신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin

The Irrepressible Sherry Quan Lee to mentor again! Don't miss this!

MINNESOTA POETS LOOKING FOR A MENTOR & PEERS, SIGN UP NOW!

SPRING 2008 WRITER-TO-WRITER APPLICATIONS STILL  AVAILABLE!
EXTENDED Deadline to Apply: February 20, 2008

Calling all writers! Applications are now available for our spring
session of Writer-to-Writer, the artistic mentorship program designed
to give advanced writers the opportunity to reach their next level of
artistic development. Writer-to-Writer creates intimate relationships
between artists; mentors act as artistic catalysts and partners,
providing each mentee with artistic feedback and professional guidance.

WRITER-TO-WRITER: SPRING 2008 MENTORSHIPS:

Anya Achtenberg (fiction/memoir)
DISCOVERING THE UNLIVED LIFE:
WRITING INTO THE MYSTERY OF YOUR CHARACTERS
The work of character development is central to discovering the real
story, rather than imposing a story onto our characters. Full
development of character in story work is not separate from the real
work we do in the world, that of continually crossing borders—internal
as well as external—with openness and knowledge, compassion and
respect. For our characters to unfold their truths in their full
dignity or brokenness, their astonishing beauty or cruelty, we must
work to understand their deepest yearnings in a way that often goes
beyond their own ability to articulate them.

In this mentorship, each participant will agree to “live with” one or
two characters for the duration of the mentorship, although new
characters may emerge, and new dimensions open of other, perhaps less
central, characters. We will work to deepen our ability to bring the
power of authentic beings into our writing, and extend our range to
include characters we may dislike or fear, characters that puzzle or
fascinate us, as well as those with whom we identify. We will challenge
ourselves to go beyond our preconceived notions, our projections of our
own points of view, our societal and cultural biases, our fear and lack
of knowledge, into understanding the lives of others in our global
community, in our own neighborhood or family.

We will go beyond the back story, beyond what a character has lived up
to the moment that we meet them. An unlived life is hidden within the
life each character must live to get by. You will explore your
character’s internal terrain, a land of yearning bordered by
frustration, overwork, social pressures, forgetting, distractions, and
violences, large and small, yet charged by the deep human desire for
expression and connection, for fulfillment of the individual and social
self in creativity and community. We will look at these evocative and
emotional issues in our discussions and in the illuminating work of
diverse writers. We’ll work in far-reaching but focused writing
explorations to cross boundaries that not only free our writing, but
deepen our understanding of, and respect for, the worlds and characters
we write about.

Sherry Quan Lee (poetry)
Bookmaking: Writing to Save Your Life
What does the map of your life look like? Are there stop signs,
detours, back roads, freeways, and tunnels?  Do you travel one
particular road over and over again?  Are you writing that one story
over and over again?  Does your collection of stories need closure?  Is
closure possible?

Memoir can be the stories remembered and made sense of as you chart the
map of your life.  Memoir can be the connection, the collection of
those stories.  Memoir can be your stories written in poetic form.
Memoir can be poetry enhanced with pictures, and other visual
materials.

In this mentorship, we will explore the healing power of poetry as
memoir. Initially, we will examine the stories that navigate your life
in order to discover the theme of your memoir.  Your theme will be your
writing prompt to gather more material. We will discuss poems belonging
in your book, but emphasis will be on overall theme, organization,
format, and production.  This mentorship is for poets (who may
sometimes write prose) interested in completing a chapbook or
manuscript draft.
* * * * * * * * *

Read more about our Spring mentorships with Anya Achtenberg
(fiction/memoir) and Sherry Quan Lee (poetry) online here:
http://www.intermediaarts.org/pages/programs/literary/wtw.php.
Applications attached, and available online!

This program is supported by the Jerome Foundation in celebration of
the Jerome Hill Centennial and in recognition of the valuable cultural
contributions of artists to society.

Another AWP under the belt...

One of the highlights of my NYC sojourn was a poetry reading with Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Lee Herrick, and multi-media visual artist Jane Jin Kaisen in Chinatown, an event sponsored by the wonderful organization AKA NY (Also Known As).

Run and get JKD's and LH's book: Paper Pavilions and This Many Miles From Desire.

Jennifer's book is piercing, classical, and elegant; Lee's book is animated by the unknowable weight of the spirit...

Asians ACTING! Yahoo! Come see these shows.

