This weekend, I attended an event hosted by the MFA Creative Writing Program (here at the University of Arizona) called a Salon, which sounds fancy.

The Salon is a meeting that happens a few times per semester and gathers students to eat, drink and listen to a conversation among writers. The hosts (MFA Candidates) prepare topics for discussion and a list of questions to kind of direct the conversation, and anyone can ask any question.

This week our writers were Ander Monson (whose books include Neck Deep and Other Predicaments and the forthcoming Vanishing Point) and Alison Hawthorne Deming (whose most recent publication is a book of poetry called Rope).

Before we begin here, I’d like to assert that the Salon was in fact in color, as are our writers generally speaking, but I forgot to bring a camera to the event (moron) and thus had to go to each of their websites and extract their press photos, which they both conveniently have (in high-res, no less).

Anyway, the topic for this Salon was Research & Appropriation, rampant themes among the lives of graduate students. Here are some gems from the conversation (paraphrased first in my notes and then again by me here, without-I’m sorry-any permissions):

How do you translate research into product?

Alison: First, you need to know more about your subject in order to write about it, so that’s where the research comes in. Then, once you get into it, you need to find the balance between being an expert and an artist. For instance, when I wrote my book about Monarchs, it finally occurred to me that I’m not an expert in the science of monarchs, but they are the subject of my art. Also, I look for patterns in the information to help narrow the research.

Ander: I look for information in lots of different spaces and my feeling is that by virtue of trying to harness it all, it will be harnessed. (Meaning, it will come out in the work because it is in the mind.)

How do you deal with translating humans in your life to characters in your books?

Ander: First, I think you have to examine your own motivations for including the character. Like what social use does this serve? Then consider what your obligations are to your writing and to the humans. In other words, the pain must be worth it.

Some question about what memoir does.

Alison: Memoir must examine the wound and then be held accountable for it. Writers must think about the cultural implications of their own personal stories. What is the larger story or context? The memoir (essay, story, whatever) is not about me but what the story represents about us.
(Aside: She mentioned James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son as a good example of memoir.)

Ander: The personal story must connect to something else. If it’s about me, then it’s a failure, but if it’s about us, then it’s fine.

What is your process (in relation to research)?

Ander: I look for a spark first and move fast. Then I research later. The central problem with the American writer is that we’re not good enough researchers. So write fast in the beginning and then go back and fill in the gaps.

[End Salon]

Hopefully this will be in some way illuminating in translation. The Salon is a really interesting and inspiring space in which to get to know each other and hear the words of interesting thinkers. I’m going to try and copy the idea into my own MFA program, getting artists and thinkers together in one room.

Ps. Pre-Order Monson’s Vanishing Point. It will probably be quite sweet.