That’s How Writers Write

John Patrick Shanley is a playwright, screenwriter and both an Academy Award and Pulitzer Prize winner. Shanley, the creator of works such as “Moonstruck” and “Doubt,” will speak at a free appearance May 27 at The Brown Hotel, as part of Spalding University’s Festival of Contemporary Writing.

The festival, which also features poet Jane Olmsted and many others, brings attention to the school’s low-residency Master of Fine Arts in writing program. We asked Spalding’s Katy Yocom to tell us more.

Q: What can people look forward to at this spring’s Festival of Contemporary Writing?

Katy Yocom: The festival includes a lineup of writers from all areas of writing and from all over the country. We have screenwriters and playwrights from New York and L.A., poets, children’s and YA authors, fiction writers, creative nonfiction – the gamut, really. Most of them are on the Spalding low-residency MFA program’s faculty. That includes some names that are very well-known in town – Sena Jeter Naslund, Silas House, Crystal Wilkinson, Kathleen Driskell, Maureen Morehead – as well as some amazing writers from elsewhere whom you might not otherwise get to hear.

Q: How does this low-residency program work? Where do students come from, and how experienced are they when they enter?

KY: The beauty of low-res is that students and faculty can live anywhere and still be part of the program. It’s a full graduate degree program – four semesters, 65 credit hours – but most of the work is completed from home, which means that students can fold their graduate work into their lives. From home, each student works one-on-one with a faculty member who’s an active, publishing writer. Thanks to that one-on-one attention, the amount of feedback students receive is huge – three to four times more than in a traditional classroom model. The independent study is also a great setup because that’s how writers write – in the thick of things, while they’re also earning a living, raising a family, all that.

But there’s also a very important community aspect: Before they begin each semester’s independent study, they come to a residency here in Louisville or abroad. We also have a residency abroad each summer for a very intense learning experience…

Students come from all over the country (or world – we have a grad who came here from Singapore) and they come in at every level, from someone with lots of raw talent but little experience to someone who has already had major book publications. One of our screenwriting alums came in with an Emmy under his belt!

Q: How have you seen students benefit from the program?

KY: Lots of our alums have garnered excellent publishing deals, and I think that’s what most of our students really want – to get their work out there. They’ve won some major awards as well. One grad, Jackie Gorman, won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, one of the most prestigious prizes in all of literature. Frank X. Walker was Kentucky poet laureate for 2013-2014. Those are huge, huge honors. Some want to teach, as well, and we’ve seen students land university professorships as well. Those usually require a graduate degree and a book publication.

Q: You’ve had several types of writers in residence. Does each year’s writer (playwright, poet, memoirist, etc.) change the focus of study in the program or the festival?

KY: Yes and no. This residency, it’s John Patrick Shanley, and we’re having a special focus on playwriting and screenwriting, with several events and assignments feeding into that focus. … But that doesn’t by any means replace the intensive work happening separately in each area of study. It’s on top of that. It enhances it. In this program, every writer gets the chance to learn the best tools from other areas. It’s a great way to become a better writer – borrow the best techniques from every other area. You can’t believe how that helps you grow.

c. 2015 The Voice-Tribune

Diners, Words and No Guy Fieri

Maybe you haven’t eaten at the Twig & Leaf recently, but Ashlee Clark Thompson has. Her blog, Ashlee Eats (summarized by its motto, “Filet mignon appetite. Dollar menu budget.”) led to her first book, Louisville Diners. The book records her travels across the city to explore the fading art of affordable diners.

Thompson will sign copies at Crescent Hill’s Carmichael’s Bookstore on May 14, at 7 p.m.

Q: You write often about finding cheap eats. Is cheap better? Or is it more a reflection of the reality that most people don’t have any money, and you’re helping them find something good?

ACT: Cheap isn’t always better, but expensive isn’t always better, either. I began writing about inexpensive dining when I didn’t have a lot of disposable income. … But as the blog grew, I realized that most people aren’t only looking for lower-cost meals, but (also) good value for their money. Sure, you can get fast food for less than $10, but what if you want to support local business, or just eat food that’s a little bit healthier for you? The majority of us live under financial constraints. We can’t eat at white-tablecloth restaurants every day. But access to good food should not be a privilege.

Q: When newer places make simple staples (tacos, barbecue, etc.) by hand and with better ingredients, some people complain about the increased cost to consumers. Where do topics like expense or health – most diners being less than healthy – enter this discussion?

ACT: It’s hard to eat a healthy meal at a diner, especially when you see plates of biscuits and gravy and chili cheese fries pass you by. But it’s not impossible. You just have to be strategic – maybe choosing an egg white omelet loaded with vegetables instead of a regular omelet loaded with ham and cheese, for example. Eating healthfully while on a budget, both in restaurants and at home, is challenging and takes a lot of planning.

Q: Louisville is becoming known for its new, progressive restaurants. Is this book a work of preservation of a dying culture, or a reminder of a vital scene that is often taken for granted?

