Creative Writing San Francisco
Sun, 02/28/2010 - 10:53am | Matthew Clark D...
I’m on an annual getaway with a bunch of friends. A trip I didn’t think I’d be able to afford this year until the prospect of budget cuts leaving me teaching 0-2 classes per week turned into the reality of teaching 9 classes per week. A trip in years past I loved to take turned, in the midst of the busiest and most-charged period of my life, into a trip I felt like I needed to take.
One of my friends in the hotel biz hooked me up with a luxurious room I’d never be able to afford at its normal rate—or even its near-normal rate. I still must work, but working from the beach after doing yoga and then reading in a bed with 400 thread-count sheets feels much more doable than driving from class to class on a motorcycle in the rain. My hotel-biz-friend is the same friend who has us waiting out the tsunami in the penthouse. My room (on the third floor) was evacuated to a public place in the hotel across the street.
Life is so strange.
I also just finished reading TRUTH AND BEAUTY by Ann Patchett. It’s about all the subjects I find endlessly fascinating: family, friendship, writing, the creative process, self-destruction, loss, addiction, and survival. This book really digs into dumb luck of survival--the randomness and even brutality of it—-she explores what often, and mistakenly, gets reduced down to "the triumph of the human spirit." It details her enormously complicated and compelling relationship to the late writer Lucy Grealy, who’s AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE I assigned along with TRUTH AND BEAUTY for my Uses of Personal Experience course at SF State.
The Douglass Street Lab, I can hardly believe, is going into its sixth of eight weeks. This session’s group, more newcomers than regulars, more people I’ve met for the first time than people I’ve known before, is producing some of the most charged work I’ve seen. I love the freedom The Lab offers, not ruled by the necessary rules of a university or grant funding. It brings me much joy.
There’s so much more I want to write about. Somehow I want to tie-in the feeling I got reading TRUTH AND BEAUTY, how the narration of Patchett’s memoir maintained its steadily-increasing tension even though the reader knows in advance what will happen—and what it’s like to be waiting for the tsunami to hit from the 21st floor from a penthouse suite—and what it’s like to be waiting to hear if I’ll ever get my first book deal now that my agent has sent out my manuscript to the first round of editors. But I just can’t.
Creative Writing San Francisco
Fri, 11/27/2009 - 9:43am | Matthew Clark D...
*Sign up for The Douglass Street Lab's next session starting 1/19/10.
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The new issue of Fourteen Hills is also about to be released. You can come hear some of the writers at the release party on December 16th at the San Francisco Motorcycle Club. This issue is visually stunning and the work in it will please all of the word nerds in your life. You can buy it through SPD or you can subscribe here. Either way, come to the party. It’ll be fun. And it’s free. More info on the address/time/readers here.
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Ok. It may not have been the best movie on earth but something that came out of that movie totally changed my life. Oprah interviewed the cast of the movie and several of the actresses lamented about how hot it had been on the shoot. The way I remember it, Oprah listened to the details about how hot it had been on set and Dolly Parton said nothing. Oprah turned to her and said, “Dolly, you’re the one who had to wear all those big wigs and all those layers. Weren’t you hot?” And Dolly Parton looked at Oprah, paused, then said, “When I was a little girl growin’ up in the backwoods of Tennessee I wanted to be a famous country western singer and a movie star. Now I’m a country western singer and a movie star and I’m not going to complain about the weather.”
In a recent conversation with my mother and a friend she's known for forty-five years, we all talked about the teachers who had an influence on us even when we didn’t know it at the time. I’ve had a lot of great teachers. But with most of them I’ve known how great they were even during the “during phase.” With some of them, I’ve had the pleasure of having time-delayed double-appreciation for what I’d already appreciated.
