I would like to pursue graduate studies in fiction to be in an environment where I can experiment and broaden the scope of my work, aided by the structure of a rigorous curriculum and consistent feedback. I also wish to continue and finish projects already underway. By the time I receive my degree, I plan to have manuscripts ready for publication, and a clearer idea of the directions in which I wish my future work to go. I would also like to teach fiction at the college level.
At present, I am working primarily on a novel entitled To See, while also writing short stories as a way of trying new ideas. To See is a first-person novel about a blind girl who grows up in a rural part of the Philippines then immigrates to the United States, where she eventually becomes a scientist who works on retinal implant technology that may allow blind people to see. She eventually has to decide whether or not to be one of the first people to have the operation that she herself helped develop. I am overlaying the twin themes of disability and immigration in order to explore the conjunctions and disparities between the two. In addition, I want the novel to explore how technology is viewed from two different cultural perspectives.
While I have many different ideas for short stories, the ones that are forming themselves into a cohesive body of work are set in the Philippines. A common thread in these stories is the way they depict actions and situations that are unfamiliar, almost implausible to Westerners, but are still within the realm of reality. In the stories I’ve included as part of my application, a six-year-old boy starts a revolution and a man returns from America after a quarter century to find the same servant outside his window. These events, while unusual, are much more plausible in the context of my native culture than they are in America. I want my stories to occupy a space between the real and the fantastic, so that they can continue to comment on aspects of lived life, while at the same time communicate how reality can be experienced in many more ways than a reader expects.
I believe that immigrant fiction as an increasingly established genre has the potential to move in such diverse directions, and I wish to be part of that movement. I am particularly interested in finding ways to write about immigration without making the fact of immigration so central to narratives, just as many of us who have immigrated indeed have to grapple with the consequences of our new lives on a regular basis, but must also contend with many other parts of ourselves. I also wish to write immigrant fiction that knowingly describes the problems of representation, of the way in which the act of writing itself necessarily distills and transforms experience. I have also written and will continue to write fiction that is not about the immigrant experience at all, but is nonetheless colored by my unique cultural perspective.
I studied English Literature as an undergraduate at Harvard, where I focused on dramatic literature but also did significant coursework in the 19th and early 20th century novel. I also have an MFA degree in Photography, which has allowed me to teach college-level courses both at Harvard and the California College of the Arts. However, I also feel that getting an MFA in fiction would fill significant gaps in my knowledge. For instance, I have hardly read contemporary or even postwar fiction in a class, and would like the experience of analyzing and discussing such work in a school setting. I have also had limited experience taking fiction classes in universities, and feel that ongoing feedback from faculty and fellow students, who will come to know my work on a consistent basis, will be invaluable.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
Of Readings and Diaz
Here's an article I wrote for the upcoming Cornell English Department newsletter about the Cornell Reading Series...
--
When Junot Diaz invited me to salsa with him at a noisy bar, I had this sudden image in my head of my MFA professors at the faculty club, surrounded by white cloth and wood panelling. They were persuading a white-haired widow to fund a new reading series so that students like me can have close contact with notable writers outside Cornell. This was probably not the kind of contact they had in mind, but I wasn’t about to stop myself.
By then, Diaz’s residency had alreadygiven me and my fellow MFA writers plenty of insight. The author of the acclaimed story collection Drown and the soon-to-be-released The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao not only conducted a special workshop for us where we submitted stories-in-progress, but also solicited finished manuscripts for consideration at The Boston Review, where he is the fiction editor. We had meals with him where he talked about his days as a grad student in our department. We attended a craft lecture where he drilled us on the importance of structure. For three days and nights, it was all Junot all the time.
Then there was his public reading, thrown into crisis when a scheduling conflict forced its audience into the cramped English lounge. My recurring nightmare of taking a test for a class I had never attended came true when I walked into Cornell Auditorium and a friendly TA suggested that I find my lab partners for the biochem prelim. When the TA saw the shock on my face, he said, “Oh. You must be here for the reading. It’s been moved.” Diaz handled the situation with significantly more grace, reading from the room entrance so that audience members could sit on the floor around the podium, and those stuck in the hall could hear him.
Maybe it was the stress, but at the end of the reception, Diaz asked some of the writers if we wanted to go somewhere. That was when someone suggested salsa dancing at Olivia’s. He not only offered me dance tips that night, but gave us all a great lesson on how to keep it real, just in case we need it someday.
There are other stories, not just from me but from other members of the MFA program. I heard that David Barber, poetry editor of The Atlantic Monthly, conducted an amazing workshop, as did Elizabeth Alexander. There were lunches with Alice Friman and Heather McHugh. We learned all about creative writing PhD programs from Emily Rosko, and that George Saunders gives each of his characters distinctive voices when he reads.
