A Deeper Sense of Place (updated)

Hi everyone -- just wanted to give you and update on my upcoming class in late August. We'll do some writing exercises and discussion, we'll talk about 'reading like writers,' and then do some in-depth, craft-based readings of a few great travel and place pieces. My list of writers, so far: John Jeremiah Sullivan, Annie Dillard, Tom Bissell, Terry Tempest Williams (and others.)

Also, at the suggestion of two former students, I'll have some practical writing-life material too (encouraging stories, as well as horror stories, from the the freelance world, publishing, etc.) I'll talk about a whole bunch of stuff that I would never even think about posting to this blog, including some things that will make your ears fall right off when you hear them.

In other news, for the first time since hiking the Pacific Crest Trail,  I consumed a piece of prickly pear cactus. This time, it happened right in the middle of  downtown Santa Cruz, where I attended the Festival del Nopal, otherwise known as the Cactus Eating Festival. The festival was fun, but I thought the cactus was disgusting. So slimy! So insipid! So hard to chew! Maybe I'm too close to the subject matter to give you an objective assessment. On the good side, someone took the time to remove all the little prickly things -- a huge improvement over my last experience.

Meanwhile I've chosen the two things I'm going to read at SJSU -- one that is part of a long work in progress, and a small stand-alone piece that's going to be published really soon.

And, finally, thanks for all the Cactus Eaters emails that keep flowing into my inbox. Each one is appreciated. (For some reason, I am getting quite a few of them lately.)

In case you haven't seen this great profile of Springsteen in the New Yorker ...

For me, this magazine article by David Remnick was like a gift at the end of a productive but drawn-out day.

Travel writing class returns (new and expanded) on August 25th!

hi everyone --I just wanted you to know that I'll be teaching an expanded version of my place writing/travel writing class once more at the Capitola Book Cafe this summer. The class is set for August 25 at the Book Cafe  from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  I am putting together a list of readings and preliminary assignments. Last class was wonderful but the time passed by so quickly (only two hours.) This new format will give us much more breathing room and allow you to delve more deeply into each exercise and exploration. Bring a sandwich and brown bag for a 'working lunch,' and I'll see you all soon. Almost forgot to mention that you should register directly through the Book Cafe (and not through this Cactuseaters blog.)

Introducing Catamaran literary magazine

I've become involved with this brand-new magazine based right here in Santa Cruz, CA. The first issue -- which is forthcoming this fall -- will have all kinds of surprises, including my Q & A with one of my favorite fiction writers, but I should keep my mouth shut for the time being and let you find out for yourself. Look for it in an indie bookstore soon. Anyhow, if you take a look at the link I enclosed, you will see a Catamaran video with all of us gathered at the beautifully refurbished Salz tannery site, which is now a major center for the arts on the Central Coast.

Amy Ettinger & Dan White reading announcement at SJSU

It's official. We're now part of the line-up for the fall season. Here is the announcement that has been posted on the Web. Hope to see you all there, and to clarify, this will be in San Jose. We will both read brand new material. (no Cactus Eaters recitations.) I am excited and nervous.  I'm thinking of reading two short, somewhat related pieces, one from a book-length project, and the other a stand-alone essay.

Now reading .... updated

Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? I got plenty of strange looks from people who saw me reading this on the bus in Santa Cruz. They must have figured it was a self-help book in reverse. In one sense it is. This memoir does not provide any soft and fuzzy pathway to creativity.  Winterson's adoptive mother is an accidental mentor who shaped her daughter's language while providing a reason for her creativity. The mom -- identified here as "Mrs. Winterson" -- gave her something to work against. What really struck me here is the amount of light Winterson lets in. The ultra-religious mom is frightening -- she sometimes locks her daughter in a coal hole -- but never comes across as a monster. Worth re-reading to see how she pulls this off. I would have gone through this a third time but it was borrowed and I had to give it back. ILL doesn't mess around.

Graham Greene, Brighton Rock.

