Write Brained

A Michigan State University student run writing blog. Interviews, Reflections, Event Information, and more.

[msucreativewriting]

Come see us at our new blog space:  http://msucreativewritingblog.wordpress.com

[msucreativewriting]

Goodbye Semester, Hello Summer Reading!

Hello survivors of the spring 2016 semester. If you’re reading this I assume you’ve successfully navigated your way through papers, exams, endless coffee runs, and sleepless nights. Fortunately, it’s time to relax and get to the stack of books you’ve been too busy to read. It’s also a great time to write as much as you possibly can. I know a brutal week of finals can stunt your productivity, but remember that any success worth having is earned through hard work. Take up a new writing project or look over old ones. Go out and enjoy the summer. Live life, then write all about it. Whatever you do, do not lose your drive. If I’ve learned anything from the amazing writers interviewed for our blog, they are successful only because they are constantly writing, editing, and working to be better. As creative writers we have to remember to hone our craft, especially during non-academic times. During the semester we are students, but for our entire lives, we are artists. Summer is the perfect opportunity to write, not only because we have more time, but because we have the freedom to write whatever we want. No more thesis papers! That alone is a good enough reason, but if you need more inspiration I’ve included my summer reading list below to highlight a few books that I hope will keep me inspired.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou This Is How You Lose Her – Junot Díaz My Lobotomy – Howard Dully & Charles Fleming Preparing the Ghost – Matthew Gavin Frank On Writing – Stephen King The Autobiography of Malcom X – Malcom X All the Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy Reflections in a Golden Eye – Carson McCullers Damned – Chuck Palahniuk The Phantom Killer – James Presley The Short Novels of John Steinbeck – John Steinbeck Wild – Cheryl Strayed The City and the Pillar – Gore Vidal

Have a great summer!

-Tyler Zamora (Creative Writing Intern)

[msucreativewriting]

The Importance of a Dying Language: An Interview with Tamar Boyadjian

Write Brained had an opportunity to sit down with professor and fellow creative writer, Tamar Boyadjian, to discuss her newest book it is what it is. She discussed the clashing of cultures and the importance of dissecting the different connotations that appear when using language in visual and lyrical ways. She talked about the importance behind artistic expression and standing behind what she believes. Her love for her heritage drives her writing projects as she experiments with what language really means and how she identifies with it. She says, “the book is the home for the language. It’s the place where it stays alive.”

Write Brained: You grew up surrounded by many different cultures. Can you tell us a little about that and how experiencing so many different places has shaped you as a person?

Tamar Boyadjian: I’m Armenian. My grandparents are from the Ottoman Empire, from Anatolia. In 1915, during the Turkish genocide of the Armenians, they were deported. My grandparents ended up in Beirut, Lebanon and my mother’s father was an orphan. He somehow survived with the deported and ended up in an orphanage in Beirut. So both of my parents were born and raised in Lebanon, then during the civil war in the late 70’s, early 80’s, they came to the United States. My great grandparents knew Armenian, but they also spoke Turkish because they were from Anatolia, so when I was growing up in my house, and because Lebanon was a French colony, we had multiple languages, French, Arabic, Armenian, English and Turkish in the house. I can’t speak Turkish, but I understand it. Arabic was a secret language that they would use to talk about things so we wouldn’t understand, and then I understood it. My grandmother raised me and we had French lesson every day. We also had etiquette and sewing. She was very 19th century Victorian British. In grad school I learned Latin and ancient Greek and German. When I lived in Rome, I picked up Italian. I’ve never formally learned Italian, but I can get by.

WB: The language throughout your latest book it is what it is, is very lyrical and extremely effective when read aloud. The sound and visuals of the book are important for conveying different meanings. How does your creative process work while writing a hybrid book like this and was its style influenced by anything?

TB: A lot of the book is influenced by the concrete movement during the 50’s in Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden. Of course concrete, or what they call visual poetry, means something different now than it did in the 50’s because visual poetry has taken on a different meaning than concrete poetry. The use of visuals with words is very old. It goes back to Mesopotamia and Ancient Greece. Part of the project involved the multiple experiences a certain text can give you. The visual is important and sounds are important when accompanied with the visual. It’s the way in which language and the different modes of your relationship with language give you a different experience and relationship with text. Hearing it is important because it also brings out the lyricism. A lot of it, I’m drawing from the Middle Ages and the idea of poetry as song that we’ve sort of forgotten. One of the main things in the concrete movement was looking beyond language and this semiotic theory of sign which is concept and sound image, the signified and signifier. The idea that pure language, like Stéphane Mallarmé talks about, is that there is no ideal language, no pure language and we’re all seeking this pure way of expression, but it is the thing beyond language and words. Therefore, the visual and the sound is so important because every single person thinks in abstract nouns and has a different understanding of a word. Like love or hate, for example. We have different concepts for each. This is why the conceptual and the sound are both important for meaning, beyond the word itself.

