Recap: Key West Literary Seminar (2014)

January 22, 2014January 22, 2014 | Ted Wheeler

hemingway pool — The trip started with a cocktail reception at the Ernest Hemingway Home. When I visited before, in daylight hours, the poolside seemed like a great place to have a party. It was.

After eleven days of the Key West Literary Seminar (four days of workshop with the incomparable and generous Mary Morris sandwiched between two weekend seminars) I made my way home to Omaha on Sunday night. It’s certainly nice to be home after what was quite a trip.

The theme this year was The Dark Side, which covered mostly crime and mystery novels, with some tangential works picked up along the way. While I’m not really a reader of mysteries, there were quite a few presenters who are, or might be, household names–Scott Turow, Carl Hiassen, Joyce Carol Oates, Lee Child, Michael Connelly. The high points for me came when Percival Everett, Malla Nunn, Gillian Flynn, Attica Locke, and John Banville/Benjamin Black were on stage. There was an undercurrent of writing race in historical fiction that developed in the second session that was much more thought-provoking and touching to me, although Carl Hiassen’s Florida Freak Show standup routine in the first session was certainly a highlight too. I don’t know why I would have thought any different, but folks who write about murder all day certainly seem to have an active sense of humor.

The books I came out really wanting to read are I Am Not Sidney Poitier and God’s Country by Percival Everett, A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn, Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger, and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. There were more, of course, but these the most.

Hanging out with Judy, Liz, and Christine.

One of the highlights was visiting the elegant home of Judy Blume for a cocktail party during the week. She’s quite a hostess. (She also tweeted me the next day.) This invite was part of winning the Marianne Russo Award, so Christine Shan Shan Hou and Liz Gordon (the other two award winners) and I could hobnob with a few of the visiting writers and benefactors of the seminar, including Peyton Evans, who selected my work for the award. It was nice to be able to thank certain people in person.

blue heaven — The restored brothel room above Blue Heaven.

Another big feature of winning the Russo Award–along with having my bio and photo listed in the artful seminar book–was that I read from my work on stage during the seminar’s final session, a selection from “On the River, Down Where They Found Willy Brown.” A few years have passed since I’d last read in public, out loud, or been on a mic for that matter, but I really wasn’t all that nervous to be up on stage at the San Carlos institute. Actually, it was a lot of fun. After the cycles my writing life has taken the last five years–with a moderate high followed by a couple year lull–I really appreciated the opportunity to get up there and present my writing to an audience. I felt ready this time around, much more so than before, and am looking forward to any more success that I might luck into.

skelton house pool — What’s a polar vortex?

Thanks to Nathan, Christine, Dustin, Liz, Nick, Sam, and Sandy for being great house and/or roommates, and to everyone in the Mary Morris workshop, and to Amina, Carol, Mary, Melissa, Paula, Shannon, and Tim for joking around at events and between sessions. And, of course, I’m very grateful to Miles Frieden and Arlo Haskell (current and associate/future directors) for their support. This was my third trip to KWLS, so it should be obvious what I think of the community of writers and artists they’ve built down there.

I’ve mentioned it many times before, but it’s highly recommended that any interested writer (or teacher, or librarian) apply for financial aid to attend the seminar. KWLS is an awesome experience, they give out a ton of aid ($300k in the last six years, I guess, which is huge) and there’s no application fee to apply. Give it a shot. Next year’s theme is How the Light Gets In: Literature of the Spirit.

TW Headed Back to EYW & KWLS via the Russo Award!

November 15, 2013November 15, 2013 | Ted Wheeler

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, hero of Cuban independence and a familiar sight to the guests and patrons of the Key West Literary Seminar.

[Please excuse any and all verbal cheersing-myself that may occur in the following.]

More great news to share, as I’ve been awarded the Marianne Russo Award by the Key West Literary Seminar!

Here’s the official announcement on Littoral, the seminar’s blog. (Also, you can read more about the KWLS scholarship program here if you’re interested in applying next year, and you should be. No entry fee=no worries.) As if ten days in Key West during January wasn’t enough, the prize includes tuition to both sessions of seminars and workshop programs, airfare to and lodging in Key West, and some spending cash, along with the opportunity to present a reading of my work during the conference (on Sunday, January 19, at 11:40am, to be exact, if you happen to be in the neighborhood). It’s really a very generous award and a great opportunity. I’m thrilled to be headed back, this time with a little hardware waiting for me.

I feel like I’m telling people all the time what a great experience KWLS is. It truly is the best there is and an indispensable part of our American literary culture, as far as I’m concerned. Thanks so much to Miles Frieden (Executive Director of KWLS) and Arlo Haskell (Associate Director), who do such a great job every year. This will be my third trip to KWLS. (Here’s what happened last time I was there.) My first seminar dealt with historical fiction, the second with speculative fiction. This time the theme is “The Dark Side: Mystery, Crime & the Literary Thriller.”