I had a high-school art teacher named Mrs. Fitz. Anyone who knows me knows that I dropped out of high school when I was fifteen. And I only attended a tiny portion of my freshman year so I couldn’t have been in her class more than a dozen times. My high school felt like an entirely hostile environment—students and faculty included—so I’d given up on any attempt to gain anyone’s acceptance or approval. Instead I rebelled, refusing any help. I don’t know if Mrs. Fitz ever even noticed me. But I noticed her. She came to our small-town conservative Massachusetts school with her spiked hair. She wore layered outfits that looked like a cross between Pat Benetar and Stevie Nicks. She called herself an artist and her teaching style reminded me of Debbie Allen’s character on the television show Fame.
Memory is imperfect, and my filters of that time were incredibly emotional and hormonal, so I’m not stating any of this as objective fact. I remember her talking to the people in the room who were most interested in what she had to offer. She didn’t exclude anyone or ignore anyone—but drew people in with her passion for the subject. To appear on her radar one needed to take risks and show some passion of one’s own. I was already too far gone. I’d hatched a plan to run away and return to California and make it as an actor. I didn’t want small town art classes. I judged her and everyone else I liked before they could judge me. I’m not sure she and I ever even had a one on one conversation. I do, however, have an awareness of how often I thought of her over the years. I wondered what it was like to be her. There. In that town. I wondered if she were married or single or if she had a boy or girl friend. I wondered if she’d sensed my gayness. (After all, didn’t all artistic people have advanced gaydar?) I’ve thought about her when in museums or when playing with clay with my nieces and any time I’ve ever attempted to sketch something on paper (a town square, an apartment’s floor plan, an outfit that I’ve needed to see first on paper in order to describe in a story). She once told me a sketch I drew of a mouse sticking his head out of a hole in a triangular piece of Swiss cheese had good shadowing. I’ve never forgotten her or it.
Why? She taught me that having a life as an artist is a possibility. It didn’t matter where you lived. It’s how you lived. What mattered was how you saw the world and how you responded to it.
Things have been tough this semester at SF State with the cutbacks, and word is that it’ll get worse before it gets better. But I’m not going to complain. Why? When I was a little boy sitting on a rock looking up at the stars in a small town in Massachusetts, all I wanted was to be around people who made art with words or paper or their bodies. I wanted to make my living not as a truck driver or a computer programmer or a waiter (all jobs held by people I loved), but as an artist. And now I’m making my living as an artist and I’m not going to complain about a couple of cutbacks.
I few weeks ago I wanted to complain about the classes I’m teaching to forth and fifth graders and at an afterschool middle-school program. But I held my tongue. And I’m glad I did. Not only because they’re starting to trust me, to open up and actually write stuff down, but because during this conversation with my mother and her friend I realized that being a teacher has nothing to do with getting the results I want to see. It’s about presenting possibilities. These classes through Performing Arts Workshop are the most challenging I’ve taught. Or maybe it just seems like that because I’ve been teaching the others for a while and I’ve gotten more used to them. At any rate, they make me feel alive.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. By the time this goes up it will be the Monday after. I’m writing this from Mendocino where my mother and I have spent the week driving up and down Highway 1 stopping to eat sushi and Thai spring rolls and avocados on benches overlooking cliffs that drop into the bright blue Pacific. I was raised in California before my father was transferred to Massachusetts and my parents took my brothers and me along this coast when we were kids. It’s quite a sensation to revisit this area with my mom. She with her head of hair as white as the wave caps and me with my baldhead and graying beard. On days like today it seems like all of it makes sense and no matter what happens it’ll be okay. Or not. And either way, everything will continue on.
Fiction Classes in San Francisco
Sat, 07/11/2009 - 1:51pm | Matthew Clark D...
This Blog Entry Contains:
*Updates.
*NY Reading with Anne-E Wood and Evan Rehill on 7/12.
*Fall 2009 Registration Douglass Street Lab.
*1-on-1 Manuscript Consultations.
*Become "a fan" of The Lab on FACEBOOK.
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Updates:
I'm delighted to report that the finished draft of my novel manuscript is finally in the hands of my agent and a couple of trusted friends. I've learned a lot about writing (and about myself) from the last phase of the process, and wrote about it a bit in a blog entry I posted this past spring.
