Another Triple Header . . . and reflections on the last one

Witty, Feisty, Resilient Writers

It has been two weeks now since Cheryl Strayed spoke at the Lincoln Center and Alexandra Fuller spoke at the Rialto  in Loveland, so I have had a little time to reflect (and finish listening to Wild.

One of the things I have been thinking about is cost and value:  Strayed’s presentation set me back $35, Fuller only $5.  Yet both were equally gratifying.  I guess I can thank the Friends of the Loveland Library for the affordability of the evening with Fuller.  Perhaps my thanks should go to Fuller herself? Perhaps it was a difference in facility fees?  What the writers asked to be paid? Does Strayed value herself more than Fuller does?  She shouldn’t.  Maybe it is a side effect of having your book made into a motion picture starring Reese Witherspoon as yourself: the Midas touch of Hollywood?  Thinking of price, I could hardly overlook Gary Snyder’s reading, which was free (thank you CSU). Maybe, at least symbolically, it is significant the women’s events were more dear (monetarily anyway) than the man’s. 

Beyond the seat price, what stayed with me from those evenings?  That these women are great role models for any writer.  I particularly reflected on their similarities:  they both are memoirists, writing from the core of their own experiences.  Their mothers are pivotal in that experience, but for very different reasons:  Fuller’s mother for her quirky, oh-so-present dysfunction and Strayed’s mother for her premature departure.  Fuller’s writing (at least in Don’t Let’s Go the Dogs Tonight) is enlivened with her mother’s pesky presence; Strayed’s writing haunted by her mother’s death.  And yet, it isn’t as simple as Fuller wanting to distance herself from her mother and Strayed longing for hers:  because Fuller’s emptiness is also full of love and Strayed’s grief made real by anger. Very different, oh so similar. 

Now, on to the next exciting writing event:  this Thursday, 7:30 p.m. at the Astoria in Old Town (great Cuban food!)  7:30 p.m. CSU Ma/MFA students, Denise Jarrott, Cedar Brant, and Stewart Moore will read. 

And this coming Saturday is the AAUW’s annual Conversations with Authors, this year featuring Polly Letofsky, Mark Stevens and Jacqueline St. John. Best Western Crossroads Hotel, Highway 34 at I-25, Loveland

And as if that weren’t enough, I just learned about yet another author even this week. It might seem odd for me to promote a presentation by an economist, but Paul Krugman is also a damn good writer (we study him in my Social Science writing class).  He is speaking (FREE—there is that money thing again) this Friday, Oct. 10 at 2:30 p.m. in the Griffin Concert Hall at the University Center for the Arts, 1400 Remington St., Fort Collins.

Here we go again:  a triple-header week!