Tag: Books

Neurotic Fan Part I

Terah Van Dusen4 Comments

I missed out on the free stuffed animal cause I wanted a beer and the line for beer was zilch and the line for a free stuffed animal was around the block and down the hall.

I was disappointed.

I thought I was part of a bite-size group of people and after the show we’d all sit around in someone’s cramped apartment drinking straight whiskey and maybe doing a little coke.

I thought I’d get to talk up my book and maybe Chuck Palahniuk and Lidia would ask me to join their writers’ group.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve got no experience–all that matters is you’ve passion, and you do, I can see it in you they’d say as I’d shoot back the whiskey hollering Fuck yeah I do! sticking out my tongue and shaking my head back and forth. We’d all cheer and laugh. There aren’t enough writers out there, Chuck would tell me.

I thought I’d be the only girl in a black kimono and that Lidia might point me out to the audience, telling everyone what a good writer I was and some hot guy would spot me and think I was super sexy. Then he’d approach me and we’d fall in love and we’d both be writers and we’d make writer love.

It didn’t matter that I was already in love, and with a writer. Things could always get better.

You already know how this ends: in near full disappointment.

After standing in line with fifty-billion fucking college kids watching them text and say Like and grab eachother’s asses we filed inside where I slipped away to the WOW Hall’s basement bar missing my chance at a free stuffed animal (free to the first 100 people).

It was so quiet down there the bartender had her back to me and was on her knees stocking the cooler. I cleared my throat, ordered a Sierra Nevada, and sat in the corner and read Dora.

I knew Lidia was upstairs signing books for all the, like, college kids and I tried to summon her downstairs with my mind. Cause down in the dark basement bar was where Lidia should be. And, you know if it were twenty years ago it’s where she woulda been. But it wasn’t twenty years ago.

That was a long time ago.

Latitude on 2nd: 2012 Summer Anthology

Terah Van Dusen17 Comments
$5.95 Hard copy/$2.99 Kindle

Many months ago I submitted three poems to Cool Waters Publishing, hoping they would select them for print in their 2012 summer anthology. Well, they did, and I’m now published for the third time ever alongside many other wonderful writers and poets!

Latitude on 2nd: 2012 Summer Anthology is available in hard copy or e-book format on Amazon.com (click link above). A special thanks to Tara Grover and Dan O’Brien of Cool Waters Publishing and Empirical Magazine in Chico, California for selecting my work and for being so helpful and encouraging in general and throughout the process. I look forward to the anthology being on my coffee table and thumbing through the compilation time and time again.

The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch

Terah Van Dusen3 Comments

When visiting the Eugene Public Library, a bi-monthly event, I sit down at a computer and do a quick search for memoirs. I snatch one of those little square white slips of paper and one of those baby pencils with no erasers and scrawl out the call number and the first four letters of the author’s last name. Usually the memoirs are found in section 921. I write down about 7 books, knowing that I’ll be unable to locate a couple of them, for whatever reason, and that one or two I’ll end up not liking at all, upon seeing the cover, upon reading the first few lines. I’ll leave with four books or so. I’ll get ’em home and read half of those. Right now, for example, I’ve got a book called Patty’s Got A Gun, it’s about Patty Hearst. I read a little bit but it didn’t catch me because, as intriguing as the story is, I already know the gist of it and the author’s writing isn’t making me feel like he’s going to tell me anything new. The author’s writing. The author’s writing.

I used to be a big believer in fate. Not so much in destiny really, but that if I sort of held my hands out in front of me and closed my eyes and slowly walked (figuratively, for the most part) toward the places and people and trees and parks and coffee shops that felt good, that felt right, warm, light, loving, that I would end up where it was appropriate for me to be that if I had mindlessly walked into life that day. That I would end up where I was supposed to be. I used to look for signs everywhere pointing me to these places. I used to keep my eyes wide-open. I used to. I used to. That was a long time ago. Since then I’ve realized that I hold the power, regardless of how spiritually mindful I am being or not, to make things happen in my life, to change things, to get what I want, to make decisions. It’s almost as if it’s entirely up to me, and not depending upon the Universe at all. This took a while to come to terms with, being that I was raised up by such a religious father. My father always told me things like “God will take care of it.” Now, whether it was the Universe leading me to Lidia Yuknavitch’s book or that I just happened upon it: I feel that this was meant to happen. Not predetermined, just meant to happen. At this time. Not one month ago, not one year from now. Now. I’m having one of those: ohmigod, what if I had never come across this book/person/story/insight feelings.

