Adventures at a Writer’s Residency: Captain Val Goes to Vermont Studio Center

Ahoy, ye shipmates!
     Today I take you on a past adventure, one from 2007. Writers often need to flee ship and crew, go far away to capture treasure on paper. The place they go? A residency. This, me scallywags, is a place for contemplation, immersion, communing with the story. Residencies are applied for and often denied as the need is high, writers many, and possibilities limited. Aye, I've been lucky and nailed many a residency, and one of my favorite was a month in winter at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont, a wee hamlet that echoes me own home town in spirit, where you'll still find stenciled on the sidewalks "Kill Your TV."
      Me choice is to show ye the place, the pirates I was on board with, and the flavor of a what a month with the muse is like. Here ye be. Enjoy!

I arrive in Burlington, Vermont, and spend a few days with me best pal from high school, Christie, and hang out with her hubby and grandchildren. Christie takes me to Johnson for me first day and for most of the month I'm there, the bloody place looks like Antarctica.

 

 

The photo to the left is of the writer's building, fairly new, and accommodating up to fourteen writers. The Gihon River runs through Johnson and was frozen over in most places. Aye, we had some sun, and for those liverbelly landlubbers who find themselves chilled to the bone from just settin' eyes on these pics, well, toss yer eyes on the ones below from the Vermont Studio Center website:

The Red Mill building, dining hall, rec room, offices, gallery

VSC

The Writers Building on a better day

Aerial view of VSC

    

     "Founded by artists in 1984, the Vermont Studio Center is the largest international artists' and writers' Residency Program in the United States, hosting 50 visual artists and writers each month from across the country and around the world. The Studio Center provides 4-12 week studio residencies on an historic 30-building campus along the Gihon River in Johnson, Vermont, a village in the heart of the northern Green Mountains. "

     Aye, maties, that's the gist o' it. The month I was there, I and the writers worked with Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever and Servants of the Map, a hearty wise and wonderful woman who upon our first workshop with her, pulled out a beautious silk Chinese bag full of found objects and covered with dragonflies. Seein' me totem is the dragonfly, I blurted out, "My totem!" and then explained, whereupon, she emptied the bag and handed it to me. "It's yours." I almost threw meself down on the floor from worship of this magnificent wench. She then spoke of found objects, how they spawn the novels she writes. In the past, at other VSC residencies, I've had me the privilege of working with Rick Moody, who played guitar while we sat around a rousing bonfire and sang along, and Joanna Scott, a  masterful author with many novels to her name and a hell o' of a ping pong game.

      Residency days are spent either in your bedroom writing or in your writing studio. Me favorite way to start the day is to make me a cuppa tea and climb back inta bed with the laptop. I'll be gobsmacked if this doesn't tap into the writin' faster 'n gettin' dressed, havin' breakfast at the dining hall, talkin' to the artists, and headin' o'er to the studios. By then I've done left the magical world of half dream, half reality that so primes me writin'. Here's what me bedroom looked like:

     I had me no trouble lovin' this room. It felt like I was back in college. That of course was exactly what made us act in such ... well, juvenile manner at times. We had our parties, oh, yes, indeed, and they were of fine spirit. As an instigator o' fine partying, believin' we need to reward ourselves for the hard work we put in day after day (and it not be easy, I can tell ye; there be a fair bit of groanin' goin' on o'er missin' muses, troublesome verse, and lackluster prose), I felt we needed succor. So me specialty being the bright pink cosmo, I sailed down to the liquor store and bought me  the ingredients. The night of the party, I set up the bar and began mixin'. Now, I best be tellin' ya, I not be the only pirate of the sort. Me cosmos disappeared down the gullet of all me fine messmates, dancin' ensued, people grabbed the basement poles and did a turn or two. The basement rec room filled with laughter and merriment. When me vodka ran out, someone whispered to check the fridge. 'Tis a crazy cache of liquor and beer, and plenty of vodka. Aye, we partied to the wee hours.

Me and the fine Andrea Barrett

No comment on these merrymakers!

