A monthly letter from Gotham’s dean of faculty, Kelly Caldwell (usually writing advice)
“What’s the first thing that happened to your writing practice when lockdown started?” my friend Maria asked me.
“Same as what happened to everyone else. Everything closed.”
Gotham’s office closed. All the coffee shops closed. My writing space closed. My writers group stopped meeting at a bright, bustling diner on 14th Street. Because it’s closed.
“Fix that. And then never, ever do it again!”
One of my all-time favorite teachers said that to me in a workshop once—in a voice more good-natured ribbing than barking command—after I wrote “my sisters and I” when I should have written “my sisters and me.” It was a small flub, one my classmates didn’t even notice.
In his excellent book How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, Alexander Chee at one point compares writing to being sequestered in jail by your own story: “You in a small dark room with no answers to any of your questions, and no one seems to hear your pleas, not for days, months, years. Indifferent the entire time to all requests for visits or freedom. Hard labor too.”
Or, as my student Christola puts it: “I’m writing at writing.”
Continue reading “Don’t Despair”