"Do not hurry. Do not rest." is a Goethe quote for which I've come to gain the utmost appreciation.
Now I'm vacillating between complete and utter calm and serenity (which very well may be denial) and impatience to get back to work. Happily for me, the ratio is about 80/20.
Given that I'm here in New York, with the splendid good fortune to be living in an art gallery, I have no shortage of activities with which to fill the time I'd been working on the novel. I've been going to plays and museums, walking around taking photographs, talking to visual artists about their processes, and reading, reading, reading.
In those ways life feels so very good.
The same day I finished my manuscript, I also received a phone call from my boss at SFSU. Two of the three classes I was scheduled to teach have been canceled due to the disastrous state California finds itself in.
That's never a fun call to receive.
But it's not surprising when one makes one's living in Arts Education in a state institution. After all, California employs a former bodybuilder as the governor.
It'll be interesting to see the art that will result from particular time in history.
My hope is my SFSU students will not be entirely discouraged by their ever-decreasing educational options—but will instead keep reading, keep writing, keep on engaging in the activities that ignite that fundamental human impulse to create.
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R/A R/A READING with Anne-E Wood and Evan Rehill.
If you're in NY, or know someone who is, please consider coming to and/or forwarding this invite to your NY friends:
Sunday, July 12, 2009
7:00pm - 8:00pm
I'll be reading from LETTERS TO THE DEAD with the following two former-SF-writers who now live in Brooklyn:
Anne-E. Wood's fiction is forthcoming or has appeared in Tin House, Gargoyle, Able Muse, Agni, The Chicago Quarterly Review, New Letters, Karamu Literary Journal, Beloit Fiction Journal, Other Voices, The Cream City Review, Fiction Attic, Fourteen Hills Magazine, Hustlers: An Anthology of Gay Male Sex for Hire (under a pen name) and others. She has an MFA in Fiction from San Francisco State University and won the 2006 Michael Rubin Chapbook Award for her collection Two If By Sea. She has taught creative writing at San Francisco State University, Rutgers University, The New Jersey Institute of Technology, the Gotham Writers' Workshop in New York City, and in public schools, juvenile halls, homeless shelters, and youth centers all over the country. She currently lives in Brooklyn and is at work on a novel.
Evan Rehill grew up in Jersey. His writing has been published or is forthcoming in American Short Fiction, Instant City, Watchword, 14 Hills, Big Bell, and Kitchen Sink Magazine. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2006, won the Miriam Ylvisaker Award for Fiction in 2007, and earned his MFA from San Francisco State University in 2008, where he was also an Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing. He has delivered lectures at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and on Neighborhood Public Radio. Push Press published The Way We’re Used To (limited edition) in the summer of 2008. Rehill has completed a collection of short stories (Night Comes Later) and is at work on a novel. He currently teaches fiction at the Gotham Writers’ Workshop in Manhattan. He lives in Brooklyn.
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Douglass Street 6, The Fall 2009 Lab, starts Tuesday 9/8/9 and runs for 8 consecutive weeks. If you're interested, you can guarantee yourself a seat now. (The Fall session usually sells out a few weeks before it starts). As it stands, a few slots remain.
I've joined eventbrite to make signing up a breeze. Click Here for more info & to register. I'd also very much appreciate it if you'd forward this email to that friend who has been talking about taking a writing class.
Click here:
to find out more about The Lab
about Matthew
or to read testimonials from people who've taken The Lab.
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OPEN SLOTS FOR MANUSCRIPT CONSULTATION
Since I'll be teaching less at SFSU this Fall, I'll have a few extra open slots for 1 on 1 Manuscript consulting. For nearly fifteen years, I've been working with fiction/memoir writers who're interested in tightening their work to send out or to apply for graduate school, fellowships, grants—or to simply improve upon their craft. My clients have included Pushcart and O'Henry winning authors, and writers whose imaginations and hard work got them invited into MFA programs as competitive as University of Oregon, Syracuse, Columbia, and NYU.
