cruising
Ten years ago, I took my second-ever writing workshop. The format was simple: every week, we were allowed to bring in up to four-- later six-- pages of whatever we were working on. It could be the same pages every week, if you were revising or working on something short; it could be a new set if you were trying to find some momentum. You had to read your pages out loud to the group. And then we would talk about them.
The class was taught out of C's apartment, which was located at the Krotona, the site of a former theophist commune in Beachwood Canyon. Getting to his place required navigating narrow pathways overhung with palms and bougainvillea; the walk in and out was inevitably somewhere between romantic and spooky. Sometimes both.
I brought the first inklings of what turned out to be my first book to that class. I was wrong about most of it, at that point; for starters, the story was about a girl, but it was narrated by her boyfriend. "Why?" everyone asked. I didn't have a good answer.
The next week I brought in pages that are still in A Song to Take the World Apart, some of them verbatim.
Also in that class: Laura Picklesimer, who was working on what would become her debut, Kill For Love, which came out this week.
There were plenty of talented writers alongside us, and in the sessions of the class that followed. I don't know if anyone else has published in the years since, and if they did, this little anecdote loses some of its heft. But it's true that I remember Laura in part because I loved her writing. But also in part because we were the only two who brought in new work every week. Not always totally fresh-- sometimes there were revisions to discuss. But every week, we had made ourselves write something. Not that you have to always be working. But we had made a commitment to something for the space of the class, and we stuck to it. And you know, here we are. Still writing.
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I got to profile photographer Rick Castro for The LA Times this week. Castro is an LA native, a gay man who's been taking frank, moving pictures of queer and kink subcultures for decades. His latest is a book of portraits of street hustlers along Santa Monica Boulevard in the 90's; I recommend giving both the book and the piece a look if you're interested in any of the above.
The class was taught out of C's apartment, which was located at the Krotona, the site of a former theophist commune in Beachwood Canyon. Getting to his place required navigating narrow pathways overhung with palms and bougainvillea; the walk in and out was inevitably somewhere between romantic and spooky. Sometimes both.
I brought the first inklings of what turned out to be my first book to that class. I was wrong about most of it, at that point; for starters, the story was about a girl, but it was narrated by her boyfriend. "Why?" everyone asked. I didn't have a good answer.
The next week I brought in pages that are still in A Song to Take the World Apart, some of them verbatim.
Also in that class: Laura Picklesimer, who was working on what would become her debut, Kill For Love, which came out this week.
There were plenty of talented writers alongside us, and in the sessions of the class that followed. I don't know if anyone else has published in the years since, and if they did, this little anecdote loses some of its heft. But it's true that I remember Laura in part because I loved her writing. But also in part because we were the only two who brought in new work every week. Not always totally fresh-- sometimes there were revisions to discuss. But every week, we had made ourselves write something. Not that you have to always be working. But we had made a commitment to something for the space of the class, and we stuck to it. And you know, here we are. Still writing.
-
I got to profile photographer Rick Castro for The LA Times this week. Castro is an LA native, a gay man who's been taking frank, moving pictures of queer and kink subcultures for decades. His latest is a book of portraits of street hustlers along Santa Monica Boulevard in the 90's; I recommend giving both the book and the piece a look if you're interested in any of the above.
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