WB: The book experiments with different languages, mostly Armenian. Could you explain the history between the Western and Eastern dialects? What does their interaction say about societies that must navigate between a world of words that have different connotations and change based on geography? Also, how is it is what it is important for Armenian culture?

TB: The big thing is that Western Aermenia does not belong to a state, and in the Republic of Armenia they do not speak Western Armenian. They speak and write Eastern Armenian. Western Armenian uses a classical orthography and then there’s a modern, converted orthography from the early 20th Century. Western Armenian and their authors are hardly studied in the Republic. Reactions to my book have been very interesting to the language itself, being in Western Armenian and this visual concrete form as well, which is not accepted at all. A lot of them don’t consider it poetry. I’ve heard things about it being blasphemy. It’s exciting and weird to walk in Armenia when people recognize me and say they’ve read my book. I always wonder what side of the reaction they’re going to be on. I’ve gotten both responses as Armenians are very blunt people, but it’s important for me that this book exists. The best part is to hear other writers say, “well now that you’ve wrote this book, I can do what I need to do.” It’s almost like a rite of passage in a culture to allow these shifts and forms of poetry to come up. It’s almost like Armenian culture is 50 years behind. Poetry is also considered inferior to prose, which creates another issue. The prose writer is considered the great writer. A lot of Armenian literature celebrates romantic writers, particularly because of their influence of French and German Romanticism in the 19th and 20th century. Ultimately, I believe in my project and its importance. Not only for Armenians, but on a wider scale. I think it speaks to the idea of language in general. The idea of postcolonial theory and oppression. A lot of cultures have experienced dying languages or they’ve been oppressed and are forced to use the language of their colonizer or oppressor.

WB: During your brown bag, you discussed the possibilities and problems of translating it is what it is. Have you made a final decision in regards to that?

TB: Yeah, I think I decided that I would not translate it. The entire work would resist translation and it would be this complete annotated text in English which would explain the multiple meanings. It would be like an analysis of my own text. Translation theory tells us that all text is untranslatable. Nothing can ever be fully translated. Then there are some theorists who argue that there are some texts more translatable than others, but in essence nothing can really be translated. I’ve just written an introduction for a volume I’m editing of contemporary Armenian literature and translations. The interesting thing with translation is that it’s generally thought of as this idea of providing meaning to the text for an audience that doesn’t understand the language, but translation also confronts the foreign within that language itself because it exposes the very thing the language is not saying. It is in the silence of what you translate that becomes apparent in the language you’re translating to. It’s this simultaneous experience, which is the value of translation even though there is the untranslatable. So for my text, to annotate it would have to be to explain the silences and the statements, even in Armenian itself, that is not being said.

WB: What are the differences between your writing processes when working on a poetry book like it is what it is compared to doing something more historical such as The City Lament?

TB: I always feel like my poetry informs my academic work and vice versa. It’s really natural to see them as different, but for me it makes so much sense. Academic writing is very different, but I do try to be more creative in my academic writing and sometimes my poetry can sound academic. I just published something in a journal for Detroit magazine about language and parts of the narrative are very critical theory and thought driven because I have part prose text. I’ve gotten some comments about my book being too academic, for poetry, particularly in Armenia.  With my poetry, I usually sketch a lot of the pages before I write them. It always starts with a visual image. Sometimes the text informs or rearranges shape, but generally I envision a book visually. My next book, The Vineyard of Mirrors, is on mirrors. So I’ve conceptually thought about the images and visual for the whole book already and now I’m inserting the text.

WB: Many people don’t realize that you had a hand in every aspect of the book’s production, from obviously writing it, to choosing the font, as well as the placement of every letter, even down to the type of paper. Being so detail oriented must be exhausting, but it’s definitely worth it. Can you explain why you fought for certain things, such as a simple cover opposed to a flashier more traditional Armenian book cover?

TB: For me, the book itself as an art form was important because I’ve done book binding and paleography. I really wanted to pay attention to how the book was produced, which is why I used bleeding pages. It was really important to me that everything was exactly the way I wanted, because the forms of the poems on each page are important too. It would be difficult to have someone understand conceptually what I was doing if I didn’t sit next to them and tell them every detail. The typesetter is such a nice guy; he was basically like do whatever you want. I would have him print them out and look at it visually and if I didn’t like it, even if it was a few spaces, I would change it. I was that pedantic, I have to admit. I also told my publisher that the book was about a troubadour, and they went very classical Armenian. There’s a 17th century troubadour that plays the saz, which is this instrument that looks like a small guitar. So they translated that as something extremely traditional and put a picture of the saz on the cover. I was like “no that’s not what’s going on here.” It’s almost as if they were trying to own it in their own way by doing that. They couldn’t grasp the direction I was going. “What do you mean you’re not going to make it traditional, it’s a troubadour, it has to be a picture of a saz?”

