Trendy But Casual

All Quiet on the Midwestern Front

I'm back in New Orleans - which is not in the Midwest, I know; all will be explained later - and overwhelmed by everything that has to be done/prepared for/attended/completed/
written/revised/commented on, etc ... by Monday. It's the Tennessee Williams Festival this weekend, and I'm convening a panel on the short story on Sunday; Louise Gluck arrives in town on Sunday night: there's a dinner that night, and then her reading at Tulane on Monday. My boyfriend Salman Rushdie is here in a week and I have to write something sensible for the introduction at his lecture. Meanwhile, there's an MS of a book to be revised this weekend, and students clamoring for references, etc. (By "etc" I mean "for me to read their work and give them written comments.) This isn't unreasonable on their part: it's my own fault. I fell behind during my travels to London, New York, and Easton, PA, where I was the visiting writer at Lafayette College. So now there are considerable chunks of two honors theses and an independent study to read, plus six short stories and a stack of exercises. I also need to write a review of the new Hanif Kureishi novel, Something to Tell You, by yesterday. And finish re-reading The Satanic Verses by Wednesday, when we have our final event in the Rushdie Reading Series.

Of course, I would have more time if I was not wasting it a) playing Klondike on my Nano; b) storming around campus in a rage when I see that the Info Desk workers in the LBC have not bothered to put in place all 80 of our Louise Gluck tent cards, preferring instead to leave them stacked behind the Info Desk where no one can see them; c) annoying the clerks in the campus book store by asking them if they are handing out our Rushdie book marks with every purchase (I'm going to be banned soon, or at least told to stop inserting bookmarks into every book piled on the front table); d) waiting on hold to speak to someone at our webmail "Help Desk", which ultimately results in the diagnosis of "I don't know"; e) watching a video of Paris Hilton trying to belly dance; f) lying awake at night wondering why, when I tell the students at our last meeting before Spring Break that our next meeting will be at 11 AM on March 26, only a handful of them WRITE IT DOWN, resulting in some students turning up at 6 PM on March 26, and others appearing at 11 AM today, March 28, all seething with resentment because I neglected to remind them, or because the reminder I e-mailed on Monday did not, apparently, reach anyone (see item d); g) trying to complete Tulane's Digital Measures Online Annual Report, which took HOURS and made me feel as though English was my second language; and h) thinking about the beautiful weather outside, and wishing that the Brazilian Studies conference, Arabic Film Festival, and Tennessee Williams Festival were not all scheduled for this weekend.

Whatever!

Here is the Midwestern portion of this post, about online access to MFA theses. This is the word from the University of Iowa. An about-face, of sorts.

Statement from the Provost Concerning MFA Theses

"In recent days a number of people have been upset about what they believed was a plan by our library to publish the creative thesis work of students in our writing programs on the internet without their permission. Let me say as simply and clearly as I can, there is no such plan nor will there be. I regret sincerely that we did not convey this message when students and faculty first voiced their concerns.

For some time now our library, like most major academic research libraries, has been exploring ways to make its collections more accessible by digitizing some materials. As part of that process, there has been discussion about the possibility of making graduate student dissertations and theses available in electronic format. But any such process must be preceded by developing policies and procedures that allow authors to decide whether and when to allow distribution.

On Monday, March 17, I will begin pulling together a working group with representatives from the Graduate College, University Libraries, our several writing programs, and all other constituencies who wish to be part of the process. Under the leadership of Carl Seashore in 1922, Iowa became the first university in the United States to award MFA degrees based on creative projects. Although this has been a rocky start, I like to think that Iowa will again lead the way by developing policies and procedures that safeguard intellectual
property rights while preserving materials for the use of scholars in generations to come.
--

Lola L. Lopes
Interim Executive Vice President and Provost
The University of Iowa

British Library

This is my last full day in the British Library. The New British Library: the old blue reading room at the British Museum, where I spent so many days twenty years ago, is now an exhibition space, or an exhibit in its own right, I guess. Now there’s a large, Lego-like red-brick building near St Pancras Station, with pale, airy public areas, mini-staircases and escalators winding all over the place, cafes and restaurants, a shop where you can buy things like literary-themed pencils and magnets, and various stacked reading rooms.

