Here Be Unicorns: The Tin House Summer Workshop

I read my heart out in the splendor of the Oregon outdoors.
Photo by Laura Citino 

Last July was the worst in my personal history, and this July is giving me no reason to love it at home. I'd heard of the Tin House Summer Workshop for writers and decided to apply for it, not imagining I would be accepted, but hoping it could be a way to spruce up a rotten month if I somehow were able to attend.

I was accepted! I agonized over whether to attend for about an hour. In the end, I decided good things are few and far between and I must take these opportunities when they come. 

Am I glad I did. There are few things I would trade that week for. I learned so much about writing, I think I could teach it. I met some rock stars of the publishing world, and they were all good human beings—no egos darkened the week. Most secret and alchemical of all, putting so many writers together to work with each other creates a sense of belonging like I've never experienced. If you are a writer, do Tin House. Even if you never do another writerly community activity, apply and apply until you get in to this one. You won't regret it. 

The bookstore displayed a few of the faculty's magisterial titles. 

This summer, we enjoyed meeting and talking shop with stellar faculty: Margot Livesey, Saeed Jones, Danielle Evans, Karen Shepard, Renee Gladman, Joshua Ferris, Manuel Gonzales, Morgan Parker, James Hannaham, Naomi Jackson, Emily Witt, Jim Shepard, Claire Vaye Watkins, Roger Reeves, Kelly Link, Aimee Bender, Natalie Diaz, Anthony Doerr, Mat Johnson, Paul Lisicky, and Mary Ruefle. Additionally, there were agents and most of the editors of Tin House. Everyone took students' work seriously with naturalness and humility that make the world a wonderful place. They divulged their deepest writing secrets without prodding. We were all there for the same reason: to celebrate and create good writing. 

We were accompanied at all times by ravens. They scavenged during our outdoor meals and made portentous paths across the sky at the evening readings. For many, ravens are frightening, but for someone who's seen them up close at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, they're marvels of nature. Many and many a year ago, my old pal Eddie granted them a literary air that felt appropriate for the week. 

Visitors to campus that week got the impression
Oregon is a sunny, warm place. 

Word was that the janitorial staff hates Tin House week because the attendees are always drinking and getting locked out of their rooms. I did neither, but still had a rich, socio-psychologically complex time. I can only report on a fraction of what we packed into that week.

I'd already been deeply impressed with the quality of the other participants' stories as I read them in preparation for the week. I got the feeling I would be working with writers who were not only better than me (which is ideal in a workshop situation), but also were just as weird or weirder than me. Normally, I'm the only writer in a room who's heavily influenced by magical realism and worships the unexpected. I had trouble identifying the emotion that rose up within me when we all met for the first time—could it be a sense of belonging? I feel it so infrequently now that my true love is gone, it seems overly sentimental and out of place, but oh, if I find it again, I'll grab on and never let go! The workshop leader and I weren't the only published authors in the room, and yet everyone was there to listen and learn. Never stop learning. Never close yourself off to new ideas that could make you a better writer/person.

Manuel Gonzales gave a lively lecture
in which he mentioned both his unicorn story
and his friend Marie-Helene Bertino's unicorn story,
which won an O. Henry Prize. 

"Leave your preconceived notions about how a story should work at home," said our workshop leader during the orientation session. I chose to be in Manuel Gonzales's workshop because I'd read his short story collection, The Miniature Wife and Other Stories. I dared not dream the author of those crazy-beautiful creations would grant his proteges access to his mystical mastery of imagination, but I figured at least I would get to say we were in the same room for a while. 

During the orientation workshop, Tin House had everyone bring a paperback book they enjoyed in  a white elephant paperback exchange. Everyone's selection seemed unusual and exciting, demonstrating their eclectic tastes. Manuel Gonzales presented his book last and explained it was no used copy but something he bought specially. It was worth the wait—the lucky student to his left received The Princess Bride, which he admired for its humor and daring narrative techniques! A dopamine rush for at least this student! I knew then that I'd made the right choice.