WB: When editing your work, what critiques have you found to be most helpful or do you have any helpful tips for writers?

TB: Editing your own book is really hard. It’s nice to give it to other people that you trust and understand your concept, but also that aren’t familiar with it because it’s good to have different perspectives. You’re never fully satisfied, but you have to reach a point of contentment. You’ll understand it as part of a journey and process that still lives. I think when you reach a point, it’s also healthy to let it go for a bit. Sometimes you get so caught up and immersed in a project that you don’t see it anymore and you don’t see what you’re doing. Return to it later and see what that revisiting makes you feel because you’re also changing and growing. Even if it’s a couple weeks. You’re having new thoughts, new ideas, and reading new things. A good writer is a good reader. The more you read, the better writer you’ll become. The more you expose yourself to different types of cultures, their literature, and the way they view the world, the better. It fills your head with different ways of thinking and expressing yourself. Write for yourself and see where it goes. Write first and then worry about publishing. Write what you need to write because you have something to say. It’s difficult to think about the publishing process when you’re trying to compose and create. I think it can inform negatively on your experience with the writing. Believe in yourself and just write.

Interview by Tyler Zamora

[msucreativewriting]

MSU is excited to welcome author and alum Lindsay Tigue on campus Wednesday, April 20 12:15-1:30pm to discuss what she’s done with her English degree. Seating is limited so please RSVP to [email protected], it’s an opportunity you won’t want to miss!

[msucreativewriting]

Drive-Thru Interview with Matthew Gavin Frank

It was a cold and rainy Thursday, perfect for a group of creative writers to eat food and discuss author Matthew Gavin Frank’s recent reading on campus as well as his newest book The Mad Feast: An Ecstatic Tour Through America’s Food. Everyone in the room cringed as he discussed the euphoria that can be found in eating a sea urchin’s testicles, then later cringed himself as he described the regrettable taste of whale. His travels have taken him all over the globe, giving him the chance to taste flavors from the tundra of Alaska to the vineyards of Italy. Frank’s culinary experience began when he entered the food industry at a young age. Add a passion for creative writing into the mix and a book like The Mad Feast becomes inevitable, but definitely doesn’t write itself. After the question and answer discussion with students, Frank graciously agreed to give an exclusive interview to Write Brained. The interview began on a walk through the rain and ended up in an intern’s foggy Malibu searching for The Wild Goose Inn where Frank was staying for the night. We left Wells Hall, dogging puddles and cars, as Frank began talking about his experience teaching. He’s taught at Jefferson State University in New York, Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Northern Michigan University and currently teaches at Arizona State University. He also mentions the gourmet grilled cheese food truck that he and his wife wanted to have in San Francisco, a lost dream due to his current duties as professor, writer, and poet. As Frank gets excited all over again about the food truck and the different sandwiches they would have made, it’s obvious that he’s a man who never sits still for too long. His aspirations always take him to the next stage in his life. Now his work has taken him on a car ride with an intern who has too many questions and not enough knowledge of his hotel’s location, but like always, he’s happy to be along for the ride.

Write Brained: How do you begin to do the vast amount of research required to write a book like this? Where do you start?

Matthew Gavin Frank: I worked on and off for 18 years in restaurants. Believe me this is a digressive way of answering your question. I’m meandering and digressive by nature. When I got to the fine dining restaurant kitchens a bunch of us chefs would challenge each other to take two or more seemingly dissimilar ingredients and then labor to find the perfect bridge ingredient through manipulation of texture, temperature, or whatever. It was a trial and error in order to create the illusion of a homogenous dish on the plate. We would say here is lamb loin and burnt orange rind, go! Then we’d ask what is the perfect ingredient to bridge those two flavors and the answer turned out to be black olive sorbet. Those of us who came up with the best bridge ingredient, which we all agreed was the best, would have their dish go on the menu. I kind of think of writing these food essays in the same way. I felt as if I was pulling from the same imaginative alchemy that I was pulling from when I was in the fine dining restaurant kitchen. Here I have all of these seemingly dissimilar scraps before me and it’s my duty as the essayist to manipulate the connections between them, to do sufficient research and sufficient imaginative manipulation in order to find those perfect bridge ingredients to create the illusion of seamlessness on the page. As essayists, as writers, not just non-fiction writers, we have the ability to manipulate the connection between anything.

