We have a new blog address!

bsuwriters.wordpress.com

David Foster Wallace furthers another stereotype of writers

Among those of us members of the Writers' Community who graduated this last May, David Foster Wallace was pretty easily the most mocked and mimicked writer. At least a few of us dearly wanted to be him when we grew up.

I just found out that he died this weekend, in an apparent suicide.

I cried when Elliott Smith died, too. I didn't like Elliott Smith as much as I like David Foster Wallace.

Salut,

Well our first meeting started wonderfully last evening, and I think I can speak for everyone that it was really exciting to see so many new faces.

After some meet and great, we broke out the books and heard:

Ashley Ellison: "Stuff White People Like #105 Unpaid Internships" by Christian Lander, which I understand originated as a blog and then turned into a book.
R Ford: a piece of his own entitled, "The Roar of the Lamb Part 3 & 4"
Shaun Gannon: "The Way Things Are" by his hero Russell Edson and "The Evolution of a Barn," by himself
Todd McKinney: "Slow Dance" by Matthew Dickman (who we learned has a twin brother who also is a writer) from All-American Poem and his own poem "Almost Nine Months Ago"
Rebecca Patrick: "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" by Rudyard Kipling
Tyler Gobble: "Basketball" by G.F. Johnson
Evan Dossey: written in his math class, Evan read "Chocolate Bride"
Andrew Clark-Kennedy: Kurt Vonnegut's "Teaching the Unteachable" and "Doo-wop" by Marvin Bell

Look out for an e-mail from us as soon as we straighten things out with our club e-mail with BSU computing services, and for a new blog. See you next week!

The First Week

Hey all,

Come join us to celebrate our love for the written word!

Once again, it's the start of a new semester at Ball State. This means a new start for the Writers Community and hopefully new faces, too. Our first meeting will be held Monday, September 8, at 7:00 p.m. in the Writing Center of the Robert Bell building. You're invited to bring your own work, work that has inspired you, or just to come listen. We especially love hearing what you've written.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Todd McKinney at tdmckinney@bsu.edu. Otherwise, we'll see you Monday!

The Last Week

Finals' Week Reading Schedule:

Monday, April 28: Regular Meeting, 7-8:30 p.m., RB 291, aka The Writing Center.

Thursday, May 1: Laura Relyea reads with Sarah Marty, 7-8:30 p.m., Bracken 225. Free homemade food.

Bring it! this week!

Hey folks!

Just a reminder that The Writer's Community will not be meeting in our normal location tomorrow night. Instead, we will be attending the Maurice Manning reading as a group. We will be meeting at 6:45 (the reading begins at 7) in Bracken 225. Snacks and refreshments will be served, and this reading also coincides with the release of this year's issue of The Broken Plate. It should be a great evening, and we hope to see you there!


Yeah, I copy/pasted from an email I sent out. Deal. :-D

Poetry and Coffee (It's a good tradition to practice)

Happy Birthday

Apparently, it's David Foster Wallace's birthday.

He's 46.  Somebody buy the boy a cookie.

Garrison Keillor said in today's Writer's Almanac that as "The son of a philosophy professor and an English professor, Wallace double-majored in these subjects and described himself as 'obscenely educated.'"

Which pretty much explains him.

Some Promotion of Self and Others

For those of you who don't know, I play music as William Wolfe.

I'd like for you to take a listen to some of my older stuff: myspace.com/wwolfe.  I'm trying to keep it from auto-playing.

If you look carefully, you'll see that the first show I'm playing with my excellent backing band, The Scandinavians, happens Sunday, Feb. 24 at the Launching Pad in Muncie.

Be forewarned:  When you put lonesome ol' folksinger me, a punk rock bass player, and my keyboard player--who, if given the choice, would listen to nothing but Daft Punk and LCD Soundsystem--in a room, for some reason, what comes out is a male version of the last two Cat Power records.  Classic soul soundz.

We're opening the show; doors open at seven.  Admission $7 for us, The Matt Lloyd Project, Good Luck Varsity, Cory Hill, and the Stereofidelics.

Hope I'll see you there.

Also, keep in mind that one of our Dear Leaders, Laura Relyea, also has a solo show next week, also at the Launching Pad.  I'll leave it to her to promote it, as she expressed mixed feelings on Monday night.

Hope I'll see you there, too.

-matthew trisler / william wolfe.

NYT Modern Love Contest

I mentioned, this week (2/11), the New York Times' Modern Love essay contest.

You can find rules here.