Gonzales's dynamic reading convinced me to buy his novel, The Regional Office is Under Attack! In his masculine voice, I heard the fast-paced self-deprecation of his sassy young female protagonist. I can't wait to read it, especially after I heard a bit about the book's journey from idea to published novel. The lecture he gave, "In Particular, The Universal," discussed the way fine details help readers relate to the characters and story and take it as their own. He's often asked what his unicorn story is about. It's about a unicorn. It must be a real, physical unicorn before it can take on any further meaning. To take an example from Marie-Helene Bertino's O. Henry Prize–winning story, in order for her unicorn to symbolize inherited family burdens, we must first imagine what would happen if someone tried to transport a real unicorn in an SUV. (It would eat things it shouldn't and do its business everywhere. It's the writer's job to depict exactly what it ate and ruined and how—but only if it adds to the story.)  

Eleven other writers and I were lucky because we got to spend hours with Gonzales, while everyone else got only the short reading and hour-long lecture. He made it clear from the beginning that stories are serious business, and his critiques were jaw-droppingly perceptive, but he approached our work with a biting sense of humor and bone-dry delivery that had us laughing the entire two-and-a-half hours the workshop lasted every day. In the middle of the week, someone from a neighboring workshop came to the door to tell us to keep the noise down. "You can't keep us from loving each other," he retorted, though I'm not sure anyone else heard, because they'd already found the request so humorous. While I perceived straightforward love and tenderness in the other workshops, our atmosphere felt unique. Respect and equality were established among us with vigorous ribbing and creative antagonism no one else seemed to understand.

Our group dynamic followed a character arc I'm not at liberty to discuss here, but it involved a lot of cleverness, trivia night, and the O. Henry Prize. The well-earned finale was when, after the last workshop, one of the students returned from her individual consultation to tell us, "He said he really enjoyed working with us!" Hallelujah, amen. 

In other events of note, a mindfulness seminar run by none other than Aimee Bender's husband brought sanity to the beginning of each day. Writers being as crazy as any other artists, the seminar was an excellent idea I hope they bring back.

Last but not least, my true love was with me for all the ups and downs. He was perhaps most present when I attended Aimee Bender's reading and brought my hardcover of The Color Master for her to sign. I'd bought it when the book first came out, when Stanley and I were living in a hotel in North Carolina. The first edition has an embossed title that's a tactile delight, and Aimee greeted it like an old friend. I told her how Stanley and I had read all her books to each other, and I silently remembered the feel of the hard couch in the hotel and the bizarre futon we had during our lean Arizona years, and the way Stanley would tell me, with his heart-melting voice, his unique impression of each story as soon as I finished. Aimee wrote the lovely inscription pictured, and I retreated to my room so no one would see me weeping widow's tears.

Get more tangible details about this week at Drew Ciccolo's blog post. Takeaway: Always walk back from Safeway!

Thank you, Tin House and everyone who attended.

Wisdom from the Historical Novel Society Conference 2017

Huge quantity and huge quality authors at the book signing, with yours truly 

I'm back from the Historical Novel Society Conference 2017 in Portland, Oregon. I'd been planning to go to this convergence of great historical fiction authors from all over the world since they announced its location last year, not knowing at the time that I would be so close, I wouldn't even have to book a plane ticket.

The view from the hotel room where I missed my husband 

I participated in so many fun, informative, happy, and intense events! It was no time at all before someone commented that most authors are introverts, so we all must be exhausted from social activity that we desire and enjoy but that drain our energy. I was not the only one who wondered if it was too much fun. I'll try to sum up each event with a word or two of wisdom.

FYI, telling people you're going to be living in Spain soon is a great conversation starter!