WB: As a Michigander, I was really excited to see the appearance of the pasty. What did you think of it? I couldn’t think of a more suitable food to pair with our state. I love how you relate the pasty to the actual land. There’s a real earthy sense to its description, hearty like the pasty itself. How did you decide what foods to choose for each state? That seems like a huge responsibility.

MGF: I compiled a list of about 10 potential dishes for each state, then did some cursory research on all 10, which means I did research on about 500 dishes. I narrowed it down to a final 3 for each state based on the cursory research and based on the ways in which I felt I could exploit in writing, whether directly or metaphorically, some of the implications lying within some of these dishes. These implications pertained to shape, temperature, texture, spice, sweetness, or the relationship between the two. For instance, you brought up the Michigan pasty. What I mean by the implications lurking therein with shapes, so the Pasty is a calzone of the mines and initially a two course meal encased in a pastry shell and the top two-thirds of the pasty were filled with stewed ground beef and rutabaga, and then the bottom one-third was filled with stewed apples and cinnamon so you had your savory course and dessert in a single pastry shell. And the miners would clutch the pasty by the dessert end of it and eat downward through the savory toward the sweet. I became really interested in the implications lurking in the act of eating downwards toward sweetness, especially when mapped over an engagement of mining culture and a descent into the mind. Eating is descent, occupation is descent, and so on and so forth. I used that as a spark around which to build the essay.

WB: How do you feasibly mix food and creative writing together in a publishing landscape? How do you decide the best approach to take when editing, publishing, and marketing a book like this?

MGF: It wasn’t the book my editor wanted. So I wrote this book Preparing the Ghost, which was about the first ever photograph taken of the giant squid and my editor really wanted to capitalize on some of the momentum that the book was having and wanted to publish The Mad Feast pretty quickly afterwards in order to do that. She really loved the book, but thought it was going to isolate readers who would expect something else when they pick up a regional cookbook. I wouldn’t even call this a cookbook. I call it an anti-cookbook. She basically wanted me to make it friendly and more of this easy kind of regional food guide and still have some of my flights of fancy in there and things like that. I said to her, this is not the book I wrote, that’s not the book I want to write. This is a book that’s not only about food, but I think it’s about the nature of food writing and it’s about how I think food writing has been pretty stagnant and running in place for a while. I basically wanted to push the parameters of food writing to see how much food writing can take before it breaks, just to see what it can do. What can meditations on food really tell us about ourselves if engaged in a way that it hasn’t been engaged before? This is how I sold the book and convinced her. I told her that art doesn’t move forward when it just confirms an audiences’ expectations, it needs to agitate those expectations and maybe the book will isolate certain readers, but nothing that’s ever pushed an art form forward has catered to everybody all at once at the same time. She liked the idea, but wanted to know how else can we build this beyond regional food writing. I told her we could call it a revisionist take on US History, maybe we could appeal to history buffs. We went back and forth, argued a little bit. My agent was very much behind the book, she loved it. She was instrumental in backing me up with my editor too. My editor used to work for an avant-garde press which published arty books and I think she was ok with me being her arty guy.

WB: You weave between first and second person throughout the book, and very well I might add. It took me a moment to realize the shifts between the two. What prompted the decision to describe a dish in either first or second person? I noticed the entry about pizza in Illinois, your home state, was second person. Does the type of narrative indicate a certain distance or closeness with a particular entry?

MGF: There’s only one third person essay, it’s the Vermont one. It was originally written in first person and it just felt too close. It was about me being homeless briefly in Vermont and living out of people’s garages. The third person helped with that emotional distance where I could engage it as a bit of subject matter without being too moody. I think I wanted to turn my experience loose on this imagined you, almost in an accusatory way, as a way of accusing myself or interrogating myself for having lived the life that I’ve lived and for having these particular bits of intimate experience. I wanted to turn it loose on the you and converse with my own experience in that way. I wanted to directly address my own experience as if I hadn’t lived it and ask it questions. Of course there are 50 essays and not all of them can be in second person, because that would be annoying. To break it up, I would occasionally throw in the I. Some of the most intimate things I would turn away from the I and go with the you, but some of the bits of subject matter that meant most to me, I ended up going back to the I and dropping that artifice. Second person has to be ultra specific in order to pull it off. It can’t claim the general at all because it bears the illusion of direct address and so you would never want to generalize a specific person’s experience. Always make it as specific as possible. Everything you impose onto the “you” has to be incredibly specific, set within a specific place, with a specific food. You eat the sea urchin with a two pronged fork, you’ve always loved two prong forks. Haha I don’t know.

WB: How does your approach on writing differ from a project like The Mad Feast to something like your poetry collections, Sagittarius Agitprop and Aardvark? It seems like with poetry you’d have more freedom in your writing, but at the same time I see similar lyrical qualities appear in your recent work. Is the approach to each actually similar?

