Week in Seven Words #130

compensatory
In the absence of music, I hum more.

cyborg
He's a lean, mean furniture-moving machine, hefting tables, chairs and a futon without pausing for breath. Sort of like the Terminator, but instead of hailing from a post-apocalyptic future he works for a group that accepts donated furniture. He has no visible emotional expression but cheers us up considerably.

inspiration
The day is long and hot, and the moving van is filling up with bags, boxes and bins. The experience is worthy of a song parody, and he gets started on one during his nth elevator trip.

jetsam
The accumulated clutter was symbolic of baggage I needed (and still need) to get rid of.

shambles
It's happened again. Their relationship has gone down in flames.

shredding
I feel like an industrious rodent, hunched over tearing paper apart with my busy paws.

slotted
The shirts are all on the shelves in rippling textures and rainbow colors.

Worth Watching: Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

Title: Theodora Goes Wild
Director: Richard Boleslawski
Language: English
Rating: Unrated

Theodora Lynn (Irene Dunne) lives with her two respectable aunts in the small New England town of Lynnfield where she plays the organ at church and teaches Sunday school. No one would suspect that she writes under the pseudonym of Caroline Adams, the author of a racy best-selling novel that causes an uproar in Lynnfield when the town newspaper prints installments of it.


Theodora feels conflicted about having to hide her literary career. During a visit to her publisher in New York City, she considers giving up on writing and sticking only to her quiet life in Lynnfield. But then she runs into Michael Grant (Melvyn Douglas), the illustrator of her book's cover. He finds out where she lives, follows her home, and tries to badger her into revealing herself and living a freer, more open life. As it turns out, Michael is a hypocrite about living openly and honestly, and in the second half of the movie Theodora turns the tables on him, making him live up to his own advice.


The romance didn't do much for me. Michael was mostly obnoxious, blackmailing Theodora and acting on wrong-headed assumptions; the shtick where he whistles and whistles and keeps Theodora and her aunts awake also went on for too long. I disliked him for much the same reason that I found Clark Gable's character unattractive in It Happened One Night - he bullies, he blusters, he's too puffed up. You don't know what his intentions are, especially when you find out what he's hiding. Does he follow Theodora home to have some fun at her expense? Does he want to set a kindred spirit free? (Yes to both?)

I don't understand why Theodora falls in love with him, except because the plot told her to. I do like that she doesn't let him get too full of himself. For instance at one point when they're picking blackberries he lies back in lordly fashion and tells her to drop some berries into his mouth, to which she replies, "Well who's going to chew them for you?"

This is really Irene Dunne's show, and she's the main reason I like Theodora Goes Wild. She's convincing both as a mousy small-town girl and as a society lady who seems to flout all the rules. Neither role reflects the full truth about Theodora; at heart she's a good-natured person with ordinary passions, but nobody wants to believe it. As long as it doesn't touch them people love a good scandal, the more outrageous the better.


With a mix of genuineness and dishonesty, and with lots of humor, Theodora navigates the separate social spheres of Lynnfield and New York City and thumbs her nose at the narrow-minded conventions found in both places. She doesn't let fame turn her head. She stays grounded and has fun, putting on expensive furs and some unusual hats that resemble modern art sculptures and that only Irene Dunne could get away with wearing without looking ridiculous.

There are some good supporting characters in this film: Theodora's stern aunts (played by Elisabeth Risdon and Margaret McWade), who may be more loving than they first appear; her sly adorable uncle (Robert Greig); and Lynnfield's moral arbiter and head gossip, Rebecca Perry (Spring Byington), who regards the very things she disapproves of with wide-eyed relish. But ultimately it's Dunne carrying the film, and she does well with the material and is a pleasure to watch.

*All images link back to their sources (DVDtalk and Wikimedia).

Interview with Elizabeth Spencer

The second interview on this blog is with Elizabeth Spencer, whom I know through a writer's group in Philly. I respect her thorough and thoughtful feedback and enjoy reading her short stories and chapters from her longer work. I'm so glad she's agreed to share her insights about writing (and teaching writing).

Bio
Elizabeth Spencer is an English teacher, fiction writer, and cat foster mom. She graduated from Temple University's MFA program in 2011 and lives in South Philadelphia with her husband and their quirky cats. In her spare time she loves to practice yoga and make photographs. You can meet her foster kittens here and read a short piece of her fiction at this site. One of her short stories, The Permanence of Objects, was recently published in the third issue of C4, and she has launched a new reading series in South Philly featuring prose and poetry writers.