     Throughout the month, the artists at VSC hold studio tours, a fine way of seein' works in progress. As writers, we share our work by reading at the community center on designated nights along with our visiting authors. During one of the readings we posed for a group portrait. A few of my pirate pals I offer here.

Your Captain at the helm

Great mate Lesley Howard gracing us with her story

Justin Quarry, gobsmacked us with his reading

Writers, one and all

     But the beginnin' o' each day was always 'bout the work, putting our fingers to the keyboard, pen or pencil. Here's me writing desk at the studio, along wi' an obsession of mine:  takin' photos of shoes  and also the books I happen ta be readin'.

My favorite? The Last of Her Kind

Pre MacBook

What we wore to the writers' studio

Debby, Kent, me, Chris and Jeff

Me, Chris and Debby

Falling out the door?

Before the end of the month,  me brothers and their wives came up  for a day from New Hampshire, and we pirated around Stowe and I'm happy to report I kicked derriere in pool. Yo, ho, ho!!

So that be it for me log this week, hearties. Come back next week for the two-part adventure "Runnin' for Me Life: Tsunami!" a story rife with tension and worthy of a read.

      Until then, I remain always yours,

      Captain Val

COMING UP!

Runnin’ for Me Life:  Tsunami!

More News & Confirmed Gossip from the Writing World

And … an unusual interview with cartoonist Jan Eliot of “Stone Soup

Lucille Ball and Brenda Starr’s Love Child: Interview with Jessica Maxwell

Ahoy, me Gobsmacked Crew!

Jess Maxwell

            Yer in fer a treat. On May 27^th, Jessica Maxwell, author of the wildly successful Roll Around Heaven: An All-True Accidental Spiritual Adventure (phew!), sat down with me at Bella Vita Spa in Salem, Oregon, to answer a few questions. Instead of the usual interview—ar-ha-ha!—me pirate’s playful nature needed a playground. Seein’ twas still me birthday week, and Jess was treatin’ me to a pedicure, why not ha’ our brilliant nail technicians (who know Jessica and RAH) ask the questions? (Aye, captains love ta leave the work to the crew!)

            So wi’out further ado, here be the interview!

            Elena Leo, Jessica’s Bella Vita nail technician.

            Elana Leo:  How old were you when you decided to be a writer?

            Jessica:  A good question, because until I was sixteen I wanted to be a doctor. I always wanted to heal people. But when they were handing out math brain cells, I got back into the poetry line, and I didn’t get any math brain cells.

            So at sixteen, I knew I couldn’t do medicine, and I said to myself, I’m good at English, was even in honors English. Plus, I’m a redhead. I can be either Brenda Starr or Lucille Ball.

            Brenda was more appealing because she had all these exotic assignments all over the world. Plus, she had Basil St. John, this tall boyfriend who always showed up wherever she was, and he wore an eye patch, which I found intriguing. She had these fabulous clothes, and I thought what a great job! I ended up doing all this without the Basil part.

            Now, Lucille Ball was not a part I counted on. I had assignments for serious stories. The first one was on the LA sewer system, and I wanted to do an environmental story. But when I arrived, it’s Girl Scout day and only Girl Scouts could tour the sewer system. So I pretended to be in one of the troops. While I was on one of their tours, I noticed the workers at the sewer had big fancy rings. I said to one of them, “Man, they must pay you well,” and he said, “Oh, no. It’s finders keepers.”

            Then I interviewed the supervisor of the LA sewer system. I sat down with him and interviewed him very seriously. After, I asked, “Okay, what is your name?”

            He said, “Arthur F. Sewer.”

            I laughed, and he didn’t. “Is that your real name?”

            He nodded. 

            “How do you spell that?”

            “Suhr.”

            See? I tried to do a serious story and ended up with outrageous comedy. I was Lucy from then on.

             

            Michelle Moore, me Bella Vita nail technician asks her question.

            Michelle: What flower do you most identify with?

            Jessica: I adore flowers. And old Indian master Swami Satchidananda once said, “Flowers are God smiling at you.” And I thought that was so neat because you look at a flower, and it’s so beautiful and happy, even in the middle of yuck!