Let me tell you more…when I did that computer search for memoirs roughly a week and a half ago I came across a book description that mentioned something about a drowning. A drowning? Hey–I know about a drowning! My Dad drowned, wait, almost, you know, not quite. Done. I wrote down the call number and the letters YUKN. My boyfriend was with me that day and he and I set out to find my memoirs. If I remember right, he found the first memoir, handed it to me, I mentioned something about it having a beautiful cover, and I tucked it under my arm, almost instinctively. I got that book about Patty Hearst, which had been mistakenly filed under her last name, like it was her book, like it was a memoir. I didn’t look twice at that book, it was like once I had Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water, I was all ready to go home and start reading.

When I began reading the book, I was instantly impressed with Lidia’s poetic writing. I said aloud to my boyfriend in the car, “she just called her still-born baby ‘little dead girlfish’. That’s awesome.” I looked at him and quickly said, “but not, you know, of course, but, I mean, who does that? Nice...” We got home and I put the book away and got busy for a few days with a ballet recital and family visiting and I forgot about the book. Not entirely of course. I picked it back up and got sucked into the story. Some people like to cover things up and ignore them and pretend like they never happened like an unmarked grave. Not Lidia.

I’ve got a lot to learn from Lidia Yuknavitch. Just like she had a lot to learn from Ken Kesey. About one-quarter way through the book, Lidia moves to Eugene. Eugene! That’s where I live! I’ve read other books where people move to Eugene but within a page or two they pick up and move somewhere else, like I’ve sometimes wanted to do. But Lidia, she stayed. Lidia knows that where a person lives does not make or break them. Unlike me, Lidia doesn’t say “I just feel like I’m supposed to be somewhere else” or “It will all come together when I live there and am doing that.” Lidia stays in Eugene for a decade or more and starts off going to creative writing classes at the U of O, classes that she isn’t even paying for, isn’t even signed up for, and she learns that although she feels like she can’t do anything right, she can write. She can write. Lidia stays in Eugene and she learns how to write, amidst a sea of people she feels she is nothing like. She goes to seminars with a flask tucked in her pocket and she fucks the author speaker, man or woman, at the Best Western down the road, the same Best Western where my family just stayed at when they were in town, visiting. She drives the same road I do to get to the coast and she lives in the same neighborhood, just closer to the train tracks.

I google Lidia Yuknavitch and discover that she was recently at the U of O presenting a lecture at the Memoir Fest. I knew about the Memoir Fest but decided not to go because it’s on campus and you know, I’m so above and beyond that and what does campus want with me anyway? I should’ve tucked a flask under my arm and gone. I should’ve, I should’ve.

I read some more and discovered that Lidia Yuknavitch has a Writer’s Workshop! In Portland! In September! It’s not full yet and it’s happening, it really is, on Tuesday’s, at 6:30! (If you can’t tell, I totally plan on going. And if you don’t know me, know that when I say I’m going, I go. I’ll just pretend to hear your “I’m so happy for you!” Dude, it only costs, like 150 bucks.)

I haven’t finished reading the book yet. When I have a good book I like to draw it out like my dad’s loogy. Speaking of dad’s…remember how Lidia’s book description talked about the tragedy around drowning, or almost drowning? That was her dad, her dad almost drown. She still hasn’t gotten back to that. It’s sort of hanging out in the air. I want to know what happened but I wouldn’t imagine most readers do, because nobody cares, because he was a rapist. Lidia’s got a lot of loose ends to tie up in this book, but whether she does or doesn’t, I don’t care. That’s how good this book is. I can dig any book that talks about broken women and lots of sex and S & M and men and women that behave like men and writing and drugs and more drugs and hope and hopE and hoPE and hOPE and more HOPE and VICTORY. I can dig a book that breaks all the rules. I can dig Lidia Yuknavitch.