Charles Yu, How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

Kenneth Gross,  Puppet: an essay on uncanny life

Amy Ettinger & Dan White reading at the Martin Luther King Jr. library in San Jose

Hi, everyone.  I am very excited to announce that my wife, Amy Ettinger, will read with me on October 10, 7 p.m, at the Schiro Room, adjacent to the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies, located in Martin Luther King, Jr. Library at SJSU, not to be confused, under any circumstances, with  the Steinbeck Museum down in Salinas, although my mentioning of this distinction will probably cause even more confusion.  A reception will follow.

Amy Ettinger has written for the New York Times, New York Magazine, the Huffington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, Sierra, Backpacker and other publications. Her personal essays delve into issues ranging from parenthood, childhood, mortality, creative competition among spouses and growing up on "the other side" of Silicon Valley. She will read a selection from her recent work.


I am a former Steinbeck Fellow, an occasional teacher and freelance travel writer, the institutional voice of Sammy the Banana Slug, and the author of a nonfiction book, The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind and Almost Found Myself on the Pacific Crest Trail,  which I completed during my fellowship. So it's fitting that both of us will be back at the center when I'm reading from my as-yet untitled, still-in-progress, brand-new nonfiction project. If you want to find out more, you'll just have to be there in person.  Looking forward to this. See you  then. In other news, looks like I'll be teaching a second -and significantly longer writing class out here. More soon.

Cheryl Strayed at the Capitola Book Cafe: "My feet are fine. They’ve been restored to their original beauty. It’s taken a while for my toenails to grow back.”

Plus: Mary Karr sings and dances, and much more.

Well, it's been a very eventful month here in Santa Cruz, and since I always bring my little black notebooks to all these events anyhow, I figured I'd share a few journal highlights with you. 

Never, in all my years, did I think I'd get to see the great memoirist and poet Mary Karr shimmying, shaking her hair, stomping her boots and singing back-up vocals -- and in one case, lead vocals! -- with songwriting legend Rodney Crowell at the Rio Theatre right here in Santa Cruz. 

In a couple of instances, I had to pinch myself to see if I was hallucinating. Was Mary Karr really up there on the stage, enthusiastically harmonizing to

-->"It's Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night that Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long?" Karr, who must have very good genes -- she looked all of 23 years old -- did not seem to be the principle draw that night. I had a strong hunch that most folks were  there for Crowell. The fact that Karr's last name was spelled incorrectly on almost all the promotional materials, except for the publicity put out by the co-sponsor, Bookshop Santa Cruz, suggests the concert organizers aren't familiar with her legendary work, including her classic, The Liar's Club.  But Karr -- who teamed up with Crowell on a brand-new album called Kin, featuring an all-star group of performers --  proved she could 'kill' even with a crowd that, amazingly enough, seemed to have no idea who she was. Sad to say, I have temporarily misplaced the little black notebook with some of the funny, shocking, and all-too-true observations she made about family and memoir writing. I bet you it's under a pile of laundry somewhere, but when I find it, I'll go right back into this blog entry and fill in those details, so stay tuned. When I find the darned thing, I'll add an "updated" tagline to the subject heading.

Was the Capitola Book Cafe ever so packed as it was on June 21 when Cheryl Strayed was in town to promote Wild? She read from the Hobo Times reporter scene, which had the whole place howling. That evening she offered some insights about Wild's creation and why it resonates with so many readers. 

Among some of the questions she answered from various readers that evening:

Have you always been 'all in' when it comes to revealing raw truths about yourself on the page?

"It's always terrifying. But writing that interests me reveals who (the writer) is with all their humanity. When you are taking those risks --and the endeavor of memoir is to tell a universal story -- when you do that right, other people see and hear themselves. Why should we read about this person's hike? The goal is to obliterate the question so people know why you're telling the story."

Are you surprised by the reception to the book?

-->

"I am stunned --completely shocked. The

-->hike I had back in 1995 was this wholly private thing." (She had a similar feeling of solitude during the early composition process.)  You’re profoundly alone with yourself. The only way to write a book is to go to a place of deep solitude." 

