewed. And whether you’re on the receiving end of the creative process, or on the production end of it, we can all appreciate giving our minds a “break.” 

There are countless other reasons humor, creativity, and the writing process are intertwined, but I can’t fit it into one blog post, and I certainly don’t want to bore you (is this where I should throw in a joke to keep you all interested)? 

While I didn’t touch on the “how” of weaving humor into your writing, if you’re looking for more tips, this page has some great information. What stories, poems, essays, etc. have you read lately that made you fall out of your seat with laughter? Or earned even a begrudging chuckle?

Meet the blogger:

DANIELLE FRANKE is a Senior at Hamline University studying English with a concentration in Creative Writing. When she’s not studying, reading, or writing, you can find her ogling every single dog she sees while out on walks around Como Lake. 

 

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