HK: Why do you write?
ES: I've always thought of writing as a compulsion, as something one has to do, or why wouldn't you spend that time doing any number of easier and more enjoyable things? But with that said, the act of writing (when I'm in the middle of it and it's going well) brings me a lot of pleasure and it's also one of the rare times in a day that I'm completely focused on one thing, in an almost meditative state. Most of the "pain" I experience about writing is from letting too many days slip by without working or worrying about what the "result" (i.e. publication) of all this writing will be.

HK: What do you think your strengths are as a writer, and what do you hope to improve on?
ES: I'm observant; people always love the details in my work. The main thing I've been trying to improve on the last few years is plot. My stories and my first attempt at a novel tended to meander without a strong sense of conflict or character motivation.

HK: Share with us some of the most important writing lessons or advice you impart to your students.
ES: Last semester I really stressed dialogue, as in how to make it advance the plot and how to break it up with physical details. I tend to focus on whatever I'm trying to improve in my own work at the time. I also tell them that stories don't need to end with some catastrophe like suicide or 9/11 or a cancer diagnosis. What's helped me the most is the mantra, "work, don't worry." I don't remember who said that. Just put your butt in the chair and stay there for one hour, two hours, three, no matter how you feel or what else is going on in your life. Which makes me remember a favorite piece of advice from one of my professors, Samuel R. Delany, who told us that as writers we'd have to be thieves; we'd have to steal time in order to write regularly.

HK: There are people who say that good writing isn't something that can be taught in a classroom or workshop environment. To what extent do you agree/disagree? What do you think makes for a good writing teacher or mentor?
ES: I think there is some measure of innate talent and/or interest in a person for a certain subject, but no matter how talented you are you still have to practice your ass off to become great at anything. Thus, a writing class can teach you the tools you'll need to produce a great story and can sharpen your sensibilities to recognize what's working and what's not. This is what I feel I got out of graduate school and I think I'm a much stronger writer for it. I recommend yoga for teaching yourself discipline, which is something else you need to become great at anything. As for inspiration, just look around and listen.

What kind of student you are determines what kind of teacher/mentor you need, I think. For me, it's someone encouraging and patient, who is honest with criticism and generous with suggestions, and says over and over, "you can do this."

HK: If you could assemble a panel of any three authors (dead or alive) to give you feedback on your work and discuss writing with you, who would they be and why?
ES: I would have to include my husband Clint Smith, a poet and fiction writer, because he reads everything first and is always brutally honest yet extremely encouraging. He probably knows my work even better than I do. Then I would invite my aforementioned professor Chip because I learned such a lot from him in a short period of time and I want to learn more. Finally, I would love to discuss writing with Joan Didion, but I'd be pretty terrified to receive her feedback. There are many other writers I admire, though. However, I don't think that the best writers always make the best teachers/feedback givers.

HK: What are some of your current writing projects?
ES: A novel that I started in January, two stories that I recently wrote first drafts of in a rare fury of inspiration and productivity, and a third story I just started last week. This isn't typical--I usually only have one or at most two projects going on at any one time.

Thank you, Elizabeth!

Week in Seven Words #129

aftermath
There was a crowd of geese here the week before along with pigeons and turtles all fighting over chunks of bread tossed by a wiry old lady who loves to see her animals fed. Now the rocky ledge that slopes down to the lake has only a few pigeons standing on it, at rest among their droppings.

cache
Oddments found at the back of a nightstand, behind the drawers: a baby photo and a budget written up in Hebrew.

cavort
During the third movement of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto they get up and dance on the baseball diamond.

gloaming
Twilight picnics among evergreen trees.

peeping
High up from the ground, three raccoons poke their heads out of a hole in a tree like cuckoo clock figurines.

virtually
Competing at archery without a bow and arrow, and bowling without a ball.

wending
I've been through this place a number of times but I keep finding new paths. This one overlooks a stream bed where a thread of dark water unspools over tumbling rocks.

Good Short Fiction: The Immortal Story by Isak Dinesen

Title: The Immortal Story
Author: Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)
Where I read it: Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard

Reading this story was like lying in the surf having waves pour over me; I knew I should get up and breathe from time to time, but I wanted to stay where I was until the tide receded.

