T-shirts are here, friends. Get yours now, and you'll look stylish. But more importantly, you'll be supporting Bathtub's initiatives with WITS, Moving Words, reading series, and other community projects, as well as the upcoming trip to the 2010 AWP Conference in Denver to present our panel on the collective.
Yes, we've been silent in the blogosphere for the last two months. Why, you ask? Well, we've been working behind the scenes: planning, writing, designing, reading.
If you sponsored a writer during the dueling typewriters event—thank you, by the way—please click the button on the left to make your donation through PayPal.
Main contenders: Ben Cartwright, Mark Petterson, Amy Ash, DaMaris Hill, Jason Robberson, and Kari Jackson.
Last writer typing: Jason Robberson, who, after four hours, moved his manual typewriter to a concrete ledge in front of Wescoe and continued to type in the dark, alone, under the stars and in the forty degree weather, as Ben and Kari drove off. The sound of typing, the unmistakeable click of the keys, could be heard echoing in the night. It was quite romantic, actually.
We began at 3:00. It began with a royal announcement on the megaphone. Thanks, Ben C. It was very official. We cheered. We "charged." And people stared as they walked by.
Skateboarders were doing tricks behind us, to the side of us.
“These guys are practicing the ultimate form of civil disobedience,” said the guy who had been dressed up as a white bear to promote Greenpeace. “So are we."
And so we wrote, well, typed. And so commenced the trashtalking between Ben and Mark: "I don't hear any sound coming from your typewriter, Ben," said Mark. "I'm a poet, Mark. We reflect," replied Ben.
Other fun things that could be overheard behind the keyboards during the event:
"I don't want to be like Amy. I want to type." --DaMaris
"I just realized I don't know how to be exclamatory on here." Jason, realizing his typewriters lack of exclamation point.
"How long has it been since you've written a word, Ben?" Mark spoke into the megaphone, directed at Ben.
"I'm politicking," said Ben.
When you google "Kansas Bathtub," we come up first. "We beat out Home Depot," added Ben.
"Would you like to come out and add something to our Corpse?" Ben suggested a phrase to get the English professors to come out and participate.
"What are you doing?" People said, looking at us warrily as they approached the steps of Wescoe.
We had some fantastic students and faculty add to our community poem. Poetry is okay. In fact, poetry is cool. Why don't you help us write a poem? Okay, cool. Now maybe you'll go home and write your own poem because, we hope we're shown you, writing is cool.
Thanks to Nate for bringing us food. Thanks to Erin for bringing us hot drinks. Thanks to everyone who stopped to say, "What are you doing?" Thanks to everyone who wrote. Thanks to Wescoe for the electricity.
Thank you to everyone who pledged either an individual writer or the collective as a whole. We have plans in the works for WITS, and you'll be hearing soon about how your donation will help bring creative writing (and Bathtub) into Lawrence schools and out into the community. Soon, you will also be receiving an email notifying you of how long your writer wrote for and information on where and how to send your pledge money. If you didn't pledge but would still like to donate, you absolutely can. Email bkswriters@gmail.com.
Amiri Barak will be on campus today, and is giving a talk tonight. I'm trying to make sure as many people know about his visit as possible. Here are the first couple of paragraphs from the KU press release:
LAWRENCE — Amiri Baraka, a poet, playwright, novelist, music critic and political activist, will give a public lecture and poetry reading next month at the University of Kansas.
University of Kansas's MFA Program was recently spotlighted by Seth Abramson. Feel free to leave comments on that blog, pw.org, and any other site you can think of about how you feel about the program, or just how nice Kansas is.
The Bathtub Writer’s Collective will hold a literary reading of work involving themes of travel and movement on Saturday, October 24th at 3:30 pm. The outdoor reading will take place near the main hub for the city buses, on 9th Street between Massachusetts Street and New Hampshire Street.
Anton Chekhov's Rules for Writing - On May 10, 1889, Anton Chekhov (already an influential literary figure in Russia) wrote a letter to his older brother, Alexander. His brother had taken up writing years before, too, but only with inconsistent success. In the letter, quoted by the translators in Anton Chekhov: Stories, the famous author laid down six principles that "make for a good story":
Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature;
Anton Chekhov's Rules for Writing