Monthly Archives: November 2015

Salman Rushdie and the Art of Allusion

November 23, 2015, by

Rushdie at the podium - Inprint 11.9.15Best known for The Satanic Verses and the Booker Prize-winning Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie charmed the audience at his sold-out Inprint reading on November 9th as he read from his new novel, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights.

It was a full house in the Cullen Theater at the Wortham Center, a night that was not exactly cold, but not so hot and humid.  You could walk through the city all night if you wanted, but once the lights dimmed, you were happy to be waiting for Rushdie to come out, and he disarmed everyone immediately by waving at the audience.  It made you feel like he was happy to be in Houston, a place he has been before, including the day before 9-11.

Rich Levy, executive director of Inprint reminded us of how many awards Rushdie has won—and the list is long.  It is his third appearance with Inprint, and Levy explained that he was born in Mumbai before the partition of India, but when he speaks, Rushdie seems like a Londoner to me, more like Cambridge than anywhere else.  Now, he lives in New York.  It is amusing and inspiring when Levy reports that Rushdie started out as a copy writer for the famous advertising firm Ogilvy and Mather.

Ibn Rushd, the hero of his new novel, is a scholar committed to recovering the legacy of Aristotle, so right away the fusion of the east and the west is established in a way that winds itself through the entire novel. The allusion hovering over the narrative is to A Thousand and One Nights, a work Levy tells us prompted this response from Rushdie in a 2006 interview: Continue reading →

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The UH Creative Writing Program continues to brim with literary talent after 35 years

November 17, 2015, by

UH Creative Writing Program logoThis year the University of Houston Creative Writing Program (UH CWP) surpasses its 35th year, which is quite an accomplishment. This highly competitive and nationally renowned program admits and graduates the world’s top emerging writers. The pool of literary talent from the UH CWP is impressive and has helped sustain Houston as a thriving literary city. Inprint’s support—more than $3 million in prizes and fellowships awarded to UH CWP students, including $150,000 in recruiting fellowships this fall—plays a key role in attracting and retaining these young writers.

Giuseppe Taurino, assistant director of the UH CWP, says, “We’re excited to meet and work with new students who share the desire and ability to do great things, and are proud of the graduating students who leave better equipped to go out and pursue them. Hello, Goodbye. In the end, it’s all relative, really. Our UH CWP community grows, and the people who comprise it will always be part of the fold.”

Take a moment to learn more about the writers that have just graduated from the UH CWP and see what they are doing now, and get to know the writers that have just entered the program.

GRADUATING STUDENTS

Conor Bracken (MFA, Poetry) is, for the immediate future, sticking around Houston while his fiancée finishes her Ph.D. (in American Lit) at Rice. Conor taught a poetry workshop with Inprint this summer, was pouring wine at a wine bar, and is transforming his thesis into a contest/submission-ready manuscript.

Maybe this isn’t very revelatory, but the thing I loved and will miss and fondly remember from the UH CWP was the community – so many writers with so much enthusiasm in such different spots of their careers all so ready to hang out and talk about everything over a Topo Chico or a Lonestar. Everyone I met and talked with was supportive, curious, and genuinely interested in my life and work.  Continue reading →

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Jockeying the Book-Signing Line

November 9, 2015, by

11.. Line for book signing at Danticat & Woodrell reading RM2_2877
As the 2015/2016 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series continues tonight with a sold out reading by Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie and a long book signing line expected to follow, Houston writer Sam Dinger gives us his take on how he prepares for the magical moment when he gets to meet one of his favorite authors.

I just rushed out the back of the room to get a good spot in the book signing line. I’m holding a clean, new copy of the new book. There is paperdust on the edges of the pages. There are something like a million of us in this line and it’s looking like I won’t have the chance I hoped  to have a meaningful interaction with this writer I love, or want to love, or, let’s face it, whom I want to love me. But all hope isn’t lost. I remember that there are things I can do. I have a plan.

In the many book signing lines that I’ve stood in, I’ve developed a list of things that I do to up my chances for any of the above hopes–that is, for the chance of a meaningful interaction. Some of them are simple and small, others require a little something more. Continue reading →

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