Hopefully, you'll actually edit your essays before you send. My mistake=your advantage.

A mouthfull.

Okay. I'd like to start by saying that the fact that I'm going to forget at least one thing we talked about last night is pretty inevitable. Once you've made your peace with that, read on:


English Theater Night is next Thursday, Feb. 21. Those in attendance will be fed, and get to see Love's Labours Lost. The cost, I believe, is five dollars and fifty cents. If you are interested, email Dr. Beach: arbeach@bsu.edu.


Laura's band, This Story, is having their last show on Saturday at the Launching Pad. She believes they will be playing between 9 and 10.


Matthew posted the details about the contest he mentioned below. Here are two more:


http://morethangalenandmile.blogspot.com is sponsoring a writing contest in which everyone pitches in $5 and the winner takes the pot. The only guideline is that the piece of writing, whatever it is, should be able to be read in two minutes. Thanks to Peter Cavanaugh for the heads up on this one.


Thoreau's Rooster, a national magazine that publishes the work of undergraduate students, is taking submissions between now and March 15. There is an editor's prize of $100, plus it is a great chance to get published. Check out the full guidelines below:

http://www.assumption.edu/programs/english/stupubs/rooster/submission.html



Okay. Here is a fairly long list of things that have been read over the past few weeks. Since I'm backlogged, they will be featured without witty comments, but look for more quick quips about each piece to return next week.

Write something today. Seriously.

Andrew



1.28.08:



2.4.08:

Rebecca Patrick - Excerpt from "Wakefield" by E.L. Doctorow.

Laura Relyea - "Preface" by Joan Didion.

Sean Orlosky - Excerpt from Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.

Garrett Cox - Three of his own, "Messages", "Balloon People", "Kiss [something], kiss [something else]".

Chris Latta - Joined us for the first time. Thanks Chris!

Sean Andres - Select passages from Sara Emma Edmonds' Diary.

Brent Royster - "The Limits of Desire" by Linda Gregg, and something he and his class were working on, called "Deception".

Joe Betz - "Mutterings Over the Crib of a Deaf Child" and "An Offering for Mr. Blue Heart" by James Wright, and a passage from Green Hills of Africa by Ernest Hemmingway.

Andrew Clark-Kennedy - "The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina" by Miller Williams and "Sherherazade" by Richard Riken.

Todd McKinney - "Viewfinder" by Raymond Carver.

Jessica Mayflower and Joseph Morris also joined us for the first time. Glad to have you!



2.11.08:

Peter Cavanaugh - An excerpt from "The Hartleys" by John Cheever.

Sarah Marty - Several "Six-word memoirs"

Garrett Cox - "Train Night" (his own) and "Dreadful Chapter Three" by Maurice Manning.

Brent Royster - "Givers and Takers" by Larissa Szporluk.

Jessica Mayflower - "The Rogue" and "Hello, Neighbor", both her own.

Sean Orlosky - Excerpt from "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee.

Laura Relyea - Passages from On Becoming a Rock Musician by H. Stitch Bennett.

Rebecca Patrick - Part of "Lilies that Fester" from They Asked for a Paper by C.S. Lewis.

Sean Andres - Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt's "Lily of the Nile" and "If I Had Made the World".

Matthew Trisler - "(I kiss your cup)" by Frank O'Hara, part of one of his own essays.

Liz Combs-Crawley - The winner of the Bulwer-Lytton contest, 2007.

Deborah Edwards - "The Dogs Tail" by Russel Edson.

The Final two were also first-timers. Yay!

"Rhyme" by Robert Pinsky

RHYME

Air an instrument of the tongue,
The tongue an instrument
Of the body, the body
An instrument of spirit,
The spirit a being of the air.

A bird the medium of its song.
A song a world, a containment
Like a hotel room, ready
For us guests who inherit
Our compartment of time there.

In the Cornell box, among
Ephemera as its element,
The preserved bird--a study
In spontaneous elegy, the parrot
Art, mortal in its cornered sphere.

The room a stanza rung
In laddered filament
Clambered by all the unsteady
Chambered voices that share it,
Each reciting I too was here--

In a room, a rhyme, a song.
In the box, in books: each element
An instrument, the body
Still straining to parrot
The spirit, a being of air.


This poem is from Pinsky's latest book, Gulf Music.

Hey all.

No Writer's Community tonight. MLK day takes precedence, and the Writing Center isn't open anyway. Take the opportunity to read something great that you can share next week. We'd love to see a big turnout next week.

Tell your friends, or we'll tell em for ya.

Andrew