This was an all-day event February 13, 2014. We had our typical 3 hour fiction workshop from 1-4 and then at 4:30 we had (as a class) a private Q&A session with him. His stories were quite interesting: he did not grow up thinking he was going to be a writer. he did not go to school knowing that he loved to write and that that was what he wanted to do with his life. But when he got to Princeton University, he ended up applying to the writing program.

In that time, he had developed a rivalry with another writer who told him that he would never get into the program. Indeed, that year he was not accepted into the creative writing program. The second year he applied he got in, and then consequently studied with Toni Morrison as his creative writing advisor.

Another amusing story he shared regarded his first novel, which we read an excerpt of in class. We asked if he loved his novel when it was published. He said absolutely, and added that he thought it would get him to be rich and famous. Of course, now he looks down on that writing and certainly that kind of thinking. Nowadays, he is not nearly so fond of his first novel, and enjoys his non-fiction book, much more.

Later that night at his reading, it was done in a different way than I have usually seen a reading. As he read the excerpt he had selected (from his memoir Rez Life)he kept interrupting himself to share the backstory of the scene he was reading, or a memory the scene triggered, or at least some tangentially relevant story. It was highly entertaining and it seemed to give me more of a reason to show up to the reading, rather than just going to listen to something I could just read later. Probably my favorite VWS event I’ve attended so far.

Until Next Time,

Joe