Learning to Write

This week I attended a Creative Writing Conference at SUU.  I learned so much while attending it!  The featured authors were Firoozeh Dumas, author of Funny in Farsi and Laughing Without an Accent, and J. Allyn Rosser, author of Foiled Again and other poetry anthologies.  Firoozeh focused on how to write a memoir and J. Allyn Rosser focused on how to write poetry.  (It makes sense as each of these is their specialty.)

In my poetry class we read some poems from Rosser's Foiled Again.  The poem "China Map" was my favorite, by far.  I felt as if I was there in the market with her, feeling the compassion of the man who drew the map for her all those years ago.  I felt the significance of not understanding how rare and important that moment was.   When she visited our class she read that poem to us and it made the poem come off the pages with her voice.  Also, she talked about that experience after reading.  I connected to the poem because I went to China and had similar experiences to the one presented in "China Map."  Overall, Rosser's poetry is to the point, relatable, and fascinating.  Poetry does not always captivate me, but hers does.  I really came to realize that as she did a poetry reading the next day how real and personal many of her poems are.

The conference officially started with Firoozeh Dumas speaking mainly about Funny in Farsi.  The stories in her book contain a humor, and when you meet Firoozeh, it's as if you are reading her book.  She is funny.  Her book talks details some experiences of being an immigrant from Iran in America.  I haven't read all of the book yet, but I am so excited to because the few that I have read were fabulous.  I laughed out loud multiple times during each story.  One of my favorites was "The F-word."  It talks about how it was growing up in the United States with a name like Firoozeh.  It's definitely not the typical name, and indicates that she is not from the United States.  I could relate to some extent, because my last name is Sundblom (pronounced Sun-bloom, not phonetically, the D is silent and it sounds like there should be two Os.)  Anyway, the anecdotes in it, just made me happy.  Her style is very relatable.  And as Firoozeh put it, it sounds as if "any old idiot could have written it."  She then points out that it was "this idiot that wrote it."  Her writing is accessible to the masses, and that's why she has become popular.

Firoozeh also talked about the path to becoming published.  It was sad to me that one of the publishers said that humor and the middle east didn't mix.  People in the United States didn't want to hear about people from Iran who weren't oppressed.  It just wouldn't work.  Is our view as a nation of the middle east so narrow that we can't recognize the beauty of each culture?  That people are people regardless of their background?  She started writing because she wanted her children to realize that the similarities far outweigh our differences.  How true that is.

The next day we had two craft workshops.  Many attendees were high school teachers, and so we talked a lot about teaching as well.  J. Allyn Rosser used different translations of the same poem to illustrate how important it is to choose specific words.  Each word in poetry counts.  Each word, even if they are synonyms, represents something different and gives connotations.  She gave us a template, which was very unspecific, and told us to write a poem.  Afterward, some participants read their poems.  How beautiful some of those poems were.  Firoozeh came and talked about how important it is to provide interesting prompts for students to write about.  They need to get the students thinking.  One of those prompts was to come up with 6 words that represent who you are.  It is a difficult thing to do.

My six words are: ambitious, loving, passionate, hard-working, artistic, religious.

I got the opportunity to participate in the Master's Workshop with Firoozeh.  Five students turned in a non-fiction piece and Firoozeh gave us advice on how to improve the piece.  I wrote about being a tall, brown haired, blue eyed person in China.  After receiving her comments, I realize I have a lot of work to do, but in the end, it will be so improved and a better story, along with illustrating my point more fully.  I have the tendency as a writer to state the point, and not let the reader infer it, which can be so much more powerful.  The reader gets more involved and excited when they figure out something themselves.  It was a pleasure to be able to learn from Firoozeh.