Next year’s series promises another batch of luminaries, among them the newly-knighted Salman Rushdie, who is probably my biggest influence. Cornell will also host Sandra Cisneros, William Kennedy, Charles Simic, Mark Doty, and Denis Johnson among others. The last two will be visiting writers for all of spring semester, a situation that kept me awake one night wondering which one I would pick if I were forced to choose a class between the two.
When I eventually fell asleep, I dreamt that Sir Salman was teaching me how to move in a red sari embroidered with gold thread, as we performed a musical number to the Bollywood remix of U2’s “The Ground Beneath Her Feet.”
--
When Junot Diaz invited me to salsa with him at a noisy bar, I had this sudden image in my head of my MFA professors at the faculty club, surrounded by white cloth and wood panelling. They were persuading a white-haired widow to fund a new reading series so that students like me can have close contact with notable writers outside Cornell. This was probably not the kind of contact they had in mind, but I wasn’t about to stop myself.
By then, Diaz’s residency had alreadygiven me and my fellow MFA writers plenty of insight. The author of the acclaimed story collection Drown and the soon-to-be-released The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao not only conducted a special workshop for us where we submitted stories-in-progress, but also solicited finished manuscripts for consideration at The Boston Review, where he is the fiction editor. We had meals with him where he talked about his days as a grad student in our department. We attended a craft lecture where he drilled us on the importance of structure. For three days and nights, it was all Junot all the time.
Then there was his public reading, thrown into crisis when a scheduling conflict forced its audience into the cramped English lounge. My recurring nightmare of taking a test for a class I had never attended came true when I walked into Cornell Auditorium and a friendly TA suggested that I find my lab partners for the biochem prelim. When the TA saw the shock on my face, he said, “Oh. You must be here for the reading. It’s been moved.” Diaz handled the situation with significantly more grace, reading from the room entrance so that audience members could sit on the floor around the podium, and those stuck in the hall could hear him.
Maybe it was the stress, but at the end of the reception, Diaz asked some of the writers if we wanted to go somewhere. That was when someone suggested salsa dancing at Olivia’s. He not only offered me dance tips that night, but gave us all a great lesson on how to keep it real, just in case we need it someday.
There are other stories, not just from me but from other members of the MFA program. I heard that David Barber, poetry editor of The Atlantic Monthly, conducted an amazing workshop, as did Elizabeth Alexander. There were lunches with Alice Friman and Heather McHugh. We learned all about creative writing PhD programs from Emily Rosko, and that George Saunders gives each of his characters distinctive voices when he reads.
Next year’s series promises another batch of luminaries, among them the newly-knighted Salman Rushdie, who is probably my biggest influence. Cornell will also host Sandra Cisneros, William Kennedy, Charles Simic, Mark Doty, and Denis Johnson among others. The last two will be visiting writers for all of spring semester, a situation that kept me awake one night wondering which one I would pick if I were forced to choose a class between the two.
When I eventually fell asleep, I dreamt that Sir Salman was teaching me how to move in a red sari embroidered with gold thread, as we performed a musical number to the Bollywood remix of U2’s “The Ground Beneath Her Feet.”
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Hey Kids, It's the Canon!
This is what the Cornell Ph.D.'s call the intro freshman writing seminar here that focuses on canonical texts. Discussions on the MFA Handbook Blog have gotten me thinking about the role that the Western canon should play in the education of a contemporary writer. It's a difficult question, not only because the goals of a writer and critic are distinct, but also because the role of the canon itself is a matter of debate among literature academics.
A lot of contemporary writers, especially those in MFA programs, feel constrianed by texts that are thought of as traditionally canonical. For fiction writers, this often means works such as Moby Dick, Bleak House, Tristram Shandy, Ulysses, or any number of these big important books our professors have been going on about making us read. Why is it important anyway to have such a historical view, when what's important is what's happening now. As a fellow student in my MFA program recently said, "I don't think 19th-century fiction has a lot to teach us about how things are written now."
A lot of students within MFA programs focus on literature of the past 30 years, and only occasionally dip into works from other periods, genres, and contexts. I too tend to spend a lot of time on the latest book because frankly, it's often more fun and it takes a lot of work to sift through hundreds of pages of Henry James when I can simply enjoy the Alan Hollinghurst's delicious depictions of buggering in contemporary London.
But I have to constantly remind myself that not only is writing work, but reading is also work, especially for a writer. Reading Hollinghurst, an author who ironically is still writing social novels that feature characters of different classes, races, and persuasions, all because his main characters are Oxford-educated men with hunky West Indian fetishes, it's clear to me that he is indebted to a number of "canonical" writers: of whom James, Forster, and Flaubert are his clearest influences. So even if I am not a fan of Forster for his own sake ("A Room With a View" is fantastic but "Maurice" only so-so), I feel an enormous impetus as a writer to figure out how the influences of a contemporary writer I admire has shaped his work. It's kinda like if you're going to do a cover of Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah," aren't you the least bit curious about what the original Leonard Cohen version sounds like?