I’ve only ventured into Humanities 1, which has desks for several hundred people. It’s full by lunchtime every day; at 11:30 I heard a reader at the issue desk saying he couldn’t find a seat. When I came back from lunch – having secured my place for the day with a scattering of pencils and books, reserving my spot the way Germans use draped towels to reserve sun-chairs at holiday resorts – the sign was up outside security: no more room. It’s Easter week here, so universities are on break and the library is particularly busy. People who just want to work and not use reference materials are encouraged to stay out in one of the public areas. The tables outside the restaurant were filling when I arrived this morning, and I just passed an area of comfortable chairs, all with attached desks and a power point for computers; every seat was taken, of course. Some people slouch around on banquettes eating their lunch and reading the paper; maybe they just work nearby and want somewhere comfortable and relatively quiet to sit.

Security is tighter these days, of course. At the British Museum, I used to show my pass at the gate – if I arrived before the Museum itself opened – and again at the entrance to the Reading Room. Now there are four people checking bags at the main doors, and two security guards on watch at Humanities 1, checking passes on the way in and asking readers to open up laptops on the way out. We have to leave everything – bags, coats, pens, cameras – in a locker downstairs, and carry approved items into the library itself in clear plastic bags. I’d say that 95% of the readers in this room have a laptop open on their desks. There’s a power outlet at every desk, and you can access low-cost wireless anywhere in the building.

And so the old system of book requests, involving endless slips of paper with multiple copies and not enough room for titles and call numbers, has changed as well. I sit at my desk here, search the catalogue on my laptop, and order the books I want (ten max a day); a light flashes when the books are ready at the Issues desk. They take between 70 minutes and 48 hours to arrive, depending on where in Britain they’re stored. I don’t remember how long books used to take – forty minutes, an hour, maybe longer. I have it in my head that they used to be delivered to your desk by a librarian pushing a rolling cart, but this may be wrong. Now a light flashes on your desk to alert you to new arrivals.

Some things I remember very clearly about the old Reading Room – the soft texture of the desk, the smell of the books, the thrill I felt walking up the steps every day – but other things are blurred to me. I think we could use pens – pencils were just for the rare books room – and cough sweets were not contraband; I remember an old man sitting next to me once, pushing a sweet across the dividing lines of our desks. Now the patrolling security guards would confiscate it, and possibly turf you out so one of the desperate readers lurking outside can take your seat.

One thing I’ve noticed that remains the same: everyone seems to abide by the unspoken desk-boundary rule, i.e. nobody’s possessions creep into another person’s space. Every so often someone will look up, notice that the corner of a book or laptop is jutting across the wooden strip of neutral ground, and apologetically move them back into home territory.

Actually, there are two things that remain the same – the second is the teal shirt of one of the Issue Desk librarians, which he has worn every day this week.

The thing I like the most about this week: the time and the focus. I haven’t got through as many books as I thought I would – five so far, all of which have been tremendously useful – because the days race by. (The “last orders” announcement at four yesterday took me by surprise, in part because I can’t see outside without looking up several stories to a high, distant window.) But I love the feeling of just getting on with work, and learning things that may or may not be used in my book, and finding and following new leads. I’ll be back here in June, I hope, for more investigations.

Things I have learned this week that I probably won’t get to use: whale jaws once stood at the entrance gates to Dundee Wharf in Limehouse; Queen Victoria had coffee and eggs at breakfast; and her Coronation was attended by one “Count Stroganoff, Ambassador Extraordinary from the Emperor of Russia.”

London is great, by the way – the same as ever, i.e. crowded, expensive, drizzly, moving at high speed. In the tube stations I feel as though everyone is running. (I’ve been living in Louisiana too long, maybe.) The whole city is papered with discarded newspapers. There was a vile pool of vomit on the station platform at Hampton Wick for two days. People are worried about house prices and mortgage rates. Shops are stacked high with Easter eggs.

Now back to work.

Universities Gone Wild

In the past week, I've heard from contacts at both Victoria University in Wellington (where I did my MA in Creative Writing) and the University of Iowa (where I completed my MFA) that the universities want to publish creative theses online. In fact, in the case of Iowa, students won't be able to graduate without agreeing to this.

Like every other writer I've heard from about this issue, I'm opposed to this - and opposed to the high-handed manner in which the universities are acting.

Of course, I know that my MA thesis - the draft manuscript for my first novel, Queen of Beauty - is already available to the public in the Victoria University library. Similarly, my thesis for Iowa - a collection of short stories, which forms the basis of the book I'm currently working on for publication by Penguin - is available in the University of Iowa library. Someone could, in theory, photocopy either MS, but it would be cheaper for them to buy an actual copy of the book in question.

Electronic circulation is quite a different matter. If anyone in the world is able to access and download the MS to a computer, then they're essentially able to get either of these books free of charge. While neither thesis is a final draft, there's not a vast difference between draft and published product. There would be little reason for anyone to buy an actual copy of the book if the same content was available online.

Student writers will have to be much more circumspect. When Penguin agreed to publish my first book, I had the chance to work through it page-by-page with an editor, preparing it for publication. If I'd been conscious that the thesis with all its rough edges, meanderings, failed scenes, extra characters, ugly lines, etc, would be published online, I'm sure I would NOT have handed in so much work. I'd still be agonizing over every line! Student writers will have to waste time obsessing over legal issues - eg use of song lyrics, the names of places and characters, inadvertent plagiarism, the potential for defamation suits - rather than focusing on writing their MSS. Are these universities willing to accept the responsibilities and liabilities of a publisher?

I'm sure, also, that I would have submitted quite a different creative thesis at both places. If I had to sign up now for online publication by the university, would I think twice about including the complete novel in my MA thesis for Victoria? Absolutely. Would I submit the minimum number of pages for my MFA thesis for Iowa and possibly include old/already published rather than new work? Absolutely. This way, I would know that the WHOLE book was not available to the public until I sold it to a publisher - and readers could buy it in a book store.

By the way, the Graduate College at Iowa is refusing to bend on this, and within two weeks current MFA students will have to sign their "First Deposit" form or be prevented from graduating.

As Kembrew McLeod explains, this "First Deposit" form "contains brand new language that can be construed as a license that hands over student thesis publishing rights to the University of Iowa -- unless an embargo form is signed, and that embargo only lasts two years ... The language of this new Graduate College form would allow for MFA theses deposited this year to eventually be posted on Google Print, which is a reminder that we need good university policies regarding copyright protections and exceptions. I highly recommend UVA Prof. Siva Vaidhyanathan's blog The Googlization of Everything, for more info about the broader implications of the Google Print project."

If I was arriving at Victoria or Iowa now, and was forced to sign such an agreement, I would hand in a completely different creative thesis, just to protect my own future interests. The idea that a university would impose this kind of restriction on our creative freedom - and creative property - is astounding.

Red Christmas

There's a review of The Best New Zealand Fiction IV, a Random House anthology edited by Fiona Farrell, up at the Lumiere Reader site: a story of mine, "Red Christmas," appears in this anthology.

Even though it's an Auckland story, "Red Christmas" has strong Iowa roots. It grew out of an exercise set by Elizabeth McCracken in our novel-writing class (which is why the story is a prequel, of sorts, to Hibiscus Coast), and the title was provided by our upstairs neighbor, Bjorn from Iceland. When it doesn't snow in December in Iceland, he said, they call it a Red Christmas.

I'm still not sure why.

March 2008

It's the first of the month, so I attacked T. Middy with the traditional pinch and punch today: he's unfamiliar with this tradition, and therefore an easy target. Unfortunately, his unfamiliarity with the etiquette of the greeting means he doesn't respect the "no returns" part either.

February overwhelmed me with work, hence the lack of posts. Here are some updates on various industrious and accomplished friends.

The excellent Ginger Strand has re-invented her web site to include information on her forthcoming book, Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power and Lies, additional images and information, tips on travel to Niagara Falls, etc. My favorite section is Lost Niagara. Ginger, who's a frequent contributor to The Believer also has an article coming up soon in Harper's, I believe.

(Another, shorter Strand has been busy with her Harry Potter site, The Three Broomsticks Inn, which entertains and informs visitors from 63 countries ...)

Kevin Rabalais, a native of Louisiana now resident in Melbourne, Australia (why, Kevin, why????), has published his first novel, The Landscape of Desire, about the disappearance of the explorers Burke and Wills. We were excited to get our copies in the mail this week, and to read this interview with The Australian online today. Kevin's book has been blurbed by David Malouf and Colum McCann: Malouf calls it "lyrical, precise, mysterious" and McCann compares him with Ondaatje - "daring, musical, intelligent and out on the edge."

Hopefully we'll see Kevin (and Jennifer Levasseur, the co-author of Novel Voices) later this year. I'm going to be spending quite a lot of time in the Southern Hemisphere, thanks in part to a Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship. I've been applying for this since 2003, so I'm delighted that it's happening at last. The fellowship provides a flat on Albert Park in downtown Auckland: my tenure there is from the beginning of July through the end of November. This will be the first time I've lived in a place of my own (sort of) in Auckland, apart from my short residency in the beautiful Michael King Writers' Centre last year. I can't tell you how excited and happy I am anticipating the fellowship this year, especially now I've recovered from the shame of writing on my own wall on Facebook. (Don't worry: I deleted it right away!)