MGF: I used to feel as if there was a large disconnect between the ways in which I engaged the process of writing a poem and the ways in which I engaged the process of writing prose. I don’t see that disconnect so much anymore. I think I’m writing essays coming from a place that is similar to the ways in which I think about writing poems. Not to go back to this thing about manipulating connections between two or more seemingly dissimilar things, but I felt as if that was an engine that was driving my poetry writing and is also an engine, on a much more conflated scale of course, that’s driving my prose writing. I don’t know if you know Tom Waits’ work, but Preparing the Ghost was like my Swordfish Trombone. It’s where I learned something new about non-fiction, for him music. I found my point of entry into the ways in which I want to engage nonfiction writing, only with the Preparing the Ghost book I feel. I don’t disown Barolo or Pot Farm. I had a great time writing those books and I think those books have their merits, but I learned something about marrying the poetic impulse with the essayistic impulse and braiding those together because I have both in me. I used to have to keep that poetic impulse at bay when writing Barolo and at times with Pot Farm, but really with engaging the nature of digression, meandering, layering, symphonic composition, and things like that. I would do a microcosm when I was writing poems. It found its way with Preparing the Ghost and carried over to The Mad Feast as well.

WB: You mentioned in Pot Farm that many of the names were changed in order to protect the people you worked with. As an author of nonfiction, you obviously have to put your personal life and thoughts in the spotlight. How do you walk the fine line between keeping your creative freedom while also respecting the privacy of others?

MGF: I never told any of the folks with whom I worked on the pot farm about the book at all. When I was there, on the pot farm itself, I wasn’t thinking about writing a book about it. I kept a travel journal at night. I was living out of a tent and kept a little journal and a notebook, but never thought I was going to write a book until much later when I started meditating on the experience and interrogating my own experience, wanting to situate it within some larger sociocultural and/or historical context. In this case, no. I never heard from anyone in regards to the book. I do think about offending people ever so often, but I think that’s ok. We can’t sanitize experience for the sake of not hurting someone’s feelings, but we also shouldn’t go out of our way to hurt either. Why would we sanitize the art, just not to offend someone? Granted people offend for different reasons, sometimes beautiful artistic ones, sometimes hurtful ones and I think authorial intent matters. I always try to empathize with my characters and my subjects. Even if I believe they are horrible people, for whatever reason, I’ll always try to empathize with them as human beings, narratively, even while interrogating some of the things they’re doing, but my allegiance is to the art first, rather to the feelings of my subjects because I have no idea how they would react to anything I say about them. Maybe they would be offended, maybe they wouldn’t be offended. Maybe I think I’m being incredibly emotionally generous with a subject and they’d be offended anyway. I would never presume to know how one of my subjects would react to the ways in which I write about them because I don’t know how they feel. I don’t know how they react. So it’s my duty to write about them as would serve a larger artistic project and I have offended people. I’ve offended a few family members. That’s ok, that’s the nature of being a non-fiction writer. Every so often you piss off your subjects. They believe they’ve been portrayed unfairly. I never make claims to writing facts about people or claiming some ultimate truth for everybody. My subjects by default and I think the essayist can claim this, are filtered through my very particular and very twitchy writer brain. That’s why I gravitate toward certain authors. I don’t read John D’Agata’s book about a mountain because I want to learn about Las Vegas, which it engages, I could read an almanac for that. I want to learn about D’Agata’s version of Vegas. I want to see that place and some of the situations and people within it as filtered through his very particular and very twitchy writer brain. I want to know what he thought was important and unimportant as he grappled his way towards something that he was likely misperceiving as truth. That’s what I want in an essay. My take on the world, is not the world. My take on a person, is not the person. It’s the person as is servicing my particular manipulated and manipulative essay. If that offends, then it does and if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t. I don’t know what my work is going to do. I mentioned today that sometimes I write to complicate and muddy a bit of subject matter that I only thought I knew something about. I thought I had a handle on it, but sometimes I write because I want to muddy it again or make it mysterious again, to make the mundane mysterious. I would never go out to purposely hurt a subject ever in order to further some misguided agenda of mine. If anything, I think I interrogate my own agendas overtly in my work too and pick out their frailties. Sometimes subjects get caught up in that and that’s the nature of writing. There’s a measure of appropriation and art making period, in any form of art making, whether awful or benign. When we take a bit of the world and shape it and filter it through our brains, that is by definition an act of appropriation and then reproduce it into the world as its own new artifact, but that’s an unavoidable part of the process.

WB: You seem like the type of person always looking for the next adventure, what do you see in the future for your writing? Are there any projects you’re currently working on or plan to work on?