In Praise Of The Memoir

Terah Van DusenLeave a comment

It wasn’t even a memoir that got me interested in writing a memoir. It was a book that read like a memoir: White Oleander by Janet Fitch. I read White Oleander and I thought “I can do this, only my story will be true, not fiction.” I read it again a few days later and I thought “No, I most likely cannot do this. I cannot write with nearly as much eloquence and skill as Janet Fitch, but who can? Again I told myself, I can do this, to a certain extent. Yes I can.”

That was going on ten years ago. The seed was planted. I was a teenager then, sixteen, and I didn’t feel very comfortable telling people I was planning on writing a book. My wisdom told me that nobody cares if you’re planning on writing a book, that people only care when you are writing a book. I now know that even that is only partially true. Too, I had a feeling that some of the things I was going through at the time…really needed to be in the book. I decided to ride those things out, and planned to write about them later. Plus I was too busy partying and having emotional breakdowns and sleeping off all-night coke binges to do any writing.

My second wave of inspiration came from Jeannette Walls The Glass Castle. My. Favorite. Memoir. By far. And yes, it’s a memoir, it’s not fictional like the Janet Fitch book mentioned prior. It’s embarrassing, but at twenty-three years old or so, I still had very little knowledge about what a memoir was, as opposed to an autobiography, for example. A simple interpretation is that where an autobiography is an author’s life story, often presented chronologically, a memoir can focus on just one main event in a person’s life (such as divorce), or one time period (such as childhood) and does not need to be (nor is it recommended) chronological. However, many memoirs do touch on the author’s childhood even though the story is mainly about her divorce at age forty or will encompass several themes such as divorce, abuse, addiction and manic depression all in one. The Glass Castle, for example, is a story about poverty, alcoholism, sexual abuse, and, ultimately, forgiveness. Forgiveness is the main theme, see, the focus of a memoir isn’t all “poor me, poor me”. In fact, I do believe Jeannette Walls had to literally write this book in order to forgive her parents. Her parent’s are very deserving of forgiveness. Everyone is. See, it all worked out for everyone in the end. When people write about their parents, their grandparents, their siblings and nasty things come up: that’s just life, nasty things come up. The stories are not often intended to target or blame anybody. You can bet your bottom dollar the author is revealing all the nasty things he or she has done too (and then some, if they’re truly conscious). A story without any character’s wouldn’t make it to Chapter 2. And a character without any problems would read like a glass of water in front of a person lookin’ to get real drunk. Remember that before you question memoirists about their airing the family’s dirty laundry. I think for most of us (aspiring memoirists): it just comes naturally.  As naturally as an imperfect parent. Jeannette Wall’s mother was portrayed as a lazy, unrealistic dreamer who condoned physical and sexual abuse against her children and ended up a greasy homeless woman (with a mean mustache) living on the streets of New York City. When Jeanette published the book, her mother’s only comments seemed to be how absolutely proud she was of her daughter. I hope it works out that way for me. My father doesn’t have a computer. I showed him my blog for the first time the other day and he barely lifted a brow. He changed the subject in fact…I don’t think he gets it.

Today, I’m reading The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch. So far, it’s a memoir that’s vastly unchronological and very poetically and intriguingly describes scenes of drug-use and sex while a young woman tries to accomplish something, anything, in her life. I ABSOLUTELY love the book at this point and I’m only a sliver deep. I have a feeling it will be right up there with White Oleander and The Glass Castle, books I consider my “model memoirs”, but of course, it’s too early to tell.

Of the twenty plus memoirs I’ve read since The Glass Castle, there are about ten I consider pure gold. I’d like to share that list with you. Perhaps you’ll enjoy the books as much as I did. In addition, please, please, please share with me the titles of your favorite memoirs! (Note: I am particularly interested in the following topics: rural America, womanhood, addiction, poverty, and sexual abuse) In fact, I very strictly do not read material that is too detached from the things I am writing about, which are the topics mentioned above. This may sound ignorant to you, it is not, this is a strategy. I am very focused on writing this memoir right now. I am eating and breathing these things. I’ll read a memoir about English high-society later. I really will.

Okay, here’s the list (sans the books that were already mentioned):

A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn
Promiscuity by Kerry Cohen
Tweek by Nic Sheff
A Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
Some Girls: My Life in a Harem by Jullian Lauren
Expecting to Fly by Martha Tod Dudman
Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
I’m Down by Mishna Wolfe
Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis (technically an autobio, but whatever)