Lost in the Letters, Elf Power, & a User's Guide to Unreformed

I read for Atlanta’s Lost in the Letters this weekend. Listened to some fab writers (Jamie Iredell is hilarious!). Really enjoyed meeting LIL curator Scott Daughtridge. Am looking forward to future collaborations- he's doing much to build the regional lit scene, like this festival in November (to be linked soon) which features some of my heroes- Roxane Gay, Jericho Brown, Mary Miller, and more. Stoked!

I read two Unreformed excerpts*- Certificate of Affection (you had to have a commitment ceremony to have a relationship at Escuela Caribe- which was then horrifying but now is funny- provided you yourself didn't experience it) and First Gulf War, which delves into some of the apocalyptic dogma.  My husband, who is a musician (fave album- Ham 1: The Captain’s Table), helped me prep. When I came to the part where I referenced this verse in First Gulf War, he stopped me. “Wait, so that’s why you make jokes about riding the beast (when referring to difficult situations/people)?" “Totes, babe!”

Saturday night we walked down to the World Famous for Elf Power- a band we LOVE to see live, especially in this current iteration.** Former collaborators Bryan Poole and Jamie Huggins have reunited with Andrew Rieger and Laura Carter, and Peter Alvanos (who plays in our off/on project, High Ranker) is on drums. They closed with one of their oldest songs, Down to the Drugstore, which is about being all messed up in high school. Adored!

And after the show Andrew and I were talking about how much I enjoyed their set. When I watch them play they remind me of how my life could have been- had the adults in our town not shipped so many of us off to teen mistreatment facilities (and my parents not been religious control freaks) but instead helped us find some sort of creative outlet. But that's why I love how my Athens' friends were raised in Greenwood, SC, Ruston, LA, Charleston, Orlando, etc., because they have helped me discover how to be. And even better, that's how the kids in my town (especially my son) are being raised now.

One last thing- a reader (<3) emailed and asked for excerpts from Unreformed. Danzas Con Lobos en Santiago was published in Marco Polo. This Rumpus interview with Craig Zobel begins with a scene from Escuela Caribe. My Guernica interview with Julia Scheeres is essentially a comparison and contrast between Escuela Caribe and Jonestown. And the following posts from this blog include research or explore various topics pertaining to Escuela Caribe/ Caribe Vista/ Caribbean Mountain Academy. Enjoy!

• More from that Guernica Interview with Julia Scheeres
• Everyone Carried the Cross at Escuela Caribe
• Stockholm Syndrome Is for Real
• Caribbean Mountain Academy in Need of Reform
• Lifeline Youth and Family Services Under Scrutiny Stateside
• Escuela Caribe/ Caribbean Mountain Academy/ Crosswinds Updates
• Why NHYM Alumni Are Concerned About Crosswinds
• Petition to End Abuse of Children at Crosswinds
• New Horizons Youth Ministries Expelled from Haiti in 1974
• Abusive Tactics at Escuela Caribe Featured in 1979 Congressional Report
• Romney Linked to Abuse at For-Profit Teen Treatment Facilities
• 1988 Escuela Caribe Promotional Video
• About Unreformed
• For years, I wrote as Deirdre Sayre.  There is so much more on this blog.

*My buddy Scott M. and I were both super stoked that Eno's Needle in the Camel's Eye was my entry music to walk onstage, a song which (ZOMG- coincidence!) Elf Power also covers.

**Not that we haven't loved the other combos- Eric Harris and Derek Almstead from the In a Cave era- wow!

September- So Much!

This past month has whirled by...because this lady has been busy.

I returned to my job as a school librarian. I love it, though it keeps me from writing all day.  I still wrote almost every day. So close!

I re-read Jeff Jackson's Mira Corpora.  We are currently collaborating on an interview. Fun!

I am prepping to read for Atlanta's Lost in the Letters on Sunday, September 22.  Stoked!

I helped curate and promote the September edition of the New Town Revue at Athens' Avid Bookshop.  Thibault Raoult, Ari Lieberman, and Kara Kildare performed. Was a blast!

My husband spoke at Rabbit Box about our friend, Vic Chesnutt. <3...

On Labor Day I drove out to the near country for my friend's birthday. We set off fire balloons, flaming red beacons that drifted across the night sky.  It's a memory that will stick forever, but I love Ray Bradbury's description best.  

Down the Rabbit Hole Audio- Delta Edition

I was one of Rabbit Box's storytellers in July.  I spoke about discovering the unspoken history of racism in my home region, the Mississippi Delta, which is where my father's family lived for at least seven generations.  Audio is posted here.

Learning to Fly- July Recap

Ever since I left the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, I've spent almost every free moment in my studio, because, while at Tin House, I figured out where Unreformed stops and starts.* I owe this revelation in part to my mentor, Jodi Angel, who read and critiqued the whole hot mess of my manuscript, Steve Almond, the leader of our “Gimme Fiction" workshop (a.k.a. The Almond Joys),** as well as the crew of writers with whom I studied.  You all ROCK!

On this past Friday, my last true Friday of the summer, my friend Bart Lemahieu recorded me reading Burnt Norton by T.S. Eliot, a piece that has helped me come to grips with accepting loss in my life.  Amazing! Afterwards, as the sun set, we listened to the cicadas.  Audio will be posted when we get it right.

During the past few weeks I also began conversations with Escuela Caribe alumni who came after me- and all I can say is- Crosswinds/ Caribbean Mountain Academy/ Escuela Caribe/ Caribe Vista- despite your denials- I KNOW YOU ARE THE SAME PLACE. You kept the same people on as staff.  You were mentored by former abusers.  Many of the procedures remain the same- the only major change seems to be the name (and we have seen that before!).*** And I will address that matter soon- in another post- but now I am writing, writing, writing...