Later in the presentation, she answered questions about the PCT and the book's origins.

"The story in Wild began when I reached what I really thought of as the bottom. I didn’t know where I was going and there was so much I had to regret about where I’d been. It was really sort of by chance that I chose the PCT. There  was a blizzard and I needed a shovel. It was only later on when I realized, 'hey, that’s  metaphor.' I really needed to dig myself out. (Upon buying the shovel, she happened upon a PCT guidebook.) “(The trail) seemed so magnificent and incredible and big and everything I was not, everything I needed to attach myself to. My mother went from being perfectly healthy to dead in several weeks. I didn’t know how to be in the world without her. The question realy was, how could I live without my mother. For a long time, my answer was, I will not. I will do bad things. I raged against myself. Then I found out about the PCT. "

-->

"I'd  never gone backpacking one night, which turns out not to be a good idea. I was a waitress. I had wads of cash. I spent it all on backpacking stuff. The REI people kept saying, you really ought to pack your pack. (Shortly before embarking on the journey), “I could not lift my pack. At all.

-->Those first week weeks were the most humbling experience of my life. I thought, “I can do this. I can walk. Then I got out there and I thought, what the *&$%$! was I thinking?  And that was within the first 15 minutes!”

The book signing line was humongous, but Strayed, in the spirit of a true PCT hiker,  stayed until the last dog was hung.

 

Mary Karr and Rodney Crowell at the Rio Theater

I live almost across the street from the Rio; how could I not go? If I have a spare moment I will try to give you a report right here.

Cactus Eaters reader photo of the week: reading in the highest peaks

Thank you, John Murray, for sharing this picture with me today (it's his daughter, Chelsea, reading my book out in the Himalayas. As far as I know, that is the second farthest point my book has ever traveled.) And thank you, readers -- keep those photos and messages coming.

Former pirates go legit: KZSC radio celebrates 45 years

Here's a little story I wrote about a tiny station whose small "pirate" crew made their first broadcasts during the summer of love, and once tried to use an upside-down garbage can as an antennae. It's an unlikely success story that continues to the present day.

In 1967, the year of the Summer of Love, a group of UCSC students started an FCC-unauthorized campus radio station that broadcast from a clammy basement and tried to use an upside-down garbage can as an antenna.

The broadcasters initially put egg cartons instead of acoustic tiles on the walls, and the disc jockeys played the psychedelic single, “Incense and Peppermints” by the Strawberry Alarm Clock, so many times the record cracked. They kept on playing it anyhow.

“When I left campus, [the station] was very shaky,” said Marc Okrand (Stevenson College ‘70, interdisciplinary studies), who went on to have a far-ranging career that included teaching linguistics at UC Santa Barbara, doing research for the Smithsonian and, most famously, developing the Klingon language for Star Trek—both for the movies and also for Star Trek spin-off TV shows.

Read more right here.

Banana slug cookies are selling out (plus, books)

Hi, both of you. I hope you're well. First of all, I just wanted to let you know that the banana slug cookies are selling exceptionally well. The bakery actually ran out of them over the long weekend, and now they're into the second printing. Oops,  I mean, baking. In some ways this is even more fun than the publishing thing.  My cookies, unlike my writings, do not provoke extreme emotional reactions. No one can go on Amazon and describe my cookies as arrogant or overly profane. They just gobble them up, wash them down with a nice cold glass of milk,  and that's it. Today I went into the bakery and I vowed to keep my mouth shut, just this once, but just when I was walking out the door, I turned around and said "Those are MINE! I designed those!" 

Now for those books I was talking about. The first one is called The Man Who Quit Money by Mark Sundeen. I've been a fan of his work for a long time so it's nice to see one of his books fly above the radar this time.  I just love his droll sense of humor and his writing style. The sentences are so well-tempered and clear. The other one I mentioned is Lydia Davis's translation of Madame Bovary, which is so good, it will make you want to write her letters asking her to translate his other books, too. More news about cookies and books very soon, and welcome back.