Who are the characters set in motion in The Immortal Story?

There's Mr. Clay, a miserly English nabob in Canton, who lives in a house full of mirrors that once belonged to his business partner whom he bankrupted (and who then committed suicide). He knows only figures, facts and transactional relationships; money is the defining element and purpose of his existence. After he falls sick, he has a clerk, Elishama, stay up all night reading old account books to him. But one day when they run out of accounts to read, he asks on impulse for a different kind of story.

Elishama is also a man cut off from human relationships, though unlike Mr. Clay he doesn't covet wealth. When Elishama was a young boy his family was murdered in the 1848 pogroms in Poland, and he was passed around from one place to another, taught book-keeping, and finally sent east until he wound up in China. What he wants more than anything else is solitary peace:

One passion he had, if passion it may be called - a fanatical craving for security and for being left alone... His soul was concentrated upon this one request: that he might enter his closet and shut his door, with the certainty that here no one could possibly follow or disturb him.

Elishama has sympathy for women, and for birds, but he doesn't get emotionally involved with anyone; he sees things keenly, but in the spirit of an outsider and not a true participant in life.

In response to his employer's request for another kind of story, Elishama reads aloud from a page once given to him by an old man who left Poland with him when he was six. It's an excerpt from the Book of Isaiah. Listening to it, Mr. Clay asks if any of these prophecies were ever fulfilled, and then wonders why people tell stories about things that never came about. He's determined then to will a story into existence. He decides on one of the few he's ever heard - a sailors' tale - and orders Elishama to help him set it in motion, not as a play but as a real life event.

Who will they enlist as the participants? There's Virginie, a mistress of one of Mr. Clay's employees, who turns out to be a surprising, complex figure. And then there's the sailor they pluck from the harbor, the one willing to trust Mr. Clay and his promises.

Even as Dinesen lays her characters bare, she handles them with gentleness, a kind of sympathy for their shortcomings and pain. I like how each character is jaded and old in some ways, and young and fragile in others. Mr. Clay, for all that he owns the district and feels that everyone is a toy in his hands, is with those same feelings rendered an overreaching child. Elishama seems to understand the price of everything (even if he doesn't always agree with it) and makes some wise observations about what he's seen of life, but he's forever a traumatized child who doesn't want to be hurt again. Virginie still has one foot in her childhood, the happiest time of her life with an affectionate father who used to tell her grand stories; now her view of the world is as a place to get by, to try and feel good and make others feel good. Lastly the sailor mixes boyishness with hard experience.

What happens when Mr. Clay attempts to enact a fictitious tale? Does he have the power to truly bring anything to life? He measures his success by bare dry facts and doesn't seem to realize that while people and relationships can be reduced to transactions they also rise above them. Virginie and the sailor have their own stories to tell behind closed doors, to deepen their encounter, and Mr. Clay knows nothing of it. He might like to think of people as puppets that he twitches along fixed paths, but there's much that goes on beneath the surface - worlds of beauty and sympathy that he can't perceive. Stories take on a life of their own, and miracles can manifest in small ways.

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This post has been linked to at Short Stories on Wednesdays at Simple Clockwork.

Interview with Phyllis Mass

I'm happy that the first interview I'm giving on this blog is with Phyllis Mass. I have the pleasure of knowing Phyllis from our years in a writer's group in Philly, where she's shared her wonderful work and has given in-depth, incisive, and thoughtful feedback on other people's writing; her editorial input has been of great benefit to me. Before we start with the interview, here's a quick intro to Phyllis:

Bio
Phyllis Mass is a freelance writer, poet, and editor who leads private writing workshops. She is an Amherst Artists and Artists Certified Workshop Leader who teaches Write Now! writing workshops privately and at Temple University’s Lifelong Learning Institute.

She taught college, secondary school, and adult education in English, theater, drama, art history, and yoga. A graduate of Hunter College, Arcadia University, and New York’s High School for the Performing Arts, she performed on stage, screen, in commercials, and appeared in commercial print. She has written essays, lifestyle and cultural pieces for local newspapers, magazines, and online publications and created customized original poetry for celebratory occasions and roasts. In addition, she has scripted and performed original song parodies.

