JuCO

Friends,

So begins a series of posts about the New York City Associated Writing Programs Conference (heretofore shortened to NYC AWP). I intend on writing a few of these. They won't all take the form of complaining about the conference because I had a great time even though I was absent from all the drunken chicanery, unlike last year. However, this first one is a complaint about a session...but it's completely warranted.

There's always a risk in attending sessions at AWP because a majority of them are designed to sell you things. There are not too many chances for people to pitch directly to an audience full of literary types, so they go for it. I don't blame them because it makes good sense. How else are you going to sell any copies of a book of notes taken by Charles Simic unless you advertise it directly to the people who would buy it and AWP provides a unique opportunity for publishers where thousands of literary types are together in one place. It's good business sense to sell your wares here. Now, even though they are blameless on that front in my eyes, some of the sessions are unforgivably bad. Take, for instance, the Joyce Carol Oates reading and discussion session.

If you don't know who Joyce Carol Oates is, then follow that link back there. To summarize it, she's highly anthologized, widely lauded, and exteremly prolific in her output. Essentially, she's exactly the type of author a group of literary authors would want to listen to and learn from. She could speak with authority on any number of craft topics to just the nuts and bolts of her writing routine to her self-editing process to what it's like to be a literary icon. Suffice to say, I had high hopes.

Typically, readings at AWP are the best bets to see because even though they have a sales angle (most readers have a work to sell), they deliver a reading from a literary figure. In a panel, any number of things can go wrong from people not showing to people being unprepared or pushing their product too hard...readings just involve a writer up there reading their work. Simple as that. However, Joyce Carol Oates fucked hers up royally.

The reading began with a long-winded intro by Bret Anthony Johnston (he's the creative writing director at Harvard). I was a little upset by that because I wasn't there to see him, I was there to see Oates (oh, what a fool I was). My sour mood might have stemmed from the previous session I attended, which was a colossal bust (it was an interview with a former executive editor of Random House, and they spent most of the time talking about the editor's family and childhood, and not, as promised by the panel description, information about the publishing industry and "compromises writers must make" to be published). Anyway, Oates takes the stage to a healthy round of applause because, well, she's earned it, and everyone in attendance thought we were in for something special.

Oates takes the podium and starts rambling about her experience rewriting an early novel of hers. Nothing important was talked about, except that she didn't like what she wrote, then went back and rewrote it. Essentially, she thoroughly George Lucased it. She then started the reading portion by reading from an afterword she did to the rewritten work (at least that's what I think the afterword was to, I wasn't clear on what she said). I have no idea what the afterword was about because she kept interrupting herself to adlib unnecessary stuff, then went back to the reading and adlibbed more. It was a jumbled mess. She finished those four pages of drivel and then picked up her second piece to read. It came from this book.

For those who don't want to follow the link, it was a book of writing exercises that was launched at the conference. See, there's the selling angle. And, yes, she read her the writing exercise that she contributed to that book, and also said, a couple of times, about how wonderful her exercises were. Then she retreated to a chair behind her for the discussion section of the event. The reading was over.

I was pissed off. To me, that's the equivalent of going to see Bob Dylan in concert and instead of playing songs, he tunes a guitar and leaves the stage. It's like going to see a movie and instead shown a short film on how they loaded the film into the camera. It's like going to baseball game and all they do is stretch. I had never seen such bullshit. Some may want to point to the Walter Mosley debacle at the Atlanta AWP, but at least he was on-topic with his short reading, Oates might as well have crouched down and shit on the stage for all the effort and apparent interest she put into this. Did she honestly think anyone would want to hear a fucking afterword?

However, I did not leave. It is customary at AWP for people to get up and leave mid-session for any number of reasons, but I didn't. I stuck it out because I had high hopes for the discussion section. Maybe she would say something enlightening about the struggles of writing, and I didn't want to miss it, even though she was clearly in the mood to fuck with an entire audience of hungry writers who, before this reading, revered her.

