European lit scene blows giant raspberry at American authors

The Associated Press is reporting that the Nobel prize for literature will likely not go to an American.

The lede:
Bad news for American writers hoping for a Nobel Prize next week: the top member of the award jury believes the United States is too insular and ignorant to compete with Europe when it comes to great writing.

Ouch. The story is posted on the New York Times' site.

Tools of the trade

*A round-up of Chicago writing classes/workshops: 

Sure, you could join a writing group (like Thousand Fibers, which meets every other Wednesday at various locations in Chicago, cough cough) to polish your mad skills for free. But if you want feedback from a professional, a real, live, trained teacher, you could sign up for one of these creative writing classes, in exchange for your cold, hard cash:

Newberry Library: Adult education seminars are affordable (prices vary but one example: 8 classes for $160) and generally at convenient times. 

Graham School (at the University of Chicago): The Writer's Studio offers a certificate in creative writing and open enrollment classes. Open enrollment classes cost $545 for the 08-09 school year.  

University of Illinois at Chicago Writers Series:  Classes include practical business oriented writing to story workshops. Prices range from $275-475. 

StoryStudio Chicago: Good selection of class schedules and time commitments. Typical cost per course: $375. 

The Writers Loft: This web site is intense. I have no idea how much the workshops cost. 

*Classes not leading to some sort of degree, available a la carte or towards specific certificates.  Please comment if you know of other options. At a later date, we'll look at MFA options locally/regionally. 

The End

Books are dead, according to this story in New York magazine.

Abbreviated lives.

Can you sum up your life in six words?
For example:

• Is beefcake one word or two?
• Wanted: love, affirmation, hugs, freedom, chalupas.
• Stop asking me about band camp!
• He pampered me with sensual pedicures!

Six-word memoirs brought to us by Smith Magazine.

Chi-lit-event!

Prose Show

From the Literary Writers Network

With work from Thousand Fibers contributor Stephen Markley!

Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Time: 7:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Mercury Cafe
Street: 1505 W. Chicago Ave.
City/Town: Chicago, IL

Forget the Pulitzer. Aim for a "genius" grant.

$500,000, no strings attached.

This year's list of MacArthur Foundation felllowship winners includes one young writer, Chimamanda Adichie, "who illuminates the complexities of human experience in works inspired by events in her native Nigeria." Her book, Half of a Yellow Sun, is next on my to-read list.

Details about Adichie's life and work are here; full list of this year's winners here.

We can't all write books about whales...

David Gessner, a professor and writer, considers life as a teacher/author in the New York Times. The article says what we all know: you gotta make some bread to make some butter. Wait, I totally screwed up that metaphor. But you get what I mean.

An excerpt:
Writers who have been lucky enough to land these gigs are inclined to talk — when we aren’t grumbling — about their good fortune in sensible language, citing all that is sane, healthy, balanced and economically viable about their jobs. But another question is discussed less. What exactly does all this teaching do to our writing? And what, if anything, does it mean for a country to have a tenured literature?

Vacation reading

Chicago lit event:
Deb Olin Unferth reads at Quimby's on Sat., Sept. 27. Info here.

From the Village Voice review of her new novel:
Vacation, Deb Olin Unferth's dreamy, surreal debut novel, reads like an extended hallucination or out-of-body experience, as unsettling as it is compelling. The fragmented narrative is an intricate cross-hatch of character and misprision: A man named Meyers stalks his wife, whom he suspects is having an affair with an old acquaintance named Gray. The wife, never named, follows Gray across Manhattan, but it's a random, compulsive pastime she engages in while her marriage unravels; she doesn't know Gray, doesn't know he's her husband's friend, doesn't know that Gray's own marriage has ended. Meanwhile, a young woman seeks the biological father she has never met, an eco-terrorist who liberates captive dolphins.

Now for some unfortunate news: We missed Irvine Welsh (author of Trainspotting and Crime) at the Metro’s new reading series, Read Against Recession. Bummer.

Big and Ugly

The latest issue of the Big Ugly Review is live, with the theme fight or flight.

The image to the right (->) is from a photo essay in this issue.

How writers make a living...

Narrative has an essay on the fact that writers can rarely support themselves through writing alone.

An excerpt:
Here capitalism is again at odds with our better instincts: envy alone won’t explain the contempt aimed at the writer whose work seems guided by commercial rather than literary instincts, nor condescending terms ranging from genre writer to hack. Nevertheless, the writer who cannot sell his words is the writer who cannot eat, and even the most successful of literary writers are up against the fact that their craft carries with it an enormous latency.

Warning: Depressing calculations within the story
Some simple math: This summer saw the U. S. federal minimum wage rise to $6.55 an hour, a figure somewhat increased in certain states. Let us imagine a writer who spends two years writing a first novel, working full-time—quite a clip for a first book—and sells the novel for an excellent advance of $25,000. In every state, she would have found a counter job at McDonald’s more lucrative.

The link to the full story is here but the site requires (free and easy) registration .