Don't mind me, I'm moving to Virginia...

Check it OUT!

Class: Introduction to Fiction Writing with Tim Farrington

"We all have stories to tell, whether we are aiming for short stories or novels, and in this class we will begin to explore both the fundamentals of craft and the even more crucial challenge of carving out a space for yourself as an artist. We will work at every level with your stories, from the mystery of the creative impulse itself to the logistics of getting a character from one end of the room to another. We will study excerpts from the fiction masters to see what we can learn and what we can copy. With any luck, we'll also have some fun getting to know each other and ourselves along the way. Come join us! Your instructor will make every effort to tailor the submission schedule to your goals."

Mondays, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
an 8 week session beginning February 6

From Catholicism, to Hinduism and back home again...

This snippet of an interview with Tim Farrington gives us a glimpse into the part of him that made Lizzie's War come to life:

"I was raised Catholic, the oldest of four children. My father was a Marine Corps officer who served in Korea and Vietnam, and my mother was an actress and drama teacher, so I had plenty to reconcile right from the start. I had several years of Catholic school in the classic Catholic experience, including a good dose of the terror of hell and sin, and nuns with sticks, but I was also blessed in having an aunt who was a nun, and I spent a lot of happy hours at her convent and got to know the human and fun-loving side of religious vocation as well.

I was an altar boy right around the time the mass switched from Latin to English after Vatican II, and thought about being a priest for a while when I was a kid. In my teens, though, I got into Buddhism, philosophy, and literature, and went through a long period of alienation from Christianity. But I was definitely looking hard for meaning.

In my twenties, I entered an ashram in Oakland, CA, where the prevailing philosophy was Hindu, Kashmir Shaivism. Strangely enough, it was during my two years there, while I was chanting to Kali and Krishna, meditating to an Om Namah Shivaya mantra, and chopping tons of vegetables in the ashram kitchen, that I discovered the profundity of the classic Christian mystics, beginning with The Cloud of Unknowing, and began to heal my alienation from that tradition. By the early ’90s I had come full circle, had discovered the bottomless wisdom of John of the Cross, and had embraced a centering prayer practice after meeting Fr. Thomas Keating."

If you'd like, you can read the entire interview here.

Lizzie's War

"Farrington's resolve is physically embodied by his two-inch-thick file, dating back 18 years, of ideas, sketches, notes, and quotations (there's one at the beginning of each chapter) for Lizzie's War. '[The book] felt enormous to me ... it covered a bigger canvas, and I consciously committed to it. It's so close to my heart, the theme of sacred vocation, of finding your calling in the world.' "  Linda M. Castellitto and Tim Farrington on Lizzie's War

 Are you reading Lizzie's War yet? I hope so.

It's an interesting book. Probably one of the easiest reads we have on the list. Easy in terms of reading level, sentence complexity, etc...

On the other hand, it might be one of the most difficult to read emotionally. At least, I think so. Even this being my third reading of the novel, I find myself both dreading to pick it up and dreading to put it down.

So real, and raw. 'True' is a good word to describe the book. Nothing happens for shock value. It's just the story of these very real people. And it's hard to believe that they aren't really alive somewhere right now. Could they really be made up? Fictitious? Can Liz not come over for coffee tomorrow morning? Did they really all come out of Tim Farrington's imagination? And how does this guy know so very well what goes on in the mind and soul of a woman. HOW!??

After I gave this book to a friend a few years ago, I called her up a few days later with an apology. "I'm sorry for all the cussing. I forgot about that."  She wasn't fazed by it. I'm not going to apologize now. Not that I go around my house in secret swearing like a sailor. I don't. I don't like cussing at all. But in reference to this book, and to the character of Mike in particular, I think it would be dishonest to portray him in any other way. If you were a man fighting in Vietnam in the 60's, you used bad language. To have him speak in any other way would be outside his character. And such a character he is... don't let his f-bombs keep you from loving him!

And, I won't apologize for Liz's attitude toward her pregnancy in the beginning of the book (no spoilers here). While it might not be the 'text book' response that we as Catholic women would want to hear from a friend, I think it is a very honest emotion, and probably an emotion that has been felt by millions of women in the past.

It all comes around. It does. Don't worry.

So, enjoy! Can't wait to meet up soon!

If you want to comment on your thoughts and have a bit of a spoiler, just place above the revealing paragraph <SPOILER>.