Another Lorrie Moore--How to Talk to Your Mother

AGENDA:

Read short story by Lorrie Moore

Continue to work on Palm of the Hand stories or try to work on a "How to" story or use reverse chronology narrative.

Palm-of-the-hand stories/Flash fiction

AGENDA:

This marking period, we're going to be working on flash fiction and as the Japanese writer, Yasunari Kawabata called them, "palm of the hand " stories:

www.angelfire.com/art/megathink/stories/palm_stories.html

Flash fiction:

www.flashfictiononline.com/

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/14/how-to-write-flash-fiction 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/16/flash-fiction_n_6858220.html

Palm-of-the-Hand Stories (掌の小説 tenohira / tanagokoro no shōsetsu^?) is the name Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata gave to more than 140 short stories he wrote over his long career, though he reputedly preferred the reading tanagokoro for the 掌 character. The earliest story was published in 1920 with the last appearing posthumously in 1972. The stories are characterized by their brevity – some are less than a page long – and by their dramatic concision.
Although scattered individual stories had previously appeared in English, in 1988 Lane Dunlop and J. Martin Holman published the first substantial volume of English translations, a total of 70 stories drawn from the period of almost 50 years from 1922 until Kawabata's death in 1972, as Palm-of-the-Hand Stories. Dunlop and Holman's collection was reissued by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux under the North Point Press imprint in 2006.
In 1998, Holman's translations of another 20 of the palm-of-the-hand stories that had been published originally in Japanese before 1930 appeared in the book, The Dancing Girl of Izu and Other Stories, published by Counterpoint Press.

Movie

Palm-of-the-Hand Stories was turned into an omnibus movie that was premiered in October 2009 at the Tokyo International Film Festival and officially released in March 2010 under the same name. The movie features four short stories (“The man who does not laugh,” “Thank you,” “Japanese Anna,” and “Immortality”) from the novel and each was directed by a different director.
“The man who does not laugh,” directed by Kishimoto Tsukasa, is the story of a poor writer (Fukikoshi Mitsuru) living in an apartment located in a back alley with his sick wife (Natsuo Yuuna). Feeling that her death is close, he brought her to a mountain filled with cherry blossom trees as per her request.
“Thank you,” directed by Miyake Nobuyuki, is the story of a prostitute (Nakamura Asami) named Kikuko who recalls being sold in a town at a young age along with the bus driver known as Mr. Thank You.
“Japanese Anna,” directed by Tsubokawa Takushi, is the story of a man (Fukushi Seiji) whose wallet was stolen by a young girl named Anna (Kiyomiya Liza). He learns that she was an orphan of Russian aristocracy and stayed in the inn next to her room, spying on her.
“Immortality,” directed by Takahashi Yuya, is the story of an old man named Shintaro (Okumura Koen) took shelter under a cherry blossom tree from the wind and rain. He relives the days when his girlfriend (Kashi Yu), Misako, committed suicide under the same tree.

Writing Workshops

Agenda:

Workshop:  Continue to work on workshop groups from Monday

ACTIVITY: Gotham Workshop Character Questionnaire

READING: Go to Gotham Writers Workshop:

https://www.writingclasses.com/resources/index

EXPLORE!

End of Marking Period 3

AGENDA:

Marking period portfolios due tomorrow--20 pages of fiction (any combination of exercises, completed stories, work-in-progress)

MASTER CLASS--periods 3/4 with Rene Denfeld in Ensemble Theatre tomorrow
Just a thought:

Syllabus for the Dark Ahead   Jehanne Dubrow

Throughout this course, we’ll study the American landscape of our yard, coiled line of the garden hose, muddy furrows in the grass awaiting our analysis, what’s called close reading of the ground. And somewhere something will yip in pain perhaps, a paw caught in a wire, or else the furred and oily yowling of desire. And flickering beyond the fence, we’ll see the slatted lives of strangers. The light above a neighbor’s porch will be a test of how we tolerate the half-illumination of uncertainty, a glow that’s argument to shadow. Or if not that, we’ll write an essay on the stutter of the bulb, the little glimmering that goes before the absolute of night.

Richard Blanco--One Today

Text of poem "One Today" written and recited by Richard Blanco at the ceremonial swearing-in ceremony of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, as provided by the Presidential Inaugural Committee:

• Complete Coverage: The Presidential Inauguration 2013

Play VIDEO

Richard Blanco shares original poem at inauguration

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper -
bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives-
to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the "I have a dream" we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills
in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands
digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father's cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind - our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day's gorgeous din of honking cabs,
buses launching down avenues, the symphony
of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,
the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across cafe tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos dias
in the language my mother taught me - in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn't give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always - home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country - all of us -
facing the stars
hope - a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it - together.

Portfolio/Just for Fun

AGENDA:

Work on short stories for your portfolio.

Just for fun:

Go to http://www.plot-generator.org.uk/

or http://www.writers-den.pantomimepony.co.uk/writers-plot-ideas.php

http://www.writingexercises.co.uk/plotgenerator.php

Create a story using plot elements.  Revise the story produced in your own words.

Writing Portfolio/New Writing Prompts

AGENDA:

Work on your writing portfolio (20 pages) and missing work.

If time allows, we will workshop.

Check out this website for prompts and more:

http://www.creative-writing-now.com/fiction-writing-prompts.html

http://www.creative-writing-now.com/short-story-ideas.html