While The Lab is ideal for people who want to generate new work and/or to expand a project; working 1-on-1 is best for those who have an existing project they're ready to work hard on finishing. Click here to find out more about how it works. Click here to read testimonials with people who've worked 1-on-1 with me.
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If FACEBOOK hasn't already taken over your life, here's an opportunity to increase the chance that it will. Click Here to become "a fan" of The Lab. Past, present, and future Labbers andlovers of words drop by and contemplate quotes for/by/about writingand/or life and/or art. Also, up-to-date information about The Lab andthe people in it.
Late Spring Update
Mon, 05/18/2009 - 6:31pm | Matthew Clark D...
Thanks for visiting my blog. Hope everyone receiving this is enjoying their Spring. San Francisco is having INCREDIBLE weather. As soon as I'm done with this entry, in fact, I'm off to Ft. Mason park with some sunscreen, a picnic, and pile of final papers from my writing students at San Francisco State.
This update contains:
*Fall 2009 Registration Douglass Street Lab
*Save The Dates! 2 Upcoming Readings
*Douglass Street 5 Update
*Matthew's New York Summer
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If you're interested in being a part of The Fall 2009 Lab, which starts Tuesday 9/8/9 and runs for 8 consecutive weeks, you can garauntee yourself a seat now. (The Fall session usually sells out quickly). I've joined eventbrite to make signing up a breeze.
For more info & to register, CLICK HERE.
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Save the dates:
1. Douglass Street Lab Session 5 will be having its public reading "Douglass Speaks" on Tuesday June 2nd, so save the date! Exact time and location to be announced soon on The Lab's Facebook Page.
2. To help kick off the inaugural evening of "The Barbershop: A Reading Series," I will be reading (along with a very special guest) from my almost-completed manuscript LETTERS TO THE DEAD (a novel-in-progress) . Randall Mann and Lorelei Lee, both wildly talented writers, will also be reading. Please join us for the fun. There will be an optional $5 suggested donation to help cover the cost of snacks, chairs, wine, beverages, etc. Here's the info:
Saturday, June 6, 2009
8:00pm - 9:30pm
2150 Market Street (between Church and Sanchez)
San Francisco, CA
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Douglass Street 5 Update:
Last Tuesday Douglass 5 completed their 6th Session. We read an interview with Rafael Campo, who is, among other things, a gay Cuban-American, a Harvard Medical School physician and poet, who describes his writing process this way
"I’ve been drawn so irresistibly to so-called received forms...they are physical touchstones that provide a kind of entrée into the arduous imaginative journey back to my lost, decrepit island, to inhabit the beautiful but forbidden body of my desire. So I try to rewrite the sonnet, pushing against its narrow walls, asking it to contain a not-so-different love; beneath the scaffolding of a villanelle, I imagine I might rebuild the fanciful architecture of crumbling Havana."
Members of The Lab, after reading the interview and one of Campo's poems, were then challenged to see what they could get onto paper about their characters using exactly thirteen lines (Campo's poem was five 13-line stanzas) under the catagorical prompts of: Injury, Esctasy, Dispair, & Repair.
While some of the members showed some initial resistance, the findings were INCREDIBLE. They were then encouraged to continue with or completely abandon the formal constraints of the exercize as their projects and vision deemed fit. THRILLING!
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NEW YORK HERE I COME!
After a quietly glorious year of writing and teaching and frequent immersion in San Francisco's art & performance scene, I'm putting the finishing touches on the first real definitive beginning-to-end draft of LETTERS TO THE DEAD to send to my agent and a couple of trusted readers.
Then I'm getting on a plane to New York to spend 6 weeks with Greg, Michael, Jetson, and Frizbee (my new canine nephew who I have yet to meet.)
I plan on recharging by immersion into New York's artistic offerings while doing the final revisions on the novel. I'm also very excited to get back into short fiction. I recently took an inventory of the stories I've written and hope to be able to compile them into my next manuscript.