This isn't my only argument for current writers paying attention to canonical texts, if by canonical we mean works that have become widely recognized as examples of great literature. I think of the canon as a really important refractory point in terms of our writing: it's close enough to what we do that it's relevant, but far enough that it inspires us in ways that we may not expect. This is akin to the concept Samuel Delany (who is part of my personal canon) puts forward in "Times Square Red, Times Square Blue," a work that otherwise talks about the author's experience in the old Times Square sex theaters, but has a fascinating digression about the difference between "contact" and "networking." He argues that while we as writers are constantly seeking networking (going to writers' conferences, MFA programs, etc.), the experiences that help us more are actually ones involving contact, those happenstance interactions with people that end up having lasting effects. But of course, there's a better chance of being in contact with people who may influence us if we are in environments that are frequented by people of like mind (i.e. bookstores, writer bars, etc.).
I think the same can be said for our interactions with texts. If you're writing domestic short stories and are reading Carver, you're networking. But if you're reading Allison Bechtel's Fun Home and are realizing how the graphic novel form has a lot of similarities with linked stories, then you're making contact. Reading the canon is a different form of contact. It's like meeting a boy or girl you really like who's just too cool for you and you had no idea how s/he got to be that cool, then talking to his or her grandfather to find out. It can also be like talking to a bunch of old people in general. It gives you an amazing amount of perspective.
This leads me to the major criticism of the Western canon: it's oudated, it privileges dead white men, etc. All this is true, and has been talked about for a long time. My favorite image in this regard is the one Virginia Woolf talks about in A Room of One's Own, about how the dome of the British Library Reading Room (before it moved), bordered with the names of famous thinkers, all of whom male, resembles the pate of a bald patriarch. Another problem is that the English-language canon doesn't account for important literary works from other countries.
And in this regard, I agree. You can't just talk to Dickens all the time. And Eliot may really be a woman but she sure doesn't talk like one, except in The Mill on the Floss. So building a personal canon is definitely important, and not just one that includes old fogeys that have been adopted by Anglo-Americans like Dostoyevsky and Thomas Mann. Have you read the Ramayana lately? It's pretty fucking awesome.
English Departments across the country are totally questioning the canon. Feminists are unearthing all this early work by women (I'm a huge champion of Elizabeth Cary's The Tragedy of Mariam, the first original play written by a woman published in England in 1613). Postcolonialist are expanding our view of English-language literature. So it's not like the big bad wolf of the English academic world is embracing the notion of a traditional canon whole hog either.
So I feel like the question becomes not the fact that different people are prioritizing different texts and calling them canonical, but that people are unhappy about those choices. Why women? Why minorities? Why queers? The world of English academia often has a different priorities than the contemporary fiction writer, and this can be annoying if you're in an MFA program and are required to take lit classes.
The question then becomes: why not? We have to read something, and why not read things that are not totally your cup of tea. I feel like that's what classes are for, to explore works you wouldn't necessarily delve into on your own, and maybe come out with a different perception on the other side. I feel like a lot of current writers' resistance to the canon can be rephrased as: "Why can't I read just what I want to read?"
I think this is fine if you're the kind of person who reads across time, nationality, and identity. I don't think a lot of people do that. I know too many writers who only read fiction from the past fifty years, almost exclusively by Americans. These are the kids who are total networkers, and they may achieve success in the short run by writing permutations of the kind of thing that gets noticed these days. But I would argue that a sustained writers' vision needs to have a broader scope because once you write that collection about your childhood or that novel about the one thing you know well, then what?
Of course, I have no authority to talk at this point, as I'm plodding along on my first novel (not autobiographical, tyvm). But I'm well-aware that my writing is better because I've read all this canon stuff, both the established Western canon and my own personal one that involves works from different countries and in different time periods. I can't wait to be forced to read stuff that I don't feel like reading, because hey, I never know where I'll get my next idea from.
A lot of contemporary writers, especially those in MFA programs, feel constrianed by texts that are thought of as traditionally canonical. For fiction writers, this often means works such as Moby Dick, Bleak House, Tristram Shandy, Ulysses, or any number of these big important books our professors have been going on about making us read. Why is it important anyway to have such a historical view, when what's important is what's happening now. As a fellow student in my MFA program recently said, "I don't think 19th-century fiction has a lot to teach us about how things are written now."
A lot of students within MFA programs focus on literature of the past 30 years, and only occasionally dip into works from other periods, genres, and contexts. I too tend to spend a lot of time on the latest book because frankly, it's often more fun and it takes a lot of work to sift through hundreds of pages of Henry James when I can simply enjoy the Alan Hollinghurst's delicious depictions of buggering in contemporary London.
