Story Week Afterglow

Each March the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago puts on an electrifying writing festival. This year was radiant. I had the profound pleasure of sharing a stage with Chitra Divakaruni, a writer of fluent imaginative and spiritual intent. Chitra was exceptionally giving in her disclosures and in talking about the endless conundrums and efforts of writing, quite hilarious. I'm so grateful to Chitra for her spellbinding and compassionate books and generous nature. I heard Aimee Bender and Cristina Garcia read, exceptionally smart and inventive and funny writers. I met the uniquely talented and adventurous and inspiriting Hillary Carlip. Queen of the Oddballs and intrepid creator of A La Cart, Hillary is also the web design genius behind Open Books Radio, and it was an absolute joy to meet her. We did conduct an Open Books interview, coming to this web site soon!

Hillary was part of the culminating literary rock-and-roll event that brings Story Week to its grandly rambunctious crescendo. Hillary and ZZ Packer and Colin Channer and Junot Diaz and the empress of literary programs and pizazz, my dear friend Sheryl Johnston. And Randy Albers, big-hearted and brilliant director of this exuberant and inspiring and supportive fiction department, who presented me with the Story Week Achievement Award. I'm so proud of this, and so astonished by this, I'm quoting the plaque because, well, because I'm still trying to internalize it.

"For excellence in writing, for promoting 'the fine art of reading,' and for creative contributions to Story Week."

Long live Story Week. Hugs and kisses to all.

On the Air

Open Books is still broadcast in Chicago on WLUW 88.7, but I have to say that I'm thrilled to report that a new show will air again on Chicago Public Radio, WBEZ 91.5, and www.chicagopublicradio.org, on Sunday night, March 9 at 9 Central Time. (Don't forget, we lose a precious hour this weekend.)

In this edition of Open Books I speak with Chicago writer Gioia Diliberto about women's history, her biographies of Nobel Peace Prize winner and reformer Jane Addams; Hadley Hemingway, Ernest's first wife, and Brenda Frazier, the Paris Hilton of her day. Diliberto also talks about art and fashion, fact and fiction as we discuss her novels, I Am Madame X and The Collection, which revolves around a character based on Coco Chanel.

More on Joyce Carol Oates

Our sympathy and concern for Joyce Carol Oates remain high, and none of us involved with Story Week here in Chicago were surprised when Oates cancelled her March 17 appearance. It's too soon after losing her husband. I hope to have another chance to speak with Oates in the future. For now, I'm looking forward to reading her next book, a very intriguing novel due out in June titled, My Sister, My Love.

Immersion and sympathy

I live book by book, deadline by deadine, immersed in worlds imagined and reported. Certain writers are always present in my mind: boon companions, scouts, guides, goads. Enigmas and friends. Joyce Carol Oates is a constant presence. Her books stay with me, deep-swimming sea creatures, luminous and pressing in the dark. The power of her fiction, its risks, and insights; the complexity of her work, the many masks she wears and the consistency and courage of her vision: all inspire and incite me. My fascination is fed by her essays and The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973 - 1982. And ever since Joyce Carol Oates was invited to participate in Columbia College Chicago's Story Week this March, and ever since I was invited to speak with her onstage on March 17, I've been thinking about how to approach her work. What questions to ask, what subjects to raise. And now I'm thinking of Ms. Oates with great sympathy, having learned of the death of her husband, Raymond Smith. Her anchor.

A new venue

Open Books will air on the Chicago's NPR station, WBEZ 91.5 and www.chicagopublicradio.org Sunday, February 17, at 9:00 pm central time.

We are thrilled to join WBEZ's Sunday night rotation. This edition of Open Books focuses on African American cartoonists. I had the great pleasure of speaking with Nancy Goldstein, the author of a fantastic, groundbreaking new book, Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist, and cartoonist and cartoon historian Tim Jackson.

New interview: "Invisible No More"

The show I wrote about in my last post is now up: "Invisible No More: Voices of Literacy Chicago," the 'new' show in Nonfiction. Please listen. This is a very special edition of Open Books.

Denied Access

We're alone with our thoughts, and alone in our habit of silently telling ourselves the story of our life day by day. When we read, we tune into stories created by another mind turning over the stones of thought. The written word is an extended hand, an invitation to connect, to share. The written word only comes back to life when someone else turns her or his attention to it. The act of reading is a powerful bond between strangers, and this common experience underlies my conversations with writers. We feel a ready rapport because we have both traveled the same trail of words, the same path through the labyrinth. The writer has laid the stones, the reader has set them more firmly in place by her tread. We are able to speak the same language even as we see the books under discussion from different perspectives. These are exciting and affirming conversations.

But often when I leave the studio feeling uplifted and grateful for communion with an artist and thinker I admire and reenter the larger world and look into the faces of strangers hurrying in the cold, I wonder, are books part of their lives? I've been speaking with writers for a decade and I will continue to do so. But now I'm going to extend my Open Books inquiry and speak with readers.

I feel that I'm part of a resplendent realm of knowledge, effort, beauty, wit, tragedy, and discovery simply by virtue of my reading. What if I was walled off from that paradise of language and empathy? What if I couldn't read? How would I navigate the wilderness of human emotion and endeavor?

I've always been aware of the shameful fact that in our great land many people not only go hungry, but are also starved intellectually and aesthetically. Boys and girls attend public schools, moving up grade by grade, and yet they do not learn to read. Smart, determined, and creative, they adapt, they conceal, they improvise. They drop out of school and get on with life. But far too many adults live diminished lives because their reading skills are rudimentary at best. For all that they accomplish, they are isolated and silenced. And many refuse to accept this fate. Men and women of all ages make the tough decision to try again to learn to read. I decided to speak with people who are striving to become literate, word by word, and thanks to friends, spent the best part of two days at a true haven, a true place of learning and love, a school called Literacy Chicago.

Nine stories above State Street is a community of dedicated teachers, tutors, and students. We three--Craig Kois, Neese Aguilar, and me--sat at a long table in an overheated, windowless room and listened to stories of neglect, struggle, reclamation, and triumph. Of love and hope. We felt humbled, privileged, and deeply moved. We are putting together a show based on these tales from the reading front, and recalibrating, once again, our understanding of what it takes to be a human being.