All 2 entries tagged 826Valencia

Practice of Fiction Week 1 Notes

Here are the weblinks/texts I referenced during the first session:

Online:

Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/

Valentino Achak Deng’s charity
http://www.valentinoachakdeng.org/
(Video there of the school in Marial Bai.)

The Believer
http://www.believermag.com/

McSweeney's Quarterly Concern (the main magazine):
http://store.mcsweeneys.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/catalog.list/object_id/9772B00C-B37F-4915-88F8-8ED96E79EBF1/Journals.cfm

The Wholphin (DVD Magazine):
http://store.mcsweeneys.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/catalog.detail/object_id/2AF2AE97-8E22-4F9C-AC58-FA31F8D5347F/WholphinDVDSubscription.cfm

826Valencia
http://www.826valencia.org/
(I thought it was outside of San Francisco during class - I was wrong:
"We are located at 826 Valencia between 19th and 20th Streets in the Mission District of San Francisco. ")

Dave Eggers' TED Talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_eggers_makes_his_ted_prize_wish_once_upon_a_school.html

Dave Eggers' Short Short Stories at The Guardian:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/shortshortstories/0,,1178980,00.html
(These were redrafted for his Penguin collection.)

Dave Eggers' Short and Sweet article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/jun/18/shortshortstories.fiction

Donald Barthelme website, Barthelmismo:
http://www.eskimo.com/~jessamyn/barth/

Reading:

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers

What is the What, by Dave Eggers & Valentino Achak Deng

The Believer Magazine, ed. Vendela Vida (Dave's wife)

The Believer Book of Writers Talking Writers (revised & expanded), ed. Vendela Vida

The McSweeney's Book of Poets Picking Poets, ed. Dominic Luxford

A partial and poorly informed list of writers sometimes connected to McSweeney's:

Robert Coover

Nick Hornby

Zadie Smith

Michael Chabon

George Ttoouli : 13 Oct 2009 14:00 |  Tags: 826Valencia Creative Writing Dave Eggers Mcsweeneys Practice Of Fiction Valentino Achak Deng |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Get Believe OK!

Writing about web page http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dave_eggers_makes_his_ted_prize_wish_once_upon_a_school.html

So, my latest creative bible of the past few months, without a doubt, has to be The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers. It's like the Paris Review's Art of Fiction series - The Paris Review Interviews, but with quirkier design and a bit more balance between interviewer and interviewee. In fact, it's like there are two interviewers and two interviewees in each conversation.

I'm not through the whole of it yet, but I'm already sure it needs to go on the reading lists for next year's Intro to Creative Writing. It's just a shame that the sodding McSweeneys Store seems to rely on a mixture of camel wagons, turtles and snailcraft to deliver their stuff to the UK. Take my advice, find a UK bookshop that can order it for you. You also end up paying ridiculous >$13 postal charges. Then again, most of the stuff isn't stocked over here. I got my copy from Foyles in Charing X Rd.

I'm a Believer, myself, in the McSweeneys/Believer mission and tone, much in love with it all. It sometimes leans too heavily in favour of US-based ideas/cultural references (the series of hardware tools in the magazine was like King of the Hill, but with only one joke), but there's nothing else has happy, life affirming and experimental over here in the UK. At least, not on that scale, with that range. I'm working on it, but it ain't easy.

Then again, anyone who's tripped over 826Valencia will know that certain things translate very well - and should be translated. I've heard background noises about people who've attempted to get over to Valencia and find out how they do it from the inside, in order to set up shop over in the UK. I once planned on trying to take a couple of months out of a summer to go over myself as a volunteer, but never found the time (if I start planning now for 2010, it might happen). It's not just a worthy cause, it's something that's been proven to create change and has the research to back up its mission of providing 1:1 tuition for school kids.

Don't just take my word for it. Luke Heeley sent me the link to Dave Eggers' TED talk, a little while ago, and it spells everything out brilliantly. Now all we need is a couple of hundred thousand pounds, and a place like Coventry to test the project out: two universities, a couple of very strong volunteering networks and several struggling schools with major resource issues.

George Ttoouli : 29 May 2009 09:00 |  Tags: 826Valencia Creative Writing Dave Eggers Ted The Believer The Believer Book Of Writers Talking To Writers |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem