Left of Staid
UT's Texas Center for Writers Reading Series
By Marion Winik, Fri., May 9, 1997
"Yeah! `Emergency'!" someone loudly agreed.
"How bout `Dirty Wedding'?" suggested another.
"`Happy Hour'! `Happy Hour'!" a few groupies chanted.
The bearded, bespectacled performer on the stage acknowledged the requests with a grin. "Yeah," he said. "I'll do `Emergency'. And he turned to page 69 in his short story collection, Jesus' Son, to read of the hilarious and sad adventures of two drugged-out hospital orderlies somewhere in the great American nowhere, the funniest story about a knife in the eye and a litter of dead bunnies you will ever hear.
Though rock concert-style request shouting is not commonly associated with literary readings in an academic environment, the ambience of Denis Johnson's SRO reading in the Communications Building Auditorium last year was somewhere to the left of staid. But this is par for the course for UT's Texas Center for Writers' (TCW) campus reading series, which also utilizes venues at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center and the Music Building, among others. High-energy performances with large, intent crowds for writers whose presence in Austin is a cause for celebration -- this is the gift that James Michener, through his endowment, and Jim Magnuson, through his direction and booking of the series, have given our town, and I for one am filled with gratitude.
Every time I leave one of these evenings, charged, entertained, challenged, and enriched by seeing the person and hearing the voice behind an important body of fiction, poetry, or film writing, I can't believe my good fortune. If I lived in New York, sure, there'd be the readings at the 92nd Street Y, if I could get tickets, if I could afford them, if I could get out of work and drag myself up there. (In my experience of living in New York, half the challenge of doing anything is mustering the energy to deal with getting there.) If I lived in Dallas, there would be the Arts & Letters Series, which does have parking but isn't free. Here in li'l ol' Austin, I get the best of all possible worlds: I get in the car, drive over to UT, park, and walk in free of charge. I'm on Michener's guest list. And so are you.
So many readings today are done in bookstores, as part of author tours to publicize and sell new books. While I certainly attend these events -- in the past few weeks, I've had the pleasure of hearing David Sedaris at Borders and Francisco Goldman at BookPeople -- there is something to be said for a performance that is not in some way essentially a commercial for a product. When you go to a bookstore reading, you are pretty much guaranteed to hear a selection, usually a short selection, from the book being promoted. To complete the transaction, you purchase a copy of the work -- or maybe the paperback of the last book, or else you skulk out the door empty-handed, feeling a little guilty.
When you hear a reading at the TCW series, you may hear part of a work in progress -- Tim O'Brien recently read to a full house of admirers at Jessen Auditorium from an unpublished comic novel, and we heard Jane Smiley read a chapter from Moo before it was on the streets. Or you may be treated to a selection of work from a writer's whole career such as was offered by the poet W.S. Merwin, and the even-more-renowned-now-than-he-was-then Michael Ondaatje. Ondaatje came to his TCW reading straight off the movie set of The English Patient, and shared his impressions of the very different vision of his story that was in the process of becoming a film. (They were, by the way, enthusiastic.) The TCW readings are not about hawking product. They are about literary performance, as both art and entertainment. They are about an author and his or her work.
The readings are just the most public face of the Texas Center for Writers, created by a $2,000,000 initial gift from Michener in 1989. TCW is a three-year graduate program which grants Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) degrees in the areas of fiction, poetry, screenwriting, and playwriting. One unusual element of the curriculum is that students must choose both a primary and secondary specialization. "I was skeptical of the two-area idea at first," program director Jim Magnuson told me over sandwiches at the 29th Street Texas French Bread the other day. "But Michener's idea was that we would train professional writers, rather than writers who would make their money as teachers. His idea -- and his phrase -- was that we should give the students `an extra arrow in their quiver.'"
"Or an extra quiver in their arrow," I proposed.
"Actually, that's right, too -- where else are poets in classes with screenwriters, giving them suggestions about language? Or playwrights working with fiction writers, fine-tuning dialogue and plot structure? The whole interaction is less rarefied, the critical styles more open, and I think, more fun. More comedy all around."
Jim Magnuson is the kind of person who cares about fun, and has done quite a bit in his impressive career to give it to others. He is the author of a dozen plays, including Dairyland, a romantic comedy about a journalist who falls in love with the rock star she profiles, recently performed in the cocktail hour play reading series at Bertram's restaurant. Of his six novels, Ghost Dancing, a Graham Green-esque adventure set in the Southwest, won the Texas Institute of Letters annual fiction award. He came back from a stint in California writing Knots Landing scripts in California to assume the position of director of the program (the first director was Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, and Laura Furman has been a central faculty member from the start).
When I ask him about his own current work, he tells me only that he writes every morning; he seems more comfortable talking about his students than himself. He happily brags that four students have signed book contracts in the last year. Fiction writer Arthur Bradford won a 1997 O.Henry Award for his story "Catface." Joseph Skibell, a once-struggling screenwriter who enrolled in the program as a playwright, had an epiphany during a fiction workshop with visiting writer Christopher Tilghman, and now has a major book deal with Algonquin of Chapel Hill.
"This is a great job," Magnuson tells me, shaking his head as if he can't quite believe he gets paid for doing something he loves so much.
The serendipity is ours as well, for Magnuson's good luck has translated into a bounty of riches for Austin literature fans.
For information or to get on the mailing list, contact the Texas Center for Writers, UT Austin, Dobie House, 702 E. 26th, Austin TX 78705; 471-1601, fax 471-4997.