I’ll be reading my work here in January. Eek.

The schedule includes events with Robert Stone, Percival Everett, Joyce Carol Oates, William Gibson, Carl Hiaasen, John Banville, among many others. I’m not really all that familiar with crime writing, frankly, and that makes this even more exciting. I wasn’t really all that interested in historical fiction when I attended my first KWLS–and certainly didn’t anticipate ever spending half a decade writing a historical novel myself.

While odd-numbered years can often be a cruel mistress, 2013 has without a doubt been good to me. There have been contest wins, publications (here, here) and acceptances (here, here), honorable mentions (here, here, here), an international fellowship to summer abroad, travel (here, here), along with the fact that we moved into a new house and love living in Dundee. I’ve enjoyed myself quite a lot this year and am not exactly looking forward to a new calendar, knowing how things tend to turn around. The party has to end sometime, right? Luckily, some more good luck has come along that guarantees, if nothing else, my 2014 will begin in style.

Thanks so much KWLS. See you soon!

–

Chicago, 2013

September 4, 2013 | Ted Wheeler

Below are some highlights from our family trip to Chicago over the weekend. Maybe tears were shed–some even by the children–but some day we’ll look back fondly on all the fun that we conceivably had.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

A/V Club: Akademie Schloss Solitude

July 22, 2013December 9, 2014 | Ted Wheeler

Posted below are a couple videos that show some of what Akademie Schloss Solitude is all about, since a few people have asked what goes on at an artists’ residency and how I’ll keep busy while there. One about the project a past fellow worked on and another that outlines the history of the Akademie and what it sees as its purpose in the wider world. It’s good stuff, so please check it out if you’re interested.

Watching these videos, and learning more about the program, I’m even more excited to have been selected. I’m sure it’s something all young writers and artists go through–the phases of accepting that they and their work are being validated, I guess–but it’s still strange to think that my stories about Nebraska and its history will go this far. (And hopefully further.) Trying hard not to psyche myself out.

–

Brazilian dancer/actor/musician Marcelo Gama wrote and directed an opera for his residency project, as this video chronicles. The end result was a performance with sixty singers in a public square in Stuttgart. I’m in awe of this.

Jean-Baptiste Joly (Artistic Director of Akadamie Schloss Solitude) explains how the Akademie approaches writers and the public presentation of literature during residencies in a lecture on on transnational literature. It’s fascinating how the staff tries to present visually and musically something that isn’t performance art. There’s also a nice overview of the history of the Akademie and how it has evolved in its mission.

Akademie Schloss Solitude

May 10, 2013May 10, 2013 | Ted Wheeler

I’ve been sitting on some big news for a couple months now. Something very difficult for a guy like me who, while sneaky, is no good with secrets. So I’m excited, very very excited, to announce that I’ve been awarded a fellowship and three-month residency from Akademie Schloss Solitude!

There are many cool things about the fellowship, some of which I will enumerate here. Paid airfare to/from Stuttgart, Germany, where Solitude is based; studio space and lodging in a baroque castle surrounded by forestland (Castle Solitude, pictured); a monthly stipend to cover living expenses; a double-housekeeping benefit to help supplement my rent at home; the opportunity to live in German culture (Swabian to be exact) for an extended period, sort of a reverse of what the characters of my novel do, my German-Americans; a chance to research and work on my next novel, part of which will take place at and near Ramstein Air Base.

A view of the western district of Stuttgart from Castle Solitude.

Best of all, families are welcome to join artists during the residency, so Nicole, Maddie and Clara will be coming over for at least part of next summer. This is a pretty rare thing for residencies. Among the many things I’m grateful to Akademie Schloss Solitude and the state of Baden-Württemberg for, the opportunity to share this with my family is up near the top of the list. In fact, we’re so excited that we’ve decided to change the spelling of our youngest child’s name from the Anglican/Latinate Clara to the Germanic Klara as a sort of tribute to my benefactors.

You can read more about the program here and its vision of Esprit Solitude here, and see what past fellows were up to during their residencies here, but the gist of it is that Baden-Württemberg funds this program in order to encourage emerging artists from around the world to expand and further their work in ways they wouldn’t be able to within the strictures of their normal home life. It’s really an astonishing investments in the arts, and a recognition that personally elicits massive amounts of humility and gratification whenever I think about it. I was actually offered an eight-month residency, but it seemed like that might be too much of a good thing. I’ll be spending the summer of 2014 in Germany.

My sincerest thanks go out to juror Maxi Obexer, who selected me as a fellow, Jean-Baptiste Joly, who is Director of the Akademie, and Silke Pflüger, who, as Grant Coordinator, has been dealing with my many questions.