ACT: The book is definitely a reminder of a vital scene often taken for granted. There are plenty of places in the city that keep churning out good food at good prices. It’s just that they don’t get as much attention as the newer, trendier restaurants in Louisville. Diners will always have an important part in the city’s dining culture, because these businesses provide food made for everyday life. You don’t have to get dressed up or pretend to know how to pronounce tough words on a menu. You can go in, get familiar, home-cooked food and leave happy.

Q: Do you anticipate that this book will mostly reach a local audience, or is there a world of diner lovers across the US who will also find it?

ACT: So far, the book has seemed to reach a local audience. I think readers are discovering great places in their own city that they didn’t even know existed. I hope that the book will gain some attention among diner enthusiasts nationwide and give tourists in Louisville a chance to discover something new.

Q: Diners rarely make Top 10 lists or win awards. Is it possible to compare diners and “fancier” restaurants without also having to think about race or class issues?

ACT: Often, the folks who put together these top 10 lists or hand out awards are looking for the next big thing in culinary innovation. These lists profile new and notable restaurants with big-name chefs at the helm. However, I have as much respect for a line cook at the Frontier Diner, who can keep all his orders straight, as I do for Chef Edward Lee. Diners and “fancier” restaurants are indeed apples and oranges, but you can’t dismiss either of them in terms of their importance to the diner scene. Sure, they’re very different than one another, but to go with the apples/oranges comparison, they’re both still fruits. And sometimes, you might want an orange instead of an apple, or the apples out of season. We have to look at all of these restaurants to tell the full story of restaurant dining in Louisville.

Photo by Jessica Ebelhar.

c. 2015 The Voice-Tribune

‘Yes, I Am Fired Up’

Coliseum released their fifth full-length album, Anxiety’s Kiss, this week on vinyl, CD and cassette. The ever-evolving band has added more industrial and dark wave tones to their steady diet of hardcore and post-punk. The album finds them collaborating again with producer/engineer J. Robbins, an early inspiration to the band from his days playing in the bands Jawbox and Burning Airlines. Coliseum founder, guitarist and vocalist Ryan Patterson says Robbins “feels like our George Martin,” and the reference to the Beatles and their later, more experimental studio recordings reveals Patterson’s restless need to consistently try new ideas and a refusal to be boxed in by others’ perceptions.

He told The Voice-Tribune more about how Coliseum’s new album came together. “Our influences are wide-ranging, individually and as a band, but there’s always a general connection revolving around British post-punk and American post-hardcore of the Dischord and Touch and Go variety,” Patterson says. “Personally, I’ve been greatly inspired over the past four to five years by Rowland S. Howard and his music, both solo and with Crime and the City Solution and Lydia Lunch. His influence as a guitarist weighed heavy on me during the Anxiety’s Kiss sessions.”

The album is their first to be distributed by Deathwish Inc. Patterson has had close ties to the label since before Coliseum started in 2003. “They are all part of our extended community through music, and we feel so incredibly fortunate that we have such wonderful people that are willing to release our music.”

Q: Do you agree that songwriters, in any genre, aren’t using topics like police brutality and other social ills like they did 20 years or 50 years ago? How have you stayed on course when others have fallen off?

Ryan Patterson: I don’t necessarily agree with that. I think it’s being pushed away from mainstream music and art. There’s very little outlet in that world for a dissenting voice, because there’s very little money in it. But it’s there, whether it’s from Run the Jewels or Coliseum. There are artists addressing these things, especially in the underground, where it is always being tackled. It’s actually harder for me not to sing about social issues. It’s more of a challenge to write about other topics, because the injustice of oppression is never-ending and always fodder for songs.

Q: How do you approach writing about love and lust?

RP: I write about those subjects from direct personal perspectives and from more abstract dramatic narratives. I find the different perspectives to be inspiring and interesting, enabling me to explore ideas in ways that don’t always directly involve my personal experiences but are shaped by my perspective and imagination. I find the songs of love important to write, because love is such a powerful thing – something that we are very lucky if we have it in our lives – yet so many songs about love are trite and hollow. On the darker side, songs like the two centerpieces of Anxiety’s Kiss, “Dark Light Of Seduction” and “Sharp Fang, Pale Flesh,” each deal with forms of obsession through two different narratives. Ideas of shadows, submission and possession.

Q: This collection includes some of your most melodic material so far. Do you feel that you are mellowing with age at all? Or are you more fired up than ever, and just showing it in different ways?

RP: While we are generally operating in the realm of guitar-based music and have always stuck by our roots as a punk band, we have never felt that we needed to hold ourselves to any rules of genre, or specific trappings set by expectations or our own previous material. We try our best to not repeat ourselves. We also learn as we go along – we learn new ways to use our instruments and our voices. Melody is not inherently mellow or boring; I find that to be a silly concept. The music we are making now is more dynamic and interesting to me than the music we made a decade ago, with more nuance and more depth. To answer the question, yes, I am fired up. I feel that with Anxiety’s Kiss, and Sister Faith before it, Coliseum is on fire and we are making the best music we have ever made.

Coliseum plays at the New Vintage on Friday, June 5. For more information, visit www.coliseumsoundsystem.com.

Photo by Nick Thieneman

c. 2015 The Voice-Tribune