I'll update you in June and July from New York.
Happy Late-Spring early summer everyone!
Pre-Register for The Lab/Douglass Street 5 Starting 4/7/2009
Wed, 01/21/2009 - 8:29am | Matthew Clark D...
UPDATE FROM
"Douglass Street 4" is off to a great start. This time we have published writers, MFAs, and people who started writing in first grade who have never sent out a story or taken a creative writing class. We have designers, performers, students, retail sales people, and former glass blowers. (Well, one glass blower that I know of, but it sounds better in the plural).
I'm always blown away by the deep, unexpected places people go. Perhaps it's the intimate relaxed atmosphere at Mark's place on Douglass Street. Perhaps it's that we don't do big corny introductions. Instead, we trust that the work we produce will allow others to know us. Perhaps people who sign up for The Lab are ready to work hard and take risks. Maybe it's a combo. Whatever the case, it sure is a pleasure.
Here's one of the prompts we've used after considering & discussing a bunch of provocative quotes:
"There are things I’ve done that I’m proud of, and there are things I’ve done that I’m ashamed. But back then, it seemed like everything I did filled me with both..."
Try writing it as your first couple of lines and then see where it takes you...
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As this session of The Lab sold out several weeks in advance, I've had several people from the waiting list ask if they can pre-register for the next Lab.
The answer is YES. We will be doing the next 8-week Lab starting on Tuesday 4/7/09 running weekly until 5/26/09 (these dates are subject to change slightly). They run from 7-9:30 at Mark's beautiful house on 21st and Douglass, =distant from The Castro and Noe Valley. See pictures here.
To secure yourself a slot, please carefully read the payment/refund policies on the registration form. A $100 NON-REFUNDABLE administration fee, applicable toward the total tuition ($395), can hold your spot until 4/1, at which time all fees are due. The 12 slots (there are 13 total participants, including the host) are sold on a first-registered, first-served basis.
Thanks for reading and happy writing!
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If you're interested in a 1-on-1 manuscript consultation, click here for more info.
Fall Underway
Fri, 09/05/2008 - 7:22am | Matthew Clark D...
I had such a great summer. Not just the 5-week writing stint in New York, but I also enjoyed a visit from my momma (who is the world's best motorcycle passenger. She practices reiki on me while we drive). My younger brother Paul, and his wife and daughter, Terese and Amara, also trekked from Colorado Springs to the Bay Area, and were surprised by the chilly late-July-weather.
Back In SF
Thu, 07/17/2008 - 7:47pm | Matthew Clark D...
How quickly a month goes by! I had an incredible time in New York. I wrote and wrote and wrote, which was the point of the trip this year. Last year I was there to research.
Firefly and the Second Annual NY Trip
Thu, 06/26/2008 - 10:18am | Matthew Clark D...
Sometimes work feels like work. And sometimes it feels like this:
This is a photo of one of the locations where I've been absolutely blessed to be able to write this summer, thanks to the kindness and generosity of Greg and Michael. They've both worked incredibly hard, for years, and are now able to share their good fortune with their family and friends.
Spring Check In and Upcoming Workshops
Sun, 04/06/2008 - 8:28am | Matthew Clark D...
Greetings from the life of a working writer in San Francisco.
Seems like just yesterday I was blogging from New York and here it is time for me to buy my tickets to go back this summer! A full year later?
About my novel: SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS! The Fall Semester made the day-to-day writing a challenge...but the books and stories I read and what I learned from my students ended up proving invaluable yet again.
End of the Year Approaching
Tue, 12/11/2007 - 7:00am | Matthew Clark D...
Wow. It has been a busy couple of months. I want to get a few more entries in before The New Year.
Some updates:
I met my gorgeous niece Amara over Thanksgiving and visited with my family while doing some research about a story I'm incubating about a guy with brothers who gets together with them and the rest of his unusual family around the birth of a new babe.