            What flower do I identify with? For some reason I love violets. When I lived in France my junior year of college every February-March is violet season, and they have little bouquets of violets. I actually have a little bouquet of faux violets I pin on my dresses all the time. I think they’re just so … so French! I love lilac time, too. I love cherry blossoms. What I love about flowers is they represent blooming again, every year, and if you think about it, it’s amazing we can count on spring bringing us again so much hope. I mean, what if flowers never bloomed again? In terms of a spiritual symbol, the lotus flower is the symbol of what the Eastern people call enlightenment. I don’t know if you know this, but the lotus floats on top of water, and its roots go down like jelly fish into the mud. So it gets its nourishment from the mud of life and then blooms forth on the surface. I think that’s perfect. Our feet are in the mud. Life’s messy, yet we can still bloom. So I love that. I have a lotus on my keychain.

            The other thing that comes to mind about flowers is my dad. He was born in Honolulu and lived in New Zealand, and any South Pacific flower—the pikake, gardenia, tiare—their beautiful fragrance, it’s like you’re smelling heaven right here on earth.

            I was on assignment and remember getting off the plane in Tahiti. They have tiare flowers planted everywhere. It’s very smart. And it’s not sickly sweet. They say the masters produce a fragrance, and that’s wild. All in all, I associate flowers with the highest, deepest level of awareness that we can attain on this planet here and now.

 

            I, as Gobsmacked Captain, could not be left out of the interview. I’ve known me shipmate Jessica for years, know the quest she was accidentally dropped into, and ha’ seen the results. She might write for all the big mags—National Geographic, Esquire, Audubon, Forbes, Gourmet, Outside, Town & Country  to name a few—but her True North is not of this earth, at least not that we know of. Being a witness to these adventures, I had one burning question.

            Captain Val:  Of all the questions in all the interviews you’ve done, what question have you not been asked that you would have liked to answer?

            Jessica:  (a long pause; a faraway look in the eye; husky low voice)

            What no one has asked me and what I have not volunteered is what I’m going to do in the next book. I’m going to write about what I really know—what I really know—because I don’t go around talking about it because it is so out there, or in there, and it’s not about me; it’s what we know, we’re always dancing around, even with the concept of enlightenment or samsara. The reason that I know what I know is that I live and I experience it, but I don’t talk about it. It’s so profound. And I don’t mean I have any big secret. I mean these trappings we give to the real stuff is the best we can do.

            It’s like when you’re writing. You have your idea and who the characters are, but what is their story? We call it inspiration, this unbelievable knowingness that comes through, and you write and write, and somehow a paragraph happens, the best you’ve written in years, and it glows. What is it, Val, really? We’ve tried to put words to it, but if you say “I’m channeling,” well …

            The words that come close are tainted by religious history, which makes intelligent people throw the baby out with the baptismal water. And what I’ve really come to understand didn’t come like a lightening strike.

Lama Karma

            What’s interesting is watching how people respond to my workshops. I’m giving them information, and we have a wonderful time, but certain people get that it’s literally coming through me, and it’s like transference. Like I say to them, “I’m the spiritual FedEx girl and don’t crown the messenger.” It’s a very interesting situation to be in because I instinctively know what people can take and not take, what you can offer and what you can’t because you don’t even talk about it. What you’re offering is something deeper but you don’t even talk about that because it comes with it.

            The closest I have found to a description of what that is I found in this book Glen, Randy’s* husband, gave me on Tibetan mysticism. How they understand the sound of chanting is bringing you and your mind to this place of peace—and that’s hackneyed too—but it’s literally medicine for your soul. Even that’s not it. But it’s starting to describe the undercurrents that are at work. A baby monk will be taught a chant, and the energy of the sounds, the rhythms and the cadence, will take the monk to this place.

            The first time I “got” it was when Lama Karma on New Years was chanting and I listened and was taken to a place where I understood the design within the chanting.

            Back to me, the Captain. I can tell no more o’ this interview because Pirate Maxwell asked me to keep the rest confidential so it is saved for her next book.