Selden Edwards and Irene Goodman 

Perhaps it was foreshadowing for the way the conference would go. I began at the preconference academy with courses on how to start your novel to grab your readers so they can be entranced by the dynamic pacing you maintain throughout. First, agent Irene Goodman and author Selden Edwards offered oral histories that were models of pacing that kept the audience hooked no matter how much they meandered. They dissected what worked with many examples of first lines. It's the perfect exercise for any novelist to look at the first lines of a wide range of first lines of novels and think about why or why not you want to keep reading, looking at tension, suspense, lively words, and specificity.

Irene Goodman gave a memorable example written by no less than her own daughter when she was young: "It started with ordinary carrots." The sentence has so much more tension than the typical "Once there was..."

Heather Webb had us at Hello. 

Heather Webb continued the learning with the first half of You Had Me at Hello. I'm having tremendous trouble getting the sequel to Seven Noble Knights started. Heather looked at my pages and gave me an idea for a new start that will better hook the reader with characterization, and mystery, and obvious stakes, tone, time, and place. (Yes, it's even harder than it sounds.)

Gillian Bagwell had us at Hello and goodbye. 

Author Gillian Bagwell entered in signature polka dots and dropped the bombshell that dialogue can do a lot of the heavy lifting of exposition and description. Drawing from her time as an actress, Gillian illustrated arcane writerly secrets in fresh and entertaining ways. If I don't nail the beginnings of all my books and stories from here on out, it won't be the fault of these fantastic instructors.

I've known author Kim Rendfeld for years,
but we met for the first time at this conference.
The digital age actually can bring people together. 

On the first day, the welcoming atmosphere, the sense of writerly support, and the openness to always learning were already apparent. I've been to a few conferences before, and there are always a few notoriously negative presenters or attendees. Not here.

Irene Goodman and editor Lucia Macro started off the wise positivity the next day, advising us that selling your first book is the good news and the bad news! They made me wish I had their jobs, warts and all.

Seven Noble Knights in excellent company at the Barnes and Noble display 

Author Carol McGrath suggested ways to invent convincing medieval heroines to an intimate "Koffee Klatch" group of my peeps, medievalists. When we present our women characters as strong, some readers complain that they seem too modern. But really, to survive the Middle Ages, they had to be. We discussed the obstacles women came up against with Carol's memorable advice that if you need to give female characters opportunities, send the men to war. Medieval Spain was in a constant state of war, so that is excellent advice for any of my future stories.

Anne Easter Smith, Aimie K. Runyan, and Stephanie Dray revel in
researching archives full of accidental—or deliberate—holes. 

In the wonderfully titled How am I Supposed to Write About This When They've Destroyed All the Evidence?, Anne Easter Smith, Aimie K. Runyan, Stephanie Dray, and Kim Rendfeld discussed the frustration and fascination of having to solve some of history's most entrenched mysteries to move your story along. Anne made convincing arguments that Richard III did not have the princes in the tower killed. When to make it up because nobody really knows was thoroughly discussed. What constitutes a good faith effort for you as a writer?

I didn't get close to Geraldine Brooks, but she was inspiring from afar. 

Geraldine Brooks spoke at lunch the first day. She entranced the audience talking about her career as a war correspondent journalist, how she got into writing novels, and how she gets her book ideas with the concept of implausible history: true events that no one could make up. Describing the sympathy both authors and readers can feel with characters in spite of geographical, cultural, and temporal distance, she said, "She loved as I loved, and that's as good a place to start as any." Read more at M. K. Tod's blog.

That afternoon, I participated in the Blue Pencil Café as a mentor. I wasn't sure what to expect, but both of the writers whose first chapters I'd read were highly receptive and ready to learn. One had just pitched to an agent and received a request for pages, so that added thrilling intensity to the revision process we were discussing. I'm glad I had the opportunity to participate in some other writers' process.