       

                                               

		Nov. 29, 2007                                         Two new exciting works!                                                                         Mu Performing Arts is proud to be showing new works by Sun Mee Chomet and Paul Juhn for this year's New Directions Festival.  These two pieces were commissioned as part of  the Jerome Foundation's New Performance Project. Please come and support these talented Asian American Artists as they present their works in progress. Also note that ASIAMNESIA will be performed at the Center for Independant Artists in Bloomington next weekend, while WORKS OF ART will be at the Mu Studio the following weekend.
ASIAMNESIA and WORKS OF ART!
		ASIAMNESIA by Sun Mee Chomet Directed by Randy Reyes Performed by Katie Leo, Rose Tran, Katie Vang, Katie Bradley, Sun Mee Chomet This is an exploration of what it means to be Asian-American women.  What do five creative, restless Asian-American create in a room if given time, books, pens and paper.  Who are we today? Who have we been?  What influence do stereotypes have on Asian-American women¹s minds?   Do stereotypes entrap us?  Who would we be if we could escape the prison of categories in our minds?  It is a process using dance, movement, music and scene work.   It is a complete collaboration.  And the questions are still being asked .Dec. 8 @7pm, Dec. 9 @3pm and 7pm Tickets $7 at the Center for Independent Artists 4137 Bloomington Ave. S, Minneapolis 612-724-8392                     WORKS OF ART by Paul Juhn Directed by Victor Maog Performed by Paul Juhn Art is a Korean American actor in NYC.  His Korean American buddy needs him to go on a blind date in his place.  His friend beinga lawyer and Art being the typical out of work actor, Art accepts. With that ensures a very twisted romance that is the Works of Art. Dec. 15 and 16 @7pm Tickets by Donation at Mu Performing Arts Studio 2700 NE Winter St (see website for directions). 612.824.4808
Reverberations from on high
		words by Rick                                     What do five women and one man have in common?  Mucho Mu talent, as they say. The women, led by our ringleader Sun Mee Chomet take a rapid fire approach to what they have to deal with on a daily basis, from stereotypes to archetypes and delve into the history behind it all.  The man is Paul Juhn, one of our original performers from the early days.  He's now based in NYC and making waves with his recent work on Sides: The Fear Is Real which ran Off Broadway.  Paul is creating his first one person show about romance, and knowing Paul it's full of charm. Both of these presentations come through the Jerome New Performance Program so enjoy and let us know what you think!

NYT article of the day: What Ails the Short Story

What Ails the Short Story

 
By

STEPHEN KING

Published: September 30, 2007

 

The American short story is alive and well.

Skip to next paragraph      

Illustration by Wink

 

     

Do you like the sound of that? Me too. I only wish it were actually true. The art form is still alive — that I can testify to. As editor of “The Best American Short Stories 2007,” I read hundreds of them, and a great many were good stories. Some were very good. And some seemed to touch greatness. But “well”? That’s a different story.

I came by my hundreds — which now overflow several cardboard boxes known collectively as The Stash — in a number of different ways. A few were recommended by writers and personal friends. A few more I downloaded from the Internet. Large batches were sent to me on a regular basis by Heidi Pitlor, the series editor. But I’ve never been content to stay on the reservation, and so I also read a great many stories in magazines I bought myself, at bookstores and newsstands in Florida and Maine, the two places where I spend most of the year. I want to begin by telling you about a typical short-story-hunting expedition at my favorite Sarasota mega-bookstore. Bear with me; there’s a point to this.

I go in because it’s just about time for the new issues of Tin House and Zoetrope: All-Story. There will certainly be a new issue of The New Yorker and perhaps Glimmer Train and Harper’s. No need to check out The Atlantic Monthly; its editors now settle for publishing their own selections of fiction once a year in a special issue and criticizing everyone else’s the rest of the time. Jokes about eunuchs in the bordello come to mind, but I will suppress them.

So into the bookstore I go, and what do I see first? A table filled with best-selling hardcover fiction at prices ranging from 20 percent to 40 percent off. James Patterson is represented, as is Danielle Steel, as is your faithful correspondent. Most of this stuff is disposable, but it’s right up front, where it hits you in the eye as soon as you come in, and why? Because these are the moneymakers and rent payers; these are the glamour ponies.