            But I ha’ to throw in me pieces o’ eight. Me thinks what she’s sayin’ is like when sailors thought the world flat and they’d fall off the end of the earth if they went too far. That’s where we be in the spiritual realm. We’re just waitin’ to find out the earth is round, and we’re spinnin’, and we can’t fall off because the design is so freakin’ awesome. And, nay, I be non religious, just a spiritual pirate spoutin’ similes.

            Ah, but I must ask one last question of Jess. Can’t resist.

            Captain Val:  What is your dream?

            Jessica: To have a farmhouse in the beautiful Paro Valley of Bhutan.

            So for ye on a spiritual sail, bon voyage!

            And “Stay tunaed,” as Miss Maxwell is fond o’ sayin’. The Gobsmacked is headed for adventure! With a private peek at me month at Vermont Studio Center and a frightenin’ tale of me run-in wi’ a tsunami. Shiver me timbers!

            Until then, I remain your

            Captain Val

*Randy is Jessica’s best friend.

COMING UP!

Adventures at a Writer’s Residency: Captain Val Goes to Vermont Studio Center

Runnin’ for Me Life:  Tsunami!

More News & Confirmed Gossip from the Writing World

And … an unusual interview with cartoonist Jan Eliot of “Stone Soup

News, Gossip and Found Objects

News and confirmed gossip for you, messmate writers and readers:

Sugar

            Seattle7 Writers Group member Randy Sue Coburn says she knows who “Sugar” on The Rumpus is. Arrrrrgh! I’m dying to find out. Will she tell? Nay! I love Sugar, a columnist for The Rumpus who is one of those straight shooters with heart. Stern, yet loving. She calls everyone “Sweet Pea.” What a great friend she’d make: she tells the truth while giving concrete advice on how to handle your woes and sniveling. (So, Sugar, if RS can figure out who you are, I’ll bet you’re somewhere nearby. Portland or Seattle?) Readers and writers will love Sugar’s column, “We are All Savages Inside,” where she gives “Jealous Writer” a good thrashing. Check out her link at blog’s end.

            And if you’re not familiar with The Rumpus, don’t ask me what it is. It defies definition, although Wiki states it’s “an online cultural commentary site.” Snore! You really need to be there, in the experience, to appreciate it. Kind of like the ‘60s.

            I’ll not be fergettin’ the Seattle7. They’ve taken on a new crew member (Should the Seattle7 change their name to Seattle7Plus?), one of my favorite authors and transplants to our watery Northwest, Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America.

            Ah, now there’s a tale!

My favorite news of the past few weeks:

            Here’s my gutsy new heroine—Lidia Yuknavitch. Besides writin’ a powerful personal tale that will swing ya round the yardarm, she stood up in front of an audience at Powell’s in Portland to read from her memoir—in fishnet stockings, a swimsuit, swim cap and goggles. She threw souvenir goggles to the hungry sharks in the audience. Lidia, a true buccaneer, spirited away these folks with a reading from Chronology of Water.  

           Read Debra Gwartney’s review linked below.

FOUND OBJECTS

            Last Captain’s Log, I wrote ‘bout found objects as a way to set a writer’s ship to sail. In art, ‘tis easy to understand the use of found objects. Here’s what Wiki has to say:

“A found object, in an artistic sense, indicates the use of an object which has not been designed for an artistic purpose, but which exists for another purpose already. Found objects may exist either as utilitarian, manufactured items, or things that occur in nature. In both cases the objects are discovered by the artist or musician to be capable of being employed in an artistic way, and are designated as ‘found’ to distinguish them from purposely created items used in the art forms.”

            I be suggestin’ that this idea belongs to the writerly craft, too, only the found object can be anything that makes itself known, that twinkles and flashes bright, and demands notice. At the time of “founding,” it may not figure consciously, but will later land in a writer’s work and can even be a piece of art that is used metaphorically, perhaps to elucidate the theme or represent an idea.