Cold Reads but a warm reception from Lucia Macro,
Anna Michels, and Margaret Porter 

On the heels of thinking about revising first chapters, I attended a Cold Reads session with editors Lucia Macro and Anna Michels and author Margaret Porter. Margaret read the first two pages of twelve unpublished novels submitted by the session attendees and the editors told us what worked for them and what didn't. The most egregious sins were the samples that didn't make the setting and time period clear. I went to a similar but infinitely more brutal session at The Muse and the Marketplace, the Grub Street conference, in 2014. In the end, it made the beginning of Seven Noble Knights 100 percent better, but I had to process it for a long time because the information was delivered in such an unsympathetic way. I wished I'd had some pages to give to these ladies, because I learn more easily in a welcoming environment like this.

The only thing lovelier than this many historical novels for sale is Powell's Books. 

That evening, I went to dinner with Kim Rendfeld and Rita Ashley, whose pages at the Cold Reads session provoked extensive discussion because they were masterfully written but described a child in distress. Apparently, that's a major turnoff for publishers because so many of them have children of their own. We followed dinner with a visit to a Portland institution, the ice cream parlor Salt & Straw. The menu is thrilling reading in itself and I hope I have a chance to go back there before I leave for Spain.

My name tag says Jessica K. Knauss—Medieval Spain. 

Bright and early the next day, I went to possibly the most informative session, How Far Can a Horse Walk in a Day and Other Questions of Accurate Historical Travel. Mary Ann Trail let us in on the secrets of Paterson's Roads, British military records for invading Scotland, which led quickly to the first travel guidebook, complete with inns, the cost of renting horses, best routes, and road conditions—all the nitty gritty details a historical novelist needs. Faith L. Justice took our breath away with Information Age ways to get at travel as far back as Ancient Rome. The best advice was to become the best friend of your local research librarian!

Stephanie Lehmann illustrates coming up against unique challenges
with Patricia Bracewell, Rebecca Kanner, Mary Sharratt, and Nicole Evelina. 

High on potential knowledge, I entered Putting the Her in History, which had possibly the best energy of any of the panels. Women come up against challenges unique to them throughout history, and yet only .5 percent of recorded history is occupied with women's lives. Each panelist had an interesting story to share, whether about her heroines or how she is perceived as a writer who is a woman. Rebecca Kanner has been asked why she's so "stuck on violence," and we imagined no male author has ever been asked that question. Such dynamics are one reason I decided to use my initials for Seven Noble Knights. Most inspiring, of course, was the idea that writing about women validates our stories and lets us know we're important. Read more at Patricia Bracewell's blog and Nicole Evelina's blog.

David Ebershoff, also dynamic from afar 

The speaker at that day's lunch was author David Ebershoff. He described how he came upon the information that inspired The Danish Girl and how he struggled with whether to write the story at all. He had a vision of how much he would regret it in the future if he didn't write it, and we're all glad for that. Every author at the conference writes because s/he feels deeply that a certain story must be told. Getting David's humble take on that passion, complete with museum visits, grave sites, and film crews, validated the struggle and hard work.

Geraldine Brooks, Ed Goldberg, David Ebershoff 

I now share an honor with Geraldine Brooks and David Ebershoff—we've all been interviewed by Ed Goldberg! It was an hour full of anecdotes and pithy replies to clever questions from the audience.

Then we filled a vast ballroom with more than a hundred historical fiction authors for the book signing. So much talent in one place! Because we were grouped in alphabetical order, I seized the opportunity to chat with authors I hadn't been able to catch until then, including Patricia Bracewell, Susan McDuffie, Lucy Pick, and Judith Starkston. Believe it or not, Seven Noble Knights didn't sell out, so Barnes and Noble has a few copies signed by the author available for purchase. Check it out online if you're not local to Portland.

Kate Forsyth 

Entertainment for the closing banquet included an enchanting recitation of the Scottish folktale Tam Lin by Kate Forsyth.

The masquerade ball off to a great start with George Washington and Alison Stuart 

The whist games provoked many shouts of victory. 

