Call Me Lorena
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As a humor columnist for a local newspaper, I suppose it's inevitable that my name would find its way onto a lot of writing-oriented mailing lists. Offers to join the Mystery Book Club or subscribe to The Writer magazine flow into my mailbox, along with invitations to the Maui Writer's Conference and the Writer's Digest School where I can learn The Tricks The Pros Use. So far, the only trick I've learned is how to turn these offers into a toasty fire on winter evenings.
But last month, I got an offer to attend a local Master Class Writer's Workshop with Harlan Ellison. Harlan Ellison is a science-fiction writer with a reputation as a "controversialist who comes on like an angry Woody Allen," as The New Yorker puts it. He also gives out tiny magnets, depicting alien beings, to writers whose work he admires.
I had never actually attended a writers' workshop, but was curious about what goes on at one. I pictured cardigan sweaters and leather chairs. I pictured overeducated much-published, egotistical fiction snots debating the merits of first versus third person; of man against nature versus man against himself. Perhaps a scuffle or two over the merits of Jane Austen's style versus that of Leo Tolstoy. And then I pictured myself in this scene sharing excerpts from my latest work, perhaps entitled, "A Really Bad Cold I Had, and How Gross All the Tissues Were."
Nonetheless, when the offer for Harlan Ellison's workshop showed up, I decided my opportunity to investigate the writers' workshop phenomenon had finally come. This workshop was close by and reasonably priced. It beckoned.
The event was held at a little university I never heard of, somewhere on the west side of Denver. It was Saturday, and it was raining. I parked in an empty lot and dashed around the wet campus until at last I spotted a sign hidden underneath a wide set of stairs. The letter-sized sheet of paper read "Harlan Ellison Writer's Workshop," above an arrow that pointed to a door.
Inside, at the far end of the main hallway, a short stocky gray-haired man in a fire-engine red pullover asked my name. I was distracted—still searching for some indication that I was in the right place. "Is this the Harlan Ellison thing?" I finally said, turning to the man.
Now you have to understand, Harlan and I had something in common: Neither of us had ever read a word of the other's work. In fact, I had no idea who he was or what he had written before I got the information about the workshop. I'd read the blurb about him, and then searched the Internet for his name. I found quite a bit, and the words "blunt," "angry," or "jarring" showed up in every description.
"Yes and I'm the Harlan Ellison." He said snottily. "You're late."
Either I was cranky from spending the last 15 minutes darting in and out of deserted buildings in the rain, or I just sensed what kind of person I was dealing with. "You hid this thing pretty well," I snotted back at him. Which surprised me because usually I'm not so snotty until you get to know me.
Harlan had chosen about twelve pieces of writing to critique, which participants had submitted prior to the workshop. Photocopies of these were distributed, and the group critiqued the stories one by one.
I sat in the back of the room, due to my aforementioned lateness, and didn't get to say much. In truth, there wasn't much left to say once Harlan had systematically reduced each author to tears with his blunt, angry and jarring reviews of the work.
Then we came to a humorous story about two college guys getting drunk and spending the night in an open grave. The piece oozed with the I'm-in-my-twenties style and topic of writing I've seen all over the Internet. My fellow workshop victims had commented that the piece seemed like more of a joke or anecdote than a real story. But no one had brought up the Web.
So I did. I said the piece reminded me of the kind of thing I've read on the Internet.
Not being a fiction writer, I guess I missed the memo stating that anything published on the Internet is automatically crap. A collective oooooo emitted from the crowd.
Harlan, who had been denigrating computer technology all day including the use of word processing over typewriters grinned and pointed a finger at me. He turned to the author and announced, "This woman has just cut off your dick. And she's absolutely right."
I had to admire the man for his immediate and generous recognition of my ability to rise however unintentionally to his level of scathing criticism.
So far, two or three writers whose work Harlan found reasonably acceptable had been given a tiny magnet from a handful he carried with him. At this point, he told the class he'd like to give me one of these magnets because such discerning criticism deserves recognition too.
The writer of the drunken graveyard piece glared at me without blinking as I made my way from the back of the room to receive my reward. Lorena Bobbit jokes flew.
And that is how I came to own this tiny, thinly-sliced magnet featuring an illustration of a little green man, standing atop a blue-green planet which may or may not be earth. At this time, I'd like to publicly thank the fiction snots of the world for making up the Internet-equals-crap rule. Which has led me to my current status as an official winner of this prestigious, yet useful for holding things on my refrigerator, award. And Harlan Ellison, for bringing to light the fiction snot in me I never knew.
You may call me Lorena.
© Copyright Barbara Powell, 1995-2002.