This continues a good run of recognition for my novel, as my application was accepted based on the strength of a full manuscript version of The Uninitiated. This manuscript also took first prize in Tarcher/Penguin’s Top Artist competition, while an excerpt is forthcoming in Boulevard this fall. A different excerpt was a finalist in the recent Summer Literary Seminars contest. And now, Solitude.

Walking in LA

May 2, 2013May 3, 2013 | Ted Wheeler

Hanging out in Echo Park with Cocoa. — Hanging out in Echo Park with Cocoa after her week of high-powered business meetings and sushi-rritos in Santa Monica.

From everything I’d heard, the one thing that seemed certain about our trip to LA was that we were going to need a car to get around. So, while we did have a car to get to and from LAX, it was gratifying to leave that swank Dodge Avenger blissfully parked outside our rented Echo Park bungalow for pretty much the whole five days we were in Los Angeles.

Besides saving money and aggravation, it was nice to get some exercise between meals and drinks, and street burritos, and ice cream sandwiches, and was especially nice since we had a big crew for the first few days. Nicole and my brother, Matt, were on the tail end of business trips; superfriend Justin R. came down from Seattle; friend-of-the-blog and aspiring weapons trainee, Country Club Bill, came up from San Salvador, and his brother, Rob, turf specialist for the Dodgers, who happens to live in Echo Park, in a monastic cell where he is feted with chicken head soup and other Szechuan wonders. Below are some highlights:

-The six of us partook of the PBR/tequila special (and some mysterious tacos, is it dog food? could be) at The Gold Room on Friday before heading up to the stadium for the Dodgers/Brewers game, which was followed up by a stop at Sunset Beer Company for supplies. No one was injured.

-Tracked down a foodtruck, Egg Slut, in the Toy District for breakfast. Boxed water? Raw denim? Plenty to go around here.

-The speedball at The Viper Room came highly recommended, for a brief foray into Hollywood, but Nicole and I ultimately decided to abstain, and hit up Book Soup instead. I feel like that was a solid choice.

-Saturday night brought bowling in Tarzana to celebrate the thirstiest birthday of friends Joey Joe Jo and Brandi along with Benji, Jeff, and a host of other Nebraska expats who relocated out there.

CCB sucking in his gut at The Red Lion Tavern.

-All the other out-of-towners left after a couple days, but CCB and I stuck around a few extra days for two more Dodgers games, another stop at Sunset Beer Company so CCB could fill his suitcase with microbrewed delicacies largely unknown to Central America, and a Neil Hamburger-headlined comedy night at The Satellite in Silverlake.

-We also hit up the Red Lion Tavern for some serious day drinking. Much happiness resulted from the liters of fine Spaten and Bittburger served here, although the food was pretty disappointing. There were also like twenty people getting rowdy on a Monday at 11am, taking advantage of the sunroof. We knew it was pretty serious when the guy with long gray hair holding an ornately carved walking stick complained to the beermaid that another guy who long gray hair (this one with an eye patch!) thought he was a “big shot!” To the victor go the spoils, I suppose. (Ed. note: CCB talked to the guy with the eye patch in the bathroom, and testified that he seemed pretty nice. So there you go.)

And what awaited my return to Nebraska. Snow in May. Glorious. — And what awaited my return to Nebraska? Snow in May. Glorious. (Our new house on the right, by the way.)

-My favorite part of the trip, however, was the kid we saw biking between Echo Park and Silver Lake who was holding a cross-stitched little portrait of two guys kissing. The hipsters of LA are taking it to a new level.

-Seriously, though, it was a genuinely relaxed and gratifying weekend. We talked about how none of us ever really felt the need to experience LA before, but that it was actually pretty awesome. Could it be that the most over-hyped city in America could be kind of underrated?

An American Werewolf in San Salvador

November 19, 2012December 3, 2012 | Ted Wheeler

Last week I had the pleasure of heading down to visit my old friend Country Club Bill at his diplomatic post in El Salvador. It was an exciting trip. Some good times were had, a summary of which is below. I was surprised, pretty much daily, both by how modern and how impoverished San Salvador is. This was my first trip to a third-world country, so I was expecting some of this. Yet, it was still harder than I thought it would be to get used to some things. The smell of burning garbage, for one. El Salvador has some great people, though, and I really enjoyed my time there. Back in undergrad I did some study of the Salvadoran Civil War, so I knew a bit about how nasty things were down there back in the 1980s. Really, the country is pretty remarkable, even with the devastation of the civil war, and the gang wars that rage now.

Day 1 (Saturday): I flew in this afternoon, catching a nice 5:45am flight out of Omaha. Wasn’t too bad getting through immigration and customs, despite getting stuck in the gringo missionary line, and then bumped over to the non-English-speaking line at the last second for some reason. I didn’t have the address where I was staying, which caused them some consternation for a while. There was some negotiation, mostly trying to decide who was asking a question and who was supposed to answer. Finally, a senior agent stepped in to ask me if the friend I was staying with had a house or apartment. Apparently my answering “apartamento” satisfied them. They let me in. CCB said their version of Homeland Security leaves a little to be desired. Although arguing with dumb gringos all day will wear anyone out. …

CCB enjoying a few Pilseners at the Merliot Market.

Customs at the airport was pretty sweet. They had this set up with a traffic light. You held this button, after a few seconds the light either flashed red or green, depending on if your soul is bueno o malo, I guess. It was a pretty exciting ending to the process. I wish US customs had as much flair. … So in my travel-dazed confusion, going out to the Paseo El Carmen in Santa Tecla was quite an experience. I met the Salvadoran Getty Lee, then saw he and his band play a solid set of Rush and Van Halen covers and an Irish bar that served no Irish beer. It was pretty good actually. The quality of cover bands is far superior in Central America than it is in the states. … Was still getting used to the near constant presence of armed guards and armed police. CCB let me know that the armed guards are usually just window-dressing for new shopping centers and gas stations, uneducated locals paid to stand out front with a shotgun. (Although those shotguns occasionally go off accidentally, with hilarious results.) … Earlier in the night we watched the Notre Dame-Boston College football game from the patio of a mountainside Bennigans, overlooking the valley while fireworks randomly shot off. Sufficiently surreal for my first night in country.

Day 2 (Sunday): We took it pretty easy the next day. Hiked up El Boqueron volcano. Went to Merliot Market for chorizo y limonada. That night, trying to track down some pupusa, we ended up at some family night gathering at Plaza Beethoven. There was some pupusa to be had, with stuffed plantains. There was also some good hefeweizen and bratwurst, a bit surprisingly. (Maybe they saw me coming?) So we ate and drank and watched the karaoke pros entertain the crowd.

Day 3 (Monday): We headed out of the city, out to Costa del Sol to celebrate Veteran’s Day with a crew of foreign service pros at a swim up bar and on the beach. Not too shabby, although the Pacific Ocean did its best to slam a bunch of volcanic sand into my ears. (A nice souvenir to bring home to Nebraska.) … On the way back from the beach, when we pulled off so I could relieve myself at a gas station, I somehow forgot that there would be an armed guard there. It was quite a shock when a young guy, shotgun in hand, popped out of the shadows to greet me, my belt half undone. CCB had a good laugh about it. Just because the guard’s pointing a gun at you it doesn’t mean he’s not a friendly. In fact, he was very encouraging, merely there to watch my back as I urinated on his gas station. … That night we went to Pampas Argentinian steakhouse. It was pretty good, although nothing close to The Drover. You do get a nice cup of broth when you sit down, however, to help fortify your constitution against the harsh plains. That’s a nice touch.

Day 4 (Tuesday): A day after private beach clubs and steakhouses, CCB decided we should cruise the Rutas de Flores up into the mountains and backwood villages. We found a Portland, OR-themed bar in Ataco. (Although the Salvadoran beer and sandwich with six different kinds of meat on it that I had for lunch didn’t make me feel like I was in Portlandia too much.) In Yuajua we saw the black Jesus statue and took a tuc-tuc car up into the mountains to see the waterfalls. I didn’t swim in the freezing water. The little kid between us two gringos in the back of the tuc-tuc was crushed on the rough passage, but he had a good attitude about it. … On the way back we stopped at Trench Town, a reggae and pizza club outside San Salvador. The bar staff was hopelessly disappointed in my inept pot-hipster handshake. Eh.

Sugar Cane — Fields of sugar cane with volcanoes in the background. It’s no corn fields and endless flat, but it was okay for a few days.

Day 5 (Wednesday): I twisted my ankle walking down the steps of the slick new shopping center where we had breakfast. Better there than on the edge of a chasm the day before, no doubt. I enjoyed the steers that grazed on the roadside medians around the airport. … Trying to order lunch at the airport Subway was maybe not the best choice by this point. With my accent and awkwardness, the vegetarian sub I tried to order turned into an Italian meat feast. I was just happy to get a sandwich at that point.

In sum, everybody was very nice; even if they were just happy to relieve me of a few centavos. Better than a lot of placed I’ve been, where they’ll take your money but refuse to be pleasant about it.

New York City 2012

October 22, 2012 | Ted Wheeler

We spent last week in New York, holed up in Times Square as Nicole was summoned on a business trip. As she worked, I spent my days walking the city, and I found myself enjoying some great ethnic food and beer in Hell’s Kitchen (German), the East Village (Middle Eastern), the West Village (Ukrainian & Bengali), and Soho (Belgian), among others. We also swanked it up at Koi (Japanese) off Bryant Park. I probably did things other than eat over the five days we were in the city–but, frankly, I’m drawing a blank about what that might be. Maybe these photos will help…