But I have to constantly remind myself that not only is writing work, but reading is also work, especially for a writer. Reading Hollinghurst, an author who ironically is still writing social novels that feature characters of different classes, races, and persuasions, all because his main characters are Oxford-educated men with hunky West Indian fetishes, it's clear to me that he is indebted to a number of "canonical" writers: of whom James, Forster, and Flaubert are his clearest influences. So even if I am not a fan of Forster for his own sake ("A Room With a View" is fantastic but "Maurice" only so-so), I feel an enormous impetus as a writer to figure out how the influences of a contemporary writer I admire has shaped his work. It's kinda like if you're going to do a cover of Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah," aren't you the least bit curious about what the original Leonard Cohen version sounds like?
This isn't my only argument for current writers paying attention to canonical texts, if by canonical we mean works that have become widely recognized as examples of great literature. I think of the canon as a really important refractory point in terms of our writing: it's close enough to what we do that it's relevant, but far enough that it inspires us in ways that we may not expect. This is akin to the concept Samuel Delany (who is part of my personal canon) puts forward in "Times Square Red, Times Square Blue," a work that otherwise talks about the author's experience in the old Times Square sex theaters, but has a fascinating digression about the difference between "contact" and "networking." He argues that while we as writers are constantly seeking networking (going to writers' conferences, MFA programs, etc.), the experiences that help us more are actually ones involving contact, those happenstance interactions with people that end up having lasting effects. But of course, there's a better chance of being in contact with people who may influence us if we are in environments that are frequented by people of like mind (i.e. bookstores, writer bars, etc.).
I think the same can be said for our interactions with texts. If you're writing domestic short stories and are reading Carver, you're networking. But if you're reading Allison Bechtel's Fun Home and are realizing how the graphic novel form has a lot of similarities with linked stories, then you're making contact. Reading the canon is a different form of contact. It's like meeting a boy or girl you really like who's just too cool for you and you had no idea how s/he got to be that cool, then talking to his or her grandfather to find out. It can also be like talking to a bunch of old people in general. It gives you an amazing amount of perspective.
This leads me to the major criticism of the Western canon: it's oudated, it privileges dead white men, etc. All this is true, and has been talked about for a long time. My favorite image in this regard is the one Virginia Woolf talks about in A Room of One's Own, about how the dome of the British Library Reading Room (before it moved), bordered with the names of famous thinkers, all of whom male, resembles the pate of a bald patriarch. Another problem is that the English-language canon doesn't account for important literary works from other countries.
And in this regard, I agree. You can't just talk to Dickens all the time. And Eliot may really be a woman but she sure doesn't talk like one, except in The Mill on the Floss. So building a personal canon is definitely important, and not just one that includes old fogeys that have been adopted by Anglo-Americans like Dostoyevsky and Thomas Mann. Have you read the Ramayana lately? It's pretty fucking awesome.
English Departments across the country are totally questioning the canon. Feminists are unearthing all this early work by women (I'm a huge champion of Elizabeth Cary's The Tragedy of Mariam, the first original play written by a woman published in England in 1613). Postcolonialist are expanding our view of English-language literature. So it's not like the big bad wolf of the English academic world is embracing the notion of a traditional canon whole hog either.
So I feel like the question becomes not the fact that different people are prioritizing different texts and calling them canonical, but that people are unhappy about those choices. Why women? Why minorities? Why queers? The world of English academia often has a different priorities than the contemporary fiction writer, and this can be annoying if you're in an MFA program and are required to take lit classes.
The question then becomes: why not? We have to read something, and why not read things that are not totally your cup of tea. I feel like that's what classes are for, to explore works you wouldn't necessarily delve into on your own, and maybe come out with a different perception on the other side. I feel like a lot of current writers' resistance to the canon can be rephrased as: "Why can't I read just what I want to read?"
I think this is fine if you're the kind of person who reads across time, nationality, and identity. I don't think a lot of people do that. I know too many writers who only read fiction from the past fifty years, almost exclusively by Americans. These are the kids who are total networkers, and they may achieve success in the short run by writing permutations of the kind of thing that gets noticed these days. But I would argue that a sustained writers' vision needs to have a broader scope because once you write that collection about your childhood or that novel about the one thing you know well, then what?
Of course, I have no authority to talk at this point, as I'm plodding along on my first novel (not autobiographical, tyvm). But I'm well-aware that my writing is better because I've read all this canon stuff, both the established Western canon and my own personal one that involves works from different countries and in different time periods. I can't wait to be forced to read stuff that I don't feel like reading, because hey, I never know where I'll get my next idea from.
Monday, July 23, 2007
First Post
Since I'm becoming a more active blogger as a contributor to Tom Keley's Creative Writing Handbook Blog, I figured I should start a blog that will basically contain extended thoughts related to writing, art, and criticism or something like that. So here it is.
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