Help the Capitola Book Cafe "thrive and survive" this Sunday

I hope to see you all at the festive fundraiser at the Capitola Book Cafe.  I'm not an owner of the bookstore or in any way employed there, but I hang out there constantly and wrote a huge portion of my early draft of The Cactus Eaters there. It's also the place where I met the writing group that helped me get that early manuscript into good enough shape to get a scholarship for graduate school (it would have been impossible to attend without it; now I've rejoined that same book group, and they're helping me move forward with a brand new project, so I guess you could say that a big part of my literary life is tied up with this one store.) Aside from this, I've seen so many great writers there over the years and consumed about 10,000 cups of coffee. A bunch of writers who live around here (including me) will be speaking  around 5 or so. And here's the little blurb announcement: hope to see you there

SURVIVE & THRIVE KICK-OFF PARTY & FUNDRAISER

 Sunday, May 20, 2012 • 3-6pm • Capitola Book Café

FOOD • DRINK • MUSIC • SILENT AUCTION • DOOR PRIZES!

$10 at the door or click here to buy in advance.
(Kids under 12 free.)

RSVP on Facebook & share with you

Hell yes: my Banana Slug Cookies shall return!

Not to get you overly excited but I just heard that my big claim to fame -- the Super-sweet Extra-Crunchy Banana Slug Cookie with gloppy yellow frosting-- is going to be resurrected soon. Apparently, the Buttery Bakery in Santa Cruz is going to bake up another limited run of these cookies (which I invented and designed all by myself, including the cookie cutter, not to brag or anything like that)  in honor of the upcoming UCSC commencement ceremonies.

The fact is, you won't meet many author types who dabble in baked-goods design. A few of them treat baked items with outright contempt. (I was shocked and upset to read that my favorite fiction writer, Junot Diaz, doesn't like cookies at all.) Anyhow, I'm amped up about this and ready to take on the big corporate cookie producers. Watch your back, Entenmann's.

Save the Capitola Book Cafe

Please read this story and do what you can to preserve one of my favorite bookstores anywhere.

Friday night at the Capitola Book Cafe

Wow!!! Thanks everyone. Our place-writing class could very well sell out. Really looking forward to this.

Scrambled, out-of-order version of The Cactus Eaters appears in book store

I just heard from a reader who said she purchased a hard-copy version of The Cactus Eaters that begins on page 361.  I am assuming that one of two things took place. 1. Your book contains a printing error, which means it is a rarity, which means you can try to sell it online for $$$$, or 2. HarperCollins has printed a scrambled-up, surreal, non-linear version of the book to attract a more experimental demographic. I'm making inquiries and will try to get to the bottom of this soon. And keep those cards and letters coming. (by the way, I'm not making this up.)

My upcoming writing class

Here are a couple of recent blurb/announcements for the upcoming writing class on May 11 at the Capitola Book Cafe, one in SantaCruzWrites.org and another in SF Station.com. And here is the feature story in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.  I've fiddled with the list of authors just a little bit, and I've created some activities that should be fun for you, while creating food for thought for your place writings in progress. The Book Cafe has been sending out free mini-anthologies of place/travel writings and a couple of preliminary exercises for everyone who signs up.

My hideous lawn

I now, officially, have the most hideous front lawn in America. Basically, the owner chopped down the shady pretty tree in front of our house and replaced it with a huge pile of jagged stones -- hundreds and hundreds of them lying beside my driveway like a midden of broken teeth. Personally, I don't know what we're supposed to do with all these (expletive) rocks. Unless Goliath attacks our house.  In that case, I'll be well-prepared.

Cactuseaters reader photo of the week

A Cactus Eaters reader in Carmel Valley sent in this alarming photo of gefilte fish in reference to my  comparison between the mountains along the Southern California section of the Pacific Crest Trail and a certain cold and slimy soul food, purchased in jars and consumed at Passover with mountains of horseradish to cover up the nasty taste. Quite a photo. You can see the gelatinous brine shining on every little dumpling. Thank you, and keep those cards and letters coming.