Bread & Puppet Museum

            A few years back, I sailed to Seattle to spend a week with a friend. We was searchin’ for somethin’ to entertain. We bought tickets to a shadow-puppet play. We was gobsmacked. I’d just been at a month-long residency at Vermont Studio Center and had the great enormous pleasure of seeing the famous Bread and Puppet Theater group perform and met the founders. The two experiences combined for a lively discussion with my friend and so inspired her that, much later, a character in her now novel-in-progress took up puppet theater as her artistic road.

            In movie making, found objects are called motifs. Perchance, writers do too, only I like the substance of using the term found object instead of motifs.

            Are ya readin’ a novel or memoir now? Keep an instinct for something that lights up on the page like Venus in the night sky. A necklace made of pop tops. A heart-shaped rock. A pretty camisole fluttering on a clothesline in the breeze, then worn by a teen, and finally found on the floor of an apartment. Why is it there? Did the writer first see this on a walk through an unfamiliar neighborhood? What does a camisole represent? Sometimes, the meaning isn’t clear at first. Or right away, say, you sense the camisole represents vulnerability.

            Here be another example. Last Log, I posted this photo:

            No caption. No explanation. Stumbling across those chandeliers in Miami grabbed me gut. I couldn’t shake the image. The store was floor to ceiling with expensive objects, from shelves of Fabergé eggs to Art Deco marble pedestals. But those chandeliers lit me up.

            “Where did you find all these?” I asked the storeowner.

            “I do not find them. People come to me.”

            Really?

            “The people need to sell. Times have been difficult.”

            Ah! Here the rich sell off their riches. Maybe it’s me pirate blood, ‘cause I was entranced. Sure these trinkets are small doubloons for many, but for me chandeliers are prime booty, and not of the derriere sort. Chandeliers are motifs of the rich. Objets d’art.

            I wonder where in my stories they’ll appear? But until then, they appear only here and in my treasure chest of found objects. So … until the anchor drops again in a land that glitters I am …

Faithfully yours,

Captain Val  

Sugar on The Rumpus: “We are All Savages Inside”

http://therumpus.net/2011/03/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-69-we-are-all-savages-inside/

Debra Gwartney’s review of Lidia Yuknavitch’s Chronology of Water

http://www.oregonlive.com/books/index.ssf/2011/04/the_chronology_of_water_review.html

Bread & Puppet: Cheap Art and Political Theater in Vermont

http://breadandpuppet.org/

Coming Up! (Keep laughin’, you scallywags!)

"The Fountain of Creative Ideas, or Why My Resume Wouldn't Land Me a Normal Job"

"Platform, Flatform"

"A View of My Writers Room Wall: What Inspires Me"

... and soon an interview with Jessica Maxwell of Roll Around Heaven

Storming the Publishing Galleon

Comment from Captain Val-- 23 February 2011

            We are anchored in seas far from the Horn of Africa and those who give our name dread. Pirates have, in the literal sense, robbed and plundered other ships for centuries.

            But our ship, this wordy wench, serves a different mission and flies a metaphorical flag. The word pirate derives from Middle English (peira) meaning “an attempt, attack.” What we attempt is exchange: your time for our words, whether they be fiction or non. We use words for cutlass and gunnery. If we attack anything, it will be preconceived ideas. We may roust ya from your comfortable beliefs or capture your romantic heart with a swashbuckling adventure. The mission takes a lifetime. No retirement for a pirate of our ilk. We bloody well die with pen in hand or keyboard on lap, but if we kill you at all, it will be with a tale so utterly tremendously moving, you’ll go back and read it again, because in the emotional pain you found a key to the door you closed on yourself many years ago. 

 As pirates, we offer only discovery.

So on with the story ...

           Mates. Be warned. This will not be a pretty tale.

            I’m talkin’ about this pirate’s personal adventures in raising the Jolly Roger on an elusive, tricky, constantly changing ship—the Publishing Galleon. If ye have the fortitude for hearin’ this, read on.