During the discussion, she only said two things that were of value. Not because they were useful, oh, quite the contrary. During one of her rambling answers to a question I can't begin to remember, she said a person should not try to write a novel unless they are at least in their 20's. Yes, all you 17 year old aspiring novelists should put down the pens...the grandeloquent Oates has decreed your efforts fruitless. What's also strange is that she said this to an audience where not a single person, not one, would be less than 20 years old. Also, what kind of fucking advice is that in the first place?

The other thing of note. The interviewer, who I despised at first because it looked like he was trying to steal the spotlight instead of facilitating a discussion, but I later learned he was trying to save the event from Oates shitheadedness, asked if she had any advice to editors. To paraphrase Oates, she responded, "What do you mean by that? I have nothing to say to those people. I don't know. Keep on truckin." Yes, she said those like it was intended as a racial slur. I was kind of surprised and I felt like I got a little bit of "inside baseball" knowledge because earlier that day, I went to a great session about editors and their relationship to authors (which starred Karen Russell and the ficton editor to the New Yorker) and the New Yorker editor said that sometimes, certain big name authors refuse to have their work edited at all, so when they get a piece from those authors, they have to approach it carefully. It's clearly Oates is one of those egomanical stet stampers (not that authors shouldn't stand up for their work, but rejecting edits outright is foolish).

The audience laughed uncomfortably at this because it was unexpected and very strange, even for a woman who was clearly only interested in cashing whatever check AWP had written to her (and by her performance, the check must have cleared before she took the stage).

She had the same "keep on truckin'" advice for readers and had nothing of any note to say to young writers. And that ended her session. She received a round of courtesy applause by those people who stuck it out. I didn't clap, and just sat their dumfounded at what I just saw.

What she did was a disgrace. Yes, the literary interview was shoddy, but I figured going in that that was a gamble. However, a reading with one of the pre-eminent figures of modern literature...that's a hard thing to fuck up, and Joyce couldn't have fucked it sloppier or with less care. If she had gone up there and read from "The DaVinci Code" I would have been happier than what I got out of her. Admittedly, maybe she's suffering from dementia since she is quite old, or maybe she got in a tiff with an AWP organizer since she wasn't given an 830 time slot that's usually reserved for the headliners and instead was given a 430 time slot...essentially an opening act for John Irving. Also, in the literary interview session, the interviewer (douchebag's name withheld) said that one way to save the short story was to "not give it away for free" like how David Sedaris doesn't give free public readings, therefore short story writers shouldn't do it either (it didn't make sense to me either...I think he was trying to say something along the lines of generating a buzz and creating hype around literary events). With that in mind, maybe Oates subscribes to that theory. Maybe she wasn't getting paid much for her "services" and decided she wasn't going to give a story up for free and instead wants everyone to pay top dollar for it.

I have to say though, no matter what her reasoning was, what she did was unprofessional, below her, and straight bush league. Why agree to do this kind of event if all your going to do is knowingly be a complete waste? Why choose to do a reading for writing students if you don't even intend on reading or discussing your work in a useful way? What the hell was anyone supposed to get out of this?

In other words, fuck you Joyce Carol Oates, you junior college hag. You may write some fine sentences, and you may be a fine author, but I'm sure not buying any of your books because of your AWP performance.

And finally, what pisses me off the most, is that I turned down a chance to be in a Late Show with David Letterman audience because I wanted to see Oates read so bad. Also, I would have missed the literary interview session that also pissed me off. Oh, and what did I miss on the Late Show? Well, depending on which show they tape early on Thursdays, I either missed Thursday's show that featured Stupid Human Tricks, Eva Longoria and Colbie Caillat (?) or Friday's show that featured Paris Hilton, Artie Lange and Vampire Weekend.

Yes, Joyce Carol Oates was so bad, I would have rather watched Paris Hilton promote a movie or watch a man stuff himself into a duffle bag than see what Oates did.

Viva el mustache