I'm not good enough

"I'm not good enough to work or marry, but I am good enough to write."

~~ Breece D'J Pancake as quoted in The Orchard Is Full of Sound by Sheldon Lee Compton

"A great line editor is a miracle. . ."

In literature class, I'm teaching Kate Braverman's "Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta" and Jayne Anne Phillips's "Home," so that sent me searching for articles about the former (follow this link for an interview with Braverman) and news of the latter. For Phillips, I found Nick Ripatrazone's memories of her as a teacher and editor in "Is Line Editing a Lost Art?"

"A great teacher is a gift. A great line editor is a miracle. Jayne Anne Phillips was both. Her pen-marked copies of my manuscripts were concise lessons in form and function. I sat in her office at Rutgers-Newark, and hung on her every observation. She conferenced with students the hour before our workshops. Those weren’t superficial conversations; Jayne Anne did real work. She went through the whole story, sentence to paragraph to page. She spoke about my stories—my shaky drafts, my ambitious scenes—as if they mattered. We respected her. She intimidated us—not because she was unkind. Because she was such a gifted writer.

"Like Jayne Anne, my undergraduate fiction professor grew up in West Virginia, and we read her short fiction in advance of her campus visit. Black Tickets possessed me. Other books would grab me—In the Heart of the Heart of the Country by William H. Gass, Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen, Hue and Cry by James Alan McPherson—but Black Tickets was first. All writers need a book that makes them believe that words matter. Her book did that for me."

Interviews (Answer and Ask)

Answer:

American, British and Canadian Studies Journal
"An Interview with Alex Kudera, Author of Fight for Your Long Day" by Merritt Moseley (June, 2016)

Chronicle Vitae
"The Novelist Who Chronicles Life as an Adjunct" by William Pannapacker (January 8, 2014)

Word of Mouth (New Hampshire Public Radio)
"Fight for Your Long Day" by Rebecca Lavoie (April 4, 2013)

Foreward Reviews
“One of a Kind: A ForeWord Interview with Alex Kudera” Atticus Books Online (May-June 2011)

The Next Best Book Blog
"In Conversation: Lavinia Ludlow Interviews Alex Kudera" by Lavinia Ludlow (April 26, 2016)

This Podcast Will Change Your Life
"This Podcast Will Change Your Life is the Alex Kudera" by Ben Tanzer (August 17, 2016)

Psychology Today
“Darkly Funny Debut Novel Exposes Adjunct Abuse” by Susan K. Perry, Ph.D., Creating in Flow (January 7, 2012)

Karen the Small Press Librarian
"Writer on Writer: Dave Newman Interviews Alex Kudera" by Dave Newman (September 8, 2013)

Clemson University
“English lecturer’s book explores the plight of the adjunct professor” by Angela Nixon, Clemson University media relations (October 11, 2011)

The Chronicle of Higher Education
“An Award-Winning Author on Adjuncts” by Isaac Sweeney, The Chronicle of Higher Education (June 1, 2011)

When Falls the Coliseum
“The Life of an Adjunct: An Interview with Novelist Alex Kudera” by Robert Anthony Watts, When Falls the Coliseum (November 1, 2010)

We Who Are About to Die
“We who are about to breed: Alex Kudera” by Patrick Wensink, We Who Are About to Die (September 27, 2011)

Smarts and Culture
“How One Author Finds an Audience: Part 1″ by Maryann Devine, smArts and Culture (October 27, 2010)

“How One Author Finds an Audience: Part 2″ by Maryann Devine, smArts and Culture (October 26, 2010)

Atticus Books
“Interview with Alex Kudera, Part 2 of 2′” by Dan Cafaro at Atticus Books Online (August 2, 2010)

“Interview with the Author of ‘Fight for Your Long Day, Part 1′” by Dan Cafaro at Atticus Books Online (July 22, 2010)

The New Dork Review of Books
“The Blogger/Novelist Relationship, with Alex Kudera (Part 2)” by Greg Zimmerman, The New Dork Review of Books (August 8, 2011)

“The Blogger/Novelist Relationship, with Alex Kudera (Part 1)” by Greg Zimmerman, The New Dork Review of Books (August 4, 2011)

And Ask:

"Chinese Gucci: The Interview": Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4, The Less United States of Kudera,
May 12, 15, 19 and 22, 2020

"An Interview with Rebecca Schuman" When Falls the Coliseum, April 13, 2017

"Bay Area Blues: An Interview with Lavinia Ludlow" JMWW, February 29, 2016

"Writer on Writer: Part Two, Alex Kudera Interviews Dave Newman" Karen the Small Press Librarian, September 16, 2013

"An Interview With Nancy Peacock" plus Part 2, and Part 3, The Less United States of Kudera, March 31, 2013 to April 3, 2013

"John Warner on Frederick Exley" When Falls the Coliseum, May 13, 2011

"The Exley Influence: A Riff Between Two Authors 'Falling Inward'" Atticus Books Online, February 25, 2011

"Exley, Clarke, and Eleanor Henderson" When Falls the Coliseum, November 9, 2010

"Interview With Mark SaFranko" When Falls the Coliseum, October 19, 2010

"Interview With Dan Cafaro of Atticus Books" When Falls the Coliseum, August 9, 2010

"An Interview With Lee Konstantinou" When Falls the Coliseum, May 13, 2010

"An Interview With Jean-Philippe Toussaint" When Falls the Coliseum, April 19, 2010

"Returning 'Home': An Interview With Jayne Anne Phillips" The South Carolina Review, Spring 2010 (link to table of contents but not the interview)

"Interview With Olga Gardner Galvin" When Falls the Coliseum, June 22, 2009

"An Interview With Author Dan Fante" When Falls the Coliseum, May 21, 2009

"The Writing Life Starring Iain Levison" The Less United States of Kudera, May 4, 2009

"An Interview With Cassendre Xavier" The Less United States of Kudera, March 15, 2009

"Don Riggs on Writers and Writing" The Less United States of Kudera, March 9, 2009

Living Past Your Fictional Representation

One of my favorite short stories to assign is "Home" by Jayne Anne Phillips. According to my second-favorite story anthology, The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, "Home" was first published in Phillips's Black Tickets in 1979. The Vietnam War lurks in the background, and the tale features a mother knitting afghans in front of the TV while a rebellious, debatably liberated but sexually engaged daughter explores the scarred men in her life. Bob Dylan quoting the Old Testament--"[S]he who is not busy being born is busy dying"--very much sums up the cultural clash of generations living under the same roof. The first sentence is the mother's declaration, "I'm afraid Walter Cronkite has had it," and we soon learn that by it, she means cancer. Well, cancer victim or no, Cronkite lived and lived well past the period of this story; in fact, he was still alive 35 years or so later:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts424

Cronkite's living 35 years past his literary dying reminds me of another protagonist living well past his own literary death; in this case, the book is Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, and the person whom Hemingway based the old man upon lived and lived well past the publication of this novella, and of course, well past Hemingway's suicide. According to this article, Gregorio Fuentes was Hemingway's "fishing companion and confidant":

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/29/books/the-old-man-who-loved-the-sea-and-papa.html?scp=10&sq=%22old%20man%20and%20the%20sea%22%20&st=cse


In some sense, no doubt, Hemingway's sense of his own great ending, was transferred into this man swimming against the strength of an ocean destined to devour us all.

A lesson here?


I'll bore you with the full lecture another time, but I'm thinking it involves the post-ironic disconnect between reality and reality, in other words, fiction and the lives that purport not to mimic it.