Chang-rae Lee visits!

Noted novelist Chang-rae Lee, author of Native Speaker, A Gesture Life, and Aloft, visited two of my English I classes a few weeks ago. Students had read his essay "Coming Home Again" and we thought it'd be nice to get some authorial perspective on said work. Lee talked a little about the essay but branched into a conversation about writing,as my students were
writing autobiographical short stories based on a memorable moment from their lives.

Some of Lee's sage advice, taken from my penciled notes--I've tried to
capture the words as he said them, but much may be paraphrased. While the ideas expressed below are certainly not new--at least to teachers of writing--they nevertheless gold:

1. When you write, don't think about the themes, but the little things.
Think small and miniature. Start with something seemingly
insignificant, and use details to add weight. Describe someone in
little scenes, imagining someone else in your place.

2. Try writing about a situation that's more complicated at second
glance, rather than a perfectly happy moment. Look for something
troubling. In life, we're looking for happiness and harmony, but
rarely find it. That's the place of art and literature.

3. You don't have to pretend you're a writer. Draw a picture with
words: show me what to see.

4. If you forget the details of your story, put yourself back in that
time. Short of that, make it up, as long as the details feel true.

5. Write about what you care about.

6. Beginning writers write ideas, but don't create pictures. Read over
your work, sentence by sentence, and think: "Am I telling the reader
how to think or feel? If the answer's yes, something's wrong."

On a totally separate note, I'm currently reading Aloft: the blog review's forthcoming!

Enrique's Journey: A Millenial Odyssey

The non-fiction book, Enrique's Journey, by Pulitzer Prize winner, Sonia Nazario, tells the riveting and often harrowing story of Enrique, a Honduran teenager, who risks his life in order to reunite with his mother, Lourdes, in the United States. This true story mirrors the experience of many illegal migrants, drawn to the United States by the prospect of the American Dream as well as the desire to reclaim the love of lost, idealized parents. Their odysseys north are marked by peril: rapists, the betrayals of "coyotes" and smugglers, drug trafficking, violent crime, bodily mutilation, and even death.

This story made me reflect on the heart-wrenching sacrifices and trade-offs that parents make in the name of the greater good, and the way that their economic choices--ensuring a higher standard of living for their children and relatives--also disintegrate family stability and further unravel the societal fabric of their home country. There's horrible irony in the fact that undocumented migrants, particularly women, represent a high percentage of American domestic help, serving as nannies to strangers' children, yet have abandoned their own sons and daughters. While Enrique's quest is successful, the ending's more bittersweet than fairy-tale. One senses that the long separation between mother and son has permanently fractured their relationship--perhaps irreparably so. In addition, although Enrique berates Lourdes for leaving him at such a young age, like his mother, he too leaves his young toddler to the foster care of relatives in Honduras, continuing the cycle of abandonment and orphaned children.

To find out more about the book, visit http://www.enriquesjourney.com/.