Data Loading...
Introduction Flipbook PDF
Introduction One afternoon a few years ago, while taking on the interim direc torship of our mfa program in nonfiction,
114 Views
87 Downloads
FLIP PDF 246.36KB
The Iowa Review Volume 36 Issue 1 Spring 2006
Introduction David Hamilton
Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Hamilton, David. "Introduction." The Iowa Review 36.1 (2006): 1-2. Web. Available at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview/vol36/iss1/3
This Contents is brought to you for free and open access by Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Iowa Review by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected].
Article 3
Introduction One
ago, while taking on the interim direc in I dropped in on Frank nonfiction, program our dear, late, lamented Frank Conroy. I'll not soon forget a tale Frank had told to a in The Nation that had recounted a few years
afternoon
torship Conroy, a story
of our mfa
York gathering and that identified him only by name. No more town earn that distinction. needed, and few people in anyone's to probe his flexibility, and risk his My mission though was merely or he of whether his col charm, any Workshop rascally by asking New
was
care to take a turn also at teaching nonfiction. After leagues would all, they write it, he, Mark and Marilynne, Jim and Jim. "Oh, no, we can't have that," Frank replied, leaning back in his desk chair at Dey to one lanky leg atop the knee of House, placing the foot attached the other, and bringing
his hands together, his long-fingered, piano "In fiction, hands, you fingers spread, finger tips touching. playing work up the ground you move over, as you cross it. You never know where then, their palms you're going." His hands parted and toward me, as if to hand the problem over. turned downward to fulfill your prior "Nonfiction begins with an outline; you write conclusions."
And
that from the author
is an old one. Recast
The assertion
of Stop-Time. here as a question,
it reverber
that follow, all drawn from a recent conference, our new director of literary nonfiction, that Robin "NonfictioNow," a And occasion itwas, for last November. fine orchestrated Hemley, ates
in the essays
lively enough jammed with tradictions
to bear repetition. I feel sure that Frank would have us had he been around to do so. We live by our con
and often
acter that, once do Don Quixote where covers
enough set inmotion, and Sancho
for them.
If fiction
begins with char the landscape it crosses, as discovers Panza, then, yes, fiction cannot know
an essayist dis it is going until it nears arrival. If, however, own is mind that her her best character, ready to searching
or what enigmatic, withering, explore her own laManchas?rare, case may not be all that different. Our way to the word ever?the to the word that drops onto the page, the word is always a mystery, nowhere
inmind
the briefest
instant before,
that we
felt no footstep i
University of Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to The Iowa Review ® www.jstor.org
of on the tip of our tongue before and thence to paper. In the essays Slater, Pico Iyer, Abigail Thomas,
it leapt to pencil, pen, or fingertips that follow, Phillip Lopate, Lauren Amy Leach, Lia Purpura, Sheryl
and David Shields all bear witness Goldbarth, in they do to our imagined range of nonfiction, most that for elusive the of thought expressive shape pursuit always cannot be known before it is uttered. St. Germain, Albert to that mystery. As
earlier, late summer 1996, with another school year a I wife and hosted supper before a reading, and fresh beginning, my not resist showing I off the could from the summer-long effort, A
few years
house, recently ours, that we had just painted. High gables meant and for stretching, ladders awkwardly scraping, priming, placed our summer to rather the labor stretch through painting. Preferring or less, I began most days reading it in a month, to carry traces of that to the ladder, all of Of Grammatology, hoping reinforced which my sense of our labor as epic. Frank, who only than concentrate
at first, but seemed properly stood among our guests, impressed he soon found his way to place our efforts. "Anything's easier than he remarked. writing," true. Try being that that was not wholly We both recognized two jobs, neither with a single mother down of three, holding benefits,
and one fewer
get many an allowable
it really true, we'd Besides, were But in our context that day, it was I'll credit him with meaning "writing
at Wal-Mart. submissions.
and conceit, Frank always knew more
than a bit about that, and he did divinely." not specify genre. We miss him. I like to imagine him listening in on our conference on a divine piano. his own fine accompaniment while improvising ?DH
2