Literary Event Review (Adam Baginski)
The bookend event that I attended was called Dual Perspectives on the festival’s website but it was also known as An evening with emerging writers and editors by the host. The main focus of the meeting was centered around 4 writing and editing fellows who discussed their experiences with literature and any questions from the audience. The host of the meeting was Megan Cummins, a writer/editor who currently edits A public space, a non-profit literary magazine located in Brooklyn. The fellows this meeting revolved around were Vivian Hu, Crawford Hunt, Taylor Michael, and Ruby Wang. Ruby and Taylor were the editing fellows while Vivian and Crawford were the writing fellows.
A literary event is a gathering of writers and readers where they can discuss a shared love of literature typically discussing one form of literature and usually held over a series of days. The event will either be held in person or online which is what the organizer feel would be best for the audience. One example of a literary event located in New York would be the Brooklyn Book Festival. It was started by Martin Markowitz, Liz Koch, and Carolyn Greer to give voice to the authors located in Brooklyn. The festival lasts about one week with the main events on the first day and the last two days which are the first days of October. There are also bookend events which take place throughout the week either in person or online and located through out the city instead of just Brooklyn. My event was a bookend event and I think it was on a Tuesday.
The topic for the meeting revolved around the fellows’ experience in writing, their pasts, any other work they do that’s connected to literature, what they were doing when they found out about the fellowships, and read out loud anything they’ve written or edited. Let me tell about the work that the writers did for their fellowship. First, we had Crawford discuss what her experiences with writing literature has been. It’s turns out she works full time for TED Talks and likes to write in her spare time when she came across the fellowship. She mentioned that prior to the fellowship she mostly wrote on the subway instead of entering any sort of contest or event. She only decided to do it because she was intrigued by the idea where you write about something you wrote in addition to the writing itself. Another example would be Vivian discussing her experience when she admits that it was similar to Crawford. The difference was that she was in an MFA program at Cornell and she wanted to turn her idea into a novel. When she submitted it, she remarked how nice it felt to have her work validated by her peers. During the conversation, she read a piece of hers which was about a Chinese-American Texan widow whose children is helping her sort through her husband’s belongings and at the same time, she’s reminiscing on her own mother’s words about motherhood.
Next we can get onto the editors. Normally when you think of literature discussions, you normally think about the writers who worked hard on their writing, not the editors. But as it turns our editing is important because you can catch mistakes in order to create a more cohesive story. Two of the fellows, Ruby and Taylor are both editors with different experiences. Taylor was a student in her MFA program along before she came to the realization that she enjoys editing as a writer. Even then, she admitted that with the fellowship, she wasn’t sure whether or not editing was something she could do and though it would be useful to help her get into New York’s publishing industry. Also she was in the program with Bridghette Hughes who is the public editor of A public space. The other fellow, Ruby, originally had no experience with editing or publishing but she admitted that she was an avid reader of A public space. When she submitted her piece for the fellowship, she included a cover letter which pays tribute to the magazine. Now she admitted that she’s having fun with her fellowship and is learning more than she did before. She also admitted she’s unsure about what career paths she interested in but she’s enjoying the chance to experience new things as part of the fellowship.
During the hour long meeting, I was trying to think about how this meeting related back to what we discussed in class. There was something Megan said where she recognized some of the names in the chat while also acknowledging the new ones she didn’t know. I don’t know why it reminded me of what we discussed during our first meeting together about analyzing literary communities. I was thinking of the literary communities we discussed in the tour during the first week was built to specific communities like the La America Ilustrada magazine, which catered to Latin speaking Americans. I also remembered how we were discussing Walt Whitman in the class from last week and how he was part of a group of writers known as the New York Bohemians. Even though they were in a time period where the people weren’t as educated, they still maintained a connection between writers in the city of New York. Obviously, there are more literary communities but it is interesting to see how New York has such a long and meaningful history when it comes to literature. I thought of the four fellows and how they use the fellowship as a way to help them learn more about publishing, writing, and editing than before.
The meeting that I attended was important because it was a meeting between writers and editors. That’s important because when you write, there needs to be a editor to help the writer manage the story. This meeting was one of many events that related back to the Brooklyn Book Festival, which takes place in New York’s fall season ever since 2006. It’s a modern day example of a literary event because it helps people who enjoy literature communicate. While many people may be worried about the communication and whether or not their ideas may be received, I believe it is necessary to help those who want to bring their ideas onto paper.