MGF: I’m still in the making a mess stage, so it’s a little tough to talk about, but I’m working on a book about pigeons and it’s about the role of carrier pigeons in the illicit global diamond smuggling trade. It’s also a lot about birds, and me, and a lot of other things. I spent a lot of time in northwestern South Africa and southern Namibia recently conducting research, visiting both active and defunct diamond mines. I guess I would describe it as blood diamonds meets the autobahn field guides.

And with that, Frank smiled and put his beanie on, ready to bear the unpredictable Michigan weather. He was thankful for the interview as he tried not to rush into the bed and breakfast to get ready for a dinner scheduled in an hour. It was obvious that he cared about discussing his work and writing in general. As he hurried through the pouring rain, his words from earlier echoed inside the car. “For me,” Frank said, “it’s about really living in order to have material to write about.” So whether he’s eating aphrodisiacs overseas, teaching in a class room, or traveling the country with his wife, it’s clear that Frank does his best work on the go. His life is his art, and his art is always in motion.

Interview by Tyler Zamora

[msucreativewriting]

Stories live on paper. They live in mailboxes and museums and memories. They live on the cusp of truth and fiction and the moments that multiply, constructing a 24-hour day. We tell stories to communicate and ground ourselves in a place that can sometimes feel so complicated. Join us as we explore the many avenues of storytelling. Featuring performances by writers and musicians from Michigan State University and the greater Lansing area, we want to start a discussion about these ideas.

[msucreativewriting]

Don’t miss the next installment of MSU’s Michigan Writers Series with Matthew Gavin Frank on Wed. March 23 at 7pm in MSU Main Library’s Green Room. It’s a great chance to ask questions and get insight into modern poetry. Also, don’t forget that Frank is announcing the winners of the MSU Department of English’s Creative Writing and Filmmaking Awards. 

[msucreativewriting]

New date scheduled for Tamar Boyadjian’s Brown Bag event! Don’t miss the conversation taking place on Thursday March 17 at 3pm in Wells Hall C607. 

[msucreativewriting]

An Interview with Bill Vincent

Bill Vincent is a professor of Film Studies at MSU. He teaches film studies, film history, screenwriting, and film production. He has several notable works to his credit including the most recent The Seer and Some Are Born, as well as the original upcoming series Star High. 

The day before his Brown Bag Discussion, Bill Vincent sat down with Write Brained to discuss what he hopes students can gain from the event. He also gives pointers on writing for the screen and explains the importance networking has had in his career. His latest work, Hot Breath/Cold Air is a topic of conversation as he divulges into the origins of the story and the creative process of writing a script.

Write Brained: Why are these Brown Bag sessions so important?

Bill Vincent: They’re designed to give students, or anybody actually, an idea of what kind of work the faculty is doing and maybe get some idea of what they want to do themselves. If people find themselves taking to it, they might want to work with it.

WB: What can people expect during your Brown Bag Discussion?

BV: I have 7 readers, we’re going to do a condensed version of my screenplay Hot Breath/Cold Air.

WB: Let’s talk about that. What was the inspiration behind the story and could we get a quick synopsis?

BV: Lots of inspiration from people I knew. It’s about college students, and I’ve known a lot of college students in my day. I think there were a couple particular ones that I was friendly with and were sort of the inspiration for the characters. The story involves two sets of friends, 3 guys, 3 women. One of the women and one of the guys hook up and end up getting along well. We also hear about the other guy’s and women’s relationships. It’s a comedy…I hope.

WB: It sounds relatable for sure. Are there any specific tips and/or techniques you plan on discussing during your Brown Bag?

BV: Depends on who wants to ask questions? Presumably people will ask what you asked, where do I get the ideas from? The answer is you get them from everywhere, anywhere. You might be somewhere and think, ‘well this is an interesting place. I might work out an idea on this.’ The last short script I wrote, I was at the county fair with my grandkids and a friend and his kids. He said “I want to make a short movie.” We were standing next to the fortune teller’s tent, and I said “ok, I got it! I’ve got the idea.” So I wrote a script called The Seer. The whole idea was complete in my mind. He ended up not filming it, someone else did.

WB: It’s interesting how the creative process works. Now do you prefer to write alone or with others?

BV: The honest truth is that I prefer to do it by myself, but I’ve done quite a few collaborations. You have to give way sometimes. Certainly with television you write almost entirely collectively, screenwriting not so much, but even so screenwriters have to learn to work with others. Plus, you deal with the fact that once somebody picks up your script, then the director will change it to suit his or herself. And there you are smashing your teeth and shaking your fist.

WB: In regards to your screenplays, how do you write your characters?