And to all of you who read and engage and comment here- know that I appreciate you.  And I cherish your assistance in helping me expose the abuses of Caribbean Mountain Academy/ Escuela Caribe. Thank you so for being... <3 <3 <3...

*This is huge- I was meandering way over on both ends.

** Album by the band Spoon. My mental soundtrack in Portland. I write nonfiction, but studied fiction this workshop to learn more about craft. Love learning outside the box.

***Newsflash- Crosswinds/ CMA/ EC- in regards to your blog post: writing is NOT a lucrative career.  Most writers have jobs to support their passion. And understand- I am extremely passionate about ensuring that other kids are not abused. 

Tin House 2013

At Tin House- studying with Steve Almond.  Mentored by Jodi Angel. Both the real deal in a crowd of superstars- check this roster of everyone else- rauow!

The Writers Workshop is at Reed College, described last year by child tween thing as looking "like Hogwarts"- but with a lake and ducks and tall trees and hydrangeas and greenspace galore and eating outside and studying in Eliot Hall... and in Portland... one of my favorite cities ever...Sometime I will write about how the esposo and I just missed moving here...

Loving learning with great fellows- in workshop/ conference wide. Tribe gathers for craft lectures in Vollum, then readings every single night in the amphitheater outdoors...Thursday alone Karen Russell, Matthew Dickman, Luis Alberto Urrea--- Not even going to name check all the other reading rock stars- except to tell you that Jodi blew us all away when she opened the very first night...

Also reunited with the wolf pack*- remnants of Stephen Elliott's 2012 crew. Canada, Westerfield, Ciston- adore you too!

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*All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel. …Think about it. There's escaping from the wolves, fighting the wolves, capturing the wolves, taming the wolves. Being thrown to the wolves, or throwing others to the wolves so the wolves will eat them instead of you. Running with the wolf pack. Turning into a wolf. Best of all, turning into the head wolf. No other decent stories exist. (Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood)...

Down the Rabbit Hole- Mississippi Delta Edition

I’ve been prepping for Rabbit Box Storytelling at the Melting Point tomorrow night- I have eight minutes to tell about a rabbit hole I went down.  The decision is difficult- ever since I was a kid I’ve loved to immerse myself in history- I’m still obsessed with the Holocaust.  Forced exercise, Arbeit Macht Frei, Eichmann "only following orders”- so many parallels to Escuela Caribe in my teens.

However, I decided to focus on 2010’s summer obsession- when I began exploring the untold histories of Greenwood, Mississippi, my hometown. I'd begun writing about this amazing teacher, Mrs. C., who taught me in 9th grade- I adored her- because she was one of the few adults who told us the truth about where we lived. How Emmett Till was lynched in our county.  And how (when I was in high school) Medgar Evers’ murderer still walked the streets and bragged, and how when Kennedy was assassinated  people in my town celebrated. Take note: that scene in the Help (which I only saw because it was filmed in my friends’ houses in Greenwood) where all the white people were crying over Kennedy’s murder, was a white wash.

In 2010, I began writing about the Delta, and, because I’m obsessive, discovered so many things I am not going to have time to tell.  How for a brief period, my hometown was a civil rights hotbed- Medgar Evers, Dick Gregory, Bob Moses, Alice Walker, Harry Belafonte, James Bevel, Sam Block and so many others sacrificed so much to make Greenwood a better place.  Dr. King came twice. Stokely Carmichael was provoked into delivering the black Power speech in my town.  There was so much brutality, so many murders- it sickened me- but also beauty- that part in Don’t Look Back where Dylan is playing in the cotton field, it happened right near where I grew up.

But what I am focusing on is how white people behaved in Greenwood, and the segregationist literature, particularly 1957’s Manual for Southerners, which was printed in my hometown.  Because it’s important for people to understand how hate speech programmed generations of Southerners, of Americans, to be racist, and also that the painful history I unearthed was not just from Greenwood, but from Athens, and all over the world. It's important  to explore unwritten histories, no matter how painful- because knowledge is power- it's the only way to create a better world.

More from that Guernica Interview with Julia Scheeres

 I remember it was 1978 and I saw this magazine cover on our dining room table.  And there were bodies lying on the ground and I remember asking my mom what is that? She didn't answer my question, just flipped the cover over, said something about a bad thing happening. And I remember I kept hearing this name on the news "Jonestown" and for a while Jonestown was the news- it was inescapable- and I know I realized lots of people- including children- died- and as a kid, that resonated. I thought about it constantly. So I guess you could say I've been a Jonestown obsessive since I was four. 

I remember I didn't understand how parents could kill their children. I remember I didn't understand how so many people could kill themselves. And until I read Julia's Jonestown book, A Thousand Lives, which we discussed in the Guernica interview, I didn't understand that most people there didn't just "drink the Kool-Aid"- many died after months of being broken down- many were violently coerced.  She talks about it in our Guernica interview, and other things- how Jim Jones staged traumatic events to bond with his congregation, and how having been at Escuela Caribe (our reform school, where her memoir Jesus Land is set) helped her and Jonestown survivors bond. Her take (again in the interview) on how Jim Jones fits in culturally is not to be missed.  As is the witness she bears to racism in America- which resounded differently with her than with most whites- her adopted brother David was black. 

I loved our entire conversation, but obviously the Escuela Caribe parts hit the closest home. Ever since she and I spoke, and then I transcribed it and thought about it, I've felt like I understand so much more about myself, about so many survivors.  Some of my favorite parts are after the jump....Or read the entire interview at Guernica.