To cap it all off, a regency masquerade ball—but of course—complete with tables for playing whist, as all good regency characters do. I chose a red mask even though the purple would've matched my dress better.

The only place where a medieval gentleman can hold hands with Marilyn Monroe 

The Jane Austen Society provided authentic live music and instructors for the dance and the whist. I would likely have hung back, but author Stephanie Renee Dos Santos pulled me in for the first round of dancing. The instructor taught each dance for ten or twenty minutes before we really did it while he called out the moves, and it had a strong feeling of square dancing, lots of holding hands, promenading, and changing partners. I was exhausted!

This dance reminded me of a Goya painting. 

This one is straight out of Jane Austen. 

Many thanks to the tireless organizers and every attendee, who made this conference joyfully worth every penny.

Each person mentioned in this post is connected in some way to at least one excellent historical novel worth checking out.

Writing Like a Spaniard

The Castillo de Manzanares looks like a great place to write.
It was the family home of the famous author, the Marqués de Santillana. 

My editor (yes, I have an editor now!) tells me the Seven Noble Knights revisions are going well. There are three aspects to the revisions as I see them, but today I'd like to focus on the one I have most under control, which is use of adjectives.

I went through Seven Noble Knights some time ago to extricate unnecessary adverbs, and it appears I did a good job, because those pesky words haven't been mentioned. But I have been told to go through and get rid of adjectives that don't help. They tell me I have some lovely descriptions, so I shouldn't take all the adjectives out, but I should delete the ones that can be better expressed with a stronger verb or that are already implied in the rest of the text.

This is good advice for any writer of English. English likes to present itself as vigorous and agile, without a lot of heavy ornamentation. It views minimalist writing as a moral imperative. In general, my style is so spare that the members of my critique group ask me to add, so subtracting is new for me.

At first, I thought I was using many adjectives because Seven Noble Knights is set in medieval Spain. Specifically, the history texts in which the story survives were written during the first blossoming of Castilian prose. These writers had a lot of brand new words at their disposal (and weren't afraid to make them up if needed) and they wanted to write them all down, as if they would escape into the ether if they didn't. Bless them for that! That tendency led to an ornate descriptive style that could seem bloated to a modern reader.

Those medieval writers had a lot of influence on my writing. But then I realized that I read widely in modern Spanish and in English translations from Spanish. I don't know if I happen to select all the right books to prove this, but it seems as if the style hasn't changed much from that first burst of exuberance. Take these sentences from the first chapter of The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón:

At last my father stopped in front of a large door of carved wood, blackened by time and humidity. Before us loomed what to my eyes seemed the carcass of a palace, a place of echoes and shadows. ... A smallish man with vulturine features framed by thick gray hair opened the door. His impenetrable aquiline gaze rested on mine. ... We followed our host through a palatial corridor and arrived at a sprawling round hall, a virtual basilica of shadows spiraling up under a high glass dome, its dimness pierced by shafts of light that stabbed from above. A labyrinth of passageways and crammed bookshelves rose from base to pinnacle like a beehive woven with tunnels, steps, platforms, and bridges that presaged an immense library of seemingly impossible geometry.

This is a high concentration of adjectives, to be sure. But I find that these sentences give me a crystal clear picture of exactly what the narrator is experiencing. I find that if I take any one of the many adjectives away, the effect is changed for the worse. The use of lots of adjectives feels useful here. It makes me question the Anglo-Saxon assumption that the immorality of a writing style is directly proportional to the number of words.

I might end up with just as clear a picture from a passage originally in English, but I would have to do more detective work to get there. English and Spanish may have completely different expectations of the reader. And so, as I revise a novel written in English about medieval Spain, I feel the pull from both literary traditions. Resolution: From that tension, greatness will arise. I will do the impossible and take out every other adjective while maintaining my "lovely" descriptions. Just wait and see.

