Unconventions: Attempting the Art of Craft and the Craft of Art: writings on writing by Michael Martone

205 Pages·2005·1.16 MB·English

by  Michael Martone

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conventions
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Michael Martone
WRITINGS ON WRITING BY
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Published by The University of Georgia Press
Athens, Georgia 30602
© 2005 by Michael Martone
All rights reserved
Designed by Sandra Strother Hudson
Set in Berkeley Oldstyle Medium
Printed and bound by Maple-Vail
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence
and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines
for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.
Printed in the United States of America
09 08 07 06 05 C 5 4 3 2 1
09 08 07 06 05 P 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Martone, Michael.
Unconventions : attempting the art of craft and the craft
of art : writings on writing / by Michael Martone.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-2778-5 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8203-2778-6 (alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-2779-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8203-2779-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Martone, Michael—Authorship. 2. Authorship. I. Title.
PS3563.A7414U53 2005
808'.02—dc22 2005017321
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
For my students now teaching
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ontents
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Acknowledgments, ix
I Love a Parade: An Afterword, 1
Be Seated: Attempting the Art of Craft and the Craft of Art, 10
Whose Story Is It? Framing the Frame or Writing Bad on
Purpose Purposely, 16
Pygmies Dressed as Pygmies, 20
The Tyranny of Praise, 27
Welcome to Baltimore (aka) Charm City (colon): A Charm
Bracelet of Half-Baked Delicacies, or Xenophon’s Anabasis and
the Collapse of the Avant-Garde into Waves of Ecstasy, 32
My Situation, 40
Selling Stories Short, 46
Space Dome, 50
Four Factual Anecdotes on Fiction, 60
Mount Rushmore: Four Brief Essays on Fictions, 67
Trying: An Introduction to Introduction: Four Found
Introductions, 71
Make Nothing Happen, 75
The Moon over Wapakoneta, 77
Appliances: Domestic Detail and Describing Rituals
of the Ordinary, 85
The History of Corn, 98
Ruining a Story, 117
How to Hide a Tank: Camouflage, Realism, and
Believing Our Eyes, 132
The War in the Forest: The Collected Work of
James B. Hall, 150
Adventures on the Cultural Landscape:
An Epistolary Interview, 157
In Memory of Richard Cassell, 179
After Words: A Foreword, 184
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cknowledgments
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I wish to thank Peter Turchi and the faculty at the MFA Program
for Writers at Warren Wilson College, where many of these pieces
were first delivered, and the AWP and its director, David Fenza,
who also provided a convention platform and parliament of press
for these papers. R.,M. Berry, W. Scott Olsen, John Witte, David
Milofsky, Vincent Standley, Paul Maliszewski, and the editors of
Southern Indiana Review, Symploke¯, Mississippi Review, Sycamore
Review, Ascent, American Literary Review, and the Electronic Book
Review for fixing them in print. I acknowledge my home delega-
tion: Susan Neville, Nancy Esposito,Valerie Miner, Michael Rosen,
Valerie Berry, Sandy Huss, Robin Behn, Wendy Rawlings, Joel
Brouwer, Joyelle McSweeney, Patti White, John Crowley, Melanie
Rae Thon, Monroe Engel, Susan Dodd, Chris Leland, Lewis Hyde,
Joe Geha, Steve Pett, Scott Sanders, and Jay Brandon. Here’s to
the founding committee of RKO Radio Poems — Jan, Geoff, and
Mike. Thank you Nicole Mitchell, Mindy Wilson, and dignitaries
at the University of Georgia Press, and Marian Young, who wrote
the enabling language. Kathy Hall always contradicted and was
always right. And, as before, I second Theresa Pappas, the unac-
knowledged legislator acknowledged here.
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