Her recent work has appeared in Soundlings East Magazine, BlazeVOX, Spot Literary Magazine, The Apiary Corporation, Philadelphia Metropolis/VoxPop, and the collection, Letters to Fathers from Daughters. She was a finalist in Philadelphia’s citywide autobiography contest celebrating the tercentenary of Benjamin Franklin’s birth and in 2007 a finalist in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest.

Now on to the interview...

HK: Why do you write?
PM: I write because it helps me figure out problems I am grappling with. Helps me make sense of the absurdity of life by bringing a certain order to the chaos around me be it in prose or poetry form. There is something delicious and terrifying about making something from nothing which is what writers do. You stare at a tabula rasa, and design a your own universe with your own set of rules. It’s pretty powerful.

HK: What do you think your strengths are as a writer, and what do you hope to improve on?
PM: It is the journey not the destination so I always feel I can improve. For three years in addition to my own writing and teaching, I’ve been taking a poetry workshop which helps enormously with improved syntax, editing, and making maximalist me more of a minimalist. My strengths are my ability to view the absurd and make it real no matter how ridiculous. I also have a talent for writing humor and satire. As a writer you are an outsider looking in. If you ever join the establishment, you will lose your ability to observe and never be able to write.

HK: Share with us some of the most important lessons or advice you impart to new writers.
PM: I tell new writers to read, read, read and to finish what they are writing before they begin to edit.

Writing involves the right side of the brain, the seat of creativity. The left hemisphere is the critical editing side.To avoid writer’s block, and banish that pesky inner critic, allow these hemispheres to work independently. I also tell beginners to find themselves a good writing group or first reader who can give them a thorough honest critique. Everyone needs an editor. Above all, the most important advice is that as a writer you have to be prepared to sit alone at your computer sometimes for hours and put the time in on your derrière. It’s called sitzfleisch; the ability to see your project through to the end by “sedentary determination.”

HK: From the perspective of an editor, what do you think makes for a good writer-editor collaboration?
PM: A good collaboration begins with the editor listening to the writer discuss what he or she has written and what he hopes will be his or her final project. The editor must assure the writer that whatever changes he or she sees fit to make are only suggestions. That if the writer does not agree, it behooves him or her to ignore those recommendations. The edit should center on a 'how to improve' critique rather than a 'what is wrong' criticism. The most important element in this relationship is that the editor be mindful of the writer’s voice. He or she must never alter any portion of the text which will change it.

HK: If you could assemble a panel of any three authors (dead or alive) to give you feedback on your work and discuss writing with you, who would they be and why?
PM: This is a very difficult question. For starters I think, Shakespeare, Woody Allen, and Oscar Wilde. Shakespeare would deal with poetic language and enable me to be less direct and more metaphoric and lyrical. Woody Allen, the writer not the film maker, could provide me with examples of how to make absurdity even more real. I would just love to hang out with him and pick his brain. The same with Oscar Wilde. The influence on my writing if I just hung out with this trio would be nothing short of miraculous.

HK: What are some of your current writing projects?
PM: Currently, I am teaching an improvisational writing course Write Now! at Temple University. I teach this course privately also. In addition, I am editing a few manuscripts and several short stories as well as writing and submitting fiction, opinion pieces and poetry.

Thank you, Phyllis!

Week in Seven Words #128

antsy
People shuffle between the express and local sides of the platform as the announcer makes a calm droning promise that a train is just one stop away.

confer
The little office where we work, with the utilitarian furniture and the crushed earwig on the wall, feels like a battle command room.

coverlet
All eyes on the little one as he tumbles among the blankets.

glimpsing
I like when older people suddenly become very young; the moment he stops watering the grass and springs after the soccer ball, I can see him as he was forty or fifty years ago.

miscellany
Shells and feathers, old birds' nests and flowers on a white wood shelf.

self-made
He's a self-proclaimed superhero and has made a little kit for himself complete with a badge and a book illustrating his many battles against monsters, robots, and supervillains. Most impressive to me is the way he carefully writes in the book, slowly spelling out words while sounding them out to himself. I'm so proud of him.

three-pointer
The hoop in the basketball court is way too high for him but he keeps aiming for it anyway. Not caring for once about the score, he has fun trying to steal the ball from me and laughs at how I bob around, shoes squeaking and arms waving wildly, as I mount an exaggerated but incompetent defense.