#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

Puzzling through stories with Peter Turchi

February 4, 2015, by

Inprint loves to showcase the best in new books by top local authors. One of the most interesting books to come out in the past year is A Muse and A Maze: Writing as Puzzle, Mystery, and Magic by Houston writer Peter Turchi. Turchi is the author of several books, including Map of the Imagination: Writer as Cartographer, named by The New York Times as one of the 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time. Turchi,  a faculty member at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program, serves as a frequent interviewer for the Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series.  

A-_Muse_and_A_Maze-cover-236x300Some of my favorite books when I was just a li’l egghead were the Encyclopedia Brown stories by Donald Sobol. I went back to a collection of them recently after reading A Muse & A Maze: Writing as Puzzle, Mystery, & Magic, the new book by University of Houston creative writing professor Peter Turchi.

The Encyclopedia Brown stories present themselves as mysteries. They concern Leroy, a.k.a. “Encyclopedia,” a 10-year-old “Sherlock Holmes in sneakers,” whose father happens to be the chief of police of Idaville, a town “like many other seaside [ones],” with “lovely beaches, three movie theaters, and four banks.” Except no one, writes Sobol, “got away with breaking the law in Idaville.”

The lawbreakers are your typical seaside layabouts; nothing to see here. Encyclopedia’s primary nemesis is a fledgling sociopath named Bugs Meany, instigator of a gang of would-be toughs called the Tigers who try to scam the other townies. Each chapter begins with an aggrieved victim seeking out Encyclopedia and his sidekick, Sally Kimbell. They ride their bikes to the scene of the crime; the story of the accuser and the story of the accused are told, and Encyclopedia pauses dramatically while Sobol interrupts to direct you to page 64 for “the solution.” In the end, some detail that violates the rate at which water evaporates, or the conventions of elevator repair, or the date when the Liberty Bell was cracked, is the lie that tells the truth. The antique lamp or the champion yodeling toad is returned to the rightful owner, and order is restored.  Continue reading

From the desk of Giuseppe Taurino: Notable books published by the UH Creative Writing Program community in 2014

December 16, 2014, by

Houston’s literary community is brimming with activity. One of the key players making Houston such a vibrant literary city is the UH Creative Writing Program, nationally ranked as one of the best creative writing programs in the nation. Inprint is proud to continue providing fellowship, prizes, and other support for emerging writers in the Program, surpassing a total of $2.8 million to date. Giuseppe Taurino, Assistant Director of the Program, will now blog on An Open Book to share exciting news from UH. His inaugural post  extols the virtues of 15 notable books written by faculty, alums, and students from the Program, many of whom have received Inprint fellowships and prizes.

I grew up in a working class immigrant family. My parents, along with most of my mother’s family, came to New York City from Italy in the early 1970s. None of them finished grade school. The moment I made it to October of my first semester at NYU, I’d gone further in school than anyone on either side of my family had ever gone. And when I actually earned my bachelor’s degree, I became proof that everything my parents endured over the course of their journey had been worth it. Even my father’s father, who was rarely impressed by anything, believed I’d taken the family to new heights. He was convinced my BA in Psychology made me a doctor—the first in the family—and went so far as to ask me to review and assess the medical reports detailing his heart and blood pressure conditions.

Rightfully or not, I’d earned a reputation for being an academic within my family, and book-smart amongst my friends. My being nervous about the ability to perform in a school setting was probably the last thing any of them would ever expect, but that’s precisely how I felt when I decided to leave Queens to pursue an MFA degree at UH. Coming from a background that didn’t value literature, having only taken a handful of lit courses as an undergrad and continuing ed student, and having exactly one completed short story to my name, I was convinced I’d be exposed at UH. From the day I was notified of my acceptance, to the day my then-girlfriend and I packed up my crappy car and started driving west, I kept thinking whoever decided to let me in had probably made a mistake. Continue reading