BV: You draw it from real people, but you also draw it out of yourself. A good friend of mine is a screenwriter in England. I once asked him where do you get your characters. He said “they’re all in here, you just have to be brave enough to let them come out in the daylight and let the world see them.” It’s hard sometimes, because you don’t want people to think, oh my god that bad person’s in there. But if you do that, then you find that the characters come to life. To me a script really starts working when the characters speak for themselves and do things that surprise you. I tell my class that seems mystical, but it’s not. It means your unconscious is engaging in the process and is at work. That’s a good thing, that’s exciting. If your own screenplay can surprise you that’s great. They talk to you, you talk back. In screenwriting you’re supposed to know the backstory of your main characters, even if you don’t ever use any of it in the screenplay, you still should know who they are and what they do. I think that’s hard for beginning screenwriters because they’re not ready to face some of the questions that they should be asking about their characters, like their sex life for example. Also, what are they good at? Do they have secrets? It’s always good for your characters to have a deep dark secret. It’s also good for your main character to have some skill that sets him apart from everyone else. I went down to West Bloomfield High School and talked to students. It went well and one of the questions is always where do you get your ideas from. I said “well you’re sitting here in this auditorium and you’re probably bored because you’re 16 years old, so what you should be doing is thinking of possible scenarios that could be taking place right now. For example, this fat old guy talking to you gets shot in the middle of the forehead. Where was the shooter? How would the shooter get away? That started a lot of them thinking about the possibilities of how they could do that. If you do that in every situation when you find yourself getting bored, you won’t get bored anymore. You should carry a notebook, but then I realized you don’t need to carry a notebook anymore because you have your little tablet or cell phone. You should take notes and you should take notes of people’s conversations and particular characters you see.

WB: That’s great advice and so true. Now you also taught Sam Raimi here at MSU as well as starred in his film The Evil Dead and its remake. Describe how that came to be as well as how important networking has been in all of your careers.

BV: I first had Robert Tapert in my class, who is Sam’s partner and producer. He produces things like Hercules and Xena. He’s married to Xena.

WB: Is he really!? Wow!

BV: I went to the wedding. Ivan Raimi, Sam’s brother, was in my class. They both took three or four classes from me. Then Sam came along, and with their recommendation took a class with me. He did not do very well. He got a 2.5. He’s never forgiven me for that. He says it’s a 2, but I tried to cheer him up with a 2.5, because he wasn’t into it. He was into making movies. So that’s how I got to know them. Then the following December, Ivan came to my office. He said, “Sam and Rob are making a movie down in Tennessee, do you want to go?” I said “sure!” of course. It’s been an interesting connection. I’ve been an extra in a lot of different films of theirs. I often point out to them, that the team they put together while they were here, Rob, Sam and Bruce and Ivan to some extent, and others has really stood up well their whole career. They’ve kept it going. I try to tell filmmakers; you need to make friends with someone who knows finances!

WB: In your experience, what can make or break a screenplay?

Anything and everything. The sad thing is it could be the greatest script in the world, and if nobody’s looking for it, then it’s got nothing. It has to press the right buttons for the moment. You can be 10 minutes late. It happened to my writing partner and I. We had a really great script. People looked at it and said, it’s great, but that was yesterday. The other danger is that somebody will steal your idea. You can protect your script by registering it to the screenwriter’s guild, but you can’t protect the idea.

WB: What other things should new screenwriters be aware of when trying to go from the page to the screen?

BV: I think when you’re writing a screenplay, the main thing to keep in mind is that you have a reader. It’s your responsibility to the reader to make the script flow and make the reader see the film you’re presenting the best you can without overdoing it. You don’t want to describe everything down to the last detail, but you want to put in key aspects that bring it home to them. This involves controlling the rhythm as well so they can feel what the rhythm of the film would be. How fast it moves, how slow it moves. Slow them down, speed them up and so forth. Like any writing, you’re writing for a reader and you have to do the best you can.

Interview by Tyler Zamora  

[msucreativewriting]

[msucreativewriting]

Let your voice be heard! Submit your short fiction, poetry, or visual artwork. 

[msucreativewriting]

Hey creative writers! Here's a great opportunity to attend a unique hands-on writing workshop hosted by writer and poet Mariama J. Lockington. The workshop will take place on Monday, February 15 from 12:45pm-3pm in 104 Berkey Hall. If you're interested in editing and publishing, this is your chance to learn more and take an active role in the process.

[msucreativewriting]

The Department of English would like to invite you to a Brown Bag Conversation with Bill Vincent on Friday, February 12 at 12pm in Wells Hall C742! Feel free to bring a lunch to eat while Vincent discusses his screenplay Hot Breath/Cold Air. This event is free and open to the public, don't forget to bring your questions for the Q&A session afterward!

