How people reach my blog

The most popular way people get here is by searching for an image of Steven King.

Someone googled "Dorothy vs. Alice." I believe that person was looking for the iconic literary gals, but instead found two other literary women: Dorothy Allison and Alice Sebold.

Recently, I believe my former agent (hi Ben!) found me when I wrote about his new career. I know he worked hard at the agent thing--and I'm truly happy he has found something he obviously loves. (Believe me, I get the "I'm changing my career" thing...it's happened to me time and again.) His blog is very cool for those who are interested in all things epicurean (with a dash of home improvement).

Speaking of an array of careers, there are people who google "Kate Evans," but it's hard to know which one they're searching for.

The singer?

The scientist?

The author of a comic book on climate change?

The actress?

The blogger?

The photographer?

The book reviewer?

The zoologist who studies elephants?

The film editor?

The business analyst?

The 19 year old with the wonderful accent who looks like she plays soccer or some other such sport?

The one born in 1826?

The news director at SearchSMB.com?

The therapist?

The accountant?

The editor of a girl's magazine?

The school principal?

The midwife?

The child with the dream job?

Let's face it, most are probably looking for the porn star.

(All photos are of Kate Evans.)

Should Writing Be Cathartic?

When I asked Alice Sebold about whether or not writing Lucky (her memoir about her brutal rape) was cathartic, she said no--that she had worked through those feelings before writing the book. She said, "I had already done my personal work. Memoirs should serve the people reading them, not the author writing."

Consider that comment in contrast to Robert Frost's famous insight about writing and feeling: "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader."

I've been writing poetry and memoir for the past two years about my parents' illnesses and my father's death. Feeling is essential to me while I write. So is discovery. I can never claim I've worked out my feelings and thoughts in advance of writing--be that memoir, poetry or fiction. (That doesn't mean I write only to serve myself; I almost always imagine myself speaking to others as I write.)

Poet Ellen Bass addresses this as well in a recent online Poets & Writers intervew. I like how she says that her writing comes from something she's "trying to work out." To me, if I already have the thing settled, there's no reason to write about it.

Here's what Ellen says:

P&W: How did your mother’s death affect your writing?

Ellen Bass: Writing poetry for me was one of the primary ways that I grieved. I found that working with the poems was more natural to me than any other outward rituals or ceremonies around her death. I just thought during that whole period how fortunate I was to be a poet. I don’t know what people do who don’t have a way to sit with their experience in a tangible way. . . . Very often a poem comes from something that I’m trying to work out in my own life. Often I’ll write the same poem many times if there's an idea I’m grappling with. I’ll write it over and over in poems that don’t ultimately succeed until finally I have some entry into the poem.

Interview with Alice Sebold

If you're curious what Alice Sebold (author of The Lovely Bones, Lucky and The Almost Moon) had to say in my on-stage conversation with her, a piece just appeared in WritersTalk, the monthly newsletter of the South Bay Writers Club.

Alice Sebold in Conversation with Kate Evans: Creative Minds
by Suzy Paluzzi

On October 25, Alice Sebold, author of Lucky and The Lovely Bones, read from her new novel The Almost Moon at the San Jose Museum of Art. Afterward, she spoke in front of the audience with Kate Evans, local author and co-director of the Center for Literary Arts at San Jose State University.

This was Alice Sebold’s first appearance in San Jose and she immediately set a very casual tone to the evening. A striking woman, Sebold is known for writing about dark subjects. Lucky, a memoir about her rape, began as a way to find her main character’s voice for the novel The Lovely Bones, which she was writing at the time but had put aside.

Alice Sebold said she “explores lifetime backgrounds as part of her process, and writes a lot that never gets published.” After she wrote Lucky, she rewrote The Lovely Bones. It took her two years to find the voice for the character Helen in her new book The Almost Moon.

When asked about the difference between writing a memoir and writing fiction, the author said, “I had already done my personal work. Memoirs should serve the people reading them, not the author writing. Writing fiction is more free and thus inherently more challenging.”

Sebold shared that she “always wanted to write fiction” and she “wrote poetry as a child” and “writes it as a discipline” now.

The suburbs is the setting for Alice Sebold’s books. “Suburbia is ‘compost’—where it all is, where all is seething,” she believes. “When I was growing up, I used to wonder what was going on in the house across the street.” And in the “suburbs, there is an obsession about perfection—not only in the physical, like lawns—but people. People hide,” the author stated.

When Kate Evans inquired why all three of her books involve violent acts, Sebold responded, “I want to write books that psychologically move in a compelling way. A violent act only opens the doorway into psychological investigation.”

As a child, the author had undiagnosed dyslexia. “ I was raised in a house of readers, and I didn’t read …. Desperation creates a sense of drive.” She started reading, and “poetry was my way in, in high school,” she said. She still writes it now.

She read fiction “obsessively,” when she was in her mid-twenties and the old masters when she was in her early thirties.

The Lovely Bones is currently being filmed [by Peter Jackson]. When asked by a member of the audience how involved she is in the film, Ms. Sebold said, “I don’t have a lot of fear and reservations. I am a ‘process freak,’ not a ‘control freak,’ so I am excited to see what they do.”

Regarding her writing “process,” Sebold offered that she is up every day at 4 a.m. because “if you start in the dark, the judges are all asleep.”

She is “obsessed with reading” and “especially keeps poetry books near her, to “feed her” while she is working.

One of Sebold’s tips is, “It is hugely important to have writing mentors, especially to teach you how to navigate the life you are going to lead. You need to have examples of how to survive those mean years when there is little money.”

