The storytellers Three faculty authors reveal their bookish sides By Beth Luce
IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT, a time when we like to curl up with a good book. We are big readers in South Puget Sound. Fortunately, there is no shortage of reading materials around here. Our own local storytellers keep us well supplied with everything from historic novels to serious examinations of our culture. We dropped in on three award-winning UW Tacoma writers who have contributed to the pile of books that weigh down our collective nightstand.
1 Guns, Gambling and Burritos Phil Heldrich’s idea of research is to spend a week in Los Angeles eating as much Mexican food as he can get his lips around. In his essay, “The Green Burrito,” he details a binge through Southern California taquerias in search of some sort of refried-bean enlightenment. In another essay, “How I Learned to Shoot Straight,” he writes about taking target practice with a pile of guns belonging to his strange and troubled but somehow inspiring friend, Reb. And in “Curious Abrupt Questionings,” he joins the rabble of gamblers hooked on the illusion of scoring big in Vegas. Heldrich is interested in what leads people into obsessions and what makes them eccentric. And he writes about them with candid humor in Out Here in the Out There: Essays in a Region of Superlatives. The book brims with his observations of other people’s eccentricities (and a nod to his own). Heldrich, IAS associate professor and faculty advisor for Tahoma West, UWT’s student-published literary magazine, didn’t start out as a writer. In college at UC San Diego, he was on the path to become a scientist, until a friend suggested a course on playwriting to fulfill an elective requirement. Heldrich was so taken with the process of writing that he forsook test tubes and picked up a notebook.
His first book of poetry, Good Friday, published in 2000, was well received and awarded the X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize. Then a collection of his essays won the Mid-List Press First Series Award for Creative Nonfiction. The prize: publication of his book, Out Here in the Out There. Heldrich has fondly nicknamed it Guns, Gambling and Burritos. The stories Heldrich tells grew out of his experience and interest in the people and places of the Mid- and Southwest. Raised in Illinois, educated in California, he lived in Kansas when he wrote the essays. Heldrich arrived at UW Tacoma five years ago, attracted by the opportunity of helping a young university grow. His writing takes a back seat to teaching, he says; his students come first. But the two often merge. His students sometimes end up in his stories. Writing while employed as a teacher requires a seemingly lifelong sacrifice of evenings and weekends, Heldrich says. But he’s motivated by genuine interest and curiosity about his subjects. “I start with a simple question and then discover layers of complexity. I seek understanding to the complex question,” he explains. And so he delves into the subject, be it gambling or burritos. “After learning so much about something, you have a need to say something about it.” His second book of essays, now in the drafting stage, explores thoughts on nature, culture and place. In recently published and forthcoming work for several literary publications, Heldrich The process of writing, Heldrich says, starts with an image or idea, but when he begins to write, he usually doesn’t know where it will end up. And the first draft is never a finished piece; he rewrites every essay a dozen times over. “I love to revise, even more than writing,” he notes. Repeated revisions help to improve the focus and integrity of a piece, sometimes at the cost of cutting out sections he initially thought were important. “My drafts are no better than my students’ drafts,” Heldrich says. “But what students don’t know is how powerful revision is. I teach them to trust the process and see how an idea takes shape.” Heldrich hopes his essays engage readers. “An essay works like a symphony or a good Pink Floyd album,” he says. “It has various layers and textures. It has a noticeable shape. An essay surprises and makes connections. A good essay creates awareness, a way of knowing ourselves and our world a little better.” * * * * * Phil Heldrich, on the book that inspired him:
2 A Visit to Zoo U Beth Kalikoff doesn’t look like she has murder on her mind. But deep down behind that friendly face she’s plotting something. She’s already killed the cruel and wicked dean of Commencement Bay University (he had it coming). Now she’s planning four or five more murders. We can only hope her future victims will be just as deserving. And that it will be just as much fun when they get bumped off. Kalikoff endeared herself to the mystery readers of South Puget Sound with her first novel, Dying for a Blue Plate Special, published in 2005. The book’s protagonist, Jewel Feynmann, is a spunky, funny, cute-as-a-bug caterer desperate for work. When she is hired to cater a dinner at Commencement Bay University (which sounds suspiciously like the University of Puget Sound, where Kalikoff used to teach), she jumps at the chance. But before the entrée is served, the dean keels over dead, absolutely ruining Jewel’s chance at referrals. Set in Tacoma, with make-believe characters inhabiting imaginary and real-life places (imaginary: Commencement Bay University, also known as “Zoo U” because of its proximity to the real-life Point Defiance Zoo; real-life: picnic bench on Ruston Way and Antique Sandwich Company), the book romps through a town that Kalikoff finds intriguing.
“Tacoma speaks to my imagination, more so than Seattle,” she says. “It has more texture, more energy.” In Tacoma’s favor are a lively history, beautiful setting, great architecture, public transportation and contrasting neighborhoods, she explains. Not to mention scale. “It’s a real city, but not overwhelming.” Tacoma has all this, yet still has an unwarranted inferiority complex, she says, which makes it a compelling place to write about. Kalikoff worked on her novel on and off for a decade, in Blue Plate Special’s journey from manuscript to bookstore was a saga in its own right. Her first book agent suggested rewriting it in first person. “I just couldn’t see it. That would limit my ability to narrate, to offer a narrative in addition to Jewel’s perspective,” Kalikoff says. A second agent took on the book, but then said that the market had changed and she couldn’t sell it. A third agent sent it to 10 major publishing houses. All of them liked something about it, but none of them bought it. Finally, at a writers conference, she met an editor for Five Star, a publisher in Maine. He took her manuscript and promised to get in touch. A year and a few inquiries later, Kalikoff called the publisher and discovered that the editor had left the company, but that they still had the manuscript and would have another editor read it over the weekend. They called back on Monday. They loved it. Tacomans loved it, too. And although she denies that any of the characters are actual people (it says so right on the copyright page, for crying out loud!), that didn’t stop readers from speculating. “I am told that the Tacoma Public Library copy has names of professors at UPS written in the margins, identifying the characters,” Kalikoff says. “It reminds me of people discussing the Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin characters in The Godfather.” Kalikoff has a few more adventures up her sleeve for Jewel Feynmann, and she is thinking of spinning-off other characters from Dying for a Blue Plate Special. Alas, becoming a mystery writer has brought neither fame nor fortune to Kalikoff. But she got something better. “I enjoyed writing it and listening to what people said about it, whether they liked it or not,” she says. Her advice to budding novelists: “Don’t write to become rich and famous. Write because you enjoy it.” * * * * * Beth Kalikoff, on the books she keeps going back to: “I don't reread Trollope very often, but I love the Palliser series, and especially The Eustace Diamonds (classic, 1871). Trollope has an acute understanding of class and of gender, as well as an icy wit that makes you gasp.”
3 Tragic Mystique Peter Bacho’s office is bare. No books, no papers, no pictures, no souvenirs, no stacks of journals colliding into each other—none of the usual clutter that crowds faculty offices. The IAS instructor explains he doesn’t spend much time in his office. Between classes, he’d rather hang out at The Swiss. One gray afternoon, Bacho takes time to sit in his empty office, which is quieter than The Swiss, and talk about his writing. He has five published books and many short stories to his credit. But he is quick to point out that he never describes himself as a writer, which would be pretentious. He doesn’t even keep copies of his own books. Writing doesn’t define him, he says. “It’s just something I do.” Doing that something has resulted in gaining literary recognition and awards for his three novels, Cebu (1999), Nelson’s Run (2002) and Entrys (2005); a collection of short stories, Dark Blue Suit (1997); and a book of non-fiction essays, Boxing in Black and White (1999). Bacho came to writing in an off-hand way. He started out a lawyer, earning a 1974 law degree at the University of Washington, clerking at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But he didn’t like what he was doing. So he left the law, but kept writing.
In the 1980s Bacho made a living writing freelance editorials for the Christian Science Monitor, Seattle Times, the Oregonian, the LA Times and other papers. His primary subject was American foreign policy in the Marcos era. But once Ferdinand Marcos was gone, there was little left to write about. And he realized that writing about factual events did not satisfy him creatively. Bacho wanted to create his own world that he could fill with his own characters. His first book, Dark Blue Suit, a collection of 13 stories—11 of them previously published—won the 1998 Murray Morgan Prize and the Washington State Book Award. Soon after, The News Tribune offered him a job writing editorials. And he began teaching college writing courses at UW and The Evergreen State College. In 2005, he spent a year as Seattle University’s Northwest Writer in Residence. While teaching, he continued to write. Although Bacho’s writing projects a Filipino voice, he feels he’s really describing a certain class of American society. “These are guys at the bottom and they’re trying to figure out how to get to the next rung. I was there. I understand what life at the bottom looks like. That’s my preferred context to write about.” The violence in his writing springs from the cultures he was most familiar with as a boy. Both the Philippines and Seattle’s Central District, where he grew up, were tough places, Bacho Tragedy is ingrained in his work. “People die in my books. They suffer grisly ends,” he says. His current project, Leaving Yesler, a soon-to-be-published book for young adults, takes a more hopeful course. “It’s about a sweet man who is not sure of his sexual orientation, living in the projects and trying to get out of there. And he does. That’s the softest I’ve ever written in my life.” The Central District of his childhood was home to a working-class ethnic mix of African American, Filipino and Asian people. “I learned to respect other cultures,” Bacho says. He draws on this rich background for stories of real-life drama and heartbreak. “I wouldn’t trade that childhood for anything.” Writing is a very personal endeavor, and authors sometimes fall in love with their books. “It’s very alive when you’re creating it and doting on it. You spend as much time with a book as with a wife or lover or your children,” Bacho says. “When you’re immersed in it, writing is an enjoyable, addictive process.” Once published, however, the affair is over. Bacho’s books become inanimate objects, at least to him. Critical reviews are shrugged off. Even good reviews are not brandished about. “It’s always good to pay attention to what other people say, whether you agree or disagree,” Bacho says. “Inevitably, the one I have to satisfy is myself.” * * * * * Peter Bacho, on the books that inspired or influenced him the most:
Check out our list of books written by UW Tacoma faculty!
|
