Reading, Writing, Planning #1
Reading: I have a couple of books going right now:
You Can’t Make This Stuff Up, by Lee Gutkind. I got interested in this book for two reasons. First, I picked up a copy of the journal, Creative Nonfiction Fall 2022 issue (#78) at the East End Food Co-op here in Pittsburgh. At the time I was struggling to figure out what genre 1my own writing - a mix of personal narrative and research-based nonfiction - might fit into. By “a mix of…” I mean that any given piece of mine would include both writing modes. I had heard about “creative memoir” before, but I don’t think my writing qualifies as memoir, strictly speaking. Anyway, the title of the journal resonated strongly for me. It even seemed like a little brush with fate, like I might have found my writing home. Of course, I bought the issue. I always read a journal’s masthead, so I quickly discovered that the Creative Nonfiction organization is based in Pittsburgh, and that Lee Gutkind is the journal’s Editor. Some googling led me to more information about Gutkind. A couple of highlights: he was an English professor at the University of Pittsburgh; he founded Creative Nonfiction in 1991; also founded a Creative Nonfiction MFA program at Pitt, and he has published a bunch of books on the subject. Unfortunately, Issue #73 was the last regular release of the journal. At the last link I included, above, you can find several “best of” issues, including a 30-year retrospective collection.
I am also lazily reading Novelist as a Vocation, by Haruki Marukami. I picked up a hardcover copy at the M.I.T Press Bookstore when I was in Cambridge with Drew (my partner). He was there to attend JuliaCon, a conference for the Julia programming language, and I tagged along. I had a lot of free time to walk around, so I hit a bunch of bookstores in Cambridge, including that one and a couple of others up near the Harvard campus. I also walked all the way to the Boston Museum of Fine Art - that might just be the most miserable walk I’ve ever taken to look at art. I enjoyed it, though. The header image for this post shows one of my favorites, of the paintings I saw that day.
Writing: I don’t have a lot to say here. I have been working on several different essays, and I’ve decided to focus on just two of them until they are ready to send out for publication (fingers crossed). One of them is my love letter to photosynthesis - a fun piece that dips into my deep history as a Lyman Briggs Biology major at Michigan State University and traces a few key points in my love for plants and plant biochemistry. The other one is about the Darwin Awards, and I’ll say up front that it is a critique. One of my undergrad essays that I was really proud of was about evolutionary theory and the various forms of pseudoscience that surrounded it like virus particles.
Planning: I guess the “Writing” bit, above, also includes a bit of planning. Other plans: I’m completing some continuing education coursework about academic editing. I plan to specialize in nonfiction and academic editing for my freelance editing work.
Conclusion: I think that’s it for this week! On Friday I’m going to repost one of the blog articles I wrote for my previous - now defunct - blog at arguchik - dot - com. (I’m not linking to it because it’s gone. I still own the domain, but it just redirects to this site.)