Check for tickets to author appearances like Pulitzer Prize Winner Jhumpa Lahiri in the Creative Minds series at http://www.sanjosemuseumofart.org/.

To learn more about The Center of Literary Arts, San Jose State, see http://www.litart.org/.

Rushdie & Sebold & Mom

Here's an article about my on-stage interview with Alice Sebold.

The part of our discussion I connected to the most was when she talked about her need to find a voice to propel the story. I love the "click" that happens when the juicy voice manifests.

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Yesterday Kelly (my co-director) and I picked up Salman Rushdie at the aiport. As he walked toward us, a young woman ran up to him, brandishing a copy of one of his novels. "Mr. Rushie? Will you sign my book?" she gushed. Turns out she had a friend on the flight who had alerted her to the fact that Rushdie was on the plane--so she hurried over with her book. Her crafty move saved her from waiting in a long line that evening because 800 people came to our event at San Jose State.

Before the event, we had dinner with Rushdie at the home of one of our board members. There were twelve of us there in the penthouse, overlooking the sparkling lights of San Jose. Rushdie was generous, funny and intelligent in personal conversation as well as later on stage. During dinner, the conversation turned to earthquakes, since we'd just had one last week. Rushdie kept us entertained as he discussed a number of novels and stories that feature earthquakes.

He also talked about the historical novel he has just finished writing. Other topics ranged from exercise (he wants a tee-shirt that says "Exercise Kills") to Harry Potter (his ten-year-old son drilled Rowling when he met her about inconsistencies in her series--and Rushdie thinks Rowling's opinions about Dumbledore's being gay are irrelevant and that it's up to us to determine character from the text. I pointed out that there is a whole history of sub-textual homoeroticism in literature, however, which he seemed to regard as an intriguing point.)

After dinner, we walked to campus, where Rushdie sat with Kelly and me in our office and signed some posters and books. We then took him to our newly refurbished Morris Dailey Auditorium where he spoke and then sat with my colleague, Revathi Krishnaswamy, for an on-stage conversation, followed by audience questions.

He talked at length about how story-telling is a human impulse--and also about the fascination people have with how autobiographical a particular piece of fiction may or may not be. He said that Nabokov, for instance, was not a pedophile but people assume he must have had "ideas" since he explored that territory. Just because writers grapple with the problems of humanity and of their era does not mean they have necessarily experienced them personally. Rushdie wants us to question why we care of something "really" happened and to appreciate story not for its supposed autobiographical truths but for its emotional truths.

He talked about why he is writing only fiction these days, not opinion pieces as he used to write monthly for the Times: it was exhausting to have to have an opinion a month, twelve a year--much less two a week like the Maureen Dowds of the world.

When asked about his appearance on Bill Mahr, he said the comedians such as Mahr and Colbert are doing important political work these days. Fitting that a satiric novelist would say so.

As other important memories from last night come to me, I will share them in new entries. For now, I'm a little brain-dead because of the intensity of the preparations and the rush of last night. Rushdie signed books for about 45 minutes and then we had a private reception with about 50 people where I introduced him to a number of people and he chatted in small groups on topics from politics to writing to teaching. After signing more books and sitting for pictures, he was whisked back to the hotel at 11 p.m. Ours was his fourth speaking engagement in as many days, so I'm sure he's happy to be back on the plane to Manhattan this morning.

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I'm happy to have a quiet morning with my sister, Ann, here. She flew in from San Diego last night. Today we're going up to my mom's to celebrate her 75th birthday. Happy Birthday, Mom.

I Won Rosie!

On Joe.My.God's blog, I won a copy of Rosie O'Donnell's new memoir, Celebrity Detox, about addiction to fame . Yay!

If you've never read Joe.My.God, check him out here. Beware, though, he's addictive. But I guess it's better to be addicted to smart commentary on queer issues than to fame.

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I interviewed Alice Sebold tonight on stage and am wired and tired. People tell me it went well, but I'm still kind of out of my body that I don't think I'll be able to write about it until tomorrow. In the meantime, I will finish this glass of wine.

All I can say right now is that she signed my copy of The Almost Moon, her new novel that has matricide as its inciting incident: Kill Your Mother! I told her I'd take that in the Freudian way. She seemed to think that was a good idea.

Salman & Alice

Up next at the Center for Literary Arts is Salman Rushdie.

I hear he's a fascinating speaker, a funny guy and a "brilliant conversationalist." Of course there are people around the world who hate him, and people who love him. That mix is undoubtedly good for his literary career.

Salon did a good piece on him here.

He'll be at SJSU's Morris Dailey Auditorium on Thursday, November 8 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets ($25 general, $10 students) available at the SJSU Box Offie and Ticketmaster.

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Next week I interview Alice Sebold. You still have time to float questions to me that you think I should ask her.

Miley, Alice & Dorothy

I don't get this.
Does that make me old?

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I have been asked to be "in conversation" with Alice Sebold onstage on Thursday October 25 at the San Jose Museum of Art. She has a new novel, The Almost Moon, coming out on October 16. I have a hot pre-pub copy in my hands and will be reading it after I finish re-reading The Lovely Bones and Lucky.


The Almost Moon is about a woman in her 40's who kills her senile 88-year-old mother. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to experience this, given that I'm in my 40's and my beloved mother has Alzheimer's.

If you have any questions you think I should ask Alice Sebold, please comment!

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Tomorrow is Dorothy! We are all geared-up and excited.