I walk past the best sellers, past trade paperbacks with titles like “Who Stole My Chicken?,” “The Get-Rich Secret” and “Be a Big Cheese Now,” past the mysteries, past the auto-repair manuals, past the remaindered coffee-table books (looking sad and thumbed-through with their red discount stickers). I arrive at the Wall of Magazines, which is next door to the children’s section, where story time is in full swing. I stare at the racks of magazines, and the magazines stare eagerly back. Celebrities in gowns and tuxes, models in low-rise jeans, luxury stereo equipment, talk-show hosts with can’t-miss diet plans — they all scream Buy me, buy me! Take me home and I’ll change your life!+

I can grab The New Yorker and Harper’s while I’m still standing up, without going to my knees like a school janitor trying to scrape a particularly stubborn wad of gum off the gym floor. For the rest, I must assume exactly that position. I hope the young woman browsing Modern Bride won’t think I’m trying to look up her skirt. I hope the young man trying to decide between Starlog and Fangoria won’t step on me. I crawl along the lowest shelf, where neatness alone suggests few ever go. And here I find fresh treasure: not just Zoetrope and Tin House, but also Five Points and The Kenyon Review. No Glimmer Train, but there’s American Short Fiction, The Iowa Review, even an Alaska Quarterly Review. I stagger to my feet and limp toward the checkout. The total cost of my six magazines runs to over $80. There are no discounts in the magazine section.

So think of me crawling on the floor of this big chain store and ask yourself, What’s wrong with this picture?

We could argue all day about the reasons for fiction’s out-migration from the eye-level shelves — people have. We could marvel over the fact that Britney Spears is available at every checkout, while an American talent like William Gay or Randy DeVita or Eileen Pollack or Aryn Kyle (all of whom were among my final picks) labors in relative obscurity. We could, but let’s not. It’s almost beside the point, and besides — it hurts.

Instead, let us consider what the bottom shelf does to writers who still care, sometimes passionately, about the short story. What happens when he or she realizes that his or her audience is shrinking almost daily? Well, if the writer is worth his or her salt, he or she continues on nevertheless, because it’s what God or genetics (possibly they are the same) has decreed, or out of sheer stubbornness, or maybe because it’s such a kick to spin tales. Possibly a combination. And all that’s good.

What’s not so good is that writers write for whatever audience is left. In too many cases, that audience happens to consist of other writers and would-be writers who are reading the various literary magazines (and The New Yorker, of course, the holy grail of the young fiction writer) not to be entertained but to get an idea of what sells there. And this kind of reading isn’t real reading, the kind where you just can’t wait to find out what happens next (think “Youth,” by Joseph Conrad, or “Big Blonde,” by Dorothy Parker). It’s more like copping-a-feel reading. There’s something yucky about it.

Last year, I read scores of stories that felt ... not quite dead on the page, I won’t go that far, but airless, somehow, and self-referring. These stories felt show-offy rather than entertaining, self-important rather than interesting, guarded and self-conscious rather than gloriously open, and worst of all, written for editors and teachers rather than for readers. The chief reason for all this, I think, is that bottom shelf. It’s tough for writers to write (and editors to edit) when faced with a shrinking audience. Once, in the days of the old Saturday Evening Post, short fiction was a stadium act; now it can barely fill a coffeehouse and often performs in the company of nothing more than an acoustic guitar and a mouth organ. If the stories felt airless, why not? When circulation falters, the air in the room gets stale.

And yet. I read plenty of great stories this year. There isn’t a single one in this book that didn’t delight me, that didn’t make me want to crow, “Oh, man, you gotta read this!” I think of such disparate stories as Karen Russell’s “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” John Barth’s “Toga Party” and “Wake,” by Beverly Jensen, now deceased, and I think — marvel, really — they paid me to read these! Are you kiddin’ me???

Talent can’t help itself; it roars along in fair weather or foul, not sparing the fireworks. It gets emotional. It struts its stuff. If these stories have anything in common, it’s that sense of emotional involvement, of flipped-out amazement. I look for stories that care about my feelings as well as my intellect, and when I find one that is all-out emotionally assaultive — like “Sans Farine,” by Jim Shepard — I grab that baby and hold on tight. Do I want something that appeals to my critical nose? Maybe later (and, I admit it, maybe never). What I want to start with is something that comes at me full-bore, like a big, hot meteor screaming down from the Kansas sky. I want the ancient pleasure that probably goes back to the cave: to be blown clean out of myself for a while, as violently as a fighter pilot who pushes the eject button in his F-111. I certainly don’t want some fraidy-cat’s writing school imitation of Faulkner, or some stream-of-consciousness about what Bob Dylan once called “the true meaning of a pear.”

So — American short story alive? Check. American short story well? Sorry, no, can’t say so. Current condition stable, but apt to deteriorate in the years ahead. Measures to be taken? I would suggest you start by reading this year’s “Best American Short Stories.” They show how vital short stories can be when they are done with heart, mind and soul by people who care about them and think they still matter. They do still matter, and here they are, liberated from the bottom shelf.

Stephen King is the author of 60 books, as well as nearly 400 short stories, including “The Man in the Black Suit,” which won the O. Henry Prize in 1996.

 

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