[msucreativewriting]

We’re looking for student submissions for the English Department Student Creative Writing and Filmmaking Awards. This is your chance to showcase your talent and hard work as well as win some money. You can’t beat that! Submissions can range from poetry, flash pieces, fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, and films. In order to submit you must meet the following requirements listed above in the flyer. All submissions should be sent to [email protected]. 

[msucreativewriting]

New Semester, New Blog Posts

Hello fellow creative writing enthusiasts. I’m Tyler Zamora, the newest blogger for Write Brained. I’m currently a senior at Michigan State University, double majoring in English and Film Studies. My focus in English is creative writing, so it’s important to me that this blog represent all forms of writing as an artistic expression. Whether we cover poetry, novels, short stories, fiction, or non-fiction, it’s important to recognize the power of the written word. I hope to make this blog a space where you can, not only find out about the latest events regarding creative writing at MSU, but also share your own work and view the work of others. We will also continue to have interviews, spotlights, and information about current writers on campus. That means every writer, including students and staff, not just writers featured at events. It’s important to discuss the creative process of each person as it gives us more insight into the art. As a student who’s currently working on my thesis (a collection of short stories), I know I’m always looking for new ways to approach my own work. From the constant editing and endless workshops, I’ve realized that writing isn’t an individual process. I want this blog to represent that side of creative writing, the entire process from beginning to end, with all of the people who make it possible. So if you love the art of storytelling and writing I invite you to follow our blog here, as well as our twitter to keep updated on the English department’s upcoming events at MSU as well as new content from fellow writers. If anyone has ideas for topics that they would like to see covered or any creative writing that they would like to have featured on the blog please email us at [email protected].  

[msucreativewriting]

The MSU English Department and RCAH Center for Poetry is excited to introduce poet and writer Brian Gilmore! He will be reading as part of MSU’s Michigan Writers Series. Gilmore also teaches law at State and his works vary in topic, touching on issues such as race and identity. Stay updated here on our blog and twitter for more information regarding this event. We hope to see you all there!

[msucreativewriting]

Story Lines

Thursday night Story Lines was an absolute success! Hopefully you saw the fliers, numerous Faebook posts and emails, and got yourself out to Scene Metrospace for the event.

Organized by Stefanie Haapala, a Creative Writing student at MSU, Story Lines was a collaboration of writers and musicians from MSU and the greater Lansing area brought to share their stories. Featured at the event were five MSU writers, current undergraduates, graduate students and alumni, and five musicians  with styles ranging from classic and sweet singer-song writers to rap and hip hop.The talent gathered for this event was inspiring, and validated, for me, that storytelling is an innate discourse with the power to connect the human experience and prove our humanity.

If you missed it, here is a little rundown of what was shared.

The event started off with Eric Smith, a singer song writer sharing stories of Greek mythology, love and loss, transitioning then to Stephanie Saba, who shared of piece painted by abuse and unconditional love of her father. Middle Middle, a self proclaimed “late night jam making company of the musical variety,” performed eclectic guitar and keyboard melodies of loneliness. Anna Goodson, the only performer of the night who read a collection of poems, turned images of asparagus, worms, and womanhood with a strong, reflective clarity of self. James Gardin, an emcee from the Lansing area, engaged the audience in call and response with his rhymes and beats, showing quite literally that stories are unable to exist without those willing to listen. Stephanie Burnham delivered a piece concerning the stories our aesthetics tell, exploring the misunderstanding of self through humor. The women who made the event possible, Stefanie Haapal, played a song that she had only written the night before, sharing something that was not quite “finished” but expressing the fresh and raw nature of storytelling as a medium. Phil Russell, a graduate of MSU, shared of piece about the decay of his father and the power of the choices we make today, challenging the audience to consider the implications of what it means to be unnoticed, but essential. Erin Alvarez, a graduate student at MSU then shared a powerful piece commenting on the entire lack of empathy of the comments left in response to news articles, provoking the audience not only to think critically about themselves, but awaken them to the harsh realities and impacts of racism. The night was rounded off with Joe Hertler who played an instrument found in his grandfather’s basement, sharing songs that teased out everyday encounters of the human experience.

Storytelling was for many of performs a way to make sense of the world we live in, the stories themselves capturing raw moments of consciousness. To summarize this rawness is to leave the art tainted - stories do not exist in the summing of their parts, but rather in the experience of sharing and engaging with every piece of them, both as teller or audience. This event hoped to start a discussion about the impact of story telling and the sharing ideas, and in many ways the only way to engage in this discussion is to experience it first hand. We all have stories to tell and it is of vital important to share them, whether that is onstage or with those close to you, journalling obsessively or scribbling in the margins of books. Stories bring us to life, allowing experience to flow through us with clarity and understanding that can not be achieved in any other way.