The Map of Chaos by Félix J. Palma

I made a vague New Year's resolution to "read more." I thought that might look like reading ten novels over the course of the year. Either I underestimated myself, or that gift card I got at work really did help, because I've already exceeded that goal. The last book I was able to buy with the gift card was The Map of Chaos by Félix J. Palma.

This is the book I've been waiting for since I finished The Map of the Sky in 2012. When I saw that it would be available in July this year, I preordered the ebook without consideration for when it would arrive or how much it would cost. The years of yearning!

It all paid off. The Map of Chaos wraps up all the adventures from the first two books in the biggest way imaginable—by describing all the possible universes. How does all that fit into a single book? In the best way. For much of the book, it seems this final chapter will be quieter than world-destroying Martian invasion of The Map of the Sky. And then all the possible universes collide! The reader gets to feel the flash of recognition not only of characters from the previous books, but also of other personages from history. It would be difficult and pointless not to take pleasure in the overarching concept of this novel, which provides a unified theory to explain apparent time travel, ghostly visitations, and authorial inspiration.

Sound complex? It is, and I was often frustrated I hadn't purchased the print version because I wanted to page through what I'd already read in order to update my theory of what was really going on as I got more clues. But in the end, that's part of the fun, and I needn't have worried, anyway, as each element of the universe Palma has created gets its own capsule summary at the last possible important moment.

I mentioned in my review of The Map of the Sky that the characters weren't exactly prime examples of development (but that it didn't matter in the midst of so much action). As the reader witnesses the multiverse unfolding, the more meditative pace of some sections of this book allows for subtleties of character even between the different universes' "twins." Finally, The Map of Chaos is the crowning glory of an exploration of the meaning of love—true, complicated, ugly, and beautiful. Read the trilogy for the romance taken it to its furthest extreme if for no other reason. Above all, it is an ode to imagination and possibility.

The only question remaining is, when will they make the series based on this trilogy? Viewers love complicated plots and alternate history of the Victorian Age. It seems right that the BBC should produce the series, since the stories are so focused on London (in every possible universe). I'm ready, whenever they want to start. I've noticed that Eleanor & Park and Mermaids in Paradise are slated for movie versions. I'm sure it's because of my reviews ;) so let this serve as a stronger hint.

In short, there is no other trilogy like this one, which began with The Map of Time. The best books of the decade, and maybe of all possible decades.

Novels I've Read in 2015: 

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Along the Far Shores by Kristin Gleeson

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

A Kiss at Kihali by Ruth Harris

Mermaids in Paradise  by Lydia Millet

Raven Brought the Light by Kristin Gleeson

The Price of Blood by Patricia Bracewell

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan

Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet

Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet

If I had known that each of these stories takes a different point of view on human relationships with animals, I would've picked up Love in Infant Monkeys sooner. Shocking and sensitive all at once, Lydia Millet delivers in a concentrated short story format all the impact of her novels. Each story is a memorable mixture of fact and fiction and each gives the reader something new to think about, some aspect of the way humans act in the world and how our behavior affects the other residents of this planet.

I was appalled to learn that the title story was inspired by a real-life study and intrigued by the possibilities of Edison's obsession with his film of an elephant execution (which is now digitized for anyone to view). A story about a Komodo dragon who attacked Sharon Stone's husband becomes a meditation on the meaning of celebrity and the relative value of life.

My favorite story is "Girl and Giraffe." Here Millet presents a realistic version of the humans who worked with the lions in Born Free and what they think and feel about the animals they work with, and then proceeds to bear witness to some lion behavior that no human can understand. For me, the behavior isn't below human experience, but transcends human comprehension.

Love in Infant Monkeys is not for faint-hearted readers, surely, but is an exquisite book. But everyone else knew that already!

Novels I've Read in 2015: 

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Along the Far Shores by Kristin Gleeson

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

A Kiss at Kihali by Ruth Harris

Mermaids in Paradise  by Lydia Millet

Raven Brought the Light by Kristin Gleeson

The Price of Blood by Patricia Bracewell

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan