Living Writers

By Makani Speier-Brito on January 22, 2015

Are you studying Creative Writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz? Check out the Living Writer’s Series. Below I write about my experience of attending the event and hanging out with writers.

I thought Carolyn Cooke was the most enthusiastic of all the visiting writers we have seen thus far from the Living Writers Series. I found her impersonation of Laya, the young, ditzy temptress from Cooke’s compilation of short stories, Amor and Psycho, to be the highlight of the evening. I bought the book compelled to read more about the young Laya and her spell over the slimy industrialists of the Penthouse magazine empire. Carolyn Cooke was so charismatic in presenting her own material, shamelessly exclaiming, “I just went bankrupt last week!”

With her eager eyes capturing every face in the audience, she held a magnetizing and interesting onstage presence. During the Q and A section, I loved her advice to the young writers in the room. A short story writer, she professed the only way to finding your writer’s voice is to master the art of imitation from other prominent writers. Actually that was the advice poet Billy Collins gave to a young man in the audience during his Q and A section, but I think it still applies to Cooke’s writing philosophy.

When I walked up to the table to buy Amor and Psycho, I was surprised to find for Cooke’s novel of barely two-hundred and fifty pages, the small print stating twenty-eight dollars. No student discount? My internal dialogue continued. Although overpriced, I reassured myself the quality of the material was worth the extra dough. In a reverse way, I am helping the future me. I purchased her novel with all the dollars in my wallet and with the help of poet Billy Butler spotting me the last dollar to make twenty-eight in total. I returned to my apartment and flipped open my laptop when I remembered I forgot to get my book signed.

After a few minutes of debating with myself, I returned to the Kresge Town Hall to find the Creative Writing interns folding the metal chairs and professor Gary Young talking to Cooke. “I hope to someday work for her,” I spurted out my internal reverie to Gary as she was signing my book. It was a worthwhile evening that may lead to a summer internship or simply the joy of reading another novel by a charismatic storyteller.

The Living Writers Series is a free and public event held Thursdays, 6:00-7:45 pm in Humanities Lecture Hall 206. For more information, please email ktyamash@ucsc.edu

Winter 2015 visiting writers line-up:

http://creativewriting.ucsc.edu/news-article-winter-2015-living-writers.html

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