Sam Dinger

About Sam Dinger

Sam recently earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and minors in French and English from John Brown University in his hometown of Siloam Springs, AR. After discovering writing, he applied to twenty MFA programs and is happy—to the surprise of nearly every non-Texan he knows—that he ended up here.

Jockeying the Book-Signing Line

November 9, 2015, by

11.. Line for book signing at Danticat & Woodrell reading RM2_2877
As the 2015/2016 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series continues tonight with a sold out reading by Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie and a long book signing line expected to follow, Houston writer Sam Dinger gives us his take on how he prepares for the magical moment when he gets to meet one of his favorite authors.

I just rushed out the back of the room to get a good spot in the book signing line. I’m holding a clean, new copy of the new book. There is paperdust on the edges of the pages. There are something like a million of us in this line and it’s looking like I won’t have the chance I hoped  to have a meaningful interaction with this writer I love, or want to love, or, let’s face it, whom I want to love me. But all hope isn’t lost. I remember that there are things I can do. I have a plan.

In the many book signing lines that I’ve stood in, I’ve developed a list of things that I do to up my chances for any of the above hopes–that is, for the chance of a meaningful interaction. Some of them are simple and small, others require a little something more. Continue reading

#AWP15

April 17, 2015, by

20150411_130123If you have any writerly friends or circulate in literary circles, you probably couldn’t help but notice all the #AWP15 hashtags and selfies last week on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Every year at this time the Inprint staff notices a mass exodus of writers leaving Houston for a few days to go to this thing called AWP. Last week it was Minneapolis, next year it will be Los Angeles. One wonders what AWP really is. What happens when so many writers congregate in a square mile? Is it an academically inspired conference where writers exchange thoughtful and innovative ideas, or is it just one big party?

We asked Sam Dinger, Inprint C. Glenn Cambor/Michael and Nina Zilkha Fellow, Inprint Poetry Busker, and MFA fiction student at the UH Creative Writing Program, to be our eyes and ears at AWP. This was Sam’s first time at AWP and here is how he breaks it down for us.

Inprint: What exactly is AWP? Who attends?

Sam: It’s pretty true to its title–Association of Writers and Writing Programs–so this year Minneapolis was crawling with thousands of people who were either writers or parading as writers, publishers, teachers, agents. Ask any Uber driver. And some of them even liked us. A kind fella who picked me up after I had spent a couple loud hours at the Hilton bar (where everyone seemed to end up) didn’t miss a beat before telling me that he loved giving rides to writers. He said he liked it when there were two of them. That way he could listen to them talk. As I type it, this sounds a little like observing an animal in its natural habitat. And I guess it is. At once, AWP seems to fulfill and complicate all stereotypes of writers. But it’s funniest when it confirms them. I was staying with my aunt and uncle in Minneapolis. And when he picked me up from the airport, my uncle asked, “Did you bring a beret?” When I made it to the convention center the next morning, there were about fifteen people outside for a smoke break, and several wore berets. Continue reading

Readings on Readings on Readings

November 10, 2014, by

cookieLast week—during the week—there were no fewer than 7 readings in Houston. And readings—and their high frequency and quality—seem to be a perennial source of confusion for writers in this city. Bring up readings to a student in the Creative Writing Program at UH and you’ll likely hear either excitement: “I know! I can’t wait,” or quiet guilt and dread—as though each reading torments like another book one hasn’t read and, you know, really should—“Gah, I haven’t been to a single one yet.” Trying to navigate this writing life that I’m supposed to have—which I’m learning means “that I’m supposed to make for myself”—is not what I expected when I was dreaming about it in my Business Statistics class three years ago: drinking coffee and letting brilliance flow from my fingers for hours a day.

Nope. When the time comes every day for me to write it’s like, I don’t reeealy have to write today, right? Which may not seem like a compelling argument right now, but that argument comes—from the Devil, I think—via my sleeping self at 6:00 or so in the mornings. And I’ve proven pretty much unable to beat it so far. That adds up to a lot of days of not-writing. And when I do sit down to write—when I steal a few minutes at work or in the afternoons or evenings (something gave me the guts this past Sunday afternoon)—writing turns out to be hard work. More simply put: writing is work. Like real, actual work. Amazing. Continue reading