            Writin’, for the most part, is a most joyful art. Nay, I didn’t say easy. I’ve heard it said that anyone can write, unlike painting. Whatever landlubber said those words should be tossed to the sharks. We’re not talkin’ drivel, mates. Years have passed learnin’ the craft in classes and workshops, applying for awards and residencies, attendin’ conferences, learnin’ all that has to be learned in this profession, reworking a fifth—and not last—draft, pages after pages never used, days of research for one bit o’ detail. You don’t just “be” anything. It takes education, experience, practice, mistakes, failures, successes, connectin’. ’Tis a royal pain in the ass, for certain. But thar be more on this later in the weeks to come. Today we attack publishing. And attackin’ publishing is like a solitary ship sent out to take the Queen’s Armada.

            I begin my tale with my first novel, Can You Hear Me Dreaming, finished sometime around ’91. Or was it ’92? Before attacking the Publishing Galleon, ya need a hearty helmsman called an agent. By way of an Oregon Writers Colony conference, an agent took me on. High ho! I was hoistin’ me black flag.

            After the agent sent my manuscript to NYC editors (back in the day when hard copies needed to be sent by snail mail and you had to reimburse the agent for these expenses, killing a tree in the process), an editor at Putnam said she wanted it. Ahoy, you could hear my triumphant shouts in Tasmania.

            Off the agent sailed to the Big Apple. But after a meetin’ with said editor and other Putnam “people,” including the “marketing rep,” it was turned down. Avast! Those loathsome marketeers said they already had a novel like it in the pipeline. The valiant editor walked my agent to the elevator and said, “Tell Valerie she’s not just a writer, she’s an author.” Well, shiver me timbers. I’d live off that for a while.

            Being a novice, I let my agents hand the manuscript back to me, their job supposedly done. I shelved the novel and went on.

            My second novel, Parallel Crossings took years, but will be my pieces of eight, I swear. Aye, I was told repeatedly that I’d taken on the hardest structure to work with—parallel plots. I care naught what “they” say. Characters tell me tales, and I’m hooked. Two women, one from Civil War time, another from the Vietnam era, told me each their tale and how they interlocked. Could I refuse them? My readers along the route loved it, even when it wasn’t ready.

            So while anchoring at Vermont Studio Center, a famous author championed my work and referred me to the grande dame of NYC agents, Elaine Markson, who accepted the novel and became my agent. Eager to meet her, I left my ship and flew to New York. A sharp, experienced woman with a list of famous writers, including Alice Hoffman, I just knew she could sell anything.

            Unfortunately, after seven editors turned the novel down, she sent the manuscript back, saying maybe a younger agent would have the energy and time to devote to it. Need I say how I felt?

            I let that novel go cold as a dead fish and started the novel I’m currently working on now. After a year or so, I pulled out Parallel Crossings and began revisions—again. After I finished, my readers assured me it was compelling and they “couldn’t put it down.” Now to find a new agent.

            After many rejections, one agent sent me the following (aye, my wall is a collage of anything that keeps me going and here you can see a few comments by readers and a manuscript page):

            Helen and I worked on the manuscript together, changed its title from Finding Vincible to her savvy suggestion Parallel Crossings, attached a blurb from a New York Times bestselling author, and off it went. Over a year, Helen tried to sell it. The editors she submitted to were tops, her energy was amazing, and her communications with me kept me positive. I didn’t have to be told what a tough market it was, or that e-readers were changing the landscape of publishing, or that bookstores were in decline. Writers know these things. But after eighteen rejections and a few editors leaving their door open to a rewrite, we stopped.

            And that’s where I am today. Writin’ my new novel and reworkin’ the second. Do I surrender? No, nay, ne'er.

            But this tale is only the bones. So if ya curiosity is up, let me know what I can tell ya in future. Give me a hearty hello on the comment thread. As my shipmate, you have my ear.

My Coaster

            Livin’ to tell the tale,

            Captain Val

Coming Up! 

"Dangerous Territory: the Mind of a Writer"

"The Fountain of Creative Ideas, or Why My Resume Wouldn't Land Me a Normal Job"

"Platform, Flatform"

... and an interview with Jessica Maxwell of Roll Around Heaven